11^th July 2002

Gandhi beyond the logo

In this short essay I encourage all AID volunteers who haven’t already done so, to read Hind Swaraj, by Gandhi and to reflect on it. I think that this text can deeply influence the way we view developmental work in India.

AID’s logo is the familiar cartoon of Mahatma Gandhi’s profile. Mohandas Gandhi became a legend in his own lifetime; India’s unique contribution to 20^th century world history. But, unlike several Europeans and Americans I have spoken with, the Indian attitude towards Gandhi is not one of unadulterated adulation. This attitude contrasts with public opinion of Martin Luther King Jr., the man who put Gandhi’s techniques to good use at confronting America’s race problem. It is not unusual to find ambivalence and often disapproval of Gandhi’s views and policies among Indians, including AID volunteers. In the recent past the Marathi play “Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy” (I am Nathuram Godse Speaking) has attracted large audiences in Bombay. Some no doubt due to sympathy with Godse’s ideology that drove him to the extreme act to assassinating Gandhi. Most of these sympathies have to do with Gandhi’s views on the Hindu-Muslim question and his extreme pacifism. But Gandhi’s concept of non-violence went far beyond the merely physical. His scientific, economic and political philosophies were deeply informed by non-violence as well. 

Today, almost everyone has a stand on Gandhi, his contribution to the freedom struggle and his relevance to us. But how many of us have taken the trouble to understand the man beyond popular lore and history books? Gandhi believed in living by his principles. So it may be argued that an inspection of his life will suffice to acquaint us with his ideas; that a reading of his numerous writings is not essential. But I do not think this is the case. There are of course scholars who specialize in the study of Gandhian thought. Most of us will never have the time or perhaps the inclination to wade through 60 volumes of Gandhi’s ‘Collected Works’. But just reading The Story of My Experiments with Truth and Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule) opened my eyes to his revolutionary ideas most of which I had not absorbed through pop culture or history textbooks. In the west Gandhi is most famous for his doctrine of non-violent, non-cooperation and for his pacifism. And yet he was also the man who when asked what he thought of western civilization could say “I think that it would be a good idea.” His critique of western civilization in the pages of Hind Swaraj is comprehensive and powerful. While we, the educated Indian elite, may think his ideas quaint and irrelevant his analysis of India’s problems was deep and incisive and his solutions radical.

Hind Swaraj is a remarkable document. Particularly since, after having written it in 1908 Gandhi was not prepared to go back on any of his important conclusions even thirty years later. The book is in the form of questions and answers between the editor (Gandhi) and the reader (his opponents). A thesis is put forth that rejecting British rule while accepting the modern civilization brought to us by them will not gain us true Sawaraj. That this will merely substitute the white-skinned, exploitative alien administration with a brown-skinned one. Incidentally, a similar prophecy was also made by Rabindranath Tagore and I leave it to you to decide if it has come true. For my part, I think that while the reasons for India’s current ills are many-fold and complex, the coming true of this prophecy is a very important one.

On the bright side, Gandhi’ response to the question ‘why do the British rule India?’ is ‘Because we allow them to’. This view can inspire our present day struggles against India’s problems. But is requires us to take an honest look at the brown skinned alien administration. It requires us to understand our own privileged status and to realize that among the vested interests that need to be fought are our own ones as well. Gandhi once said that India was 700,000 villages. To expect these villages to disappear or to be converted into cities was a vain hope. Neither possible nor desirable. Haven’t we tried to do just that? What do we see as the future? Will the villages of India disappear or will the cities. Or will they continue to exist in the uneasy, exploitative relationship that they are in now?  Or will we use the Indian experience to create something fundamentally new that will inform the entire post-colonial world facing these issues with the same urgency that we do?

Amit Basole