Gandhi

An evaluation through his

writings

Bhanu Joshi
Journalism Major
University of Delhi
bhanu.december@gmail.com
+91 (98) 9969 2695
Introduction

The literature on Gandhi is reasonably voluminous; any attempt to

evaluate him is a daunting task in itself. I would like to begin by
mentioning that this paper is not a critique on what Gandhi either said or
stood for, but a very objective evaluation wherein I have taken four very
contemporary issues and I try to bring coherence in the thought whether
these ideas are relevant for today’s journalists or for that matter the 1.6
billion Indians.

A man is known by his actions while a journalist is known by his writings.

This presentation is on Gandhi and how his writings essentially can be
seen as an evaluation on what his contribution is to the Indian freedom
movement and many others. It is in a way an evaluation of his writings
through which we try to gauge his ideals, and then we also try to present
a kind of critical evaluation on what he wrote, was it right in the then
context and how much is it relevant today.

Issues like modes of development (a lot of talk on what globalization

meant for the developing world, what really is the best mode for
development. I take a Gandhian village level governance versus
Nehruvian centralized governance issue as the basis of the arguments),
then I talk about women empowerment( recently 50% seats were
reserved for women at the Panchayats and the most bizarre thing is that
still we haven’t been able to find common ground on what should really
be the model of empowerment) , then I take on another very hotly
debated topic religion (never before in the history has religion played
such an important role , today religion is misinterpreted.. somewhere the
interpretation is right for some and wrong for others, but none the less
religion is another big debate of our times) and last but not the least I take
the austerity debate ( recent cut by ministers on their expenditures,
Gandhi was accused of gratifying poverty so we take a 21st century view
on what really can be seen as austerity drive).
Deliberations

My paper is based on the following essential writings.

These are:

– Hind Swaraj (A seminal text which is the only text written in English
by Gandhi himself, rest all being translations. Hind Swaraj has been
very appropriately called as the “Text of Our Times” and is a
critique of the modern civilization. He wrote this piece in 1909.

– Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) edited three journals during his life.

The first one, Indian Opinion (1903-1914), was in South Africa. The
other two: Young India (1919-1932) and Harijan (1933-1948) were
both from Ahmedabad.

– I also try to present an evaluation by combining studies that were

done on this subject, basically the literature and the criticism that is
present in the books and journals or people who have criticized his
models or ideals.
○ Lloyd & Lloyd : Postmodern Gandhi
○ B.R. Nanda: In search of Gandhi
○ Rahgavan Iyer: The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi
○ Marc Jurgensmeyer : A handbook of Conflict Resolution

– Apart from that there are more than 100 volumes on essential
writings of Gandhi which are edited.
Religion

Gandhi’s views on religion have been subject of debate for decades.

Gandhi has been famously quoted or for that matter misquoted that “
Religion and politics are inseparable,” … emphasizing on their
interdependence he wrote in Harijan “ If religion is devoid of politics and
politics devoid of religion then it will be the end of the world”.

Some critics have pointed that in a country like India where people have
been deeply rooted to their religion, separating it from politics would lead
to a disaster. Time has revealed that this has been to a greater extent
true. Politicians in India have very intelligently dodged the religion issue.
Though secularism was daunted as one being of respect to all religion, it
was seen that vote bank politics, minority appeasement all made a broth
between religion and politics which the present generation too is
suffering.

What Gandhi really meant when he spoke about religion & politics, He
wrote in Young India in 1920:
‘Let me explain what I mean by religion. It is not the Hindu religion that I
prize above other religions, but the religion that transcends Hinduism
which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the
truth within and which ever purifies. It is the permanent element in
human nature which... leaves the soul restless until it has found itself.’

Four years later he explained that he was not for religion that hates and
fights but the universal religion of toleration. He said that he never
accepts the common view of politics, and always stood for morality to be
synonymous with politics.

There were a number of Indians who tried to bring ahead a very liberal
and rational form of Hinduism in front of the Indian masses. Vivekananda
died young. Ranade’s Social Reform Conference remained a one-man
band and hardly could go beyond tine English educated urban class.
Dayanands victory was limited, we had other leaders like Lajpat Rai, BC
Pal, Annie Beasant but none had mass appeal like that of Gandhi.

