Category: Truth and Power

Truth and Power: Gandhi’s Political Philosophy

Darryl Naranjit, Truth and Power

Gandhi’s diagnosis of the disease of modern civilization concludes, therefore, that it was because of the covering over of reality, which was in truth governed by the moral law, and the creation of a world grounded in untruth and deception, that the oppressed were suffering at the hands of the oppressors. In a world grounded in truth, men would see the ‘ordered moral government of the universe’, and would see behind it the hands of a just God. Good would triumph over evil in such a world. Violence, oppression, injustice appeared to be ascendant because of the pervasiveness of untruth. The solution that Gandhi proposed was to oppose the untruth with truth – satygraha, the force of truth.

Truth, when insisted upon, when proclaimed, overcomes untruth and ignorance as light dispels darkness. According to Gandhi, the web of maya, the deceptive power of maya, must be fought by proclaiming and insisting upon the truth. Non-being persists when the truth is not known, or when falsehood is deliberately propagated. Since untruth is ultimately violence and destruction, it can persist only when it takes the form of the Good, when disguised as the Good, otherwise its destructive nature would be immediately seen.

India, according to Gandhi, had fallen into the clutches of imperialism because India had lost sight of its ancient wisdom – the importance of the Good, the unity of all Being, the ‘ordered moral government of the universe’, and had become morally decrepit.  Untouchability and other social evils had dulled its moral sensibility. It was, therefore, prey to modern western civilization, which under the guise of the ‘mission of civilization’, exploited its people. The ‘mission of civilization’, the banner under which the West exploited the ‘dark races’, was a veneer which hid the real motives of the West – love of wealth and power. Thus the British, Gandhi believed, could not be driven out of India through violence, but only through uncovering the reality behind the facade of its ‘mission of civilization’ by insisting on truth – satygraha. The truth would set you free, Gandhi believed.

For Gandhi, one must prepare oneself if one is to realize the truth. He compares it to solving mathematical problems, “No person, even if grown up in age, is qualified to understand difficult problems in Algebra without preparation,” and he says further, “Tapascharya is certainly necessary for the realization of truth.” The satyagrahi must first insist on the purity of his motives. He must realize swaraj in his own life – self-rule, literally – where he is in control of his own desires. He must practice ahimsa, not only in the negative sense of non-violence, but also in the positive sense of love for all existing creatures. Only through a stringent process of self-transformation is the satyagrahi ready to insist on truth from his opponents.

The function of the satyagrahi is to transform the world, by being the spokesperson for truth, by being the conscience of the world. The satyagrahi, by insisting on truth, by speaking on behalf of truth, becomes the agent of truth, the point where the light of truth shines forth to dispel ignorance and untruth. His duty is to educate the people about the truth. The satyagrahi, however, is also a political being who must organize the people to achieve political goals. The satyagrahi must have absolute faith in God, for faith in God is the antidote to violence. The satyagrahi must be convinced that, by the will of God, good triumphs over evil. He must see the ‘ordered moral government of the universe’.  The satygrahi must also be able to communicate this absolute faith to the people, so that they too believe in the eventual triumph of good over evil, truth over falsehood.

Gandhi thought, therefore, that modern western civilization had become entrenched throughout the world because the non-western world had fallen asleep, had become intellectually and spiritually dead. As such, the task of the satyagrahi was to awaken those who were sleeping, and quicken and resurrect their spirit. The people had to turn back to the ancient path from which they had departed. They had to be imbued with a sense of mission, since ultimately they had to construct a new civilization based on the values of love and the unity of all existence.

Gandhi embarked upon then no less a task than building a new civilization, based on ahimsa and truth, to replace modern civilization that was, in his opinion, responsible for creating an exploitative world order; an order which was designed to serve the self- interest of elites in imperialist countries. The agency for this transformation of the world was this invisible group of satygrahis, connected only through shared beliefs and ideals, who would see themselves as having the responsibility of bringing about true civilization.

This new civilization will be based upon the realization of an ‘ordered moral government of the universe’, to which human beings, in order to find liberation, should have faith in. In submitting to the moral order, man would find true happiness. This moral order operates in all spheres of human activity, as the governing principle that guides man in his economic, social and political activities. When human beings are guided by the moral order then the world is aligned to its true purpose and it develops according to God’s will.  When human beings transgress this moral order then the world loses its way and becomes a violent, meaningless and unhappy place.

In order to bring the world back on course, the satyagrahi must know, firstly, that it is untruth, maya or ignorance that brings about this disorder. The satygrahi must, therefore, insist upon truth and take upon himself/herself the task of restoring the moral order. To do this he must awaken the people and help build the true world civilization through his sacrifice and toil.

Truth and Power: Gandhi’s Political Philosophy

truthandpower2 (1)Mahatma Gandhi was a revolutionary thinker. Underneath the simple words and phrases that appear almost as platitudes, there is a meaning, a philosophy that challenges modern Western thought at its core. This book is written as an attempt to uncover the meanings hidden in those simple words and phrases.

