Priya Rajesh Thomas

GANDHISM AND ITS RELEVANCE

Chapterisation

Chapter 1- Introduction

Chapter 2- Ideological Principles of Gandhism

Chapter 3- Relevance of Gandhism today

Chapter 4- Conclusion
INTRODUCTION
Gandhism refers to the political ideologies and philosophy that arose from the
principle of the father of the nation of India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It is a
socio-political and religious-philosophical doctrine that took its current form
during Indian Independence movement. Though it majorly developed during the
nationalist freedom struggle, the roots of the philosophy evolved during
M.K.Gandhi’s youth and his time in South Africa where he first struggled against
the apartheid rule put in place by the colonial powers that ruled then.

Gandhi was born 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat to father Karamchand

Uttamchand Gandhi and mother Putlibai Gandhi. As a child, he was greatly
influenced by his mother, who was a deeply pious woman and inculcated in him
the values of spirituality that would later go on to influence his philosophy and life.
At the age of thirteen he was married to a girl named Kasturba. Following the
death of his Father, he was sent to England to study law in the year 1888. That was
the time he became greatly interested in the philosophy of non-violence as
expressed in religious scripts like the Bhagavad Gita, Hindu Sacred Scripture as
well as Jesus Christ’s sermon on the mount in the Christian Bible.

At the age of 23 he moved to South Africa, almost a year after the death of his
mother, when he accepted a position to assist in a lawsuit. Immediately upon
arriving in south africa he faced discriminatin based on his skin colour and heritage
including the now famous incident where he was kicked off of the train at the
Pietermaritzburg Railway Station after refusing to leave the first class booth, where
he spent the whole night shivering in the station and decided to protest against this.
He was later allowed to board the train the next day. This often touted as the start
of Gandhi’s lifelong non-violent efforts against discrimination of all kinds.

Though he had originally planned to stay for a year, he extended his visit upto
1914 during which he led movements to stop the discrimination against the Indian
minority there who were oppressed by the British Colonialists as well as the Boars
who were descendents of the original dutch who settled there.He also founded the
Natal Indian Congress that worked to further the interests of the Indian community
and also commanded an Indian medical corps that fought on the British side in the
Boer War (1899-1901), in which the British conquered the last independent Boer
republics. After the war Gandhi became even more reputed as a leader. He became
more adamant in his personal principles, practising abstinence, renouncing modern
technology and developing Satyagraha. Satyagraha was a method of nonviolent
resistance often called non-cooperation, that was wielded effectively against the
colonial government of South Africa. His willingness to endure punishment made
him well known in India and also eventually won concessions from the
government.

In 1915 he reached India and in the subsequent three years he would lead many
local agitations including ones at Champaran and Kheda but was not very active in
the national political arena. That all changed with the passing of the Rowlatt act by
the british which empowered them to imprison people suspected of sedition
without trial. This provoked Gandhi and led him to announce a satyagraha struggle.
The Amritsar Massacre, in which British troops gunned down peaceful Indian
protestors, convinced Gandhi and India of the need for self-rule, and in the early
'20s Gandhi organized large-scale campaigns of non-cooperation that paralyzed the
subcontinent's administration–and led to his imprisonment, from 1922 to 1924.
After his release, he withdrew from politics for a time, preferring to travel India,
working among the peasantry.

But in 1930, he wrote the Declaration of Independence of India, and then led the
Salt March in protest against the British monopoly on salt. This touched off acts of
civil disobedience across India, and the British were forced to invite Gandhi to
London for a Round-Table Conference.Although Gandhi received a warm
welcome in England, the Conference foundered on the issue of how an
independent India would deal with its Muslim minority, and Gandhi withdrew from
public life again. But independence could not be long delayed. The Government of
India Act (1935) surrendered significant amounts of power to Indians, and the
Indian National Congress clamored for more. The failure of the mission of Sir
Stafford Cripps, a British cabinet minister who went to India in March 1942 with
an offer that Gandhi found unacceptable,impelled Gandhi to demand in the
summer of 1942 an immediate British withdrawal from India—what became
known as the Quit India Movement.

