Gandhian Politics in Contemporary India https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeZAY7nb0qA Prof Anand Kumar. Aug 18, 2022
Professor Anand Kumar will speak on how to make sense of the relevance of Gandhian politics in contemporary India. His talk will help contextualize Gandhi and his politics, especially his commitment towards an ethical life and society based on the ideals of truth and nonviolence, and his vision of Swaraj (freedom); Swadeshi (indigenous development); and Sarvoday (well-being of all through participatory democracy) — to be realized through a judicious combination of character-building, constructive program,
non-cooperation, and Satyagraha. Professor Kumar charts the evolution of Gandhian politics and the bewildering diversity among his followers in the early post-Gandhi period (1948 – 1979), and traces the multiple struggles faced — and strategies adopted — by Gandhian organisations and leaders as India moved into the era of Globalization and Hindu majoritarianism. He maintains that followers of Gandhian ideals face unprecedented challenges in contemporary India, in their continuing pursuit of nation-building, communal harmony, and a balanced coexistence of nature and humanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDScaYXMTBk Conversation with Anand Kumar | Story of a Free Thinker, Troublemaker, Socialist Sociologist
Youttube transcription the gandhian politics in contemporary
india it is a very interesting topic because
generally we assume that gandhi was
somebody who was not interested in so-called politics as we understand in makkiavillian sense
because politics is supposed to be pursuit of power and gandhi was someone who argued about
capacity to resist power rather than acquire power and which was his doctrine of
non-violence and truth in hindi in indian language is called satyagraha force of soul which was
translated by martin luther king and he called it power of love
gandhi led indian people along with many other stalwarts
from foreign rule to a sovereign republic
gandhi also contributed to reimagining indian civilization and culture
in terms of the parameters of cause gender religion
and he had his own share of successes and failures
ultimately he was assassinated soon after independence by
somebody who thought that gandhi was a threat to hindu people
and free india what i suggest this afternoon is not to
discuss gandhi but post gandhian propose gandhi
dynamics of political processes and locate
gandhian tradition gandhian lineage gandhian trajectory there
incidentally it becomes relevant because this year 2022 is also a year of celebration of 75
years of freedom of india from foreign india
lapsed into foreign rule somewhere from 1510 when vasco de gama
found goa and portuguese colony was established on the western coast of india and from
there then came the dutch the french the british and ultimately british
hegemonized by kicking out rest of the european competitors and then they had an unchallenged
command and control of the subcontinent for nearly two centuries
gandhi became an antidote of colonialism and gandhi became a source of
new india new india meaning people with courage
people with morality people with quest for freedom and
justice after gandhi was assassinated that is 1948
and 220 2022 a period of nearly 73 72 years
can be broadly divided between three parts obviously i and you are more interested
in recent years and when i say recent years means from 1992
to 2020 30 years a period of two generations
why 1992 because there were two ruptures
in the indian quest for democratic nation building in 1992.
one was the inauguration of new economic policy which is called the period of paradigm
shift prior to that indians were engaged in creating a welfare state through principle of redistributed
justice discouraging monopolies discouraging private
initiatives some kind of what they call mixed economy which you will understand more with
lectures of professor rahul mukherjee jaishankar himanshuja and other friends here
1992 was also important because that was the year when a group of indians
motivated with the desire of cleaning up indian history of certain tragedies aberrations and
accidents were found to be successful in destroying an
old mosque in one of the northern indian states on uttar pradesh from where i come
a city which is supposed to be the old site of kingdom of rama
and birthplace of rama is known as tragedy of babri mosque demolition
that was the turning point because it declared arrival
of hindu nationalism in a new god internationalism wasn't not a new force
there were hindu nationalists during the colonial rule also just like muslim nationalists sikh nationalists but those
hindu nationalists could not make much of an impact during the freedom struggle because after
partition of india and making of pakistan as an islamic state homeland for muslims
india remained multilingual multi-religious and the constitution of india which was
created after deliberations of three years declared india to be a secular country
having respect for all religions as well as freedom to not only practice religion but profess
religion that was india in 1947 48 49 but in 1992
a open campaign through democratic methods mass mobilization
culminated into a few hundred thousand people riling together and in front of the
eyes of police and other law protecting agencies destroyed
a place of worship belonging to muslim community so 1992 is the turning point
to understand many things including gandhian politics but you will ask what happened between
1992 and 1948 when gandhi was assassinated
again this period of 1948 to 1992 can be divided in two parts first between 1948
and 1974. a period of roughly
26 years it was a period of intense
mobilization of indian people for a gandhian solution to the land problem
and this was known as the period of land redistribution land donation called
bhutan bhu is land dan is donating so in other parts of the
world land was redistributed through power of class
agency plus struggle through power of law
like in soviet union land was communalized meaning it was handed over
to the communities communes were formed after russian revolution in 1917.
