32. CWMG 25: 480.
33. CWMG 25: 424.
34. CWMG 37: 250–251.
35. CWMG 15: 244.
36. CWMG 21: 457.
37. CWMG 33: 247.
38. CWMG 19: 466.
39. CWMG 16: 409.
40. CWMG 46: 216.
Chapter 1
1. CWMG 29: 92.
2. CWMG 7: 43.
3. CWMG 7: 108.
4. CWMG 6: 336, 385. 7: 65, 73–74, 130, 453.
5. CWMG 5: 27, 50, 84, 111.
6. CWMG 5: 419–420.
7. CWMG 7: 67.
8. CWMG 39: 254–255.
9. Stephen N. Hay examines this point in depth: “Jain Influences on Gandhi’s Early Thought,” in Sibnaryan Ray, ed. Gandhi, India and the Word (Melbourne: The Hawthorn Press, 1970), pp. 29–37. Hay stresses Gandhi’s concern for the “Jain ideal of moksha” or liberation (34, 36).
10. CWMG 7: 455.
11. CWMG, 29: 92. Gandhi relates the result of this contest in his Autobiography: “As a result Maganlal Gandhi coined the word ‘Sadagraha’ (Sat-truth, Agraha-firmness) and won the prize. But in order to make it clearer I changed the word to ‘Satyagraha’.” CWMG, 39: 255.
12. B. R. Nanda, Mahatma Gandhi (Bombay: Allied, 1958), p. 121.
13. CWMG, 29: 27–28, 32–34.
14. Ibid., p. 60.
15. Ibid., p. 61.
16. CWMG 33: 165.
17. The chief influences on Gandhi’s thought during his South African experience, aside from the Sermon on the Mount and the Gita, came from Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You, Ruskin’s Unto This Last, and Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience. The two main personal influences were both Indian: Rajchandbhai, a Jain religious teacher, and G. K. Gokhale. Gandhi also read Vivekananda, and was sufficiently impressed to have tried (unsuccessfully) to see him while in Calcutta. The actual extent of any of these influences on Gandhi’s thought is difficult to determine for he gave to each a personal twist, using it as he saw fit.
18. Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule is published in various editions and appears in CWMG, 10: 6–68. It has inspired copious commentary. Among the most incisive analyses are: James D. Hunt, Gandhi in London (New Delhi: Promilla and Company, 1978), pp. 15 5–172. Hunt calls it “the most imaginative, intense and idiosyncratic” of Gandhi’s writings. From another perspective, Erik Erikson, Gandhis Truth (New York: Norton, 1969), pp. 217–226 says “that the whole imagery evoked here harbors a fantasy of the kind which usually breaks through in a dream, and one wonders whether the sea-voyage did create a special state of consciousness in the writer.” P. van den Dungen, Essays on Gandhian Politics R. Kumar, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) examines the decisive nature of the 1905 to 1909 period in Gandhi’s intellectual development and asserts that the ideas in Hind Swaraj represent “the culmination of four and a half years of thought” that marked the basis of his revolutionary attitude toward the British empire and his willingness to use satyagraha (pp. 54–63). Partha Chatterjee presents an original analysis of Hind Swaraj in Nationalist Thought in the Colonial World, London, Zed Books, 1986. He argues that Gandhi saw “the source of modern imperialism” in its “system of social production,” and “spirit of ruthless competitiveness.” This was “the most crucial theoretical foundation of his entire strategy of winning swaraj for India.” (p. 87) A wide range of critical commentary by western writers on Hind Swaraj was published by The Aryan Path 9 (9) (September 1938): 421–456. For example, Claude Haughton wrote: “We must take responsibility for ourselves. There are no short cuts—there are no scapegoats. If we find ourselves in chains, we have forged them—link by link. And we must break them—link by link.” (p. 449) Another author, Hugh I. A. Fausset called the book “a revolutionary message,” “one of the best modern handbooks of that real revolution which must happen in us all, if we are to fulfill the creative purpose of life.” (p. 446) The most extensive analysis of Hind Swaraj is by Pyarelal and Sushila Nayar, Mahatma Gandhi (Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1965–1989) 4 Volumes. The last of these volumes analyzes Hind Swaraj, pp. 489–516. It emphasizes how this tract signified a radical change in his thinking. It also presents a summary of some of the critical commentary that followed its publication.
