Gandhi, the Philosopher

Author(s): Akeel Bilgrami

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Sep. 27 - Oct. 3, 2003, Vol. 38, No. 39 (Sep. 27 -
Oct. 3, 2003), pp. 4159-4165
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4414080

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 peclal articles_

Gandhi, the Philosopher

Gandhi's thought and his ideas about specific political strategies in specific contexts flowed
from ideas that were very remote from politics; instead they flowed from and were
integrated to the most abstract epistemological and methodological commitments. The quality of
his thought has sometimes been lost because of the otler images Gandhi evolves - a shrewd
politician and a deeply spiritual figure. Gandhi's view of moral sense, his denial of the
assumed connection between moral seinse and *1moral judgment, is of considerable philosophical
interest and in his writings, take on a fascinating theoretical consolidation. In Gandhi's
highly 'integrating' suggestion, as this paper suggests, there is no true non-violence
until criticisnz is removed from the scope of moral; the ideal of non-violence is
thus part of a moral position in which moral principles, which lead us to criticise others,
are eschewed.

AKEEL BILGRAMI

some decades now to swing from a sentimental perception of

him as a 'Mahatma' to a cooler assessment of Gandhi as 'the
I was once asked by a literary magazine to write a review essay shrewd politician'. I will steer past this oscillation because it hid
on Nehru. Some weeks later, I was asked by the editor if the very qualities of his thought I want to uncover. The essa
I would throw in Gandhi as well. As it happened I never is not so much (in fact hardly at all) inspired by the plausibilit
wrote the piece, but I remember thinking that it was like being of the philosophy that emerges as by the stunning intellectua
asked while climbing the Western Ghats whether I would takeambition and originality that this 'integrity' displays.
a detour and climb Mount Everest as well. I am not now trying
to scale any great peak or to give a defining interpretation to II
Gandhi. Its generally foolhardy to write about Gandhi, not
only because you are never certain you've got him right, but Non-violence is a good place to get a first glimpse of what
because you are almost sure to have him wrong. There is a lack I have in mind.
of plain argument in his writing and there is an insouciance Violence has many sides. It can be spontaneous or planned,
about fundamental objections, which he himself raises, to his it can be individual or institutional, it can be physical or psy
own intuitive ideas. The truth of his claims seem to him so chological, it can be delinquent or adult, it can be revolutionar
instinctive and certain that mere arguments seem frivolousor authoritarian. A great deal has been written on violence: o
even to readers who disagree with them. Being trained in its a psychology, on its possible philosophical justifications unde
discipline of philosophy of a quite different temperament, certain
I circumstances, and of course on its long career in military
will try to not get distracted by the irritation I sometimes feel
history. Non-violence has no sides at all. Being negatively defined,
about this. it is indivisible. It began to be a subject of study much mor
In reading Gandhi recently I have been struck by the integrity recently and there is much less written on it, not merely because
of his ideas. I don't mean simply that he was a man of integrity it is defined in negative terms but because until it became a self
conscious instrument in politics in this century, it was reall
in the sense that he tried to make his actions live up to his ideals,
though perhaps in fact he tried more than most to do so. I mean constituted as or in something else. It was studied under differen
something more abstract: that his thought itself was highly names, first usually as part of religious or contemplative ways
integrated, his ideas about very specific political strategiesofinlife remote from the public affairs of men and state, and later
specific contexts flowed (and in his mind necessarily flowed) with the coming of romantic thought in Europe, under the rubri
from ideas that were very remote from politics. They flowed of critiques of industrial civilisation.
from the most abstract epistemological and methodological For Gandhi, both these contexts were absolutely essential t
commitments. This quality of his thought sometimes gets lost his conception of non-violence. Non-violence was central in his
because, on the one hand, the popular interest in him has been nationalist mobilisation against British rule in India. But th
keen to find a man of great spirituality and uniqueness and, concept
on is also situated in an essentially religious temperament
the other, the social scientist's and historian's interest in him as well as in a thoroughgoing critique of ideas and ideologie
has sought out a nationalist leader with a strikingly effective
of the Enlightenment and of an intellectual paradigm of perhap
method of non-violent political action. It has been common for
a century earlier than the Enlightenment. This is a paradigm i

