What, then, is the technique of non-violent democracy? It is decentralisation. Violence logically leads to centralisation; the essence of non-violence is decentralisation. Gandhiji has always been advocating such decentralisation of economic and political power in the form of, more or less, self-sufficient and self-governing village communities. He regards such communities as the models of non-violent organisation. Gandhiji, of course, does not mean that the ancient Indian village republics should be revived exactly in the old form; that is neither possible nor desirable. Necessary changes will have to be introduced in view of modern changed circumstances and needs. Moreover, the old rural communities were not free from all shortcomings. It, must however, be conceded that these village communes contained within them the germs of an ideal economic and political organisation maximum in the form of decentralisation and local self government. Gandhiji, therefore, is of the definite opinion that the future Constitution of India should be based on the organization of of well-knit and coordinated village communities with their positive and direct democracy, non-violent cottage economy and human contacts. “That state will be the best,” declares Gandhiji, “which is governed the least.”*[42]
