Gandhi on the dynamics of civilizations

Abstract

This is an opportune time to reopen for discussion Gandhi's philosophy of civilization--the clamor of the clash of civilizations is growing louder daily, not least in South Asia. Why civilizations clash and how they may be reconciled were questions that occupied his mind throughout his career. One of his major aims was of course to modernize the civilization of India. Already in a state of decline, it was now being threatened by modem civilization. His response took the form of examining what was dead and what was alive in it. The dead elements were discarded and the live ones retained. To the latter he grafted what he thought were the saving elements of modem civilization--its civic humanism, consisting of the ideas of human rights, civil liberty, economic justice, gender equality, the religious neutrality of the state, the rule of law, constitutionalism, and a civic mode of nationalism. Thus, the civilization that he sought to build for India was a mixture of both Indian and modern civilizations. But here he had to face two formidable challenges. The first came from those who sought to create an Islamic civilization in South Asia on the foundations of Indian Islam, while the second came from those who sought to create a Hindu civilization on the principles of hindutva. Not surprisingly, his philosophy of civilization bears the marks of his encounters with all three of these civilizations--the modern, the Islamic, and the Hindu. In what follows, I shall first give a brief account of what 1 take to be his philosophy of civilization. This will be Iollowed by an account of his encounters with modern, Islamic, and Hindu civilizations, l shall conclude by critically assessing his explanations of why civilizations clash and how they may be reconciled.