When World War II broke out, India erupted into violence, and many nationalist
leaders, including Gandhi, went to prison.From 1945, there were triangular
discussions between the leaders of the Congress, Muslim league and the British
government culminating in the Mountbatten Plan of June 3, 1947, and the
formation of the two new dominions of India and Pakistan in mid-August 1947.
Hindus and Muslims killed each other in alarming numbers during one of the
largest migrations in Human history. When Gandhi failed to pursue the
communities, he went on a fast and was successful in stopping rioting in the city of
Calcutta and as well as achieving a communal truce in the city of Delhi. On
January 30, 1948, while on the way to a prayer meeting he was assassinated by a
Hindu nationalist in Delhi and India mourned the loss of its greatest hero.
IDEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF GANDHISM
Gandhism consists of the various religious and social, economic and most
importantly political principles of Mahatma Gandhi. Now that we’ve had a brief
overview of Gandhi's Life, let us look at the main ideological principles of
Gandhism, developed during Gandhi's life, in detail.

Religious And Social Ideologies

“My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the
means of realising Him.”- Mahatma Gandhi

Truth (Satya) and Non-violence(Ahimsa) were the governing principles of

Gandhi’s life and the major on which the philosophy of Gandhism rests. Gandhi’s
approach to life and it’s problems was simply to handle every situation with truth
and nonviolence. As a child, Gandhi lived in a house steeped in Vaishnavism-
worship of the Hindu God Vishnu- with strong influences of Jainism as well. The
chief tenets of this religious doctrine was nonviolence and the belief that
everything in the universe is eternal. So he grew up surrounded by the ideals of
Ahimsa, vegetarianism, fasting for self purification and the mutual respect and
tolerance between followers of different creeds and sects. This would later go on
to influence not only Gandhi's life but also his role in the Indian freedom struggle.
His Autobiography is aptly titled “My experiments with Truth” as truth was the
central principle of his life to which all his ideas and actions were tethered.
In his autobiography we can also see the importance of nonviolence as a central
philosophy in his life as he writes; “There are many causes that I am prepared to
die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for”

Though he was a deeply religious man, he was vocal against the deeply
discriminatory caste system, referring to the untouchables as Harijan- children of
God. He also advocated for the emancipation of women and was against social
practises like purdah, sati, dowry and child marriage.

Economic Ideologies and Principles

“Economics that hurt the moral well-being of an individual or a nation are immoral and
therefore sinful. Thus the economics that permit one country to prey upon another are
immoral. It is sinful to buy and use articles made by sweated labour. It is sinful to eat
American wheat and let my neighbour the grain-dealer starve for want of
custom.”-Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi championed the Swadeshi movement as a means of attaining

self-sufficiency. He sought to target European made clothing and other products
not only as a symbol of colonialism but also as a source of mass unemployment
and poverty since these products displaced the Indian crafts industry and left
millions of India's craftsmen without livelihood. The most famous image
associated with Gandhi is of him spinning khadi using a handloom. He
championed khadi as well as other indian made goods to incorporate peaceful
resistance as a way of promoting national self sufficiency.

Gandhi’s Economics have three main principles; the first is the principle of simple
living which helps reduce wants as well as become self reliant, the second
principle revolves around small scale and locally oriented production, using local
resources and meeting local needs, so that employment opportunities are made
available everywhere, promoting the ideal of Sarvodaya – the welfare of all, in
contrast with the welfare of a few, the third principle is the trusteeship principle is
that while individual or groups of individuals are free to amass wealth through
economic enterprises, the surplus wealth above what is necessary to meet basic
needs and investment should be held as a trust for the welfare of all, particularly
the poorest and most deprived. Gandhi idealised and acted upon these principles
with the belief that would reduce socio-economic inequality. This also formed the
basis of Gandhian Socialism.

Political Ideologies and Principles

“Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.”- Mahatma Gandhi

In his political philosophy Gandhiji is basically a philosophical anarchist and

decentralist. To the Mahatma politics was not an ugly strife for power, but the
moral means, the ethical norms according to which lives of the people should and
could be arranged. The norms according to which life in a society should be
arranged were not those laid down by persons proficient in law but formed part of
the eternal and unchangeable values laid down by the great religio-moral systems
for the benefit of mankind. He looked for legitimacy of authority not in the laws
and the constitutions, not in parliaments and courts, but in the conscience of man.
Gandhi believed in the achievement of political and social means through Civil
disobedience. This political ideology gave impetus to the Non-cooperation
movement, the Salt march as well as the quit india movement and was crucial to
India’s political liberation.

