Citation

Howard VR. Religion Compass 2007; 1(3): 380-397.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00024.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The scholarship on Gandhi tends to situate him in one of three camps: political leader, nonviolent revolutionary, or spiritual figure. But for Gandhi, his methods of Ahis (nonviolence) and Satygraha (passive resistance or Soul Force) were interconnected with his asceticism. The overwhelming focus in recent years is on Gandhi's nonviolent strategy in solving personal, social and political conflicts; Gandhi's ascetic practices are dismissed as nonessential or contradictory to political processes. It is difficult for most modern peace activists and scholars, as it was for Gandhi's contemporaries, to understand the native discourse of his paradoxical ideology. Today, there is an emerging debate in the search for alternative responses to war. Gandhi's methods are being deliberated as a possible way to resolve modern problems. But the question remains: Can the modern world borrow Gandhi's political strategies and begin to succeed at the level he did without accepting renunciation, the core of Gandhi's personal and political philosophy?