Download Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) is no doubt the most well

Irwin 1
Renee Irwin
Lovern
Religion 2020
May 24, 2011
Gandhi, Who Was He?
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) is no doubt the most well-known modern Hindu. He
was not a theologian, but a profoundly devotional person, a knowledgeable and perceptive
spectator, articulate in his penmanship, and undoubtedly the most inspiring Indian of the 20th
Century (Clooney 308). His views on religion, politics, and diversity, establish the basis in which
he was a Religious Genius.
Gandhi’s views on religion and politics are eminent to require a detailed amplification.
The statement he made in 1928 most likely does his point of view the most justice, “After long
study and experience, I have come to these conclusions, all religions are true, all religions have
some errors in them, [and] all religions are almost as dear to me as my Hinduism. My veneration
for other faiths is the same as my own Hinduism.” A land with only one religion was “worse than
undemocratic.” In Gandhi’s words, “it was the negation of truth.” He thought that the land had
no business involving themselves in religious matters: its actions, according to him, come to a
halt just before “service of the different faiths, and the services it can render apply to all
irrespective of their faiths” (Singh 207-208).
In the complex conditions of two world wars, the fight for Indian rights in South Africa,
and the campaign against British colonial rule, and as India and Pakistan surfaced as nations with
wavering responses to religious diversities, Gandhi established a form of spiritual pragmatism
that brought essential characteristics of the Hindu pragmatic tradition to the surface; it was
widely welcomed, nevertheless there were critics in more accustomed alliances. He was still able
Irwin 2
to describe his political and ethical affairs as “God-oriented,” the opening passage of his
autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth; best emphasizes this (Clooney 318).
What I want to achieve—what I have been striving and pining to achieve these
thirty years—is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksa
[liberation]. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I
do by way of speaking and writing, and all my ventures in the political field, are
directed to this same end.
But this endeavor to see God could also be divulged as a search for truth:
I worship God as truth only. I have not yet found God, but I am seeking after
God…. Often in my progress I have faint glimpses of the Absolute Truth, God;
daily the conviction is growing upon me that He alone is real and all else is
unreal.
Gandhi validates at the end of the Experiments that his mission has been none other than to tell
the truth, speak of God, and also to live passively:
My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth.
And if every page of these chapters does not proclaim to the reader that the only
means for the realization of Truth is Nonviolence, I shall deem all my labor in
writing these chapters to have been in vain.
This compelling spiritual equation—“God is Truth, Truth is God, both are enacted in
nonviolence”—also depicts religion in a way constructed to defeat “religious divisions,
sectarianism, and violence.” Suitably, Gandhi comes to this development about religious
diversity:
Irwin 3
After a study of those religions to the extent that is was possible for me, I have
come to the conclusion that, if it is proper and necessary to discover an underlying
unity among all religions, a master-key is needed. That master-key is that of truth
and non-violence. When I unlock the chest of a religion with this master-key, I do
not find it difficult to discover its likeness with other religions (Clooney 318-19).
Such an aspect fundamentally mitigates the dilemma of religious diversity by providing a
“deep” equation of God, truth, and nonviolence; neither of the first two is accepted to function in
a religiously exclusive fashion, while the third, along with other allied virtues and beliefs,
becomes a measure of the authenticity of the first two. Gandhi was an expert at finding the good
in other religious traditions and making his points against Christian mission by not isolating
himself from Christian values: whatever is of real value in a religion is available to everyone,
and in Gandhi’s view such cannot be restricted only to those willing to pay the price of
membership (Clooney 319).
Gandhi has had an intellectual and prominent influence on the nonviolence movement
through Martin Luther King Jr. as well as several others. Gandhi's influence on three important
collections of knowledge that have recently gained a great deal of popularity in the West and
which have also encouraged substantial social movements: deep ecology, peace research and
what has become known as 'Buddhist economics'. Arne Naess who founded the term “deep
ecology” freely admits he is indebted to Gandhi. The deep ecology of Naess does not talk only of
a personal identification with nature, but also of self-realization being dependent upon it. For
those who know Gandhian philosophy well, this line of reasoning is easily recognized. However,
Naess' writings on Gandhi are not particularly well known and Gandhi's influence on him has not
received due recognition (Weber 349-50).
Irwin 4
Peace research is a diverse field and Gandhi's influence has only touched certain areas of
it. While he is generally not mentioned, and potential causal links are rarely investigated, the
literature on conflict resolution is commonly quite 'Gandhian' in its approach. The work of Johan
Galtung, one of the leading academics in the peace research area, is centrally and obviously
influenced by Gandhian philosophy (Weber 350).
Some editions of E.F. Schumacher's book, Small is Beautiful, had a picture of the
Mahatma on the cover, and for many in the West it provided a beginning to the economic ideas
of Gandhi. As important as its popular appeal was, that book also introduced Gandhian ideas to
economists and allowed these ideas to become the focus of serious study Schumacher gives an
example of contrasting views on freight rates between the thinking of an economic expert and an
economist in the Gandhian tradition or, as he later called it, a “Buddhist economist.” Schumacher
began a study of Eastern thought, including the writings and speeches of Gandhi, noting that the
Mahatma's view of economic development was quite different from that of the main- stream and
required careful examination. Gandhi's notion of revitalizing village India through the “spinning
wheel” struck many as anachronistic, but the logic of his arguments took on greater force after
his death. Gandhi's economic ideals were not about the destruction of all machinery, but a
regulation of their excesses (Weber 356-57).
Gandhi’s values were admirable. The combination of God, truth, and nonviolence would
make any land a better place. If more people put effort into the greater good there would be a lot
less disappointment in the world. The fact that he valued other religions as well as his own in its
self is admirable. So many religions today try to force their beliefs on you without attempting to
understand others. I think that Gandhi was all about the greater good and helping others.
Therefore, I think that Gandhi was in fact a religious genius.
Irwin 5
Works Cited
Clooney, Francis X. “Hindu Views of Religious Others: Implications for Christian Theology.”
Theological Studies 64 (2003): 306-333. MLA. Web. 21 May 2011
Singh, Gurharpal. “State and Religious Diversity: Reflections on Post-1947 India.” Totalitarian
Movements and Political Religions 5.2 (2004): 205-225. MLA. Web. 21 May 2011
Weber, Thomas. “Gandhi, Deep Ecology, Peace Research and Buddhist Economics.” Journal of
Peace Research 36.3 (1999): 349-361. JSTOR. Web. 27 May 2011