The political views of Mahatma Gandhi

     Дипломдық жұмыс кіріспеден, үш тараудан, он бөлімнен, қорытындыдан тұрады. Дипломдық жұмыс 36 әдебиеттің негізінде жазылған және 53 беттен тұрады. 
 
 
 
 
 

«______» _______________________2011 

Түлек:        Қабдыжанов Е.А. 

Ғылыми жетекшісі:      Орынбаева Г.У. 

                        
 

INTRODUCTION 

     “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood” – said Einstein about Mahatma Gandhi. History really does know a lot of people who could change the world. But few of them were carrying the spirit, so alien to this world that seemed out of another world.

     Who was Mahatma Gandhi? Why do our young generation do know so few about the little man, whose role was undisputedly great? What valuable of his life, his teachings, his legacy and has been an important question answer for which I want to give in this diploma paper, the theme of which reads: “The political views of Mahatma Gandhi”.

     The unique role of Gandhi in the history of mankind today recognized by many. However, clearly assess the role is very difficult.

     Nehru called Gandhi “a man of religion”, but not a religious figure, but Gandhi has never been so. The opposition of the religious-secular does not apply to him. Gandhi never acted as an apologist for one particular religious system, as a representative of a particular religious community. According to him, he was always guided by the fact that “religious practice and dogma may differ, but the ethical principles of all religions shared”. His religion has nothing to do with religious fanaticism and religious narrow-mindedness.

     Contemporaries called Gandhi “the conscience of mankind”, a prophet, a saint. Above all, they saw him as the spiritual leader of India in its struggle for liberation against British imperialism.

     The role of the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi has not lost its topicality. Those which are universal and epoch-making punch their way and grow up a complete program of action to transform the world. Here’s to include such ideas of Gandhi. In present day Mahatma Gandhi is often quoted writers in their books, journalists in their articles, directors in their movies, public figures in their speeches and all those who have discovered themselves wise sayings of this thinker. On adage Gandhi can be superficially understand what he experienced throughout his life, which he gave without reserve to his people. For me it was interesting to study the background of his thoughts, by what they were caused, and to highlight their progress in this diploma paper. Thus, we can not only examine the political views of this extraordinary man, but to understand his worldviews as a whole.

     Understanding the vitality of the topic we have to analyze historiography of sources.

     In the Soviet historical literature, during the life of Gandhi began a dispute about the essence of his teachings and about whose interests he represents - the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, or the Indian national bourgeoisie. This dispute stems from the controversy at the II Congress of the Comintern between Lenin and the Indian revolutionary Roy. Lenin believed that Gandhi as the mastermind and leader of a mass movement was a revolutionary” [1, p.172]. In contrast, the Roy, who leads in his memoirs to Lenin's response, argued that “the religious and revivalist and culturalic, Gandhi was bound to be reactionary in social terms, as politically though he may look like a revolutionary” [2, p.164]. The same Roy gave the tough characteristics of Gandhian teachings as the class of petty-bourgeois ideology, and because he believed that the petty bourgeoisie is the reactionary force, it merely reinforces his assessment of Gandhism as a reactionary ideological and political movement.

     In the Soviet literature in the 20 years evaluation of Gandhism as petty and even the peasant ideology were relatively widespread. At the same time maintained a political assessment of the historical role of Gandhi, given by Lenin at the II Congress of the Comintern. This does not contradict the definition of Gandhi as a petty-bourgeois ideologist, as the Indian petty bourgeoisie was considered at that time by majority of leaders of the Comintern and Soviet scientists as a revolutionary force. However the class evaluation of Gandhi was changed, after Stalin’s statements that the bourgeoisie with the feudal lords and imperialism as a reactionary force opposed to workers. He was assigned to the camp of the bourgeoisie, which led in fact to deny his positive historical role. Simplicity of the unilateral evaluations of Gandhism in 1956 was recognized by Soviet Orientalists, A.D. D’ya, I.M. Reisner, and E.M. Zhukov [3, pp. 76-82], [4, pp. 37-39].

