Review-Essay: Reimagining Postcolonial Solidarity

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2005

2016

Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 2001

This article explores the dynamics of Gandhi's political emergence at the head of the Indian nationalist movement in 1919 and argues that the form of his ideology had a decisive impact in transforming the political field in India from an elite-based constitutional politics to a field of mass political participation. It argues that utopianism enabled Gandhian discourse to resolve the ideological crisis in which Indian nationalism had found itself at the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century. Tracing the lineages of this ideological dilemma, the article then argues that utopianism permitted Gandhi to articulate a sense of cultural difference from the colonial Other based on a rejection of the modernity associated with it, while simultaneously occluding Gandhi's own modernism which he used as the basis for his programme of social reform. Examining Gandhi's seminal work Hind Swaraj, the article analyses the rhetorical strategies employed by Gandhi in order to open up this space of symbolic difference. These strategies articulated a political discourse which sought to reconcile differences within Indian society in order to project a unified difference against the colonial power. As such, it enabled a politics at once more radical than Indian nationalism had hitherto been without alienating the groups which had felt threatened by earlier periods of political 'extremism'.

Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2010

The present critical inquiry of the theory of democracy starts from the perspective that much of what is widely considered as known, unavoidable or factual is not written in stone and that democracy (theory and practice) must strengthen its inclusive capacity starting from the grassroots in order to democratise itself. Realist practices and perspectives of liberal democratic regimes largely inform the mainstream concept of democracy. This study challenges them questioning categories such as people, representation, elite and populism. It analyses the relationship of liberalism and democracy and the ‘crisis of political liberalism’ emerging as a root-condition of forms of oppression and exclusion that mainstream democratic theory condemns without being able to tackle. This research questions the understanding of the liberal democratic canon for being a system of ‘political-colonialism’, which consists of a structural fractioning of society between few representatives and many represented where the latter have very limited political power with respect to the former. This study examines the historical, philosophical, social and political grain of political-colonialism and investigates the alternative proposed by M. K. Gandhi. Gandhi’s civilisational proposal tackles political-colonialism and provides a participatory, decentralised and duty-based paradigm founded on the holistic vision of society. Gandhi’s alternative to hegemonic power and the structural separation between the representatives and the represented fosters the relational condition of politics combining wealth, ethics, passion and spirituality. Gandhi’s assassination drastically abridged the conditions necessary for the practical implementation of his democratic Ideas. Despite this however, they remain strongly stimulating. While the consolidation of an alternative general theory of democratisation, that is able to contend with political-colonialism, seems impossible and undesirable, a number of socio-political activists, movements and organisations are providing portions of innovation that are making it relevant to investigate democratisation. The epistemologies of the South – as elaborated on by Boaventura de Sousa Santos – are a set of theoretical and methodological inquiries that search, valorise and translate the fragmented ‘emergences’ that are struggling against political-colonialism. By mobilising the epistemologies of the South this study critically engages with the intellectual and political struggles to democratise democracy and assesses and compares their achievements and failures. The empirical work of this study focuses on ‘party-movements’ – political forces emerging from civil society and participating in representative politics. Their discourses symbolise critical stances against political-colonialism. Additionally, they present practices for the engagement of society in participatory processes dialoguing with the representative framework. The collected ethnographic evidence (gathered in a total of eleven months) was accomplished by analysing two party-movements, the Indian Aam Aadmi Party (AAP – Party of the Common Person) and the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S – 5 Star Movement). Qualitative data were collected through a reflexive methodology from the grassroots of party-movements on up to the national level (and EU in the case of the M5S). The analysis focuses on six categories: people, leadership-structure, ethical wave, participation, horizontality-inclusion and political line. The AAP has inherited the Gandhian approach of the group India Against Corruption, a national campaign led by the social activist Anna Hazare. Belonging to this campaign was Arvind Kejriwal, who supported it until 2012 when he left to found the AAP with other social activists. The M5S emerged through the combination of the careers of the comedian-activist Beppe Grillo and the internet specialist Gianroberto Casaleggio (1954-2016). The ‘Gandhian democratisation’ elaborated on here is only one, partial possibility out of the many (even mutually contradictory) possibilities that emerge form Gandhi’s rich and multifaceted inheritance. It is an analytical prospective categorisation that is applied to the comparison. While Gandhi propounded a comprehensive, metaphysically founded, socio-political structural alternative to political-colonialism, the AAP and the M5S attempt to engage with the existing system in order to democratise it. Besides the fact that the M5S makes no direct structural reference to Gandhi’s theory, it shares much of its democratisation discourse with the AAP. The richness of the thesis arises from the South-North translation proportionated by the epistemologies of the South between Gandhi’s civilisational alternative and the fragments of innovation emerging from the experimental political discourse of party-movements.

