Mohandas K. Gandhi

Agora

Mohandas K. Gandhi

1869–1948

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For Gandhi, injustice should be fought without violence, through truth, self-discipline and the willingness to suffer rather than to harm others.

Placement

South Asian & Tibetan Philosophy · South Asia · Ethics, Politics & Law, Religion

Satyagraha: nonviolent resistance as political and spiritual practice.

Key ideas

Satyagraha
Ahimsa
Swaraj

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Influence

Influenced by 4

Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

influenced by ✓
In London Gandhi read Edwin Arnold’s life of the Buddha, The Light of Asia, with even greater interest than the Gita, as he recalled in his Autobiography (1927–29). M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927–29); E. Arnold, The Light of Asia (1879)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) › c. 480–400 BCE · conventionally dated 563–483 BCE
Giuseppe Mazzini

influenced by
Gandhi praised Mazzini as a patriot in Indian Opinion (1905) and in Hind Swaraj (1909) contrasted his aims with the Italy that Cavour and Garibaldi had made. M. K. Gandhi, “Joseph Mazzini”, Indian Opinion (1905); Hind Swaraj (1909)
Evidence: AI draft
Giuseppe Mazzini › 1805–1872
Henry David Thoreau

influenced by ✓
Gandhi read Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience in South Africa around 1907 and printed extracts in Indian Opinion, while insisting his resistance had begun before. G. Hendrick, “The Influence of Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’ on Gandhi’s Satyagraha”, New England Quarterly 29 (1956); M. K. Gandhi, letter to P. Kodanda Rao (1935)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Henry David Thoreau › 1817–1862
Leo Tolstoy

influenced by ✓
Gandhi said Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You overwhelmed him; he published Tolstoy’s ‘Letter to a Hindu’ (1909) and named Tolstoy Farm after him (1910). M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography (1927–29); M. Green, Tolstoy and Gandhi, Men of Peace (1983)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Leo Tolstoy › 1828–1910

Influenced 6

Ham Seok-heon

influenced
Ham Seok-heon translated Gandhi’s autobiography into Korean and made Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance a guiding idea of his ssial thought and of the journal Ssial-ui sori (from 1970). Ham Seok-heon (tr.), Gandi-ui chammoseup: Gandi jaseojeon, in Ham Seok-heon jeonjip 7 (1984); Ssial-ui sori (1970 ff.)
Evidence: AI draft
Ham Seok-heon › 1901–1989
Kwame Nkrumah

influenced
Nkrumah recalled that months of studying Gandhi’s policy convinced him that non-violence, backed by a strong political organisation, could end colonial rule; his “Positive Action” campaign of 1950 followed that model. K. Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (1957); What I Mean by Positive Action (1949); A. Biney, The Political and Social Thought of Kwame Nkrumah (2011)
Evidence: AI draft
Kwame Nkrumah › 1909–1972
Arne Næss

influenced
Næss analysed Gandhi’s ethics of nonviolence with Galtung (Gandhis politiske etikk, 1955) and made Gandhi’s self-realisation through identification with others the top norm of his ecosophy. A. Næss and J. Galtung, Gandhis politiske etikk (1955); A. Næss, Gandhi and the Nuclear Age (1965); Ecology, Community and Lifestyle (1989)
Evidence: AI draft
Arne Næss › 1912–2009
Martin Luther King Jr.

influenced ✓
King took up Gandhi’s satyagraha after a lecture by Mordecai Johnson (1950) as the way love becomes a social force (Stride Toward Freedom, 1958). M. L. King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (1958), “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence”; “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi”, Ebony (July 1959)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Martin Luther King Jr. › 1929–1968
Johan Galtung

influenced
With Næss, Galtung reconstructed Gandhi’s norms of nonviolent struggle (Gandhis politiske etikk, 1955) and built on them his peace research (Peace by Peaceful Means, 1996). A. Næss and J. Galtung, Gandhis politiske etikk (1955); J. Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means (1996)
Evidence: AI draft
Johan Galtung › 1930–2024
Ashis Nandy

influenced
In The Intimate Enemy (1983) Nandy read Gandhi’s politics as a refusal of colonial ideals of masculinity, drawing on Indian valuations of androgyny and nonviolence. A. Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (1983)
Evidence: AI draft
Ashis Nandy › b. 1937

Criticism

Criticized by 3

Rabindranath Tagore

criticised by
Tagore criticised Gandhi’s non-cooperation and burning of foreign cloth as narrowing, and doubted the spinning wheel as remedy (‘The Call of Truth’, 1921; ‘The Cult of the Charka’). S. Bhattacharya (ed.), The Mahatma and the Poet: Letters and Debates between Gandhi and Tagore 1915–1941, 1997
Evidence: AI draft
Rabindranath Tagore › 1861–1941
B. R. Ambedkar

criticised by
Ambedkar held that Gandhi’s defence of varna and his paternalism towards the ‘Harijans’ preserved caste, which only its annihilation could end (Annihilation of Caste, 1936). B. R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, 1936; What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, 1945
Evidence: AI draft
B. R. Ambedkar › 1891–1956
José Carlos Mariátegui

criticised by
In The Contemporary Scene (1925) Mariátegui admired Gandhi’s moral force and his influence across Asia but judged his work more religious and moral than political: Gandhi was the apostle of a religious movement rather than the leader of India’s liberation, his rejection of the West and the machine taken from Ruskin and Tolstoy. J. C. Mariátegui, La escena contemporánea (1925), “Gandhi”
Evidence: AI draft
José Carlos Mariátegui › 1894–1930

Works

1909Hind Swaraj
A critique of modern civilization and a program of nonviolent self-rule.

Position

Gandhi’s thought revolves around satyagraha, “holding fast to truth”: a form of resistance that confronts injustice through nonviolence (ahimsa), willing self-suffering and non-cooperation rather than force. Truth, for him, was God, and nonviolence the way to approach it; means and ends cannot be separated. In Hind Swaraj he criticised modern industrial civilisation and called for swaraj, self-rule – both political independence and mastery over oneself. He drew on Hindu, Jain and Christian sources as well as on Tolstoy, Ruskin and Thoreau. His methods inspired Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and civil rights movements worldwide.

Life & context

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi studied law in London and spent more than twenty years in South Africa, where he led campaigns against racial discrimination – for Indians; his early writings there spoke contemptuously of Black Africans, views he later moved away from. Returning to India in 1915, he became the leading figure of the independence movement, organising mass actions such as the Salt March of 1930. His defence of the varna order brought him into lasting conflict with B. R. Ambedkar. In his last years he tested his vow of celibacy by having young women of his circle sleep beside him, which he made public himself and which close associates criticised at the time. In January 1948, months after independence, he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist.