Thirty years after his death and nearly seventy years after he wrote his first seminal,

though somewhat crudely written book, Hind Swaraj, Gandhi is suddenly emerging as
a possible answer to the global crisis of human values and numerous other unresolved
contradictions, such as between affluence and poverty, social relations and alienation,
etc. It is a great irony of history that when the rest of the world is seriously
examining Gandhian concepts and values, we in India are still engaged in the
masochistic exercises of distorting him when we are not worshipping him.
A prophet in his own country always runs the risk of his ideas being distorted at the
hands of his immediate followers. This is what has happened to Gandhi. For too long
Gandhi has remained deified as an untouchable God.
No nation is rendered poorer by having a second look at its heroes in the light of
changed situations and new problems. It is now time we should give up our
nauseating sentimentality about our leaders. I would even suggest that we should
adopt a critical, even somewhat irreverent attitude to Gandhi in order to demystify
him. While giving him proper respect due to him as our liberator, we should now
begin to analyze his ideas dispassionately. That is what Gandhi would have liked us
to do.
Gandhi needs no praise; he needs to be demythologized. This task is not an easy
one. It has been rendered more difficult because he has now been dragged into the
electoral arena. The sectarianism of the politicians, the frisky impertinence of the
journalists and other dogmatic intellectuals are adding new misrepresentations to the
old ones. For example, it is a most futile exercise to pit Nehru against Gandhi or vice
versa. Within the very large Gandhian framework, the areas of agreement and
disagreement between the two are rather narrow. Only little men will belittle Nehru
and only ignorant men will ignore the statements Nehru made shortly before his
death, in which he admitted that his predicaments arose from his deviation from the
Gandhian path.1 Great men do not boast about their successes.
In his own life-time Gandhi was abused in very harsh terms not only by the
imperialists but also by the orthodox Hindus and Jains, by the westernized upper class
educated elite, by Muslim and Anglo-Indian leaders and not the least, by the
Marxists. That was perhaps a less absurd situation than that of the present one, as I
said earlier, Gandhi is both worshipped as a father figure and dismissed or interpreted
without being read.
Gandhi took an integrated view of life, and tried to weave insights, derived from
different disciplines, into a single unified approach. In recent times no one, with the
probable exception of Karl Marx, had undertaken such an enormous task. The
Gandhian totality has confounded specialists who tended to take partial and distorted

view of Gandhi. He had been called a philosophical anarchist, a believer in agrarian

primitivism, a subsistence economist. Anti-technologist, a religious leader and so on.
None of these views does justice to Gandhi because no closet, senior common room
theorizing can aptly describe him.
The supreme difficulty facing a serious analyst of Gandhi is that almost every
statement made about him is little more than a half-truth and the trouble with halftruths is the other half. There is an additional difficulty; every statement made by
Gandhi himself is also a partial truth, made deliberately so as to take anew step
towards some larger truth. The half-truths distort Gandhi and Gandhis partial truths
demand a massive intellectual effort to comprehend him.
The kind of questions Gandhi asked nearly eight decades ago are the ones which now
face both the under-developed and post-industrial societies caught up in a deep
upsurge of confusion and disillusionment. Since Gandhi was not a futurologist, there
must be some explanation as to how he anticipated the threats to humanity that
emanate from technological determinism, the plundering of nature, to assuage the
greed created by consumerism and vulgar hedonism, structural violence, alienation,
etc. Gandhis anticipation f the coming problems of humanity were not based on
empiricism or deviations from either pre-fixed ideal positions of pre-modality. He was
able to, it seems, ask these questions, because he tested and judged every aspect of
human activity is a scale of some values and ethical norms.
The central Gandhian values were not derived from any metaphysical system despite
numerous interpretations to the contrary. They were derived from his own
philosophical ideas which he arrived at as a result of historical, spiritual and material
knowledge and his experience. Gandhis values thus reflect his understanding of
human nature, of social and production relations, of mans constant struggle against
forces which tried to push him down into one kind of oppression or another and of his
attempts to rise above his existentialist situation.
Behind the deceptive simplicity of Gandhis style of writing and speaking lay a
complex mind and a restless intellect which were engaged in understanding the
complex reality of material and human world in a purposeful way. Gandhi was not
merely interpreting life and society, he was ceaselessly engaged in changing it in
certain directions which never seemed to remain fixed.
However, Gandhi did not advocate, nor could he fall back upon an existing system.
He had none and did not believe in falling upon any of the available systems. Unlike
other profound thinkers, he refused to take upon himself the role of a system builder.
All known system builders and their systems have been diminished by history after

