Gandhi

The best expose on MK gandhi .& a deep look into global politics. Vegetarianism , radical green environmentalism = agenda of the globalists to make the people weak & take over the world /natural resources. Gandhi was an occultist theosophist freemason. His London diary is missing but 20 pages. he described his initiation into 3 rd degree freemasonry but in coded language. he supposedly wrote so much. but he forgets to mention the role of freemasonry , rothschilds , the role of secret socities. he propagated/ promoted feminine ideologies. passive resistence , nonviolence. but he never practised them. When his masters wanted he was more than willing to kill the innocents. he was a hardcore racist and never hid it. he allied himself openly with all the top racist fascist brital dictators and he praised them openly. salt is the child of sun and sea or fire and water and in occult esoteric lore its feminine. that must be the reason why he had salt satyagraha. he was a complete british agent , a trained mason. who talked through both sides of his mouth and the ignorant people believed him blindly. as always .

This is the PDF-PowerPoint I used for the lecture held together with Mag.a Kathrin Bouvot on Saturday, 25 September 2021 at the International Webinar Series Spirituality, “Satyagraha and Pragmatism: New Dimensions in Gandhian Philosophy”, jointly organised by Mahatma Gandhi Center for Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies Lady Keane College, Shillong, Meghalaya, India & North East Institute of Social Sciences and Research, Dimapur, Nagaland, India. & Peace Channel, Dimapur, Nagaland, India & St. Xavier College, Jalukie, Nagaland, India. The title of the lecture was: “Gandhi's interpretation of Atman: Awakening, Enlightenment, Transcendence”.

Dr. E Stanley Jones through his Kingdom of God perspective had a lasting impact on racism both in India and North America.  Through his formation in India of the Christian Ashram movement in 1930 and transplanting it worldwide, Jones modeled a christian community in which divisions of class and cash had no place.  His book on his good friend Gandhi was instrumental in encouraging Martin Luther King Jr in the formation of the nonviolent civil rights movement.

(NB: The once uploaded article has been removed. It is now part of a book: 'GANDHI AND THE POPES' (Peter Lang Publishers, 2015).  The original version is still available in 'Gandhi Marg' 33/3.
SYNOPSIS: Eighty years ago, Gandhi visited Rome with a desire to meet the Pope. Unfortunately, Pius XI was unable to grant him an audience and Gandhi was invited to visit the Vatican Museums instead. Press reports blamed the Vatican’s strict adherence to a formal dress code. This article is an attempt to investigate further. It throws light on the combination of circumstances that were unfavourable to the encounter. In the course of his research, however, the author stumbles upon a plot that may have reduced both Gandhi and the Pope to pawns in an insidious game-plan of political one-upmanship – with dire consequences for India’s march towards independence.

Mohandas Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 to Hindu parents in Western India. In India, the people are divided into five castes:  Brahmin (priests), Kshatriya (warriors), Vaisya (merchants), Sudra (artisans), and the Untouchables. Mohandas’s family belonged to the caste of Merchants. His father was the town’s diwan. His father’s employment was similar to a town judge that would settle problems between the citizens. Mohanda’s spiritual education actually began at home observing his mother praying before each meal, visiting the temple every day, and fasting during holy times. His marriage to Kasturbai Makanji was arranged when they were both 13 years of age. Mohandas often tried to command Kasturbai, but she resisted him. He learned how effective this quiet resisting was and used it later against the British.
At the age of 18, Mohandas decided to leave his family to study law in London. The government officials in Bombay informed him that if he traveled abroad, he would ruin his standing as a Hindu. Mohandas knew that he would become an outcast for leaving, but he was determined to go. Before leaving, he promised his mother that he would stay away from meat, alcohol, and women. He kept his promise.

