Gandhi and Marx: Ideas on Man and Society

GANDHIAN THOUGHT AND PHILOSOPHY OR HIS METHOD OF ACTION HAVE been a frequent subject for books and articles, but a new impetus has been given to this by the ushering in of the Gandhi year. The relation between man and society was central to Gandhi's thought and this aspect of his philosophy has attracted special attention particularly among Indian Marx1sts who are themselves interested in this relationship. Recently Gandhi's role as a revolutionary has also been emphasized and there is a tendency to compare his methods with those of Marx or Mao. An Indian Marxist, Mohit Sen, has tried to look at Gandhi's approach to the training of participants in political actions from this point of view, and he equates Gandhi''> Satyagrahis with the revolutionary "vanguard." In this context, Sen points out that: "There was no division, in his view, between the public and private selves of thos.e who had pledged themselves to his movement . . . . He was an interventionist at every level of living." 1 Sen finds it easy to base this idea on the premise that: "Satyagraha involved the transformation of the personality of he who would embrace it. It involved the strictest possible discipline, even to the point of the extinction of the individual. Self-control, brahmacharya, vegetarianism, shunning of sophisticated civilisation, the embracing of poverty so as to achieve non-attachment . . . this was what being a Satyagrahi meant. It was this kind of training that Gandhiji visualized for the leadership he wished to create, the vanguard he wished to be able to head to realize the awakening of India." 2 How are statements like these to be reconciled with the fact that Gandhi appealed to individual conviction aimed at self-reform rather than "extinction of the individual?" In contrast to a snowball system of inciting all-out violence which may have been much easier to implement, Gandhi's strategy and style of action demanded self-control, and considering one's life as a yajna (an offering to God) on the part of the participant in Satyagraha. Satyagraha is not only based on Satya (truth) and Ahimsa (non-violence) but also on the means of holding on to it such as the purificatory vows of Brahmacharya (celibacy) and fasting which demand self-control. Thus non-violence, voluntary discipline and restraint become the prerequisites of Satyagraha. This resorting to various restraints was aimed at self -purification and not "self -extinction". Gandhi undertook fasting whenever he felt the need for such self-purification,