Problem with Postmodern Gandhi

The postmodern winds, which have been blowing since the 1920s, are influencing every branch of knowledge. As a result, now we have postmodern art and architecture, postmodern music and dance, postmodern philosophy and science and so on and so forth. Gandhian thinkers are also equally keen to evaluate their philosophy in this changing postmodernist scenario. Several new works in the field of Gandhian thought have emerged. Nicholas F. Gier wrote an article “Gandhi: Premodern, Modern or Postmodern?†1 Ronald J. Terchek wrote on “Problematising Modernity: Gandhi’s Decentering Impulse†.2 L.I. Rudolph and S.H. Rudolph wrote a book entitled Postmodern Gandhi.3 I have also worked on the same subject, that is, “Postmodernism and Gandhi†.4

While reading these writings and during the research involved for the concluding chapters of my thesis, I found that actually the postmodern philosophy and Gandhian philosophy are two different ideologies. Even though they appear to be similar, yet when read deeply they are different from each other. The research paper that follows shall attempt to prove the above with the help of three basic characteristics of postmodernism, that is, localism, anti-essentialism and anti-rationalism.

LET us start with the first facet of the postmodernist philosophy, that is, localism. As we all know it well, postmodernists are keeping their faith away from any conception of meta-narrative or grand-narrative. They reject the idea that there are essential, universal concepts as class, history, mode of production in the world. Instead, they argue that truth, knowledge, and understanding are located within particular contexts. Completeness and consistency of a system of phenomenon and of its representations are impossible. Analysis never ends. As a result postmodernists are robust critics of unity whenever it is claimed to appear, the unity of the world, of knowledge, of society, of self, of the meaning, of the world.5 Actually postmodernist thinkers have no tolerance for the values of enlightenment. Reason, universality, morality, and progress—all these enlightenment features mean nothing to them. They are seeing the world as a dance of the demonstratively creative and creatively destructed God. They are proclaiming not only the ‘death of God’ but also the ‘death of morality and metaphysics’. When truth and reason are dead, what becomes of knowledge? Postmodernism considers all types as well as sources of knowledge with equal skepticism. There is hardly any difference between science and magic. For postmodernists, knowledge is acquired not through inquiry but by imagination. As such, fiction rather than philosophy, and narratives rather than theory, provide a better perspective on human behaviour. Wittgenstein argued that all we have is language, even though its representa-tion of the reality is, at best, approximate and faulty. Rorty asserts that we should drop even the idea of language as representation, and the postmodern project should consist only of attempts ‘to de-divinise the world’.6 Irony, ridicule and parody are the basic tools with which this postmodernist goal is to be achieved.7

Jean Francois Lyotard, one of the propounders of the postmodernist philosophy, writes: “I define postmodern as incredulity towards meta-narratives.†8 Lyotard rejects the idea of grand direction, meaning and moral path of human ‘development’. Lyotard has in mind the teleology of Marxism, the certainty of science and the morality of Christianity.9 Lyotard and Rorty share with Michel Foucault the idea that knowledge is not metaphysical, transcendental or universal. Michel Foucault characterised his theory of localism through the unique relationship between ‘power’ and ‘knowledge’. Accordingly, knowledge, discourse and power are the keywords through which the postmodernist society develops. Foucault instructs us to develop action, thought and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition and disjunction and to prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over units and mobile arrangements over system. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic. All the action in the postmodernist society is moving towards instability rather than stability. By explaining the nature of knowledge, Foucault says: “Knowledge is not metaphysical, transcendental or universal. Rather, it is specific to particular times and spaces.†10

Similarly, Jean Jacques Derrida also accepts localism as the basic feature of the postmodernist society. He develops his unique principle of Deconstruction. Deconstruction is associated with ‘undoing’ of the binaries of Western philosophy and its extension into the field of literature and postcolonial theory. To deconstruct is to take apart, to undo, in order to seek out and display the assumption of a text. In particular, deconstruction involves the dismantling of the hierarchical conceptual opposition such as man/woman, black/white, reality/appearance, nature/culture, reason/madness etc. which serve to guarantee truth by excluding and devaluing the ‘inferior’ part of the binary.