in many other parts land got into new hands because of the great transition from
rural economy to urban economy like industrial revolution in england in germany in other parts of the world in
india land problem was very acute but there were two solutions
one was offered by the marxists through class struggle class struggle of
the landless laborers against landlords the other was not through class violence but through
community conscientization and it was suggested that one-sixth of your land if you have enough land should
be given to the people of your own village who are landless laborers so that they also become land owners and it
was led by an eminent gandhian who was also declared as spiritual successor of
gandhi gandhi had two lineages political lineage
and spiritual lineage political representative of gandhi was called jawaharlal nehru he was
the star of indian freedom struggle he was a known progressive secular
and to a large extent democratic socialist leader who was also prime minister of india for his first 17
years of freedom nehru was very close to gandhi in political
battles he was second to none in his loyalty to gandhi but he had a different
paradigm a different model for india after independence which was called industrialization-based development
nehru was quite fascinated by the idea of planning adopted by soviet union and the power of machine and
industrialization as demonstrated in modern european history
but there was another lineage of gandhi that was cultivating goodness spirituality
gandhi himself said that i am in pursuit of
self-realization gandhi believed in god and for him god was truth
and this truth has to be pursued through non-violence which was an old tradition of indians
represented by a religious school called jainism
where giants don't believe in existence of god but they believe in power of
truth and non-violence and gandhi was a practicing hindu
who was influenced by the giant doctrine of truth and non-violence
he was also strengthened in his mental makeup by three other masters
one was leo tolstoy who had a vision of communitarian
society he did not believe in power of state and he was very unhappy with power of class or material power so talastar was
a great inspiration for ghana the other inspiration was henry david thoreau
who practiced civil disobedience against unjust laws and actually he spent a few
nights in jail because he did not like a particular law but he did not rebel he
said i don't like the law you can arrest me i don't challenge your authority to make
the law but i challenge your very authority of ruling over us through these bad laws so if there are bad laws
good citizens have to have their place in jail gandhi was very impressed with this idea of resisting injustice through
self-suffering and the fourth master for gandhi was
john ruskin john ruskin was a british thinker he was also an architect and art
critique and he wrote a book called unto this last which was a book suggesting
transformation of human society and john ruskin was the british and at that time britain was leader of
human family towards industrialization through empire ability
so john ruskin was not convinced about the power of industrialization and imperialism and he
thought that all should be given opportunity to grow themselves
self-realization and cultivate goodness so this doctrine was very convincing for
gandhi and that became his idea and he thought that cultivating goodness can be through spiritualization
of politics power otherwise a very brutal game but if you make it
an ethical practice then it becomes a different project
so spiritualization of politics was one more
agenda of gandhi purpose of gandhi and this was represented by
acharya this man was a spiritual practitioner he knew many languages he knew about
major religions of the world and he was very close to gandhi in gandhi's
spiritual quest so vinoba bhave came forward to offer a practical solution to the
land problem of india which was also the basic reason of poverty of india after independence
and this movement from 1948 to 74 was based upon going from village to
village and preaching power of
sharing power of cooperation power of love and vinoba bhave attracted
many people including one of the topmost socialists of his time jay prakash narayan
so gandhian movement in the first go was there between 1948
and 74 as a movement of voluntary donation of land
creating a communitarian political order and going for decentralization of the
state this was a parallel process to nation building where
the government was engaged in industrialization through planning and we had adopted the russian planning
model we had adopted the british industrialization pattern and we had become totally convinced we
meaning the power on the policy makers of india after independence that india's
future lies in plant industrialization and there'll be a trickle down first we'll establish
a few centers of growth actually 73 centers of growth and from there
light will percolate down to the villages gandhi used to argue to build from below meaning
making villages the space of freedom and progress so
according to one interpretation there were three kinds of gandhians soon after gandhi was assassinated
first were those who were institutional guardians meaning they were in power
but they wanted to use the institutions of state for promoting democracy and justice
they were basically followers of indian national congress and they were the top leaders of the
country for example the prime minister of india was divarla nehru a very dedicated
and committed supporter of gandhi during the freedom the vice president the deputy prime
minister was patel who was also staunch follower of gandhi and believer
in the power of non-violence president of the republic of dr rajin prasad
somebody who became a gandhian in 1917 much before nehru and patel
