The Mahatma and The Empowerment of the Other

Context: Mahatma Gandhi understood democracy as a socio-political institution that seeks to empower the other irrespective of gender, race, class, or creed, by asserting its right to speak freely and to act differently.

Gandhi’s idea of ‘Empowerment of the other’:

• Features:
  • Right to express a different opinion than that of the majority & to be heard openly & transparently.
  • Democracy as a socio-political institution should empower the other by asserting its right to speak freely and to act differently.
  • Individuals as self-governing agents: rule themselves against their weaker natures
  • Creation and cultivation of a public culture of citizenship: that guaranteed everyone the right to opinion and action.
  • The empowerment of every citizen: as an experience of conscience underpinning the harmony between ethics and politics.
  • Idea of moral interconnectedness and empathetic pluralism: civilization should help humanity realise the path of righteousness and compassion, by putting morality before materialism.
    • Gandhi rejected utilitarianism: as a false mode of existence that dismisses the otherness of the other.
    • Pluralism of ideas and values: is important to accommodate the dissimilarities and differences that exist.
• Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj provides a manifesto for the otherness of the other.
  • To cultivate the individual’s capacity for ethical citizenship and empathetic friendship.
  • To civilise modern politics from within: by shortening circuit of conquest, domination & violence.
  • Non-violence a means: to move the individual away from monistic egocentricity and closer to pluralistic shared suffering.
  • Inclusion of other as the other: Gandhi understood it as a civilizational process of freedom-making.
• Pre-conditions:
  • Art of listening: it is a mode of emphasizing the otherness of the other against all forms of tyranny.
  • Tyranny is the enemy of empathy: An individual or society is considered tyrannical which refuses to the other the right to speak and the time and space to listen.
  • Caring for the otherness of the other: is a mode of sensibility that rejects the logic of domination and conquest of the other.
    • Social, political, or religious marginality a constructive asset: as it helped the individual maintain a critical distance from all traditions of thought while entering a dialogue with any form of otherness.

Conclusion: Gandhi's replacement of the linear and monolithic discourse of reality with his dialogical vision of civilization and political life by promoting shared humanity will work as a tool for the survival of the otherness of the other.