Abstract: Henry David Thoreau (Concord-Massachusetts, U.S.A. 1817-1862) is one of the main American writers of the 19th century. His works include Walden or Life in the Woods (1854) - a true manifest of ecological concern - and the influential essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849), where he develops the concept of civil disobedience to unjust laws and political regimes. This statement has to do, in particular, with his radical opposition to slavery and to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The present paper corresponds to the forth chapter of the doctoral thesis in Philosophy, entitled “Desobediencia civil y esclavitud en Henry David Thoreau”. This work was published in 2003 by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome) and by Los Hemisferios University (Quito, Ecuador) in 2009. This Ph.D. research presents an all-inclusive overview of Thoreau´s thinking in his main writings. The chapter we are dealing with intends to determine Thoreau’s impact on the adoption and application of the concept of civil disobedience in the politics of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Resumen: Henry David Thoreau (Concord-Massachusetts, EE.UU. 1817-1862) es una de las figuras preeminentes del pensamiento norteamericano del siglo XIX. Entre sus obras principales destacan Walden or Life in the Woods (1854) - auténtico manifiesto precursor del ecologismo contemporáneo - y el célebre ensayo On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849), en el que defiende la tesis de la desobediencia civil a los regímenes y leyes injustos, particularmente con ocasión del fenómeno de la esclavitud y de la Guerra de los EE.UU. contra México (1846-1848). El presente artículo corresponde al capítulo cuarto de la tesis doctoral en Filosofía titulada “Desobediencia civil y esclavitud en Henry David Thoreau: proyecciones de una filosofía política”, trabajo de investigación publicado por la Pontifica Universidad de la Santa Cruz, de Roma, en el año 2003 y por la Universidad de Los Hemisferios, de Quito, en 2009. La obra aborda la cosmovisión de Thoreau, recogiendo sus principales fuentes en lengua inglesa - muchas de ellas traducidas por el autor al castellano -, para delinear en el capítulo en cuestión el claro influjo del autor norteamericano en la adopción y aplicación del concepto de desobediencia civil por parte del Mahatma Gandhi y de Martin Luther King, Jr.

This paper explores the psychological dynamics of satyagraha, by focusing on the three-day fast by Mohandas Gandhi in September 1946 in Calcutta, meant to bring peace to the Hindu-Muslim violence that engulfed the city.

It asks three questions:

- What is the relationship between you and me in a situation of physical and psychological violence?

- What is the nature of this relationship in a non-violent relationship?

- How does violence make way for non-violence?

The paper invites the reader to experience the events vicariously, and ask these questions to herself, and find her own answers.

PDF-Powerpoint of my exposition for the Preparatory session of the Creative Dialogues Series, Monday 10 January 2022 19-20h CET. The session can be watched at the address:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/y-bPczaJe3_OtkVa-ls2LrcsOvii3mAouMs_LJquzbzy_422YjaqxLthdf0aEXoa.rvY0NUkoY0TK6WRs
Passcode: l?*260^*

This essay surveys some recent attempts to decolonize political theory and engage with non-western political thinkers and traditions, especially anticolonialism. Our concern is that these engagements remain too centered on western political thought as the object of critique and analysis. Through the example of Gandhi and Fanon, we argue that anticolonialism, while engaged in a critique of the west, also had a positive or reconstructive theoretical agenda, one that has been taken up in creative ways in postcolonial political thought. Taking cues from the work of Sudipta Kaviraj, Partha Chatterjee, and Mahmood Mamdani, the essay proposes an alternative mode of decolonizing political theory that takes as its central aim the generation of theory from a study of postcolonial politics. It argues for a historically attuned and comparative approach to postcolonial politics that aims to innovate new concepts and reanimate inherited ones. From this perspective, decolonizing political theory is less a recurring critique of Eurocentrism than an effort to shift the terrain of theorizing and thereby reinvigorate the practice of political theory as such.

This essay critically reviews Jan-Werner Müller’s What is Populism and its application in the Indian debate to show the efficacy and limits of his exposition. It focuses on three points: elision of subjectivity of those who are targets of populism, neglect of religion as a key factor in populist mobilizations, and the near desertion of International Relations in accounting for populism. These points are discussed by drawing, inter alia, on contemporary Indian populism, especially related to pluralism, a concept that Müller insightfully foregrounds as central to populism. It is hoped that a political-anthropological approach to populism will enrich its theoretical understanding beyond disciplinary and spatial grooves.

ON A WEDNESDAY EVENING in July 1967, two white police officers dragged a black man, John William Smith, into their precinct building in the city of Newark. Smith, a taxi driver, had just been arrested, for the alleged crime of improperly passing the officers’ car, and had been beaten so brutally that he could not walk. Residents of a housing project saw him dragged in, and a rumour set off: the cops had killed another black man. A crowd formed, and resorted to attacking the precinct building. For five days, violence tore through the city, with a toll of over two dozen lives. Some called it rioting—others a rebellion.

This second of the two articles on the Swadeshi Movement published earlier in 'Gandhi Marg' brings into relief its symbolic impact with the help of a few theories from the vast field of nonverbal communication. As a result, Gandhi’s rare ability to invest clothing-related objects and events with extraordinary socio-political significance is amply demonstrated.

In December 1931, Mahatma Gandhi visited Rome with a desire to meet the Pope. It was Mussolini, however, who was eager to meet him. Could 'Il Duce' have seized the opportunity to boost his own image and to further his own devices? Whatever his intentions, history bears testimony to the adverse effects of that ten-minute encounter - for Gandhi and for India's march to freedom. In this paper the author reconstructs the intriguing turn of events based on the writings of the key persons involved, especially the diaries of Romain Rolland, Mahadev Desai and Gandhi himself.

