DR.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY LUCKNOW

2018-19

SOCIOLOGY
PROJECT

ON

Gandhi’s Idea on Spirituality

Abhibha Singh Dr. Sanjay Singh

2nd semester HOD

180101005 RMLNLU
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
2. INTRODUCTION
3. OBJECTIVE
4. GANDHI AS A SPIRITUAL TEACHER AND RELIGIOUS LEADER
5. GANDHI’S CONTRIBUTION TO MODERN SPIRITUALITY
6. CONCLUSION
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This project involved extensive research and would not have been completed without contribution of
many people.

Firstly, I would thank our faculty advisor, Dr. Sanjay Singh for his kind cooperation and continuous
guidance.

I would also thank the University’s administration for the availability of library.

I would also like to thank my seniors and colleagues for support.

Lastly, this project would not be completed without the cooperation and effort of everyone mentioned
above.
 INTRODUCTION

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the great figures of the twentieth century. In a century marked by the excesses
of Nazism and Communism, the struggles against Colonialism, and two World Wars, his theory and
practice of nonviolence shined like a beacon of hope. He tried to create a religiously tolerant and inclusive
civic nation in his own country, divided as it was along religious, linguistic and ethnic lines. How to live in
peace, justice and prosperity in today’s pluralistic societies is a lesson that he never tired of teaching, and
from which people everywhere can learn.

When Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948, the world hailed him as one of the greatest
spiritual leaders, not just of the century, but of all time. He was ranked not just with Thoreau, Tolstoy, and
St. Francis, but with Buddha, Mohammed and even Jesus. “Generations to come will scarce believe that
such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth,” Albert Einstein wrote at the time.
Gandhi’s legacy includes not just the brilliantly waged struggle against institutionalized racism in South
Africa, the independence movement of India, and a ground-breaking path of interreligious dialogue, but
also boasts the first widespread application of nonviolence as the most powerful tool for positive social
change. Gandhi’s nonviolence was not just political: It was rooted and grounded in the spiritual, which is
why he exploded not just onto India’s political stage, but onto the world stage, and not just temporally,
but for all times.

Gandhi was, first and foremost, a religious man in search of God. For more than fifty years, he pursued
truth, proclaiming that the best way to discover truth was through the practice of active, faith-based
nonviolence.

Along the way, he unleashed a new method of social change, which he called “Satyagraha” (from the
Sanskrit for truth force.) He led a movement against racial injustice in South Africa and then brought
about a nonviolent revolution in India that secured independence from the British Empire. His example
and teachings inspire us to apply the same single-mindedness in our pursuit of an end to war, nuclear
weapons, environmental destruction, violence, hunger, poverty and injustice, and the creation of a
culture of peace, justice and nonviolence. In other words, he challenges us to become prophets and
apostles of nonviolence.
 OBJECTIVES

This paper deals with Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of spiritual politics. It deals with the basic essence of his
idea and its application in the modern world .The main objectives of the paper are as follows:

 To bring to light the impact of the idea preached by Mahatma Gandhi in modern times.
 To discuss the idea of Gandhi on spiritualisation of politics and non-violence as the major weapon
in fighting all the odds of the society and his contribution in the spiritualisation of politics.
 Gandhi as a Spiritual Teacher and Religious Leader

“I am not a saint who has strayed into politics,” Gandhi once wrote. “I am a politician who is trying
to become a saint.” While Adolf Hitler organized genocide in Europe, Franklin Roosevelt militarized
America, Winston Churchill cheered on the Allies and Harry Truman ordered that atomic bombs be
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Gandhi was attempting an entirely new kind of politics based on the
transformative spirituality of nonviolence. Gandhi wanted independence for his people, but he did not
want to kill anyone for it. He wanted basic human rights of food, clothing, shelter, education, jobs,
healthcare, and dignity for hundreds of millions of impoverished Indians. But he called for justice by first
living in radical solidarity with the poorest of the poor. He demonstrated in his daily life, through the use
of the spinning wheel and communal living, how they could transform their own lives, even as they
sought political independence. He wanted to stop oppression everywhere in the world, but he did not
want to use the methods of the oppressors and in the process become just another imperialist. He wanted
to reach the heights of sanctity in his own life, and so he disciplined himself ruthlessly, denied himself
basic pleasures, and shared his mistakes and faults with the world. He also refused to give in to a narrow
world worldview, and instead led daily interreligious prayer services, called for religious unity, and
opposed any injustice committed in the name of God. The tie that binds Gandhi’s life together is that
Gandhi tried to be a person of integrity and authenticity. He wanted to do God’s will, and he did not want
to be a hypocrite. That meant he had to identify as radically as possible with the poorest people on the
face of the earth. If he wanted to achieve the heights of divinity, he said to himself, he had to touch the
bottom of humanity and become one with the starving millions. He learned quickly that the path to God
required the ongoing purification of his own heart and life.

