Convergence of Marx and Gandhi: A Strategic Need Today

Many have compared and contrasted Marx and Gandhi, in terms of their ideas and worldviews about the ways and means of overcoming the present made disenchanting by capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, as well as the future made bleamy by the ever rising greed of humankind. 1 It is well- known that both of them were anarchists impatient of State power and that they had postulated village republic the alternative, be it the Commune or the Gramaswaraj. The goals of both thus taken for granted as broadly converg- ing, their ways and means had always contrasted each other by tagging them with binaries of oppositions such as violent versus non-violent, material versus spiritual, and Western versus Eastern. The present paper seeks to briefly review the contrast and convergence at the level of the process of knowing or modes of production of knowledge adopted by the two great men.