The Mahatma as an Intercultural Indian

Context: There is a tendency in today’s world to think and to say that Gandhi’s ideal of non-violence is a noble idea but impractical and unrealistic. This affirmation sanctifies Gandhi while rejecting his principles.

Understanding Mahatma Gandhi and his ideals:

• Characterization of Gandhi:
• Gandhi was not a saint, but an acute political strategist: He believed profoundly in the possibility of introducing humanity to the principle of non-violence. 
• An Alienated Asian: 
• As an Asian, he was in?uenced by Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.
• As a person, he was deeply in?uenced by the teachings of Jesus Christ, Socrates, Tolstoy, Ruskin and Thoreau.
• An Intercultural Indian: His proximity to the East and the West proved to be very fruitful and made of him “an intercultural Indian”. 
• Endowed with intellectual openness: which helped him to learn from others and live up to his ideals.
• Founding Father of modern non-violence: as it has been in practice for the past 100 years around.

• Maintained Ethical view of life: He recognised neither the infallible authority of texts nor the sanctity of religious traditions. 

• Foremost Critic of modern politics: His readings provide a push towards rethinking modern politics as a way of transcending the conventional distinction between citizens and the state.
• The idea of Non-violence:  It was a realistic hope, armed with a dose of practical idealism; that of the global welcoming of the law of love. 

• Instrument of public dissent: Non-violence acts as pragmatic tool of powerless against the powerful.

• It finds the conventional meaning of politics as incomplete and acts as a struggle against the “Sultanization” of political power in our contemporary societies.

• A Moral Exercise: In the eyes of Gandhi, while being an instrument of con?ict resolution and universal harmony, non-violence was also an essentially moral exercise. 

• What Gandhi called the “soul force” was actually an ethical mode of conduct. 

• He viewed non-violence essentially as an ethical commitment and a constructive political action. 

• Non-violence is a move towards Inter-Cultural Democracy where solidarity of differences is not compromised by nationalism and democratic action is not compromised by mere constitutionalism.

• Establishing a Just Society: The entire Gandhian thought in the realm of citizenship and democracy revolves around the establishment of a just society. 

• Gandhi’s idea of democracy hinges on moral growth in human kind, where an undisciplined and unrestrained individualism gives its place to an empathetic humanism. 

• The main aim was to restructure humans to suit to an intercultural and pluri-dimensional democracy. 

• Non-Violent Democratic Theory: Gandhi’s repeated emphasis on service to all human beings from all traditions of thought was the essence of his non-violent democratic theory.

• A Pluralistic Approach - ahead of its time:

• Gandhi was not a dogmatic nationalist but essentially a path?nder towards a common ground among di?erent cultures and diverse mentalities. 

• His philosophy of democracy remains neither mono-cultural nor essentialist.

• His attachment to politics is more ethical than religious: Consequently, religion for him is identi?ed with ethics rather than theology. 

• He moved towards finding non-theological truths and not only spiritual truths and encouraged others to join him in his pursuit. Thus, Satyagraha and Swaraj cannot be considered as theological concepts.

• Democracy and Non-violence as the two sides of the same reality: Since it would not be possible to understand democracy without understanding the critique of violence in which it is nurtured.

• Gandhi considered democracy as a dynamic element in the ethical becoming of human civilisation. 

• The Idea of ‘Indianness’:

• He defined his mission of promoting non-violence and democracy in India beyond all political and philosophical sources of hatred, exclusion, suspicion, and war. 
• Gandhi’s philosophy of democracy introduced an anti-monistic and pluralistic dimension into a primarily territorial rootedness of Indianness. 

• Gandhi’s appeal to planetary companionship was based on an inclusive and dialogical idea of living together which disapproved of all forms of national or religious self-centeredness. 

Conclusion: As Mahatma Gandhi pointed out: “The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one. He who distinguishes between the votaries of one’s religion and those of another miseducates the members of his own and opens the way for discord and irreligion.”