82 "Presenting" the Pastboth under and outside these states controlled by feudatory chiefs who
exercised jurisdictional rights in their own feudatory states and owed a
precarious allegiance to a powerful neighboring prince. The complex rela-
tionship among these feudatories, their suzerains, the provincial adminis-
trations, the government of India, and the supervisory British government
did not make imaging the future independent India particularly an easy
task. Nonetheless, the futures of the free India had to be imaged in order
to lead the country in the struggle for independence and to usher the
budding "young" country into the modern world. Some Muslim leaders
imaged two independent nations for Hindus and Muslims; some Hindu
leaders dreamed of "reviving" their old glorious greater India; and some
leaders of the untouchables and other marginalized groups had their own
legitimate fears and anxieties and fostered their own plans for freedom.
Moreover, there were a prodigious number of imagings by various types
of nationalists, regionalists, communists, and so forth. Even before many
of these future images were fully evolved or coherently articulated to the
masses, Mahatma Gandhi had caught the imagination of the people with
his idea of Ramarajya or Dharma Rajya^25 as a possible image of future
India. Adopting the Ramayana and its major characters, such as Ram and
Sita, he explicated his Ramarajya mainly through public speeches.
Bhikhu Parekh contends that as Gandhi spent all his life fighting
against the state, he shared the rebel's deep suspicion and biased view
of it. His "theory of the state was uneven, in parts refreshingly original
and profound, in others ahistorical and naive." For him, humans as souls
and the state (organized along the lines of modern science) as a "soul-
less machine" could not coexist. This product of material civilization was
particularly unsuited to India, for it had a spiritual civilization. So he felt
the need for "a new type of non-statal polity" that he called "enlightened
anarchy." Under this "ordered anarchy," socially responsible and morally
disciplined men and women would enjoy maximum freedom with mini-
mum necessary order. This polity would be based on nonviolence; place
people at the center; build up courage, autonomy, and a sense of power
among them; foster strong and vibrant local communities; and regenerate
Indian society and culture. It would have a central government but no
centralized structure of authority; it would cultivate a sense of nationality
but rely on autonomous and self-governing local communities.^26
The early conceptualization of Gandhi's swaraj unfolded in the columns
of Indian Opinion in South Africa in 1908. The Gujarati original was even-
tually translated into English and published as a booklet entitled Hind
Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Commenting on the concept of swaraj, he wrote
in 1921 in Young India, "But I would warn the reader against thinking that
I am today aiming at the Swaraj described therein. I know that India is not
ripe for it I am individually working for the self-rule pictured therein.
But today my corporate activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment