LIFE AND THOUGHT
OF GANDHI
WINTER 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
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