Purushottama bilimoria biography of mahatma gandhi

This article is part of the Indian IR Meets Global IR series, edited by Deepshikha Shahi and Raghav Dua

The recent debates on Global IR emphasize the vital roles that non-Western knowledge-forms can play in strategic mainstreaming of the relational ethics of ‘post-humanism’. That is, the theoretical-practical approach that propositions an inclusive account of the importance of not just the human actors but also the non-human actors in global political life, such as nature, earth’s processes, plant and animal systems, technospheres, forms of viruses, and so on (Cudworth, Hobden and Kavalski 2018, Brasovan 2017, Kavalski 2020, Shih 2020). Since Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1957), or the Mahatma (great soul) as he is popularly known, vehemently made an appeal to acknowledge an ‘identification with all that lives’, his viewpoints come across as an untapped repository that could be evoked to supplement the post-humanist agenda of Global IR. In fact, Gandhi’s way of foregrounding the post-humanist agenda borrows from a range of conceptualizations – such as, ahiṃsā (non-injury or non-violence), satyāgraha (truth-force), tapasya (spiritual heat), sarvodaya (welfare for all) and swadeshi (self-sufficiency) – that arise from the Indian textual traditions of the Vedas and Bhagavad Gītā. This article aims to explain how these conceptualizations based on the Indic knowledge-forms can initiate a dialogic interaction between the seemingly divergent approaches of ‘Western modernity’ and ‘non-Western traditionalism’, thereby imaginatively informing the Global IR discourse.

The Twin Pillars of Gandhi’s Political Practice: Ahiṃsā and Satyagraha

Gandhi’s ideas, more than most in recent times, have struggled to advance Indian ethics beyond the pale of an apparently diminishing relevance in a modern, civilizing and globalizing world. Perhaps Gandhi doesn’t have much to offer as an ethical t

Authorless Voice, Tradition and Authority in the Mīmāṃsā : Reflections in Cross-Cultural Hermenuetics

In my earlier book-length work, Sabdapramap.a: Word and Knowledge (Reidel, 1988), I explored the ... more In my earlier book-length work, Sabdapramap.a: Word and Knowledge (Reidel, 1988), I explored the relationship between knowing and language and considered why and how it is possible to derive knowledge from linguistic utterances. The material for analysis was · drawn largely from classical Indian philosophy, notably Nyaya and Vedanta. I also gave an analytical account of what would count as adequate 'evidence', i.e. conditions of justification, in (verbal) testimony. The work helped spur a renewed interest in this longforgotten thesis from classical Indian thought. However, the framework I had adopted for the inquiry took for granted the view that words and objects (things) are quite distinct phenomena and their connection is not unlike the connection of cognition with object, i.e. in a relationship of representation, correctness, descriptive fit, and so on. I have since come to be concerned about language in rather different ways less in tenns of its 'objective' function and more in terms of the totality that language is, in the horizon of meaning, its construction, understanding, interpretation, and transmission in history, as well as translation in religio-cultural processes in short, as a hetmeneutical phenomenon. When we perceive that words continue to operate in the absence of objects and the symbolic form of language is forever extended in myths, metaphor, poetics, rhetoric, arts, legends, the laws, etc. we appreciate that language exceeds the representational function and resists reduction to abstract (grammatical) categories and simple conceptual schemes; likewise, language through memory makes present to our world tradition from the past that has ceased to be (and perhaps also futurity), and it

by Purushottama Bilimoria

Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma] Gandhi adopted the metaphysics of a broadly-conceived Hindu religious thought for his social critique, out of which he developed a distinctive educational philosophy, which gave particular emphasis to truth and nonviolence, or the teaching of peace. In his social thinking he gave immense importance to what he called a ‘balanced’ form of education. By this he meant balanced as to needs, i.e. the necessities of life, against wants, i.e. whatever one yearns to possess, acquire or enjoy out of desire; and, more significantly, balanced as to internal values against a disproportionate concern with the externals (1948: 52). By ‘externals’ is meant the goods people generate and the sorts of activities, planning and manoeuvres people carry out in the normal course of living in order to meet the demands of commerce, material accessories, personal welfare and reproduction, and which are at the same time instrumental in sustaining the community.

Indeed, how could Gandhi underestimate the importance of this aspect of life, particularly in a country that was struggling to survive, to provide food, clothing, shelter and protection to its people, especially in the aftermath of the enormous exploitation of the country’s resources and labour under the colonial regime over the past few centuries? There is no denying the fact that Gandhi’s philosophy embraced a definite project for social and economic development of the nation. This included the production of useful material goods, in the absence of which, Gandhi believed, people would continue to be deprived of the elemental necessities of life and be subjected to control by forces external to themselves, or the ‘market forces’, such as competition, massive industrialization, commercial monopoly and international enterprise, all of

- Purushottam Bilimoria*

Abstract

Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma] Gandhi developed a distinctive educational philosophy which gave particular emphasis to truth and nonviolence, or the teaching of peace. In his social thinking he gave immense importance to a balanced form of education. By this he meant, balanced as to needs, i.e. the necessities of life, against wants, i.e. whatever one yearns to possess, acquire or enjoy out of desire; and, more significantly, balanced as to values against a disproportionate concern with the externals. By ‘externals’ is meant the goods people generate and the sorts of activities, planning and manoeuvres people carry out in the normal course of living in order to meet the demands of commerce, material accessories, personal welfare and reproduction, and which are at the same time instrumental in sustaining the community. There is no denying the fact that Gandhi’s philosophy of education embraced teaching of virtue ethics (adapted from Jaina ethics, in which ahiṃsā or non-injury is but one desirable character trait, moral uprightness, courage of conviction, and steadfast in intelligent willing, plus conscience. Gandhi proposes a decisive method for the dissemination and learning of the same. The present paper shows how this is effected and argues for its importance for all times.

I. Introduction

Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma] Gandhi adopted the metaphysics of a broadly-conceived Hindu religious thought for his social critique, out of which he developed a distinctive educational philosophy which gave particular emphasis to truth and nonviolence, or the teaching of peace. In his social thinking he gave immense importance to, what he called, a balanced form of education. By this he meant, balanced as to needs, i.e. the necessities of life, against wants, i.e. whatever one yearns to possess, acquire or enjoy out of desire; and, more significantly, balanced as to values against a disproportionate conc