     A fundamentally new approach was to Gandhi, to his worldview and the historic mission of the scientists of 60-80-ies. Class assessment became less strict. It should be noted that Soviet Ideologists formulated the thesis of “complex” nature of Gandhi’s philosophy, revealing the many important features of his views, as well as the appeal to not pull the bourgeois elements of his ideology from his “non-bourgeois context”  and consider Gandhism as deep national, a peculiar expression of the utopian peasant ideal of socialism and remember that the “social value concepts of Gandhism are not exhausted by one-way narrow class refraction, which gives them the Indian bourgeoisie” [5, p.177]. A fresh look at Gandhi allows us to explain a huge impact of Gandhi on the social development of India’s populist nature of his ideology, and ideology itself is seen as a predominantly petty-bourgeois.

     In India itself and abroad during the life of Gandhi to describe his teaching and movement which was led by him was used the term “Gandhism”. Widely this term was spread in Soviet literature. To determine the place of Gandhi in the history of the allocation of the category of “Gandhism” largely justified. However, Gandhi himself was opposed to the term. According to him, all the “isms” - anarchism, socialism, communism - are sectarian character. Therefore, he argued, “no such subject as Gandhism, because I do not want to leave and sect behind” [6, p.224].

     Gradual release of academic Marxists from the dogmatic approach to Gandhi and his teachings, is largely dictated instructions from the top (of Stalin), in the 60 years observed in the Indian Marxist literature.

     Up to the VII Congress of the Comintern, when the Communists to overcome sectarianism against the national liberation movement, not otherwise characterized Gandhism as a defender of capitalism and an ally of imperialism.

     In 1939, one of the leaders of the Communist Party of India, S.G. Sardesai in an article that appeared in the organ KPI “National Front”, recognized the need for a waiver of such assessments and a “thorough investigation and identification of all the positive aspects of Gandhism” [7, p.144]. However, until recently Gandhi in India’s Marxist literature was uniquely considered as “the principal leader of the Indian bourgeoisie”. Nevertheless, coming up today to Gandhi with class positions, and noting the limitations of its class, the Indian Communists of 50-60’s largely freed from the old dogmatic evaluations. Many of them began their career as associates of the next Gandhi. And despite the fundamental differences with Gandhi literally on all matters of the Indian national liberation movement, in spite of the constant clashes with him during his life and harsh criticism of everything that went down in history, the term “Gandhism”, they are often the same as all Indians called and called him “father of the nation” and the Mahatma.

     Particular attention should be paid directly to the writings of Mahatma Gandhi. Collected Works of Gandhi is 80 volumes and thousands of articles and many letters. In Russia published little book of Gandhi. Over the past 10 years, apparently published, only 2 books: Quotes from Gandhi, “On Prayer” and the book “My faith”.

     “My Faith” – is a book of reflections on religion and morality. Gandhi, shares with us his insights and results of experience, aimed at finding and understanding the Truth. Gandhi, deeply religious man, tried to inject religion and morality in all spheres of human life: social, economic, political. This is a book about India and Hinduism, the religion that bears the character of unconditional acceptance, love and compassion, religion or belief in truth and morality.

     Gandhi's autobiography was firstly published in the USSR in 1934, publishing ОГИЗ – СОЦОКГИЗ edited by I.M. Reisner. The book was called “My Life”. In the original, this book is called “Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth” translated from English by ​​R. Ulyanovskii, who also wrote the foreword. The book was published in abridged form and with political corrections. Publication year speaks for itself.

     Re autobiography was published in the USSR in 1969. The book was published again under the former name of “My Life” edited by that same professor. R. Ulyanovskii. Translated from English by A.M. Vyazmina. In my opinion, this translation is better than the translation of 1934. In my work, I'll directly benefit from this book. All quotes taken from this source will be decorated with references to the book.

     Romain Rolland in his book “Mahatma Gandhi” (translated from French T.N. Klado, ed. Salie M.A.) gives a very deep and comprehensive analysis of the life and work of the “Great Soul”, a comprehensive picture of the political situation at that time. This book is valuable by abundance of quotations from the books of the Gandhi, Gandhi’s statements about the abundance of great and famous people.

     All materials that are derived from this source and used in my diploma paper, decorated with references to this book.

