Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2: Applications across Psychological Science [1st ed.] 9783030569884, 9783030569891

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Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2

Applications across Psychological Science V. K. Kool · Rita Agrawal

Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2 “Vinod Kool has once again provided us with groundbreaking new understandings of sides of nonviolence in the Gandhian tradition few have paid attention to. These two volumes cover an impressive wide range of topics and each of them combines thorough studies of the sources with recent scientific discoveries in psychology and medicine. Both volumes of Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence must be obligatory reading for anyone who wants to understand how the Gandhian “experiments with Truth” have developed into the most important force in societal conflicts globally. All engaged citizens, activists, politicians, researchers, and students should include these books in their curriculum. Kool and Agrawal provide food for thought on most of the important questions humanity is facing today including the 2020 pandemic. Reserve space in your book shelves for these books. When you have read them you will achieve a more nuanced view on Gandhi and nonviolence than you can imagine.” —Jørgen Johansen, Deputy Editor, Journal of Resistance Studies, Sweden “Those of us in peace psychology take pride in how much our field covers almost all other approaches in psychology. In these two volumes, this is done with a focus on Gandhian psychology. The wide range and depth of coverage offers a must read for everyone who wants to be familiar with Gandhi or who wants to be well-versed in peace psychology.” —Rachel MacNair, Director of the Institute for Integrated Social Analysis for Consistent Life, USA, President of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Peace Psychology (2013), and author of Religions and Nonviolence: The Rise of Effective Advocacy for Peace (2015)

V. K. Kool • Rita Agrawal

Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2 Applications across Psychological Science

V. K. Kool SUNY Polytechnic Institute Utica, NY, USA

Rita Agrawal Harish Chandra Postgraduate College Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

ISBN 978-3-030-56988-4    ISBN 978-3-030-56989-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Doug Armand / Stone / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Prologue to Volume 2

One of the most difficult challenges a professor faces is when a student in the West is to be taught a concept rooted in the Eastern philosophy or vice versa. Gandhi employed several concepts such as aparigraha, anasakti, tapas and many more derived from the Indian religions and philosophies that are not easy to grasp by students and public at large in the West and elsewhere. But come to think of it, Gandhi and his principles and the concepts that he used are not really difficult to understand. Let us start our explanations by imagining what would have taken place if Gandhi had been a subject for Milgram’s “obedience to authority” experiment reported in almost every book of psychology. What Gandhi would have done, how would he have behaved, were he to participate as a subject in the experiment inviting him to deliver lethal shocks to an erring learner? For one thing, Gandhi would seldom refuse if a person approached him for help. So, would he have gone along with the instructions to help the experimenter? Certainly not! Instead of obeying Milgram’s instructions to deliver shocks, Gandhi would have asked if there was any other way in which he could help Milgram so as to serve the purpose of the experiment. No civilized person would start giving shocks simply because he had been told to do so. Using his wisdom and following the Socratic dictum of challenging oneself with questions before embarking on a journey in unfamiliar terrain, Gandhi would have given Milgram an analogy of the windows in the homes of the Netherlands, the majority of which are generally not draped with curtains or blinds. Well, the Dutch believe that they have nothing to hide and even as darkness sets in the late evening and v

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the inside of their Dutch homes are visible from the outside, the residents do not cover their windows for privacy. This attitude is, in many ways, akin to the Protestant religious tradition of Calvinism which stipulates that there is nothing to hide: we are the same, both from the inside and from the outside. Since psychologists, often, do not tell subjects the real purpose of the experiment until the debriefing session is conducted after the experiment is over, Gandhi would not have been a willing and cooperative subject in a psychology experiment, let alone the famous Milgram experiment. What is the reason for such an attitude? The reason is that for Gandhi, any achievement of goals is contingent upon the fairness of the means; otherwise, no matter how great the success, in the absence of pious means, it is harmful and carries a poor message for humanity. Gandhi would have told the Yale professor Milgram to learn from the Dutch. As stated in the Preface of Volume 1 of this book, people do not become saints overnight. It is only through their struggles, both within and without, that they learn, they grow and they evolve. The same was the case with Gandhi, and one of the important objectives of this book was to delve into the experiences that made him a Mahatma (saint) for the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and Bapu (father) for the teeming masses that followed him, through thick and thin. Another objective of this book was an analysis of Gandhi’s creed of nonviolence and to study it in the context of twenty-first-century empirical research and theory in psychology. Further, we felt a need to establish the idea that Gandhi’s ahimsa or nonviolence was not only in a class of its own, but that it was based on sound principles derived from the multifarious experiments Gandhi conducted on himself and “Truth.” In sum, the majority of books of psychology, including those on social psychology, reveal that the brunt of the focus has been on people characterized by aggression and even violence, with those who choose nonviolence as their characteristic mode of reaction receiving negligible attention. In contrast, the present book, offered in two volumes, was written with the aim of highlighting the psychology of nonviolence, with specific reference to Gandhi. While the significance of concepts such as self-control and moral inclusion have been noted relatively recently in the field of psychology, Gandhi had long put them in the backyard of psychology, on the basis of his social “experiments.” There is much to learn from his life and philosophy, which can be used to enrich the content of modern psychology in general and well-­being in particular. In view of the above-stated objectives, Volume 1 of this book, entitled, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence: Scientific Roots and Development,

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comprised eight chapters through which we traced the scientific roots and development of Gandhi’s nonviolence and the ways in which it has been validated by empirical research in psychology. The volume started with the beginning of our journey in the area of nonviolence and how we were intrigued not by those subjects who obeyed the orders of Milgram but by those who chose to disobey: their psychology, personality and dynamics of behavior. We found a close similarity between these disobeying subjects and people characterized by nonviolent tendencies. Throughout human history, we find examples of people who have resisted powerful situations eliciting compliance, such as acting against oppression, unfair laws and other adverse social situations. According to Zimbardo (2004), while such unsung heroism at individual levels is manifested everywhere, a few among them broaden their mission and address social issues at large. One such hero is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who, through his nonviolent technique popularly known as Satyagraha, offered to shape human behavior by being morally inclusive, displaying utmost self-control and constantly learning to monitor nonviolent behavior while facing oppression and aggression by the adversary. The natural sequel in Chap. 2 of the volume was the analysis of the disobedient Gandhi, and his early life and experiences which molded him and helped him develop a deep interest in nonviolence as the guiding principle of his life, as the Truth, which was to become his God and his religion. The chapter also contains descriptions of the many people who were influenced by him. The next chapter, Chap. 3 deals with an aspect which is very dear to us, focusing on interviews we conducted with members of Gandhi’s family and other survivors of the Gandhi era, the majority being over eighty  years of age. These interviews brought us, personally speaking, very close to Gandhi and helped us gain deep insight into his ideas and philosophy. While Chap. 4 attempted to look into the building blocks of Gandhi’s nonviolence, Chap. 5 established the idea that nonviolence is nothing new, “it is as old as the hills,” as professed by Gandhi, by looking into the depths of the evolutionary history of humanity, along with the neuroanatomical and neurophysiological basis of many of the attributes of Gandhi’s nonviolence, including those of empathy, love, justice and self-control. The next chapter, namely, Chap. 6, was devoted to the delineation of the nonviolent personality and to show that nonviolence is a more or less stable dimension of human personality. As such it is amenable to measurement, much like other traits of personality. Various scales, including the Nonviolence Test (NVT) and the Teenage

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Nonviolence Test (TNT) were described and discussed in detail. Chapter 7 analyzed nonviolence in terms of the models and theories that have been proposed by psychologists including the three-­dimensional model of nonviolence. Last but not the least, Chap. 8 went into the analysis of the cognition of nonviolence, revealing that the ways through which Gandhi helped his followers cognize his creed of nonviolence in the early twentieth century were amazing, to say the least, and were very much in line with the current research in cognitive psychology almost a century later, that is, during the twenty-first century. The volume ended with an epilogue (Chap. 9) in which we summed up the status of Gandhi’s psychology of nonviolence and its scientific nature. Even a cursory glance at the state of the world and the earth, today, makes us realize that it is beset with multifarious problems, for the majority of which we humans are to blame, but are unable to find solutions to. Whether it is in the domain of the disrupted ecological balance playing havoc with the climate, rising levels of crime, prejudice and interstate conflict, violence and war, or, it is in terms of the increasing feelings of alienation and stress among the youth, and the widespread erosion of morality and ethics, the problems are apparently insurmountable. This volume of the book brings to the reader an account and an analysis of how Gandhi’s nonviolence, based on the strong foundation of empathy, compassion, anasakti (detachment), aparigraha (nonpossession) and tapas (self-­sacrifice) coupled with self-control and discipline in terms of differentiating between our needs and our wants can go a long way in mitigating and even alleviating many of the problems cited above. The ways in which Gandhi leads his followers, his charisma derived from his conviction and faith in the “truth,” and his suggestions for transparent corporate governance using means that are pure, offer insights into the problems facing many an organization, either small or large. In other words, when the world is grappling with problems related to the sustainability of the environment and climate change, poverty, corporate governance, education, lowered moral standards, increasing crime, cross-border violence and many more, there is much that can be gleaned from a psychological analysis of Gandhi and his followers. A detailed analysis of the life and work of Gandhi will provide interesting insights into the dynamics of such behavior. We draw the attention of the reader to the large number of eminent scholars and thinkers, some of them being Nobel laureates, who have vouched for the validity of Gandhi’s ideas and philosophy and practice of nonviolence for providing solutions. Scientists from across a variety of

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disciplines ranging from physics and astronomy to ethics, philosophy and political science have pointed out the relevance of Gandhian principles and strategies for solving many of the problems listed above. This august list includes Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, French philosopher, Grinevald, astronomer and former President of the Royal Society, Martin Rees, Australian ethicist, Clive Hamilton, British climate scientist, Chris Rapley, veteran scholars, Ray Kurzweil and Steven Pinker, to name just a few. Current work in neuroscience (e.g., the work of Robin Dunbar on the social brain) and evolutionary biology also validates many of the principles enunciated by a person named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi way back in the 1930s and 1940s. The eminence of this person can be gauged from the fact that in that era itself, when technology was still in a very nascent stage and the globalized, boundary-less village had yet to take shape, he could envisage the problems that we human beings were giving an invitation to. Had we heeded his warnings and applied some of the techniques advocated by him, it is probable that Mother Earth and the species of flora and fauna, including the Homo sapiens would have been in a better state today. However, all is not lost, there is still hope. In this volume, we will attempt to focus on some of these problems and the ingenious ways in which they can be countered, with Gandhian thinking as the base. In view of the above, the present volume of the book, namely Volume 2, entitled Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence: Applications Across Psychological Science, comprises seven chapters, each focusing on applications of Gandhi’s principles and strategies for a particular domain of applied psychology. Chapter 1 deals with the issue of the tragedy of the commons and how many of our environmental problems and those related to climate change are linked to this issue. We envisage that current research and theorization in the field of environmental psychology will draw lessons from Gandhi and endeavor to help professionals and United Nation agencies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to deal with the onslaughts of the era of the Anthropocene through the emerging human consciousness in the form of the Noosphere. Chapter 2 focuses on the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations as part of its Agenda 2030, and how the United Nations has advocated that Gandhi’s principles of education can be incorporated into twenty-firstcentury educational systems, the world over. The chapter describes at length, Gandhi’s system of education in terms of Buniyadi Shiksha (Basic Education) and Nai Talim (New Education) and how it leads to the wellrounded growth of the child. The importance of character building has