This essay interrogates the role of the charkha (spinning wheel) in M. K. Gandhi’s thought. It argues that spinning deserves to be recognized as belonging in the realm of other high concepts and practices such as non-violence, that have garnered much more academic attention. The article explores the centrality of the charkha to Gandhi’s ideology emphasizing underappreciated facets such as its physical, moral, and spiritual effects. Finally, it argues that the versatility of the spinning wheel to Gandhi offers insights into how he conceived of and negotiated the relationship between means and ends in his philosophy.

Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of trusteeship is a pragmatic model of development that aims to attain economic equality in society. This idea is an alternative to communism and capitalism and is based on nonviolence and inclusivity.  Trusteeship seeks to resolve the conflict between labour and capital by emphasizing on equitable distribution of work and wages, giving equal importance to manual and mental labour, promoting people to labour for their own bread, creating a society in which all the people are entitled only to as much wealth as required to satisfy their needs and have time for leisure. Trusteeship replaces competition with cooperation by promoting wealthy people to voluntarily abdicate their wealth for the underprivileged. It aims to transform self-interested individuals to work for group-interest. This idea is relevant for the present times when inequality is widening the gap between rich and poor, and weakening the prospects of inclusive development. Trusteeship is a workable solution that can ensure sustainable progress in contemporary times.

In spite of his other preoccupations-political, social, economic, and religious; Mahatma Gandhi's interest in education had always been profound and abiding. Gandhiji's philosophy of education was not the upshot of any study of modern or ancient educational movements in India or elsewhere. This educational theory is 'original', 'new' and 'epoch making. It evolved out of his wide and long experiences of the political, social and economic life of his country. Therefore it was apposite for his motherland. Gandhi realized that at an early age education was therapy for all the ills and evils with which contemporary India had been afflicted. This paper aims to understand and review Gandhian principle of basic education though the writing of Gandhi himself. His several books on education help this essay to review and assess the significance of his ideas of basic education from a historical perspective, which not only changed the educational system of India, but ushered in a social revolution.

Mahatma Gandhi, an arresting and appealing figure, whose appearance adds to his politics and ideology, was iconised long before his martyrdom. This article on the official and popular iconography of Gandhi explores which visualisations of Gandhi have lived on, why they came to be imagined and constructed, and their roots in traditional and modern Indic iconology. Select works of modern and contemporary artists
such as Nand Lal Bose, Ram Sutar, M F Husain and Atul Dodiya are examined to reveal the evolution of Gandhian iconography through its dialogue with concepts of power, nationalism, dharma, sainthood and renunciation.

'Exercises in Peace Education' (2018) is a resource manual consisting of a series of lesson plans for educators of South Asia for promoting peace and nonviolence among young people from ages 5 to 17. Through experiential and participatory learning, they are encouraged to develop their knowledge, attitudes and skills in order to become peace-filled persons and proactive peacebuilders. The lessons raise awareness, provoke thinking, challenge stereotypes, point to solutions and incite to action. To be relevant to all South Asians without distinction, an attempt has been made to sustain a multi-ethnic, pluri-cultural and inter-religious viewpoint.

A total demolition of the casteist frame – the practice as well as the mindset – is the first step in the emancipation of Indian society towards the ideal democratic State. Dr. Ambedkar’s vehement call for annihilation of caste, to the extent of rejecting all Hindu scriptures that advocate it, is an apt diagnosis of the root cause behind inherent inequalities plaguing Indian society. Yet Ambedkar’s resolutions are merely the starting point in a journey towards ideal social order. This essay advocates a layered integration of Ambedkar’s philosophy with the Gandhian model of social consciousness along with an emphasis on universal education in order to establish an equitable and just society.

“I have no quarrel with Gandhi the man but I have problem with the Mahatma of his,” he said and as if to remonstrate his apathy for the Gandhian values, he had an extended sip of that Laphroaic.
“I’m no Gandhian and I don’t intend to be one,” he continued from where he had left. “But as is being done, I see it’s a disservice to his legacy to deify him; it’s when I approach him as man that I value him as a human being, but in his picture of mahatma, I see many a wart in his atma.

