The Life and Work of Mohandas K. Gandhi: Recommended Reading

 

This was originally posted at the Ratio Juris blog but I thought to make it available here, if only because I’ve udpdated it a bit and appended two new lists of titles: “Further Reading,” and a short compilation on “Nonviolence in Theory & Praxis.”

There is an enormous amount of literature on Mohandas K. (‘Mahatma’) Gandhi, and Gandhi’s own writings have been collected in some ninety plus volumes. So I thought it would help to recommend a comparatively short reading regimen, culling what I immodestly think is the crème de la crème (forgive the mixed metaphor in the name of alliteration), although I’ve hardly come close to reading all of the available literature.

By way of background, readers fairly innocent of most-things-Indian (or ‘Indic’) should consult, first, A.L. Basham’s classic, The Wonder that was India.... (3rd ed., 1967), followed by Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History (2009), the works of the historian Stanley Wolpert, Gerald J. Larson’s India’s Agony Over Religion (1995), Sunil Khilnani’s The Idea of India (1998), and Ramachandra Guha’s India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (2007). The brilliant economist Amartya Sen provides us with “a profound and stimulating collection of essays” (William Dalrymple) that “smashes quite a few stereotypes and places the idea of India and Indianness in its rightful, deserved context” (Soumya Bhattacharya), in The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity (2005).

Perhaps the only Indian in the twentieth century worthy of close comparison to Gandhi is Rabindranath Tagore, with whom Gandhi had several disagreements and “debates,” as Sen explains, “Tagore greatly admired Gandhi but he had many disagreements with him on a variety of subjects, including nationalism, patriotism, the importance of cultural exchange, the role of rationality and of science, and the nature of economic and social development.” So in addition to Sen’s presentation of Tagore’s little-known side of these arguments, see Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man (1995).

I recommend, well short of tackling the many volumes of his collected writings, the manageable selection edited by Raghavan Iyer: Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, 3 Vols. (1986).* There’s also a one volume edition for those who seek something yet shorter: Raghavan Iyer, ed., The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (1993).

Among the earlier biographies, Louis Fischer’s The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (1950), stands apart, and of the more recent attempts, I would select Wolpert’s Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi (2001). On the psychological front, the most ambitious if not most controversial account is Erik H. Erikson’s Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (1969). In the end, I remain partial to Judith Brown’s Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope (1989).

On Gandhi’s religious and spiritual beliefs, see Margaret Chatterjee’s Gandhi’s Religious Thought (1983). More particularly, and because his unconventional (to put it mildly) interpretation of the Gita came to have such an enormous influence on his spiritual praxis, see J.T.F. Jordens, “Gandhi and the Bhagavadgita,” in Robert Minor, ed., Modern Interpreters of the Bhagavad Gita (1986): 88-109. Although perhaps difficult to track down, see too Mahadev Desai’s The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita According to Gandhi (Translation of the original in Gujarati with introduction and commentary) (1946).

Gandhi was not a systematic political thinker, yet his moral and political philosophy is no less original and provocative, deserving of serious consideration: see Joan Bondurant’s Conquest of Violence (1965), Bhikhu Parekh’s Gandhi’s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination (1989), as well as his Colonialism, Tradition and Reform (1989), B.R. Nanda’s Gandhi: Pan-Islamism, Imperialism, and Nationalism in India (1989) and, especially, Raghavan Iyer’s* nonpareil study, The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi (1st ed., 1973; 2nd ed., 1983).

Gandhi’s nonviolent politics are well-treated in Gene Sharp’s Gandhi as a Political Strategist… (1979) and Dennis Dalton’s Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action (1993).

Gandhi’s economic ideas are fruitfully conceptualized under the theory of “trusteeship.” See, for example, Iyer’s “Gandhian Trusteeship in Theory and Practice,” a short essay published by the Institute of World Culture (Santa Barbara, CA: Concord Grove Press, 1985), but also found in J.D. Sethi, ed., Trusteeship: The Gandhian Alternative (New Delhi: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1986). A somewhat uneven but nonetheless worthwhile volume is edited by Romesh Diwan and Mark Lutz: Essays in Gandhian Economics (1985; the first edition was published by the Gandhian Peace Foundation, New Delhi, but available in this country since 1987 from the Intermediate Technology Development Group of North America, New York). Although I’ve yet to read it, B.N. Ghosh’s Gandhian Political Economy: Principles, Practices, and Policy (2007), looks inviting (yet published by Ashgate at an exorbitant price).

For an examination of some of the more trenchant as well as facile criticisms of this or that aspect of Gandhi’s life and thought, see B.R. Nanda’s Gandhi and His Critics (1985).

