ABSTRACT

The accusations of inconsistency and formlessness in ideology that have been brought against Gandhi have not been completely borne out by what I have attempted to show hitherto.1 Although Gandhi himself never made a fetish of consistency, I have suggested in the previous chapters that certain fundamental metaphysical and religious beliefs underlie all his teaching and that the apparent ambivalence of his position on certain issues should not be allowed to obscure this fact. Indeed it is possible, as I have indicated, to maintain that far from showing ambivalence on certain issues Gandhi held on firmly to his fundamental beliefs concerning Truth and ahisœ while at the same time recognizing that in certain situations of moral dilemma he had to act in ways contrary to those beliefs.