those systems have run a definite course. The inherent limitations of even the most
powerful, internally consistent system having a high predictive value outdated it.
What Gandhi was looking for was not a system but a framework of concepts and
values, as well as a method to arrive at them so that many a system could be built
upon them for the immediate present, and for the many future stages of development
in the unfolding or fulfilling of human destiny. This, to my mind, is the central fact
about Gandhi, and any system or model based on the Gandhian approach would, by
definition, have to be dynamic and historically limited, while being firmly based, in all
stages, on his framework of concepts and values. If we do not understand this
fundamental aspect of Gandhi, we understand nothing about him.
One of the crises facing the world today, as I said earlier, is the crisis of values and no
prevailing social order is free from it. In some countries the crisis is reaching the
breaking point; in others it may seem less serious because it is kept suppressed by
force. One indication of this crisis is the sudden, massive and rather dangerous
return to organized and codified religions even though history tells us that organized
religion has not found solutions to human crises. Science which tried to replace
religion, opened new vistas for humanity but is now faced with its own crises, because
of its one-sidedness and its appropriation by a few. Both organized science and
organized religion are failing the world, and this provides the occasion for us to review
Gandhi afresh since he developed his own scientific practice and also distilled an
ethical religion or value system from all major religions, rendering their canonical and
dogmatic theologies and customary injunctions utterly superfluous. In doing so he
gave science a new dimension, a moral dimension. He was, what I would, for want of
better phrase, call a moral social scientist, whose unique approach may provide us
with answers to the multiple crises with which mankind is faced.
The value system of a society and its individual or group members emanate from
three sources: (a) a general philosophic or belief system and a world view; (b) a
given socio-economic and political structure; and (c) certain historical evolution of the
values themselves and their practices. The important point to note is that one cannot
speak of values as unrelated to and separate from factors. When a specific and a
globally distinguishable value system is associated with the name of a thinker or
emancipator, it is not that he transcends any one of these three factors. He gives the
sharpest possible edge to each one of them and integrates them in such a manner
that makes his value system unique.
There can be no value premises without a philosophic system and every
comprehensive philosophic system has its own ontology, epistemology and method.
Ontology is a theory of knowledge; and method is a set of principles and techniques

designed both to obtain knowledge and to change the world. Any thinker or
philosopher who excludes any one of these three components of a philosophic
system, will not produce a normative value system.
In most non-Gandhian philosophic systems, these three components are distinct,
though related, and this seemed to be true of early Gandhian thought. As Gandhi
went through an evolutionary process of change in his own life, his ontology,
epistemology and method merged into a single unified process. And this process can
be identified with is search for truth. Gandhi did believe in God but he introduced a
remarkable innovation by reducing God to a tentatively definable concept, something
which all earlier metaphysical systems had failed to do. Indeed he made God into an
imprecision but relevant instrument. Ontologically, he reduced God to Truth, a
fundamental shift from his earlier position in which he tried to approximate Truth to
God. The search for both relative and absolute truth, was now his epistemology.
Satyagraha and nonviolent practice became the linking method and technique.
Therefore, the Gandhian value system cannot be defined either a priori or through
logic, as for example in Plato, or in relation to a given social structure, as for example
in Marx, or in relation to method or language alone, as, for example, in the modern
philosophies of Theoretical Empiricism, Logical Positivism, Rationalism, Humanism,
etc.
At least since the days of Hegel and Marx, the world of philosophy has come to be
divided between the materialists and the idealists. When this debate was extended to
social relations, the same question was posed: whether it is human consciousness
which determines social relations or vice versa.2 This division is now recognized as
unsatisfactory by most philosophers including some belonging to the New Left.
In arriving at this ontology, Gandhi made a major departure from the past. He
ignored the whole debate of the past and looked instead for a common denominator
for which he found support, on the one hand, in other religions, particularly Islam and
Christianity, and in lifes experience and practice, on the other. About the latter he
said: Truth and Life in a sense are one and the same. I should give the same
definition for Truth as I have given for Life. This was to be the basis not only of his
ontology but also of his ethics, or what he later called ethical religion.
What Gandhi accepted was that mind and matter have their own dialectics and can,
without contradiction, absorb the theory of evolution or matter evolving into mind.
For example, Chitta Vritti ordinarily means modification of mind. But as defined by
Patanjali, it means that human experience in which consciousness gets modified by
matter. Gandhi short-circuited the conflicting philosophies by adopting an entirely
novel approach. His approach was to merge ontology, epistemology and method into

