GANDHI

Question 1

Faisal Devji
* New narrative
* Gandhi and non-violence
* Gandhi’s political thought

Answer 1

• Proposes a new narrative of Gandhi which presents him as a complex figure who considered the cost-benefit analysis of violence amongst signif. political change.
• Challenges the conventional view of Gandhi as a pacifist
• Gandhi and non-violence -> ever evolving
• Advocated against physical violence
• Advocated for satyagraha, ahimsa and self-suffering -> founding principles for protesting.
• Takes a nuanced view of Gandhi’s non-violence rhetoric; includes passive and active forms
• –>Protection of innocent live justified the use of violence -> last resort
• –>Non-violence should remain at the forefront of every political strategy
• —->This was not passive resistance, but actively confronting the British oppressive forces
• –>Argued Gandhi was more against the temptation of violence/normalisation of violence, rather than actual violence
• Gandhi’s previous engagement with Islam and life in South Africa influenced his belief in non-violence and self-sacrifice as the foundations for political and social transformation
• Gandhi’s political thought
• Aim was to achieve social change by combining moral and spiritual elements with pragmatic political strategy
• Advocated for democracy, nationalism and swaraj.
• Devji explores the reason behind Gandhi’s non-violence -> violence in achieving indep., would merely replace colonial violence with another form of violence
• Satayagraha was the only possible way to achieve political change whilst upholding moral legitimacy
• PT evolved alongside the changing the climate of India; dvlp. from an indiv. transformation to mass movements
• Gandhi was more situations and pragmatic than ideological

Question 2

GANDHI

Answer 2

Gandhi
o Gandhi’s role in nationalism
* Mobilised the masses against British colonial rule for the first time in Indian history.

o Deeply paradoxical
* rejected modern civilisation but is known as the father of the modern state, founded on principles of modernism and secularism
* Deeply religious - Hindu, but was hostile to Hindu nationalists
* Most respected political figures - MLK and Mandela recog him
* Instigated a non-violent liberation movement
* Mahatma = ‘great soul.’

• Political career started in South Africa 1893-1915
  o Experimented with truth and emerged as a political leader
  o Context - British controlled SA and Gandhi was there for 21 years
  o Worked to secure rights for Indians
• Developed movements based on the principles of non-violence and truth
• ‘truth force.’
  o Emerged as the voice of those under racial discrimination
• In SA he had already dvlp. political technique and written Hind Swaraj.
• Become more pan-India because he delt with Indians across many regions
• Context: 1915-1918
  o Came to India on an invitation by a Congressman - during WWI
  o WWI - severe impact on India
  o Impact on Muslim community
• Kilafat movement - very powerful
   Transnational currents
   1915 - Ali Brothers have taken over Muslim League
• Embarked on a more strident political strand

o Economic impact was incredible
* Army and recruitment increased 10x
* Happened in a few districts in Punjab - disproportionate selection
* Financial involvement - military expenditure increase three-fold from 20million
 Fiscal prices which led to increased taxes in custom duties
 Resulted in signif. shortages and massive inflation
 Lives of ordinary people were impacted massively
 Created a series of popular protests across the countries
 Home Rule League (Annie Besant and Tilak) mobilised about 60,000 people at its peak
* No longer a small, elite organisation
 Other regions, like Punjab, also saw considerable popular discontent - unusual in Punjab

• Advent of Gandhi
  o Involved in three local Satyagraha movements
• Champaran 1916
   Peasants revolted against the conditions they cultivated Indigo in
• Kheda (Peasants against high revenue demand) 1917
• Ahmedabad textile workers (against a wage cut) 1918
  o Three movements built Gandhi’s political based in India

o First pan-Indian movement
* Satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act (1919) - wanted to extend war-time restrictions on civil rights
* Massive political support across the country - gave Gandhi confidence to engage in a non-cooperation movement

