Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how a Gandhian ethics of duty and conceptions of a non-centralized polity governed by panchayats inform the styles, sensibilities and dispositions of political leaders in the tribal regions of Southern Rajasthan.

Paper long abstract:

Gandhian ideas of a non-centralized polity governed by panchayats inform the styles, sensibilities and dispositions of political leaders at the margins of the Indian state. Premchand's short story Panch Parmeshwar exemplifies an imagining of a polity that rests on a spirit of responsibility and friendship: as individuals work through the institution of panchayats for the betterment of their community, their greedy, selfish and corruptible selves are transformed, and they are able to realize the values of satya (truth) and dharma (duty). Applying these ideas to the geo-political conditions of his time, Gandhi privileged the "duties of man" to the "rights of man" in his response to the 1948 United Nations' Committee drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This paper examines how the local circulation of an ethics of duty has informed the self-making of an older generation of Bhil panchayat leaders in Southern Rajasthan who were politically active in the 1950s and 1960s. Leaders of both state and non-state panchayats represented the traditions or the "inner sphere" of their village and fashioned themselves as anti-political actors concerned only with the moral and social uplift of their community. Both tribals and non-tribals mobilized ideas of responsibility and friendship in determining who can most effectively represent and govern tribal communities. The paper concludes by suggesting how an ethic of duty provides legitimacy and shapes the practices of contemporary social and political movements.