a single set of concepts which in their dynamics could be transformed into values.
Concepts and values in Gandhi become co-terminous through a dialectical process.
Concepts have to be discussed first at the philosophical level before they can be put
to any other use. Philosophy not merely attempts to identify and differentiate one
concept from another, it also sorts out the questions. Indeed, it asks questions about
questions.
Briefly, Gandhian concepts may be said to have the following characteristics; they are
normative, they are dialectical, they are dynamic and evolutionary, they are relative
as well as correlative, and they are scientific. It is possible to argue that some of
these characteristics are mutually contradictory. The real problem is not of
contradictions but of a dynamic and evolutionary change in the concepts themselves
and in their mutual relationships.
As pure scientific theory requires that it should be conceptually rigorous, i.e., have
precise and unambiguous meanings, and capable of being empirically tested. A
normative or a moral scientific theory, on the other hand, while starting from some
hypothesis, will insist that the theory must answer the question with reference to
what one is empirically testing the theory itself. A pure scientific theory has no
reference point except the theory itself. A normative moral scientific theory is tested
empirically against the moral laws, rules and precepts, as accepted before the enquiry
starts. If one accepts this, then the conceptual rigour has to yield to a certain
conceptual looseness from one point of time to another when the moral precepts are
undergoing change.3
Of course, one cannot take shelter behind conceptual looseness for ones confusion or
deliberate distortion of reality. Conceptual looseness is necessitated by moral
dictates. Since the Gandhian system is in core normative, a certain conceptual
looseness is part of the process of the very developments of the concepts and
attempts to make them increasingly rigorous at the same time. This justifies the
application of a special kind of dialectics to Gandhian concepts.
Indeed the dialectical aspects of Gandhian concepts are unique. The origin of this
dialectics is from the basis of Upanishadic philosophy. When defining God,
Upanishads adopt the Neti Neti technique implying that the concepts can be defined
only in relation to their opposites. Gandhi said, All religions teach us that two
opposite forces act upon us and that the human endeavour consists in a series of
eternal rejections and acceptances.
Gandhis concept of dialectics has to be distinguished from those of others,
particularly of Karl Marx. I would like to describe Gandhian dialectics as perpetual
dialectics as it leaves out nothing. For example, it includes the area of logical

contradictions to which Marxian dialectics is not applied. The central difference

between the two is their postulates about the relationship between dialectics and
truth. As neo-Marxists like Allen and Kuhn have suggested, the dialectical
materialism does not of course lead to truth, it consists of a set of working
hypothesis which is considered better than any alternative method. Gandhian
dialectics, on the other h and, begins and ends with Truth. This is the basic
methodological difference between the two. A long time ago Gramci and other
Marxists had shown that pure materialism was commonsensical but reactionary and
metaphysical, but when juxtaposed with consciousness, it becomes a different
concept. This precisely is the essential of Gandhian dialectics.
Gandhi, unlike Marx, did not consider consciousness as passive to external reality.
For him both acted as autonomous forces in dialectical relationship with one another.
Marx brushed aside this relationship by calling the conflict between the two as false
consciousness. Gandhi went a step further and considered this relationship as a
process by which ultimately global consciousness about the unity for global purpose
comes to be identified.
While there are other differences between the two, apart from limited materialistic
aspect of the Marxian dialectics, it is neither necessary nor possible to go into them,
except the one which is very important. Marx applies dialectics to every other
situation or philosophy but not to his own, whereas Gandhi does not leave out his own
philosophy from the application of dialectical principles. That is why he, while
believing in God, suggested that all religions be subjected to human need, reason and
experience.
Indeed, one may say that the Marxian dialectics, because of its belief in blind
dnouement of history, is value neutral whereas the Gandhian dialectics is
inconceivable without some normative values added to it. This brings out the most
significant difference between the two, namely, the application of dialectics to the
concept of freedom. Gandhian concept of freedom is the most explicit expression of
Gandhis dialectics. He interpreted even the Gita in a way exactly opposite to that of
everyone else. Others called the philosophy of the Gita deterministic. But Gandhi
said that for him the Gita taught the lesson of freedom and responsibility for ones
action. In Marx, freedom requires the understanding of necessity, that is, what is
needed, because activity is impossible without need. But according to Gandhi, what
is needed must be purposeful activity for a free action. There is self-acting but no
self-determining freedom in Gandhi. For the same reason he rejected utopian
liberalism. A free action is one which both satisfies human values and satisfies the
need for some objective activity.

