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Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality: Global Perspectives

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Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality: Global Perspectives Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality This book presents a rethinking of the world legacy of Mahatma Gandhi in this era of global violence. Through interdisciplinary research, key Gandhian concepts are revisited by tracing their genealogies in multiple histories of world contact and by foregrounding their relevance to contemporary struggles to regain the ‘humane’ in the midst of global conflict. The relevance of Gandhian notions of ahimsa and satyagraha is assessed in the context of contemporary events, when religious fundamentalisms of various kinds are competing with the arrogance and unilateralism of imperial capital to reduce the world to a state of international lawlessness. Covering a wide and comprehensive range of topics such as Gandhi’s vegetarianism and medical practice, the book analyzes his successes and failures as a liti- gator in South Africa, his experiments with communal living and his con- cepts of non-violence and satyagraha. The book combines historical, philosophical and textual readings of dif- ferent aspects of the leader’s life and works. It will be of interest to students and academics interested in peace and conflict studies, South Asian history, world history, postcolonial studies and studies on Gandhi. Debjani Ganguly is Head of the Humanities Research Centre in the Research School of Humanities at the Australian National University. Author of Caste, Colonialism and Countermodernity: Notes on a Postcolonial Herme- neutics of Caste (also published by Routledge), she also co-edited Edward Said: The Legacy of a Public Intellectual. John Docker is Adjunct Senior Fellow in the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University. Recent publications include Postmodernism and Popular Culture: A Cultural History; 1492: The Poetics of Diaspora and, with Ann Curthoys, Is History Fiction? Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia 1 The Police in Occupation Japan 8 Religion and Nationalism in India Control, corruption and resistance The case of the Punjab to reform Harnik Deol Christopher Aldous 9 Japanese Industrialisation 2 Chinese Workers Historical and cultural A new history perspectives Jackie Sheehan Ian Inkster 3 The Aftermath of Partition in 10 War and Nationalism in China South Asia 1925–45 Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Hans J. van de Ven Kudaisya 11 Hong Kong in Transition 4 The Australia–Japan Political One country, two systems Alignment Edited by Robert Ash, Peter 1952 to the present Ferdinand, Brian Hook and Robin Alan Rix Porter 5 Japan and Singapore in the World 12 Japan’s Postwar Economic Economy Recovery and Anglo-Japanese Japan’s economic advance into Relations, 1948–62 Singapore, 1870–1965 Noriko Yokoi Shimizu Hiroshi and Hirakawa Hitoshi 13 Japanese Army Stragglers and Memories of the War in Japan, 6 The Triads as Business 1950–75 Yiu Kong Chu Beatrice Trefalt 7 Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural 14 Ending the Vietnam War Nationalism TheVietnameseCommunists’ A-chin Hsiau perspective Ang Cheng Guan 15 The Development of the Japanese 24 The Internment of Western Nursing Profession Civilians under the Japanese, Adopting and adapting Western 1941–45 influences A patchwork of internment Aya Takahashi Bernice Archer 16 Women’s Suffrage in Asia 25 The British Empire and Tibet Gender nationalism and 1900–1922 democracy Wendy Palace Louise Edwards and Mina Roces 26 Nationalism in Southeast Asia 17 The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, If the people are with us 1902–22 Nicholas Tarling Phillips Payson O’Brien 27 Women, Work and the Japanese 18 The United States and Cambodia, Economic Miracle 1870–1969 The case of the cotton textile From curiosity to confrontation industry, 1945–75 Kenton Clymer Helen Macnaughtan 19 Capitalist Restructuring and the 28 A Colonial Economy in Crisis Pacific Rim Burma’s rice cultivators and the Ravi Arvind Palat world depression of the 1930s Ian Brown 20 The United States and Cambodia, 1969–2000 29 A Vietnamese Royal Exile in A troubled relationship Japan Kenton Clymer Prince Cuong De (1882–1951) Tran My-Van 21 British Business in Post-Colonial Malaysia, 1957–70 30 Corruption and Good Governance ‘Neo-colonialism’ or in Asia ‘Disengagement’? Nicholas Tarling Nicholas J. White 31 US–China Cold War 22TheRiseandDeclineofThai Collaboration,1971–89 Absolutism S. Mahmud Ali Kullada Kesboonchoo Mead 32 Rural Economic Development in 23 Russian Views of Japan, 1792–1913 Japan An anthology of travel writing From the nineteenth century to David N. Wells the Pacific War Penelope Francks 33 Colonial Armies in Southeast 40 Changing Visions of East Asia, Asia 1943–93 Edited by Karl Hack and Tobias Transformations and Rettig continuities R.B. Smith (Edited by Chad J. 34 Intra Asian Trade and the World Mitcham) Market A.J.H. Latham and Heita 41 Christian Heretics in Late Kawakatsu Imperial China Christian inculturation and state 35 Japanese–German Relations, control, 1720–1850 1895–1945 Lars P. Laamann War, diplomacy and public opinion Edited by Christian W. Spang and 42 Beijing – A Concise History Rolf-Harald Wippich Stephen G. Haw 36 Britain’s Imperial Cornerstone in 43 The Impact of the Russo-Japanese China War The Chinese maritime customs Edited by Rotem Kowner service, 1854–1949 Donna Brunero 44 Business–Government Relations in Prewar Japan 37 Colonial Cambodia’s ‘Bad Peter von Staden Frenchmen’ The rise of French rule and the 45 India’s Princely States life of Thomas Caraman, 1840–87 People, princes and colonialism Gregor Muller Edited by Waltraud Ernst and Biswamoy Pati 38 Japanese–American Civilian Prisoner Exchanges and Detention 46 Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Camps, 1941–45 Relationality Bruce Elleman Global perspectives Edited by Debjani Ganguly and 39 Regionalism in Southeast Asia John Docker Nicholas Tarling Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality Global perspectives Edited by Debjani Ganguly and John Docker First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” # 2007Debj ani Ganguly and John Docker, for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors, their contribution All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Rethinking Gandhi and nonviolent relationality : global perspectives / edited by Debjani Ganguly and John Docker. p. cm. – (Routledge studies in the modern history of Asia ; 46) Based on presentations at a symposium on Gandhi held in late 2004 on the premises of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948–Teachings–Congresses. 2. Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948–Influence–Congresses. 3. Nonviolence–Congresses. 4. Civil disobedience–Congresses. I. Australian National University. Humanities Research Centre. DS481.G3R39 2007 303.6’1–dc22 2007018153 ISBN 0-203-93355-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN13: 978-0-415-43740-0 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-93355-8 (ebk) Contents Notes on contributors ix Acknowledgements xii 1 Global state of war and moral vernaculars of nonviolence: rethinking Gandhi in a new world order 1 DEBJANI GANGULY Part I Worlding the Gandhian everyday 15 2 Ahimsa and other animals: the genealogy of an immature politics 17 LEELA GANDHI 3 The quack whom we know: illness and nursing in Gandhi 38 SANDHYA SHETTY 4 Emptied of all but love: Gandhi’s first public fast 66 TRIDIP SUHRUD Part II Of friendship, law and language: shaping Gandhian ‘weakness’ 81 5 Gandhi moves: intentional communities and friendship 83 THOMAS WEBER 6 Gandhi: the transformation of a South African lawyer, 1897–1898 100 CHARLES R. DISALVO 7 Only one word, properly altered: Gandhi and the question of the veshya 115 AJAY SKARIA viii Contents Part III Carrying Gandhi over: global peace movements 139 8 Globalising Gandhi: translation, reinvention, application, transformation 141 SEAN SCALMER 9 Gandhiji in Burma, and Burma in Gandhiji 163 PENNY EDWARDS 10 Nonviolence and long hot summers: black women’s welfare-rights struggles in 1960s’ Baltimore 183 RHONDA Y. WILLIAMS Part IV Interlocuting with modernity: Gandhi at home and in the world 203 11 Josephus: traitor or Gandhian avant la lettre? 205 JOHN DOCKER 12 Homespun wisdom: Gandhi, technology and nationalism 223 ANJALI ROY 13 Vernacular cosmopolitanism: world historical readings of Gandhi and Ambedkar 245 DEBJANI GANGULY Index 265 Contributors Charles R. DiSalvo is Woodrow A. Potesta Professor of Law, College of Law, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia. He has published widely in the areas of nonviolence and law and is currently completing a manuscript called Gandhi: The Transformation of a Lawyer in South Africa. John Docker is Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University. Since the publication of 1492: The Poetics
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