Dharma is a Sanskrit word, based on the root √dhŗ, ‘uphold, support’ and can be defined as the law, duty, religion, responsibility, path, or nature, which upholds the underlying order of the universe. Sri Eknath Easwaran has defined it, intriguingly, as ‘that which makes us secure.’ Dharma is a key component of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and in one form or other the underpinning of all major religious systems. Gandhi believed (and there are passages to this effect even in the earliest Upanishads) that if one can apply the natural laws of dharma directly, then one can overcome manmade laws such as the caste system, which tend to be fallible. The Indian worldview had a ‘unity-in-diversity’ structure. Thus there is one overriding law that governs all life, expressed as ahimsa paramo dharma: ‘nonviolence is the supreme law,’ and as life evolves from unity to diversity there are what might be called ‘sub-dharmas’ that guide the evolution of creatures through the divisions of space and time, all of them remaining in consonance with the Supreme Law of nonviolence. In the phenomenal world, then, each individual has her or his ‘own-dharma,’ (svadharma) to discover and fulfill which is the purpose of life. Central to nonviolent belief is that no one’s svadharma is in real conflict with that of another. Indeed, the diversity of each supports that of others. Martin Luther King also gave vivid expression to this principle: “I can’t be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be; and you can’t be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

Sub-dharmas include:
• Yuga Dharma: ‘Dharma of an age.’ According to Gandhi and others, the dharma of our age is Truth.
• Nimisha Dharma: ‘Dharma of the instant.’ Every moment there is a choice to follow dharma or adharma, anything else.
• Varna Dharma: ‘Dharma of a community’ (varna, literally ‘color,’ was the term for caste)
• Svadharma: ‘One’s own dharma.’ The articulation of your capacities with the needs of the world in which you find yourself.. Gandhi realized his svadharma when he was thrown out of the train at Pietermaritzburg station for being an Indian riding in the first-class carriage even though he held a valid ticket. He realized that it was his path to find the underlying causes of racial discrimination so that he could put a stop to it in South Africa – a path that developed into the struggle for a Free India.

This key component of Gandhian economics could be called the nonviolent equivalent of ownership. Gandhi borrowed the concept from English law. It means that one is the trustee, not the owner, of one’s possessions, or ultimately one’s talents or capacities. All these are to be used for the good of society as a whole, which ultimately includes one’s own welfare. Under this system, material goods are no longer felt to be status symbols that are imagined to add to our worth.  Trusteeship thus becomes an effective way to combat  overconsumption, with all its ills (including for the consumer).  Once trusteeship catches on it will be relatively easy to rebalance the economy and put it in the service of real needs. For Gandhi (among others), owning more than necessary inevitably means taking necessities from others: “There is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
The beauty of trusteeship as a tool for change is that it gives us a way to rebalance the economy without forcibly expropriating goods from the wealthy (which they seem to dislike, and forcibly resist).  People can, in course of time,  be educated about trusteeship and persuaded to adopt it, but they should not be coerced into doing so. Not if we want the change to last.

In the end, the sense of trusteeship can be deepened until one regards his or her own life as a trust, not to be used for oneself alone but for the good of the human family.  At that verge of detachment the economic becomes the spiritual, and as Michael Sonnleitner has shown in Gandhi’s Vocabulary, that is typical of all the Mahatma’s main operational concepts.

Also related to trusteeship are the ‘Three Tiers of Possession’

Also written Bacha Khan, full name Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988). This Muslim follower of Gandhi from the Pakhtun (Pashtun, Pakhtoon) areas of what was then the North West Frontier Province of India was a major contributor to the freedom struggle of the 1930s. More than that, this devout Muslim raised a nonviolent “army” of 80,000 formerly revenge-oriented Pashtuns — the same people who wore down the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and from whom the Taliban are recruited today. Revered as a spiritual leader of his people, this nonviolent giant proved that, as Gandhi said, the bravest people make the best nonviolent fighters, that nonviolence can be organized on a large scale (see TPNI, Khudai Khidmatgars), that it is effective against ruthless opposition, and that it is fully compatible with the ideals of Islam.

Resources:

Eknath Easwaran, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam

Mukulika Banerjee (2000) The Pathan Unarmed Opposition & Memory in the North West Frontier (School of American Research Press)

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1969) My life and struggle Autobiography of Badshah Khan (as narrated to K B Narang) Translated by Helen Bouman Hind Pocket Books New Delhi)

Note: the Wikipedia article on Badshah Khan is very useful.