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which science became set on a path, which seemed destined to stitutional demands of the Congress leadership because he
lead to cumulative results, building to a progressively complete thought that the Indian people should not merely ask the
understanding of the world in which we lived, a world which British to leave their soil. It was important that they should do
we could as a result control. It is a familiar point that there is so by means that were not dependent and derivative of ideas and
no understanding Gandhi, the anti-colonial nationalist, without institutions that the British had imposed on them. Otherwise,
situating him in these larger trajectories of his thought. even if the British left, the Indian populations would remain
The strategy of non-violent resistance was first introduced by a subject people. This went very deep in Gandhi and his book
him so as to bring into the nationalist efforts against the British, Hind Swaraj, is full of a detailed anxiety about the cognitive
an element beyond making only constitutional demands. On the enslavement even of the nationalist and anti-colonial Indian
face of it, for those reared on western political ideas, this seemed mind, which might, even after independence, neverrecoverfrom
very odd. Constitutional demands, as they are understood in that enslavement.
liberal political theory, are the essence of non-violent politics; These points are well known, and they raise the roughly political
as is well known the great early propounders of liberal democratic considerations which underlie his commitment to non-violence.
thought conceived and still conceive of constitutions and theirAs I said, they give only a first glimpse of the integrity of his
constraints on human public action as a constraint against ten-ideas. There are deeper and more ambitious underlying grounds
dencies toward violence in the form of coercion of individuals than these in his writing.
by states and other collectivities, not to mention by other indi-
viduals. So why did Gandhi, the prophet of non-violence, think Ill
that the Indian people, in their demands for greater self-deter-
mination, needed more than constitutional demands? And whyThe idea that non-violence was of a piece with the search for
did he think that this is best called 'non-violent' action? The truth was central to what I have called his 'integrity' and to these
obvious answer is the instrumental and strategic one: he knew more ambitious and abstract considerations than the ones I have
that making demands for constitutional change had not been just discussed. Gandhi was explicit about this, even in the ter-
particularly effective or swift in the first two decades of this minology he adopted, linking ahimsa (non-violence) with
century, and that since the conventionally conceived alternative satyagraha (literally, 'truth-force', or more liberally, a tenacity
was violent revolutionary action - which found advocates on in thethe pursuit of truth). There is a standard and entrenched reading
fringes of nationalist sentiment in India - he instead introducedof Gandhi which understands the link as follows (and I am quoting
his own strategy of civil disobedience, at once a non-violent andfrom what is perhaps the most widely read textbook of modem
Indian history, Sumit Sarkar's, Modern India): "Non-violence
yet a non- or extra-constitutional strategy. But, of course, he had
more in mind than this obvious motive. or ahimsa and satyagraha to Gandhi personally constituted a
First, Gandhi wanted all of India to be involved in the move- deeply-felt and worked-out philosophy owing something to
ment, in particular the vast mass of its peasant population. Emerson,
He Thoreau and Tolstoy but also revealing considerable
did not want the nationalist achievement to be the effort of a originality. The search for truth was the goal of human life, and
group of elite, legally and constitutionally trained, upper-middleas no one could ever be sure of having attained the truth, use
class Indian men ('Macaulay's bastards'), who argued in assem- of violence to enforce one's own view of it was sinful." (p 179;
blies and round-table conferences. He almost single-handedly the emphasis is mine)
transformed a movement conceived and promoted along those I have no doubt that Gandhi says things that could lead to such
lines by the Congress Party into a mass movement of enormous a reading, and for years, I assumed that it was more or less
scale, and he did so within a few years of arriving from Southuncontroversially, what he had in mind. After scrutiny of his
Africa on Indian soil. Non-violent action was the central idea writings however, especially his many dispatches to Young India,
of this vast mobilisation. Second, he knew that violent revolu- it seems to me now a spectacular misreading. It fails to cohere
tionary action could not possibly carry the mass of peoplewith with his most fundamental thinking.
it. Revolutionary action was mostly conceived hugger-mugger Notice that according to this reading, or misreading, his view
in underground cells and took the form of isolated subversive is no different from one of the most celebrated liberal arguments
terrorist action against key focal points of government for power
tolerance - the meta-inductive argument of Mill's On Liberty.
and interest, it was not conceived as a mass movement.Mill He contends that since much that we have thought to be true
was not unaware that there existed in the west ideologies of past has turned out to be wrong, this in itself suggests
in the
revolutionary violence which were geared to mass movements, that what we presently think true might also be wrong. We should
but he was not unaware either, that these were conceived in
therefore tolerate not repress dissent from our present convictions
terms of middle class leadership vanguards that were the just fonts
in case they are not true. According to Mill, and according
of authority. Peasant consciousness mattered very little to to them.
Gandhi on this widespread misreading of him, truth is never
In Gandhi there was not a trace of this vanguard mentality of
something we are sure we have attained. We must therefore be
a Lenin. He did indeed think that his 'satyagrahis' - themade non-modest in the way we hold our present opinions, and we
violent activists whom he described, with that term, as 'seekers must not impose our own conceptions of the truth on others. To
of truth' - would provide leadership which the masses would do so would be a form of violence, especially if it was enforced
follow, but it was absolutely crucial to him that these were by not
the apparatus of the state.
to be the vanguard of a revolutionary party along Leninist lines. The modesty would appeal to Gandhi, but he would find
They were to be thought of along entirely different lines,something they very alien in Mill's argument for it. There is no echo
were to be moral exemplars, not ideologues who claimed to
in Gandhi of the idea that the source of this modesty is that
know history and its forward movement better than the peasants however much we seek truth, we cannot attain it, which is what
to whom they were giving the lead. Third, Gandhi chose his contends is the ground of his non-violence. In fact, it makes
Sarkar
version of non-violent civil disobedience instead of the con- little sense to say that truth (or anything else) is something we