Gandhi used the term satyagraha to name the strategy and philosophy he was using. The word satyagraha literally translated means ‘truth-force’. On September 11, 1906, in South Africa, Gandhi explained his use of the term. “None of us knew what name to give to our movement. I then used the term passive resistance in describing it. I did not quite understand the implications of passive resistance as I called it. I only knew that some new principle had come into being. As the struggle advanced, the phrase passive resistance gave rise to confusion and it appeared shameful to permit this great struggle to be known only by an English name. Again, that foreign phrase could hardly pass as current coin among the community. A small prize was therefore announced in Indian Opinion to be awarded to the reader who invented the best designation for our struggle. We thus received a number of suggestions. The meaning of the struggle had been then fully discussed in Indian Opinion and the competitors for the prize had fairly sufficient material to serve as a basis for their exploration. Shri Maganlal Gandhi was one of the competitors and he suggested the word Sadagraha, meaning firmness in a good cause. I liked the word, but it did not fully represent the whole idea I wished it to connote. I therefore corrected it to Satyagraha. Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth.”

Truth and Power: Gandhi’s Political Philosophy

  1. truthandpower2 (1)Truth and Power

Mahatma Gandhi was a revolutionary thinker. Underneath the simple words and phrases that appear almost as platitudes, there is a meaning, a philosophy that challenges modern Western thought at its core. This book is written as an attempt to uncover the meanings hidden in those simple words and phrases.

Gandhi used the term satyagraha to name the strategy and philosophy he was using. The word satyagraha literally translated means ‘truth-force’. On September 11, 1906, in South Africa, Gandhi explained his use of the term. “None of us knew what name to give to our movement. I then used the term passive resistance in describing it. I did not quite understand the implications of passive resistance as I called it. I only knew that some new principle had come into being. As the struggle advanced, the phrase passive resistance gave rise to confusion and it appeared shameful to permit this great struggle to be known only by an English name. Again, that foreign phrase could hardly pass as current coin among the community. A small prize was therefore announced in Indian Opinion to be awarded to the reader who invented the best designation for our struggle. We thus received a number of suggestions. The meaning of the struggle had been then fully discussed in Indian Opinion and the competitors for the prize had fairly sufficient material to serve as a basis for their exploration. Shri Maganlal Gandhi was one of the competitors and he suggested the word Sadagraha, meaning firmness in a good cause. I liked the word, but it did not fully represent the whole idea I wished it to connote. I therefore corrected it to Satyagraha. Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth.”

The question is why did he use this term. Was there, in Gandhi’s mind, a power associated with truth, a power that could bring down the British Empire? What is the relationship of truth to power? Nietzsche, arguably one of modern Europe’s most influential philosophers, has examined this relationship quite rigorously. Gandhi, therefore, may be compared with Nietzsche who is perhaps the most radical of modern western thinkers. They are, however, on opposite sides of the fence. Gandhi champions the “moral order” of the universe; Nietzsche dismisses it. Indeed the gist of this book is that Gandhi presupposes a cosmic spiritual struggle between good and evil, a struggle that takes place in the minds of human beings. It is a struggle between two opposing philosophies, two ideas, two world-views – a struggle between light and darkness, truth and untruth.

Nietzsche thinks that truth is merely the intellectualization of the ‘will to power’; he has been considered the foremost ‘philosopher of suspicion’. In comparing these two thinkers, it can be claimed that Gandhi turns the ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ unleashed by Nietzsche on morality, on its head. This is the key to understanding Gandhi and this is what makes him probably the most revolutionary of thinkers. Whereas Nietzsche excludes himself from the probing light of the ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’, Gandhi subjects every modern position to this suspicion.

Nietzsche’s ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ had subjected every post-Socratic philosophical position, every philosophical foundation, and all morality, to skepsis. His historical genealogy sought the genesis of morality in the ‘will to power’. All ascetic ideals were attempts to weaken and to destroy the affirmation of life. Nietzsche points to a struggle between life affirming forces and life denying forces, a struggle that occurs throughout history and in the history of thought.

For Nietzsche what is life affirming is all that enhances the ‘will to power’. For Gandhi, life affirmation is the discovery of the self as distinct from the ego. The self is the source of power; this is, of course, the classical Indian philosophical position. Nietzsche and Gandhi thus stand on opposite sides of what constitutes power. For Nietzsche, the ‘will to power’ is constrained and negated by conventional morality. What passes for morality, from this point of view, is a means of weakening the strong. For Gandhi, on the other hand, finding the true self means mastering the ego, and this is the source of power. These opposing viewpoints stem from different ideas about what is real and about what is true, and about the relationship of truth to power.

It is necessary to understand the differing ideas of how truth is related to power in both thinkers. For Nietzsche truth is related to power in the sense that every truth is an attempt of the ‘will to power’ to assert itself. For Gandhi, the self, the atman, is the source of power and of truth. What distinguishes these positions is the position of the will in the search for truth. Nietzsche locates the will prior to knowledge and in a sense directing knowledge, Gandhi thinks that the ego must be “reduced to a cipher” (i.e., the will must be ‘bracketed’, to use a phenomenological term) and truth is found only when the will is removed from the act of knowing, that is, when the self is found. The relationship of truth to power is crucial, therefore in understanding Gandhi’s philosophy.