Ever since I started reading Gandhi and commenced my research on Gandhi around six decades ago and learned from his matchless "Experiments with Truth" and the legacy this great man of destiny left for humanity, I tend to believe that the two focal points through which one can enter the mind of Gandhi and his world vision and action are (i) the four Ashrams (in other words intentional living communities) Gandhi founded and (ii) the progressive and sustainable world vision he outlined in his little classic "Hind Swaraj'.
The first in the ashrams series was the Phoenix Settlement (est. 1904 in Natal.) This was followed by The Tolstoy Farm (est. 1910 outside Johannesburg), Sabarmati Ashram (est. 1915 outside Ahmedabad), and Sevagram Ashram (est. 1936 in Wardha). It is history now how these ashrams under Gandhi turned to be the laboratories of experiments and training of his colleagues in good citizenship and nurture the transformative agents of sustainable development and peace.
Right from day one Gandhi began his life and work in South Africa he invited both adverse criticism as well as adulation. Over his "unorthodox experiments" the sceptics and doubting Thomases raised their eye brows. While some of the news papers in Natal region described Gandhi as an "Unwelcome visitor from India", influential community leaders and social activists sarcastically viewed them as the young barristers' fads. Undaunted by these hostile, sarcastic jibes young Gandhi innovated with consummate faith and courage new methods and strategies to keep going, come what may.
My interest in four major Gandhi Asrams, the subject matter of this book was aroused in the first instance, when I was given an opportunity to become a part of 'Sabari Ashram', Palakkad, founded in 1922 by T. R. Krishnaswamy after the model of Sabarmati Ashram, the first Ashram in India founded by Gandhi in 1915. The study I am engaged in here, is the result of reflection, over twenty five years.
In making a brief study of the Gandhi Ashram, I intend to indicate 'avant garde' nature of Gandhi's Philosophy and world vision, which evolved from the Ashram life and how we can find the seeds of change enshrined in these Ashrams.
Despite the tremendous advances in the fields of science and technology, one cannot help but question the degree of actual hu-man progress in terms of moral and ethical values.
Ecological degradation on the global scale continues unabated. The gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' expands without ceasing. Search for happiness takes us nowhere. What certainly disturbing is the gradual loss of moral potency from all sorts of human endeavors today, which is becoming increasingly influenced by market forces, consumerism and expediency.
Gandhi reminds us that man bears within himself, in his inner lives secret stores of infinite possibility sources of boundless strength that can be unleashed and directed toward challenges and tribulations. Gandhi Ashrams served as the key to releasing this power, the profound and primeval potentialities that exist in all human beings.
Gandhi was a leader of change, who subordinated the demands of his ego to achieve his mission. He created a standard for all those, who would manage transformative change in any collective endeavor. He was a servant leader who was supremely practical.
The central feature of Gandhi thought is man-centred, not system centred. Its premise is the moral autonomy of man and the possibility his lasting liberation from his own lower self and interpersonal and compelling dictates of the structure of society.
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