The last 2 years were the saddest period in Gandhi’s life. In his weekly
column Harijan he wrote, “. a sinking feeling is gripping me, what is this
mass madness that has turned man into brute”. He lifted the question of
communal peace from the plane of politics to the to the plane of
humanity. ‘Every one of us is equally guilty of what anyone of us has
done’. He then wrote ‘who are the goondas? … We are responsible for
their creation as well as encouragement.’
The spark that had started in Muslim majority east Bengal soon spread to
the adjoining areas of Bihar where the majority Hindu were taking
vengeance on their Muslim neighbors for the crimes committed in Bengal.
Gandhi was quick to move in and in a letter that was later published in the
Harijan he was infamously quoted ‘the majority must repent and make
amends while the minority must forget and forgive to make a fresh start’
Though Gandhi never explicitly mentioned it in his newspapers but it is
believed he blamed himself and said that he was unobservant, careless
and indifferent’2 Critics believe that Gandhi was trying to exaggerate his
own responsibility and failure of this method. Nehru in his personal
interaction with Lord Mountbatten had to say “ Bapu is going round with
ointment trying to heal one more spot after other on the body of India,
instead of diagnosing [its] root cause and participating in the treatment of
the body as a whole’. Other leaders of the congress like Rajendra Prasad,
Vallabhai Patel and C. Rajagopalachari endorsed this opinion.
It is also said that Gandhi should not have been surprised by Muslim
League’s demand for a separate state. Since 1940, when Jinnah
propounded the two nation theory congress started softening its stand. In
1940 Gandhi wrote in Harijan that he knew ‘no non violent method of
compelling the people of any territorial, army can restrict the presence of
the Indian nation” He also commented on the fact that India if has to rule
in the truer sense then it will have to legitimize the minority concerns for
the betterment and inclusive of the concerns and that formal, in the
school, in the very true sense. In the final showdown it was hence valid
that they have, in the end of today’s finality and also. Mountbatten
described him a ‘one man boundary force’ when he succeeded in curbing
riots in Bengal what 50,000 troops under Major General Rees were unable
to achieve in the Punjab.

Few British critics would have gone so far as Archbishop Cosmo Kang, who
in a letter to Lord Irwin, described Gandhi as ‘a mystic, fanatic and an
anarchist’, but most of them would have agreed with Lord Reading, the
Viceroy of India, who wrote after his first meeting with the Mahatma: ‘Mr.
Gandhi’s religious and moral values are, I believe, admirable, but I confess
that I find it difficult to understand the practice of them in politics’

In India the left leaders of then like EMS Namboodripad, M.N. Roy have
accused Gandhi of exploiting religion to rouse the masses, and then
deliberately curbing their political consciousness in the interest of the
Indian bourgeoisie. Modernists who equated religion with irrationalism and
obscurantism, obviously resented Gandhi’s saintly idiom. Some later day
historians have extrapolated and have come to the conclusion that
Gandhi’s excessive usage of religion led to the final division of the
subcontinent.

The first criticism is on his view ‘religion without politics is like a corpse’.
Even Gandhi’s own colleagues did not like these practices. Nehru also said
that ‘I wonder again and again if this is the right way of dealing with a
political question, it is sheer revivalism’. Ashish Nandy says that India has
had a long tradition of solving many local and social problems outside the
political arena by such sub-systems of family, Panchayats, caste and
community. Gandhi encouraged the politicization of all these sub arenas
and thus eroded their moral authority. Judith Brown also argues that if
religion is let loose into politics then it becomes uncontrollable and self
perpetuating and fear and violence breeds in.

He is also seen as the one who initiated the Hindu – Muslim divide
because he was the first to identify Muslims as a separate category, this is
said because during the Khilafat Movement, he is accused of then
appeasing them and by calling the 1916 pact a Hindu Muslim pact, he in a
sense sowed the seeds of future divisive politics where they were seen as
separate individuals whose interests were always parallel and special
efforts were required to bring them together.

