Understanding Gandhiji
BINDU PURI
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Different interpretations of the Mahatma's views on myriad issues
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DEBATING GANDHI — A Reader: A. Raghuramaraju — Editor; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 595.
There are volumes upon volumes documenting what Gandhiji wrote and said. Gandhiji thought systematically about moral truths, political and social issues and modernity. Yet there has been an ambivalent relationship with the academia. That ambivalence perhaps stemmed from the fact that he was not an academic and consequently his ideas might have been seen to be fundamentally unavailable for academic enquiry per se. This has led to a gap between Gandhian studies as an enterprise in history and documentation and Gandhian philosophy as an academic enquiry into Gandhian ideas. This volume makes a concentrated effort to close this gap.
Across different sections, this book brings together the Gandhian conceptualisation of tradition, nation, modernity, moral truths, women and caste. The volume is inter-disciplinary, true to the spirit of the man who made no boundaries. Though many of the articles have been published earlier, as the editor says, the leitmotif of this volume is the juxtaposition of competing standpoints for debate in each section. In this respect too, it is true to the spirit of Gandhiji. His life and thought evolved through constant engagement with contesting viewpoints. He tried to find the truth by engagement, and in the process, transformed himself and others. By trying to understand Gandhiji using his own technique of transformation through an engagement with contesting viewpoints, this book has adopted a Gandhian approach to Gandhiji studies.
Influence
Section One examines the influence of India and the West on Gandhiji. The point at issue is which of the two, his childhood or his adult hood had the primary influence on him. A. L. Basham argues that many concepts in Gandhiji's thought stemmed from his traditional background and childhood. He postulates that the two influences from the West and from his adult life are the dignity of manual labour and the emancipation of women. Ashis Nandy's essay, while explicating the politics of the assassination, sees Gandhiji's disturbance of the centre-periphery relationship in politics and public life as a crucial factor. Nandy locates that disturbance somewhat around the same factors.
Section Two directly focusses on Gandhiji and modernity. Partha Chatterjee argues that, though Gandhiji was outside the thematic nationalism, he was able to provide an inclusion of the whole people, within the political nation, thereby getting, quite paradoxically, co-opted to the nation state. A. K Saran's essay examines the issue of `Gandhiji and the modern university'. His main argument is that as the modern western educational system is not capable of teaching a world view, it could not do justice to Gandhiji.
Bhikhu Parekh, in the same strain, examines Gandhiji's autobiographical writing — a literary genre that, as he argues, presupposes cultural conditions emphasising individuality that were simply absent in India. However Parekh concludes that Gandhiji in his writing of the atma katha, was able to Indianise that genre. The question then, is whether violence is being done to Gandhian thought by inculcating Gandhiji in the nationalist discourse, in the university syllabi, or in the western literary genres? Or is the character of Gandhian thought such that instead of being co-opted it creates a process of Indianisation and thereby a new genre — whether in autobiographical writing, political discourse or in university education?
The section, `Gandhi and modern science' examines Gandhiji's relationship with modern science. Sunil Sahasrabudhey maintains that Gandhiji was totally opposed to modern science and that at the same time he offered a clear alternative to it. Shiv Visvanathan contends , on the other hand, that Gandhiji's opposition to modern science cannot be taken literally as there are points where his views accord with modern science. Ramachandra Guha refutes the claim, sometimes made, that Gandhiji gave an alternative perspective on development and man's relationship with nature. This section, offers competing standpoints, at the least, opening up space for a debate on Gandhiji and modern science.
In the section `Gandhi's Truth', Sumit Sarkar relates Gandhiji's notion of truth to liberalism, emphasising the Gandhian belief that, since no one could be sure of having attained the ultimate truth, violence could never be justified. Akeel Bilgrami calls this a misreading of Gandhiji and interprets Gandhiji's truth as an experiential notion, by bringing in the notion of setting an example for others, rather than of choosing for others.
On untouchability
Section Five has two essays. Madhu Kishwar argues that Gandhiji brought women into the mainstream of the freedom movement and thereby furthered social reconstruction. However Sujata Patel rejects Kishwar's claim that Gandhiji was departing from the 19th century reformers in his conception of women. She claims that he was operating very much within the same parameters in his own perspectives. Section Six has D.R Nagraj arguing that the radically opposite views of Gandhiji and Dr. Ambedkar on untouchability are yet mutually dependent.
The leitmotif of this reader then becomes its strongest point — the volume creates much-needed space, almost like Heiddegerian space, for debate on issues that Gandhiji thought systematically about. This rescues Gandhian thought from a historical-documentary approach and brings it into the mainstream of academic debate. It is a good start for a person wishing to understand the living Gandhiji.
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