"Won't it remind one of Gandhi's experiments with truth?" "I have no quarrel with Gandhi the man but I have problem with the Mahatma of his," he said and as if to remonstrate his apathy for the Gandhian values, he had an extended sip of that Laphroaic. "I'm no Gandhian and I don't intend to be one," he continued from where he had left. "But as is being done, I see it's a disservice to his legacy to deify him; it's when I approach him as man that I value him as a human being, but in his picture of mahatma, I see many a wart in his atma. Credit him for cleaning up the public toilets but why not condemn him for having forced his spouse to do the same; why laud him for his quixotic abstinence unmindful of his wife's conjugal plight; was he not an inveterate autocrat in the democratic garb; what about his falling afoul of Prakasam, and how he played favorites with Nehru. Why bother about him as he'd been reduced for long as a political mascot of the slavish-minded of the self-serving Nehru family that hijacked his name to grind its dynastic axe! What an irony it is that his party that sundered the British yoke should have rendered the political reins into Italian hands? Bemoan the congress party."

The objective of this book is to analyse the discourses, representations, ritual practices and institutions of this community.  Two aspects of the conversion are to be distinguished: one, the attempt of the Mahar community to achieve social ascension and emancipation; and the other, a project of reform which addresses the indian society in its totality.

See also above in Articles section: Charles Correa: An Infinity of Traces (Illustrated) ArchitectureLive! , 2022

The chapter, commissioned during India's Golden Jubilee, reviews the contribution of Architect Charles Correa to nation-building, against the backdrop of 50 years of modern architecture in post-Independent India (1947-1997). Footnotes that went missing in the published piece have been reinstated as endnotes in this upload.

Some projects can be seen in the illustrated seed-essay "Style Maestro" below.

(Adjunct Professor H Masud Taj has conducted Asian Architecture seminars but is not "Professor, Asian Studies" p.65).

[ Translation subtitles in: Sp/En/Fr/It/De/Pt/Ca/Pl/中文/Nl/Hi/Eo/日本 ]
    Muchas religiones se han definido a sí mismas a base de un conjunto de verdades. Los tres monoteísmos abrahámicos lo han hecho así. Pero otras religiones han puesto menos énfasis en la importancia que han dado a «sus verdades constitutivas». La religión occidental cristiana, por hablar de la que nos es más conocido, se ha caracterizado por su gran componente intelectual, hasta extremos conocidamente exagerados, como castigar y ejecutar a quienes entre sus miembros no aceptaban alguna verdad oficial. Las ejecuciones llevadas a cabo por la Inquisición, las persecuciones por motivos doctrinales, son, lamentablemente, características del cristianismo. La cosa se explica con facilidad, por sus orígenes. Lo hemos dicho otras veces. El primer cristianismo sería el del Movimiento de Jesús, sucesor inmediato suyo. El siguiente ya fue el cristianismo que se formó en el mundo helénico, en el mundo de la diáspora judía, donde surgieron y prosperaron las primeras comunidades cristianas fuera de Israel, principalmente con el impulso de Pablo entre los «gentiles», es decir, los helenistas. Entre los muchos helenistas 'paganos', 'gentiles' que allí se adhirieron al cristianismo, hubo no pocos que eran cultos, bien formados, incluso «titulados» diríamos. Gente pensante, pensadora, filósofa, y escritora. Una vez «convertidos» al cristianismo, obviamente, pensaron y dialogaron su cultura con su nueva fe...

Abstract: - Great men are born to redeem the word and to improve the lot of fellow human beings and fulfill the aspirations of people who await them. They are capable of leaving the lasting impression on human mind, irrespective of their nationality, social status and religious affiliations and command the universal appeal. They leave their footprint on the sand of time to be closely followed by others. Mahatma Gandhi is one of them who is a gift to the humanity in modern times, belongs to the line of great men who continued to influence every aspect of human life. He has been rightly called as a prophet and a politician of the rarest kind and has been romanticized, mythologized but never properly conceptualized. Indian –English fiction is broadly divided into two – 1) pre- independence period and 2) post- independence period. The Indian novelists writing in English attempted to reflect the national concerns with remarkable fidelity and passion. The 1930’s witnessed a rich corpus of historical novels inspired from Gandhian ideology and cultural values. This research paper, here, aims at finding the influence of Gandhiji on Indian fiction writing in English particularly of pre independence period. It is also aimed to know how the influence runs over the literature, to what extend the Gandhian impact is found, to which area it is touched.
Keywords:- Indian–English fiction, ideology, cultural values, Gandhian influence, pre independence period, Gandhism, philosophy, nonviolence, truth.