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been dealt with in depth, with gleanings from recent research in educational psychology and character building and socio-emotional development. A Nai Talim school that is grounded in the very traditions of Gandhi and his followers is described in detail. Chapter 3 makes an attempt to clear the myth of Gandhi’s nonacceptance of machines and technology, discussing the reasons for his supposed “distaste” for machines and his “obsession” with the spinning wheel. Gandhi had great foresight and could foresee many of the negative effects of technology that the world is witnessing today. These have been analyzed in the light of empirical research in the nascent field of psychology of technology and its future trajectories, in the context of many of the technology-related problems of today. Gandhi set up a number of communities in the form of ashrams, settlements and farms. While many other communities especially established along the lines of specific principles have often failed to sustain themselves, those set up by Gandhi were highly successful. The ways in which they were managed under the capable and charismatic leadership of Gandhi provide many a lesson for the twenty-first-century manager and the student of organizational behavior and conflict resolution. Thus, Chap. 4 deals with the implications of Gandhi’s creed of nonviolence for the understanding of organizational behavior. At the same time, these communities offer excellent examples of harmonious community living in the lap of nature. Chapter 5 deals with how community psychology can learn from Gandhi and also how the very principles enunciated by Gandhi and followed in his communities are validated by current research in community psychology. The lessons for moral inclusion, the eradication of prejudice and discriminatory practices and the creation of a strong culture are delineated through an analysis of the ways in which Gandhi attempted to solve these problems. Gandhi’s focus on the village system in the form of oceanic circles is discussed in the light of current research in the computational limits of the human brain. A salient feature of Gandhi’s life and work was his emphasis on pure means, means that are morally and ethically correct. Chapter 6 deals with the issues of religion and morality in the light of Gandhi’s principles and how they have been corroborated by recent research in psychology of religion and morality. The volume ends with projections for the future, of how Gandhi, with his deep insight into human psychology, could foresee many of the problems yet to come. The directions that modern psychology can take, in the perspective of Gandhi’s

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life and work, have been highlighted. The question raised is whether Gandhi is relevant in the twenty-first century, and, if so, what are the ways in which he is relevant. When scientists, as eminent as Einstein, opined that Gandhi enlightened his mind and UC-Berkeley professor, Nagler, stated that the laws of nonviolence are more robust than the laws of physics, we envisage that the psychology of nonviolence, based on scientific principles enunciated by Gandhi and corroborated by current state-of-theart research in psychology, is here to stay, though it has a long way to go. The foundation has been laid by Gandhi, it is up to psychology and its sister disciplines to construct and develop the structure. In this volume, we have navigated through and sampled several domains of human life including, but not limited to, religion, technology, education, organizational behavior, climate change and community living, in the context of Gandhi’s contributions. Finally, in the concluding chapter on modern psychology and Gandhi in the twenty-first century, we have begun by stating the extent to which Gene Sharp was correct when he advised social scientists, including psychologists, to focus on what Gandhi had offered to us in order to grow and improve our theories and applications. While we understand that several Gandhian concepts are deeply rooted in the ethos of the Indian culture, we have attempted to present the material in both the volumes in an easy, simple manner, such that it should not be difficult for either the technical or the nontechnical reader to grasp the psychological underpinnings of Gandhi’s life and work. We considered this aspect to be of considerable importance having noticed the difficulties often faced by students, members of the public and others, when we delivered lectures in the classrooms or participated in discussions in public fora across the continents. As such, we have restricted technical jargon to the minimum and have sought to explain Indian terms and concepts, as simply as possible, so that the uninitiated reader does not get intimidated by exotic and ethnic expressions. Los Angeles, CA Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India 

V. K. Kool Rita Agrawal

Contents

1 Environmental Psychology: Lessons from Gandhi  1 Tragedy of the Commons   3 Evidence for Rapid Climate Change   4 Have We Reached the “Tipping Point”?   6 The Anthropocene   7 The Noosphere  10 Nexus between the Anthropocene and the Noosphere  11 Building Temperance  12 The Earth Charter  14 Ecological Citizenship  15 Environmental Psychology  19 Theory of Planned Behavior  21 Norm Activation Model  21 Value-Belief-Norm Theory  21 Nudging Pro-Environmental Behavior  22 Gandhi, the Environmentalist  24 Gandhi and Environmental Ethics  25 Gandhi and Building Temperance  27 Gandhi, Nonpossession (Aparigraha) and Pro-environmental Behavior  29 Gandhi and Attitude Change  30 Gandhi, Self-Reliance and the Ecological Movement  32

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Gandhi and the Role of Culture in Building a Sustainable Ecological System  34 Gandhi and Identification with Nature (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam)  37 Deep Ecology  41 References  44 2 The Gandhian Model of Education: Relevance for Educational Psychology 51 The UNO Sustainable Development Goals and Gandhi  53 Establishment of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education and Peace and Its Objectives  53 The Philosophy of Education and Educational Psychology  55 Gandhi’s Philosophy of Education  57 Gandhi and Education  60 Nai Talim (New Education) and its Salient Features  62 Free Education from Seven to Fourteen Years of Age  62 Universal Education  63 Education Through Handicraft  64 The Logic for Education Through Handicraft  65 Self-Supporting Aspect of Education  67 The Medium of Instruction  68 Education and the Creed of Nonviolence  69 Education and Character Building  72 Take the Educational Institutions to the Village  74 Character Building in Modern Education  74 The Theory of Triadic Influence (Snyder 2014)  77 Nai Talim Schools of the Twenty-First Century  79 The Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya, Bardoli (India)  81 Nai Talim at the Global Level  86 References  87 3 Gandhi and the Psychology of Technology 93 Gandhi and Machines  94 Machines and the Tragedy of the Commons  95 Machines and Unemployment  96 Technology and Unemployment  97

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Compensation Effects for Unemployment Due to New Technology  99 Psychological Effects of Unemployment 102 The Scars of Unemployment 103 Bread Labor 106 The Music of the Spinning Wheel 109 The Spinning Wheel and Moral Inclusion 110 The Digital Divide 111 Digital Divide and the Elderly 114 Technology and the Means-Ends Relationship 116 From Ergonomics to Hedonomics 117 The Consequences of Modern Technology 124 Technology and the Wisdom of Gandhi’s Swaraj 125 Gandhian Engineering 126 Technology and Flow: The Music of the Spinning Wheel 129 References 130 4 Gandhi’s Calling Orientation: Applications to Organizational Behavior137 The Beginnings of Organizational Psychology 140 Nature of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 141 Individual Factors, OB and Gandhi 143 The Calling Orientation 143 Extrinsic Versus Intrinsic Motivation 147 Self-Efficacy 152 Group Dynamics, Organizational Behavior and Gandhi 153 Interdependence Among Members 153 Group Cohesiveness 155 Leadership 158 The Charisma of Gandhi’s Leadership 159 Negative and Positive Charisma 165 Esprit de Corps and Organizational Citizenship Behavior 166 Organizational Factors, OB and Gandhi 167 Organizational Culture 167 Organizational Culture in Gandhi’s Organizations 169 Diversity Management and a Culture of Inclusivity 172 Trusteeship as an Organizational Vision 175

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Gandhi and Means-End Relationship in Organizational Governance 178 Conflict Resolution and Integrative Negotiation 181 Gandhi and Conflict Resolution 185 References 187 5 Gandhi’s Nonviolence and Community Psychology for the Twenty-First Century195 Communal Living and Communities 197 The Beginnings of Community Psychology 198 Objectives of Community Psychology 199 Gandhi as a Community Psychologist 201 Gandhi and Oceanic Circles 202 Swaraj, Swadeshi and the Village Republic 202 The Village Republic and the Dunbar Number 203 Oceanic Circles in the Twenty-First Century 204 Gandhi’s Communities 205 Phoenix Settlement 205 Tolstoy Farm 208 Sabarmati Ashram 211 Sevagram Ashram 212 Community Intervention 216 Gandhi and Community Intervention 217 Gandhi and Kelly’s Fourfold Ecological Model 221 Interdependence 221 Adaptation 223 Succession 223 Cycling of Resources 223 Second Freedom (Doosri Azaadi) 224 The Village Republic Beyond Gandhi 227 References 232 6 Gandhian Nonviolence from the Perspective of the Psychology of Religion and Morality237 Gandhi’s Religion 238 The Development of Gandhi’s Religiosity 239 Gandhi and Religious Conversion 242 Politics and Religion for Gandhi 244

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The Psychology of Religion 244 Religion and Spirituality 245 Gandhi’s Spirituality 247 Gandhi, Religion of Nonviolence and Vows 248 Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health 249 Religion, Spirituality and the Sacred 250 Religion, Spirituality and Peace 254 From Religion to Morality 254 Gandhi and Morality 255 Morality and Religion 257 Morality as a Function of Means and Ends 258 Morality and Self-Control 259 Morality and Moral Shaming 260 Morality and Moral Reasoning 262 Morality and Moral Inclusion 264 References 269 7 Epilogue: Modern Psychology and Gandhi in the Twenty-­First Century277 The Relevance of Gandhi 277 Gandhi’s Enigmatic Personality 282 The Wisdom of Gandhi 286 Gandhi and Applied Psychology 290 Implications for Scientific Research 303 Concluding Remarks 309 References 314 Author Index319 Subject Index327

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 1.3 Fig. 1.4 Fig. 1.5 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 7.1

The overlapping systems of the Earth Charter Kool (left) with a local resident of the Malana area of Himachal Pradesh, India The three pillars of sustainable development based on the Brundtland Report, 1987 (based on Singh 2019) Culture as sustainable development Development of self-realization in the growing child The theory of triadic influence (based on Snyder 2014) The Principal and students of Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya, Bardoli with Kool Causes of unemployment Bandura’s triadic reciprocity theory (adapted from Kool and Agrawal 2016) A systems approach to organizations (based on Levitt 1965) Results of Schachter et al.’s (1951) pitchfork study. (Adapted from Luthans 1995) The onion model of organizational culture. (Adapted from Hofstede 2011) The three pillars of integrative negotiation The NBIC tetrahedron (adapted from Kool and Agrawal 2016)

15 19 34 36 42 78 84 98 115 142 156 168 184 307

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List of Boxes

Box 1.1 Box 1.2 Box 1.3 Box 1.4 Box 1.5 Box 2.1 Box 2.2 Box 2.3 Box 2.4 Box 2.5 Box 3.1 Box 3.2 Box 3.3 Box 3.4 Box 4.1 Box 4.2 Box 5.1 Box 5.2 Box 5.3

Evidence for the Anthropocene 7 Water Crisis in Cape Town 16 The Historical Beginnings of Environmental Psychology 20 Examples of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam from the Life of Gandhi 38 “A sobering astronomical reminder from COVID-19: We should be grateful for the conditions that allow us to exist at all, because they won’t last forever” 40 The Formal Genesis of Nai Talim 58 Gandhi, Socrates and Confucius on Education and Its Psychological Basis 60 Taking Gandhi’s Nai Talim to Schools 70 Gandhi and Character Building in Bolivia 72 A Practicum Using Gandhi 79 Unemployment Due to Technological Advances 100 The Therapeutic Workplace (Adapted from Silverman et al. 2018, p. 515) 105 Twenty-First-Century Approach to Meditative Goals Served by Technology Usage 123 Gandhi and His Obsession for Innovation 128 Planning and Implementing a Successful Diversity or Inclusivity Training Program (Excerpted and Adapted from Fernandez (November 2019, Business News Daily))174 Honestly Dishonest: A Behavioral Model of Financial Dishonesty (Based on Article by Sahibzada 2018) 180 Minimalistic Living at Sevagram 214 The Ashram Today (Excerpted from Anuja, Live Mint, 2018) 215 Malana: A Living Example of a Nonviolent Community 219 xxi

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Box 5.4 Box 5.5 Box 6.1 Box 6.2 Box 6.3 Box 7.1 Box 7.2 Box 7.3 Box 7.4 Box 7.5 Box 7.6

Building Community Feeling Through Community All Faith Prayer Meetings 221 Gandhi Is Still Alive—Very Much There in Several Households of India 230 Service to Society as a Sacred Value 251 Moral Dilemmas and Moral Reasoning 262 “Gandhi’s Anti-untouchability Campaign to Go Under the Hammer”267 On Meeting Winston Churchill 284 We Have Created the Mess and It Is Our Duty to Help Clean It Up 295 Conflict Resolution in the Modern World of Today 299 A Simple But Smart Way to Demonstrate Nonviolence in the Service of the Community 303 Sanjit “Bunker” Roy and the Barefoot College 309 Howard Gardner—Learning from Gandhi 313

CHAPTER 1

Environmental Psychology: Lessons from Gandhi

Opening Vignette: Generalist Versus Specialist

As adherence to nonviolence involves, not only humans but all aspects of life, sentient in nature, Gandhi should be considered as a thinker who was not a specialist in any one area of activity. Rather, he was a generalist, being able to obtain results in a variety of domains. The importance of such people in the twenty-first century had been pointed out by Nicole Torres (2016) and well illustrated in the June issue of the Harvard Business Review. According to her, individuals who tend to acquire a wide range of skills and demonstrate talent across a variety of areas are likely to be, not only, more unusual, but also, redeployable. Also, such people can be seen to excel in leadership roles. Along the same lines, in a recent interview with CNBC, Vikram Mansharamani (2020) of Harvard University contended that “breadth of perspective and the ability to connect the proverbial dots (the domain of generalists) is likely to be as important as depth of expertise and the ability to generate dots (the domain of specialist).” Further, he concluded that the future belongs to the generalists, especially in the context of an uncertain future. And, today, while in (continued)

© The Author(s) 2020 V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1_1

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(continued) the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, uncertainties about the future, definitely, loom large. Even without the pandemic, the rampant destruction of communities and the natural habitat, the altering of the environment and developments in technology, our concerns for the issues regarding growth of communities and their sustainability, and degradation of the ecological balance are greater now than ever before with a big question mark regarding what the future holds for coming generations. Even experts at the National Science Foundation, USA, clearly state that the impact of technology is so strong and rapid that it would be difficult, or almost impossible, to foresee where and to what it will lead. At such uncertain times, wisdom is the need of the hour. And, who could be a better person to look up to than one of the wisest human beings of the previous century, Gandhi—a thinker, a generalist, a visionary regarding human values and survival, and above all, a person who led us with simple examples par excellence.