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should seek, even if we can never attain it. How can we intend indulge in non-violent political activism, but that activism would
to attain what we know we cannot attain? It would be bootless be strategic, merely a means to a political end. In the long run
to protest that Gandhi and Mill are not saying that we can never it would, just as surely as violence, land you in a midden. Even
attain the truth, only that we cannot know if we have attained the following sensible sounding argument for his own conclu-
sion, often given by many of his political colleagues who found
it - so there is still point in the search for truth. That does little
to improve matters. What sort of a goal or search is that? On his moral attitudes obscure, did not satisfy Gandhi: "Let us adopt
this epistemological view, our inquiry and search for truth wouldnon-violent and passive resistance instead of criticising the British
colonial government. Because to assert a criticism of one's
be analogous to sending a message in a bottle out to sea, a search
that is blinded about its own possible success, making all success
oppressor would usually have the effect of getting his back up,
a sort of bonus or fluke. or of making him defensive, it would end up making things harder
In any case, there is something rather odd in Mill's argument
for oneself." Gandhi himself did occasionally say things of that
sort, but he thought that colleagues who wanted to rest with such
for tolerance. There is an unsettling tension between the argument's
arguments as the foundation of non-violence were viewing it too
first two premises. The first premise is that our past beliefs have
often turned out to be wrong. The second, is that this is groundsmuch as an instrument and they were not going deep enough
for thinking that our present opinions might be wrong. And into the the spiritual nature of the moral sense required of the
conclusion is that we should therefore be tolerant of dissent from
satyagrahi. One did not go deep enough until one severed the
current opinion. But the fact is that when past opinions are said assumed theoretical connection between moral judgment and
to be wrong, that is a judgment made from the present pointmoral of criticism, the connection which, in our analytical terms,
view, and we cannot make that judgment unless we have the we would describe by saying that if one judges that 'x is good',
conviction in the present opinions which Mill is asking us not then we are obliged to find morally wrong those who in relevant
circumstances, judge otherwise or fail to act on x. For Gandhi this
to have. It is all right to be asked to be diffident about our present
opinions, but then we should, at least to that extent, be diffidentdoes not follow. The right moral sense, the morally pure-hearted
about our judgment made on their basis, viz, that our past satyagrahi, sees no such connection between moral judgment and
opinions are wrong. And if so, the first premise is shakier than moral criticism. Of course, we cannot and must not cease to be
he presents it as being. moral subjects; we cannot stop judging morally about what is
The pervasive diffidence and lack of conviction in our opinionsand is not worthy, cannot fail to have moral values. But none
which is the character of the epistemology that Mill's argument of that requires us to be critical of others who disagree with our
presupposes, is entirely alien to Gandhi; and though he is all values
in or who fail to act in accord with them. That is the relevant
favour of the modesty with which we should be holding our modesty which Mill sought to justify by a different argument.
opinions, that modesty does not have its source in such anThis view of the moral sense might well seem frustratingly
epistemology and such a conception of unattainable truth. What, namby-pamby now as it certainly did to those around him at the
then, is its source? time. Can't it be argued then that Gandhi is shrewdly placing
It is quite elsewhere than where Sarkar and everybody else a screen of piety around the highly creative political instrument
who has written on Gandhi has located it; its source is to be found
he is creating, both to confuse his colonial masters and to tap
in his conception of the very nature of moral response and moral
the religious emotions of the Indian masses? This is the oscillating
judgment. The 'satyagrahi' or non-violent activist has to show interpretation I have been inveighing against, which, finding his
religiosity too remote from politics, then fails to take his philo-
a certain kind of self-restraint, in which it was not enough simply
sophical ideas as being intended seriously and views him only
not to commit violence. It is equally important not to bear hostility
to others or even to criticise them; it is only required that oneas a crafty and effective nationalist politician. It sells short both
not follow these others, if conscience doesn't permit it. To showhis moral philosophy and his politics. The fact is that his view
hostility and contempt, to speak or even to think negatively and of moral sense is of considerable philosophical interest, and is
critically, would be to give in to the spiritual flaws that underlie
intended entirely earnestly by its author. It is given a fascinating
violence, to have the wrong conception of moral judgment. For theoretical consolidation in his writing which may be lost on his
readers because it is buried in a porridge of saintly rhetoric, of
it is not the point of moral judgment to criticise. (In the section
called 'Ashram Vows' of his book Hindu Dharma, he says 'purity of heart'.
"Ahimsa is not the crude thing it has been made to appear. Not
to hurt any living thing is no doubt part of ahimsa. But it is its IV
least expression. It is hurt by hatred of any kind, by wishing ill
of anybody, by making negative criticisms of others.") ThisWhat is the assumed theoretical connection between moral
entails the modesty with which one must hold one's moral judgment and moral criticism, which Gandhi seems to be denying?
opinions, and which Mill sought in a quite different source:Itin
has a long history in the western tradition of moral philosophy.
a notion of truth which we are never sure we have attained and Our moral judgments or values are the basis of our moral choices
therefore (from Gandhi's point of view) in a quite untenable and actions. Unlike judgments of taste which are the basis, say,
epistemology. The alternative source of the modesty in Gandhi for choosing a flavour of ice cream, moral judgments have a
has less to do with issues about truth, and more to do with the certain feature which is often called 'universalisability'. To chose
way we must hold our moral values. an action on moral grounds under certain circumstances is to
Despite the modesty, one could, of course, resist those with generate a principle which we think applies as an 'ought' or an
whom one disagrees, and Gandhi made an art out of refusal andimperative to all others faced with relevantly similar circumstances.
resistance and disobedience. But resistance is not the same as Universalisability is not to be confused with universality.
criticism. It can be done with a 'pure heart'. Criticism reflects
Universality suggests that a moral value, whether or not someone
an impurity of heart, and is easily corrupted to breed hostilityin particular holds it, applies to all persons. Universalisability
and, eventually, violence. With an impure heart you could still suggests merely that if someone in particular holds a moral value,

