One belongs to a strictly birth-religion, like Hinduism, merely by being born to Hindu parents.  However, Hinduism is "exclusive" in the sense that no other way can the individual enter its community, at least the circle of those considered fully qualified religiously.  Hinduism does not wish to encompass mankind.  No matter what his belief or way of life, anyone not born a Hindu remains an outsider, a barbarian to whom the sacred values of Hinduism are in principle denied. ^[2]

"Non-Hindus Not Allowed." ^[3]

Introduction

Recent discussions in Gandhi Marg have centred on the question of whether or not M.K. Gandhi was a traditionalist, with a world-view rooted in traditional Hindu metaphysics and theology. ^[4]    In some ways this is a non-issue, since everyone thinks of Gandhi as a good Hindu and a good person who sought to understand the best of all religions.  But the question veiled by abstract language is really whether or not Gandhian values are relevant to India today.  There are those who believe that Gandhian values are irrelevant altogether or who only pay lip service to Gandhi while ignoring the values Gandhi taught and lived.  This discussion is not likely to interest such persons.  However,  there are also those who genuinely feel that Gandhian values are relevant today.  They may even feel that Gandhi's path is the only path.  However, they disagree among themselves exactly about what Gandhi's values were, how they fit in with traditional Hindu values, and in what ways they are likely to evolve.

In these pages the following propositions will be presented, discussed, modified and formulated in as exact a manner as possible:

a. Gandhi's values are the product of a synthesis of some of the best aspects of Gnostic Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism.  Therefore, Gandhi is something of a heretic, a person who does not conform to traditional religion as it is traditionally observed and passed down.

b. Gandhi's emphasis on Truth was a strong statement in favor of the human rights of individuals.  Gandhi was a fighter for human rights of all person, regardless of caste, creed, sex or other factors.

c. Gandhi's value-orientation strongly favored egalitarian development of human potentialities.  Gandhi's swaraj is "development" in the best sense of the term, personal, social and national, rather than simply freedom from colonial or other domination. 

Although these propositions would seem to be self-evident, there are many people who do not share these views.  Since it is particularly easy to misrepresent these propositions it is important to ask the reader not to be misled by a turn of phrase of a particular word but to search for the spirit behind the words.  The spirit in which this discussion is intended is affirmation of the continued relevance of Gandhian values today, both in India and outside India.

As a caveat to the reader, it should be mentioned that the discussion has the weaknesses and strengths of a viewpoint expressed by an outsider. ^[5]    While not being a part of the Gandhian organization, much less a true Gandhian, has the advantage of a certain measure of objectivity, it also has the great disadvantage of a certain amount of distance from the subject.  One could argue that only a true Gandhian can discuss Gandhi, but then it is doubtful if very many people would ever presume to tackle Gandhian ideas.  After all, who can call himself a true Gandhian today?  Even Gandhi himself felt that-to the extent to which the label was justified at all-he had a long way to go before he reached his own ideals.  In quite a different sense from which Marx said he was not a Marxist, Gandhi could have said he was not a Gandhian, and indeed Gandhi often expressed his dislike of any ideological labels.

The problem of objectivity is always there.  Who are we to believe?  The Buddhist parable of the blind men and the elephant is an apt one in this context, as in so many intellectual and spiritual controversies.  We are all partially  blind.  Yet, we all have our own light, our inner sense of how things are, and so we try as best we can to express that.  The truth is no doubt somewhere in between false extremes (in some synthesis only a genius of Gandhi's calibre can intuit) a synthesis which we today only partially grasp.  Perhaps the truth is not even some "golden mean," but a radical change of viewpoint.  There are certainly a number of bold new ideas in Gandhi's writings, concepts which are only today being widely discovered in the West. ^[6]

Gandhi has served as a Rorsach test for a wide range of commentators.  He has been praised and denounced, sometimes for opposite reasons; the same saintliness that some see as a mark of his simplicity is viewed by others as a veil for his desire for power.  It is a commonplace to point out that Gandhi's writings, like the Bible or any other compilation, can be quoted to reflect quite opposite opinions.  How can we be sure that we understand the meaning of any particular statement made by Gandhi in its true light?  Which expositor are we to believe?  Which beliefs of Gandhi can we select as representative of Gandhi's final word on any particular question when he himself did not aim to be consistent in every utterance.  What is the underlying and abiding message that Gandhi, in his most mature thought and work, has left for us?