During his time in South Africa, the Boer legislature passed a law requiring that all
Indians register with the police and be fingerprinted, Gandhi, along with many
other Indians, refused to obey the law. He was arrested and put in jail, the first of
many times he would be imprisoned for disobeying what he believed to be unjust
laws.While in jail, Gandhi read the essay “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David
Thoreau, a 19th-century American writer. Gandhi adopted the term “civil
disobedience” to describe his strategy of non-violently refusing to cooperate with
injustice, but he preferred the Sanskrit word Satyagraha (devotion to truth).
Gandhi clarified the difference between satyagraha and passive resistance saying,
'Satyagraha differs from passive resistance as the North Pole from the South.
Passive resistance may be offered alongside of arms. It, often, is looked upon as
preparation for arms.'

Another important political ideology of Mahatma Gandhi is the idea of Swaraj

which emphasised on the need for self rule. Swaraj lays stress on governance, not
by a hierarchical government, but by self governance through individuals and
community building. The focus is on political decentralisation. Since this is against
the political and social systems followed by Britain, Gandhi's concept of Swaraj
advocated India's discarding British political, economic, bureaucratic, legal,
military, and educational institutions.

Another idea related to Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha and Swaraj was his
emphasis on sanitation and hygiene. Gandhi’s concern for public and private
sanitation was part of his satyagraha campaign since the days he spent in South
Africa. His priority during that time was to remove the assertion made by white
settlers that Indians lacked hygiene and therefore needed to be kept segregated. In
an open letter to the Natal legislative assembly, Gandhi wrote that Indians too can
maintain the same standards of sanitation as Europeans provided they received the
same kind of attention and opportunity.. Upon his arrival to India, Gandhi’s focus
on sanitation grew stronger. He emphasised the need for education on hygiene and
sanitation among Indians. The drive for cleanliness in the Gandhian movement
grew stronger in the period after the non-cooperation struggle of the early 1920s.
By this time, Gandhi’s call for sanitation was firmly embedded in two separate
movements- the struggle for independence and the need for removing
untouchability. Pointing out at the close connection between cleanliness and
swaraj, Gandhi asked Indians to learn from the West the art of municipal sanitation
and modify it to suit our own specific needs. “Swaraj ought to begin with our
streets,” said Gandhi. So for Gandhi the ideas of Swaraj, Sanitation, and an
Equitable society was intricately intertwined.

Most of his political ideas were spelt out in Hind Swaraj, the book he published in
1909.Modern civilisation forms the broad historical context of Hind Swaraj. Its
critique of that civilisation is one of its main contributions to modern political
thought. In historical terms, it is Gandhi's apprehensions about certain tendencies
in modern civilisation that made him the thinker and the political innovator that he
is.
RELEVANCE OF GANDHISM TODAY
The acid test of relevance of works and views of a great man is definitely the
application of them in prevailing conditions of time and space. Mahatma Gandhi is
fortunately among those few great men in the entire human history whose
individual life, works and views, also known as Gandhism, not only proved to be
great and exemplary during his own lifetime but their relevance and significance
remained intact after his passing away.

Relevance of Gandhism in World Politics

Many past and present leaders have been inspired by the principles of Gandhism.
Gandhi not only played a role in the struggle against colonial rule in South Africa
but also influenced one of their greatest leaders and anti-apartheid activist Nelson
Mandela. Gandhi also heavily influenced Martin Luther King, one of the
foremost leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in America, in his development of
Non-violence. King once said the following about Gandhi-“Christ gave us the
goals and Mahatma Gandhi the tactics.”

