The Economic Thought of Mahatma Gandhi

r NHE PART PLAYED by Mahatma Gandhi in the peaceful achievement of India's freedom and in challenging the tradin i tional place of'untouchables' in Hindu society is generally recognized. His economic ideas, however, are less widely respected, even in India. Inspired mainly by Gandhian teaching, a few Westerners, of whom Aldous Huxley is the best known, have put the case for a decentralized economy. But they have made few converts. Gandhi himself did not want his thought to be treated as a sacrosanct system. 'IfI were to know, after my death', he wrote in I940, 'that what I stood for had degenerated into sectarianism, I should be deeply pained.... You are no followers but fellow students, fellow pilgnms, fellow seekers and fellow workers.' 2 The waniing is important because when his social philosophy is discussed as a system, it is usually offiered as an alternative to Western philosophies. In consequence, those aspects which are least Western perhaps receive undue emphasis.3 As a final synthesis Gandhi's thought is unacceptable. Seen, however, in the context of India's problems-which in varying degree are those of all South-East Asia -there is far more to be saidfor it than is generally realized. It can fill a valuable role in the second half of this century by inspiring other syntheses on equally imaginative lines.