There is so much room for disagreement on exactly what Gandhi meant or did not mean that there is much room for accepting parts of Gandhianism and defining away the rest.  It is easy to relegate that which we dislike to the chaff and accept only that which we can easily accept as the wheat.  Moreover, just as Gandhi himself developed during his lifetime, conditions have changed greatly in some respects-though not in others-since 30 January 1948.  We not only have to ask what Gandhi actually did say, we have to extrapolate that and ask, "what would Gandhi say and do today?"  Naturally attempts at such types of extrapolation open the door even wider to disagreements and controversies.  In the process, Gandhi gets talked away, even while he is being praised, and even the most basic of Gandhi's ageless truths is placed back on the shelf, awaiting a new Christ-Buddha-Mahatma charismatic leader to the rural masses.

But, nevertheless, we are reluctant to give him up.  He was, after all, very real.  While we can deny the historicity of Jesus or Gautama, we cannot deny the fact that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi walked the face of this troubled world, made many important statements ad provided guidance to a nation struggling to become politically free of colonial rule.  There are not many examples like him.  He is too precious to be simply put on the shelf, unread, unseen, unheeded.

A Gandhi's Heresy

As stated earlier, a heretic is a person who does not conform to traditional religious teaching or practice.  Although he or she may accept most of what is traditionally handed down, not everything is accepted.  Just as Siddhartha Gautama was a heretic in relation to traditional Hinduism, Jesus was a heretic in relation to traditional Judaism, so Gandhi was a heretic too.  One clear sign of his heresy was his espousal of the human rights of untouchables, whom, as everyone knows, he called Harijans, the "children of god," just as all persons are children of god.  When Gandhi first went to Sevagram it was the issue of untouchability that most irritated the notables of the village: they said they could accept everything but Gandhi's teaching concerning the fundamental equality of non-caste persons.

Traditionally, since the untouchables had no caste, they had no dharma either.  Max Weber explains how important this is.

In contrast to the orthodox sects, the heresy of the theophraties (i.e. open-door castes, sampradaya) consists in the fact that they tear the individual away from his ritualistic duties, hence from the duties of the caste of his birth, and thus ignore or destroy his dharma.  When this occurs the Hindu loses caste.  And since only through caste can one belong to the Hindu community, he is lost to it.  Dharma, that is, ritualistic duty, is the central criterion of Hinduism. ^[7]

Yet Gandhi taught that the untouchables were also Hindus and that they should be accepted in the temples.  That was a heresy.  Yet Gandhi's belief in the fundamental equality of all persons gave him the strength to oppose the traditional beliefs as they had been handed down for generations.

No doubt a learned scholar can show that untouchability is not a key factor in Hinduism.  For example, it is quite possible that the Vedas contain nothing about untouchability. ^[8]   But that is not the question at issue.  A heretic is often one who re-introduces the purest aspects of the religion he sets out to reform.  It is quite possible that in the Vedic age there was a greater degree of equality than in later ages.  No doubt complex factors were at work to make untouchability into the despicable thing it became (and, unfortunately, still is, in some regions).  The Mughal and British periods contributed to changing  Hinduism from its earliest forms.  Nevertheless, Hinduism, as Gandhi found it in the 1910s, 20s and 30s, was sorely in need of reform.  He did not hesitate to go where his "inner light" led him on this and many more issues.  Gandhi was "inner directed", a gnostic of sorts.  While still admiring all that was good in Hinduism, he nevertheless refused to accept that which he thought was bad.  He defied tradition and stood firm on the basis of a set of principles.

In that sense, Gandhi was much like the early Gnostic Christians.  We are only now beginning to learn about the Gnostics of the first and second centuries after Jesus' death.  A recent book has reviewed some of the scholarly studies, mainly by German theologians like von Campenhausen, which indicate that religious controversies in the early Christian churches often concerned practical questions of religious authority. ^[9]   Religious debates had clear social and political implications.  The basis of the Gnostic position was that each individual Christian had an "inner light" which made the church hierarchy unnecessary. ^[10]    The orthodox wanted to maintain the authority of the catholic church-not yet the Roman Catholic Church-but the Gnostics opposed religious conformity to the teachings of one bishop.  Varying beliefs about the nature of God usually carry with them different social, economic and political implications.  Those who are branded "heretics" are usually the ones who stand up for the right of each individual to interpret the religion in his own way. ^[11]