Gandhian concepts and values are dynamic and have an evolutionary dimension in
the sense that they developed through human experience. No value or concept is
fixed or static. Gandhi himself was not a static man. He refused to follow scriptures
or dogmas. As experience unfolded to him new truths, he changes his stand from
what he might have stated earlier. He was often accused of being inconsistent. He
admitted that he was not consistent, nor did he wish to be so because dynamic
thought and action were never consistent. And this was so because human
experience was varied and truth revealed itself in manifold forms, some of which may
not be consistent with the others. Nevertheless, he insisted that he was not
inconsistent with respect to fundamental concepts. He asked his readers that before
making the choice from his statements, they should try to see if there is an
underlying and abiding consistency between the two seeming inconsistencies.4
It has not been noticed by writers on Gandhi that he used a few mathematical
notations to give precise meaning to his fundamental concepts. The three most
significant mathematical terms used by him were: (a) Euclidean points, (b) Concentric
Circles and (c) Parallelogram. The Euclidean points exist in logic but cannot be fully
drawn or perfectly identified. They move towards infinity but never reach it. Gandhi
employed this concept to show that human progress is towards some Euclidean points
such as Truth or God or the cosmic moral law. Just as a number of Euclidean points
define a line, the direction of human struggle and progress is similarly determined.
Since God could neither be fully defined nor his existence proved or disproved, Gandhi
reduced God and all other ontological categories to Truth to which the believer, the
agnostic and the atheist could all subscribe. It has been the unresolved dilemma of
all religions and materialistic philosophies to provide a satisfactory objective to which
human beings both as individuals and as a society, have been moving and continue to
move.
The second mathematical term Gandhi used was Concentric Circles. This term
implied the dynamics of both universe and life. It embodied the concept of
movement, conflict and progress from which Gandhi also derived certain normative
social structures. It needs to be stressed that it is very different from the Hindu
concept of Chakra, a single cyclical movement having no direction of progress. The
concept of progress in Gandhi is also not linear as it is in materialistic philosophies.
The third term used by Gandhi was Parallelogram. Cyclical movements and dialectics
explain quite a lot of reality but by themselves are not adequate. When Gandhi used
the word parallelogram for social relations, he implied harmony between different
sides or forces in a system. Dialectics explains the conflicts but not the harmony,
either in nature of in society. The idea of a parallelogram does. The idea of Truth is
also both dialectical and harmonious. The concept of parallelogram or harmony is

different from the concept of synthesis in Marxian dialectics. Negation and synthesis
are part of dialectics. Parallelogram and harmony are not.
I will confine myself to giving just one example to give meaning to these
mathematical terms. Satyagraha is dialectical in the sense that it brings out the
conflicts and struggle between two opposing forces, may be classes. But he
conditions and limitations laid down by Gandhi for a Satyagraha also bring out the
concept that the two opposing forces reflect some harmonious aspect as well as the
end of the struggle. Therefore, Gandhian philosophy was unique and distinctly
different from all the prevailing ones which can be put into three different categories:
(a) those who believe in God or some other non-material power determining the
fundamental nature of the world but refuse to modify their metaphysics in relation to
material reality; (b) those who give primacy to matter in one form or another with or
without making life a part of it; and (c) those who consider ontology an unidentifiable
and indescribable issue.
We are now in a position to define the Gandhian philosophy in terms of ontology,
epistemology and method. It is not possible to go into all the evolutionary stages of
Gandhian philosophy here. All that is needed here is to delineate the end product.
More importantly, for Gandhi, ontology, epistemology and method, as I said earlier,
are not different from one another. Each is a part of a single dynamic process.
In terms of his philosophy, Truth is thus dialectical as well as multi-dimensional. It is
the existence as well as the raison detre of existence. Truth is both being as well as
knowledge, i.e., it is simultaneously ontological and epistemological. Truth is reality in
all forms, including the existential, the transcendental, the spiritual reality, the moral
order, etc. Truth in definition, can be absolute and complete but human experience of
it is both limited and relative. Instead of explaining further, I shall let Gandhi speak
thrice for himself.
First Gandhi said, Truth means existence of that we know and that we do not know.
The sum total of all existence is absolute truth or the Truth. The concepts of truth
may differ. But all admit and respect truth. That truth I call God.5 Secondly, he
said: Even the atheists who have pretended to disbelieve in God have believed in
Truth. The trick they have performed is that of giving God another, not a new name.
His names are Legion, Truth is the crown of them all.6 The third time he said: I
have learnt from Jain philosophy a great many things which were worth learning, one
of them being the idea of the many-sidedness of Truth. Stated in extreme form,
nothing is true. They are two sides of every question.7
In discussing Truth as a method, Gandhi had to go to great length in putting forward
various ways to realize truth, the most important of which was Satyagraha or Truth