Gandhi in the West

Later on, his actions would be famous. Admirers could eventually invoke a catechism of apparent victories: South Africa, Champaran, Vykon, Kotgarh, Kheda, Bardoli. There was a mill strike in Ahmedabad, and a battle for the right to parade in Nagpur. A national campaign of nonco-operation would be remembered as a humiliation for the Prince of Wales and a serious affront to the authority of the Raj. Gandhi's 1923 speech from the dock of the accused would ultimately be celebrated as a 'masterpiece'. His bodily experiments would be picked over by learned scholars, and his fasts would enjoy recognition as genuine victories for the spirit of love. Years after his passing, the Mahatma's march to make salt at Dandi would be hailed as one of the founding events of global media history. 1 But all of this was later, much deferred. Western recognition was horribly belated. At first, there was incomprehension. While the eyes of the Westerner fixed intently on the strange person of Gandhi, his precise activities were long enveloped in a curtain of ignorance and misunderstanding. For years it remained difficult to establish exactly what Gandhi did, why he was so inspired, or what he aimed to achieve. Why so hard? When Indians began to question imperial rule, the British state acted immediately to restrict their freedoms of assembly 2 Gandhism in action

Modern Intellectual History, 2012

Gandhi’s critique of the modern state was central to his political thinking. It served as a pivotal hinge between Gandhi’s anticolonialism and his theory of politics and was given striking institutional form in his vision of decentralized peasant democracy. This essay explores the origins and implications of Gandhian antistatism by situating it within a genealogy of early twentieth-century political pluralism, specifically British and Indian pluralist criticism of state sovereignty and centralization. This essay traces that critique from the imperial sociology of Henry Sumner Maine, through the political theory of Harold Laski and G. D. H. Cole, to Radhakamal Mukerjee’s reworking of these strands into a normative–universal model of Eastern pluralism. The essay concludes with a consideration of Gandhi’s ideal of a stateless, nonviolent polity as a culmination and overturning of the pluralist tradition and as integral to his distinctive understanding of political freedom, rule, and action.

Routledge:London , 2020

‘Mahatma Gandhi has made a lasting contribution to political philosophy and this requires that succeeding generations of scholars interpret that contribution in ways that meet the needs of the changing times and intellectual trends. Gandhi and the Contemporary World meets this requirement very admirably: it presents Gandhi in a critical, lively and timely fashion. Enjoy this excellent addition to Gandhi literature’. Anthony J. Parel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Calgary, Canada ‘This riveting collection of essays included in the volume throws valuable light on Mahatma Gandhi’s activist political philosophy and on some of its legacies today.Comprehensively discussed and examined are his ideas of truth and non-violence in their bearing on his conception of satyagraha and on his approach to the postcolonial Indian nation’. Thomas Pantham, former Professor at M S University of Baroda, Baroda, India

In this paper, which is part of a larger book project I’ve taken on, I will consider issues that relate to the viability and justification of the liberal project from the standpoint of Gandhi’s philosophy. I will aim to go beyond simply showing Gandhi’s disagreements with modern day liberalism and seek to explicate specific remedies he offers regarding serious ailments that currently plague liberal society.