ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 is an analysis of brahmacharya, satyagraha, satya, and ahimsa. For Gandhi ethics has to be recognized and understood in any quest for social harmony. For the post – satyarthi Gandhi, the quest becomes an engagement with ‘sat’ – to exist, encompasses satya – truth, ahimsa the hallmark of compassion, and brahmacharya, an attainment to become truly competent as a human being. Around this core he then designed the concept of satyagraha. In this transition, the role of the moral order and equity in every social engagement remains pivotal. The import of what Gandhi stood for is very distinct from our present very opportunistic attitude and acceptance of ‘things-as-they-are’. Our attitude of giving precedence to ends, wants, and rights over means, needs, and duties respectively leads to exclusiveness, be it in economics, politics, or culture. Moreover in our pre-occupation with incentive and competition, necessary collaterals of exclusiveness, we seem to be encouraging violence at every level of social relationships. And in this preoccupation we tend to overlook that at the root of all this is our lust for power and its corollary, fear of the powerful. Right from Pietermaritzburg Gandhi was aware of this compulsion. And he, as if compulsively, sought a way out.
Therefore, in the analysis, to be able to understand the significance of what Gandhi stood for, we have preferred a somewhat nuanced approach regarding his seminal concepts. Thus, ahimsa will be understood as ‘krodha tyāg, where tyāg is ‘giving up of something only to acquire some other thing’. Similarly, brahmacharya will be trishna tyāg i.e. renouncing longing of secure relationships of which celibacy is just one element, sardovaya we will argue seeks to sort out the quaint anomaly of how our entitlement of freedom a natural ability comes as if circumscribed with an endowment of fear, that is an apprehension of losing our possession, power, and progeny.