Gnosticism both borrowed from, and shared a common base with Hinduism, Buddhism, Platonism and mystical Judaism. ^[12]

In his emphasis on personal relatedness to God, therefore, Gandhi was something of a Gnostic Christian too.  He had his own vision of what Jesus meant for humanity and often spoke of the influence that the Sermon on the Mount had on him.  As is so often pointed out, there is a sense in which all religions meet.  The fact that is usually left out, however, is that it is not authoritative, dogmatic religions which meet.  All of the world's great religions meet, instead, at the level of personal conscience and private meditation, on the principles of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Compassion, Justice and Love.  Gandhi was not a Gnostic Christian, of course; the term is properly applied in technical sense to a second century community; but, he shares a common characteristic with all iconoclastic religious thinkers.  Gandhi followed his own conscience rather than tradition.

Sometimes Gandhi's insistence on following his own views was highly exasperating to members of the Congress.  Gandhi's Mahatmaship may also have led to a certain amount of restriction of free debate.  Gandhi was always ready to marshal evidence in favour of his arguments; nevertheless his arguments sometimes rested on nothing but his intuition.

...among the political workers among whom he moved, there was no mystery about him except for the impulses and working of the mind, which he himself could not explain always clearly enough.  He was alone and he had to fight his way every step.  There was nothing which he did by mystic innovation, though he used the language of the mystic, when he called what he could not explain his "inner voice".  If it was often instinct, it was unique in its workings.  He was prepared to argue every moment and he was a keen logician... ^[13]

For Gandhi, being a Hindu meant "freely assenting to the Truth within you," but for many orthodox Hindus there was much less stress on freedom of conscience than on birth into a particular caste and preservation of a rather rigid system of social stratification.  "In his own life-time Gandhi was abused in very harsh terms not only by the imperialists but also by orthodox Hindus and Jains, by the westernized upper class educated elite, by Muslim and Anglo-Indian leaders and not least, by the Marxists." ^[14]   There was so much opposition to Gandhi from so many vested interests because he was an iconoclast who did not easily fall into any particular category.  In the discussion so far the emphasis has been placed on the notion that Gandhi was something of a heretic in terms of traditional, orthodox Hinduism.  The discussion has centered on Gandhi's "gnostic" heresy because of the debate that has taken place in the pages of Gandhi Marg on Gandhi's place in Hinduism.  But, as the quotation indicates, Gandhi's heretical disposition is not limited only to orthodox Hinduism.  Gandhi thought for himself on all issues, and thus maintained a measure of personal independence from all orthodoxies.

It is merely that "at certain points Gandhi deviates from traditional thought...", ^[15] it is that Gandhi was searching for universal values, humanity, human rights.  When (in Hind Swaraj) Gandhi has the Reader say "It is impossible that Englishmen should ever become Indianized..." he has the Editor respond:  "To say that is equivalent to saying that the English have no humanity left in them..." ^[16]   Hence, Gandhi uses the term "Indianization" in a very loose sense, to mean "humanization."  It is most definitely not impossible that the English should ever become "humanized."  Gandhi's indictment of crass materialism and power politics should not be read as an argument in favor of traditionalism; such a simple dichotomy is quite misleading.

If the words "heretic," "gnostic," or "iconoclast" are somewhat jarring, they can be dropped; it is not the words which are important but the meaning.  It is likely, however, that the words will be most abrasive to those who are unwilling to accept the radical element in Gandhi's religious convictions and who therefore seek to find a conformity to tradition, for the sake of tradition, which is simply not there.  Gandhi respected his own and other religions; but, he did not hesitate to follow his "inner voice" in interpreting every aspect of those religions.  The basic principle he followed is "the conviction that morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of morality." ^[17]    Truth was Gandhi's principle, nor orthodoxy.  Hence, he could not help but be-like Gautama the "Buddha" and Jesus the "Christ"-a heretic. ^[18]

B Gandhi's Truth and Human Rights

Some people tend to consider the notion of "human rights" a Western notion, but while in certain contexts that may be somewhat correct ^[19] the manner in which the concept of "human rights" is currently interpreted is universal.  It is not an idea limited to any particular cultural tradition, regardless of its origin.  What needs to be emphasized more than it has been is that Gandhi's concept of Truth is very closely related to the concept of human rights.  In more than one context, we could substitute "justice" or "human rights" for "truth" in Gandhi's writings.