The first list of titles below supplements the aforementioned recommendations, while the second covers nonviolent theory and praxis.

Further Reading:

• Ahmad, Irfan. Islamism and Democracy in India: The Transformation of Jamaat-e-Islami. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
• Brown, Judith M. Gandhi’s Rise to Power: Indian Politics, 1915-1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
• Brown, Judith M. Gandhi and Civil Disobedience: The Mahatma in Indian Politics, 1928-1934. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
• Brown, Judith M. Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 1994.
• Brown, Judith M. and Anthony Parel, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Brown, Norman. Man in the Universe: Some Cultural Continuities in Indian Thought. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970.
• Dasgupta, Ajit K. Gandhi’s Economic Thought. London: Routledge, 1996.
• Embree, Ainslie T. Utopias in Conflict: Religion and Nationalism in Modern India. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990 ed.
• Hardy, Peter. The Muslims of British India. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
• Iyer, Raghavan. Utilitarianism and All That. Santa Barbara, CA: Institute of World Culture & Concord Grove Press, 1983.
• Fox, Richard G. Gandhian Utopia: Experiments with Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1989.
• Gandhi, M. K. Autobiography: The Story of my Experiments with Truth. Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press, 1954.
• Gandhi, M. K. (Louis Fischer, ed.). The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology. New York: Random House, 1962.
• Gandhi, M. K. Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha). Mineola, NY: Dover, 2001.
• Gandhi, M. K. Satyagraha in South Africa. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1950.
• Gopal, Sarvepalli, ed. Anatomy of a Confrontation: Ayodhya and the Rise of Communal Politics in India. London: Zed Books, 1993.
• Kakar, Sudhir. The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.  
• Lelyveld, Joseph. Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
• Lopez, Donald S., Jr. Religions of India in Practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.  
• McKean, Lise. Divine Enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Menski, Werner. Hindu Law: Beyond Tradition and Modernity. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Metcalf, Thomas. Ideologies of the Raj. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Nussbaum, Martha C. The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
• Parel, Anthony. Gandhi’s Philosophy and the Quest for Humanity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder. The Scandal of the State: Women, Law and Citizenship in Postcolonial India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
• Robinson, Francis. Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces’ Muslims, 1860-1923. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
• Sharma, Arvind. Hinduism and Human Rights: A Conceptual Approach. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Vanaik, Achin. The Painful Transition: Bourgeois Democracy in India. London: Verso, 1990.

 
Nonviolence in Theory & Praxis:

• Abu-Nimer, Mohammed. Nonviolence and Peace Building in Islam. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2003.
• Ackerman, Peter and Jack DuVall. A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Palgrave, 2000.
• Ackerman, Peter, and Christopher Kruegler. Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the 20th Century. Westport, CT: Praeger, l993.
• Ariyaratne, Dr. A.T. A Struggle to Awaken. Moratuwa, Sri Lanka: Sarvodaya Press, 1982 (Distributed by Oxfam America).
• Asher, Sarah Beth, Lester R. Kurtz, and Stephen Zunes, eds. Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999.
• Aung San Suu Kyi. Freedom from Fear & Other Writings. London: Penguin, revised ed., 1995.
• Awad, Mubarak. Nonviolent Resistance in the Middle East. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1985.
• Awad, Mubarak E. and R. Scott Kennedy. Nonviolent Struggle in the Middle East. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1985.
• Barbé, Dominique. Grace and Power: Base Communities and Nonviolence in Brazil. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987.
• Barbé, Dominique. A Theology of Conflict and Other Writings on Nonviolence. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989.
• Barghouti, Omar. BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions—The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2011.
• Bedau, Hugo A., ed. Civil Disobedience: Theory and Practice. New York: Pegasus, 1969.
• Bell, Inge Powell. CORE and the Strategy of Nonviolence. New York: Random House, 1968.
• Berryman, Phillip. Our Unfinished Business: The U.S. Catholics Bishops’ Letters on Peace and the Economy. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.
• Bhave, Vinoba. Swarajya Śastra: The Principles of Nonviolent Political Order. Bombay: Padma, 1945.
• Bhave, Vinoba. School of Nonviolence. London: Housemans, 1969.
• Boulding, Elise. New Agendas for Peace Research. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992.
• Boulding, Elise. Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
• Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
• Branch, Taylor. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.
• Brock, Peter and Nigel Young. Pacifism in the Twentieth Century. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999.
• Burrowes, Robert J. The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996.
• Bussy, Gertrude and Margaret Tims. The WILPF, 1915-1965: A Record of Fifty Years Work. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965.
• Calhoun, Craig. Neither Gods nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994.
• Carson, Clayborne. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.
• Chappell, David W., ed. Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures of Peace. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publ., 1999.
• Chernus, Ira. American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea. Danvers, MA: Orbis Books, 2004.
• Coles, Robert. A Spectacle Unto the World: The Catholic Worker Movement. New York: Viking, 1973.
• Coles, Robert. Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987.
• Cooney, Robert and Helen Michalowski, eds. The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1987.
• Coover, Virginia, et al. Resource Manual for a Living Revolution. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1978.
• Cortright, David. Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Coy, Patrick, ed. A Revolution of the Heart: Essays on the Catholic Worker. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1988.
• Crow, Ralph E. Philip Grant and Saad E. Ibrahim, eds. Arab Nonviolent Political Struggle in the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990.
• Day, Mark. Forty Acres: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers. New York: Praegar, 1971.
• del Vasto, Lanza. Gandhi to Vinoba: The New Pilgrimage. New York: Schocken, 1974.
• del Vasto, Lanza. Warriors of Peace: Writings on the Technique of Nonviolence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.
• Dolci, Danilo. The Man Who Plays Alone. New York: Pantheon, 1968.
• Dolci, Danilo. Report from Palermo. New York: Viking, 1970.
• Dombrowski, Daniel. Christian Pacifism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. 
• Douglass, James W. The Nonviolent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace. New York: Macmillan, 1968.
• Easwaran, Eknath. A Man to Match His Mountains: Badshah Kahn, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam. Petaluma, CA: Nilgiri Press, 1984.
• Ellsberg, Robert, ed. By Little and By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983.
• Eppsteiner, Fred, ed. The Path of Compassion: Writings on Socially Engaged Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, revised ed., 1988.
• Epstein, Barbara. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991.
• Fiala, Andrew. Practical Pacifism. New York: Algora Press, 2004.
• Fiala, Andrew. The Just War Myth: The Moral Illusions of War. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008.
• Galtung, Johan. Essays in Peace Research. 5 Vols. Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers, 1975-1980.
• Galtung, Johan. The True Worlds: A Transnational Perspective. New York: Free Press, 1981.
• Galtung, Johan. There are Alternatives! Four Roads to Peace and Security. Nottingham, England: Spokesman, 1984.
• Galtung, Johan. Solving Conflicts: A Peace Research Perspective. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1989.
• Galtung, Johan. Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. London: Sage, 1996.
• Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow, 1986.
• Gregg, Richard. The Power of Nonviolence. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1959.
• Hauerwas, Stanley. Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2004.
• Havel, Václav (Jan Vladislav, ed.). Václav Havel: Or Living in Truth. London: Faber and Faber, 1987.
• Havel, Vaclav. The Power of the Powerless. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1990.
• Hentoff, Nat. Peace Agitator: The Story of A.J. Muste. New York, NY: A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, 1982.
• Hiltermann, Joost R. Behind the Intifada: Labor and Women’s Movements in the Occupied Territories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
• Ingram, Catherine, ed. In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations with Spiritual Social Activists. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1990.
• Jones, Ken. The Social Face of Buddhism: An Approach to Social and Political Activism. London: Wisdom, 1989.
• Juergensmeyer, Mark. Gandhi’s Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
• Kaufman-Lacusta, Maxine, ed. Refusing to be Enemies: Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to the Israeli Occupation. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press/Garnet, 2010.
• King, Jr., Martin Luther. Stride Toward Freedom. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1958.
• King, Jr., Martin Luther. Strength to Love. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1963.
• King, Jr., Martin Luther, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1967.
• King, Mary Elizabeth. A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance. New York: Nation Books, 2007.
• Kraft, Kenneth. The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism: A New Map of the Path. New York: Weatherhill, 2000.
• Kraft, Kenneth, ed. Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on Buddhism and Nonviolence. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992.
• Kurtz, Lester R and Jennifer E. Turpin, eds. Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, 3 Vols. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1999.
• Lakey, George. Powerful Peacemaking: A Strategy for a Living Revolution. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1987.
• Levy, Jacques. Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa. New York: W.W. Norton, 1975.
• Lipski, Jan Jozef. KOR: A History of the Workers’ Defense Committee in Poland, 1976-1981. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985.
