M. K. Gandhi: Reply to a Query (English)

Abstract

Although most famous for leading the nonviolent struggle for national independence, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1867–1948) defined independence not in merely political but in ethical terms, holding that Swaraj, or self-rule, would be viable only when Indians had learned the art of freedom expressed in nonviolent self-mastery. In the course of his leadership of the movement for Swaraj, which encompassed movements for the rights of all victims of violence including the urban poor, peasants, women, so-called untouchables, and nonhuman animals, thousands of people asked Gandhi questions on almost every aspect of existence. The answers he suggested, in his voluminous personal correspondence as well as in Harijan and Young India, the magazines he edited, frequently led to extended controversies, in the tradition of debate that structures so many ancient Indian texts.