Gandhi's concept of Truth, for example, also included the human rights of women.  He felt that brahmacharya was the best way to secure greater individual and social freedoms for women.  One can debate the relative merits of celibacy versus birth control and present a strong case for one or the other, ^[20] but the essential part of Gandhi's position is that-given the socio-economic context of India in the early twentieth century-women would benefit from not having to be mothers.  The ideal marital relationship, according to Gandhi, is one where the husband and wife strive to be free of all sexual desire.  Only then would the woman be man's equal in every respect, free to follow her own conscience and develop herself as a person.  That was his reasoning in the case of Prabbavati Devi and Jayaprakash Narayan, for example, ^[21] brahmacharya is the conduct that leads to God for Gandhi, of course, but Gandhi extended the notion of self-restraint to include the equal development of women.  Vinoba Bhave's ashram in Paunar is a living example of an attempt to follow this idea of Gandhi's and apply brahmacharya to women.  Perhaps long ago women were also allowed to be brahmacharinis, but it is nevertheless true that for many generations only men could conduct themselves in that manner, free from the highest quest so that their most fundamental right as human beings-the right to search for their soul-was being denied to them.

Many people in the West who are advocates of women's liberation would not accept Gandhi's notion of brahmacharya, of course, but that would probably be because they would not understand the context in which Gandhi advocated the notion. ^[22]    Gandhi had to attempt to reconcile the traditional and the non-traditional; he did so by applying a traditional practice to an excluded group: women.  Had he tried in the 1920s or 30s to attain the goals which feminists in the United States are striving for in the 1980s he would have been completely misunderstood.  Hence, in that sense, human rights are somewhat relative to the historical and cultural context, even though they ultimately derive from universal principles.  The universal principle upheld by Gandhi in this instance is the right of women to self-determination, women's right to choose to be something other than mere child-bearing machines, completely dependent upon a husband and a family.  In his day that was radical enough.

even today the rights of women are not given as much attention in India as other aspects of "human rights" and the women's liberation movement is spoken of rather disparagingly, even by educated, urban women.  Yet Gandhi struggled to understand the manner in which society subjugated women and saw brahmacharya as a possible road toward equality of status between men and women.

"His own contribution to the cause of the emancipation of women," Pyarelal writes ^[23] , "had been to present for acceptance truth and Ahimsa in every walk of life.  In this woman could be the unquestioned leader.  She had only to extend her love to the whole of humanity and forget that she ever was or could be the object of man's lust."  In his own way, therefore, Gandhi strove for the human rights of women.  Gandhi's ideas on the ability of women to serve humanity are not all that different from those of a leading feminist-psychoanalyst, Jean Baker Miller.  Miller summarizes a vast body of current Western feminist thinking when she recommends that, "men struggle not against identification with the female per se in concrete sense, but that men do indeed struggle to reclaim the very parts of their own experience that they have delegated to women."  Gandhi struggled to reclaim the centrality of service to others.  it became central to his own self-image in a manner in which Dr. Miller feels it has traditionally been only for women. ^[24]   Against the materialistic view that mankind is basically aggressive, Gandhi emphasized the humanistic view that men should be more like women in their identification with the principle of ahimsa.

Once the human rights of women are fully recognized in any society, then the human rights of other minority or subordinated groups are also quite clear.  That is revealed in the attention paid to the various human rights by women's journals.  The domination of women by men is part and parcel of domination of all subordinate groups by dominant groups. ^[25]

The concept of human rights is found not only in the Greek philosophers, the Roman historians and jurists, and theologians in the Judao-Christian tradition; it is also found in Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and in all the "heretical" Hindu-based religions.  Eighteenth century Enlightenment thinkers as well as nineteenth century Romantics drew on all of the strands of human thought to weave a strong chord that would help draw up men and women to equality and fraternity.  A conceptualization of human rights is basic to any fight for greater democracy since the subordinate group will always need an ideology justifying its struggle for equal participation.  A complex variety of influences from both East and West produced in Gandhi an appreciation for universalistic values which transcend any particular religion, culture and society. ^[26]    That is why it is so valuable to try to understand the essence of Gandhi's approach and not define him too narrowly.