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then he must think that it applies to all others (in relevantly similar which is highly attractive. The intolerant person cares enough
situations). Yet despite the fact that it is much weaker than about the truth as he sees it, to want to share it with others. Of
universality in this sense, it still generates the critical power which course, that he should want to use force and violence in order
Gandhi finds disquieting. If moral judgments are universalisable, to make the other share in it, spoils what is attractive about this
one cannot make a judgment that something is morally worthy core. It was Gandhi's humanistic mission to retain the core for
and then shrug off the fact that others similarly situated might it showed that one's conception of the truth was not self-enclosed,
not think so. They (unlike those who might differ with one on that it spoke with a relevance to all others, even others who differed
the flavour of ice cream) must be deemed wrong not to think so. from one. How to prevent this relevance to others from degene-
Gandhi repudiates this entire tradition. His integrating thought rating into criticism of others who differed from one and eventually
is that violence owes to something as seemingly remote from violence towards them, is just the reconciliation we are seeking.
it as this assumed theoretical connection between values and In the philosophical tradition Gandhi is opposing, others are
criticism. Take the wrong view of moral value and judgment, potential objects of criticism in the sense that ones particular
and you will inevitably encourage violence in society. There is one's acts of moral conscience, generate moral principles
choices,
no other way to understand his insistence that the satyagrahi or has
imperatives which others can potentially disobey. For him,
not eschewed violence until he has removed criticism from his conscience and its deliverances, though relevant to others, are
lips and heart and mind. not the well-spring of principles. Morals is only about conscience,
not at all about principles.
But there is an interpretative challenge hidden here. If the idea
There is an amusing story about two Oxford philosophers
of a moral value orjudgment has no implication that one find those
who disagree with one's moral judgments, to be wrong, then which
that makes this distinction vivid. In a seminar, the formidable
suggests that one's moral choices and moral values are rather J L Austin having become exasperated with Richard Hare's
like
huffing on about how moral choices reveal principles, decided
one's choice of a flavour of ice cream. rather like one'sjudgments
of taste. In other words, the worry is that these Gandhian ideas
to set him up with a question. 'Hare', he asked, "if a student came
suggest that one need not find one's moral choices and the values
to you after an examination and offered you five pounds in return
they reflect relevant to others at all, that one's moral thinking for the mark alpha, what would you say?" Predictably, Hare
is closed off from others. But Gandhi was avowedly a humanist, replied, "I would tell him that I do not take bribes, on principle!"
and repeatedly said things reminiscent of humanist slogans along Austin's acid response was, "Really? I think I would myself say,
the order of 'Nothing human is alien to me'. Far from encouraging 'No thanks'. " Austin was being merely deflationary in denying
self-enclosed moral subjects, he thought it the essence of a moral that an act of conscience had to have a principle underlying it.
attitude that it take in all within its concern and its relevance. Gandhi erects the denial into a radical alternative to a (western)
How, then, to reconcile the rejection of universalisability tradition
and of moral thinking. An honoured slogan of that tradition
of a value's potential for being wielded in criticism of others says, "When one chooses for oneself, one chooses for everyone".