Through fifty years of letter-writing, he always maintained that the way to peace, justice and
salvation, begins first with the purification of one’s own heart and daily life. As he purified his innerself,
he stepped deeper into public turmoil and willingly suffered for his political beliefs, undergoing repeated
arrests, trials, imprisonments, death threats, attempts on his life, constant verbal abuse, and fasting for
his causes, coming to the brink of death on several occasions. Never had such religious idealism been
practiced politically and socially on the world stage. When Gandhi began his personal transformation at
the turn of the century in South Africa, he realized that he could never hurt or kill another human being,
or indeed, any creature; that there was no cause, however noble it may appear, that justified the taking of
another life. At the same time, he knew he could not be passive or indifferent in the face of violence,
racism, poverty, and war. Gandhi thought that an honest spiritual search for God must thrust a person
into the world in search of justice for the poor and peace between warring peoples. But he also quickly
concluded that the only way to pursue social change and justice for the poor―in the name of God―was
through strictly nonviolent means. “I am not endeavouring to see God through the service of humanity,
for I know that God is in heaven, nor down below, but in every one,” Gandhi wrote to a friend on August 4,
1927. If God is in everyone, Gandhi believed, then he would have to love everyone, even his enemy. He
would have to side with the most oppressed, impoverished, suffering people on the planet, and not just
once, but every day and for the rest of his life, come what may. If he remained true to this hard road, he
knew his outcome was assured: not only political independence and peace, but the vision of God.
 In this spiritual search, Gandhi came up with the method of satyagraha as a holy strategy for social
and political revolution and widespread structural change. If one was willing to suffer and die for justice
and peace, Gandhi taught, without the desire to retaliate or kill, then the spirit of all-encompassing
redemptive love would capture even God’s attention, win the sympathy of the world and wear down the
opponent in the process until justice and freedom were achieved. It is a foolproof method, he insisted. As
Gandhi sought the spiritual roots of political struggle, he realized more and more that he was merely
applying ancient spiritual teachings of Jesus, Buddha and other religious figures to today’s political crises.
His great achievement was simply the scientific, systematic, steadfast application of ancient spiritual
truths to widespread national and international problems. To understand Gandhi, we need to notice his
daily dedication to prayer, meditation, and scripture study. When he was a child, Gandhi’s nurse taught
him, whenever he was scared, to repeat God’s name over and over again throughout the day. He tried to
continue this practice every day for the rest of his life. He sought to experience the presence of God every
minute of his life. This personal spiritual search, coupled with his dramatic public search for God’s
nonviolent transformation of the world, inspires us today to attempt the same spiritual journey in our
own lives. “I have grown disillusioned with Western civilization,” Gandhi said after returning from the
Round Table conference in London. The people that you meet on the way seem half-crazy. They spend
their days in luxury or in making a bare living and retire at night thoroughly exhausted. In this state of
affairs, I cannot understand when they can devote themselves to prayers.” Prayer was critically important
for Gandhi. Each morning, he spent one hour in silent meditation before sunrise. Each evening, he spent
another hour in silent meditation. Every day for nearly fifty years, he read from the Sermon on the Mount,
the Koran, and most importantly, the Bhagavad Gita, with a focus on the second chapter, which calls for
renunciation of selfishness. There, he found instruction on how to do God’s will and “see God face to face.”

Gandhi viewed the Hindu scripture as a radical call to complete renunciation, steadfast love, and
perfect nonviolence. He wrote many commentaries on the Gita, translated it several times, and tried to
change his life and habits to fit its teachings. Using the teachings of the Gita, he summed up the model
human being as one “who is jealous of none; who is a fount of mercy; who is without egotism; who is
selfless; who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery; who is ever forgiving; who is always
contented; whose resolutions are firm; who has dedicated mind and soul to God; who causes no dread;
who is not afraid of others; who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear; who is pure; who is versed in
action yet remains unaffected by it; who renounces all fruit, good or bad; who treats friend and foe alike;
who is untouched by respect or disrespect; who is not puffed up by praise; who does not go under when
people speak ill of him; who loves silence and solitude; and who has a disciplined reason.” Gandhi spent
his days trying to incarnate this spiritual ideal.

