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Gandhi's Contribution to Social Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

A. Appadorai
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Extract

Gandhi (1869–1948) is known primarily as the leader who led the national movement for the freedom of India from British rule; he also has an important place in social theory. “The only nonofficial figure,” says Louis Fischer, “comparable to Gandhi in his effect on man's mind is Karl Marx.” His Collected Works, including his speeches, writings, and letters, have appeared in thirty volumes with some forty more scheduled for publication. The more important of his writings from the point of view of social theory are found in two weekly journals which he edited, Young India (1919–32) and Harijan (1933–48); his social and political ideas can also be gleaned from Hind Swaraj (1908) or Indian Home Rule, The Story of My Experiments With Truth (2 vols. 1927, 1929), Delhi Diary (1948), and Satyagraha in South Africa (1950).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 1969 , pp. 312 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1969

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References

1 Fischer, Louis, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (London, 1951), p. 397Google Scholar.

2 The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Delhi, The Director of Publications Division, from 1958)Google Scholar.

3 Harijan continued to be published after Gandhi's death and is still in course of publication.

4 Young India, August 4, 1920, p. 5.

5 Harijan, March 25, 1939, p. 64.

6 Young India, November 13, 1924, p. 378.

7 Bose, , “Interview With Mahatma Gandhi,” Modern Review, 1935, p. 413Google Scholar.

8 Young India, August 6, 1925, p. 276.

9 Young India, July 12, 1931, p. 162.

10 Bose, , op. cit., p. 412Google Scholar.

11 Gandhi used the term sarvodaya, meaning the welfare of all.

12 Gandhi, Mahatma, Collected Works, VIII, 239–41Google Scholar.

13 John Ruskin, Unto This Last.

14 Young India, 1924–26, pp. 956–57.

15 Hind Swaraj, p. 106; Young India, July 17, 1924, pp. 236–37.

16 Kautilya, , Arthasastra, translated by Sastry, R. Shama (Bangalore, 1915)Google Scholar, Bk. VII.

17 Gandhi, M.K., From Yeravda Mandir (3rd edition: Ahmedabad, 1945)Google Scholar, Ch. III.

18 Young India, November 26, 1931, p. 368.

19 Harijan, June 25, 1938, pp. 161–62.

20 Ibid.

21 Harijan, May 27, 1939, p. 143.

22 Harijan, November 12, 1938, p. 328.

23 Harijan, May 27, 1939, p. 143.

24 Harijan, August 11, 1940, p. 244.

25 Harijan, May 27, 1939, p. 136.

26 Young India, November 5, 1931, p. 341.

27 Satya = truth + agraha = determination to reach.

28 Gandhi, M.K., Satyagraha in South Africa, p. 285Google Scholar.

29 Speeches and Writings of M.K. Gandhi (4th edition: Madras, 1933), pp. 417–20Google Scholar.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Gandhi, Mahatma, Collected Works, X, 129Google Scholar.

33 Young India, August 11, 1920, p. 3.

34 Gandhi, Mahatma, Collected Works, X, 129Google Scholar.

35 Young India, February 12, 1925, p. 60.

36 Young India, October 8, 1925, p. 346.

37 Harijan, December 10, 1938, p. 369.

38 Gandhi, M.K., An Autobiography (Ahmedabad, 1958), I, 99, 220–21Google Scholar.

39 Gandhi, M.K., An Autobiography, II, 106–08Google Scholar.

40 Young India, August 11, 1920, p. 3; my italics.

41 Harijan, May 27, 1939, p. 136.

42 Harijan, September 24, 1938, p. 266.

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46 See the author's essay on “Sarvodaya in Politics and Administration” in the Journal of the Administrative Sciences, Vol. XII, 88Google Scholar.