Yes, Gandhi was certainly a generalist, but, in no way, was he a “jack of all trades.” As this volume clarifies, Gandhi had relevant and cogent ideas for many fields of human endeavor, including, education, technology and its development, leadership in organizations, environmental degradation, the establishment of sustainable communities, the inculcation of moral and religious values and many more, which are beyond the purview of this volume. Moreover, he actually put these ideas into practice. While most of Gandhi’s life (after that night at Pietersmaritzsburg railway station when he was thrown out of the first-class compartment of the train in which he was traveling) were spent in fighting against oppression and for the rights of people, he created, alongside, a values-based system of education, technology which was appropriate for the times and communities that were sustainable. The guiding spirit all along was truth, which for him was God, and which could be followed only through the right means, namely, ahimsa or nonviolence. Whether in South Africa or in India, for Gandhi, nonviolence was not a simple pragmatic strategy to be used for the attainment of specific ends. Nonviolence was not even a principle, for Gandhi. Rather, it was a creed to be exercised in every domain of life and to be

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extended to all forms of life. This was the guiding force behind all his endeavors—personal, social or political, and was best exemplified by his steadfast belief in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (nature is my family). Moreover, he was of the firm opinion that Mother Nature provides for all. It is our selfishness and lack of concern for others that create the problems, a concern which he voiced through his now famous words, “there is enough for every man’s need but not for every man’s greed.”

Tragedy of the Commons Decades later, in 1968, Hardin expounded on the same idea and gave an explanation for it based on what he called “the tragedy of the commons.” According to Hardin, there are a whole host of problems for which there are techno-fixes, leading to problems that can be nomenclatured as “no technical solutions problem.” Explaining it even more explicitly, Hardin takes the example of the grazing commons of the Western world. As the name suggests, these are public grazing grounds for which payment is not needed. Seeing greater grazing opportunities, a few herdsmen add more animals to their herd and so earn greater profits. Their example sets off others, who follow suit. The result is that individual herdsmen keep on adding animals till the land becomes insufficient for the ever-increasing herds, making the whole proposition unfeasible. As Hardin puts it, Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. (Hardin 1968, p. 1244)

The same may be said of many other commons: the oceans and rivers, which are constantly being polluted, leading to the extinction of many species; the atmosphere, which is being polluted by noxious gases and airborne particles, not to speak of sound; even free parking spaces and playgrounds face a similar threat simply because they are part of the commons, being open to all and, yet, not requiring payment. The tragedy of the commons clarifies the fallacy of Adam Smith’s statement in his book, The Wealth of Nations (1776), that individuals who pursue their own private interests are so to say, “led by an invisible hand to promote… the public interest,” (p. 423). The tragedy of the commons

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reveals that humans, left to their own choices, may not always work for societal good. Today, in the year 2020, almost five decades since Hardin professed his ideas, where are we placed? What have we done to Mother Earth through the tragedy of the commons and various other acts that have led to the degradation of nature? While Vaughan (2016) presents a long list, we will enumerate just some of them, enough to show the havoc we have caused. • Rising levels of airborne carbon particles. • Increasing concentrations of the noxious carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution. • Nitrogen and phosphorous levels have doubled due to rising use of chemical fertilizers. • Increased use of nonbiodegradable plastics which will leave indelible fossil records for generations to come. • A marked increase in the extinction rate of flora and fauna. If we go the way we are going, we would see the extinction of 75% of plant and animal species within the next few centuries itself.

Evidence for Rapid Climate Change All of the above, and more, have led to rapid climate changes, the effects of which are clearly visible. A recent NASA Global Climate Change Report (2020) presents compelling evidence, a summary of which we will now present. There are, at least, nine aspects which serve as evidence to show that rapid climate change is taking place. 1. Rise in global temperature: The average surface temperature of the earth has risen by about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit since the late nineteenth century due to mainly increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. It may be amazing, but it is true, that most of the warming has occurred over the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place in the very recent past, that is, since 2010. The NASA analysis also reveals that the year 2019 was the second warmest year on record since modern record-­ keeping began in 1880 (NASA 2020).

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2. Warming oceans: Much of this increased surface heat has been absorbed by the oceans, as a result of which we are witnessing a rise of about 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the top 700 meters of the ocean, since 1969. 3. Shrinking ice sheets: Would you believe that the once ice-bound Greenland and the Antarctic are witnessing a massive decrease in mass of ice sheets, so much so that Greenland has lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016 while the Antarctic has lost about 127 billion tons during the same period. Further, the rate of ice mass loss in the Antarctic has tripled in the last decade. 4. Retreating glaciers: Around the world, whether it is in the Himalayas, the Alps, Andes, Rockies, Alaska or Africa, glaciers are retreating at an increasingly fast rate. 5. Decreased snow cover: As far as the Northern Hemisphere is concerned, the amount of spring snow cover has decreased over the past five decades, and each consecutive year sees the snow to be melting earlier. 6. Rise in sea level: Over the last century, the global sea level has risen by about eight inches. Further, as in the case of snow cover, one can understand its enormity, when we consider the finding that the rate of sea-level rise over the last two decades has been nearly double that over the last century and is constantly accelerating. 7. Declining Arctic Sea level: Both the extent and the thickness of the Arctic Sea have declined over the past several decades. 8. Extreme events: The total number of high-temperature events has been increasing in the USA as also around the world. At the same time, the number of record low-temperature events is decreasing along with a rise in the number of intense rainfall events. 9. Ocean acidification: So great has been the effect of the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath that the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased about 30%. Most of this is because of humans emitting a greater amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with the result that more of it is being absorbed by the ocean. The NASA report (ibid.) also points to the causes of the above mentioned events. According to them, there are at least three principal causes, the greenhouse effect, human activity and solar irradiance. At the same time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is made up of over 1300 scientists from all over the world, has concluded that changes in solar irradiance cannot alone explain the massive global

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warming taking place. Rather, there is more than 95% probability that human activities, over the past fifty years or so, are the major cause of global warming. What is the prediction for the future? It is definite that the changes mentioned above will continue through the current century and even beyond. Temperatures will continue to rise, there will be changes in precipitation patterns, there will be more droughts and heat waves and hurricanes will become stronger. Amazing though it may seem, the Arctic is likely to become ice free. A recent review, also, confirms that climate change is increasing the risk of wildfire such as those seen in Australia (University of East Anglia 2020). Have We Reached the “Tipping Point”? While the above changes have been continuing over the past century or so, their accelerated rate is becoming a cause of concern. It is being proposed that we may have even reached “the tipping point” (Lenton et al. 2019), in that we may have pushed the earth so far that we may soon witness a scenario, “where the Earth begins ‘self amplifying’ global warming in a series of unstoppable destructive feedback loops” (Cockburn 2019). The scientists warn that The stability and resilience of our planet is in peril. International action— not just words—must reflect this. (Lenton et al. 2019, p. 595)

While we may have, already, crossed the threshold for a cascade of interrelated tipping points, all is not lost. But we must act early enough and the only way seems to be a reduction in human-made emissions. Much more needs to be done and human beings must act in a more responsible fashion. As Nobel Laureate, Paul Crutzen puts it, “it is no longer us against Nature. Instead, it is we who decide what Nature is and what it will be” (Crutzen and Schwagerl 2011). In fact, in this new era, “Nature is us” (Crutzen and Schwagerl, ibid.), leading to a new epoch, named Anthropocene by scientists.

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The Anthropocene According to Steffen et al. (2011), the antecedents of what is being called the Anthropocene can be traced to the times of our hominid ancestors a few million years ago and the complex ways in which they attempted to influence the environment in their search for food and shelter. Two major events have often been cited. One is the extinction of large mammals during the ice age, while the other is the advent of agriculture leading to massive deforestation due to which we witnessed the production of greenhouse gases though in moderate amounts. Recent scientific evidence, however, shows that it was the Industrial Revolution and the increase in amount of available energy sources that went a long way in exponentially increasing, both, the length and the width of human activity. The figures speak for themselves: while the human population grew from one billion to six billion between the years 1800 and 2000, energy use during the same period grew 40-fold while economic production went up fifty times. Steffen and his colleagues (Steffen et al. 2018), therefore, suggest that the year 1800 can be taken to be the start of the Anthropocene. The rate accelerated, further, during the two World Wars and it currently seems that we have entered into Phase 3 of the Anthropocene, characterized by a global awareness regarding the negative effects of human enterprise and mounting governmental efforts to counteract these effects (Box 1.1). Box 1.1  Evidence for the Anthropocene

Scientists are of the view that there is increasing evidence to show that the current epoch should be called the Anthropocene or the era in which humankind is deciding the fate of Nature and natural environment. Some of the evidence is as follows: We have pushed flora-fauna extinction rates far above the long-­ term average, so much so, that it can be confidently stated that we are on course for a sixth mass extinction, which would see extinction of 75% of presently living species in the next few centuries. The Industrial Revolution and its aftermath of mass-scale production have been the cause of extremely high levels of carbon dioxide emission. There are still traces of dangerous isotopes left as remnants of the nuclear tests undertaken in the 1950s and 1960s. (continued)

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Box 1.1  (continued)

The amount of plastic that we are using is bound to leave behind identifiable fossil records for the future generations to observe. The use of nitrogen and phosphorous based fertilizers has doubled in the past century. Airborne carbon particles are leaving permanent markers in the sediment and glacial ice. These are just a few of the burgeoning mass of evidence that has been collected and is continuing to be collected (adapted from Vaughan, in The Guardian, January 2016). Hamilton and Grinevald (2015) have summed up the evidence by quoting Bushnell, Not all the winds, the storms and earthquakes and seas and seasons of the world have done so much to revolutionize the world as he (man), with the power of an endless life, has done since the day he came forth upon it and received, as he is most truly declared to have done, dominion over it. (Bushnell, Sermon on The power of an Endless life, 1860, cf. Hamilton and Grinevald 2015, p. 1)

According to Yeo (2016), the concept of the Anthropocene can be said to date back to 1873, when a Catholic Italian priest turned professor, Antonio Stoppari wrote that “the Anthropozoic era has begun” and added that “geologists cannot predict its end at all.” Almost half a century later, Russian scientist Alexei Pavlov first suggested that the current geologic era should be called Anthropocene. The idea, however, had to wait till the year 2000, when Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen and his colleagues revived the idea, following it by a paper in the Nature in 2002. By 2009, a working group had been formed consisting of thirty-eight academics from disciplines as diverse as geology, law and history. After seven years of work, this official body presented their recommendations to the International Geological Congress at Cape Town in August 2016. With much flourish, all the major newspapers and magazines, scientists declared the dawn of new human-influenced era: the Anthropocene (Carrington 2016, The Guardian). The Time magazine

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carried an obituary for the Holocene epoch (Wilson 2016), writing that the cause of the end of the Holocene was the rapid alteration of the earth’s ecosystem through nuclear weapons tests, microplastic pollution, in addition to, agriculture and carbon emission. So significant was this renaming of the geological period that the Chair of the Working Group, Professor Zalasienicz, wrote, The significance of the Anthropocene is that it sets a different trajectory for the Earth’s system, of which we, of course, are a part.