with this yearning for the significance of one's choices to others?The first half of the slogan describes a particular person's act
That is among the hardest questions in understanding the phi- of conscience. The second half of the slogan transforms the act
losophy behind his politics, and there are some very original of andconscience to a universalised principle, an imperative which
striking remarks in his writing which hint at a reconciliation. others must follow or be criticised. Gandhi embraces the slogan
So far, I have presented the challenge of providing suchtoo, a but he understands the second half of it differently. He too
reconciliation as a philosophically motivated task. But it is more wants one's acts of conscience to have a universal relevance, so
than that. It is part of the 'integrity' that I am pursuing in he
mytoo thinks one chooses for everyone, but he does not see that
interpretation of Gandhi that it also had a practical urgencyasinmeaning that one generates a principle or imperative for every-
the political and cultural circumstances in which he found him-one. What other interpretation can be given to the words 'One
self. We know very well that it was close to this man's heart chooses for everyone' in the slogan, except the principled one?
In Gandhi's writing there is an implicit but bold proposal:
to improve India in two ways which, on the face of it, were
pointing in somewhat opposite directions. On the one hand there "When one chooses for oneself, one sets an example to everyon e."
was the violence of religious intolerance, found most vividlyThat in is the role of the satyagrahi. To lead exemplary lives, to
the relations between Hindus and Muslims. This especially set examples to everyone by their actions. And the concept of
wounded him. Religious intolerance is the attitude that the otherthe exemplar is intended to provide a wholesale alternative to
must not remain other, he must become like one in belief the andconcept of principle in moral philosophy. It retains what is
right in Mill (the importance of being modest in one's moral
in way of life. It is an inclusionary, homogenising attitude, usually
pursued with physical and psychological violence toward the opinions) while rejecting what is unsatisfactory (any compromise
other. On the other hand, for all his traditionalism about caste,in our conviction in them). There is no Millian diffidence con-
there was something offensive to Gandhi within Hinduism itself. veyed by the idea that one is only setting an example by one's
The social psychology of the Hindu caste system consists of choices,
an as opposed to laying down principles. One is fully
exclusionary attitude. For each caste, there was a lower caste confident in the choices one wants to set up as exemplars, and
which constituted the other and which was to be excluded fromin the moral values they exemplify. On the other hand, because
one's way of life, again by the most brutal physical and psy- no principle is generated, the conviction and confidence in one's
chological violence. When I think sometimes about caste in India opinions does not arrogate, it puts us in no position to be critical
- without a doubt the most resilient form of exclusionary social of others because there is no generality in their truth, of which
inegalitarianism in the history of the world - its hard to avoid others may fall afoul. Others may not follow. Our example may
the conclusion that even the most alarming aspects of religious not set. But that is not the same as disobeying an imperative,
intolerance is preferable to it. To say "You must be my brother",violating a principle. As a result, the entire moral psychology
however wrong, is better than saying, 'You will never be my of our response to others who depart from us is necessarily much
brother.' In religious intolerance there is at least a small coreweaker. At most we may be disappointed in others that they will