• Loffland, John, Mary Ann Colwell and Victoria Johnson. Peace-Seeking: The American Peace Movement in the Eighties. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
• Lynd, Staughton, ed. Nonviolence in America: A Documentary History. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.
• McAllister, Pam, ed. Reweaving the Web: Feminism and Nonviolence. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1983.
• McCarthy, Colman. All of One Peace: Essays on Nonviolence. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994.
• McCarthy, Ronald M. and Gene Sharp. Nonviolent Action: A Research Guide. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997.
• McManus, Philip and Gerald Schlabach, eds. Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1991.
• Mabee, Carlton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 through the Civil War. New York: Macmillan, 1970.
• Macy, Joanna. Dharma and Development: Religion as Resource in the Sarvodaya Self-Help Movement. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1985.
• Marks, Susan Collin. Watching the Wind: Conflict Resolution during South Africa’s Transition to Democracy. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2000.
• Matthiessen, Peter. Sal Si Puedes: Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution. New York: Random House, 1970.
• McManus, Philip, and Gerald Schlabach, eds. Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Press, 1991.
• Mejer, August and Elliot Rudwick. CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
• Mercado, Monina Allarey, ed. People Power: The Philippine Revolution of 1986. Manila, Philippines: James B. Reuter, S.J. Foundation, 1986.
• Merton, Thomas. The Nonviolent Alternative. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980.
• Merton, Thomas. Faith and Violence. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986.
• Miall, Hugh, Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse. Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Management and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1999.
• Morris, Aldon D. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: Free Press, 1984.
• Moyer, William. A Nonviolent Action Manual: How to Organize Nonviolent Demonstrations and Campaigns. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Press, 1977.
• Muste, A.J. Nonviolence in an Aggressive World. New York: Harper and Row, 1940.
• Musto, Ronald G. The Catholic Peace Tradition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986.
• Naess, Arne. Gandhi and the Nuclear Age. Totowa, NJ: Bedminster Press, 1965.
• Nagler, Michael N. Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 2001.
• Nhat Hanh, Thich. Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1993.
• Nusseibeh, Sari. What is a Palestinian State Worth? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
• Ostergaard, Geoffrey and Melville Currell. The Gentle Anarchists: A Study of the Leaders of the Sarvodaya Movement for Nonviolent Revolution in India. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1971.
• Payne, Charles M. I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995.
• Piehl, Mel. Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker Movement and the Origins of Catholic Radicalism in America. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1982.
• Polner, Murray and Naomi Goodman, eds. The Challenge of Shalom: The Jewish Tradition of Peace and Justice. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1994.
• Powers, R. S. and W. B. Vogele, eds. Protest, Power, and Change: Encyclopedia of Nonviolence from ACT-UP to Women’s Suffrage. New York, NY: Garland, 1997.
• Queen, Christopher S., ed. Engaged Buddhism in the West. Boston, MA: Wisdom, 2000.
• Queen, Christopher S. and Sallie B. King, ed. Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996.
• Randle, Michael. Civil Resistance. London: Fontana, 1994.
• Roberts, Adam, ed. Civilian Resistance as a National Defence. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969.
• Roberts, Adam and Timothy Garton Ash, eds. Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-Violent Action from Gandhi to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Roberts, Nancy L. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1984.
• Ruddick, Sara. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1995.
• Said, Abdul Aziz, et al., eds. Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam: Precept and Practice. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001.
• Schell, Jonathan. The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People. New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Co., 2003.
• Schellenberg, James A. Conflict Resolution: Theory, Research, and Practice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996.
• Schock, Kurt. Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2004.
• Semelin, Jacques. Unarmed Against Hitler: Civilian Resistance in Europe, 1939-1943. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993.
• Sharp, Gene. The Politics of Nonviolent Action, 3 Vols. Boston, MA: Extending Horizons Books/Porter Sargent, 1973-1985.
• Sharp, Gene. Making the Abolition of War a Realistic Goal. New York: World Policy Institute, 1980.
• Sharp, Gene. Social Power and Political Freedom. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent, 1980.
• Sharp, Gene. Making Europe Unconquerable: The Potential of Civilian-Based Deterrence and Defense. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1985.
• Sharp, Gene. National Security through Civilian-Based Defense. Omaha, NE: Association for Transarmament Studies, 1985.
• Sharp, Gene. Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential. Manchester, NH: Extending Horizons Books/Porter Sargent, 2005.
• Shephard, Mark. Gandhi Today: The Story of Mahatma Gandhi’s Successors. Washington, D.C./Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1987.
• Sivaraksa, Sulak. Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1992.
• Smuts, Dene, and Shauna Westcott. The Purple Shall Govern: A South African A to Z of Nonviolent Action. Cape Town, South Africa: Oxford University Press, 1991.
• Steger, Manfred B. Gandhi’s Dilemma: Nonviolent Principles and Nationalist Power. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
• Taylor, Ronald B. Chavez and the Farmworkers. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1975.
• Teichman, Jenny. Pacifism and the Just War. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
• Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York, Penguin, 1986.
• Tillett, Gregory. Resolving Conflict: A Practical Approach. New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2000.
• Tolstoy, Leo. The Law of Violence and the Law of Love. Santa Barbara, CA: Concord Grove Press, 1984.
• Tolstoy, Leo. Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1987.
• van Kessel, Ineke. “Beyond Our Wildest Dreams:” The United Democratic Front and the Transformation of South Africa. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2000.
• Wallis, Jim. Peacemakers: Christian Voices from the New Abolitionist Movement. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
• Washington, James Melvin, ed. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1986.
• Weber, David R., ed. Civil Disobedience in America: A Documentary History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978.
• Weber, Thomas. Gandhi’s Peace Army: The Shanti Sena and Unarmed Peacekeeping. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996.
• Wehr, Paul, Heidi Burgess, and Guy Burgess, eds. Justice Without Violence. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1994.
• Wink, Walter. Violence and Nonviolence in South Africa: Jesus’ Third Way. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publ., 1987.
• Wink, Walter, ed. Peace is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000.
• Wittner, Lawrence S. Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933-1983. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984.
• Zinn, Howard. SNCC: The New Abolitionists. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1965.
• Zinn, Howard, ed. The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2002.