C Development

The third proposition, that Gandhi's value orientation strongly favored egalitarian development of human potentialities, flows from the previous two.  Gandhi's message is an integrated whole; all of the parts fit together.  Even though Gandhi never "systematized" his views, there is a certain "system", a certain world-view.  As Mohinder Singh points out, "There is nothing (more) consistent in the views of Gandhi's critics than the accusation of inconsistency..." ^[27]    But Gandhi did have a firm centre.  He was a man of religion who was his own guru. ^[28]    As this paper has attempted to argue, this made Gandhi somewhat of a heretic within any religious tradition and a strong advocate of the human rights of individuals.  The third point, however, is that for Gandhi history has a goal; Gandhi's goal is the spiritual development of the individual toward Truth.  He want every person, man and woman, to be able to catch glimmers of the face of Truth.  In other words, each person should be able to decide moral and ethical problems individually.  This point will require some clarification.

For Gandhi the aim of life is the development of human potentialities.  Fully aware of his own human, all too human, failing, Gandhi was able to identify with the weakest of human beings.  Perhaps partially as a result of the influence of Jainism, ^[29] he felt an affinity with all living creatures.  He had the some kind of compassion that Gautam had; it extended to all living things. ^[30]    That compassion, that warmth and all-embracing "motherly" love for struggling humanity is Gandhi's Truth.  Gandhi wanted to see people become what they, as human beings, potentially are.  With his firm faith in the essential goodness of all person he taught that we must hate the evil and not the evil does, that we must "turn the other cheek."  Potentially, for Gandhi, the possibility of goodness coming to the fore was always there.  Hence he was always ready to forgive.  He seems to have been inspired to nurse ailing humanity back to health.

This is clearly a belief in "development" on Gandhi's part.  He did not see everything as remaining always and everywhere the same.  In his mature work he had a universalistic outlook that was geared to the full development of all human beings, regardless of culture.  Even in Hind Swaraj he is concerned with more than mere freedom from colonial domination; he is interested in self-liberation, the full development of individual selves.  Gandhi argues in favor of a moral and psychological change in individuals.

What separates Gandhi from Marx in that respect is, of course, that Marx did not believe that the character of a class could change until the structural position of that class would change.  A true classless society is only possible with a fully communistic organization of the relations of production, not before, according to Marx.  "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness," Marx said, "...the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual.  In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations." ^[31]   For Gandhi it was not that simple.  Or perhaps we should say, it was not that complicated!

For Gandhi the establishment of a classless society was an ideal which could be approached nonviolently.  The point in question here is not whether Gandhi and Marx are right concerning the possibility of nonviolent social transformation. ^[32]   The point is rather that Gandhi, like Marx, had a notion of the aim of human life as more than a mere continuation of the status quo.  Gandhi's aims and Marx's aims are not all that different, although the constraints which affect the possibility of ever achieving those aims are seen quite differently by those two great thinkers and men of action.

The key point here is that Gandhi wanted to move toward a "just civilization," a just society.  He saw that as an aim, a goal.  It is very difficult to believe that he placed as much emphasis upon metanoia, at least as it was traditionally defined in what Saran calls "the non-eschatological, nirvanic Hindu-Buddhist tradition." ^[33]   Gandhi's view of "history" is not merely cyclic (not even in terms of ever-widening circles of justice).  There is a clear notion of "progress" and social development" in Gandhi's Truth which sets it somewhat apart from traditional, orthodox Hinduism.

Just as for Gandhi there is a universally valid social ethic, a conception of "human rights" based on some "natural law," there is also in Gandhi's thought a sense of human history as a "development" from an original state to a higher state.

It would be difficult to expound on the differences between the concept of dharma and ritual offense, on the one hand, and "original sin" and "sinful action," on the other, without concluding that Gandhi tends to view evil in terms of sin and not merely in terms of ritual offense.  Everything that Gandhi wrote is permeated by a notion of justice, justice not merely in terms of outward acts (ritual) but in terms of inner conviction (sinfulness).  There is nothing in Gandhi's actions which would indicate that he believed in the concept of karma as a justification for rigid inequalities of status.  In many ways, once again, Gandhi is more like a heretic of Hinduism than a Hindu; the similarity of many of his convictions and Jainism indicates this; but then Gandhi was not purely a Jain either. ^[34]   He developed a highly complex synthesis of the best elements of several "gnostic" religions and included in that package a notion that the aim of human life is growth, seeking, development.

