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Development
of thoughts
| Development of
Gandhi’s Thought and Practice |
| Convinced that
independence had no meaning without a radical moral and social
transformation, Gandhi launched a comprehensive programme of
national regeneration. This involved fighting prejudices against
manual labour, overcoming the urban-rural divide, developing love of
indigenous languages, and eradicating the caste-based discriminatory
practice of Untouchability. Gandhi also fostered among his
countrymen national self-respect and confidence in their ability to
overthrow British rule. He gave Hinduism an activist and social
orientation, generously borrowed from other religious and cultural
traditions, and became an inspiring example of a genuine inter-faith
and inter-civilizational dialogue. He perfected the method of
satyagraha that he had discovered in South Africa, added new forms
of action to its |
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and developed what he called the "new science of
non-violence" involving moral conversion of the opponent by a
delicate "surgery of the soul". His actions inspired the
great poet Rabindranath Tagore to call him Mahatma (Sanskrit,
"great soul"). While fighting simultaneously on the
social, economic, religious, and political fronts, Gandhi carried on
an even fiercer battle at the personal level. Determined to become
as perfect as any human being could be, he set about mastering all
his senses and desires. From 1901 onward he embarked on daring
experiments in sexual self-control. Rejecting the
"cowardly" celibacy of traditional religions, he lived
among and later slept naked with some of his women associates, both
to probe the outermost limits of sexuality and to show that it was
possible to attain "absolute" and child-like innocence.
His moral courage, candour, and experimental vitality have few if
any parallels in history. |
| Gandhi's
moral and political thought was based on a relatively simple
metaphysic. For him the universe was regulated by a Supreme
Intelligence or Principle, which he preferred to call satya (Truth)
and, as a concession to convention, God. It was embodied in all
living things, above all in human beings, in the form of
self-conscious soul or spirit. Since all human beings partook of the
divine essence, they were "ultimately one". |
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They
were not merely equal but "identical". As such, love was
the only proper form of relation between them; it was "the law
of our being", of "our species". Positively, love
implied care and concern for others and total dedication to the
cause of "wiping away every tear from every eye".
Negatively, it implied ahimsa, or "non-violence".
Gandhi’s entire social and political thought, including his theory
of satyagraha, was an attempt to work out the implications of the
principle of love in all areas of life. For Gandhi, the state
"represented violence in a concentrated form". It spoke in
the language of compulsion and uniformity, sapped its subjects’
spirit of initiative and self-help, and "unmanned" them.
Since human beings were not fully developed and capable of acting in
a socially responsible manner, the state was necessary. However, if
it was not to hinder their growth, it had to be so organized that it
used as little coercion as possible and left as large an area of
human life as possible to voluntary efforts. As Gandhi imagined it,
a truly non-violent society was federally constituted and composed
of small, self-governing, and relatively self-sufficient village
communities relying largely on moral and social pressure. The police
were basically social workers, enjoying the confidence and support
of the local community and relying on moral persuasion and public
opinion to enforce the law. Crime was treated as a disease,
requiring not punishment but understanding and help. The standing
army was not necessary either, for a determined people could be
relied upon to mount non-violent resistance against an invader.
Since the majority rule violated the moral integrity of the minority
and "savoured of violence", and since unanimity was often
impossible, all decisions in a non-violent society were based on
consensus, arrived at by rational discussion in which each strove to
look at the subject in question from the standpoint of others.
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Here, Gandhi ji is reading some newspap
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| For Gandhi, rational
discussion was not just an exchange of arguments but a process
of deepening and expanding the consciousness of the
participants. When it was conducted in a proper spirit, those
involved reconstituted each other’s being and were reborn as
a result of the encounter. In extreme cases, when no consensus
was possible, the majority decided the matter, not because it
was more likely to be right but for administrative and
pragmatic reasons. If a citizen felt morally troubled by a
majority decision, that person was entitled to claim exemption
from and even to disobey it. Civil disobedience was a
"moral" right. To surrender it was to forfeit
one’s "self-respect" and integrity. A non-violent
society was committed to sarvodaya, the growth or uplift of
all its citizens. Private property denied the
"identity" or "oneness" of all men, and
was immoral. In Gandhi’s view it was a "sin against
humanity" to possess superfluous wealth when others could
not even meet their basic needs. Since the institution of
private property already existed, and men were attached to it,
he suggested that the rich should take only what they needed
and hold the rest in trust for the community. Increasingly he
came to appreciate that the idea of trusteeship was too
important to be left to the precarious goodwill of the rich,
and suggested that it could be enforced by organized social
pressure and even by law. Gandhi advocated heavy taxes,
limited rights of inheritance, state ownership of land and
heavy industry, and nationalization without compensation as a
way of creating a just and equal society. |
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