     There is an article “Reflections on Gandhi” of G. Orwell in the “Человек” magazine of 2001. Translated from English by Vladimir Rynkevich. In this article, the author shares his impressions of this book about Gandhi. In addition, by analyzing the basic provisions of Gandhian nonviolence, Orwell is trying to find in answers to existing problems of modern civilization.

     In conclusion, the author says: “It is possible, as I feel towards Gandhi sort of aesthetic distaste, it is possible to disagree with those who see him as saint (by the way, he never claimed sole righteousness), we can generally reject the ideal of holiness, and on this basis considered the main objectives of Gandhi, inhuman and reactionary: but if you see him as just a political figure and compare him with other leading politicians of our age, what seems clear atmosphere, which he left behind!”  [8, pp. 37-42].

     And the one of the main sources of my research paper is a book of National University of Singapore, Institute of South Asian Studies. In this book reflected the ideas and views of 4 authors – professors of NUS concerning the impact of Gandhi on external policy of India of 21-st century, on its further economic development and relations between Pakistan and India. The book named “The Legacy of Gandhi: 21-st Century Perspective”  and published in 2008.

     Subject matter is the political views of Gandhi and their influence on the contemporary political and economic processes. Information base for writing the thesis were the works of Russian and foreign scientists and politicians, writers and public figures and of Mahatma Gandhi himself.

     As the object of study selected an outstanding leader of the national liberation movement of India, a thinker, political and social activist Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

     The purpose of my work was to consider Gandhi as a person, to try to figure out how his beliefs, political views, interior installation and worldview influenced on socio-political and economic activities of one country and the world at large. Try to find similar views among politicians of later ages and to find out the possibility of existence of such policy as Gandhi in the condition of present world.

     To achieve these purposes in the diploma paper it is necessary to sort out following objectives:

     - to review the process of formation of the personality and ideology of Gandhi;

     - to define how his religious, socio-political and economic views influenced on the political and economic process of that time and present days;

     - superficially touch the political activities of Mahatma Gandhi in his struggle for Indian independence;

     - find out what was the originality of the methods of struggle of this man and what was this peculiarity is due;

     - to evaluate the results and outcomes of Gandhi’s political activities;

     - show the followers of Gandhi who understood the whole philosophy of nonviolent resistance and applied in practice.

     Thesis required to the defense:

5. Non-violence for Gandhi - not only a method of resistance, fighting tactics, but the main principle of a holistic worldview, teaching the meaning of life, the basis of socio-political ideal.
6. Gandhi introduced the concept of satyagraha (nonviolent resistance) so as not to confuse his method of passive resistance (Satyagraha - not a tactic, and the conviction is based on respect and love for the enemy, involves the active forms of protest, based on the belief in the divine nature of the soul, a single in all people and inevitably responsive to love).
7. Impact of Gandhi’s teaching on the contemporary political and economic processes. How his views were ahead of his time. 
8. Followers of Gandhi. Our President and his political view concerning the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi from the position of politics of the 21-st century.

     The scientific novelty of my research is that the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi weren’t studied in this level. I tried to collect a lot of spheres of international relations and made a scientific research paper involving the impact of the political views of Mahatma Gandhi to the foreign policy of India, to its economic development, to relations between Pakistan and India. In my work I come out with the followers of Mahatma Gandhi, one of them is our President – Nursultan Nazarbayev who during the last 10 years of the Foreign policy of Kazakhstan brings together the leaders of world and traditional religions understanding the importance of such policy at the time of globalization. It is a great sign of assessment of world peace significance during the world struggle with terrorism. Thus we can make a conclusion that our leader – the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan also follows the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and tries to liven up ideas of non-violence.

     In terms of methodology, the work is built on the principles of historicism, objectivity and value approach. At work on the study were used historical and comparative, historical and typological, logical and statistical methods of historical knowledge.

     The practical significance of the research that paper can be used for educational purposes at universities in departments of human studies and history in such subjects like “History of Asia and Africa”, “Politics and Religion”.