By 2017, the foreboding was apparent making people write “we are now in the midst of the sixth great extinction—named Anthropocene, or the age of the humans” and “as the authors of this loss, we are doing our nasty work in a lot of ways” (Kluger 2017, the Time magazine). The future, too, seemed dark. Astronomer and former President of the Royal Society, Martin Rees wrote in an article in The Guardian in 2016 (Carrington 2016), The darkest prognosis for the next millennium is that biological, cyber and environmental catastrophes could foreclose humanity’s immense potential, leaving a depleted biosphere.

Climate scientist Professor Chris Rapley, too, warns us about the gravity of the situation. He writes, Since the planet is our life support—we are essentially the crew of a large spaceship—interference with its functioning at this level and on this scale is highly significant. If you or I were the crew of a smaller spacecraft, it would be unthinkable to interfere with the systems that provide us with air, water, fodder and climate control. But the shift to the Anthropocene tells us that we are playing with fire, a potentially reckless mode of behavior which we are likely to come to regret unless we get a grip on the situation. So dark is the future that “we can either start to change our ways, or we can keep going the way we are—at least until the Anthropocene extinction claims one final species—our own.” (Rapley, quoted by Carrington 2016, The Guardian)

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But all is not lost! Martin Rees is optimistic and writes, Human societies could navigate these threats, achieve a sustainable future and inaugurate eras of post human evolution even more marvelous than what has led to us. The dawn of the Anthropocene epoch would then mark a one-off transformation from a natural world to one where humans jump start the transition to electronic entities, that transcend our limitations and eventually spread their influence far beyond the Earth. (Rees 2016)

Or as Crutzen and Schwagerl had put it earlier, For millennia, humans have behaved as rebels against a super power we call Nature. In the 20th century however, new technology fossil fuels and a fast growing population resulted in the Great Acceleration of our own powers. Albeit clumsily, we are taking control of Nature’s realm, from climate to DNA. We humans are becoming the dominant force for change on earth. (Crutzen and Schwagerl 2011)

The complex ways through which we are developing capabilities to “navigate these threats” is perhaps through what has been termed the Noosphere.

The Noosphere Evolutionary biologists have clarified that all species on the earth are in a constant state of flux—changing, adapting and becoming extinct as a result of the process of gaining mastery over an unkind environment. Charles Darwin has delineated the very ways through which these evolutionary forces work, focusing on the process of natural selection. While biological evolution is generally understood as a process for change of form, another evolution is taking place alongside, with far greater implications for not only the human race but for the earth in general. This is the evolution of human consciousness. Initially conceived by Teilhard and Vernadsky, this evolution is hypothesized as creating a new layer, the Noosphere, outside and above the biosphere. This is the thinking layer, based on increasing encephalization of the human brain, leading to ever higher levels of intelligence and consciousness. The concept of the Noosphere suggests that humankind is in an unfinished state as of now and will continue to advance toward a new awakening, a new awareness.

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It is also theorized that it is this ever-evolving mind and thinking of humankind that will help us override the deleterious effects of the Anthropocene (Hamilton and Grinevald 2015; Nordblad 2014). This idea has gradually taken hold over the minds of people, so much so, that it has been said that the United Nations can be regarded as a realization of Noospheric ideals. In fact, Chardin influenced the Constitution of the UNESCO, most notably in the passage stating that “peace and war are in the minds of men.” He was also an inspiring force for eminent UN Secretary-­Generals such as Dag Hammarskjold and U.  Thant. In more recent years, Brockmann referred to de Chardin in a speech at the UN General Assembly of which he was President, Now comes the new sphere, the sphere of synchronized minds and hearts: the Noosphere. (Brockman 2009)

Nexus between the Anthropocene and the Noosphere The ways in which the Noosphere can help override the deleterious effects of the Anthropocene have been stated by no less than IPCC members, Wolfgang Lucht and Rajendra Pachauri, when they ask the following question: Can the mental sphere evolve quickly and purposefully to a point where the future evolution of the system can be managed consciously towards a state of dynamic sustainability of the whole system? (Lucht and Pachauri 2004, p. 343)

While not directly using the term, per se, the way in which the words point to a new stage of consciousness and wisdom is highly reminiscent of the Noosphere. Much along the same lines, Paul Crutzen asks whether we will just career along blindly or will we Rise to the challenge posed by Vernadsky, becoming the reflective, thinking and proactive agent that transforms the biosphere into a noosphere and consciously striving to shape a niche for ourselves in a sustainable Anthropocene. (Clark et al. 2004, p. 1)

This is the big question facing humankind. Will we be able to use and will we voluntarily use this increasingly capable neocortex for the welfare

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of the earth, helping to make it sustainable? The exciting advances in science and technology are definitely due to this thinking agent called the human being. Will it be used only so far as the development of more advanced computers is concerned? Humans have developed the capability to develop nuclear weapons and highly advanced robots; humans have gained considerable mastery over outer space in the form of space technology. But now the question is regarding the use of this power of analysis, induction and deduction for the betterment of the generations to come. Having a capability and using it can be two different things altogether. Complicating the matter even further is the gap between attitudes and actual behavior: one may profess pro-environmental attitudes but these attitudes may not translate into behavior, with cognitive dissonance as the end result (Festinger 1957). While the cognitive dissonance caused and the tensions it creates (Agrawal 2001) is a well-known phenomenon, both in daily life and the psychological laboratory, ways of creating a consonance between professed attitudes and ensuing behavior continue to elude us.

Building Temperance While discussing the problem of the tragedy of the commons, Hardin (1968) had stated that the only way by which the present state of affairs can be put into reverse gear is through temperance, practiced by one and all. But as Hardin himself had posited, getting people to practice temperance is easier said than done. Even laws are of no use since one can legislate prohibition but how does one legislate temperance? You can make a zone a non-smokers zone, or you can make a city a dry area by law, but can you have an area where people are allowed to smoke only one cigarette, or have a city where people can consume only one peg of whisky? The difficulties are all too obvious. These problems are, further, complicated by the patterns of rising consumerism, egged on by persistent advertising and marketing. You enter any store and you are bombarded with countless placards and handbills, all professing that the more you buy, the more you save. Come festival time or public holidays, huge banners splashing the word “SALE” in red greet you through multifarious channels. While this may help economic growth rates of a country in the form of higher GDP and GNP, it also leads to what has been termed human expansionism in the form of “trends for more” (Ceballos et  al. 2015; Butler 2015; Ripple et  al. 2017) with an

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overextraction of minerals and overproduction of both necessities and luxuries with a throw-away economy as the end result (Dietz and O’Neill 2013; Engelman 2016). Even all the techno-fixes and the fine-tuning of efficiencies will not, by itself, reverse the above trends. As Hardin proclaimed way back in 1968, we do not have a technological fix for every problem that we face; there are some for which there is no technology to help us find a way out. As professed by noted psychologist B. F. Skinner (1971), in his book, Beyond Dignity and Freedom, In trying to solve the terrifying problems that face us in the world today, we naturally turn to the things we do best. We play from strength, and our strength is science and technology. To contain a population explosion we look for better methods of birth control. Threatened by a nuclear holocaust, we build bigger deterrent forces and anti-ballistic-missile systems. We try to stave off world famine with new foods and better ways of growing them. Improved sanitation and medicine will, we hope, control disease, better housing and transportation will solve the problems of the ghettos, and new ways of reducing or disposing of waste will stop the pollution of the environment. … But things grow steadily worse and it is disheartening to find that technology itself is increasingly at fault. Sanitation and medicine have made the problems of population more acute, war has acquired a new horror with the invention of nuclear weapons, and the affluent pursuit of happiness is largely responsible for pollution. As Darlington has said, ‘Every new source from which man has increased his power on the earth has been used to diminish the prospects of his successors. All his progress has been made at the expense of damage to his environment which he cannot repair and could not forsee.’ (Skinner 1971, p. 3)

The crucial question is, are we entitled to use and abuse nonhuman creatures and the places they live in? Just because we are distinguished by being superior to all other creatures, does that give us the right to exhibit supremacy over them and other nonliving things in nature? As Eileen Crist (2018) remarks in an essay in the Science, we, as humans, must re-imagine ourselves: we need to realize that having superior powers does not necessarily mean dominance over others. This requires a basic attitudinal change, more than anything else. Then only would there be some chance for the reversal of this rat race, or as Crist puts it, “a scaling down and a pushing back” and an end to the tragedy of the commons. We need to practice temperance in all realms of life.

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Almost every scientist agrees that attitudinal changes accompanied by behavioral changes are the need of the hour. For this the focus must shift to “transformed social values” (Steffen et al. 2018). The burning question is, “How?” Hardin (1968) has advocated one technique, “mutual coercion,” a level mutually agreed upon by all those who are affected. This would be freedom in the true sense and which, unlike untethered freedom, would provide freedom to all for the pursuance of other goals. Almost half a century later, with not much headway having been made, methodologies similar to that of mutual coercion have been suggested. While Laszlo (2003) is of the view that “You can change the world,” this can happen only through shared norms of mindfulness (Crist 2018) and collective human action for stewardship of earth systems (Steffen et al. 2018). As far as the world at large is concerned there have been, at least, a few such concerted efforts toward the type of mutual coercion through collective human action as advocated by Hardin and others for building mutually agreed-upon levels of consumption and production. The Earth Charter This is a soft law document much like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and as such is considered to be morally binding but not legally binding. The idea originated in 1987 through the efforts of two statesmen, Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev when the UN called for a new charter to guide sustainable development. However, it took quite a few years to be finalized, being the product of worldwide dialogue, and could be launched only on June 29, 2000, by the Earth Charter Committee at a ceremony at the Peace Palace in the Hague. The document is divided into sections (called pillars) containing sixteen main principles and sixty-­ one supporting principles. It opens with a Preamble and concludes with “The Way Forward.” The Earth Charter involves three interdependent aspects, the document itself, a global movement called the Earth Charter Initiative and an administrative organization, namely, the Earth Charter International. The entire effort is systemic in nature, involving three interrelated, overlapping domains, with the core overlapping area being the end goal of the Charter. This has been depicted in Fig. 1.1.

