Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony and Postmodern Gandhi and Other Essays: Gandhi in the World and at Home

Extract

Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony. By Anthony J. Parel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 240p. $75.00.

Postmodern Gandhi and Other Essays: Gandhi in the World and at Home. By Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 272p. $45.00 cloth, $18.00 paper.

It is perhaps fitting that a political leader who chose to title his autobiography “The Story of My Experiments with Truth,” should himself be regarded today as an open text, one worthy of continuous reinterpretation as times change. Mohandas Gandhi was an unusual political leader in too many ways: in his emphasis on nonviolence and truth-force (Satyagraha) as instruments of political change during the decades dominated by world wars, genocide, and imperialism; in a relentless refusal to separate ethics from politics but possessed of an uncanny sense for the political jugular of his much stronger opponents; in the crafty use of emerging media to outflank the colonial regime alongside his ready sense of humor and quick repartee; in his ascetic lifestyle and sartorial tastes; and in the eclectic and truly universal range of philosophical and intellectual sources of his thought. He was an early critic of modern industrial civilization during the era of its hegemonic sway, and saw little point in independence if all it meant was Indians gaining sovereignty to do unto themselves what alien rule had been doing to them in the name of modernization.