Spectrum of left Part 3 - Gandhi and Marx debate

Gandhi and Karl Marx - A New Perspective - Akeel Pilgrami essay

     It is a known fact that both Gandhi and Karl Marx are seen as poles apart. Marxist scholars and Gandhians meet nowhere according to common understanding. There are those who are adamant that there can be no convergence point between these two. 

     However, there are points where both these agree in certain areas in the opinion of Philosopher and Columbia University professor Akeel Bilgramy. Although superficially there are no similarities, Akeel Pilgramy tries to establish similarities through certain interpretations.

       Left-wing scholars in India and around the world have harsh criticisms of Gandhi on the one side and they also insist that serious, original left leanings should be dug out of his writings and actions to bring forth more debates. 

Pilgramy says that Gandhi had no understanding of class, like many other philosophers, thinks that Gandhi's flow of thought is not uniform. He thinks that he is a person who gives opinions according to the political needs of the time and later thinks deeply and says the same thing in a slightly different way. He notes that while the historian Irban Habib was the first leftist to record Gandhi in a historically positive light,this author notes that he was the first to attempt philosophically positive interpretations of Gandhi from a leftist perspective.

      Pilgamy's New Modern Commentary on Gandhi, "Gandhi as a Philosopher", argues that both Marx and Gandhi share epistemological worlds and how capitalism separates people from nature and leads them down the path of destruction. He explains that they agree on the phenomenon of alienation.

    In his 1909 book, Hind Swaraj, Gandhi states that India is in a position similar to that of Britain in the 'pre-modern' era and that India does not need to follow the same capitalist path that Britain took from that point to the post-modern era. In the book Gandhi advocates against the capitalist modern age and tries to prevent India from taking that path.

    When Karl Marx talks about the revolutionary changes taking place in Russia and also about countries like India, the journey towards revolutionary economic changes through the capitalist path is similar to countries like Britain. He says it is not necessary for countries like India to follow the same path of revolution.

Liberal mantras - Liberty and equality

     New modern world ideas such as individual freedom and equality are conflicting ideas. Pilgramy reminds us that neither Gandhi nor Marx considered them as primary goals. Marx clearly rejects the concept of freedom and  equality as bourgeois ideas. In his writings, Gandhi himself passes over these important liberal ideas without giving them any importance. Both reject the two concepts of liberty and equality because of their contradictory nature, Akeel Pilgramy explains this in his paper released on the subject. He also argues that unalienated life is the right way to go. Thus he is saying that the ideas of freedom and equality have not only become outdated, and also says that the work of formulating ideas to improve human society from a new perspective should be done. Gandhi's objection was that the focus of left-wing thought was on the economic structure of capitalism that continued after colonial rule not on other important social issues.

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