19. CWMG 19: 277.
20. CWMG 6: 269.
21. This sentence from Thoreau which Gandhi noted is found in Civil Disobedience: J. W. Krutch ed. Walden and Other Writings (New York: Bantam, 1989), p. 97. It is representative of Thoreau’s insight into the meaning of freedom. Its similarity to Gandhi’s concept of freedom forms part of a nexus of ideas that they share: perceptions of truth, the authority of the State, and, of course, civil disobedience. Louis Fischer, in his classic biography of Gandhi, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Collier Books, 1966), p. 93, quotes the sentence cited above from Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and says that “Gandhi cherished this excerpt from Thoreau.” The theme of freedom and this particular passage from Civil Disobedience in terms of its influence on Gandhi is also discussed by the Thoreau scholar George Hendrick, who asserts that Gandhi’s acceptance of the idea that “the soul was left free,” despite imprisonment, signified “Gandhi’s transformation from a respectable lawyer to a radical political leader.” (“The Influence of Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’ on Gandhi’s Satyagraha,” in Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience Owen Thomas ed., [New York: Norton, 1966], p. 370). Broader aspects of Thoreau’s appeal for Gandhi because of the former’s understanding of Hinduism are related in M. Yamumnacharya, “Thoreau and Indian Thought,” in Gandhi, His Relevance for Our Times, G. Ramachandran and T. K. Mahadevan, eds. (Bombay: Bharatiya Bhavan, 1964), pp. 344–353, and in Barbara Miller’s Afterword to her translation of The Bhagavad Gita (New York: Bantam, 1986), pp. 155–161, entitled “Why Did Henry David Thoreau Take the Bhagavad-Gita to Walden Pond?”
22. CWMG 75: 159.
23. Gandhi in D.G. Tendulkar, Mahatma, 1, Delhi, Government of India Publications Division, 1960, p. 100. Also CWMG 9: 182 and 10: 189.
24. Gandhi describes Hind Swaraj as “a faithful record of conversations I had with workers, one of whom was an avowed anarchist.” Hind Swaraj, Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1939, p. 18.
25. Ibid., p. 18.
26. CWMG 10: 8.
27. Ibid., p. 10.
28. Ibid., p. 11.
29. Ibid., p. 13.
30. Ibid., pp. 15–16.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., pp. 35–36.
33. Ibid., p. 20.
34. Ibid., pp. 36–38.
35. Ibid., p. 38.
36. CWMG 22: 18.
37. CWMG 25: 251.
38. CWMG 85: 33, 79.
39. CWMG 10: 37.
40. Ibid., p. 39.
41. CWMG 22: 500.
42. CWMG 25: 451.
43. CWMG 69: 356.
44. CWMG 73: 93–94.
45. CWMG 69: 356.
46. CWMG 73: 24.
47. CWMG 85: 351.
48. CWMG 64: 191–92.
49. CWMG 35: 294.
50. CWMG 10: 48.
51. Ibid., pp. 50–51.
52. Ibid., p. 43.
53. Ibid., pp. 46, 64.
54. CWMG 12: 461.
55. CWMG 14: 56.
56. Ibid., pp. 49–66.
57. Ibid., p. 60.
58. CWMG 13: 385–394, 435–440, 569–604; Judith Brown, Gandhi s Rise to Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 64–83
59. CWMG 39: 321–338; Tendulkar 1: 201.
60. Ibid., p. 338.
61. Ibid., p. 330.
62. CWMG 14: 64–65.
63. CWMG 32: 553.
Chapter 2
1. CWMG 22: 27.
2. Gandhi wrote in 1921, that Lord Reading, the Viceroy, “must know that sedition has become the creed of the Congress…. Non-cooperation, though a religious and strictly moral movement, deliberately aims at the overthrow of the Government.” CWMG 21: 222. Ranajit Guha argues that despite Gandhi’s self-proclai
med position of rebellion, he in fact remained attached to an “idiom of Obedience,” that is, he was a moderate and liberal to the end. The argument is representative of the particular interpretation of Gandhi as a representative of bourgeois interests that occurs consistently through the Subaltern Studies. See R. Guha, “Dominance Without Hegemony and its Historiography,” in R. Guha ed., Subaltern Studies 6 (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 253–256.
3. CWMG 23: 245.
4. Ibid., p. 246.
5. Leslie Caiman offers a perceptive analysis of the theory and practice of movement politics with a focus on India in her two books: Protest in Democratic India: Authoritys Response to Challenge, Colorado, Westview Press, 1985; and Toward Empowerment. Women and Politics in India, Westview Press, 1992.
6. CWMG 23: 271.
7. CWMG 23: 242.
8. Gopal Krishna, “The Development of the Indian National Congress as a Mass Organization, 1918–1923,” Journal of Asian Studies 25 (3) (May 1966): 419–430.
