Readings of gandhi have now become a cottage industry.all these readings from a.nandy to nizar ahamad-(recently,his readings of gandhi has got an important attention.especially after nizar ahamd's social scientist article and a response from shaji joesph with an iit scholar from delhi in epw).regarding nandy-gandhi is a dissident gandhi(,questioning an authoritarian state),t.n.Madan-thick pluralism of gandhi(fighting against communal violence).bukhu parekh's-multiculturalist gandhi-- which gandhi do you follow?
all these readings don't touch about ambedkar's criticism of gandhi. Ganadhism is an ideology of well to do and leisured class ,pointing out the gandhian attitude of struggles waged by dalits and working classes. "If a man with god's name on his tounge and sword inder his armpit deserved the appellation of a mahatma,then mohan das karam chand gandhi is a mahatma". gandhi is a very controversial figure .... He is very close to some of the important big business houses of india.Do remember sarojini naidu's words-"t costs great deal of money to keep gandhiji living in poverty".he never questioned the state violence of british police against naval mutiny in 1945.He became a mute witness in an adivasi riot in Gujarat(in 1920's).British killed more than 1,200 adivasis in that adivasi assertion.Their leader was in jail(in 1950's). After the gujarath genocide,some of the prominent gujarati scholars had raised a question-why do this genocide happen in gujarath? One of the important reason is the influence of gandhian ideology. independent assertions of dalit-working classes are outside his political project. --- On Mon, 6/10/08, Dileep Raj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Dileep Raj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [GreenYouth] Re: Readings of Gandhi To: [email protected] Date: Monday, 6 October, 2008, 1:40 PM Dear Luisa, I have contacted Nizar and he gave the exact reference and quotes. Its not Young India, but Harijan, 13, 1940 January, a conversation with Mahadev Desai. " a society organised and run on the basis of complete nonviolence would be the purest anarchy." In reply to the question whether it would be an ideal or reality, he adds "a nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on nonviolence." also.. " society based on nonviolence can only consist of groups settled in villages inn which voluntary cooperation is the condition of dignified and peaceful existence." Nizar opines that these are positions seen throughout Gandhi's writings and conforming to the premisses of anarchists. I feel your major argument ( that the use of anarchism in connection with Gandhi --particularly in India-- is the result of mere ignorence or romanticism is incorrect. at least in this instance. On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 4:13 PM, Luisa Steur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: To argue that Ghandi was an anarchist is to empty anarchism of all meaning. It's all fine to dream of social organization without a state but since anarchism is almost per definition never in power, fighting the state is the foremost thing on any anarchist agenda, precisely because the state is (in the present) the dominant organizing principle in society that cannot simply be dreamed away. And anyhow, Ghandi's strict normativity and his frequent invocation and legitimation of authority make him everything but an anarchist. I've very often noticed that "anarchism" is used in India (and other places too) to describe anything dreamy, inconsistent or chaotic. It would be good if there was some more attention to the actually existing historical social-political doctrine of anarchism (many people don't even know it exists!). To quote George Woodcock in his excellent (Penguin pocket) study of anarchist (entitled Anarchism) "All anarchists deny authority; many of them fight against it. But by no means all who deny authority and fight against it can reasonably be called anarchists. Historically, anarchism is a docrine which poses a criticism of existing society; a view of a desirable future society; and a means of passing from one to the other.. Mere unthinking revolt does not make an anarchist, nor does a philosophical or religious rejection of earthly power. Mystics and stoics seek not anarchy, but another kingdom. Anarchism, historically speaking, is concerned mainly with man [sic] in his relation to society. Its ultimate aim is always social change; its present attitutde is always one of social condemnation, even though it may proceed from an indivialists view of man's nature; its method is always that of social rebellion, violent or otherwise." I don't think Ghandi fits into any of this really. I must admit btw that in most analytical, historical writing on anarchism, such as also George Woodcock's book, there is something of a Eurocentric bias but there are books that overcome this, for example Benedict Anderson's great recent book (with Verso) "Under three flags: anarchism and the anti-colonial imagination", which writes precisely on transnational anarchism and anarchist thinkers in Cuba, the Phillipines, China and Japan. Anyway, if because there was no state in Ghandi's imagined desirable future we start counting him as an anarchist, we can just as well start calling him a fascist because of his call to the Indian officer to place discipline before all else....i.e., I think we should stay a bit closer to the analysis of actually existing historical movements of anarchism, fascism etc. when we use these words. L. ----- Original Message ---- From: venukm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Green Youth Movement <[email protected]> Cc: Greenyouth <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, 3 October, 2008 9:19:43 Subject: [GreenYouth] Re: Readings of Gandhi -- Dileep R I thuravoor Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to http://messenger.yahoo.com/invite/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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