force. However, he introduced what may be called a method into a method, namely,
nonviolence, which to Gandhi was the method of discovering and legitimizing the
practice of Satyagraha. He also held that nonviolence was one constructive process of
nature in the midst of incessant destruction. It was the true method by which
physical reality revealed itself, whether it is in harmony or in conflict with non-physical
reality.
This being so it was possible to accept the truth of the scriptures as ontological truth
while not deriving from them the other two aspects, i.e., epistemology and method.
He said, Let us not deceive ourselves into believing that everything that is written in
Sanskrit and printed in Shastra has a binding effect upon us. That which is opposed
to the fundamental maxims of morality, that which is opposed to trained reason,
cannot be claimed as Shastra no matter how ancient it may be. It is a painful fact,
but it is a historical truth, that priests who should have been real custodians of
religions have been instrumental in destroying the religion of which they have been
custodians.
Ontologically, the highest aim of every Hindu or for that matter every human being
is Moksha, namely, final deliverance or liberation from this world and assimilation with
the final truth. This is a beaten track of every version of Hindu philosophy. Gandhi,
however, gave the very path of Moksha, i.e., Dharma, an even higher place than
toMoksha itself, i.e., the search for truth a place even higher that to Moksha itself. He
said: I cannot consider anything dearer to me than Moksha. Yet even that MokshaI
would renounce if it were to conflict with truth and nonviolence. In all these three
things I only followed truth.8 This is an extremely significant turn that Gandhi gave
to Hinduism.
Hinduism produced literally scores if not hundreds of paths for individual salvation but
not a single path for social emancipation. Manu and Kautilya, the two religious and
political law-givers, were subject to temporal constraints and were in many easy
defenders of the status quo. Although Hinduism has survived, it was not able to
develop a theory of social change or social emancipation. Gandhi gave Hindu system
and society some characteristic jolts and thereby imparted to it powerful social
dimensions, which brought him into conflict with Hindu orthodoxy. However, Gandhi
was too shrewd to challenge frontally the entire superstructure of orthodox beliefs.
Sometimes he chose to wear the mantle of orthodoxy until people came to accept his
theory of social change.9
Similarly at the level of ethics, Gandhis contribution was unique and remarkable. He
attempted and achieved what on one could do before. He transformed the so-called
eternal values of the religion into relative truths of ethical principles and put them

together as ethical religion. By doing so, he removed the distinction between religion
as such and the projection of ethical laws through morally justifiable social
instruments into the realms of social action.
Gandhis ethical religion was a religion of moral action. Modern political life is
dominated either by what Carl Fredrich calls the propaganda of the word or by the
propaganda of the act. In Hinduism, propaganda of the word, i.e., Shabd Pranam
literary proof by word has always predominated. Gandhi reversed this tradition by
making the propaganda of action more dominant. And Gandhi often said that he
would reject the word or the scripture if it violated what he and his reason thought to
be truth. Let me give you a Gandhian example: All religions preach equality and so
does Hinduism. So when Gandhi found Hindu religion justifying untouchability, he
rejected those scriptures which justified it. He said that either such scriptures had to
be rejected or it has to be admitted that someone introduces recensions into original
texts which made them unreliable.
The strongest element in the Gandhian approach was the unity between the theory
and action. Even if in theory it was held that the difference between mental and
physical labour should be removed or at least narrowed, Gandhi took up spinning. If
nonviolence and truth were fundamental doctrines, he objectified these concepts by
launching on Satyagraha. If brotherhood was a universal principle, he formulated it
into action by serving the poorest of the poor. If equality and simplicity were laudable
principles as answer to poverty, he adopted the loin cloth. We do not have to repeat
the same practices today. What we need to appreciate is how Gandhi not only
brought precepts and practice close to one another but also showed that without right
action there is no right precept. The cynicism and intellectual pessimism of the
20th century reveal helplessness in action even when principles and precepts seem
quite clear. Gandhi provided a revolutionary synthesis between word and act.
This revolution was extraordinary and incomparable. Now that there is large scale
return to religion in both capitalist and communist countries, which is an expression of
human agony and alienation, the Gandhian transformation of religious beliefs into a
set of ethics, has become more relevant, if religion is not to develop once again into a
force for reaction and terrorism. Return to religion in the communist countries seems
largely to be a reaction to the absence of a moral political order, and in the capitalist
countries either to vulgar consumerism or to the perpetuation of poverty.
Briefly, Gandhi treats science, society and religion as one common problem. Over
centuries the distance of each from the other two has widened, leading to many
reductionist theories and philosophies about each of them. In practice, man and
society have been disintegrating because of the growing distance between these three