9. Judith Brown, Gandhis Rise to Power, pp. 322, 343–346.
10. Shahid Amin, “Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921–22,” Ranajit Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies II (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 38, 60, 19.
11. Ibid., Rajat Kama Ray also analyzes how “Gandhi’s charismatic approach” gave rise to a “millennial hope of Swaraj [that] stirred the lowest elements in Indian Society.” Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal: 1857–1927 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 307.
12. CWMG 63: 339.
13. CWMG 35: 456.
14. CWMG 35: 456.
15. CWMG 19: 80.
16. Gandhi, Harijan, July 27, 1947, p. 253; in Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase (Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1958), 2: 315.
17. CWMG 16: 484.
18. Akkodhena jine kodham. In the Dhammapada, trans. Narada Maha Tera (Calcutta: Maha Bodhi Society of India, 1952), p. 165.
19. Yeyatha mamprapadyamte tarns tathaiva bhajamy aham. In the Bhagavad Gita, (IV, 11) trans, by F. Edgerton (New York: Harper, 1964) p. 24.
20. CWMG 16: 490–491.
21. Or: “An eye for an eye”; “wickedness unto the wicked”
22. Or: “Do only that which is truthful”; “Truth even unto the wicked,” Ibid., pp. 490–491.
23. CWMG 20: 369.
24. Jawaharlal Nehru, Autobiography, Bombay, Allied Publishers, 1962, p. 76.
25. CWMG 19: 383–385.
26. CWMG 54: 416–417.
27. CWMG 19: 466.
28. CWMG. 16: 368–369.
29. Aurobindo Ghose, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance (Pondicherry, 1952), p. 36. Leonard Gordon has perceptively analyzed Ghose’s thought, including the doctrine of passive resistance, in Bengal: The Nationalist Movement 1836–1940 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), pp. 101–134.
30. Ibid., pp. 40–44.
31. Ibid., p. 46
32. Ibid., pp. 53–60.
33. Ibid., pp. 62–66.
34. Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph, Gandhi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 37–38, 60–62.
35. CWMG 14: 60–62.
36. CWMG 19: 166–167.
37. M.K. Gandhi, Harijan. AJournal of Applied Gandhism (New York: Garland pub. Inc.: 1973), XI: 251 (July 27, 1947). Gandhi’s admission here is startling. For another, slightly different version, see CWMG 88: 336–337.
38. CWMG 29: 166–67.
39. M. K. Gandhi, Delhi Diary (Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1948), pp. 56–57, and CWMG 89: 279.
40. Joan Bondurant. “Satyagraha vs. Duragraha,” in G. Ramachandra, ed. Gandhi. His Relevance for our Times (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1964), p. 70.
41. Ibid., p. 71.
42. Ibid., p. 71–72. See also Bondurant’s analysis of duragraha in Conquest of Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 42–45, 236–238; Raghavan N. Iyer, The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), has written a trenchant analysis of duragraha and satyagraha, especially pp. 310–323.
43. CWMG 21: 457.
44. CWMG 59:42.
45. Iyer, Moral and Political Thought, p. 181.
46. CWMG 59:401.
47. CWMG 84:47.
48. Ibid.
49. Iyer, Moral and Political Thought, pp. 195–96.
50. Ibid., p. 209. Iyer notes, “Ahimsa is intended and expected to convert rather than coerce the wrongdoer.” Ibid., p. 183.
51. Ibid., p. 215.
52. CWMG 21: 458.
53. B. R. Nanda, Mahatma Gandhi (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1966), p. 229.
54. CWMG 22: 143.
55. Nanda,Mahatma Gandhi, p. 230.
56. Tendulkar, Mahatma (Delhi: 1963) 2: 82.
57. CWMG 22: 418.
58. Ibid.
59. CWMG 47:246.
60. CWMG 50: 352.
61. CWMG 9: 180–181.
62. Gandhi as quoted in C. F. Andrews, Mahatma Gandhi s Ideas, London, Allen and Unwin, 1931, p. 123.
63. CWMG 13: 301–303.
64. The ideal social order was set forth, in ancient Indian thought, in the theory of varnashramadharma (often shortened by Gandhi to varnashrama or vamadharma). The system of the four varnas or social orders ensured, in theory, the harmonious interrelationship of four social functions: those of the brahman (spiritual authority and instruction), kshatriya (temporal power), vaishya (wealth), and sudra (labour). The working of society depended upon the political fulfillment by each of these varnas of its social role as prescribed by dharma or the sacred law. For a statement on the meaning of this theory see, especially, A.L. Basham, “Some Fundamental Ideas of Ancient India,” in C. H. Philips ed., Politics and Society in India (London: Allen and Unwin), 1963.
