¹ Nehru, Jawaharlal, An Autobiography (London, 1936), 253.Google Scholar

² For example, Cassirer, E., The Myth of the State (New Haven, 1946) and The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. Manherm, Ralph (New Haven, 1953–1957)Google Scholar; Elliott, W. Y., The Pragmatic Revolt in Politics; Syndicalism, Fascism and the Constitutional State (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; Friedrich, C. J., Man and His Government: An Empirical Theory of Politics (New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Parsons, Talcott, The Social System (Glencoe, Ill., 1951)Google Scholar; Lasswell, H. D. and Kaplan, A., Power and Society (New Haven, 1950)Google Scholar; Voeglin, E., The New Science of Politics (Chicago, 1952)Google Scholar; Whitehead, A. N., Symbolism (New York, 1927)Google Scholar; Daedalus (Spring 1959).

³ Gandhi, M. K., Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule), (Ahmedabad, 1909, chap. 17).Google Scholar

⁴ For general treatment of Gandhian political thought see, Bondurant, J. V., Conquest of Violence (Berkeley, Calif., 1957, 1967)Google Scholar; Horsburgh, H. J. N., Non-Violence and Aggression (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Power, Paul F., Gandhi on World Affairs (Washington, 1960)Google Scholar; Morris-Jones, W. H., “Mahatma Gandhi: Political Philosopher,” Political Studies, 8 (1960), 16–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Hind Swaraj, chap. 19.

⁶ An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated from the original in Gujarati by Desai, Mahadev (Ahmedabad, 1927, 299).Google Scholar

⁷ Tendulkar, D. G., Mahatma, 8 vols. (New Delhi, rev. ed., 1960–3), IV, 11.Google Scholar

⁸ Mahatma, III, 284.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Gandhi organized in 1919 a national campaign of boycott of foreign cloth, part of the campaign was ceremonial burning of it in huge piles all over India. By such symbolic acts Gandhi sought “to burn our greatest external polution,” “the untouchability of ‘foreign clothes.’” The “outward fire” was the “symbol of the inner fire that should burn up all our weakness of head and heart.” Ibid., II, 53–4.

¹¹ Gandhi's daily routine included at least two hours of hand spinning. His followers were encouraged to imitate him in this respect. On holidays and on similar occasions ceremonial spinning was part of the nationalist campaign, so much so that Gandhi, khadi, spinning, and nationalist movement came to be identified in the minds of the general public.

¹² On his political tours Gandhi often auctioned khadi products. He would take haircuts only from Khadi-weaiing barbers: barbers he said were the best salesmen of ideas in rural India. Once Gandhi was convinced of an idea he would take every means, however strange this may appear to others, to implement it. The barber-policy is only one instance of this point. Ibid., II, 363.

¹³ In the early stages of khadi propaganda, Gandhi introduced what was known as the khadi franchise, i.e., the option of producing 2000 yards per annum of hand-spun cotton as substitute for membership dues in the Congress party. Ibid., II, 175; III, 300.

¹⁴ Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge, 1960), 92.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The wearing of khadi was a sign of “brotherly feeling towards all without distinction of race, colour or creed.” Mahatma, V, 276. Khadi would “sit well on the shoulders of the poor, adorn the bodies of the richest, and establish a bond between the rich and the poor, and restore to the poor somewhat of what the rich have taken from them.” Ibid., II, 259. Again it was “the symbol of Indian humanity, of its economic freedom and equality.” Ibid., VI, 20.

¹⁶ Ibid., V, 30; VII, 36.

¹⁷ Ibid., VI, 22.

¹⁸ Ibid., VII, 35; II, 374: V, 275–6; VII, 183.

¹⁹ Ibid., VI, 273.

²⁰ Ibid., I, 299.

²¹ Ibid., II, 253.

²² Ibid., VII, 239.

²³ For a schedule of Gandhi's fasts see the Appendix.

²⁴ Mahatma, II, 87; VII, 233.

²⁵ Ibid., III, 198; VIII, 248; II, 86; I, 302; II, 218. “What eyes are for the outer world, fasts are for the inner.”

²⁶ Ibid., V, 54.

²⁷ Gandhi claimed divine inspiration for undertaking almost all of his famous fasts. The 1924 fast was undertaken after “several days of continued prayer. I have got up from sleep at three in the night, and have asked Him what to do. On Sept. 17 the answer came like a flash.” Ibid., II, 151–2. Regarding his second 21-day fast of 1933 he wrote, “I had gone to sleep the night before without the slightest idea of having to declare a fast the next morning. At about twelve o'clock in the night something wakes me up suddenly, and some voice—within or without, I cannot say—whispers, ‘Thou must go on a fast.’ ‘How many days ?’ I ask. It says, ‘Twenty-one days.’ ‘When does it begin?’ I ask. It says, ‘You begin tomorrow.’ ” Ibid., III, 198.

Gandhi saw a subtle distinction between fasting and hunger-strike. Fasting had to be inspired by spiritual motives, if possible by God; its object is persuasion of the adversary for the good of the adversary, oneself, and the general public. Hunger-strike, for Gandhi, was a political weapon to embarrass the adversary, to force concessions from him without adequate regard to “converting” the adversary to truth. The religious and ethical motives of the fast were indispensible for a true Gandhian fast. Thus Gandhi could write: “fasting, unless it is the result of God's grace, is useless starvation….” Ibid., V, 53.

²⁸ Ibid., VIII, 22; V, 50 ff; III, 197; see also VII, 233.

²⁹ But the outcaste in question “felt he was too humble to be admitted to the function,” and consequently absented himself. Ibid., III, 206.

³⁰ Ibid., VI, 273; V, 30; VII, 36; V, 219–20.

³¹ Ibid., IV, 55.

³² See Parel, A., “The Political Symbolism of the Cow in India,” Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, Nov., 1969.Google Scholar

³³ Gandhi, , Collected Works, 50 vols. (New Delhi, 1958–), XXIV, 150.Google Scholar

³⁴ Harijan, “Go Seva Sangh II,” Feb. 15, 1942.

³⁵ Gandhi, Collected Works, XVIII, 117.

³⁶ Ibid., XX, 194; Gandhi, Sarvodaya, B. Kumarappa, ed., (Ahmedabad, 1954), 65.

³⁷ Jani, D. H., The Romance of the Cow (Bombay, 1938), 60.Google Scholar

³⁸ Gandhi, Collected Works, XIX, 282.

³⁹ The word was originally used by an unknown Gujarati poet. This fact was brought to Gandhi's attention by an untouchable. Earlier in his writings Gandhi had used the word, “Asprishya” (literally “untouchable”), to refer to the untouchables. Several untouchable readers of Navajivan (Gandhi's newspaper) objected to this word, whereupon Gandhi invited suggestions for a better word. One untouchable suggested the adoption of the name Harijan on the strength of its having been used by the first poet-saint of Gujarat. “Though, the quotation he sent me did not exactly fit the case he wanted to make out for the adoption,” Gandhi wrote, “I thought that it was a good word.” Mahatma, III, 192.

⁴⁰ Ibid., I, 298.

⁴¹ Machiavelli, Discorsi, I, chap. 25.

⁴² An Autobiography, 253–4.

⁴³ Nethercot, A. H., The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant (London, 1963), 468.Google Scholar