AUTUMN SCHOOL ON
LIFE AND
THOUGHT OF GANDHI
Concept Note
Rev. Joseph Doke's biography An
Indian Patriot in South Africa inaugurated a large
and immensely rich tradition of scholastic studies
of life, thought and practices of Gandhiji. This
tradition has been enriched by a vast amount of
memoir writings on Gandhiji, his ashrams and the
movements. Gandhiji's own published corpus runs
into 100 volumes of the CWMG.
Over the last three decades the
scholastic, intellectual, political and social
interests in Gandhiji's life and thought has acquired
a new urgency and depth. Gandhiji's writings like
An Autobiography Or The Story of My Experiments
with Truth and Hind Swaraj have been subject of
minute textual, philosophical and literary studies.
The theory and practice of Satyagraha, constructive
work and the institutions that Gandhiji established
have come to be studied by historians, political
theorists and commentators and chroniclers of
social movements. Lives of Gandhiji's associates
and interlocutors like Mahadev Desai, J C Kumarrapa,
Mirabehn, C F Andrews and Lanza Del Vasto have
added to our understanding of Gandhiji. As a result
of these studies our understanding of Gandhiana
has emerged deeper, richer and nuanced.
The workshop seeks to acquaint the
participant to this variegated intellectual tradition
of thinking of and about Gandhiji. The workshop
would seek to provide a non-fragmentary understanding
of Gandhiji's life and thought. Quite often we
have come to look at political Gandhi as quite
distinct from the Gandhi of the constructive work
or see Gandhiji's spiritual quest as distinct
from his quest for Swaraj. The workshop would
try to unravel the underlying relationships between
seemingly disparate practices, utterances and
writings.
The major thematic of the workshop
are:
1. The Biographical Gandhi
2. The Gandhi of Historians
3. The 'Bapu' of associates and ashrams
4. The practice and theory of Satyagraha
5. Constructive work and the creation of a community
6. Gandhi in Dialogue
7. Gandhi and the quest for Swaraj and Moksha
8. The seven principles texts of Gandhi
9. Gandhi and the literary imagination
10. Gandhi of the contemporary Social