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not follow our example, and at least part of the disappointment to witness it. The romance in this morality is radiant. Somehow
is in ourselves that our example has not taken hold. And the crucial goodness, good acts, enter the world and affect everyone else
point is that disappointment is measurably weaker than criticism, To ask how exactly they do that is to be vulgar, to spoil the
it is not the paler shade of contempt, hostility, and eventual violence. romance. Goodness is a sort of mysterious contagion.
This is a subtle distinction, perhaps too subtle to do all the The idea is as attractive as it is romantic. The question is, how
work we want from morals. But that there is a real distinction attractive? I will leave the question hanging since all I want to
here is undeniable as is its theoretical power to claim an alter-do in this short essay is to present Gandhi's highly 'integrating'
native way of thinking about morals. It is a commonplace in oursuggestion that there is no true non-violence until criticism is
understanding of the western moral tradition to think of Kant'sremoved from the scope of morals. This is to see the ideal of
moral philosophy as the full and philosophical flowering of anon-violence as being part of a moral position in which moral
core of Christian thought. But Gandhi fractures that historicalprinciples, by the lights of which we criticise, are eschewed
understanding. By stressing the deep incompatibility betweenExemplary action takes the place of principles. If someone fails
categorical imperatives and universalisable maxims on the oneto follow your example, you may be disappointed but you would
hand, and Christian humility on the other, he makes two moralno longer have the conceptual basis to see them as transgressive
doctrines and methods out of what the tradition represents asand wrong and subject to criticism. So the integration Gandh
a single historically consolidated one. And discarding one of themwishes to achieve (the integration of non-violence with total non-
as lending itself ultimately to violence, he fashions a remarkablecriticism) is as plausible as is the moral position stressing ex-
political philosophy and national movement out of the other.emplars. The plausibility of the moral position depends a great
I want to stress how original Gandhi is here as a philosopherdeal on the degree to which the moral action and judgment is
and theoretician. The point is not that the idea of the 'exemplary' made visible. How else would an example be set except through
is missing in the intellectual history of morals before Gandhi.public visibility? Gandhi was of course fully aware of this a
What is missing, and what he first brings to our attention, is howa political thinker and leader, which is why it is even possible
much theoretical possibility there is in that idea. It can be wielded to integrate the detail of his political ideas with the moral
to make the psychology surrounding our morals a more tolerantphilosophy I have been sketching. He was fully aware that th
one. If exemplars replace principles, then it cannot any longersmaller the community of individuals, the more likelihood ther
be the business of morals to put us in the position of moralisingis of setting examples. In the context of family life, for example,
against others in forms of behaviour (criticism) that have in them one might see how parents by their actions may think or hope
the potential to generate other psychological attitudes (resent-that they are setting examples to their children. Gandhi's ideal
ment, hostility) which underlie inter-personal violence. Oppo-of peasant communities organised in small panchayat or village
sition to moralising is not what is original in Gandhi either. There units could perhaps at least approximate the family, where examples
are many in the tradition Gandhi is opposing who recoiled fromcould be visibly set. That is, in part, why Gandhi strenuously
it; but if my interpretation is right, his distinction betweenargued that flows of populations to metropoles where there wa
principle and exemplar and the use he puts it to, provides afar less scope for public perception of individual action, was
theoretical basis for that recoil, which otherwise would simply destructive of the moral life. Indeed, once such metropolitan
be the expression of a distaste. That distaste is a distaste fortendencies had been unleashed, it is easy to understand his habit
something that is itself entailed by a moral theory deeply en-of going on publicised fasts. It was a way of making visible some
trenched in a tradition, and Gandhi is confronting that theory moral stance that could reach a larger public in the form of
with a wholesale alternative. example rather than principles.
This conception of moral judgment puzzles me, even while
I find it of great interest. It has puzzled me for a long time. Before V
I became a teenager (when I began to find it insufferably uncool)
I would sometimes go on long walks with my father in the early I have been arguing that the standard view, which presents
mornings. One day, walking on a path alongside a beach weGandhi came as essentially applying Mill's argument for tolerance to
across a wallet with some rupees sticking visibly out of it.an With
argument for non-violence, is very wide of the mark. They
a certain amount of drama, my father said: "Akeel, why should exhibit diverging attitudes towards the concept of truth, and the
we not take that?" Flustered at first, I then said something like, it entails. Gandhi, like Mill, wants our own opinions
epistemology
"Gee (actually I am sure I didn't say 'gee'), I think we should
to be held with modesty, but, unlike him, with an accompanying
take it". My father looked most irritated, and asked, 'Why?' And that does not discourage conviction or confidence.
epistemology
To that end, Gandhi rejects the notion of truth that Mill seems
I am pretty sure I remember saying words more or less amounting
to the classic response: "Because if we don't take it then I suppose
to presuppose in his argument for tolerance. He replaces the entire
someone else will." My father, looking as if he were going toas I have been indicating, with another that seems to
argument,
mount to great heights of denunciation, suddenly changed his
have less to do with the notion of truth per se than with the nature
expression, and he said magnificently, but without logicof(or moralso judgment.
it seemed to me then): "If we don't take it, nobody else will."But now a question arises. How can this argument have less
As a boy of 12, I thought this was a non-sequitur designed totruth and one's search for it, when the term 'satyagraha'
to do with
end the conversation. In fact I had no idea what he meant, with
and which 'ahimsa' is constantly linked in his thinking, has truth
was too nervous to ask him to explain himself. Only much aslater,
its target?
in fact only while thinking about how to fit together the various
It is in answer to this question that his final and most audacious
elements in Gandhi's thought, did I see in his remark, the step
claims
of theoretical integration takes place. For him, truth is a moral
for a moral ideal of exemplary action. But notice how puzzling
notion, and it is exclusively a moral notion. So there is no
the idea is. Here is a wallet, abandoned, and we should not possibility
take of having misrepresented his argument in the way that
it. This would set an example to others, though no one is around
I am worrying. The worry I have just expressed is that once Gandhi

