Premium
Gandhi, The Mahatma: Evolving Narratives and Native Discourse in Gandhi Studies
Author(s) -
Howard Veena Rani
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
religion compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.113
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1749-8171
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00024.x
Subject(s) - renunciation , asceticism , politics , scholarship , soul , ideology , narrative , aesthetics , sociology , environmental ethics , religious studies , gender studies , political science , law , philosophy , epistemology , theology , literature , art
The scholarship on Gandhi tends to situate him in one of three camps: political leader, nonviolent revolutionary, or spiritual figure. But for Gandhi, his methods of Ahi s (nonviolence) and Saty graha (passive resistance or Soul Force) were interconnected with his asceticism. The overwhelming focus in recent years is on Gandhi's nonviolent strategy in solving personal, social and political conflicts; Gandhi's ascetic practices are dismissed as nonessential or contradictory to political processes. It is difficult for most modern peace activists and scholars, as it was for Gandhi's contemporaries, to understand the native discourse of his paradoxical ideology. Today, there is an emerging debate in the search for alternative responses to war. Gandhi's methods are being deliberated as a possible way to resolve modern problems. But the question remains: Can the modern world borrow Gandhi's political strategies and begin to succeed at the level he did without accepting renunciation, the core of Gandhi's personal and political philosophy?