Gandhi's Ascetic Activism: Renunciation and Social Action

Conclusion: Gandhi’s Dynamic Synthesis of Renunciation and Social Action

Conclusion Gandhi’s Dynamic Synthesis of Renunciation and Social Action At the time of writing I never think of what I have said before. My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth. —M. K. Gandhi Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. —Ralph Waldo Emerson In formal logic a contradiction is the signal of a defeat; but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress towards victory. —Alfred North Whitehead The comprehensive value of brahmacarya for Gandhi in the political arena was a surprise both to those within and those outside his cultural context. This book is an attempt to clarify some of the ways in which Gandhi’s applications of brahmacarya were too radical to be called traditional and, ironically, were too traditional for radicals, prompting Lal’s comment that “to a very large extent, his [Gandhi’s] views on sexuality and brahmacharya have been an embarrassment to his admirers, while provoking outrage among his detractors.”1 This 213 214 Gandhi’s Ascetic Activism research has reexamined the foundations of Gandhi’s integration of asceticism with activism in order to understand anew the way he interwove apparently world-denying ascetic disciplines with modern secular ideologies of political independence, democracy, and gender and caste equality. With a synthesis such as this—combining the distinct categories of pravṛtti and nivṛtti—it is impossible to create a philosophy with smooth edges.2 There are bound to emerge inconsistencies as well as contradictions. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s brahmacarya emerges as a connecting thread, which runs through his religious, social, and political ventures. Using Gandhi’s own words, I have explored the dynamic behaviors , complex communications, and traditional religious and cultural resources (literature and myths) that relate his ascetic disciplines to his modern-day political activism. Avoiding any particular interpretive lens has allowed an analysis of Gandhi’s ascetic activism that focuses attention on what Gandhi himself said that he was doing. This is not to devalue previous scholarship that uses various angles to understand Gandhi, but there has been a need to retrieve the underlying principles of Gandhi’s religio-philosophical foundations that he himself considered to be essential. The sheer volume and diversity of Gandhi’s writings has created what appears to be a “politico-religious mishmash”3 and “unsystematized and often inconsistent jungle.”4 However, it affords a view of both the scope and integration of overarching concepts in Gandhi’s thinking, and their development over time. This hermeneutic validates Gandhi’s own claim that “there is a consistency running through” his “seeming inconsistencies.”5 It is apparent in his dynamic use of myths, folklore, religious symbols and vocabulary, and reinterpretation of religious texts and rules for personal and political aspirations. Gandhi’s engaged renunciation occurs within his traditional Indian framework, which presented him with the paradigms of pravṛtti and nivṛtti, which he saw as complementary, not contradictory. He selectively extrapolated modes of practice such as tapas, yajña, and ascetic disciplines to integrate them into a strategy for his nonviolent struggle through the method of satyagraha, which by definition comprises opposing ideologies. Although his consistency may not be readily visible because of his constant experimentation, Gandhi’s commentary nonetheless reveals the coherence of his actions with his goals. Gandhi himself did not see his thought processes as a theoretical pursuit, but always in the context of his actions. Just because Gandhi “never used the word ‘dialectic’ to define it does not mean that his method was undialectical,” argues Richard Lannoy. At the same time, 215 Conclusion notwithstanding an apparent “dialectic of creative conflict,” Gandhi’s innovative synthesis, expressed through a wide variety of traditional myths, symbols, and embodied performance, was not bereft of logical coherence.6 Gandhi claimed that he was simply extrapolating a tested technology from ancient tradition (asceticism) and applying it to modern goals. He often emphasized the importance of letting go of any profitless theoretical arguments when studying religious texts. Gandhi’s approach to a philosophy of ascetic activism was not that of a theorist or scholar; rather, as he himself claimed...