Gandhi in Contemporary Times
This volume brings together essays that discuss and contextualise Gandhis ideas on pluralism, religious identity, non-violence, satyagraha, and modernity. It interrogates the epistemic foundations of Gandhian thinking and weltanschauung, identifies diverse strands within his arguments, and gives it new meaning in contemporary society.
This book focuses on Gandhis engagements with religious, political, and social conflicts; his reflections on faith and modernity; and his argumentative dialogues with Mohammad Ali Jinnah and B. R. Ambedkar. It provides critical insights into Gandhis philosophy and suggests ways of engaging with his ethical and moral ideas in contemporary intellectual and political discourse. Comparing and contrasting Gandhian thought and strategies with contemporary issues and conceptions of religious freedom, conflict resolution, and liberalism, the volume reformulates and reconstitutes his intellectual and political legacy.
This book points to new and possible future directions of research on Gandhian concepts and will be useful for scholars in the fields of political science, Gandhian studies, sociology, and philosophy.
S K Srivastava is a consultant surgeon. Apart from publishing papers in professional medical journals, he has edited Modern Concepts of Surgery (1992) and is the author of Breast Care and Cancer (1999). He has been a freelance commentator on social, political, and health-related issues for national dailies. His interests include sociology and Gandhian studies. He blogs on a variety of issues. He organizes the VIRAJ Lecture Series at India Habitat Centre New Delhi.
Ashok Vohra is former Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy, Delhi University. He is also the former director of Gandhi Bhavan and Dean of the Arts Faculty, University of Delhi. He has published a number of books and research papers on wide-ranging philosophical themes including Gandhian thought. He has authored Wittgensteins Philosophy of Mind and translated Ludwig Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, On Certainty, and Culture and Value into Hindi.
First published 2020
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Epigraph is from Nirmal Vermas, Dhundh Se Uthati Dhun. Vani Prakashan 2018, page 180. Translation by the editors.
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ISBN: 978-0-8153-6606-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-0030-1611-3 (ebk)
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Simplicity, Austerity, Excellence
When I think of Gandhi, what is the first thing that comes to mind? An image of a flame a sliver of light in the darkness, slender and unwavering, occupying minimal space in the darkness; yet burning, so steadily that one is not even aware that it is burning.
Nirmal Verma
Contents
S K SRIVASTAVA
MRINAL MIRI
ARVIND SHARMA
ASHOK VOHRA
VALERIAN RODRIGUES
HILAL AHMED
APAAR KUMAR
ANOOP GEORGE
BINDU PURI
Hilal Ahmed is Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. His work is on political Islam, Muslim modernities/representation, and politics of symbols in South Asia. His book Muslim Political Discourse in Postcolonial India: Monuments, Memory, Contestation (2014) looks at these thematic concerns to make sense of the nature of contemporary Muslim political discourse.
Anoop George received his PhD from IIT Bombay and Masters from the University of Hyderabad. He has been a fellow of Indian Council of Philosophical Research. He taught philosophy at BITS Pilani K. K. Birla Goa campus for more than two years. Currently he is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Palakkad. His research interests are continental philosophy, phenomenology, and existentialism with a special focus on modernity, technology, and identity.
Apaar Kumar is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad. He completed his doctoral work in philosophy at Emory University, USA, and he has published in the areas of Kants metaphysics and epistemology and hermeneutics and phenomenology. His other research interests include issues in ethical and political philosophy. Currently, he is working on Kants theory of self-consciousness and exploring questions at the interface of philosophical hermeneutics and social ontology.
Mrinal Miri is former Professor of Philosophy and retired Vice Chancellor of North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. He is also a former member of the upper house of the Indian parliament and author of several books in different areas of philosophy.
Bindu Puri is Professor of Philosophy and the chairperson at the Centre for Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her main interests are in areas of political philosophy, moral philosophy, and contemporary Indian philosophy. She has published numerous papers and authored Gandhi and Moral Life (2004) and The Tagore-Gandhi Debate: On Matters of Truth and Untruth (2015), besides several others related to Kant. She has presented papers in various national and international seminars and conferences.
Valerian Rodrigues was formerly Professor of Political Science at Mangalore University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research. He was the first Ambedkar Chair at Ambedkar University Delhi. His writings include The Essential Writings of B. R. Ambedkar (2002), The Indian Parliament: A Democracy at Work (2011), co-authored with B. L. Shankar, and Speaking for Karnataka (2018), co-authored with Rajendra Chenni, Nataraj Huliyar, and S. Japhet. He has also edited Conversations with Ambedkar: 10 Ambedkar Memorial Lectures (2019).
Arvind Sharma is a former IAS officer. He is Birks Professor of Comparative Religion in the School of Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He has taught at the University of Queensland, Sydney and at Northeastern, Temple, Boston, and Harvard Universities. He has published extensively in the fields of comparative religion and Indology. He was instrumental, through three Global Conferences (2006, 2011, 2016), in facilitating the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Worlds Religions.
