Gandhiji Philosophy

Notable Works
 An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth;

 The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
 Panchayati Raj
 Satyagraha in South Africa,
 Sarvodaya and
 Hind Swaraj
 He edited Young India which he later renamed as Harijan which remained his
mouthpiece.
Influence
Gandhiji was also influenced by many:

 Tolstoy (Gospels in Brief; What to Do, The Kingdom of God is Within You),
 Ruskin (Unto This Lost).
 Thoreau (Essoy on Civil Disobedierrce).
 Swami Vivekananda, Gokhale and Tilak
UNITY OF ENDS AND MEANS and Duty

 That the ends and means are related to each other is one of the basic tenets of
Gandhian philosophy. Gandhiji would not like to attain the noblest end if that was to
be achieved through impure means.
 For him, "Impure means result in impure end. One cannot; reach truth by
untruthfulness. Truthful conduct alone can reach Truth".
 Atmasakti and Duty: Inspired by the Gita, the ethical principle that he upheld was
atmasakti. One does not perform his duty expecting the fruit of his action and does it
for the sake of duty.
SATYA. SATYAGRAHA AND AHIMSA
Satya and Knowledge

 Truth or Satya, for Gandhiji, is God himself. He therefore changed the statement,
"God is Truth", later in his life into, "Truth is God" and suggested that it was one of
the fundamental discoveries of his life's experiments.
 He was convinced that knowledge alone" leads a person to the truth while ignorance
takes one away from the truth.
Satyagraha
 Satyagraha means urge for Satya, or truth,
 Satyagraha is not merely the insistence on truth; it is, in fact, holding on to truth
through ways which are moral and non-violent.
 It is not coercion but is persuasion.It is not the imposition of one's will over others,
but it is appealing to the reasoning of the opponent,
Attributes of Satyagraha
 It is a moral weapon and non-violent device and does not entertain ill feeling towards
the adversary,
 it does not weaken the opponent but strengthens him morally;
 it is a weapon of the brave and is constructive in its approach
Ahimsa
Truth, he firmly believed, can be attained only through non-violence.
In its positive sense, non-violence means love for others; in its negative sense, it seeks no
injury to others, both in words as well as deeds. Gandhiji talked of non-violence of different
people. There is the non-violence of the brave one has the force but he does not use it as a
principle; there is the non- violence of the weak one does not have faith in non-violence,
but he uses it for attaining his objectives, there is the nonviolence of the coward: it is not
non-violence, but impotency, more harmful than violence. For Gandhij, violence was a
better option than cowardice.
Given the enmeshing of means and ends, Gandhiji, often saw Love, Truth, God and Non-
violence as interchangeable terms.
SARVODAVA: THE RISE OF ALL
Gandhiji was critical of the path both capitalist and socialist economies had taken
Criticism of Capitalism Concentration of Wealth

 America is the most industrialised country in the world, and yet it has not banished
poverty and degradation as it concentrates power in the hands of the few who amass
fortunes at the expense of the many.
Criticism of Socialism: Deeply enmeshed in violence and focus on material progress and
no freedom
 While he looked at socialism positively, he felt that it was deeply enmeshed in
violence.
 Further, socialism has only one aim that is material progress.
 Under the other socialism, these is no individual freedom. You own nothing, not even
your body.
Against capitalism and socialism, Gandhi proposed the concept of Sarvodaya, which was
based on three basic principles:
1. that the good of the individual is contained in the good of all;
2 that the lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's, in as much as all have the
same right of earning their livelihood from their work;
3. that a life of labour, le, the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life
worth living
CONCEPT OF SWADESHI
 Swadeshi is that spirit in us which restricts us to use the services of our immediate
surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote". "Much of the deep poverty of
the masses, be felt, "is due to the ruinous departure from swadeshi in the
economic and industrial life. Swadeshi will not merely reinforce autonomous local
units; promote self-sufficiency but also build cooperative relations with others
with whom they need to associate.
 The concept of Swadeshi, for Gandhi, is encompassing in religion, it means to be

faithful to our ancestral religion; in politics, it means the use of indigenous
institutions; in economics, it emphasised on the use of things produced in the
immediate neighbourhood; one must prefer locally produced things even if they
are of relatively inferior quality or costly.
 It does not mean that one should hate foreign-made products. Gandhiji had a
place for foreign- made goods, especially medicines and life-saving drugs if they
are not produced in the country.
THEORY OF TRUSTEESHIP
 One of the most original contributions of Gandhiji in the area of economics is the
concept of trusteeship.
 To ensure that those who were rich did not use their property for selfish purposes or
to control others, he derived the term "Trusteeship".
Explaining the meaning underlying this term he said, 'Everything belonged to God and
was from God. Therefore, it was meant for His people as a whole, not for particular
individuals. When an individual had more than his proportionate portion he became
trustee of that portion for God's people'.
 Further:
o All humans are born equal and hence have a right to equal opportunity. This
means that all must have their basic needs fully satisfied.
o All humans, however, are not endowed with equal intellectual and physical
capacity. Some would have greater capacity to produce than others. Such
persons must treat themselves as trustees of the produce beyond their basic
needs.
o Violence and force as modes of distribution of produce have to be rejected.
EVILS OF INDUSTRIALISM
Gandhiji was against industrialisation on a mass scale because it leads to many insoluble
problems such as the exploitation of the villagers, urbanisation, environmental pollution
etc. He wanted manufacturing to be done in villages and by the villages. This would keep
the majority of the people of India fully employed;
He was not against machinery as such, he was against industrialism, I,e: Industrial and
mechanical mentality .
The efforts he made to promote Khadi were just a beginning of the movement he wanted to
launch to promote village industries in general. One must see Gandhiji's concept of basic
education (nai taleem) in relation to his movement for village industries.

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Notable Works

 An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth;

Gandhiji was also influenced by many:

UNITY OF ENDS AND MEANS and Duty

SATYA. SATYAGRAHA AND AHIMSA

Satya and Knowledge

Truth, he firmly believed, can be attained only through non-violence.

SARVODAVA: THE RISE OF ALL

Criticism of Capitalism Concentration of Wealth

 The concept of Swadeshi, for Gandhi, is encompassing in religion, it means to be

o Violence and force as modes of distribution of produce have to be rejected.

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