Gandhi then was not just a lawyer, politician, activist, social reformer, or revolutionary: Gandhi
was a contemplative, a person of God, a saint. He showed the possibilities not just of Hinduism and
Christianity in practice, but what it means to be human. He did so because he relied on God. He allowed
God to disarm his heart and in the process became an instrument for God’s disarmament of the world.
Indeed, he not only rediscovered the possibilities of peace and justice, but also of holiness, innocence, and
Godliness. That is why his life and martyrdom have become so influential, not just for Indians, but for all
people. He inspires us to seek God, to promote peace, to walk with the poor, to pursue justice, to meditate
and to speak the truth.
 Gandhi’s Contribution To Modern Spirituality

“If humanity is to progress,” King concluded, “Gandhi is inescapable. We may ignore him at our
own risk.” Gandhi’s contributions to modern spirituality include not only his impact on social movements
around the world through the political strategy of active nonviolence and satyagraha, but his
transforming influence on religion itself. Thanks to Gandhi, many of the world’s religions have been
inspired to return to their root beliefs of truth and nonviolence that they all share in common.

Gandhi’s influence is so great and yet so sublime that it is hard to categorize his many
contributions and achievements. But a few essential teachings can be gleaned from his life work and
testimony.

Gandhi’s primary contribution to spirituality and the world itself is nonviolence. Gandhi insisted
that if our worship of God is honest, if our faith is sincere, if we want to be people of prayer, indeed, if we
want to be fully human, we need to become people of non-violence. Gandhi worshiped the God of
nonviolence, and announced that every major religion was rooted in nonviolence. He taught that
nonviolence could be put into practice at every level of human life, in our own hearts, among our own
family and friends, in our local communities, as well as nationally and internationally. Gandhi urges us to
get rid of our guns and bombs, stop hurting those around us, simplify our lifestyles, enter the public
struggle for disarmament and justice, and pursue the depths of nonviolence. He said that each of us can
do it, from the poorest prisoner to presidents and popes.

More than that, Gandhi challenges people of faith to recognize the hypocrisy in their lives. He
argued that we cannot go to church, synagogue, and mosque one day, and the next day, sanction war,
support executions, foster racism or pay for nuclear weapons. We cannot claim to be people of faith and
Godliness and at the same time, contribute to the world’s faithlessness and Godlessness, as seen in
murders, executions, warfare and nuclear weapons. For Gandhi, the only authentic spirituality is the
spirituality of nonviolence. Every facet of life from now on, he said, had to be gauged from the perspective
of nonviolence. When he applied this spirituality of nonviolence in South Africa and India, he showed how
we can transform politics, religion, social institutions, laws, and even empires. He knew it would work
because nonviolence, he said, is the way of God.
 Conclusion
In the end, Gandhi challenges each one of us to seek God through our own active pursuit of truth
and nonviolence. He invites us to pursue the spiritual, political, economic and social depths of peace with
the same fierce determination and sacrifice that he undertook. Gandhi urges us to let go of our desire for
fame, fortune, power and ego, and instead to walk with the poor, simplify our lives, pray to God each day,
practice nonviolence in every area of our life, and work publicly for the abolition of nuclear weapons, star
wars, war itself, poverty, racism, sexism, hunger, the death penalty, abortion, the sanctions on Iraq,
handguns, environmental destruction, homelessness, religious bigotry, animal exploitation and violence
of any kind. He calls for nothing less than the total transformation of our lives and our world. In this call,
he stands with Francis of Assisi and Dorothy Day, as a messenger of God and a model of faith and peace.

“We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence,”
Gandhi once observed. “But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries
will be made in the field of nonviolence.”

Gandhi would want anyone who reads his words to undertake similar “experiments with truth” in
their own lives, in pursuit of new discoveries in the field of nonviolence, so that a new day of peace with
justice will soon dawn and we can all rejoice to see God face to face. May his hope and prayer come true.