Swaraj

Gandhi was a self-described philosophical anarchist,^[95][96] and his vision of India meant India without an underlying government.^[97] He once said that "the ideally nonviolent state would be an ordered anarchy."^[98] While political systems are largely hierarchical, with each layer of authority from the individual to the central government have increasing levels of authority over the layer below, Gandhi believed that society should be the exact opposite, where nothing is done without the consent of anyone, down to the individual. His idea was that true self-rule in a country means that every person rules his or herself and that there is no state which enforces laws upon the people.^[99][100] This would be achieved over time with nonviolent conflict mediation, as power is divested from layers of hierarchical authorities, ultimately to the individual, which would come to embody the ethic of nonviolence. Rather than a system where rights are enforced by a higher authority, people are self-governed by mutual responsibilities. On returning from South Africa, when Gandhi received a letter asking for his participation in writing a world charter for human rights, he responded saying, "in my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties." ^[101] A free India for him meant the existence of thousands of self sufficient small communities (an idea possibly from Tolstoy) who rule themselves without hindering others. It did not mean merely transferring a British established administrative structure into Indian hands which he said was justmaking Hindustan into Englistan.^[102] He wanted to ultimately dissolve the Congress Party after independence and establish a system of direct democracy in India,^[103] having no faith in the British styled parliamentary system.^[102]