Though Gandhi grew up in a very devout Hindu family he had a very weak
idea about the religion etc. Gandhi met a remarkable man Rajchandra
(whom he called Raychandbhai) he along with Leo Tolstoy (The kingdom
of God is within you which exposed the contradictions of organized
religion) and John Ruskin (Unto This Last that brought him to value of a life
of simplicity and dignity of labor) but Rajchandra was the one who
explained him the difference and importance of action and belief.

Gandhi named Bhagwat Geeta as his ‘spiritual dictionary’; he then learned

it thereafter by heart when he was in South Africa. He was scathing of
Hindus as well, he denounced purdah, dowry, child marriage, animal
sacrifices etc.

Gandhi’s Hinduism was restricted to a few fundamental beliefs: in the

supreme reality of God, the unity of all life and the value of ahimsa (love)
as a means of realizing God. ‘Truth for me is God’ and ‘God’s Law & God
are not different things or facts … when we say He rules our actions we
are simply using human language and we try to limit him.’

He has been critiqued as being relatively ‘tender’ when speaking to

Christian and Muslim audiences, but unsparing in the criticism of the
Hindus, Gandhi pleaded guilty to the charge, 1- He did not know these
religions that well and secondly that he was more likely to be
misunderstood by these religions than by Hindus.(Collected Works of
Mahatma Gandhi )
Women Empowerment

In the beginning it was for Gandhi who looked inwards and identified that
there are mass injustices happening within us. In an article which he wrote
titled ‘look inwards….’ He was leading a campaign where he advocated
bringing women to the forefront of the Indian freedom movement;
simultaneously he also got frustrated with the injustices that were being
leveled against minorities, dalits, tribal’s etc.

It is hence been said that many feminists readers in India then in the west
have spoken in defense of Gandhi and his views on women. Madhu
Kishwars article, Karniks article all have at length debated Gandhi’s role in
bringing women to the fore of the freedom movement. They have all
spoken that an inherent patriarchal society like ours anything that talks
about women emancipation is but welcomed. Even after 60 years women
are searching for a leader and are also looking for a place in the
contemporary world, Gandhi’s contribution is immense.

Gandhi also wrote on what ought to be the position of women in the

society. He wrote in 1932 that “the duty of women is of performing at
home and hearth’’, he also wrote in the same article than man has always
build forts and ramparts, he can’t look inwards. So many feel that he had
a very dim view of men who turn their homes into forts, and hence he
concluded that the work of a bhangi, doctor, lawyer or women should be
equated on the same scale.

Moving on to the criticism

In an intriguing article published in the Economic & Political Weekly S
Anand spoke about Gandhi’s ideas on Ram Rajya being ‘a reign of terror
for women, shudras and others’ he writes that ‘at the drop of a bow, Ram
is suspicious of Sita’s honour and commences on what today is called as
honour killing. He also cites an example from Gandhi’s days in Tolstoy
farm where the harassment of two girls by a boy lead Gandhi to the
conclusion that if girls were shorn of their hair it would give them a sense
of security at the same time sterilize the sinners eyes.

Feminist Reading of Gandhi is fraught with considerable ambivalence

shared by many who consider Gandhi’s views as being retrograde. The
first in everybody’s mind is hence his relations with his wife Kasturba Bai.
Some commentators have argued that his relation with his wife was laced
with violence and continuously dampens his ideas of ahimsa and satya.
Erik Erikson in his study titled ‘Gandhi’s Truth’ talks of that there was a
contradiction in the way Gandhi waged the non-violent struggle that he
waged against the British and the psychological violence to which the
inmates & Kasturbai were exposed to within the ashram premise.

Many feminist, Indians more so than those in the west have been
appreciative of the fact that t Gandhi brought women at the center stage
of the freedom movement and also facilitated their participation. But
critics argue that since the feminists resist the ascription of qualities and
virtues as purely or largely masculine or feminine, and hence his thinking
amounts to insurmountable problems.
Gandhi in numerable sections in his writings said that women were natural
leaders in the non-violent struggle and then men should learn from their
counterparts. But the fact that not even a single woman accompanied
Gandhi in his Dandi Yatra (Salt March). The omission was far from being
accidental; the inclusion of women Gandhi was to state would have been
calculated as being a deterrent for the British to retaliate.

