In Hind Swaraj, which he wrote in 1909, Gandhi revealed that he wrote it ‘in answer to the Indian school of violence’ and to present in it ‘the gospel of love in place of that of hate’; and that ‘it was an attempt to offer the revolutionary something infinitely superior, retaining the whole of the spirit of self-sacrifice and bravery that was to be found in the revolutionary’. [...] Speaking as a representative of academia, and in like manner to my father, Shri Dharampal (a Gandhian intellectual whose birth centenary we are celebrating this year), I present the following emphatic statement: The concepts of science, of politics and economics, of philosophy and psychology, the theories of the organisation of society and the state all have to comprehend (or if need be counter) G. [...] Gandhiji, who a century ago rose as a vibrant symbol of the reawakening of India from colonial servitude, today, at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, once again embodies for us the yugpurush of a new India at 75! It may be of special interest to gain a brief insight into how the great pertinence of Gandhi is being realised—i.e., being put into action—in the centre of India. [...] One chapter of the book recorded his ‘Eleven Vows’ and his manifold activities aimed ‘to build the Indian society from the bottom to the top and focuses on the abolition of Untouchability, the regeneration of the village as a unit of Indian society, and achievement of communal unity.’12 Gandhi’s major campaigns against British rule were the non-cooperation movement of the 1920s, the civil disobedi. [...] He had, earlier, resigned from the primary membership of the Congress and left the decision-making 21 The Great Pertinence of Gandhi to India in the 75th Year of its Independence to the Congress leadership that accepted the clarifications given by the Viceroy.
- Pages
- 36
- Published in
- India
