Between Ethics and Politics: New Essays on Gandhi PDF
Preview Between Ethics and Politics: New Essays on Gandhi
Between Ethics and Politics Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought Series Editors: Sebastiano Maffettone and Aakash Singh Rathore Center for Ethics & Global Politics, Luiss University, Rome Whereas the interrelation of ethics and political thought has been recognized since the dawn of political reflection, over the last sixty years — roughly since the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights — we have witnessed a particularly turbulent process of globalizing the coverage and application of that interrelation. At the very instant the decolonized globe consolidated the universality of the sovereign nation- state, that sovereignty — and the political thought that grounded it — was eroded and outstripped, not as in eras past, by imperial conquest and instruments of war, but rather by instruments of peace (charters, declarations, treaties, conventions), and instruments of commerce and communication (multinational enterprises, international media, global aviation and transport, internet technologies). Has political theory kept apace with global political realities? Can ethical reflection illuminate the murky challenges of real global politics? This Routledge Book series Ethics, Human Rights, and Global Political Thought addresses these crucial questions by bringing together outstanding monographs and anthologies that deal with the intersection of normative theorizing and political realities with a global focus. Treating diverse topics by means of interdisciplinary techniques — including ethics and applied philosophy, political theory, international relations and human rights theories, international political economy, and theories of globalization, including postcolonial studies — the books in the Series presents up-to- date research that is accessible, practical, yet scholarly. These volumes will prove of great relevance to researchers, educators and students, as well as politicians, policy makers and government officials. Also in the Series Wronging Rights? Philosophical Challenges for Human Rights Editors: Aakash Singh Rathore and Alex Cistelecan ISBN 978-0-415-61529-7 Conflict Society and Peacebuilding: Comparative Perspectives Editors: Raffaele Marchetti and Nathalie Tocci ISBN 978-0-415-68563-4 Global Justice: Critical Perspectives Editors: Sebastiano Maffettone and Aakash Singh Rathore ISBN 978-0-415-53505-2 Deprovincializing Habermas: Global Perspectives Editor: Tom Bailey ISBN 978-0-415-85933-2 Between Ethics and Politics Gandhi Today Editor Eva Pföstl LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI First published 2014 in India by Routledge 912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110 001 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Eva Pföstl Typeset by Solution Graphics A–14, Indira Puri, Loni Road Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201 102 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-415-71064-0 Contents Acknowledgements vii Foreword by Akeel Bilgrami ix Introduction 1 1. ‘The Struggle of Right against Might’: An Introduction to the Figure of Mahatma Gandhi 8 Ugo Caruso 2. Reflections on Gandhi: Between Ethics and Politics 42 Giuliano Pontara 3. Negating Violence: The Gandhi Way 72 Neera Chandhoke 4. Gandhi and Tagore: The Parallel Worlds of the Moral and the Aesthetic 98 Ranabir Samaddar 5. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru 130 Sangita Mallik 6. M. K. Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar: Irreconcilable Differences? 147 Aakash Singh Rathore About the Editor 178 Notes on Contributors 179 Index 180 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgements F irst, I am grateful to the Instituto di Studi Politici ‘S. Pio V’ for providing the resources that made the project possible, and for pro- viding a stimulating and supportive environment for that research. Second, I am grateful to the contributors; without their enthusiasm for the project and timely submission of their essays, this volume would not have been possible. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewer who provided critical and/or constructive comments; Jehanne Marchesi for trans- lating Chapter 3 by Giuliano Pontara from Italian into English; and the editorial staff at Routledge. This page intentionally left blank Foreword T he intense and sophisticated return of a detailed focus on the rich elements of Gandhi’s philosophy in the last decade and more has been a remarkable development in the intellectual history of modern India. Although Ashis Nandy’s highly original work had in the past kept Gandhi’s importance alive amidst the deadening weight of hagiography that has always buried him, in more recent years the Left too has been re-evaluating its attitudes to Gandhi as a result of Irfan Habib’s articles, which present him in interestingly modernist terms. This was followed by a close and more analytical scrutiny of his philosophical ideas by a number of intellectuals in the academy. The writing on Gandhi in other parts of the world had tended to be either biographical, or focused on his inspiring ideas for civil disobedience movements that aspired to non-violence. It is very good to see this volume edited by Eva Pföstl bringing together previously unpublished essays by both Indian and Italian academics on a wide swath of Gandhian themes, and a wide range of his intellectual and political relations with other figures in Indian politics and culture. The Gandhi–Tagore correspondence, now widely available in an excellent single volume edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, has been a tremendously useful entry in the study of Gandhi. These two beloved and iconic figures of modern Indian thought thrash out just about every fundamental issue of culture and politics and philosophy in a decades-long exchange of letters, soaked in mutual affection and respect, while firmly disagreeing on matters of the utmost significance not just for India, but for its outlook vis-à-vis the entire modern world, at a time when India was being forced to declare its self-understanding of its own place within it. I cannot really see how anyone can hope to understand modern Indian thought without studying this text with care and reflection. Ranabir Samaddar, in this anthology, looks at some of the ideas traversed by Gandhi and Tagore, but focuses particularly on the power of the aesthetic in its relation to the moral, and does so via an exploration of Gandhi’s ideas as they might bear on a particular reading that he gives of Tagore’s Ghare Bhaire.
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