Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

The Gandhian Moment
ISBN: 9780674074859
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Harvard University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Gandhi Mahatma 1869–1948 -- Political and social views; Passive resistance; Nonviolence;

In this brief book, Jahanbegloo, a professor of Islamic Studies at York University, explains and elaborates on some of Gandhi's basic ideas, including satyagraha (truth force in civil disobedience), a belief in cultural and religious pluralism, and a commitment to Indian independence based on Hindu-Muslim unity. He also discusses two of Gandhi's influential Muslim ideological allies and his influence on political and religious leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Desmond Tutu. However, Jahanbegloo hews too closely to Gandhi's published writings and draws only occasionally on his political polemics or policies. In part because of this, and perhaps influenced by Gandhi's highly idealistic rhetoric, the author's language can sound ethereal while making grandiose claims on Gandhi's behalf, as when he writes that his subject's "political journey" involved "a search under the umbrella of truth toward a new agenda of global transformation." In explicating Gandhi's thought, Jahanbegloo fails to critique it or cite others to discuss its limits. Attempts to apply Gandhi's thought in a largely unmediated way diminish the book's political applicability. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is Associate Professor and Noor-York Chair in Islamic Studies at York University, Toronto.