subjects which not only influence mans understanding and experience but also his
response to pressing compulsions.
Gandhis response was that one cannot separate these three subjects. Only a veil
seemed to separate them which is being pulled down now. As Hardy put it, matter is
but one mask or many worn by the Great Face Behind. The common factor among
all these was the evolution and the search for truth. Science provided tremendous
power over natural processes and discovered one kind of truth. Mans relations with
his fellow being was another way of discovering truth, while his search for divinity in
himself would, by removing the fear of God himself provide the third way of searching
the truth.
By defining Truth as God, Gandhi in effect put God and Science in the same box.
Religion could not be thrown out precisely because materialism and materialistic
philosophies have failed to answer questions relating to mans values and spiritual
quest. Gandhi, addressing himself to this dialectics in man, reduced all religions to
their common concern, namely, man and his value-system. This, as it turned out,
was remarkable the same in the case of all religions, when shorn of dogma and
ritual. I am, therefore, tempted to prophesy that, some time in the coming future,
Gandhis approach will prevail and find universal acceptance because it alone seems
to resolve the dichotomy between religion as an expression of mans helplessness and
irrationalism and religion as reflective of mans unceasing quest for values and for a
spiritual dimension.
However, Gandhi was not alone in this search. Today there is an identifiable
movement among scientists and believers in religions aimed at such an integrated
approach. Since they are still locked in their reductionist bunkers, they have not yet
been able to provide as complete an answer to the human problem of the present as
Gandhi had done as a practical idealist.
I would define a practical idealist as one, who while believing in the spiritual
foundations of the universe, also accepts it material base. For such a man the world
is not static, but is continuously evolving towards some definite end. Human life
manifests that evolution and that purpose and Gandhi, therefore, focused attention on
human problems both material and spiritual. God, cosmic consciousness or any other
word, or phrase, which the idealist might like to use, were not rejected per se by him
but were rejected as deterministic concepts. He, therefore, challenged all idealistic
philosophies because he rejected idealistic determinism. And where do you find the
seat of authority, Gandhi was asked, to which he replied, It lies here, pointing to his
breast. I cannot let a scriptural text supersede my reason.I cannot surrender my

reason whilst I subscribe to divine revelation. And above all, the letter killeth and the
spirit giveth life.10
By emphasizing judgement, consciousness and reason, Gandhi challenged all
approaches or philosophies which subject man to determinism, whether these saw
man as a victim of large social and productive forces, or of his unconscious self or as
the creation of a Supreme Being. Therefore Gandhi rejected Marx, as he rejected
Freud for whom man, dominated by his unconscious motivation, remains unaware of
his goals, and that part of religion which suggests that everything is predetermined,
leaving man little choice. Gandhi fought against all these determinisms, because he
believed that Marxism, Freudianism or Religion that denied man freedom and divinity
were themselves the source of those problems for which they were meant to be
solutions.
While reason, the rational outlook and the scientific method have been powerful
forces in fighting against superstition, blind faith and all other forms of mental
slavery, they have not been able to explain the entire reality of man, life and society.
So, even as Gandhi called for a rejection of those views that did not appeal to reason,
he also pointed out the limitations of rationalism, which by itself is incapable of fully
comprehending truth and the internal structure about human essence and hence
incapable of producing durable human values.
A new version of the positivistic value system is reflected in what is now called the
End of Ideology. Western scholars of this school such as Lispett, Shils and Bell, on
the one hand, and the doctrinaire of Marxists, on the other, ironically serve the same
social purpose, namely, both uphold the interests of the ruling elite in their respective
societies by freeing them from all moral constraints and from having a consistent
value-system. Gandhi challenged both these views of ideology and opposed the rival
claims of the neutrality of absoluteness of ideology. What ought to be pervades the
whole of Gandhis works.
A crucial value difference between Marx and Gandhi was over human essence. Marx,
following Feuerbach, for whom human essence was an abstraction inherent in each
individual, resolved religion into human essence. For Marx, it is the ensemble of the
social relations. Marx gave up the whole question of human essence after her wrote
his Thesis on Feuerbach, and therefore thus excluded from his writings the role and
problem of human consciousness and fell into the trap of class or economic
determinism. Sartre argued that the alienation of Marxism attributed to class
antagonism was the consequence of human consciousness. Gandhi did the opposite:
he resolved human essence first into religion, as historically given to us by all
religions. Then he transmuted the process. He resolved religion into a set of ethical