Hence, all the postmodernist philosophers are approaching towards truth and knowledge with the Deconstructive (Derrida), Frangmentative (Foucault) and Linguistic (Lyotard) approach. They are insisting that truth is not something we will discover but it is something which will be created within a continuous process.

INTERESTINGLY, truth seems to play a significant role in the postmodernist philosophy just like it was in the Gandhian philosophy. Gandhi was critical of any fixed definition of truth. Once it was asked to Gandhi: “What is truth?†He replied: “A difficult question; but I have solved it for myself by saying that it is what the voice within tells you.†11 Just like the postmodernist’s rejection of foundationalism Gandhi’s attempt was to justify realist knowledge through recourse to ‘basic’, ‘fundamental’, or ‘incorrigible cognition’. According to Gandhi, one of the greatest evils of modern political and other human relations hasbeen our tendency to absolutise what is necessarily relative. Gandhi’s insistence on the relativity of all political, religious and other human perspectives is a justification for toleration and respect for others’ relative perspectives to truth and reality.That is why Douglas Allen wrote:
….emphasis in Gandhi’s political thinking on relativity of truth and the tolerance of and respect for multiple voices, diversity and an enriching pluralism of significant difference are similarities what one finds in various postmodernist political orientations.12

Accordingly, Gandhi accepts that in the way of struggle after truth we should try to provide due respect for the other’s truth. Gandhi’s own dynamic, open-ended, relative, experimentative approach with truth may be analysed here in the postmodernist philosophy of localism where the nature of truth is temporal, a-historical and contextual. For so many times, like postmodernists, Gandhi explains: “What may appear truth to one person will often appear untruth to another person. But that need not worry the seeker.†13

But that doesn’t mean that Gandhi’s concept of truth is akin to the postmodernist truth. Though in Gandhian philosophy the relativity of truth is there, this relativity of truth has an ultimate aim, that is, to achieve the absolute truth. He himself said about this so many times:
But for me, truth is the sovereign principle, which includes numerous other principles. This truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative truth of our conception, but the Absolute Truth, the eternal Principle that is God.14

This is a very important point to be noted here: in Gandhian philosophy, Relative Truth is a means to achieve the end, that is, Absolute Truth which the postmodernist thinkers have failed to note, acknowledge and discuss. Their localism is an end in itself. Local culture, local traditions are important in their philosophy. Why? To give voice to the marginalised people so that they can also feel as a member of this society. A sense of fragmented ambiguous and uncertain quality of the world marked by a higher level of reflexivity is said to be a characteristic of the postmodern culture. This goes hand in hand with the stress on contingency, irony and the blurring of cultural boundaries. Texts are typified by the self-conscious, and intertextuality. For some thinkers, postmodern culture heralds the collapse of the modern distribution between the real and simulations. That is why some of the thinkers are assuming that postmodernism celebrates egoism on the name of localism. What world and whose world they will achieve with this concept of fragmentation are not clear in their philosophical approach. But Gandhian philosophy is very much clear on this sphere. He gave us the idea of unity within diversity. In his words,

A drop torn from the ocean perishes without doing any good. If it remains a part of the ocean, it shares the glory of carrying on its bosom a fleet of mighty ships.15

BESIDES truth, non-violence is another grand-narrative in Gandhian philosophy. Ahimsa (non-violence) means avoiding injury to anybody on earth in thought, word, or deed.16 Moreover, this is possible only if we are ready to remove our ego. We have to reduce ourselves up to zero.17 In order to understand non-violence, as preferred by Gandhi and others, it is imperative to understand how selfless action is compatible with complete self-realisation of the individual person. Gandhi says to make oneself a zero is to realise oneself completely. When the egotism/ego vanishes, something else grows—that ingredient of the person that tends to identify itself with God, with humanity, all that lives. Therefore, we may say that as per Gandhi, once the reduction of one’s egotism takes place the self is complete, one comes face to face with God, finds truth, and realises the Universal Self.18 It shows that there is an intimate relationship between a belief in the ultimate oneness of all that lives and the belief that one cannot reach one’s own complete freedom without bringing about the freedom of others, or remove all feelings of pain by reliving the pain of others. He expressed this concept of advaita (non-duality) in the following words:

