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Raja-niti Vs Loka-niti (Sarvodaya's Quest for True Democracy)

Raja-niti refers to the politics of party and power ("raja" means king and "raj" means rule). It is the common word used for "politics" in India. In contrast to it, the Sarvodaya philosophers, especially Vinoba Bhave, in the Gandhian line promoted what they called as "Loka-niti", i.e. the politics of people. For the Gandhians, centralization of power in any form (dictatorial or "democratical") is a threat to swaraj (self-rule). "...any state, with separated and strongly developed organs of legislation, execution, and judiciary in well organised large societies, cripples the free-play of individual's faculties and curbs his initiative by enlarging the regions of state control. Progressively it attains the position only next to air in its all-pervading nature. No matter whether such government is an elected representative of its people or a dictatorially established one against the will of the people, it unfailingly produces the