History essay on gandhiji PDF

Running head: HISTORY ESSAY
HISTORY ESSAY
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HISTORY ESSAY1
Were Gandhi’s social and political views ‘utopian’?
Gandhi had been politically active at a time when the Indian national struggle for
freedom was at its peak. The Indian people had been aspiring for a total political and
administrative change. The mood of many of the people had been demoralized because of the
long term British occupation on the Indian soil. Therefore it is necessary that a political ideology
comes up that will be encouraging the Indian people out of the depression and give them
aspiration for a better future. Therefore Gandhi’s ideology rightly fulfilled the aspirations of the
people by encouraging them to vie for Swarajya or independence in a peaceful manner. However
achieving freedom through the process of non-violence is often considered to be Utopian. The
ideal state imagined by Gandhi was also often criticized by many as not practically achievable in
the real world.
Utopia is sometimes described as the ideal state of affair which is not really achievable
by practical means. Complete nonviolence is no really practical to be achieved because even
maintenance of law and order requires some amount of violence to be used.
Was there ‘some method to his madness’ in his complex attitudes on industry, economy
and modernity?
Gandhi had his own ideas about the functioning of a state and how the administration
system could function. His ideas were mostly idealistic and imagined a perfect state which was
devoid of violence and did not have negative aspects like corruption and political violence. Many
has termed the idea of politics as political madness. This is because the political ideas of Gandhi
as the ideal nonviolent state was Utopian and unreal.