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Ecological integrity

Social and economic justice Democracy, nonviolence, peace

Respect and care for the community and life Fig. 1.1  The overlapping systems of the Earth Charter

The very slogans chosen by the Earth Charter International, “Embrace a sustainable lifestyle” for the year 2018 and “Towards a New Earth Ethic” for 2019, speak for themselves and the ways by which they attempt to motivate and inspire individuals and their activities. Ecological Citizenship Another global initiative for more sustainable environments is through the concept of ecological citizenship. People of eminence, including Pope Francis (2015), have called upon individuals to show their responsibilities toward this earth, whose abundance we have enjoyed for millions of years, but which is now manifesting all the signs of dwindling by leaps and bounds. The Pope has made a request to people of all faiths to go beyond the narrow boundaries of their nations and religions and become ecological citizens. In line with the idea that we need to become stewards of this ship called earth, as advocated by Crist and others (see above), ecological citizenship is a call for citizens of all faiths and creeds To become active participants in the protection of the natural environment, to do the right thing for nature and for the good of humanity. (Pope Francis 2015 in Cao 2015)

Ecological citizenship is a concept that helps people to realize their responsibility toward the environment (Jagers and Matti 2010). Emanating out of political theory, it envisages the creation of a type of citizenry that motivates individuals to change their lifestyle into a more sustainable one and to go above and beyond the traditional concept of national

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citizenship. The notion is attributed to the British political theorist, Andrew Dobson (2005), and is centered on an obligation “that carries the status of citizenship from the public sphere to the private one” (Revkin 2012). Basically, it is a form of non-territorial citizenship, departing from the nation/state as the source of citizenship, and emphasizing the virtues of citizenship to include being a minimal impactor. Since the concept is still in its infancy, its meaning remains equivocal and includes terms such as ecological citizenship (Dobson 2005), green citizenship (Dean 2001), environmental citizenship (Dobson and Bell 2006), sustainability citizenship (Barry 2006), environmentally reasonable citizenship (Hailwood 2005) and ecological stewardship (Barry 2002). Barry (ibid.), in fact, proposes a deliberative democracy in which “participants make proposals, attempt to persuade others and determine the best outcomes and policies” (Schlosberg et al. 2006, p. 216) and have an open discussion “in which participants are given equal treatment, respect and opportunities” (Saward 2001, p. 564). The ways in which city authorities deal with water crises have been described in Box 1.2. In an interesting article in the International Box 1.2  Water Crisis in Cape Town

Based on an article by Sandhu in the i-News of UK (April 4, 2018) In April 2018, the city of Cape Town in South Africa was in the grips of a severe water crisis. While the primary reason for this is insufficient rainfall for the last three years, climate change is also a culprit. Day zero was expected in April 2018, but was then pushed to 2019. It has, however, been averted for the time being. How was day zero averted? It is a lesson that could be of help to people all over the world. All through 2017–2018, the residents had been restricted to just 50 liters of water each day. So great was the crisis that even luxury hotels gave up the use of expensive crockery and reverted to the use of paper plates, so as to save water otherwise used for washing up the plates. Swimming pools were emptied, businesses were told to reduce water usage by 45% and agricultural users were required to reduce their usage by 50%. The city publicly shamed water offenders and the former mayor visited the homes of water wasters and her office published a list of the top 100 offenders. For the most part, residents played their part and cut water usage by more than half. (continued)

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Box 1.2  (continued)

A list was put up by the city authorities: What you can do with 50 liters of water Drinking 3 lts 90 seconds shower 10 lts 1 toilet flush 9 lts Pets 1 lt Food preparation 1 lt

Dishwashing by hand 9 lts House cleaning 5 lts Laundry once/week 10 lts Teeth and hands 2 lts

(Source: The city of Cape Town)

Spectator, Humphreys (2009) provides snapshots of how civil society groups have promoted the maintenance of environmental public goods in the forest sector. However, he also points out that such efforts would go to waste if governmental systems continue to generate environmental degradation through various actions, supposedly meant for public welfare. One can think of many such actions, the cutting of trees to build roads and highways or to construct government offices or the allowing of sand mining along river banks leading to general soil erosion, to name just a couple. Environmental citizenship or ecological citizenship, call it what you may, focuses as much upon the environmental rights of citizens, as their duties. It recognizes that other citizens, especially those from the generations to come, have as much right to environmental resources as us, and, that, there is a reciprocity between the duties of citizens to respect the rights of others, especially those who lack a voice in policy matters, such as the poor and the marginalized. Ecological citizenship is also based on the concept of ecological footprints, that is, the environmental impact of humans on ecological systems (much like the concept of carbon footprints). People with differing lifestyles will manifest differences in their ecological footprints, with citizens of wealthy nations having a larger footprint because of their consumption patterns. According to Dobson (2005), who originated this concept, the ethics of citizenry mandates that those who occupy an unsustainable amount of ecological space have an obligation to reduce their consumption of ecological space or their ecological footprints.

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Humphreys (ibid.) describes various programs that have been successfully initiated, such as the Debt for Nature Swap (proposed by Thomas Lovejay in 1984), in Bolivia, the Independent Forest Monitoring against illegal lumbering in places like Thailand and Cambodia (formed in 1993) and the Timber Certification created in 1985 by the International Tropical Timber Organization. Many other empirical studies have also been undertaken revealing that ecological citizenship is a tenable concept which can be fostered in people from around the world (e.g., by Kelly and Abel 2012; Mead 2013; Biagi and Ferro 2011). In the year 2006, Kool visited Malana, a small, unique community located in the Himalayas, exemplary in its demonstration of ecological citizenship, peaceful living and democracy. As per historical evidence, this community is a mixture of local people and those who fled from Alexander’s army, after he decided to return to Greece following his illness in India. Located at a very high elevation, Malana is not connected by road, so Kool sought the help of the local people to walk for about 11  kilometers to reach this place. It is an amazing community with equal rights for men and women; a high divorce rate; children of all ages mix freely but there are no issues of teenage pregnancy; and a conflict is settled by the council of administrators within just a few days if not hours, with those disobeying the verdict being socially ostracized. As the village is clad with snow and severe cold almost seven months in a year, the wood is the only means to keep homes warm and to cook food. Yet, no one is allowed logging of trees, over and above what would be normally and customarily estimated, as per the size of the family. The same is true regarding the sacrificing of goats for food. Nature is worshipped and over the centuries, it appears that the community has dedicated itself to learning the art of aligning itself with Mother Earth in every possible way to demonstrate a perfect harmony between people and the ecological system. We present a photograph (Fig. 1.2) of Kool with a local resident of the Malana area of Himachal Pradesh, India. This resident provided valuable information for the study and insisted that Kool should don their cap, an embodiment of honesty and truthfulness and a gesture of shared identity. For more details regarding this unique community, see chapter on community psychology in this book and Piazza and Dote (2013) and Kool et al. (2012). As has already been pointed out, the most important cause of our planet being at peril, is humankind, its behavior, attitudes and values. Being so, it is but natural that the science of behavior, namely, psychology, should play

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Fig. 1.2  Kool (left) with a local resident of the Malana area of Himachal Pradesh, India

a crucial role in the mitigation of such human-caused degradation. A question that we would like to address at this point is, “Has psychology had any role in understanding the problems associated with ecological degradation and climate change, and if so, what has this role been?” One major objective of psychology has been to understand behavior and its antecedents in general and to develop theories and conduct research in order to fulfill this aim. However, the significance of any discipline stems from the extent to which it can be applied to the problems of daily life. In this regard, psychology has had a fair degree of success through the theories and principles applied to domains ranging from education and religion to that of law, technology and many others including the environment. When principles and theories of basic psychology were applied in the field of behavior related to the environment, a discipline named environmental psychology emerged. Let us now try to gain some insight into the workings of environmental psychology and examine the extent to which it has helped us to understand behavior which has led to the present condition of the earth. In the process of doing so, we will also focus on those psychological principles which may be used in the amelioration of ecological problems and the promotion of pro-environmental behavior.

Environmental Psychology What is environmental psychology? A good working definition of environmental psychology has been provided by the Journal of Environmental Psychology, according to which it is,

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The scientific study of the transactions and inter-relationships between people and their physical surroundings (including built and natural environments, the use and abuse of nature and natural resources and sustainability-related behavior). (Ackerman 2019)

Stated more simply, we can say that environmental psychology is all about the interplay between people and their environment. Environmental psychology is, basically, an interdisciplinary science drawing inputs from a variety of fields including architecture and design, behavioral geography, urban design and planning, environmental risk perception and management, disaster management, to name just a few. Over the years, it has been known by a variety of names including, ecological psychology or eco-psychology, environment-behavior studies and person-environment studies. While the history of the scientific study of the human-environment nexus is not very old, the beginnings can be said to date back to the times of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century. The observations of Marco Polo are not only relevant but also extremely ingenious and have been explained in Box 1.3. Box 1.3  The Historical Beginnings of Environmental Psychology

Adapted from Ackerman (2019) “You could say it started all the way back in the late 1200s. As experts Christopher Spencer and Kate Gee explain: In 1272 Marco Polo was travelling through the kingdoms of West Asia, and noted that the people of Kerman were good, humble, helpful and peaceable; whereas their immediate neighbours in Persia were wicked, treacherous and murderous. The king of Kerman had asked his wise men what could be the reason, and they answered that the cause lay in the soil. Splendidly empirical in his approach, the king had ordered quantities of soil to be brought from Isfahan (‘whose inhabitants surpassed all others in wickedness’), sprinkled it on the floors of his banqueting hall, and then covered it up by carpets. As the next banquet started, his guests ‘began offending one another with words and deeds, and wounding one another mortally’. The king declared that truly the answer lay in the soil. (Spencer and Gee 2009, p. 180, cf. Ackerman 2019)

This initial experiment got at the question that lies at the heart of environmental psychology: how does our environment affect us?”

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There are two major questions that concern environmental psychology: while the first relates to how the environment affects us, the second relates to how we affect our environment. Over the years, considerable empirical work has been conducted to ascertain answers to both of these questions, on the basis of which some theories have been propounded. A brief overview of these theories follows. Theory of Planned Behavior Based on the oft-used cost-benefit analysis, this theory states that we choose those behaviors that are associated with the greatest benefits and the lowest costs, in terms of time, money or energy. In simple terms, we tend to plan the behaviors we intend to engage in, with these intentions being a function of three factors, namely, our attitudes toward the behavior, social norms regarding the behavior and the extent to which we are able to control our behavior. The theory has been successfully applied to explain a wide variety of environment-related behavior, including the choice of mode of travel (car versus bicycle), household recycling, composting, use of water and general pro-environmental behavior (Gifford et al. 2011). Norm Activation Model This particular model was developed with a view to explain altruistic and environmental-friendly behavior. It proposes that one’s own personal norms are more important than social norms when it comes to determining our behavioral choices (Liu et al. 2017). Value-Belief-Norm Theory This theory is very similar to the one presented above, in that, it also posits that people will act in a pro-environmental manner when they feel morally obligated to do so. However, this obligation can come from within us or from external sources or from both (Gifford et al. 2011). While applications of these theories are multifarious, we would like to draw the attention of the reader to some of them. The first is how empirical research in the field of environmental psychology helped to develop New  York City’s noise code policy (Macchi 2018). Another example is research by Sörqvist (2016), which has shown that the extent to which

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people can be influenced toward becoming more environment-­responsible is dependent to a very great degree on the kinds of messages used for the purpose and the ways in which they have been framed. Similarly, a study in Amman, Jordan, has been able to delineate a systematic approach for selecting, assessing and evaluating the behavior to be changed and the factors that determine them. Using such a systematic approach, the researchers have shown how to choose the best intervention under the circumstances (Abusafieh and Razem 2017). The authors have also concluded that people can be molded to choose the preferred option, either by increasing the salience of the option, or through  the establishment of social norms. A number of researches have drawn our attention to the use of nudges in promoting pro-environmental behavior.

Nudging Pro-Environmental Behavior The concept of nudges was introduced by the behavioral economist Thaler (Thaler and Sunstein 2008) and has been described in a chapter in Volume I of this book. What specifically is a nudge? Very often when we want people to move over just a bit, we nudge them into action. In other words, we push them gently, just so much that their attention is attracted toward the required behavior; it is symbolic of the phrase, “move over.” But, this is a nudge in the physical sense. We are literally asking them to move their bodies or parts of their bodies, for example, a hand that is in the way or legs that are blocking one’s path. Much in the same way, it is possible to give a gentle push to the cognitive system of people, through which we do not nudge them into movement but into thinking of a particular type. It is such cognitive nudges that Thaler (Thaler and Sunstein 2008) talks about and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 2017. The efficacy of a cognitive nudge for decision making has been successfully established in various domains of life, including financial markets, advertising and even for promoting pro-environmental behavior as tested out empirically in the study in Amman, Jordan (Abusafieh and Razem 2017). Advances in environmental psychology have also led to parallel developments in the related field of the psychology of sustainability with considerable empirical inputs from Di Fabio and her team (e.g., Di Fabio 2017, Di Fabio and Kenny 2016). Pointing to the United Nation’s goals for sustainable development, namely, no hunger and poverty, quality education, responsible consumption and production, climate action and

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peace, justice and partnerships to achieve these goals, Di Fabio (2017) clarifies the changing role of psychologists. While environmental psychology had earlier focused on behaviors leading to the avoidance of eco-­ degrading action, such as exploitation, depletion and irreversible alterations, the more recent approach focuses on promoting pro-­ environmental behavior (e.g., enrichment, growth and flexible change). One such technique for promoting pro-environmental behavior has been pointed out by Alcock and his colleagues (2020). On the basis of their research, they have come to the conclusion that people who live in built-up urban spaces and spend less time in and around nature and natural environments are also less likely to engage in actions such as recycling, buying eco-friendly products and environmental volunteering. For such people, the key to sustainability is to reconnect them with nature. Agrawal (2019) has pointed to important ways through which educational institutions, especially those of higher education, can help inculcate many such attitudes among students. While considerable is being attempted by psychology and the other behavioral sciences, the present critical situation of climate and the environment at the global level, clearly, shows that it is not enough. As is revealed by the discussion in the foregoing pages, much has been attempted in order to curb the degradation being caused by humans during this era of the Anthropocene. Further, the human brain has evolved to the extent that it can well take on the challenges coming its way as far as climate change is concerned. At the same time, despite the steps which have been taken, such as the Earth Charter, the call from eminent thinkers and others for becoming ecological citizens or world citizens, or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with its deliberations over the past so many years, we have failed to make much headway regarding the reversal of the fast-changing climatic conditions all over the world. Psychologists and other social scientists, too, have been conducting widespread empirical research to test the efficacy of ways for inculcating ecological values in people. However, their efforts, too, have not had the expected effect. Even children, with Greta Thunberg not being the lone example, have joined the fray. Enforcements have also been tried, industrialists have been roped in, carbon trading has been undertaken and a carbon trading exchange has also been set up, but to not much avail. Gandhi, on the other hand, almost single-handed, was able to accomplish much more. How did he do it?