• Movements
  o Non-Cooperation and Khilafat 1919-1920 - alliance
• V successful and large response
• But acts of violence made Gandhi end the movement
  o Salt Satyagraha - the Civil Disobedience Movement; Dandi March 1930
• Four year long
  o Civil Disobedience (second phase after failure of Round Table): 1932-34
• After negotiation with the British - attempts at reaching a constitutional agreement
• This failed and WWII broke out - India was angered Britain declared war on behalf of India
  o Quit India 1942 (after outbreak of WWII)
• Biggest mass movements in Indian nationalist movement
• Non-cooperation
  o 1920 Gandhi won non-cooperation resolution to 1942 Quit India resolution
• Gandhi was the dominant figure in India nationalism 20th.c
• Nationalist H - credit Gandhi with single-handedly transforming Congress and nationalism movement into a mass movement
  o Study of his success?
• Analyse his political philosophy and strategy
• Gandhi’s political strategy
  o First thing historians stress -> took a centrist position
• He was able to bring together on a common platform, both commonists and extremists
• Estb. harmonic alliance between conflicting classes
• Workers and capitalists, men and women, peasants and landlords - same platform
   Depicted the same enemy - British; all suffer under their rule
• Appealed to marginal sections of society; women and tribes
• Message was restrained and emphasis on non-violence reassured the property classes
   Instrumental in brining the elite and subalternate onto the same platform
• Judith Brown - success was based on his ability to draw in low-level mobilisers; ‘sub-contractors.’
• Climate was ripe for a man like Gandhi -> proved by several messy leaders and movements of the time
• Rank of elite leaders, but Gandhi could appeal directly to the urban poor and peasantry
   Unlike many other congressman who only appealed to the English educated urban elite
• Skilfully used indigenous idioms e.g., ram rajya
• Success can be massively attributed to:
   the objects he used to mobilise people - used in everyday life
• The spinning wheel
• Salt
• Everyday political symbol to encourage widest participation
   Hunger strikes
• Moral weapon
   Shahid Amin (H)
• Argued; not just who Gandhi was, but also what people made of him
• Made into a Saint who could heal disease
• Protect people from the bullets of police by invoking the name of Gandhi
• Questions historians have focused on:
   Was it truly a mass movement?
   Who participate and who was left out?
   What was Gandhi’s own role in mobilising?
   Fighting for different agendas?
   Lose coalitions of local movements or a singular mass movements?

 The caste question
* Hugely controversial -> naming lowest caste

 **Political strategy **has been criticised for not being linear, but a fluctuating wave
* Mass movement and constitutional negotiation with the British waxed and waned
* What is the relationship between these two facets of his strategy?
* What does this say about the character of the Congress?

 How did he control his mass movements?
* To what extent were Gandhi and Congress in control of the agitations unleashed in their name?
* Many historians - Gandhi’s success as a leader was because of his ability to restrain the masses
* To exercise control
* This reason - sustain support of various elite within the movements

 Impact of mass movements on nationalist movements
* Gandhi had previously been dismissed as eccentric and inconsistent
* F.Devji -> sought to find principles of consistency in his political philosophy

• Gandhi’s philosophy
  o Fund. basis - powerful critique of modern civilisation
  o Wanted to combine ethical commitment with political strategising - create a language capacious enough to interwine his moral absolute with the tactical needs of politics.

o Gandhi’s criticisms of autonomy:
* Liberal traditions perceive freedom as autonomy
 Everyday sov. -> every rational being has the right to exercise
* Gandhi argued sov. is not exemplified only in the state
 Exercised every day by the self e.g., act of eating
 He wants to protect this right and freedom, w/out it becoming domination over others
 Needs to be an exit from subalterns which does not involve domination

o Perceives religion as a quasi-concept - politics should not be ordered around just one

o Satyagraha (Truth force/soul force) - passive resistance
o Nitidharma (Principle of religion; ethical absolute)
o Ahimsa (nonviolence/neighbourly nationalism)
o Swaraj (self-rule; radical questioning of sovereignty / surrender w/out subordination)

o Two things Gandhi states have been heavily quoted:
* The success of western civilisation seducing India with consumerism and materialism resulted in her enslavement, it was not because she was a backwards state.
* Swaraj should not be ‘English rule w/out the Englishmen’
 Argue England won, regardless of not physically ruling, they successful entrenched Western civilisation in South Asia

o Ajay Skaria -> should read his philosophy as a politics of enableness, not non-violence
* Was a fund. critique of non-violence, both of liberalism and conservatism
o Gandhi extended his notion of neighbourliness extended to non-humans; unlike many philosophers
o F.Devji - used friendship rather than kinship - to produce harmony between antagonistic groups
* Gandhi - rather Britain leave India in a state of war and anarchy rather than preside over a partition
* Non-violence was far removed from humanitarianism
o His politics did not align with the liberal conception of rights; the eruption of violence was an opportunity for moral transformation
o His ability to calm violence in India during the run-up to the partition was applauded as many as his finest hour