Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: MK Gandhi’s political vision of an ‘enlightened anarchy” was never realized in India though the anti-colonial movement he led was unquestionably successful. This paper tries to understand this failure of the political vision at the moment of success of the political movement. Gandhi’s critique was not just limited to the particular colonial state he was opposing, but was targeted at the fundamental rationale of modern sovereign state itself. Two fundamental tenets of this critique was the denial of the fear (the need for security, in the Hobbessian sense) that lies at the heart of the state; and the denial of the possibility of an absolute ascription of meaning that founds the sovereign order. Instead Gandhi used the trope of a continual search, through the process of suffering at the heart of his politics. It was a search for the collective ethical self of the community. However, his political role as the leader of an organized movement and his radically dispersed notion of sovereignty created an inherent contradiction within his project. It was this contradiction that lead to the failure of the latter precisely when the former became successful. However, his critique does not lose relevance, or get subsumed by the success of the movement. Instead, it remains its radical potential as long as the modern state remains the preeminent form of a political community.