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repudiates Mill's basis for tolerance and non-violence (that we In such places and such forms of life, there is no scope for
may never be confident that we have arrived at the truth in our exemplary action to take hold, and no basis possible for a moral
search for it) and once he replaces it with his own basis (the vision in which value is not linked to 'imperative' and 'principle',
separability of moral value and judgment from moral principle and then, inevitably, to the attitudes of criticism and the entire
and moral criticism), truth then drops out of the Gandhian picture moral psychology which ultimately underlies violence in our
in a way that seems un-Gandhian. It in fact does not drop out social relations. To find a basis for tolerance and non-violence
since truth in the first place is not, for Gandhi, a notion inde- under circumstances such as these, we are compelled to turn to
pendent of what his argument rests on, the nature of our own arguments of the sort Mill tried to provide in which modesty
experience of moral value. and tolerance are supposed to derive from a notion of truth
What this means is that truth for Gandhi is not a cognitive (cognitively understood) which is always elusive, never some-
notion at all. It is an experiential notion. It is not propositions thing which we can be confident of having achieved because
purporting to describe the world of which truth is predicated, it is not given in our moral experience, but is predicated of
it is only our own moral experience which is capable of being propositions that purport to describe a reality which is distant
true. This was of the utmost importance for him. It is what in from our own practical and moral experience of it.
the end underlies his opposition to the Enlightenment, despite All these various elements of his opposition to Mill and his
the undeniably Enlightenment elements in his thought including own alternative conception of tolerance and non-violence were
his humanism and the concern that our moral judgments be laid open by Gandhi and systematically integrated by these
relevant to all people. Those who have seen him as an anti- arguments implicit in his many scattered writings. The only other
Enlightenment thinker usually point to the fact that he is opposed philosopher who came close to such a sustained integration of
to the political and technological developments which, he insists, political, moral, and epistemological themes was Heidegger,
issue inevitably from the very conception of Reason as it is whatever the fundamental differences between them, not least
understood in scientific terms. So understood, some time in the of which is that Gandhi presents his ideas in clear, civil and
17th century, with the rise of the scientific method in Europe, bracing prose.
all the predispositions to modern government and technology There remains the question whether such an integrated position
came into place. All that was needed for those predispositions is at all plausible. It should be a matter of some intellectual
to be triggered in our sustained efforts to organise and control urgency to ask whether our interests in politics, moral philosophy,
our physical and social environment, was for the Enlightenment and notions of truth and epistemology, are not more fragmented
to articulate the idea of Reason as it affects social life and the
or more miscellaneous than his integrations propose. Is it not
polity. But this familiar understanding of his view of thea En- wiser and more illuminating methodological stance sometimes
lightenment does not take in what I have called his 'finaltoand recognise that there is often a lack of connection in our ideas
audacious integrating' philosophical move. This conception which
and our interests and that to register that lack is sometimes more
set in sometime in the 17th century itself owes much to a more important and revealing than to seek a strained connection?
I will resist answering these questions, except to say that
abstract element in our thinking, which is that truth is a cognitive
notion, not a moral one. Only if truth is so conceived can science
Gandhi's idea - the idea that it is a matter of great moment, both
become the paradigmatic pursuit of our culture, without itfor theepistemology and for society and politics and morals, that
scientific outlook lacks its deepest theoretical source. Andtruth
it isis not a cognitive notion - is impeached by the worst aspects
of our intellectual culture.
a mark of his intellectual ambition that by making it an exclusively
and exhaustively moral and experiential notion instead, Gandhi If Gandhi is right and if truth is an exclusively moral notion,
was attempting to repudiate the paradigm at the deepest possible then when we seek truth, we are pursuing only a moral value.
conceptual level. (Actually Gandhi's writings leave it a little unclear whether he
What I mean by truth as a cognitive notion is that it is a property
is making the steepest claim that truth is not a cognitive notion
of sentences or propositions that describe the world. Thus when at all, or the more cautious one that even if there is such a notion,
we have reason to think that the sentences to which we give assent
it yields no special value of its own for us, a specifically cognitive
exhibit this property, then we have knowledge of the world, a The texts don't decide this matter, but it is obviously more
value.
knowledge that can then be progressively accumulated andsympathetic
put to read him as making the latter claim, and in the
to use through continuing inquiry building on past knowledge. rest of this discussion, I will assume that that is so.) This leaves
His recoil from such a notion of truth, which intellectualisesa our
great deal out of our normative interest in truth, which, as we
relations to the world, is that it views the world as the object have seen, Gandhi is perfectly willing to do. He is quite happy
of study, study that makes it alien to our moral experience of
to discard as illusory our tendency to think that apart from the
it, to our most everyday practical relations to it. He symbolically
moral virtues involving truth (such as that of telling the truth,
conveyed this by his own daily act of spinning cotton. Thisand idealiving by and exemplifying our moral values) there is also
of truth, unlike our quotidian practical relations to nature, makes
in some sense a value or virtue in getting things right about the
world and discovering the general principles that explain its
nature out to be the sort of distant thing to be studied by scientific
methods. Reality will then not be the reality of moral experience.
varied phenomena. This latteris not a moral virtue, it is a cognitive
It will become something alien to that experience, wholly external
virtue, and for Gandhi, cognitive virtues are a chimera. For him
and objectified. It is no surprise then that we will look upon reality
truth's relationship to virtue cannot consist at all in the supposed
as something to be mastered and conquered, an attitude that virtueleads of acquiring truths of this kind; it is instead entirely to
directly to the technological frame of mind that governs modern be understood in how truth surfaces in our practical and moral
societies, and which in turn takes us away from our communal
relations. That is why truth itself will have no value for us other
localities where moral experience and our practical relations tothe value of such things as truth-telling, which does involve
than
the world flourish. It takes us towards increasingly abstract places
our practical and moral relations. To tell the truth is among other
things (such as, say, generosity or kindness or considerateness)
and structures such as nations and eventually global economies.

