Gandhi's Political Ethics

Extract

The centenary this year of Gandhi's birth provides an occasionJ to reassess the significance of the Indian leader. His political ethics and supporting notions about man and the state seem to me especially important in his teachings and practices. They have their weaknesses, but they should not be overlooked in any effort to reassess the complex and at times baffling Mahatma. Because Ganhdi's ideas about government and politics have been likened to those of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy, his unique contribution has often been obscured. Gandhi borrowed Thoreau's term “civil disobedience” which the New England individualist had coined to explain his kind of opposition to the Mexican war and slavery. Yet there is a considerable gap between Gandhi's metaphysics and Thoreau's. As to Tolstoy, Gandhi's premises resemble some of the convictions of the Russian writer after he became a Christian anarchist. But the Indian leader placed more trust in the perfectability of public institutions than Tolstoy did. Without denying the utility of the frequent and inevitable comparisons, Gandhi's synthetic political philosophy is best seen by itself.