But, as Sulak Sivaraksa has recently pointed out, ^[35] we should understand that true development means a qualitative change, not merely a quantitative increase in goods.  Much of the so-called "development literature," (i.e. the scholarly, academic writing on national development) is concerned solely with modernization and industrialization.  Emphasis is placed on quantitative factors like the number of hospital beds per thousand and especially the Gross National Products (GNP).  Where such an approach goes wrong, as Ruskin points out, is in its view of man as merely "a money-making machine' with a material body but no soul. ^[36]   True development would involve both expansion of material resources (e.g. indigenous production of basic needs or "requisites" like food, clothing and shelter) and intensification of human "soul force."  This is not the place to discuss what modification of the pure, political economic model of what Marx called "capitalism" is best; but, those who have been inspired by E.F. Schumacher are searching for a suitable path. ^[37]   It is essential to remember, however, that Gandhi was not against increased production of material goods, provided that does not involve exploitation of the poor by the rich.  He was also not against construction of factories for steel and chemical production, etc.  In our endeavor to provide for the religious need of men we should not forget to develop the means to provide for their economic needs.  It is one thing to give up wealth voluntarily; but, it is quite another to be lacking in basic needs like water and food due to poor distribution of goods and inadequate attention to basic, swadeshi-type production. ^[38]

M.K. Kanetkar, until recently director of the Gandhi Bhavan, Nagpur University, put the matter succinctly in his short book, entitled 5,000 A.D.  Discussing what he calls "the three urges" (pursuit of money, sex, and leadership, or (we might say) class, status and power) he wisely declares "Everyone is first in quest of a good meal and minimum animal comforts...; his next need is sex, and these satisfied he insists on being somebody...  There is nothing wrong about this.  Everyone is richly entitled to them all, but wisdom lies in our devising an arrangement in which everyone will have an equitable share and there would be no occasion either for discontent of violence. ^[39]   Although one might quibble with his terminology, Kanetkar expresses in simple, often metaphorical language some basic Gandhian truths and concludes that the basic question is "whether you want to live on religion or for it," whether you will live up to the command to "Do unto others as you would be done by" or not. ^[40]   It would be misleading to assume that Gandhi wanted everyone to be like a mahatma; instead, we should remember that Gandhi chose to be a mahatma-like individual in order to lead the way to the fullest development of individual human capacities.  In all countries of the world today there is still much left to do in order to secure "an arrangement in which everyone will have an equitable share" and in which basic "human rights" are respected. ^[41]

Conclusion

This essay began with three quotations, one from a novel, one from a scholarly work, and one from personal experience.  The thrust of the quotations is that traditional, orthodox Hinduism is a "birth religion" and that "anyone not born a Hindu remains an outsider."  The painful experience of being an "outsider," not allowed admission to various temples, especially not the sanctum sanctorum in such temples, indicates that there is something wrong with the traditional notion of a "normal civilization."  What is basically wrong with that concept is that it is not based on a concept of "human rights," universally applicable, but on a notion of status rankings and responsibilities.  The true test of Gandhi's "traditionalism," therefore, is to what extent Gandhi accepted a principle of universal "justice," over and above the norms and standards of one particular religious tradition or culture.

Gandhi's values are relevant today, not only in India but outside India as well, because Gandhi's values are truly universal values, based on a universally applicable standard of individual justice, personal choice and responsibility.  For Gandhi the individual is what counts, not the caste group or the family or the sect or the class.  Each person has to follow the still, small voice within and find his own path, his own soul.  There are various arguments that can be advanced against such a view (e.g. that it is "reductionist,") but such intellectualized arguments are nothing compared with the living example that Gandhi provides of the application of that principle.

Moreover, it is contended that Gandhi applied the principle in order to redress wrongs, to change the balance of forces so that subordinate groups, like untouchables and women, could have a measure of self-determination, rather than accept refinements on the status quo as a "normal civilization."  Gandhi proposed radical changes and a constant striving after a perfection that is still far from our grasp.

It would be quite wrong to claim Gandhi for any religious tradition or any national culture.  Although of course Gandhi was born a Hindu and an Indian-which everyone respects-he is as universal as Jesus or Gautama.  Certainly Gandhi himself was never concerned that Jesus was not well within the orthodox tradition of the Jews or Israel!  It does not really matter whether Siddhartha Gautama was born in what is now India or Nepal.  Precisely because he is above simplistic and invidious distinctions between East and West, Gandhi is one of the "greater sons" of mother India.  He fully believed that what matters is assenting to "the Truth within you."