Gandhi – National Icon or Non-modern Radical?

Abstract

On 15 August 1947, India formally became politically independent of the then colonial world power, Great Britain. Independence was the result of a mass movement which spanned almost three decades (1919-1947) and utilised predominantly non-violent methods of direct action. On 30 January, 1948, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), the person who shaped the independence movement of India, was shot dead by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse (1910-1949). The independence of India was central to the restructuring of political power on a world scale after World War II. It led to the decline of the British Empire and consequently contributed in a larger sense to the decline of the other European colonial powers, such as France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal. Hinting at the tremendous impact of the life and ideas of M. K. Gandhi, these two events – Indian independence and the death of Gandhi – triggered a huge amount of literature on, and interpretation of, his method of social change, as well as practical applications of his philosophy. The history of these influences and interpretations documents the vitality of Gandhi’s ideas and shows that his importance goes far beyond national iconography and his status as ‘Father of the Nation’. That legacy has served as a continuous source of inspiration for social, feminist, anti-nuclear and ecological movements fighting capitalist globalisation in India and the world, in contrast to Marxist-Leninist reformist parties in India and guerrilla warfare. In one of the two non-offi cial gatherings of activists at the World Social Forum 2004 in Bombay, these movements came together as the ‘People’s Movement Encounter’, with the National Alliance of People’s Movements as the best-known organisation. Writer-activist Arundhati Roy gave these movements a strong and radical voice which was heard all over the world.