I do not believe…that an individual may gain spiritually and those who around him suffer. I believe in advaita (non-duality), I believe in the essential unity of man and, for that matter, of all that lives. Therefore I believe that if one man gains spiritually, the whole world gains with him and, if one man falls, the whole world falls to that extent.19

Gandhi’s thought, when approaching the philosophical question, is close to that of Advaita Vedanta. In this system the word closest to the meaning of ‘self’ (individual self) is ‘jiva’ to that of ‘Self’ (universal self) is ‘Atman’, and ‘God’ in the writings of Gandhi, ‘Brahman’.20 With this interesting power of discrimination between ‘self’ and ‘Self’, the universality of the self is discerned. This leads to the conception of the essential oneness of all humanity. That is why Gandhi believed in the essential unity of man and for that matter of all that lives.21 One’s own self-realisation must therefore somehow include that of others. The requirement of helping the self-realisation of others, and hurting nobody, follows without further assumptions. This approach towards universal unity and spiritual oneness is found totally missing in postmodernist thinking. Thus, Gandhian thought cannot be categorised as postmodernist philosophy.

FURTHER, according to the anti-essentialist postmodernist, the speaking subject is dependent on the prior existence of the discursive position. Truth is not so much found as made and identities are discursive constructions. Instead of the scientific certainty of structuralism, they offer us irony, an awareness of the contingent understanding which lack firm universal foundations. Thinkers like Foucault, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Gayatri Spivak and others are some of the pioneers in this direction. For postmodernist anti-essentialist thinkers, we are constituted as individuals in a social process using socially shared materials. This is commonlyunderstood as socialisation or articulation. Without articulation, we should not be persons, as we have understood that notion in our everyday lives. Without language, the concept of personhood and identity would be unintelligible to us. There are no transcendental or a-historical elements to what is to be a person. Identity is very social and cultural.22 If we feel that we have a unified identity from birth to death, it is only because we construct a controlling story or narrative of the self about ourselves. 23 “…….the inner core of the subject was not autonomous and self-sufficient, but was formed in relation to significant others’, who mediated to the subject, the values, meaning and symbols—the culture—of the world he/she inhabited.†Michel Foucault explains it in the following manner:

Subjects are not the producers of discourse but rather ‘positions’ in discourse which can be occupied by [any] individuals. The subject is not the ‘speaking consciousness’, nor ‘the author’ of the formulation [of discourse] but a position which may be filled in certain conditions by various individuals. The subject is shaped by power through his/her body rather than through his/her consciousness. [Therefore] we should try to grasp subjection in its material instance as a constitution of subjects.24

It shows that Foucault concentrates the mind on issues of discourse, discipline and power. Subjects are understood as discursive construc-tions and the products of power, which the discourse regulates.

Contrary to that, Gandhian philosophy assumes the importance of the individual instead of talking about their death! In his philosophy the individual is not only a speaking-conscious being, but also a creator or formulator of social values and social norms. He himself said:

If the individual ceases to count, what is left of society? Individual freedom alone can make man voluntarily surrender himself completely to the service of society. If it is wrested from him, he becomes an automation and society is ruined. No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.25

Actually, Gandhi’s autonomous individual who governs himself resists any source of domination, whether it is a controlled/limited ancient society or the modern liberal world order. Gandhi holds that no text and no economic process can claim to possess a truth that displaces the autonomy of individuals. He said:

Man is the maker of his own destiny in the sense that he has freedom of choice as to the manner in which he uses that freedom. But he is no controller of the results. The moment he thinks he is, he comes to grief.26
He repeatedly makes it clear that

Man’s happiness really lies in contentment. He who is discontented, however much he possessed, becomes a slave to his desires. All the sages have declared from the housetops that man can be his own worst enemy as well as his best friend. To be free or to be a slave lies in his own hands. And what is true for the individual is true for society.27

Thus, Gandhi’s individual is a very conscious being. Unlike the postmodernist’s subject, Gandhi’s subject is not only the maker of his own destiny, but also a choice-maker. He can hear his own inner voice and takes decisions accordingly. Gandhi enlists his theory of conscience in his arguments on behalf of Satyagraha or civil disobedience. He expects the Satyagrahi to be honest to her/his deepest convictions and ready to suffer on behalf of her/his commitments. Gandhi goes on to argue that those who witness this suffering will be prompted by their conscience and be converted.28 Thus in Gandhian thought there is not any ‘death of men’ and ‘end of metaphysics’ as it is there in postmodernist philosophy. It once again follows that he is not a postmodernist thinker.

Further, some of the postmodern anti-essentialist scholars are discussing in favour of different kinds of marginalised and subaltern movements to make them free from domination and exploitation. Similarly, Gandhian thought is also concerned with different downtrodden movements. That is why for Ronald J. Terchek, “the postmodern Gandhi is also talking about so many revolutions and movements for marginalised and subaltern sections of the society who are exploited and dominated by centralised powerful elite classes†. 29 Like Spivak and Foucault, Gandhi never takes religious texts as sacrosanct and pure, but he studies those texts as a seeker after truth. Terchek notes:

His archaeological approach does not look at traditional texts or practises sacrosanct expression of unchangeable knowledge. Rather, he wants to move beyond standard readings of traditional practices and expose those that spawn domination.30

SIMILARLY in the context of women or gender relations Gandhian philosophy seems to be completely identical with the postmodernist philosophy. He spoke out against the arbitrary rules of society, which our female folk are forced to follow. In this context Gandhi said:

……the ancient laws were made by seers who were men. The woman’s experience, therefore, is not represented in them. Strictly speaking, as between man and woman, neither should be regarded as superior or inferior.30

According to Gandhi, the woman has been suppressed under custom and law for which man was responsible and in the shaping of which she had no hand. Since postmodernist feminists like Cathrien Mackinnon and Carol Gilligon are also talking about the deconstruction of all the historical, structural and hierarchical notions in the society, several thinkers insist that Gandhian philosophy can be categorised as a postmodernist philosophy.

But this is just an illusion. Unlike postmoder-nist thinkers, Gandhi in his Hind Swaraj writes: “The Swaraj of my…our…dream recognises no race or religious monopoly neither of the limited persons nor for all…†32 Swaraj is a society where every individual, whether man or woman, is a self-sufficient, self-disciplined and self-conscious being. It is a self-governed society. It will not be governed by any extended power at all.

Further, in the context of decentralisation and dispersion of power the Gandhian approach was different from others. He said:

In this structure composed of innumerable villages there will be ever widening, never ascending circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose centre will be the individual always ready to perish for the circle of villages, till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in their arrogance but ever humble, sharing the majority of the oceanic circles of which they are integral units.33

These lines well affirm that Gandhi’s theory of Swaraj and decentralisation is very different from that of the Derridian theory of deconstruction andthe Foucauldian discourse of fragmentation of power. Postmodernist thinkers are emphasising differences but negating any possibility of coherence. Contrary to that, Gandhian philosophy emphasises certain grand or universal values, that is, ‘Absolute Truth, Non-violence and Dharma’. Its objective is to create a more moral and humane socio-political-economic system. It is interesting to find all the postmodernist thinkers are talking about differences with equal stress. This also shows that there is a kind of unity that lies beneath their approach to differences. It further proves that there are some universal values in the universe about which Gandhian philosophy is discussing at length. It proves that unity is natural and differences are artificially created. Gandhian philosophy can never see individual or relative truth in the absence of universal or absolute truth. Both are parallel to each other. In his famous book India Of My Dreams, Gandhi, while presenting the theory of Oceanic Circle, has accepted the fact that the individual’s recognition and societal existence are complementary to each other. Thus, he cannot be categorised as a postmodernist thinker.

THE third feature of the postmodernist philosophy is anti-rationalism. Philosophers like Foucault are rejecting the enlightenment’s rational discourses. Foucault casts doubt on the enlightenment understanding of progress. Knowledge as discourse doesn’t unfold as historical evolution but is rather discontinuous. That is why Foucault identifies significant epistemological breaks in knowledge across time and rejects any notion of telo or the inevitable direction of human society. He is trying to make it obvious that there is a clear, distinctive and fine break between enlightenment and post-enlightenment thought. Foucault’s thinking, along with the others’, split with the premises of ‘classical’ enlightenment thought. They assumed that knowledge is perspective in character. There cannot be one totalising knowledge, which is able to group the ‘objective’ character of the world. Rather, we both have and require multiple viewpoints or truths by which to interpret a complex heterogeneous human existence. Postmodernist thinkers argue that enlightenment has created a rational and logical society which is instrumental in nature. This instrumental rationality is creating a kind of rational imperialism.

One can find the same even in Gandhian philosophy which rejects the domination of rationality. Gandhi was of the opinion that experience, emotion, intuition etc. are the other aspects of an individual’s personality, and these are as important as reason. In his words, “we resist the tyranny and domination of the modernity idols of science, rationalism and objectivity.†The enlightenment gave us narrow, oppressive, hierarchical, reductionist projects of rationalistic and scientific hegemony. However, the rational scientific discourse is only one of the many possible ways that human beings construct their stories about political reality. The scientific narrative does not have exclusive privileged access to political truth. Metaphysical spiritual narratives are other ways of constructing accounts that shed light on political truth and reality, and should not be reduced to scientific, rational, historical and other non-ethical and non-spiritual discourses.34 This shows that Gandhi is also approaching the same postmodernist philosophy of rejection of reason. But there is a difference. Just have a cursory glance at the following statement by Gandhi,

I have come to the fundamental conclusion that if you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the head also. The appeal to reason is more to the head.35

For Gandhi, it is impossible to make a watertight compartmentalising between head and heart, rationality and spirituality. According to Gandhi, rational ideas are the instrument not only to find out what is not right or untruth but also to know about truth in the real sense of the term. One is bound to go to the heart or sometimes irrational discussions! Both head and heart have their importance in Gandhian philosophy. Any discourse where only one, that is, either heart or head, works was not acceptable to Gandhi.

Once he wrote:

[the] belief in God has to be based on faith which transcends reason. Indeed, even the so-called realisation has at bottom the elimination of faith without which it cannot be sustained.36

Gandhi was of the opinion that faith is more important then reason. Faith and belief are the medium through which one may achieve divinity but its existence cannot be proved merely by rationality. Further, what is truth? This will not only be decided by reason or head. To give a rational definition of truth in the absence of the cultural, institutional and historical background means to bow before the imperial-capitalist rationality.

Actually, all the postmodernist thinkers are trying to redefine the nature of truth not because they are striving to know about the essence of the truth like Gandhi, but they just want to avoid the domination or shackles of intellectual or rational power. That is why Foucault argues in favour of dispersal of power, Derrida for deconstruction and Lyotard of a new Grammatology.

However for Gandhi, the issue is not that rationality has nothing to offer; he rejects traditional practices and ideas that he sees as “irrational†, such as child marriage or untouchability. For him, however, reason can overstep what he takes to be its appropriate boundaries; it cannot always be the sole arbiter to the claims of truth. He repeatedly insists that morality must meet some minimal rational standard.37 He said:

Rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression of reason, but [an appreciation of its inherent limits].38

In Gandhi’s account, there are some things we know apart from reason. Our love, trust, forgiveness, and generosity do not flow primarily from reason. Indeed, for some rationalists their feelings may be misplaced; but not for Gandhi. He sees their disposition and the actions that flow from them embodying the best in human beings. He also knows that the opposite of these dispositions is not always reason. When love or trust is involved, the choice is not invariably between them and reason, but between love and hateor trust and suspicion. To assume that reason should always be the arbiter is to misunderstand both its strengths and limitations. Reason can speak to an impulse to love, for example, but after a while, reason is exhausted and has nothing more to say. Gandhi wants to unite love, trust, and forgiveness from calculation and join them to the development capacities of everyone. Actually, Gandhi does not deny the importance of reason in understanding oneself and the broader world. However, he holds it is only one way of organising ideas and, in some cases, not the important one.39

In a nutshell, Gandhi was looking for a comprehensive and balanced approach. To define a society with its single determinants would be a patient attempt. In ancient times we tried to do it with the help of religion, in the modern era we did the same mental exercise with the help of reason and now in this postmodern era thinkers are doing it with the help of language. However, a balanced and comprehensive approach is yet to be achieved. This is possible if religion, reason and morality all play their active, vibrant and comprehensive roles in their own spheres of action. A unique blend of both of these philosophies, that is, postmodernism and Gandhian thought, may go a long way towards unveiling a new horizon.

