Gandhian Humanism in Praxis

Contents: 1. Gandhi: as we know him. 2. Gandhi: Making of a philosopher. 3. Three world views. 4. Gandhian humanism. 5. The changing contexts and praxis. 6. Praxis for change: Individuals and cultures. 7. Praxis for institutional change.

After the enlightenment age in Europe, three world views emerged in philosophy and social sciences. They were liberalism, socialism and ethical humanism. The socialist world view is not being favoured these days. Liberalism has turned into neoliberalism and has created problems of inequality, terrorism, human rights, environmental degradation and global warming, and lifestyle diseases. Now social scientists like Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz favour ethical humanism.

Gandhi is now even more relevant in the 21st century than he was in the early 19th century. Gandhi was essentially an ethical humanist in the sense that he followed Immanuel Kant, Ruskin, Emerson, Thoreau and Tolstoy. But he deviated slightly from ethical humanism in the sense that he was inspired by Vedant, Jain anekantvad (pluralism) and Buddha’s ‘Samyak Darshan’. The book gives a detailed description of Gandhian humanism and shows a path for a new world order in the 21st century in the form of changes in individual, cultural and institutional levels.