principles and finally into human essence. This human essence, being dynamic and
not static as in Marx and other philosophies developed into a higher level of human
consciousness, namely, a vastly expanded and deepened spiritual field.
To Marx and t all philosophers of materialism, human consciousness was little more
than what differentiated man from animals, that mans own life is an object for him,
because he is a conscious being. The human consciousness was expressed in the
productive and communal being of man. This constitutes the epistemological
foundation of Marxs concept of human nature. But as Marx moved from philosophy
to science or to the production system, the questions of human consciousness and
alienation and, therefore, of value judgements got relegated to the background.
History becomes not a struggle for values but a succession of modes of production.
Similarly, Marx was not able to explain contradictions at the level of ideas, intuitions
and innate knowledge. Thus subjective will is not capable of producing a value
system. Gandhis answer to social determinism was to assert the autonomy of the
individual will. That is why Gandhi made the concept of Swaraj as a process of
attaining freedom, self-rule and self-purification. Gandhis insistence on man listening
to his inner voice was a warning against his falling prey to the possible hoax played
on him by proliferating gurudoms of which we see a lot in India today as well as
against pragmatic nihilism.
Marxism in practice has turned out to be a mixture of confused utopia and deadly
pragmatism. That is what makes it so attractive and particularly appealing to those
who look for an uncomplicated mixture. There are, however, serious contradictions
between the Marxist utopia and pragmatism and the dominant Marxist response is to
deny the utopian characteristics of Marxism. Even more, these contradictions make it
bereft of any inherent value system. Materialistic philosophy and its best philosophic
expression, atheistic humanism, cannot be embedded in or produce a value system.
Many people have called Gandhi a Humanist. This is both right and wrong. Gandhi
would subscribe to some aspects of Humanism and reject others. Like Humanists,
Gandhi would put man into the centre of the intellectual universe, giving all science
and literature a reference to human loyalty and its purposes. Humanism as relativism
would also be consistent with Gandhi in so much as it holds that truth and reality,
which are attainable, are sufficient for man. Gandhi would also agree with the
centrist Humanist doctrine that truths are useful and should be related to human
purposes. And, finally, Gandhi would subscribe to the Humanist view that claims to
infallibility are wrong and, therefore, human relations should be characterized by
tolerance and the absence of coercion.

Gandhis thought, though it encompasses aspects of Humanism, goes beyond it since

Humanism has no philosophical foundations, nor an agreed ontology or epistemology.
It has no ethical or moral stages through which man moves from lower level of
consciousness to higher ones. Humanism as a theory of knowledge is, therefore,
extremely restricted.The cul-de-sac into which the pure humanists, positivists and
rationalists from David Hume t Bertrand Russell have landed themselves, has reduced
all materialistic philosophers to some kind of speculative atheism, because despite
increasing knowledge of the universe, there is still no proof that matter alone is
eternal. The real danger, however, is not this, but the possible destruction of a frame
of reference from which values can be derived.
According to Hedonistic values, which is another system, pleasure is and should be
the sole end of human mind or conduct. Philosophers like Hobbs and Bentham were
the greatest proponents of this theory. To some extent, even the Christians believe
that private happiness is our motive and the will of God our rule. Hedonism has
provided the doctrinal basis of individualism since the days of Bentham and
corresponds to the economic principles of Adam Smith. It implied multiplication of
means, wants and opportunities of pleasures for the individual and, at best, gives only
some value to some social and altruistic purposes. Gandhi totally rejected Hedonistic
premises because they destroyed every other value concept except that of personal
pleasure. Gandhi made a sharp distinction between bliss, happiness and pleasure.
Those who believe in the scientific method alone as the right approach to
epistemology and rule out every other activity are also caught in a dilemma which the
scientific approach cannot resolve. The dilemma is this: either a scientific method
must have no value framework or, if it has a value framework, it must go beyond the
scientific method itself. The application of scientific method to social sciences, in
particular, suffers from the inherent weakness that social variables inevitably have
implicit value judgements.
Einstein, the greatest scientist of this century, stressed upon the need to go beyond
science. He said bout his Quantum Theory that the inner voice tells me that it is not
yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to
the secret of the old one. I, at any rate, am convinced that God does not throw
dice.
Let me now sum up the Gandhian value framework. This framework is based on a
distinct philosophy as explained through a set of concepts, all of which have specific
characteristics. This philosophy and these concepts led Gandhi to arrive at certain
values. The most significant, but the most difficult, aspect of the Gandhian approach
is the evolutionary character of concepts which tends to blur the distinction between