[The author extends her special gratitude to Dr Anil Anand Pathak (Assistant Professor, Organisational Behaviour, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon) for sharing his views and giving remarkable suggestions.]

REFERENCES

1. Nicholas F. Gier (1996), ‘Gandhi: Premodern, Modern or Postmodern?’, Gandhi Marg, Vol. 17, No.3.

2. Ronald J. Terchek (2001), ‘Problematising Modernity: Gandhi’s Decentering Impulse’, Gandhi Marg, Vol. 23, No. 1.

3. S.H. Rudolph (2006), Postmodern Gandhi and Other Essays: Gandhi In The World and at Home, Oxford University Press.

4. I have submitted my Ph.D. Thesis in the Department of Political Science, Banaras Hindu University, entitled “Postmodernism and Gandhi†in the year of 2005.

5. Lawrence Cahoone (ed.) (2003), From Modernism To Postmodernism, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, p.10.

6. See Richard Rorty (1989), Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

7. See Ziauddin Sardar (1998), Postmodernism and the Other: The New Imperialism of Western Culture, Pluto Press, London.

8. Jean Francois Lyotard (1984), The Postmodern Condition, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

9. See Chris Baker (2000), Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, Sage Publications, London, p.21.

10. Michel Foucault (1984), ‘What is Enlightenment?’ in Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader New, York, Pantheon, p. 249.

11. See Krishna Kripalani, All Men Are Brothers, p. 94.

12. Douglas Allen (2000), ‘Gandhi, Contemporary Political Thinking and Self-Other Relations’, in B.N. Ray (ed.), Contemporary Political Thinking, Kanishka Publications, New Delhi, p. 139.

13. M.K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Introduction, p. xi).

14. Ibid., (Introduction, p. xi) (emphasis is the author’s).

15. Harijan, March 23, 1947.

16. Harijan, September 7, 1935.

17. “The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should be so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of the truth.†M.K. Gandhi, the Story of My Experiments with Truth (Introduction, xii).

18. See Arne Naess (1974), Gandhi And Group Conflict: An Exploration of Satyagraha, Universitetetslaget, Oslo,
p. 39.

19. Young India, December, 1924.

20. See Mahadev Desai (1946), The Gospel of Selfless Action for the Gita according to Gandhi, Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad.

21. Young India, December 4, 1924, p. 398.

22. See S. Hall (1992), ‘The Question of Cultural Identity’, in S. Hall, David Held and Toney McGrew (eds.), Modernity and Its Future, Polity Press, Cambridge, p. 277.

23. Ibid., p. 275.

24. See, Michel Foucault. (1977), The Archaeology of Knowledge, Transtock Publication, London, p. 97.

25. Harijan, February 1, 1942.

26. Harijan, March 23, 1940.

27. Harijan, February 1, 1942.

28. Young India, August 21, 1921.

29. Ronald J. Terchek, “Problematising Modernity: Gandhi’s Decentering Impulse†, Gandhi Marg, Vol. 23, No. 1, April-June 2001, p. 9.

30. Ibid., p. 11.

31. Raghavan N. Iyer (ed.), The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 3, p. 394.

32. Young India, March 26, 1931.

33. Harijan, July 28, 1946.

34. Douglas Allen, Gandhi, Contemporary Political Thinking and Self-Other Relations, p. 139.

35. See, Bhikhu Parekh, (1989), Gandhi’s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination, Macmillan Press, London,
p. 146.

36. R.K. Prabhu and U.R. Rao (1945), The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, Oxford University Press, London, p. 22-23.

37. See, Thomas Pantham (1998), “On Modernity, Rationality and Morality: Habermas and Gandhi†, Indian Journal Of Social Sciences, 2, pp. 187-208, and Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi’s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination, p. 74.

38. Young India, June 27, 1939.

39. See, V. R. Mehta (1992), Foundations of Indian Political Thought, Manohar, New Delhi, ch. 2.