Barack Obama, former US President saw Mahatma Gandhi as an inspiration and

had a portrait of the Mahatma in his office. He once commented, - “In my life, I
have always looked to Mahatma Gandhi as an inspiration, because he embodies
the kind of transformational change that can be made when ordinary people come
together to do extraordinary things.”Aung San Suu Kyi, the State councillor of of
Myanmar, now currently under arrest by the military, who was under house arrest
for many years previously, derived a great deal of inspiration from Gandhi. From
Gandhi she learnt that for a doctrine of peace and reconciliation to be translated
into practice, one absolute condition needed is fearlessness. Aung San Suu Kyi
knew this, and that was the secret of her success amid all the darkness and
loneliness against a brutal and hostile regime. One of her essays opens with the
statement that - ‘it is not power that corrupts, but it is fear.’

The Relevance of Satyagraha

Today most counties of the world are facing various kinds of internal and external
crises. Due to unprecedented changes in social, political, economic and cultural
spheres, awakening amongst the various groups of people has reached a high level.
The principle of civil disobedience and peaceful resistance is one of the most
relevant contributions of Gandhism to modern society and modern political
struggles. Political movements across the world have adopted Gandhian methods
of Satyagraha to achieve their goals. Here in India, Nonviolent protests as recent as
the farmers protests and the protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act
have remained mainly peaceful. This can be seen as the influence of Gandhism on
the collective political consciousness of the nation.

The Relevance of Fasting as means to achieve Political ends

Fasting was a form of Nonviolent protest popularised by Mahatma Gandhi in the
struggle to gain Indian Independence from the British. He wielded it as a moral
weapon to humble the power of the state unleashed by the British. The very act of
fasting as a protest puts the moral onus on the authorities, who are far more
comfortable deploying force to deal with violent protests. Later, Gandhi also
employed it to seek conflict resolution among Hindus and Muslims after violent
communal riots broke out across the country.

Seven decades later, this method of nonviolent protest is still popular in India. One
of the most famous examples is the fast conducted by Anna Hazare which ended
after thirteen days when the then Government decided to demand of his civil
society group to fight corruption. Hazare, who was championing a strong anti-graft
law called Jan Lokpal Bill, has claimed to have been inspired by Gandhi. Donning
his trademark white kurti and gandhian cap, Hazare was single handedly
responsible for the passing of the Lokpal bill. The Aam Aadmi Party also had its
origins in the anti-corruption movement.

However, unless the motive behind the fast catches the public imagination, or is
backed by huge popular support that is usually political in nature, even a prolonged
or well-publicised fast also may not get the desired results. When Telangana
Rashtra Samithi leader K. Chandrasekhar Rao started to sink after 11 days of
fasting, the Centre conceded the long-pending demand for a separate state of
Telangana. But Irom Sharmila, who fasted for 16 years for the repeal of the
Armed Forces (Special Powers) had to end it in 2016 without achieving her desired
end result. She still became an iconic figure symbolizing the struggle of a common
citizen against the powers that be.The previously mentioned farmers protests also
saw observances of hunger strikes as part of the intensification of their agitation.

Hunger Strikes remain a powerful tool of political protest. It gives every citizen a
powerful weapon to challenge even the mightiest power. However, for it to become
really effective, it must be used sparingly. Mahatma Gandhi had warned that
fasting cannot be undertaken by everyone. It must have strong ideological and
moral conviction that “must come from the depths of one’s soul”.

The Relevance of Gandhian Economics

The Gandhian principle of self sufficiency is still relevant in the indian economic
discourse. The recent push for Aatmanirbhar Bharat by the Narendra Modi
Government can be seen as a push for self reliance and self sufficient India. It is
also being used by the government to promote indian made goods and services and
help the country tide over the coronavirus pandemic. During the pandemic, global
supply chains were disrupted and nations relying on others for essential
commodities were in straits. The government of India realised this and to alleviate
distress in the market announced an economic package of Rs 20 trillion under the
Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. The government said it would play an important
role in making India Self-reliant as well as would help labourers, farmers, MSMEs
and the cottage industry. This support of cottage industry is also in line with
Gandhi's principle that centers around small scale and locally oriented production,
using local resources. The Aatmanirbhar Bharat mission is also the underlying
philosophy of our Budget 2021-22, with our finance minister mentioning it many
time when she presented the Budget in the parliament as she outlined various fiscal
policy measure the government would pursue

The idea of self-reliance and promotion of national made goods by Gandhi is also
the main underlying philosophy of the ‘Make in India’ campaign by the Modi
government. The campaign was based on encouraging companies to manufacture
in India. This will not only improve our self reliance but will also lead to the
attainment of Sarvodaya or welfare for all as more jobs will be generated and lead
to better living standards for the urban and rural poor in India.
The Niti Aayog Document titled ‘Gandhi and New India', that lays out the main
ten programmes that the government is planning on implementing that are
influenced by the principle of Gandhism, which shows how relevant Gandhian
economics is.