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Gandhi, the Environmentalist As far as Gandhi’s writings are concerned, one fails to find reference to any great attraction to the untamed nature or to the wilderness. While he did spend a considerable amount of time outdoors, it was hardly for the appreciation of natural scenic beauty, per se. One, also, does not find any mention of the word, ecology, in his writings. Yet, he has been called an environmentalist. He has been regarded as the patron saint of the Indian environmental movement (Guha 1998) much in the same way that Lynn White positions St. Francis of Assisi as the patron saint of plants and animals. Further, Gandhi’s role in d ­ eveloping an ethic for environmental issues in India is seen as being no less than that of Aldo Leopold, often regarded as the father of modern environmental ethics. In fact, Gandhi is acknowledged as having “fathered the Indian environmental movement” (Lal 2000, p. 185). Analyzing the logic for calling Gandhi an environmentalist, Radder (2015) draws upon the distinction pointed out by Guha and Martinez-­ Alier (1997) between “full belly” and “empty belly” environmentalism. While the former can be thought of the kind of environmentalism one sees in post-material, post-industrial societies, where the standard of living is high and people are literally full-bellied in that they have not only more than enough to eat but are also not characterized by other problems of basic subsistence. In other words, we can think of these people as being those whose basic physiological needs have been satiated, leaving them free to engage in the satisfaction of higher order needs (Maslow 1954). The environmentalism manifested by such people is of the type we, normally, consider under the rubric of the term, in that, they are concerned with the ways in which humans are destroying Nature along with the species being fostered by natural environments, simply because the destruction of nature and natural resources, pollution and water scarcity are having a deleterious effect upon human health and needs. In contrast, people with an empty belly can ill-afford to show such concerns. They are still struggling to satisfy their basic physiological needs. People who are concerned with the rights of such empty-bellied people have been called empty-belly environmentalists. Their concern is with whether the environment fulfills the needs of the empty-bellied, with fighting for their rights and for justice and equity in the allocation of natural resources. Such environmental movements involve not only the urban

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poor but also those from rural areas to ensure that their right to natural resources is not being undermined by those who are economically better off. Gandhi would, certainly, come under this second category of environmentalists, concerned as he always was for clean water, health, hygiene and sanitation for those who were deprived of a voice in public dealings. He was always fighting (through nonviolent means) for agrarian reform and issues of social justice. It is in terms of this expanded meaning of environmentalism that Gandhi can be called a pioneer of the Indian environmental movement. Gandhi’s environmentalism went hand in glove with his philosophy of nonviolence; it was a part and parcel of nonviolence. As Sanford (2013) puts it, His environmental thought is inseparable from his social thought and has offered a paradigm to evaluate the intimate ties between the environmental degradation and social inequalities that inform contemporary concerns about sustainability. (Sanford 2013, p. 68)

Gandhi and Environmental Ethics One of the major contributions of Gandhi to the cause of the environment was to develop a code of ethics for environmentalists. The beginnings of Gandhian ethics for ecology or “the inner logic” of Gandhian ecology can be said to rest on the four guiding principles of Gandhi’s life and work (Shinn 2000). These are satya (truth), ahimsa (nonviolence), tapas (self-­ sacrifice) and swaraj (independence). The first of these, namely, truth, provided the force necessary for doing good in the world, through the use of soul force, as against the use of brute force. Rather than being coerced into pro-environmental actions, each of his followers had to decide for themselves, whether they and their “inner voice” agreed with this truth. Gandhi’s satya worked through love, friendship and care, and was grounded in the collective practices he insisted upon (Geetha 2014). The second, that is, nonviolence, provided the means for meeting the ends, namely, concern for the environment. Gandhi was emphatic that an ecological movement had to be nonviolent. He said:

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We cannot have ecological movement designed to prevent violence against Nature, unless the principle of non-violence becomes central to the ethics of human culture. (Gandhi, cf. Khoshoo and Moolakkattu 2009)

For Gandhi, nonviolence did not mean the simple resistance to injustice. It was an active ahimsa (Kool and Agrawal 2018) and involved constructive actions through the building of communities and movements, with what Murray et al. (2014) call alternative cultures and structures. The third principle is that of self-sacrifice which provided the inner force for ecological action and the strong urge for self-restraint and discipline. In fact, one can say that self-sacrifice is at the very base of ­nonviolence, since without self-sacrifice one cannot attain self-purification and without self-purification it would be impossible to identify with everything that lives. The fourth aspect, namely, self-rule, implied not merely independence from the domination of the British, but also self-reliance. For this, Gandhi advocated the self-sufficient village republic model arranged in the form of oceanic circles (Pim 2018), which has been seen to be one of the most sustainable of ecological models. Taken together, these four form the guiding principles for Gandhian environmental ethics, operating in a concerted manner and leading to a better and more sustainable environment. Gandhi was, himself, the epitome of environmentalism as revealed by the ways through which his entire life operated on the basis of the principles he posited. As has been pointed out, Gandhi’s entire life functioned much like an ecosystem. This is one life in which every minute act, emotion, or thought was not without its place: the brevity of Gandhi’s enormous writings, his small meals of nuts and fruits, his morning ablutions and everyday bodily practices, his periodic observances of silence, his morning walks, his cultivation of the small as much as the big, his abhorrence of waste, his resort to fasting—all these point to the manner in which the symphony was orchestrated. (Lal 2000, p. 206)

Such an orchestration is required in our academic pursuits also. As far as the social sciences are concerned, rather than each discipline working within the narrow confines of its own focus, drawing partitions between human actions in different domains, a new type of interdisciplinarity needs to emerge: one that will operate in the collective solution of problems.

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The development of such an interdisciplinary approach to human ecology has been, in fact, one of the major aims of Gandhian Studies through what has been called “the harmony model” (Kumarappa 1997). However, Gandhi had implemented it way back in the early 1900s and continued to do so as long as he was alive. Though Gandhi did not mention any discipline as such, in his own way, he developed hypotheses related to human endeavor in various domains, including economics, sociology, psychology and political science; he tested them on himself and finally applied them with great success in social and political settings. Many of the ways in which Gandhian ideas can be applied in different domains of human endeavor and sub-disciplines of psychology have been discussed by Kool (2013) and Kool and Agrawal (2013). Gandhi and Building Temperance Twenty-first-century scientists, from the world over, have repeatedly warned that adaptation and mitigation are the only two ways through which the deleterious effects of human enterprise can be controlled. Moreover, if such actions are taken up early enough, they may even help to reverse the current pace of environmental degradation being witnessed. Thus, humankind knows what has to be done, but does not know how to go about it. This is where science and people, in general, can learn from Gandhi and his philosophy and practice of nonviolence and the ways in which it can help in building temperance and mitigating the problems of rapid climate change. For Gandhi, nonviolence was not simply a strategy that served to bring about freedom from oppression and injustice. He followed the creed of nonviolence, the vision of which was far broader and encompassed each and every aspect of life. Based as it was on universal values of love, compassion and care, Gandhian philosophy called upon all individuals to display nonviolence not just in their personal and social lives but toward Mother Nature and all things that are a part of this Nature. One problem that has been brought to the fore in the previous pages is that people tend to take public resources as being unlimited, leading to situations such as the tragedy of the commons. The question that arises is how to overcome this greed. History stands evidence that legal prohibition does not work. The need of the hour is temperance, but how does one bring about temperance? Freedom should not mean unrestrained personal freedom which could, in all certainty, bring in its wake, societal ruin.

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Gandhi and how he pre-empted such situations have been very succinctly brought to the fore by Bilgrami (2020), who explains Gandhi’s viewpoint through the analogy of a car crash, “the tragedy of commons is like a car crash” and that we have to see ourselves as the drivers and become more “socially oriented.” In other words, Gandhi was of the opinion that we cannot wait for someone to come and take control. It is imperative that each of us, in our own small way, decides to act, and act today. We must put an end to such unfettered freedom, which Gandhi was able to do, without the use of coercion or punishments of any type. Rather, he was able to create mutual coercion, as advocated by Hardin and others, through the use of techniques such as personal vows, community working (such as community spinning) and even community prayers and self-sacrifice (tapas). The various communities he built, for example, Phoenix Settlement, Tolstoy Farm and Sabarmati Ashram clearly point to the success of the techniques used by him. One aspect that was continuously emphasized by Gandhi was the limiting of one’s wants and even one’s needs, that is, scaling down and pulling back (Crist 2018) which can only be accomplished through temperance. When one considers the etymological roots of the word ecology, it is surprising to find that the word is derived from the Greek equivalent for the word, economy, which in earlier times had a meaning, very different from what has been attached to it today. It originally referred to the efficient management of household affairs. In the words of Thoreau, by whom Gandhi was greatly influenced, economy can be defined as maximizing life by reducing needs and minimizing wants, a close parallel to Gandhi’s insistence on the economy of lifestyle, including conduct, speech, and thought. As far as Gandhi was concerned, he can be regarded as manifesting temperance at the highest levels. Further, with a prophetic vision, Gandhi warned: A time is coming when those who are in mad rush today of multiplying their wants, will retrace their steps and say; what have we done? (Gandhi 1927a)

One must also remember that Gandhi was not such a frugal person from the days of his youth. It is a well-known fact that when he first went to London for his degree in law, he always chose the heights of sartorial fashion, though he could ill-afford it. For quite some time, he lived a life of luxury, only to realize much later, the futility of such trappings. By the

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early 1930s, he had evolved and changed considerably as is clear from his reply to the customs official questioning him in Marseilles in 1931, I am a poor mendicant. My earthly possessions consist of six spinning wheels, prison dishes, a can of goat’s milk, six homespun loin-cloths and towels, and my reputation which cannot be worth much. (Gandhi 1931a)

Gandhi, Nonpossession (Aparigraha) and Pro-environmental Behavior Gandhi’s ideas about the futility of possession were drawn from various religious scriptures, including the Bhagwad Gita and his changing concerns based on his readings of people such as Henry David Thoreau. Specifically, Gandhi drew upon the concept of aparigraha, as stated and defined in the Bhagwad Gita, according to which possessions are a hindrance in our process of self-realization and become, even more so, as we indulge in the rat race of consumerism. In most other religions of the world, also, possessions in excess of what are actually needed are frowned upon, and in this context, religions focus on asceticism, or the giving up of all possessions as commonly manifested by monks, nuns and sages. Aparigraha goes one step further. It calls for nonpossession even while not adopting the lifestyle of an ascetic. The significance of such nonpossession can probably be best explained through the words of Gandhi himself: Possession seems to me to be a crime; I can only possess certain things when I know that others, who also want to possess similar things are able to do so. But we know—every one of us can speak from experience—that such a thing is an impossibility. Therefore, the only thing that can be possessed by all is non-possession, not to have anything whatsoever. Or, in other words, a willing surrender…. And those who have followed out this vow of voluntary poverty to the fullest extent possible—to reach absolute perfection is an impossibility, but the fullest possible for a human being—those who have reached the ideal of that state, testify that when you dispossess yourself of everything you have, you really possess all the treasures of the world. (Gandhi 1931b)

