by Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee
Mahatma Gandhi occupies a paradoxical position in contemporary India. His portrait remains on the currency, his birthday is observed as Gandhi Jayanti, his name is associated with programmes of rural employment, sanitation and social service, and his ideas of non-violence and truth continue to be invoked across the world. Yet the political and social world of the twenty-first century is often sharply different from the moral universe that Gandhi imagined. We live amid aggressive nationalism, digital misinformation, political polarisation, consumerism, ecological anxiety and technological disruption. In such a landscape, asking whether Gandhi remains relevant is not merely an exercise in historical remembrance. It is an examination of whether truth, non-violence, social responsibility and ethical politics can survive in an age of unprecedented power and communication.
The description of Gandhi as the “Father of the Nation” has a long public history in India, although it is not a formal constitutional title. The phrase is generally associated with Subhas Chandra Bose’s 1944 broadcasts from Southeast Asia, when Bose addressed Gandhi as the “Father of our Nation.” Gandhi’s place in India’s national movement, however, cannot be understood through a single honorific. He was one among several major leaders who shaped the struggle for independence. His distinctive contribution was to transform Indian nationalism into a mass movement and to give political resistance a moral and ethical vocabulary.
Gandhi’s importance began with his insistence that politics could not be divorced from morality. Truth was not simply an abstract philosophical principle for him. It was a discipline of public life. His concept of Satyagraha—often translated as “truth-force” or “truth holding”—sought to resist injustice without hatred and without violence. The objective was not merely to defeat an opponent but to appeal to the opponent’s conscience.This distinction is particularly relevant today. Political disagreement frequently becomes personal hostility. Social media has made it easy to reduce complicated questions to slogans, caricatures and accusations. Gandhi’s political method suggests a different possibility: opposition without dehumanisation. One can disagree profoundly with another person without denying that person’s dignity.
His principle of Ahimsa, or non-violence, is perhaps his most internationally recognised contribution. Gandhi did not regard non-violence as weakness. It required courage, organisation, discipline and willingness to endure suffering. His campaigns in India—including Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and the Salt March—demonstrated how mass political action could be organised without relying upon conventional military power.In the contemporary world, the relevance of non-violence extends beyond political movements. Violence is not confined to physical confrontation. Hate speech, communal hostility, humiliation, online harassment and deliberate misinformation can create social violence even when no physical weapon is involved. Gandhi’s insistence upon controlling anger and refusing to turn political opponents into enemies therefore has contemporary significance.But Gandhi’s idea of non-violence should not be romanticised. He himself confronted situations in which maintaining complete control over mass movements was extremely difficult. The violence at Chauri Chaura in 1922 led him to suspend the Non-Cooperation Movement. His decision demonstrated that he considered the ethical discipline of a movement more important than immediate political momentum.
Another major Gandhian idea is Swaraj. It is frequently translated simply as independence or self-rule, but Gandhi’s understanding was considerably broader. Political independence from Britain was only one dimension. Genuine Swaraj required individuals and communities capable of exercising self-discipline and responsibility.That idea remains relevant because democracy is not sustained by elections alone. A democratic society also requires citizens who can tolerate disagreement, respect institutions, distinguish fact from propaganda and accept constitutional limitations on power. Gandhi’s conception of Swaraj places responsibility alongside freedom. Rights matter, but so do duties.His emphasis on the common person is equally important. Gandhi deliberately brought peasants, workers, women and ordinary villagers into the centre of national politics. The freedom struggle could no longer remain exclusively the concern of lawyers, professionals and educated urban elites. The spinning wheel and khadi became symbols of participation, while campaigns around salt, taxation and local grievances connected national politics with ordinary life.
Contemporary democracy faces a different but related challenge: the distance between institutions and citizens. Gandhi’s politics reminds us that democracy becomes meaningful when citizens feel that public affairs belong to them. Participation cannot be reduced to voting once every few years. Community organisation, voluntary work, public discussion, social service and peaceful civic action are also components of democratic life.
Gandhi’s concern with Swadeshi also deserves reconsideration in the age of globalisation. His advocacy of indigenous production was not simply an economic rejection of everything foreign. It was closely connected with self-reliance and the dignity of labour. He wanted Indians to recognise their economic dependence and develop local productive capacity.Modern India is far more industrialised and globally integrated than Gandhi’s India. His suspicion of large-scale industrial civilisation cannot simply be transferred unchanged to the twenty-first century. Yet his questions remain pertinent: What kind of economic development do we want? Who benefits from growth? What happens to workers displaced by technological change? How should economic progress be balanced against environmental sustainability?
Gandhi’s doctrine of trusteeship offers another area for contemporary reflection. He recognised the legitimacy of private property but argued that wealth carries social responsibility. The wealthy, in his conception, should regard themselves as trustees of resources whose benefits cannot be separated from the wider community.This idea becomes significant in an era of enormous corporate wealth and widening economic disparities. Trusteeship is not a substitute for modern economic policy, taxation or regulation, but it raises a fundamental ethical question: what obligations accompany economic power?Perhaps nowhere is Gandhi’s relevance more visible than in his attitude toward poverty and the dignity of labour. He repeatedly asked Indians to think about the poorest and most vulnerable person before making political decisions. His famous “talisman” was essentially an ethical test: consider the impact of an action upon the poorest person one has encountered.This principle can provide a useful framework for public policy. Infrastructure, technology, artificial intelligence, economic reform and urbanisation can produce enormous benefits, but their consequences should also be assessed from the perspective of those with the fewest resources. Development becomes more meaningful when it expands human capability rather than merely increasing aggregate wealth.
Gandhi’s campaign against untouchability also remains historically significant. He regarded the practice as a profound moral wrong and worked extensively for the social inclusion of communities subjected to caste discrimination. At the same time, Gandhi’s approach to caste and his disagreements with B. R. Ambedkar remain subjects of serious historical and political debate. Ambedkar’s critique of caste was much more radical, particularly regarding the structural foundations of caste society. Therefore, invoking Gandhi’s social reform record should not erase Ambedkar’s distinctive contribution or the continuing complexity of caste.Gandhi’s commitment to communal harmony acquires particular importance in a society as diverse as India. His understanding of nationalism was not based upon religious uniformity. He believed that India’s civilisation could accommodate multiple faiths and traditions. During the final phase of his life, communal violence became one of his deepest concerns. His visits to violence-affected areas, his fasts and his appeals for reconciliation represented an attempt to place human life above sectarian identity.
Modern India remains religiously diverse. Consequently, the Gandhian question is not whether people should abandon their religious identities. It is whether citizenship can remain equal despite differences of faith. A democratic nation cannot depend upon everyone thinking alike. Its stability depends upon citizens accepting pluralism as a political fact and a social principle.Gandhi’s relationship with women presents another complicated area. Women played a major role in his mass movements, and Gandhi actively encouraged their participation in public life. He challenged conventional restrictions on women’s political activity and regarded their moral and organisational strength as crucial to the freedom movement. Yet some of his views about gender and sexuality were shaped by the social assumptions of his period and are subject to modern criticism. His historical contribution should therefore be understood without turning him into an uncritical modern icon.
His views on education also deserve renewed attention. Gandhi’s concept of basic education sought to connect learning with productive work, social responsibility and practical skills. Today’s education system operates on a completely different technological and economic scale. Nevertheless, the question Gandhi raised remains important: Should education merely prepare individuals for employment, or should it also prepare them for responsible citizenship?The same question can be extended to technology. Gandhi could not have imagined smartphones, social media, generative artificial intelligence or the digital economy. But his philosophy provides a useful ethical framework for examining technological power. Technology should be judged not merely by what it can accomplish but also by how it affects human dignity, equality and social relationships.
The environmental dimension of Gandhi’s thought has become increasingly significant. His critique of limitless consumption is frequently cited in contemporary discussions of sustainability. Gandhi’s famous warning that the Earth provides enough to satisfy human need but not unlimited human greed captures, in broad terms, the ecological concern embedded in his philosophy.The climate crisis makes the question of consumption unavoidable. Economic development is essential for a country such as India, but development cannot mean unlimited exploitation of natural resources. Gandhi’s emphasis on moderation, local production and responsible consumption offers a philosophical counterweight to a culture increasingly driven by excess consumption.Yet Gandhi’s relevance should not be transformed into Gandhian absolutism. He was not infallible. His political strategies were sometimes controversial. His economic ideas cannot simply substitute for modern macroeconomic policy. His positions on caste, industrialisation and several social questions require historical scrutiny. His disagreements with other national leaders should be studied rather than suppressed in the interests of hero worship.
Author is International Tagore Awardee. He can be mailed at profratanbhattacharjee@gmail.com