Then Modi, on the anti-graft and the national security planks, arrived to wrest the decade-long power from her by busting her anti-national political gang at the hustings. Backed by the public mandate, he set out to do what he could do in his first term to reverse the ant-Hindu gear in the hostile eco-system hitherto nursed by the Nehruvian cliché. So, the sight of him unfurling the Indian tricolor from the ramparts of the Mogul built Red Fort in Maharaja’s headgear was an eyesore to the Muslim Indians though they got their Pakistan all for Islam. Maybe no blaming them for the avowed goal of Islam is to make the whole world Muslim, and any way they make no secret of it though the others, more so the Hindus, pay no heed to it that is despite the unerring sound of the Ghazwa-e-Hind call in their ears. Be that as it may, at the next outing, the limited Hindu pride that his persona and policy ensued enabled him to trump the sham secularists despite their wont to foster the minority vote on religious grounds and their penchant to fester the majority franchise on the caste lines. Needles to say, to his credit, he has been trying to accelerate the vehicle of change on the Indian secular road that, however, is too bumpy for its facilitation.

Narendra Modi who is chief minister of a state in India functioning as a constitutional authority under a democratic-secular constitution of India. However, he declares himself to be a 'Hindu Nationalist' trained by RSS and a practitioner of Hindutva politics. This is bizarre. In this open letter he is being reminded that it was a group of 'Hindu Nationalists' which assassinated MK Gandhi, regarded by many as Father of the Indian Nation. The RSS/Hindutva documents are quoted in this letter showing that they do not believe in a democratic-secular set-up. This group decries Indian National Flag, sympathises with Nazis/Fascists and wants India to be ruled by one ideology and one leader.They want to impose Code of Manu and make women and Dalits slaves. It is hoped that Modi will respond to the issues raised in this letter.
July 17, 2013.

"Khadi: Gandhi's Mega Symbol of Subversion" investigates the power of a symbol to qualitatively transform society by studying Mahatma Gandhi's use of clothing as a metaphor for unity, empowerment and liberation from imperial subjugation.

The book brings together historical evidence of Gandhi's search for a semiotics of attire in his quest for personal integrity and socio-political change. From a multidisciplinary perspective, it closely examines the 'subversion' underlying his sartorial communication.

The symbolic potential for change which khadi has, is therefore seen, not merely as 'revolution' or 'sedition', but as a sustained, well-organised strategy for achieving full independence or purna swaraj.

The author also discusses the complex challenges in Gandhi's highly polarized environment, such as the conflict between the British Empire and the Indian National Congress, Hindu-Muslim tensions, the urban-rural divide, and the question of untouchability.

Photographs, illustrations and an extensive appendix considerably add to the historical value of the study, making it useful for students and scholars in various fields of South Asian research." - Sage Publications

'Khadi: Mega Symbol...' is also translated into Hindi and Marathi by Sage-Bhasha, India.

Although mindfulness has gained the attention of the legal community, there are only a handful of scholarly law articles on mindfulness. The literature effectively documents the Mindfulness in Law movement, but there has been
minimal effort to situate the movement into the broader history of non-Western ideas in the legal academy and profession. Similarly, there has been little recent scholarship offering a critique of the American legal system through the insights of mindfulness. In this Article, I attempt to fill these
gaps by situating the Mindfulness in Law movement into the history of modern education’s western-dominated world-view. With this approach, I hope to unearth some of the deep challenges facing a mindful revolution in law that are yet to be widely discussed. In Part I, I introduce the current mindfulness
movement in American society. In Part II, I summarize the current Mindfulness in Law movement and the treatment of “Eastern” thought in modern education. I also describe the three levels of change discussed in academic literature: individual, interpersonal, and structural change. In Part
III, I discuss how Mohandas Gandhi exemplifies all three levels of change.  In Part IV, I offer critical appreciation of the Mindfulness in Law movement by highlighting Gandhi’s insights on structural reform. I conclude that a mindful application of Gandhi’s thought suggests that satyagraha be incorporated
into a constitutional framework, thus making legally protected
speech out of forms of public-state dialogue that are traditionally ‘extra-legal’ and used disproportionately by marginalized populations.

Although Gandhi is often taken to be an exemplary moral idealist in politics, this article seeks to demonstrate that Gandhian nonviolence is premised on a form of political realism, specifically a contextual, consequentialist, and moral-psychological analysis of a political world understood to be marked by inherent tendencies toward conflict, domination, and violence. By treating nonviolence as the essential analog and correlative response to a realist theory of politics, one can better register the novelty of satyagraha(nonviolent action) as a practical orientation in politics as opposed to a moral proposition, ethical stance, or standard of judgment. The singularity of satyagraha lays in its self-limiting character as a form of political action that seeks to constrain the negative consequences of politics while working toward progressive social and political reform. Gandhian nonviolence thereby points toward a transformational realism that need not begin and end in conservatism, moral equivocation, or pure instrumentalism.