When I was younger I thought very highly of Gandhi. He was a kind of hero of mine. In recent years (meaning the last several decades), I’ve moved away from that feeling of admiration. He has come to be an ambivalent figure for me, at best. I became somewhat disillusioned with my evolving understanding of the extent to which, despite his moral upstandingness (in most respects) and his valiant pacifism and brilliant political strategizing, nevertheless he also seems to have been one of the leaders who implanted the seeds of what became, on the one hand, Hindu Nationalism (e.g. BJP), and on the other hand, led to the Partition (between India and Pakistan).
In other words, though he himself was a pacifist, Gandhi participated in the genesis of a sort of ideological movement that has subsequently resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands (if not millions), and that has resulted in the current armed standoff of two nuclear-armed states (India and Pakistan) – which can’t be good for the general state of peace in the world. His pacifism was so focused on the goal of Indian independence that it failed to take into account the way that Indian independence, when achieved under Hindu-nationalist colors, might not be a good thing for peace in the longest run. People say, what would have been the alternative? I’m not sure – I like to imagine a much more secular modern India, which would include the Muslim-majority parts (Bangladesh and Pakistan) and even the Buddhist-majority parts (Myanmar or Sri Lanka) of the historic India. There is an alternative view that Nehru and Jinnah were mostly responsible for the cementing of Hindu nationalism and/or Muslim nationalism as core aspects of Indian and Pakistani identity, and that Gandhi lost control of events, but given Gandhi’s own intense religiosity, especially later in life, on balance I feel forced to reject that view.
I would trace some of my dissatisfaction with Gandhi, in his role of religious philosopher, as I am wont, to the pernicious “purity narratives” as I call them (I’ve written about this stuff before). While on the one hand he attempted to break down the sorts of “purity narratives” that had led, over millenia, to the oppression of Dalits within the Hindu culture, on the other hand he merely substituted other Vedantic-based obsessions instead (such as obsessions with diet or sexual repression or even his adamant nonviolence).
By “purity narratives,” I mean the framing of moral thought in negatives instead of positives, an obsession with “cleanliness” in the realm of thought or behavior, and a focus on the elimination of “sin,” etc. I see these same pernicious “purity narratives” destroying the fundamental humane goodness in so many Christian movements, too. Further, neither the Buddhists nor the Atheists are immune (look at recent Buddhist violence in Sri Lanka or Myanmar, or look at the almost cruel, judgmental negativity embedded in the discourses of “New Atheists” such as Hitchens or Dawkins).
This is all a digression and a rant, however, meant to introduce something that is part of Gandhi’s “purity narrative” that I found myself meditating on the other day. I guess I offer the above by way of apology for the evident hypocrisy in thinking this “list” by Gandhi worth contemplating, despite its clear encapsulation of the ideologies of negative morality.
So those caveats aside (were they caveats?), here following is Gandhi’s list (which I found on an interesting website called lists of note)
Seven Social Sins
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principles.– Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 1925
Perhaps, as far as lists of negatives, this might be a pretty good list to feel positive about. I’d like to imagine, however, re-crafting this list into something more affirmational. Is that possible?