concepts and values. The Gandhian philosophy which reduced God to Truth gives
Truth a value. The same is true of nonviolence. So nonviolence and Truth do not
merely stand in the relationship of means to ends, but merge with and transform
dialectically into one another. Thus nonviolence is Truth and Truth is nonviolence,
both thus becoming values as well. So Truth, the interchangeability of Ends and
Means, Nonviolence and Satyagraha are fundamental Gandhian values which
simultaneously embody method, thus establishing the unity of theory and action. In
addition to these core values, there are three other basic Gandhian concepts, namely,
Swadeshi, Bread-Labour and Equality. Given the Gandhian unity of theory and action,
these concepts are also core Gandhian values. These are six fundamental conceptscum-values or value concepts which constitute the core of Gandhis philosophy and of
his praxis.
It was this value system that Gandhi offered in refutation of the tragic vision of man
and the world which most religious and positivist philosophers had ended up by
propounding. A tragic vision of the world is one in which neither God nor a functional
equivalent for God is present or, if such a force is present, man still is neither free not
anything more than his own nothingness. Only hedonists claim some optimism but
they do so by reducing man to the level of the animal species. In the Gandhian
framework, neither is necessary. For Lukas and Satre, two different kinds of Marxists,
the tragic vision for aesthetics, Gandhi however, replaced the tragic vision of man by
the concept of love which could also provide a positive basis for aesthetics as much
for life.
Gandhis principal aim was to place man at the centre of all schemes of things, all
values, all actions, and all philosophies. But when we say that Gandhi placed man at
the centre of things, what do we mean by it? It is obviously presumptuous to say
that other philosophers were oblivious of the central importance of man. However, if
we consider the two great clusters of philosophies, the Idealist and the Materialistic
schools, both unhesitatingly give something else and not man the central place. The
Idealists give centrality to the Indeterminate Spirit, to God or to Nature, the
Materialists give it to Matter. In the context of these philosophies, when man is
introduced, he logically can occupy only a secondary or instrumental position. For
Gandhi, life and history had no purpose beyond what human beings put into them.
One must ask as to how two such sharply opposing philosophies could arrive at the
same position. The answer lies perhaps in that both have their foundations in an
abstraction, be it Idea or Matter. For both man exists, but only as an extension of an
Idea or as the product of material evolution, but without autonomous identity. It is
this lost autonomy that Gandhi restored to man. Perhaps, the most unfailing test of

the validity of any philosophy lies in its view of the autonomy of man and his freedom,
including economic freedom, over all other forces.
For Gandhi the centrality of man permeated the entire canvas leading form ontology
to human concern with the most ordinary needs or of the deepest intellectual and
spiritual striving. Gandhi placed man at the centre by asserting the will of the man
as well as his moral responsibility. If the will of the man prevails, then what happens
to values? Does will determine them? The answer is NO. It is mans total
experience, his awareness of moral responsibility and service of others that have
produced values. Mans will is only guarantee as well as the power through which
these values can be made manifest in his behaviour. It is, therefore, the incarnation
of human freedom and autonomy as Gandhi understood them.
At the centre of Marxism and other materialistic theories lies human labour as a
productive unit. Gandhi went one step ahead to glorify labour. Gandhis man,
however, was more than just a mental or physical machine. The man that Gandhi
brought into the centre of things as a loving man, making Labour and Love the two
irreducible conditions which ensure that man will remain at the centre of things. In
the Gandhian scheme of things, love and cooperation without labour is only sheer
romanticism while labour without love cannot but lead to new forms of exploitation
and greed. The Gandhian insistence on Bread labour is an expression both of mans
responsibility to labour for his own basic needs and to cooperate with his fellow men.
Given the unity of theory and action that is characteristic of Gandhi, bread-labour is
both an essential principle of Gandhian economics and an essential part of his moral
philosophy.
This was the lesson of the third chapter of the Gita as Gandhi reinterpreted it. If
Gandhi illustrated his views by referring to ancient Indian societies, it was not, as is
often said, because he wanted to return to primitive paradise or premodality. These
illustrations were used both to establish new Indian identity and to highlight what
Marx called the exalted character of the ancient conception of man as a producer
instead of the modern conception of man as an economic being whose aim is to
produce or own wealth.11 By emphasizing that exalted character and its moral
dimensions, Gandhi has emerged as a global man and his values as global values.
But he also remained firmly grounded in his own soil and was one with is own people.
He addressed himself, particularly to the Indian elite, who suffered under the burden
of a bitter inferiority in relation to the west and superiority in relation to their own
masses. Metaphorically speaking, he once said that for purposes of the economy,
the village was his world and for purposes of culture the world was his village. The
term village implied not an entity, but a set of values.