“That government is best which governs least” – Henry David Thoreau, ‘Civil Disobedience’.
Thoreau’s essay, including the above aphorism, resonated powerfully with a then-young Indian lawyer in South Africa. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, embarking on his satyagraha movement, even translated the essay for Indian readers. Gandhi believed deeply in empowering the individual and the communities of India. His vision was of a vibrant democracy whose economic prowess would stem from the nation’s multitude of villages, which housed the majority of Indians. It was a fundamentally different world view than the Fabian Socialism of independent India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.