*Full disclosure: Raghavan was one of my undergraduate teachers for political philosophy and his wife, Nandini, was my Sanskrit teacher in Religious Studies. Nandini and the Iyer’s son, the writer Pico Iyer, remain close friends (indeed, Nandini is my best friend).

Comments

[Jimbino]

This is the guy who loved the poor so much that he worked to increase their numbers, single-handedly setting India back for a couple of generations.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

If you're going to indulge your penchant for grandiose generalizations in comments on this blog it would help if they had at least the faintest hint of a connection with reality.

In this case, your comment demonstrates an absolute ignorance about the economic history of India: before, during, and after Gandhi's death. Apart from the "great man" trope of historical change and impact lurking in the shadows, the comment fails to acknowledge the well-known historical fact among experts across the political spectrum well-versed in India's economic history that the economic policies adopted by Nehru's government, notably and sometimes notoriously its Five-Year plans, were about as far from Gandhi's own socio-economic ideas (which, frankly, tended toward the utopian) as one can imagine. These were unduly deferential to a Soviet economic model (despite their social democratic provenance) by way of distancing the government from capitalist economic hegemony and ostensibly toward forging a "third-way" beyond the prevailing Cold War economic alternatives, exemplifying a State-directed form of indiscriminate industrialization that often failed to make substantial progress toward such ends as "the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality," progress toward which has since been made, in fits and starts and in some parts of India, most conspicuously, in the state of Kerala.

Take some time to read at least some of the relevant literature on the subject and you'll see how little influence Gandhi's life and work had on the socio-economic policies and conditions that prevailed in India after Independence and now, with economic "liberalization," the socio-economic state of affairs in today's India.

[Jimbino]

Gandhi is just another socialist, though more enlightened than Lenin, Stalin and Mao. His economic policy is summed up in the Sermon on the Mount, for Christ's sake.

Fortunately for India, his disciple Nehru was a fan of industrialization who criticized Gandhi's misguided focus on rural economics. But still it took 50 years for India to begin to recover from the madness.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Neither the characterization of Gandhi as a "socialist" simpliciter nor claiming his "economic policy is summed up in the Sermon on the Mount" does his economic thinking the slightest justice. One could fairly say the comparative neglect of or superficial attention devoted to "rural economics" (or agrarian reform) has certainly prolonged and exacerbated the misery of India's poor. While he was no economist, Gandhi's normative democratic and economic principles certainly have some relevance to thinking afresh about not a few of the assumptions in development and welfare economics. As Thomas Weber writes in an essay on Gandhi's "moral economics," "Given the economic and environmental state of the planet, perhaps a superficial negative appraisal of Gandhian economics is less than helpful."

The relevance of moral philosophy and ethics to economics has been an increasing refrain heard among the ranks of economists and philosophers alike. And the kinds of normative principles and standards Gandhi invoked are today found in the works of authors like Martha Nussbaum, whose "capabilities" approach to economic development: Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach (2011), clearly echoes the central concerns of Gandhi's economic thinking insofar as it argues that "our dominant theories of development have given us policies that ignore our most basic human needs for dignity and self-respect."

Incidentally, Gandhi did not have an "economic policy," only governments formulate such policy.

Please have the last word, as continuation of this exchange from my end would prove fruitless.

[Jimbino]

OK,

I'll leave the last word to Christopher Hitchens, who took on the myth of Gandhi in his book "God is not Great."