     The structure of the diploma paper consists of an introduction, three chapters, ten subsections, conclusion, list of used literature, comprising 36 sources. The total volume of research paper is 52 pages. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1. FORMATION OF A “GREAT SOUL”

 

1. How the steel was tempered

 

     October 2, 1869 in the family of couch (Prime Minister), the tiny Indian principality of Porbandar was born the sixth, and as it turned out, the last child. Weak and skinny boy was named Mohandas Karamchand. Father of baby Karamchand Gandhi was a kind of “black sheep” among the highly corrupt, pompous and greedy Indian officials. Karamchand and his wife Putlibay (the mother of our hero) belonged to the most orthodox Vishnu direction in the Hindu religion, they did not drink alcohol, meat or smoked tobacco. Hindu religion, as indeed any other, bans hurt people, steal and take bribes. However, with all his officials only Karamchand Gandhi perceived the religious orders, not as some abstract concept but as a guide to action.

     When Mohandas was seven years old, his father having a conflict with the British agent in Porbandar. Karamchand lost his job, but the Prince of neighboring Rajkot immediately offered him a similar post. Gandhi's family moved to this town, where Mohandas went to primary and later in high school. The future leader of the nation did not differ by some notable successes in school, was very shy and avoided society of other children. But already in the first year in high school there was a case in which, like as two peas, vision Mahatma. Mr. Giles, the educational Inspector, had come on a visit of inspection. He had set them five words to write as a spelling exercise. One of the words was “Kettle”. Twelve-year-Gandhi wrote that word wrong. The teacher pushed him, wanting to Mohandas copied word from a neighbor. “The teacher tried to prompt me with the point of his boot, but I would not be prompted. It was beyond me to see that he wanted me to copy the spelling from my neighbor’s slate, for I had thought that the teacher was there to supervise us against copying. The result was that all the boys, except myself, were found to have spelt every word correctly. Only I had been stupid. The teacher tried later to bring this stupidity home to me but without effect” [9, p. 211]. And for all the 67 years that had been destined to live for him, never did manage to force him to do something that Gandhi would consider unworthy. Under threat not only a bad mark, but also loss of property, freedom, the collapse of the political career of physical torture and even death.

     Karamchand Gandhi at that time was already terminally ill and died shortly afterwards. But before his death, still insisted on the marriage of his youngest son. So Mohandas was forced at age 13 to marry. Gandhi's wife, his coeval Kasturbay, has a lifetime of his faithful assistant in all matters, and died in 1943 in a British prison, where she was imprisoned with her husband and other leaders of the liberation movement. Nevertheless, Gandhi eventually very negatively assessed the custom of child marriages.

     The Prime Minister didn’t leave an inheritance and Gandhi grew up with his uncle. And soon Mohandas graduated from high school. After lengthy discussions and meetings, relatives of Mohandas decided to send him to England to study “the lawyer”. It was difficult to raise money for this trip, but even more concern the question: Do not betray in foreign lands the young follower of Vizhnu faith of his parents? In the end, his mother took the oath of Gandhi - not to drink alcohol, not to eat meat England, and be faithful with wife.

     September 4, 1888 eighteen Gandhi sailed from Bombay in the distant unknown world.

     A trip to England was a conscious choice not only of the family but also of Gandhi. He already got rid of the naive child conviction that British rule over Indians, because they eat meat and smoke tobacco. But what is the strength of the British Empire, which was the most powerful country in the world (like the United States today)? Gandhi sought to understand the basics of this force. And to get a profession that would allow him as much as possible to serve the destitute people. At home    his mother, wife and his child were waiting for him.

     Three years later, Gandhi got a diploma of barrister (lawyer) in foggy Albion. He not only perfected his English, but also mastered the French language, at the University of London and the Law School he studied law and science. Decided to prove to himself that and others that the Hindu can become a true British gentleman, without losing its national essence. The young Gandhi thoroughly mastered the ability to dress up like Europeans and behave in society, even had been taking lessons of European music and dance. But it was only the outer side of his life. It was in England had hitherto unprecedented intensity acquired his search for truth, trying to understand the world and find their place in it, the search for God. Oddly enough, only in England and in English translation Gandhi read the sacred books of Hinduism. Huge impression made on him the book “Light of Asia”, dedicated to Buddhism. He also read the Quran, Old and New Testament of Christians. In admiration led him to Christ’s words from the Sermon on the Mount: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also” [10, p. 177].