4164 Economic and Political Weekly September 27, 2003

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a way of being moral, and it was an aspect of morals that Gandhi value of truth in this sense as I do about moral values surrounding
himself was keen to stress. But the point is that truth being truth, such as telling the truth or indeed many of the other moral
only a moral notion, there is no other value to truth than the values one can think of. That it might have mattered less to Gandhi
value of such things as telling the truth, no more abstract value is of course a matter of context, a matter of the quite different
that it has. and much more impressive political concerns and interests of
There is a palpable mistake in collapsing the cognitive value the Indian nationalist movement. But the philosophical lesson
of truth into the moral value of truth-telling, a mistake evident in is a perfectly general one, and the very fact that he himself had
the fact that somebody who fails to tell the truth can, in doing so, gathered the strands of his political concerns and interests and
still value truth. That is to say, the liar often values truth and often tied them into 'integral' relations with these more abstract issues
values it greatly, and precisely because he does so, he wants to about truth and epistemology, make it impossible for us to dismiss
conceal it or invent it. The liar indeed has a moral failing in that the lesson as being irrelevant to him. So I must conclude by saying
he disvalues truth-telling, but he still values truth, and what he values that I don't think that Gandhi should have denied this cognitive
in doing so therefore cannot be a moral value. It cannot be what value of truth. He should in fact have allowed that it defines
Gandhi (and more recently Richard Rorty) insist is the only valuethe very possibility of his own philosophical undertakings and
that attaches to truth. To put it very schematically and crudely,that it underlies his own yearning to find for his philosophical
truth has to be a more abstract value than a moral value because ideas the highest levels of what I have called 'integrity'. These
both the (moral) truth-teller and the (immoral) liar share it. undertakings and yearnings are all signs of a commitment to the
So what is this more abstract value of truth, which even the very notion of truth which he wishes to repudiate. Whether
liar shares? If there is this abstract value to truth, and if even
allowing it will in the end have unravelled that integrity must
the liar values it, someone must surely in principle be ableremain
to a question for another occasion.
fail to value it, else how can it be a value? How can there be But I will end by saying that what that question will turn on
a value if no one can fail to value it? is really the underlying question of this essay: How much integrity
This is indeed a good question and only by answering can these themes tolerate? It is Gandhi's essentially religious
it can
we come close to grasping the value of truth that is not atemperament
moral that motivates the extraordinary ambitions of his
value. The answer is: yes, someone does indeed fail to valueintegrations
truth of these themes. What I mean here is that for all
in this more abstract sense. But it is not the liar. It is the his equally
romanticism about the power of exemplary actions to generate
common sort of person in our midst: the bullshitter. Thisa is the community, Gandhi, like many religious people, is deeply
moral
person who merely sounds off on public occasions or who pessimistic
gets in one sense. He is convinced of the inherent cor-
published in some academic journals simply because he is prepared ruptibility of our moral psyches. This surfaces at two crucial
to speak or write in the requisite jargon, without any goal ofwhich are the well-springs of his integrity. It is what lies
places,
getting things right nor even (like the liar) concealing thebehind right his fear that criticism will descend inevitably into vio-
things which he thinks he knows. lence, and it is also what underlies his fear that the intellectualisation
The so-called Sokal hoax on which so much has been written, of the notion of truth to include a cognitive value, will descend
allows this lesson to be sharply drawn. I don't want to get inevitably
into into an elevation of science into the paradigmatic
a long discussion about this incident both because it is remote intellectual pursuit of our culture, and thus descend further in
from Gandhi's interests but also because I think that it has become turn to our alienation from nature with the wish to conquer and
a mildly distasteful site for people making careers out of its control it without forgiveness and with the most destructive
propagandist and polemical potential. Everything that I have read technologies. The modern secular habits of thinking on these
on the subject of this hoax, including Sokal's own contribution, themes simply do not share this pessimism. Neither descent is
takes up the issue of how Sokal exposed the rampant and uncritical inevitable, we will say. We can block the rise of bad technologies
relativism of postmodern literary disciplines. I don't doubt that by good politics. There is no reason to see it as inevitable once
literary people in the academy have recently shown a relativist we think of truth in cognitive terms, not even inevitable if we
tendency, and yet I wonder if that is really what is at stake. The value scientific inquiry. So also we can block violence with good
point is analogous to the one Ijust made about the liar. The relativist constitutional politics and the rule of law, and there is no reason
also does value truth in the abstract sense I have in mind, even to think it inevitable just because we think of values as entailing
if he has a somewhat different gloss on it from his opponents. the exercise of our critical capacities towards one another. This
In fact it is because he does value truth in this sense that he wishes modernist faith in politics to control and via this control to instil
to urgently put this different gloss on it. I believe it quite likelycognitive and moral habits in us which distract us from what
that the journal in which Sokal propagated his hoax would have might otherwise be seen as our corruptible nature is the real
been happy (at least before the controversy began) to publish achievement, if that is what it is, of the Enlightenment. It is only
a similarly dissimulating hoax reply to his paper in which allthis faith that convinces us that the integrations which Gandhi's
kinds of utterly ridiculous arguments were given, this time forpessimism force on him are not compulsory.
an anti-relativist and objective notion of truth, so long as these It needs a large and elaborate stock-taking of modernity
arguments were presented in the glamorous jargon and with the to figure out whether the faith is justified, one in which philo-
familiar dialectical moves that command currency in the discipline. sophy and moral psychology will play as large a part as
If so, the lesson to be learnt from the hoax is not that relativismhistory and political economy. I have only raised the issue at
is rampant in those disciplines but that very often bullshit is quite stake at the highest level of generality. It is in the details, how-
acceptable, if presented in the requisite way. To set oneself ever, that it will be decided, and those really must await another
against that is to endorse the value of truth in our culture, truthoccasion. F2Z
over and above truth-telling, for a bullshitter is not a liar.
Living and working in the context in which I do - contemporary Address for correspondence:
American academic culture - I feel almost as strongly about the ab41 @columbia.edu

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