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Gandhian Liberalism

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Gandhian liberalism
M. K. Gandhi (1869-1948) requires no introduction even to the layman. “The Father of the Nation”,”Bapu”, and numerous other honorifics have long been affectionately applied to him by the citizens of India. His appearance on the Indian political scene in 1915 changed the face of Indian liberalism and made him the most influential and prominent liberal in India and I aim to shed more light on his theory of liberalism in this section of the essay.
Gandhi acknowledged Gopal Krishna Gokhale as his political mentor. He took Gokhale’s strict liberal position and adapted it to fit what he believed to be India’s needs. The most radical departure was that Gandhi believed that the only way to ensure the British acceded to Indian demands was by non-violent protest or what he termed “Satyagraha”, unlike the traditional liberal who strictly adhered to the system and never attempted to work against it. Simply put, the liberals that preceded Gandhi such as Gokhale and Ranade were heavily shaped by western liberal movements and the British Whigs while he was able to provide Indian liberalism with its own distinct ideas.
Gandhi heavily emphasised features of negative liberty in his agenda for the political, social and economic transformation of India. He favoured a government which was minimalistic in nature and occupied itself with maintaining law and order. He strongly believed in the maximum freedom of the individual as well. One distinctive feature of his thinking was his firm belief that the process of law making and legislation should not be abstruse but simple and intelligible to the general public.
Reflecting on his thinking, we realise that Gandhi’s post-independence agenda was decentralisation. He visualised India as an agglomeration of self-sufficient villages (the economic unit) that operate in a three tier system from the local to the national level. The reason he favoured a high degree of decentralisation was to avoid the concentration of political and economic authority. He was however not unreasonable and understood that certain industries would require higher state participation and investment. In a sense he was favouring the equalisation of economic power across villages which he felt would ensure the decline of competition and greed and instead result in a spirit of cooperation and altruism. I think that Gandhi believed that this model would ensure that the rights of individuals would be preserved and prevent the state from exercising undue authority which are prominent aims in a liberal agenda, especially that of a person such as Gandhi who clearly espoused the cause of negative liberty.

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