Another criticism that was levied on him is the varying standard with
which he spoke at length on sexual probity amongst women but turned
his face the other way when it came to sexual conduct of men.
Worldly Asceticism

The word austerity seems to be a buzzword nowadays and a lot of us can

identify with this word. Gandhi is seen as the idol for austerity and hence I
am trying to see what Gandhi stood for when it came to austerity.

Sarojini Naidu infamously quoted that it takes a lot of money to keep

Gandhi in poverty. Patrick French wrote that the ‘giant entourage that
accompanied Gandhi during his travels and quotes that Jinnah’s remark
that he (Jinnah) spent much less than Gandhi on his tours despite
travelling in first –class as he had to buy only one ticket compared to
Gandhi’s travelling in third class where he was accompanied not only by
him but by his political and social workers. The journey was an ordeal not
only for him but for the Railway
Administration as well where the enthusiasm that thronged the railway
stations were often taken in a separate coach which was detached at a
wayside station short of destination.

Gandhi believed in simple living and high thinking, he set up ashrams

which has been compared with Habermas’ public sphere theory where
people get together and discuss social problems. It is seen as a theatre in
modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the
medium of talk.
Among the vows in which the inmates of the ashram took were vows of
truth, non violence, conveyance and non stealing, which meant that they
would use minimum resources from the Ashram to mee their personal
needs. There were no servants, all the inmates, including the Mahatma
were expected to share the daily chores, such as chopping vegetables and
cleaning of the utensils.

Once there was a theft of a box belonging to his wife Kasturba, it was
evident that the members of the ashram had failed to imbibe the people
of the locality including the potential to steal. Another incident wherein
Kasturba did not deposit a sum of Rs four with the ashram manager. In an
article titled ‘My shame he recounted this episode, some feel this was
something of an exaggeration but many think that Mahatma was trying to
set high standards for himself.

Another of Gandhi’s much controversial topic was on self control or

brahmacharya. Gandhi took the asceticism vow at the age of 37; his views
are rampant on practicing Brahmacharya throughout his life.

Modes of Development: Modernism Vs Post modernism

Debate

The last part of the paper is taken from the difference of opinion of two
people who had greatest influence in the Indian history. Gandhi & Nehru
though were the members of the same party had difference in everything
as far as developing this country was concerned.

Though there relation was of a master and a follower, Nehru was not a
blind follower and Gandhi too never expected unquestionable obedience
from him. Nehru was all for science, technology while Gandhi was for
spinning wheels, prayers and inner voice. Jawaharlal thought one should
not make little plans, according to him big plans stir human blood. Dams
here are seen as the biggest example, which in Nehru’s own words were
to become ‘the temples of modern India’.

Beginning 1980’s when postmodernism began to question the modernist’s

hegemony with increased environmental destruction, changes in lifestyle,
growing inner civil confrontations, state led oppression this debate on
modernism developed a very contemporary outlook.
Gandhi’s greatest thrust was on village development. He spoke about
local autonomy, employment with work in small scale industries, crafts
and agriculture. Nehru on the other hand wrote about the urban life, with
centralized state planning, and the production and work in large scale
impersonal office and staff.

Gandhi was famously quoted writing in Harijan “My villages are not
villages of today, but exist in my imagination, where men will live freely
but not luxuriously, The village would be self reliant not self sufficient”
Nehru famously replied in his autiobiography by saying “villagers are
backward intellectually and culturally, and in my opinion narrow minded
people can be more untructhfukl and violent”

History is in front of us and we know that Nehruvian philosophy began to

fade away and by 1980s and late 90’s with the introduction of the
Panchayats Raj Institutions, Liberalization of the Indian economy and shift
from a welfare socialist model to a neo capitalist market centric model, it
completely vanished.

In recent years the governance worldwide has shifted with greater focus
on grassroots and decentralization. The world is moving towards more self
consciousness efforts where there is an impetus on organic food, simple
living, community development and many other things that Gandhi spoke
about.