65. Gandhi also defended caste at this time in CWMG 19: 83–85, 174–176.
66. CWMG 15: 122–3.
67. Gandhi, Young India, January 5, 1921, in N. K. Bose ed., Selections from Gandhi (Ahmedabad, Navajivan, 1948), pp. 232–233.
68. CWMG 19: 83–84.
69. CWMG 21: 247.
70. CWMG 35: 519.
71. CWMG 19: 410–411.
72. CWMG 62: 291.
73. CWMG 34: 511–512.
74. CWMG 35: 2.
75. CWMG 55: 60.
76. CWMG 62: 121.
77. CWMG 84: 326.
78. CWMG 84: 389.
79. CWMG 64: 402.
80. CWMG 59: 65–66.
81. B. R. Nanda, Gandhi and His Critics (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 18–26.
82. CWMG 4: 430 and 6: 470.
83. CWMG 13: 232–233.
84. Jugatram, Dave. “Shri Ramjibhai Gopalji Badhia” in Vattavriksha, May 1972 (in Gujarati); and interview with Arjubhai Badhia, son of Ramjibhai, July 1975, Ahmedabad.
85. CWMG 24:227.
86. Ibid.
87. CWMG 19: 20.
88. CWMG 36: 153–154.
89. Congress Presidential Addresses, 1911–1934, 2nd series (Madras: G.A. Natesan, 1937) pp. 800–801.
90. Ibid., pp. 804–807.
91. CWMG 33: 147.
92. Tendulkar, Mahatma, 4: 2.
93. Harijan, February 10, 1946.
94. CWMG 57:147.
95. B. R. Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (Bombay: Thacker, 1946), pp. 270–271.
96. Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable (New Delhi: Orient, 1970), pp. 149–165.
97. CWMG 75: 149.
98. CWMG 25: 121–122.
99. Tendulkar, Mahatma, 5: 58.
100. CWMG 40, p. 118.
101. CWMG 24: 396.
102. C. R. Das, Freedom Through Disobedience, Presidential Address at 37th Indian National Congress (Madras: Arka, 1922), p. 40.
103. Bhagavan Das, Ancient versus Modern Scientific Socialism (Madras: Theosophical Pub. House, 1934) p. 135.
104. C. R. Das, Outline Scheme of Swaraj, National Convention Memoranda, No. 2 (Madras: Besant Press, 1923), p. 3.
105. Ibid., p. 4.
106. Ibid., p. 27.
107. CWMG 21: 308.
108. Tendulkar, Mahatma 6: 25.
109. CWMG 26: 538.
110. CWMG 28: 188.
111. CWMG 26: 538.
112. CWMG 39: 122.
113. Ibid., p. 401.
114. CWMG 26: 568.
Chapter 3
1. Nirad Chaudhuri, Thy Hand, Great Anarch! India 1921–1952. New York, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1987, p. 28.
2. B. R. Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, pp. 39, 308, 284, 295; and Gandhi and Gandhism, Jullundar, Punjab, Bheem Patrika Publications, 1970, pp. 3–23, 35–41, 119–145. Gandhi responded indirectly to Ambedkar in his Harijan column: “Let not Dr. Ambedkar’s just wrath deject the reformer, let it spur him to greater effort. For whilst it is true that the number of workers against untouchability has greatly increased, there can be no doubt that the number is yet too small to overtake the prejudice of ages.” CWMG 62: 65.
3. Churchill proclaimed this on February 23,1931, as his verdict on Gandhi during the latter’s talks with Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, following the salt satyagraha discussed in the next chapter. India. Speeches (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1931), pp. 94–95. Churchill’s criticism of Gandhi in public was relentlessly scathing. However, he wrote privately to Madeleine Slade, Gandhi’s English associate, “Although I am strongly opposed to Mr. Gandhi’s politics, I am a sincere admirer of the heroic efforts he is making to improve the position of the depressed classes [i.e., the untouchables] in India.” Churchill to Slade, September 21, 1934. Gandhi Papers. Gandhi Memorial Library and Museum, Rajghat, Delhi. (S.N. 9096).
4. Wavell: The Viceroys Journal, Penderel Moon, ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 353, 314, 185, 236, 413,439.
5. Edwin S. Montagu, An India Diary, ed., Venitra Montagu (London:Heinemann, 1930), p. 58.
6. Gokhale quoted in Tendulkar, Mahatma, 1: 112.
Mahatma Gandhi Page 35