ABSTRACT
The contemporary interpretations seem to have come as a defence on discovering a quintessential Gandhi lost to the myriad of contingent political critiques by the various social groups that have felt shortchanged by the developments integral to the nation-building process. The nationalist reading of Gandhi, mostly by the historians, essentially focused on Gandhi as a champion against modernisation/industrialisation and western civilisation in general to recover the core of Indian ethos. The politico-historical analysis projected Gandhian philosophy and praxis more as a docile product of his times, which further entrenched the traditional and hierarchical characteristics of the Indian society rather than challenging them in any serious and sustained manner. The old issues of marginalisation and implications of elite politics on the one hand and the limitations of the Marxist and the subaltern approach on the other were (re-)raised within new epistemic frameworks articulated by Dalits and feminists and their mass movements.
