Explicate the ideological components of Gandhism. (2020, 20 Marks)
M. K. Gandhi told the Gandhi Seva Sangh in 1936 that there was no such thing as “Gandhism”, and that he wanted no sect to survive him. Yet his writings in Hind Swaraj, Young India and Harijan form a connected structure. A metaphysics of truth grounds an ethic of non-violence. That ethic yields a method, satyagraha, and the method shapes his politics, economics and social reform.
1. Metaphysical Foundation: Truth and Self-Realisation
- The end of life is self-realisation (moksha), pursued through service, not withdrawal.
- He moved from “God is Truth” to “Truth is God”, making truth a standard above any scripture. Since humans grasp only relative truths, no one may coerce another in truth’s name.
- The discipline is the five classical vows: satya, ahimsa, asteya (not stealing), aparigraha (non-possession) and brahmacharya. The ashram added fearlessness, bread labour, swadeshi, equal regard for religions and removal of untouchability.
2. Ethical Core: Ahimsa and the Unity of Ends and Means
Ahimsa is active love for the wrongdoer, not mere non-injury. Its political corollary is that means and ends are convertible terms. Hind Swaraj compares the means to a seed and the end to a tree, so impure means cannot yield a pure end. This separates Gandhi from Niccolò Machiavelli and from Leninist revolutionary ethics.
3. Method: Satyagraha
Satyagraha, “truth-force”, aims to convert the opponent through open, self-suffering resistance, not to defeat him. It ranges from non-cooperation and civil disobedience to fasting and hijrat. Unlike passive resistance, it is a creed of the strong, not a weapon of the weak.
4. Political Component: Swaraj and a Minimal State
- The state is violence in organised form, needed only because people cannot yet govern themselves. The ideal is enlightened anarchy, where each person rules himself. The interim is a minimal, decentralised polity.
- Power should flow outward in an oceanic circle from the individual and the village republic, not down a pyramid from the capital.
- Duties precede rights. Rights are the fruit of duties performed.
5. Economic Component
This is his answer to modern industrial civilisation, which he blamed for multiplying wants and for concentrating wealth.
| Idea | Content |
|---|---|
| Swadeshi | Serve and use what is near; village self-reliance |
| Bread labour | Everyone earns food by physical work (Leo Tolstoy, John Ruskin) |
| Production by the masses | Labour-using technology in a labour-surplus land |
| Trusteeship | Wealth held for society, not owned absolutely |
| Sarvodaya | Welfare of all, beginning with the last (antyodaya) |
6. Social and Religious Component
- Spiritualised politics, a demand he took from Gopal Krishna Gokhale: public life under private morality.
- Sarva dharma samabhava, equal regard for all faiths, and a state with no role in religious instruction.
- Removal of untouchability as a condition of swaraj, and women’s entry into mass politics.
Significance and Limits
- Relevance. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan (Why Civil Resistance Works, 2011) studied campaigns from 1900 to 2006. Non-violent ones succeeded about twice as often as violent ones. Karuna Mantena reads Gandhi’s non-violence as realism about how violence escalates. The UN has marked 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence since 2007.
- Critiques. B. R. Ambedkar found reform by caste-Hindu conscience inadequate and the defence of varna indefensible. Marxists see class conflict dissolved into moral appeal. Feminists see women’s strength confined to suffering. Realists doubt that a state can defend itself by non-violence.
Conclusion
Gandhism’s components are unified by one proposition: politics is a branch of ethics, so the method determines the outcome. Its economics and village ideal struggle with scale and hierarchy. Its core ideas have outlived their setting: coercion needs justification, power should be dispersed, and resistance can be disciplined and non-violent.