Gandhi in His Time and Ours
The Global Legacy of His Ideas
Format:Paperback
Publisher:C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Published:23rd Feb '04
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Gandhi was the creator of a radical style of politics which has proved effective in fighting insidious social divisions within India and, at times, elsewhere in the world. How did this new form of politics come about? David Hardiman shows that it was based on a larger vision of an alternative society based on mutual respect, lack of exploitation, non-violence and ecological harmony. Politics was just one of the many directions in which Gandhi sough to activate this peculiarly personal vision and its practice involved experiments in relation to his opponents, who ranged from representatives of the British raj to Indian advocates of violent resistance, form right-wing religious leaders and upholders of caste privilege to communists, socialists and Dalits. Hardiman examines Gandhi's ways of conducting his conflicts with all these and working towards their resolution. A key issue in Gandhi's life and legacy was his programme for women, and despite inconsistencies and limitations and failures in his personal life, he provides a beacon for posterity because of the uncompromising honesty of his politics and moral activism. Jayaprakash Narayan, Medha Patkar, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Petra Kelly are among figures inspired by Gandhi and he influenced a series of new social movements - by environmentalists, anti-war campaigners, feminists, and human rights activists among others.
"Recent books on Mahatma Gandhi fit tidily into one or other of the 'Life' or 'Thought' categories. On the one hand, there are biographies which provide a chronological account of the life; on the other, works of political thought which study Gandhi's ideas on religion, non-violence, the state, or economics. Here, in David Hardiman's new book, we finally have a work that systematically and skillfully links the life to the thought. This is a landmark study by a fine and experienced scholar... He is an acknowledged and widely admired pioneer in the study of popular protest and has had a life-long interest in Gandhi himself. This background and understanding are on magnificent display in the present book. Hardiman elegantly roots Gandhi's ideas...through the revealing anecdote, the under-reported exchange, the attention to the details of a life lived always in the public gaze... A distinctive feature of the book is the discussion of Gandhism after Gandhi -- of movements in Europe inspired by his example and ideas. Hardiman's book is empathetic but by no means uncritical. it draws on thirty years of thinking and reflecting upon Gandhi. It is widely researched, and extremely well written. It is wise, insightful, and, above all, historically subtle.[...] As a long-time student of the subject, let me say that this book goes on my very short list of indispensable books about Gandhi. Indeed, I would go far as to say that Hardiman's work is one of the five best books ever written about the Mahatma." (Ramachandra Guha, Professor of Indian History,Yale University)
ISBN: 9781850657118
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