Gandhi realized, fully well, that giving up material pleasures of the world and becoming an ascetic is difficult, but giving up one’s possessions while still remaining part and parcel of the material world is, often, more painful. This is the reason for his strong belief in vows, and as has been

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explained earlier, vows help to ward off temptations once and for all (Kirby 2013). The individual is not forced to make choices each and every day; rather, it is a decision that once taken, cannot be gone against. It is for this reason that Gandhi made it mandatory for all his followers to take, not one vow, but eleven vows, one of which was the vow of aparigraha. Yes, Gandhi acknowledges that the progress toward aparigraha is not easy and takes time and patience. But as a person works on it, through small vows (anuvrat), one can finally reach that stage when one is, at least, trying to temper down one’s wants. As always, his advice to his followers was based on his own experiences with aparigraha, confessing that it was both slow and painful in the beginning, but gradually the time came when he could give up things with ease. The joy that ensued was tremendous, And, as I am describing my experiences, I can say a great burden fell off my shoulders, and I felt that I could now walk with ease and do my work also in the service of my fellow men with great comfort and still greater joy. The possession of anything then became a troublesome thing and a burden. (Gandhi 1933a, pp. 1066–1067)

Gandhi and Attitude Change It is often said that Gandhi was well ahead of his times. An example is the ways in which Gandhi used many of the techniques suggested by empirical research in psychology on attitudinal change, decades later, in the latter part of the twentieth century. One such technique that has been used very successfully is that of escalation of commitment, tending to narrow the gaps between professed attitudes and behavior. One may very often profess that one believes in saving water, but does one actually do so? Research (for examples from around the world, see Kool and Agrawal 2006) has shown that by making people profess these attitudes in public, the extent that the behavior will follow along the same trajectory is increased. It is for this reason why public oaths are undertaken and rallies are held with everyday observation showing that they, definitely, lead to promoting pro-environmental behavior. Gandhi used this method of escalation of commitment by ensuring that people publicly stated their attitudes through the marches that he organized. The Dandi Salt March is one of the best examples of escalation of commitment toward self-reliance being manifested by not only those who participated in the March but also observers and bystanders of the March.

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Another technique utilized by Gandhi very successfully was the effect of the community. As analyzed by Tajfel in his famous Social Identity Theory (1969), one tends to follow the norms, both prescriptive and proscriptive, set up by one’s in-group (Kool 2008). Gandhi made extensive use of creating such highly cohesive in-groups, through community work, community spinning and community prayer meetings, all of which went a long way in developing an inclusive attitude and in making people toe the line, without any coercion or punishment. What Gandhi proposed was a “change of heart” through which a new mind can be seen to emerge even without the use of coercion (Dharmadhikari 2000). Gandhi was also emphatic in his stand that there is a great difference between needs and wants. While the former is necessary, it is the latter which creates problems. While acquisitiveness leads to the wasteful accumulation of objects that are rarely used on the one hand, it produces inequalities on the other hand. Thus, the rich accumulate objects that they never use and are therefore wasted, while there are thousands of people who are on the border of starvation, with hardly enough to cover their bodies, or to shelter themselves from the ravages of nature. A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above that level, it becomes a hindrance instead of a help. Therefore the ideal of creating an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a delusion and a snare. (Gandhi, in Khoshoo, and John 2009, p. 144)

Gandhi was also resolute in his stand that it is these inequalities that often lead to frustrations with violence as the end result. Thus, temperance becomes an essential part of the general philosophy of nonviolence. A nonviolent actor would desist from the collection of useless articles on moral grounds. As Gandhi professed, “If each retained possessions only of what he needed, none would be in want and all would live in contentment.” Further, merely requesting people to temper down or even coercing people does not lead to positive results. Gandhi not only forced people through vows but also kept working on the promotion of these attitudinal changes through various cognitive techniques such as the development of schemas and scripts followed by constant reminding through the use of priming and nudging (see Chap. 8 of Volume 1 of this book for a detailed discussion). In ways such as the above, Gandhi was able to garner the efforts of his followers in closing the gap between the “haves” and the

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“have-nots.” So, while some people may have cupboards and closets full of clothes and other belongings that they never use, there would be scores of people with not even the bare means of subsistence. One of the ways he adopted for changing people’s attitudes toward excessive possessions was by framing excessive possessions as a crime, because by possessing something that one does not need, one was essentially depriving another of the same. Non-possession is allied to non-stealing. A thing not originally stolen must nevertheless be classified stolen property, if one possesses it without needing it. (Gandhi 1933b)

Remember, this is also the reason why Gandhi gave up the wearing of normal clothes and took to the bare minimum of a loincloth. Our interview of Niranjana Kalarthi and Gandhi’s granddaughter Sumitra Kulkarni clarified the reasons for his doing so. They narrated to us how once, while on a visit to a distant village in Champaran, women were invited to come and meet him. Gandhi realized that the time gap between one woman going back and the next one coming was longer than necessary. Further questioning helped him to ascertain the reason: the women had only one sari (traditional Indian attire for women) between them. So, one woman would go back, give that sari to the next one, who would then put it on. Then only could she come out. Obviously, this entailed a certain amount of time. From that day, Gandhi decided to give up the attire he normally wore, restricting it to the bare minimum required for the sake of decency. Gandhi, Self-Reliance and the Ecological Movement For Gandhi, swaraj (self-rule) meant much more than mere independence from the British. It involved autonomy and self-reliance. Rather than there being some engaged in production and others in the consumption of goods, Gandhi envisaged a society in which there would be no difference between the producer and the consumer. Each would be using what s/he could produce, whether it was agricultural produce, cloth or other objects of daily use. It was also the reason for Gandhi’s insistence on spinning and the weaving of khadi. Noted thinker and theorist of nonviolence, Galtung (1976) has very succinctly explained the role of the Gandhian concept of self-reliance in maintaining ecological balance. Through self-reliance, not

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only would the goals of ecological balance be better maintained but the results would also be more visible and direct. The farmer who by and large produces what he consumes and consumes what he produces has the gut knowledge that pollution and depletion will be detrimental to him and his off-spring, and this very knowledge initiates the type of negative feedback that may prevent ecological problems from surfacing at all. Depletion cannot be relegated to some far-off corner of the world, because in that corner they are also practicing self-reliance and do not let raw materials out except to neighbours at the same level. (Galtung 1976, p. 211)

Along the same lines, Gandhi was in favor of using technology which was appropriate to the region, calling it appropriate technology or intermediate technology (Schumacher 1973) which is based on locally available resources and material. One such example is that of mud technology, another is that of cow-dung technology. Both have been found to have antiseptic properties and both are widely available. They are also the cheapest material, in most cases costing only time and labor with no money being involved. Today, we are witnessing a revival of such appropriate technology in the form of biogas instead of natural gas, or bricks being made by mixing mud with other locally available material such as rice and wheat husk. It is often said that Gandhi was against technology. While he was not against technology, he was certainly against the use of means of mass production, for the simple reason that they separated the producer from the consumer and one can well imagine the result if everyone decided to become a mass producer: where would you find the market for these goods? It would not be wrong to say that, to a certain extent, we are seeing the results of not heeding the warning given by Gandhi. With markets becoming increasingly satiated, companies look for newer markets, but for how long? To cater to existing markets, companies often tweak products just so much so as to increase its power of wooing the customer, each innovation creating a greater urge to buy it without having any use for it. So with changing technology, we may have several iPhones lying around and ­computers whose operating systems have become obsolete, simply because the manufacturer has decided not to update them in order to sell his latest product. Gandhi showed us how to pursue sustainable lifestyles by changing production patterns and thereby limiting consumption patterns. By

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making limited consumption a moral virtue, to which individuals were bound by a vow of aparigraha, Gandhi also counteracted the “keeping up with the Joneses” effect, so often the very cause of rising consumerism. Gandhi and the Role of Culture in Building a Sustainable Ecological System In 1983, the General Assembly of the UNO passed a Resolution regarding the “Process of preparation of the environmental perspective to the year 2000 and beyond,” and established a commission for the purpose, generally, known as the Brundtland Commission. The key mission of the Commission was to unite countries to pursue the goals of sustainable development together. In 1987, the Commission released its report, after 900 days of active deliberations between scientists, leaders and thinkers of a large number of countries. The key issue of this report was to find ways to unite two aspects, that of development with that of the environment. Erstwhile, the two had been considered independently of each other, but, for economic development to be sustainable, it was mandatory that the two be intertwined and linked to a third aspect, namely, the societal aspect. Through the conjoint consideration of these three aspects we would be able to attain goals that are sustainable for both the Earth and the people who inhabit it. Considered conjointly, certain characteristics would emanate, becoming the key to sustainable development. This has been depicted in Fig. 1.3. Gandhi went a step further. According to Singh (2019), the Gandhian philosophy of environmentalism requires that these three dimensions Fig. 1.3  The three pillars of sustainable development based on the Brundtland Report, 1987 (based on Singh 2019)

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(Fig. 1.3) be embedded in a fourth dimension, namely, that of culture. It is this culture which would define and develop an individual’s personal code of ethics. It is apparent that no infant is born knowing the difference between what is ethically right and what is wrong. From being totally egocentric, the infant slowly, but surely, moves toward becoming a socialized individual, inculcating the norms of her society and culture through the twin processes of assimilation and accommodation (Piaget 1932). Alongside, develops the morality of the child, from the preconventional stage to the conventional stage and finally to the post-conventional stage (Kohlberg 1976). Keeping in mind the ways through which such cognitive and moral development takes place, the necessity of implicating culture in any model of sustainable development becomes obvious. For Gandhi, development, whether that of a person, community or nation, without morality cannot be termed as development. Also, such development can take place only when the culture mandates it. In other words, according to Gandhi it is important that we develop a culture which inculcates the right habits regarding limitation of needs, equity for all, and care of the environment. Inculcating the right human values is the only path to a sustainable future. Drawing on the tenets of Jainism and Buddhism, in both of which ahimsa plays a very important role, Gandhi upheld the protection of the environment for moral reasons. For him, ahimsa did not simply mean that one mortal should not engage in violence with another; rather, it meant ahimsa toward all that lives, whether it is a tree, a snake or a cow. There can be found countless examples in his writings regarding his creed of nonviolence. Thus, he was against people hoarding snake venom to be used as an antidote for snake bites for the simple reason that, I do not want to live at the cost of the life of even a snake. (Gandhi, cf. Moolakkattu 2010)

Conservation was a part of the day-to-day life of Gandhi as testified by his extremely frugal diet, wearing the bare minimum of clothes, using water sparingly, as also of money and other belongings, normally considered as necessary by most people. Such was the culture he exemplified (Fig. 1.4) and hoped that the people would imbibe, gradually but surely. To create such a culture, it requires “rethinking development (and) involves a shift from the present-day developmental crisis to the ethical

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Fig. 1.4  Culture as sustainable development

Culture Social Economic

Environment

march for coexistence” (Singh 2019). It is important to remember that while culture is a new addition to the Brundtland model, the concept of coexistence of humans and nature is not new to the world. Gandhi was of the opinion that “every man has an equal right for the necessities of life, even as birds and beasts there.” This idea has pervaded not only most ancient cultures, for example, that of China, Japan, South Africa and India, but also forms the foundation for most religions of the world, all of which have professed to the fundamental principle of ahimsa or nonviolence. Gandhi proposed and pursued an ecological model based on such nonviolent interactions between humans and nature, explaining it through the idea that “save Mother nature to save yourself.” To make such a rethinking a reality, Gandhi advocated three principal shifts: • He replaced the idea of mass production with the idea of production by the masses, such that the problem of unemployment would be banished. • He introduced an ethical level of consumption pattern which would be equitable for both generations to come and for nature to sustain. • He broadened the concept of alienation. Whereas Karl Marx spoke of the ways in which the labor was alienated from the fruits of mass production, Gandhi was of the opinion that the very concept of mass production was alienating.