when gandhi entered india and offered satyagraha in champaran a remote area in
bihar so all these people were in power they were all gandhians
and gandhi is not for a few weeks or day and months they were gandhians for 20 30 years most of them had joined gandhi in
1917 or 1921 so they were part of that school
gandhin school of politics but they believed in the power of state and state became agency of change and a
number of new laws were introduced through constitution of india and there was one stream of ghandian
politics which was represented by indian national congress where gandhi worked from 1917-18
till the very end of his life so it was his own party he was also once president of indian national congress there was a
second line of gandhians the second stream of gandhians it was called the
people who believed in the spiritual politics or politics of
not pursuing state power but building community power this was the nova acharya
who engaged himself in land donation movement and building new villages ramadan and
bhutan these are two typical hindi words but they became very popular so even in english
discussion we talked about it and donating your land was intended for the poor and bringing the village
together beyond caustism communalism sexism a new kind of village india
there was a third line of gandhians who were neither in the government nor in the voluntary movement they were
in protest politics and they were people who believed in power of nonviolence but who did not believe in
nehru line of politics they thought the neherubian project of building new india
is an incomplete project there are many opportunities which are being missed he is not being loyal to gandhi's
teachings they were dissenters they were opponents they were also some kind of democratic
socialist they also did not believe in the power of cooperation they thought that the rich
will never give up power and which was found to be true later because
it was only one generation fascination when the second generation came into play they wanted to reclaim the land
which was donated by their father mother in the 50s and the 60s and this was
quite a turn around and a flop of bhudan movement
why i argue for 74 at the turning point because by 7172
the limits of voluntary donation of land project were thoroughly exposed
why because there was a new wave of violence around land relations in village india
called naxalism or maoism and there was a fear that the problem of poverty in rural
india will be now settled through power of the gun there was an appeal to maui's line which
said power grows through the barrel of gun and here they were talking about non-violence and they had a clean sweep
in every election niruvian indian national communists will win majority they will have all the power at
their disposal and there was really nearly negligible opposition to them but having absolute
power in a way could not change the rural configuration and there was appeal of mahasitang all
the way from china and the rebel rebels of communist movement
took to arms secondly there was also collapse of pakistan you know pakistan
was a big antidote to sovereign republic secular india and
pakistan was a threat to indian security indian unity
we had two wars with pakistan between 1948 and 1965
so pakistan was always a perpetual problem pain for republic of india because of their
internal civil war on linguistic diversity pakistan got divided into two
bangladesh was created out of old pakistan east part of pakistan became bangladesh in this making of bangladesh
gandhians were very supportive of sheikh mujibur rahman and bengali pakistani they thought that this
was very unfair and they should get their autonomy and if need be let there be freedom
but by 7172 jay prakash narayan the other leader of the sarvoday
movement gandhian movement became so disillusioned that he argued for
radical gandhian politics meaning
getting engaged about the land problem poverty problem
more substantially and if need be at the cost of opposing the government of the day
and this created a new wave of protest politics and gandhians
got divided between pro-government and anti-government camps most of the gandhians were with jay
prakash narayan and they were anti-government to the extent that they found bihar
and gujarat as two sides of failed democracy and that created such a crisis for the
government of the day that they suspended democracy for 19 months arrested most of the gandhians
and there was a face-to-face confrontation or eyeball to hypocrite confrontation between two kinds of
ghandians one who were in government and the other who were in opposition and the two streams of gandhians that is
those who were engaged in spiritual politics and those who were engaged in protest politics nearly got murdered
so socialists and followers of japan and they all got united and there was a change of the central
government in search of restoring democracy and there
the gandhian movement got divided forever between two lines one supporting
the government of the day led by indira gandhiji and the other supporting jaipur kashnaran who was kept in jail without
any charges for many many months and many more gandhians so there was a new
kind of a turn in gandhian politics at this point i want to stop for a
minute and to make it clear to you that gandhian politics was opposed to parliamentary politics in
many ways as i said politics is defined by you me rahul jashankar and others as
pursuit of power and what power is state power right all game is about state power
election protest organization class organization rally movements for state power
ganthian politics was for promoting community power not state
power gandhi was a kind of anarchist who was inspired by people like tolstoy
kropotkin who thought that the state is part of modern civilization and it is
an institutionalized evil which was defined by marx labor yesterday i saw his home max weber said
state is institutionalized violence monopoly of violence makes a state
iron you have a query in old times i'll use my gun you will use your [Music]
weapon and will settle the couscou in modern times i and you have a query we cannot use gun against each other we'll
have to go to the police station police is institutionalized agency of this state which has power of violence also
they can beat me and they can beat you they can hang me they can hang you that kind of power is there with history
gandhi belonged to the tradition of 19th century enlightened people who did not believe
that the state is pure rationality state is full of selfless idealism as hegelians would
like to add they had their own doubts so gandhian politics actually meant
cultivating community power through what regular politics is through political
parties through parliamentary elections gandhian politics was through constructive work
so there were many centers of what you call reform activities and they had their own agenda of 18 19
items which were continuous engagement of gandhians at the community level
and for what goals one of the top most agenda of constructive work was hindu muslim
relations gandhi was not a utopian he was not living in
ivory tower he was living a daily life where he realized that hindus and muslims need to redefine
contours of their togetherness and it should not be ignored it should be a cultivated
friendship multi-religious india which was a tough idea muslims wanted pakistan
hindu masava wanted hindu india six wanted to seek india religious uniformity is a psychological
need of any community one no religious city but multi religiosity
is the order of the day with migration with media with business with many other things
we become multi in our public share so gandhi recognized it what was the
second problem for gandhi untouchability gandhi said that we cannot blame the british for untouchability but
untouchability is such a sin it has to be eradicated lock stock and barrel and how do we do it
by making law no laws are there but by changing our daily practices
so untouchability third issue was women gandhi argued that
all laws so far have been made by men let us give women a chance of partnership
and women should have as many rights as men have whether for education for employment for acquiring
decision-making positions then it should be choice of women to decide which one to have which one
not to have if women become like men it will be a bad day for humanity but if
women remain where they are behind the men it will be worse and from there hindu muslim relation
untouchability gender justice to improving the cattle quality indian cattle population was
having problem of what you call good quality milk good quality
good quality animals cows bulls and etc and even that was part of
gandhian agent running between village sanitation quality education
role of youth so this was gandhian channel of politics
through constructive engagement in daily life of people and that promoted lot of
harmony now after 1974 there was a new generation which came
into gandhian these were the people who were participating in various movements
against corruption for electoral reforms for reform of education and against unemployment so there was a new
generation of gandhian activists after 1974. today what you see
is the maturing of that generation those who were in their early 20s or teenagers in 1970s now they are
in their late 60s and 70s they are in the command of the situation they are making and breaking the new
india and today this generation of 74
we call them people of 74 movement
they are in different positions in ruling party in opposition in media and intelligence
universities in judiciary and bureaucracy this whole generation was educated in gandhian
ethos of constructive social change of course there were other
people also in politics there was the left-wing politics there was a right-wing politics there was a census politics led by indira
gandhi and then rajiv gandhi manmohan singh so there were many traditions
including a prominent location of gandhian politics between 1974
and 1992 that is the period of roughly
one generation 16 8 no 18 years this was period of
great transitions india went through a number of social changes india went through number of
institutional reforms dr himanshuja has studied right to information
somebody must be studying social justice related what we call reservation for the other backward cause
some people have studied rights for the minorities meaning non-hindu population this all got
institutionalized between 1974 and 1992. the whole
transformative change took place in those years but those years were also
of global change you know what happened between 1974 and 1992. the biggest thing
from germany's point of view was collapse of the berlin wall from the western point of view it was
collapse of the military block called warsa back countries
then there was reconfiguration of american hegemony and there was of course emergence of
china this all was happening around the world there was also arrival of islam
in a new form what we call politics of terrorism so this all have impacted india as well
so between 1974 and 1992 a number of changes which we
call social churning or deepening of democracy in india happened but after 1992 there was a decisive turn and their
gandhian politics entered into a new phase phase of protest politics
and there were three major domains where gandhians became visible
beyond the old classical format one was environmental protection
some of the most eminent guardians of today include those who led the movements for
environmental protection there is a part of india called himalayan zone
and there was contracted lobby which was there to destroy flora and fauna so
there was a movement called chipko movement chippo means hugging the trees and this was led by gunpoint
and from there to a valley in central india called narmada river valley which was being destroyed
for creating a large water
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large water reservoir out of a living river they were going to divert it and create
a new water reservoir for another state and it was affecting a lot of tribal people indigenous people
so a group of people jumped into this process and tried to save the
narmada and one of the most well-known leaders of that movement was maida particle who
says that he learned everything she learned everything from gandhi and in between chippewa movement and narmada
movement there were many movements like gandhi martha and baliapal
the save destin god these are all led by a combination of radical democrats gandhians marxist socialists
who were committed to ecological democracy so that was a new dimension
which was not bearing gandhi's time which was not there in binoba and japan
it was a new leaf a new chapter in gandhian the second movement which became very
prominent in this period was a movement against what we call globalization and consumerism global
capitalism attracted a lot of people including indian middle class but gandhians from the very beginning were
convinced that it has no future it is not sustainable it is irresponsible
capitalism what they call awara pujiwa
the word in hindi is called lumpun capitalism as you can call it that irresponsible see capitalism was engaged
in building democracy in western europe capitalism was engaged in domination building in germany or england and
france but this capitalism which was on the shoulders of globalization was
irresponsible wherever there was profit it will go there it was time of finance capital
so kandians led the movement and they called it safe freedom
and it was very well recognized movement of gandhians which was against
consumerism empire pepsi empire
unfortunately gandhians were also opposed to computerization
this technology part became a weak link in their protest activity so it was generally popular but when the young
indians were told avoid computers avoid mobile phone they said no no you go back to your villages we want to live with
our computers our mobile phone it was like a miscalculation of power of technology
and there again there was a debate about was gandhi for technology or was gandhi
against technology was gandhi a regressive thinker who wanted to keep india in bulacar days or was gandhi for
a modern society with new transportation new production but new ethics
a third area where gandhians got very engaged between 1992 and 2022 was criminal harmony
i am involved with one of those bodies society for criminal army they made me
national president of it this body of people was alarmed with the rising what they call
anti-you know hate hate politics politics or hate fear of the other
looking for the same and they argued that look hindus muslims sikhs christians they're all children of
same india and they have contributed together for india's freedom india's democracy and they will do the same in
future also muslims by birth are not anti-indian just because there is a pakistan and
hindus by birth are not patriotic just because there is not any other country which is except for
nepal for for example where hindus will find themselves comfortable but there was cultivation of these politics of
communalism hindu muslim separatism it was not only one way street
only a few hindu politicians were cultivating there's also islamic security
there is a organization called organization of islamic countries oic 57 countries in the world
are together i have told my friend jashankar to remind me when i touch around 35 minutes i think i'm nearing
there okay so in another five minutes because i want you to come and take the
floor with your observations and with your questions because that's my ultimate desire that i go back with as
many questions as possible from heidelberg and improve my understanding and presentation
next time so in next five to seven minutes i want to talk to you about new
challenges before gandhian politics first of all gandhians were very from
the very beginning very clear about limits of parliamentary democracy they had said
led by gandhi himself that parliamentary democracy is suitable for
a society which is an island society like great britain not much multi-ethnicity not much
multiculturalism by and large a large middle class
and a kind of organized working class trade union movement labour party history etc
we need communitarian democracy where every village
becomes a republic very nebulous idea new idea but gandhi
was of the opinion that last word of history is not written already we can't create new history as the french that
the british did that the americans did that the russians did indians also have a chance to rewrite
doctrine of democracy so that is one area where gandhians have to prove their conviction by presenting
a suitable model of electoral reforms political reform because india is now trapped
in limits of parliamentary democracy what we call criminalization of politics there are three m's today which are
commanding the masses of india in terms of their their engagement as citizens of india
what are these three aims money power media power
and to some extent muscle power how do you control it obviously through elected reforms
through political reforms and that's one agenda where gandhians are in the front
because a few organizations created in 1970s by prakash narayan are very
vibrant today two of them are called citizens for democracy and people's union for civil liberties they have come
back into focus and they are a legacy of ghandian movement and they have also become a point of convergence of marxist
and ghana that's a very interesting meeting point of marxist and gandhians in the frame of
human rights and political reform because they know marxists know that today's regime
is a by-product a hybrid and illegitimate child of finance
capital and hindu communalism and they find gandhi as a good eye confident political reform second
the idea of multi-religious india india is being re-interrogated
india is being discussed by the lens of hinduism islamism muslims
think that they are victim of hindu communism
and many hindus not most of us here but many hindus think that the basic problem of india
is having a large category called non-hindus which has got two major religions both of them are proselytizing
religions converting people to their own belief islam and christianity and it's
such a question which creates a lot of emotions a lot of fear lot of anger lot of hate
but gandhians are in the forefront of persuading indians to rethink
and go for a politics of communal harm a third area
where gandhians are again becoming more relevant is rural
reconstruction rural india is part of benign neglect
we all believe that india has a future has an urban future after 75 years of freedom india is still
65 rural but there are projections by demographers like you and me that by
2030 another eight years india must become 50 percent urban impossible
indian economy world economy doesn't permit that kind of transition but
there is this kind of dogma about inevitability of urban industrial
success and that makes rural india and rural india problems negligible and you had a big
one-year-long present protest in india which made the government surrender and retreat
but there is no systematic thinking but gandhians have what they call economy of permanence
there is also a fourth area where gandhians are becoming more relevant is called quest for
sustainable development goals it is in the world economy and world ecology that the united nations
after failing to meet the imperatives of millennium development goals between 2000 and 2015 have adopted a new set of
goals a 17-point charter called sustainable development goals sdgs
and if you look at gandhian agenda of reconstructing and the sustainable development goals
but for the energy part there are three or four items of energy other 12 13
goals of sustainable development goals adopted by 182 countries of the world are running parallel as if it looks like
prototype of the gandhian project so as i said there are four areas where gandhian
politics is making a comeback one is the challenge
of ecological sustainability and they say that we are going a wrong route
second communal harmony or multi-religious society multiculturalism
as they call it in europe and multi-religious city in south asia third
rural reconstruction you cannot leave rural india to chance
it has making of all the major problems and that's why when the previous government in india wanted to address the problem
of rural reconstruction they launched a rural employment guarantee scheme and they connected it with the name of
gandhi mahatma gandhi rural employment guaranty act
so gandhi still holds some validity some legitimacy and not only the previous government the
new government which engaged in creating india or converting india into a country free of
open defecation they adopted iconic classes of gandhi and they said
gandhi is our inspiration for sanitation and hygiene so whether it is a left-wing
government or a right-wing government or a centrist government they are using gandhi because gandhi holds
some imagination some hope for the ordinary people
and as i said finally for the global because you will say that okay this was all for india i'm a german i'm from
finland i'm from america why should i be worried about gandhi's prognosis
i say that gandhi also engages you as he engaged martin luther king nelson mandela dalai lama angsan suki
he engages you because he has a vision of sustainable development goals there was an economist called jc
kumarapa who was very close partner of gandhi and he has a small booklet called economy of
permanence i will recommend rahul ji and jashankarji bring that text to your notice economy
of permanence suppose you don't like reading books i was also not very happy reading books
in my student days then you can see a film very interesting film not a very long
one called the inconvenient truth it was made by al gore al gore was vice president of
america and he made a film about the way we are leading towards
self-created disaster and what is the way out he starts the film with the melting of these
north pole glaciers and ends the film with the quotation of gandhi that the earth has
got enough for all our basic needs but cannot meet our bleed so need versus
greed this dilemma is making gandhi learn last point for your consideration is
gandhi's contextualization because gandhian politics has generated
challenges from other streams of value there are five streams of ideas which do
not converge with gandhi and it is responsibility of the gandhians to enter into meaningful dialogue and debate with
these five ideological groupings one of them is the old challenger and of course
they are the people who promote capitalism many people mistake gandhi for
capitalism because he did not believe in class struggle but he believed in organizing the poor people he created
trade unions present unions in champagne and ahmedabad he had his own model
capitalism second marxism the marxist belief
in power of class violence is still very attractive for the poor 150 districts of india are affected by
left-wing extremism and those who come to look at gandhi in india they ask us this question why 150
districts out of 750 districts are affected by lifting extremism the answer is poverty
exploitation failed democracy and what is the answer for the gandhians for this marxist
paradigm third is a group of people who are against caste system
they are followers of a great thinker social revolutionary dr ambedkar ambedkar had his own points of
divergence and convergence with gandhi in his own life but america became so convinced
of the need of cooperating between gandhians and his followers that he not only joined the constituent assembly of
india he was also the first law minister in the cabinet of nehru patel prasada
and he contributed to stabilizing indian freedom in the form of parliamentary
democracy so ambedkar still are engaged in debating with gandhians
about the future of classism ambedkar had one solution gandhi had another solution but both had the same
purpose that is eradication of untouchability and eliminating causticism but castism is refusing to
die cast is getting perpetuated reproduce even under new democratic dispensation so
ambition there's a fourth stream which is opposed to gandhi's
and is represented by hindutva politics and his thinker was sauvignon who said
that india is essentially a hindu country a hindu civilization all other influences like islam
christianity and others where aberration they were pollutants
a muslim and a christian can stay in india but under the overall cultural hegemony of hindus they have to hinduise
themselves that was the bottom line of cervical man gandhi argued that no no no
indians are multi-religious they have learned from each other they'll continue to learn from them what
they have to do is to humanize them so not hinduise themselves but humanize yourself
a superior being so there is a challenge from followers of
hindu nationalism to gandhi and of course the major challenge comes
from those who are modernist of uh in a nehru variety who believed in
parliamentary democracy planned industrialization and urbanization and they thought that gandhi
had misplaced his priorities about postcolonial reconstruction now these
are five ideological streams you cannot ignore them gandhians must engage
and today it is time of reinventing gandhi and gandhian politics and as i
come to you from india they have very busy calendar in last six months
they had many many gatherings many many initiatives and in the next months
they are again going around the country alerting them and learning them and organizing them so it is a period of
reinvention of gandhian politics beyond binoba prakash
and the period of anti-globalization because globalization liberalization
and privatize ltg paradigm is collapsing in is not
able to create jobs so young people are angry peasants are unhappy small and medium
entrepreneurs are unhappy so who are happy a handful for as you say one percent of the top as it is in germany
as it is in america so is in india but in india it becomes intolerable because
there is very little scope for accommodation and adjustment for the poor the 80 no 800 million people
live on subsidized food in 800 million people what is the total population of germany
80 million what is the total population of europe 400 million two euros
are in the left and right pocket of government of india in terms of their subsistence how long can this go on
not forever you have to find a solution and that's where gandhian politics of not pursuing power
through parliamentary mechanisms but creating communitarian transformatory energy
is something which is becoming very attractive i have given you a simple picture of a complex reality
deliberately so that you can ask sharp question and puncture my
presentation and i go home and go home unhappy oh my god what did i say
and look at these questions i must be careful next time thank you very much
why gandhi is becoming more relevant this is very important
because a lot of people including jawala nehru trashed gandhi
and for example you know nehru himself was not a believer of panchayat institutions of village level self
government for a long time but before he died you know he changed his position
he set up a man called mr escada as uh
as a minister and said that before i die try to do
you know bring village level governance into india so those are the kinds of things that even was
persuaded towards the end by something that gandhi was saying in the beginning he was more persuaded
by other modernist ideas so i think professor anand kumar has
sort of brought all of these things together in a very short period of time
i'll just make some concluding remarks uh first and foremost we must realize
that if sinaloa buddhists can assassinate sri lankan tamils in the name of lord
buddha if aung san suchi and her followers can
treat rohingyas if the rss can make swami vivekananda as
an icon of course it also points towards the forgetfulness of buddhists
and hindus about their own tradition
because if the rss had read what vivekananda had said how vivekananda even inspired
gandhi they would not only not dare to make savarkar
gandhian they would not even dare to put vivekanan on that pedestal
but that raises a very important question it is not a question of branding gandhi
it is basically a battle for ideas and in that battle for ideas
how do certain ideas get studied reflected and pursued
and with what kind of political power i think is very very important
i think the learnings from this lecture by professor anand kumar
is not to turn mohandas gandhi into a prophet we don't have to become fundamentalists
we don't have to have a gandhi model like a modi model and suggest that you know it will solve
all the problems of the world i think we have to appreciate gun
[Music] for a new approach to thinking about india
that he persuaded
teaming millions within the entire subcontinent
you know in my view and i'm not a great student of history there was probably a time when ashoka
was able to do that and his empire was unmatched and his love for violence was also well
known i don't know so much about akbar but when the mughal empire became more
liberal had darachiko won the battles with aurangzeb india's history would have been very
different gandhiji is similarly a millennial turning point
in the history of the subcontinent which tells us that just like
incarnations are born if you are a believer if you would think that
you know christ the buddha sri caitanya and it's important to talk about
religion because religion is important india is a deeply religious country in the name of secularism
of the french variety we can miss a lot of reality but there are probably
manifestations in the social and political world of these great seers who
draw from the social but from the religious
and show that the pie path of self-enlightenment
need not be one of shankaracharya's disenchantment with maya
that this is also the message of vivekananda some people do believe that vivekananda
in many of his writings that that certainly inspired nehru gandhi and subhashan divorce but also
actually had a very different interpretation of maya i mean there's a debate on this
and i'm not an endologist but i have read enough in english to have an
intuitive feeling about these issues and i can say that clearly it is a tradition
where the system is trying to reform from within [Music] and as gandhiji said that reform does
not mean that you don't expose yourself to the west he said that you stump stand firm
understand yourself and let the wind blow so you don't become a fanatic
but you are very deeply grounded in your reality so much grounded that you can even
change the world by changing yourself now drawing from this kind of a deep
inspirational understanding of a millennial figure i think arises
a few points which i think were very very significantly highlighted by alan
and i will just try to underline those points and maybe make them even more
explicit the first is that ultimately i think what is the
fundamental difference between gandhi and marx for marks the
external material world matters for gandhi the internal world matters
so gandhiji is giving a lecture at the 1928 session of the federation of
indian chambers of commerce and industry and this lecture is very interesting he says that you are all my friends
you must make your wealth but you must consider yourself to be a
trustee of that wealth rather than an owner of it
because the creation of wealth actually requires certain creativity requires certain amount of freedom
but it is something that god has given to you in trust so that you can
help other people and if you do not participate in that activity
then i will become your worst critique so gandhiji is not saying that don't become an adani or an ambani or a tata
but like vivekananda did to jamshedji data he's saying that
make an indian institute of science create metallurgy bring that to the service of india
you know create a disco which will have the best labor relations in the history of mankind that will you
know beat any form of british labor laws so gandhiji is actually saying that the
mechanism of transformation is internal and i think ananthai stressed that he sort of said that there are so many and
that is fundamental it kind of draws from the indian tradition the other aspect where i think gandhiji
conflicted with a very strong western understanding of reality is that you
have to live with nature and not just think about mastering nature you know communing with nature is a
paradigmatically different idea than gaining control over nature through technology
and the third aspect that he [Music] sort of highlighted
was the fact that you don't have to become less of a hindu or a christian or a muslim
in order for india's civilization to succeed become a better muslim this is exactly what is echoed in the
writings of vivekananda in many places vivekananda is saying that more religious diversity is good
i know there are monks in the ram traditional mission who are muslims and christians
but the point is that if all of these things get diluted just like the buddha
can be taken over by you know sinhala monks who are
terrorizing sri lankan tamils then you know the fault does not lie with the prophet
it lies with those who interpret the prophet who are as anand
unable to live their lives i mean it is our generation that has to
you know take the blame for it the prophet has probably given us
more than the world has given to the rest of the world in terms of heritage and i think from that perspective
i mean this lecture kind of echoes a sentiment that was expressed by dr
harshman few weeks ago where he criticized the contemporary indian civilization as being comparable
to german fascism while doing that he stressed at the same time with the same amount of verb and
vitality that the indian tradition can still teach a lot to the world with all its problems
so i think the you know the motivation is for us to
bring alive what is there and not become very proud of
what we may have had and try to reform
and once we are able to reform ourselves i think the world itself will want to learn from us
so thank you all very much for your patience and i am very sorry that i took so much time after
anandwa's lecture but i was really provoked to say these things because it was very important
because i think some points is deserved further consideration by all of us
and i'm so thankful it was near impossible but you know for others four
of them are part of the whole community network so i was feeling very comfortable
and for three of you i thank you for your participation and i hope that
it will get you further engaged in exploring
these other forms of political mobilization which are beyond party politics electoral competition
and game of controlling or losing control of state power because that politics remains
unglamorized under report there and of course underestimated thank you