Reinventing Gandhian ideas and practice of Consensual Democracy, Satyagraha, and Village Socialism in today's context: The case of Village Mendha Lekha, India

Abstract

This is the story of Mendha Lekha, an adivasi (indigenous people) village, in Gadhchiroli District, Maharashtra state, India. Since 1987 this village embarked on a remarkable journey to translate Gandhi's vision of a good society - 'Swaraj' into action through 'Satyagraha' (the philosophy of non-violent, active resistance with an intention to win over the adversary). This involved a) strengthening their consensual participatory democracy practices - all decisions at the village level are made by consensus and not by majority voting, b) building strong village level self-government institutions to govern the use of their own natural resources, c) evolving an empowered and informed village level institution called study circles (Abhyas Gats), d) carving their legitimate sphere of autonomy from the State by acquiring their community rights over Forests from the Government, and e) applying the Gandhian idea of village socialism in 2013 by abolishing all individual property rights over cultivable land and handing it over to the village assembly.

Some of these radical ideas outlined above and practiced by Mendha Lekha (Mendha for short) have been adopted by other villages and from 2018 hundreds of villages in Maharashtra have started a similar journey. In this paper, we reflect on Mendha's story using the Gandhian Framework of Swaraj and Satyagraha and argue that what Mendha has evolved in terms of applied Gandhian thought is very relevant today not only in India, but in other parts of the world.