Swachh Bharat
The Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan was initiated by the Narendra Modi-led
government on October 2, 2014 to coincide with the birth anniversary of Mahatma
Gandhi. Modi’s plan to clean up the streets and roads of urban and rural India,
particularly focusing on the issue of the elimination of open defecation in the
country is said to be drawn largely from Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas on sanitation and
hygiene which the father of the nation considered to be more important than
political independence.

For Gandhi, the drive for cleanliness in society was an integral part of the process
in bringing about a casteless and free society. “Everyone is his own scavenger,”
said Gandhi, reiterating the fact that the need for making cleanliness a personal
responsibility was key to removing untouchability.

The New Budget has again placed emphasis on the Swachh Bharat Mission by
announcing the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 which will be implemented over a
five year course from 2021-26 which focuses faecal sludge management and waste
water treatment, source segregation of garbage, reduction in single-use plastic and
reduction in air pollution

Sustainable Development
Gandhi once said “There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for
man's greed.” In a world of unrestrained development that is causing a lot of
environmental degradation. These words of Gandhis and the philosophy behind it
is very relevant. We must ensure that our resource utilisation is done in a measured
manner without causing large amounts of pollution. This idea is ever relevant if
India is to achieve our Sustainable Development Goals and must ring in the
minds of our policy makers, Corporations, and Citizens.
CONCLUSION
In the above sections we have seen a brief overview of the life and values of the
great saint that is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. By revisiting the major points of
his life, we have seen how his childhood and various other events in his life
affected his philosophy and ideals. that would later lead India in its path to
freedom. We analysed the major ideologies of gandhism developed and enunciated
by Gandhi in, his book, Hind Swaraj, talks in his ashram, prayer meetings, in
Congress meeting, speeches given at International and national forums, his
Autobiography and through various letters and articles penned by him.

Though the ideals of Gandhi portrayed a very optimistic route that society could
take to achieve ideal living situations, the question on people’s mind is whether
gandhian principles are still relevant to modern day society with special emphasis
on India. One might think that due to the influence of religion and spirituality on
Gandhi's ideals, it might no longer hold a place in a technologically advanced
society. That is a mistaken conclusion, as is seen above gandhian principles hold a
very important role in shaping the political discourse in India, with many political
leaders and activists adopting gandhian methods of Satyagraha to bring about
Governmental action on certain political issues. Gandhian principles like self
reliance and emphasis on cleanliness is a major influence on governmental
policies. In a ruthless quest for more wealth, Gandhi reminds us that the earth does
not have enough to sustain human greed and that unsustainable methods of
development will inevitably lead to the complete destruction of the ecosystem that
also includes us humans.

What can we as students take away from the life and message of gandhi? That can
easily be summed by the words of Gandhi “In a gentle way, you can shake the
world.”. Young though we are, our voices and actions can and will change
the world and let no person tell you otherwise.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma). Gandhi, An Autobiography:
The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Massachusetts: Beacon Press.
1957.

2. Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. Hind Swaraj: Or, Indian Home Rule.

Ahmedabad: Navajivan Pub. House, 1989. Print.

3. https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Gandhism

4. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi

5. https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/swaraj.htm#:~:text=For%20Gandhi%2C
%20swaraj%20of%20the,the%20meanest%20of%20his%20countrymen.&te
xt=In%20other%20words%2C%20swaraj%20is,to%20regulate%20and%20
control%20authority.%22

6. https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/LTsZp3N9hhATcu9TxY8FEN/The-politi
cs-of-fasting-in-India-after-Gandhi.html

7. https://niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2020-01/GANDHI_AND_NEW_INDIA.
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