Achieving greater consistency between the individual and social values
Now the issue is: is there a way of avoiding conflict between individual and society in the increasingly globalized world? What is to be done? Is it possible to develop values which satisfy the requirements of both man and society and also lead to greater integration of society at local and global levels? The aim of integration has to be to produce a moral man in a moral society. In case of crisis, what has to be the priority – moral man or moral society? Moralists focus on man and the institutionalists focus on society. But since the issues are closely intertwined and interwoven it becomes difficult to classify people into these two categories separately. For example, in an earlier lecture Gandhi was mentioned as a moralist. Alternative interpretations of Gandhi are also possible. Prof. A. K. Saran argues that Gandhi wanted to build a moral society because moral society is a condition for moral man to exist. He said:
Gandhi did not believe in the coexistence of moral man and immoral society. In fact, one of his most important contributions to political thought and action is the idea that ways of moral action and resistance could be transferred from the individual to the collective plane and be used as powerful forms of political action. Indeed, the technique of Satyagraha (fast, civil disobedience, dharna and other variants) presuppose this basic idea. Gandhi believed that Society could be, and should be moral. Did he also hold that man as an individual needed a moral society in order to be moral himself? I think this is a fundamental point in understanding Gandhi's sociological thought. Let us therefore ponder it a moment.
Gandhi was a great believer in the virtues of compromise, not only in the political but in almost all spheres; it was part of his political theory and practice to lay the greatest stress on sincerity and the purity of the personal lives of every political actor. In a more general way, too, he gave all possible emphasis and attention to political participants as persons. Looking at his thought and practice from this point of view, it may look as if Gandhi did not rule out the possibility of moral men in a not-so-moral society. In further support of such an interpretation of Gandhi's thought, it could be pointed out that the ultimate orientation of Gandhi's political action was towards effecting a change of heart of the other party. Both his thinking and the forms of political action that he developed imply, it may be argued, a cumulative process of social change.
All this is correct. However, I would like to argue that this does not invalidate my thesis that Gandhi did not think that individually man could be moral in a non-moral, immoral or unjust society, that is, he did not believe in the Niebuhrian antithesis of moral man and immoral society. I want to show that in any analysis of his thought and work the coexistence (of moral man and immoral society) theory would be seriously misleading. |
It is equally possible to show that for Gandhi moral concerns of individual were at the top of agenda. Unless man is morally awakened it is not possible to build a moral society. Greedy and exploitative man cannot produce a good society. That is why Gandhi insisted so much on celibacy. He also broadened the definition of celibacy and equated it with all round control of sense organs including palate.
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