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How correct Gandhi was in his interpretations is borne by empirical research and practice in the managerial sciences, wherein it is amply clear that the present process of assembly-line mass production is alienating in that the worker who is responsible for simply one small part can hardly identify with the finished object. As has been pointed out earlier too, Gandhi was not an armchair philosopher. Not only did he practice what he preached but he also experimented upon himself before implementing any idea. This guaranteed the feasibility of the idea. The same holds for his stand on the environment. While he professed to a particular code of ethics that needs to be handed down the generations through the means of cultural dissemination, he also proposed three lines of action. These were as follows: • Sarvodaya • Swadeshi • Satyagraha The first of these implied love and compassion for all and was drawn from Ruskin’s Unto This Last. The second, namely, swadeshi brought to the fore the idea of self-reliance which can be best understood as being autonomy of the highest order. The third, satyagraha, was necessary for the other two, and, literally meant, holding on to the truth and even suffering for the truth. Gandhi and Identification with Nature (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) To sum up, Gandhi aimed at the establishment of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (nature is my family). Derived from the Vedic scriptures of the Hindu faith, the concept is based on the Advaita (nonduality) principle positing an essential unity between man and all that is living (Box 1.4 gives some examples from the life of Gandhi). As Gandhi professed, I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life even with such things as crawl upon Earth… because we claim descent from the same God and that being so, all life in whatever form it appears must be essentially one. (Gandhi 1929, p. 107)

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Box 1.4  Examples of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam from the Life of Gandhi

A story demonstrating Gandhi’s abhorrence of waste is narrated by a disciple who was in the habit of breaking off entire twigs of a neem tree when all he needed were several leaves. Gandhi rebukes him and says: This is violence. We should pluck the required number of leaves after offering an apology to the tree for doing so. But you broke off the whole twig, which is wasteful and wrong (Lal 2000, p. 204). An additional story explains how when a cobra entered Gandhi’s room, he gave clear instructions not to kill the snake even if it bit him. Gandhi remarks that he “does not want to live at the cost of the life of even a snake” (Lal 2000, p. 202). By protecting the life of a cobra, Gandhi embodies a biocentric outlook… emphasized that cow protection “means protection of all that is helpless and weak in this” (Lal 2000, p. 231).

Yet, Gandhi was aware that no matter how strong the feeling for ahimsa in the person, at some time or the other s/he is bound to commit violence. The very ways of life, including eating, drinking and moving about, involve some destruction of life, no matter how small. While he acknowledged this basic fact of life, he also appealed to all to show compassion, A votary of ahimsa therefore remains true to his faith if the spring of all his actions is compassion, if he shuns to the best of his ability the destruction of the tiniest creature, tries to save it, and thus incessantly strives to be free from the deadly coil of himsa. (Gandhi 1927a, p. 427)

Thus, for Gandhi, thinking about others should take precedence over thinking about the self. Gandhi was of the view that a civilized society is “other-regarding.” What Gandhi was implying is explained by Dharmadhikari (2000) through an ingenious example. He asks us to imagine the situation of shortage of milk in a particular city. How does the municipal authority react to this shortage? In all probability, it would ensure that the first priority is given to infants and then to patients in hospitals and whatever is left could, thereafter, be consumed by the general public. Do we ever think that since there is a shortage of milk, we should let the sick die, so that those who are healthy can live? Apparently, this

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would seem to be the simplest demonstration of the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest. But, no civilized society thinks in this way, demonstrating how “other-regarding” we are. It is this “other-regarding” sentiment that Gandhi deployed throughout his life and implored upon all to follow it. The “other-regarding” sentiment was with reference to humans. However, Gandhi went a step further. For him, reverence for humans or even for life is not enough. There must be reverence for the whole creation, including both the living as well as the nonliving. Creation should be regarded as God incarnate, and once such is the perception, all conflict with nature would vanish. Through such a perception, it would become possible to reach the zenith of environmentalism, a oneness with nature, and a total identification with nature. Further, thinking along these lines is possible as revealed by the artistic works of poetry, art and even prose (Dharmadhikari 2000). Poets and artists have expressed their love for nature—it is the entrepreneur, the man with commercial aims who has tended to exploit nature. A poet may wax eloquent about the tremendous flow and power of the Niagara Falls; it may fill his or her heart with an unspeakable reverence; but, the entrepreneur may only perceive the immense opportunity that the Falls have for generating hydroelectricity. Hardin’s (1968) tragedy of the commons may also be understood along a similar vein. The Romantic poets of England, for example, Wordsworth and Coleridge, saw the daffodils and the clouds; the grazer, however, could see only the grass that could be used for feeding more cattle. What is perhaps the need of the hour is a synthesis between the attitude of the poet and that of the entrepreneur—a synthesis between the love and reverence for nature and a sustainable science and technology. This is what Gandhi focused upon: a love for nature bordering on respect and reverence. He called upon each individual to recognize that s/he is simply an instrument through which God manifests Himself: a belief which would go a long way in ensuring a wholesome attitude toward nature. It would become the duty of every person to protect nature, along with all things living and nonliving. Each individual would thus become a trustee of Nature, helping to protect her for the generations to come. Maybe, we would not have to face the havoc caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as explained in Box 1.5.

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Box 1.5  “A sobering astronomical reminder from COVID-19: We should be grateful for the conditions that allow us to exist at all, because they won’t last forever”

This is the title of a blog in the Scientific American dated April 18, 2020, right in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic written by none other than eminent astronomer Professor Avi Loeb, Chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University and founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, among the various other offices he holds. He starts his blog by writing that, Mother Nature has its nuanced way of educating us. Following a century of scientific and technological advances that triggered unprecedented economic growth, our civilization perceived its superiority over nature as undisputed.

But obviously, despite its growth and development, the present crisis has proved beyond doubt that the human race is, in no way, superior to nature. As Gandhi had professed almost a century back, we should not take nature or the environment for granted. Rather, we should act as trustees of our environment, taking care of it and maintaining it for the generations to come. In this context, there are countless examples of the ways in which Gandhi helped his followers to, not only inculcate pro-­environmental attitudes, but to also act according to these professed attitudes. He had a thorough distaste for any type of dissonance between thoughts, attitudes and action. Whatever he professed or asked of his fellow satyagrahis had to be followed in thought, spirit and action. If we had followed his injunctions regarding Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (nature is our family), circumstances may not have taken the shape they are doing today. What Loeb is stating is very much in line with the opinions of Gandhi, namely, that, The most fundamental lesson is simple. We must treasure all the good that nature gives us rather than take it for granted, because it can easily disappear… Our transient existence has lasted for less than 10 one-­ billionths of cosmic history so far on a tiny rock we call Earth, surrounded by a vast lifeless space. We should be thankful for the fortuitous circumstances that allow us to exist, because they will surely go away one day, with or without COVID-19.

(continued)

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Box 1.5  (continued)

Further, as we have been stating all along this book, Gandhi always relegated his personal good in favor of the welfare of the society at large; his were actions to serve the society, to help it develop to its fullest potential, without consideration of any of the man-made national borders, for “God had not created those borders.” Once again, Loeb is voicing the same concern, Here’s hoping that in the wake of COVID-19, international scientific collaborations will lead to more goodwill among nations and better political collaboration across the globe in our future.

While environmental psychology has sufficient in its repertoire as far as research and theory is concerned, we are optimistic that psychologists will be able to draw a leaf from the life of Gandhi and especially, the multifarious practical ways through which he inculcated pro-environmental attitudes and behavior among his followers. (Adapted from Loeb, E., Scientific American, April 18, 2020. www.blogs.scientificamerican.com)

While there would be countless challenges in implementing the above, the cultural and religious heritage of nations around the world testifies to the fact that they are attainable. In fact, Gandhian environmentalism has been used with great success in India (e.g., the Chipko Movement, meaning Hug the trees of the Himalayas and the Save the Narmada Movement). It is also the basis for the new kind of environmentalism in the form of deep ecology (Arne Naess 1987).

Deep Ecology Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, is credited with the introduction of the term, deep ecology, the inspiration for which was, to a very great extent, Gandhi (Naess 1987) and the Bhagwad Gita. Naess compares and contrasts two types of ecology. One, called shallow ecology, focuses on pollution and resource depletion only because they threaten human health and affluence. So, if a

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Fig. 1.5  Development of self-realization in the growing child

Physical self

Social self

Ecological self

person tries to focus on air pollution only because it causes lung problems, or she focuses on sound pollution because it causes damage to the ear, then Naess sees the person as one who is following a shallow form of ecology. So also would be a person who attempts to fight deforestation or the use of fossil fuels simply because they are not unlimited. In other words, it is an ecology which is anthropocentric in nature, manifesting as it is a concern for the environment for the simple reason of the problems that would be caused to humankind. Deep ecology, on the other hand, uses a biocentric approach, in that it focuses on the principle of egalitarianism as being applicable to all living beings, human or nonhuman. Thus, the basic distinction between shallow and deep forms of ecology is between the anthropocentric approach that is the common denominator for Hardin’s tragedy of commons and the IPCC which is centered around the needs of humans, and the biocentric approach which is centered around all things living and adheres to a totally different principle, namely, that the environment cannot be misused because it is there in equal degrees for all living beings. The latter is an integrative approach. Gandhi was also the inspiring force behind Naess’ concept of self-­ realization, which was seen as an ongoing process, beginning with the development of the biological or the physical self in early childhood (see Fig. 1.5) to the development of the social self and ending only when the individual realizes that all life on this Earth is interrelated and that the maintenance of harmony between one and all is mandatory (the ecological self). Further, deep ecology, like the Gandhian approach to environmentalism, was one in which ecological activism goes beyond mere utilitarian values and becomes a moral duty. At the same time, it differs from the Gandhian approach to the extent that while deep ecology is biocentric in

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its approach, Gandhi’s approach may best be called cosmocentric (Parekh 1989). Over the past decades, substantial progress has been made in devising ways to overcome, or, at least control environmental degradation. However, the big question that is being raised is how to handle the triple challenge of the Anthropocene, namely, of preventing biodiversity loss, mitigating and adapting to climate change and sustainably providing resources for an ever-increasing human population (Kremen and Merenlender 2018). Much has also been learnt regarding the ways of using natural agricultural land and conserving biodiversity (e.g., Harrison and Gassner 2020), but in order to curtail the deleterious effects of overconsumption and production, much more is called for. While scientists have been able to devise the methods, it is their implementation at the community level which is eluding both scientists and governments. Gandhi, however, was successful in implementing many measures which are now regarded as being sustainable. Environmental psychology could, certainly, draw lessons from the ways through which Gandhi inculcated pro-environmental values and attitudes among his followers. The beauty of his method was that he offered to the people, a composite of emotions and logic for whatever he asked for. Drawn from the daily lives of ordinary Indian people, he appealed to both the head and the heart, through arguments that were based on the culture of the country, taking into its fold, not only the present but also the past. It is clear that no leader before Gandhi had worked out such a strategy, one that was not only comprehensive but also very clear. Through his extraordinary organizational and communication skills, he was able to exert an influence unheard of before. Saving the environment cannot be just the concern of the State. Gandhi clarified that we must focus on all levels. He has aptly demonstrated that action at all four levels, namely, the individual, community, national and global levels, leads to changes that are sustainable in the long run. It has been said that just as contemporary environmental activists continue to revisit Aldo Leopold, we must “perennially return to Mahatma Gandhi, and yet go beyond him” (Guha 1998, p. 81). He showed how a total sustainable way of organizing human affairs could be evolved, thereby leaving a lighter human footprint on this earth, and practically demonstrated how humans could live in harmony with nature. In conclusion, it can be said that “Gandhi’s environmentalism fitted in with his overall vision for India and the world that sought to extract from

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nature what is absolutely necessary for human sustenance” (Jones 2000). Small wonder that his famous statement “the Earth has enough for ­everyone’s need, but not for anyone’s greed,” has become a slogan for contemporary environmental movements!

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Loeb, E. (2020, April 18). A sobering astronomical reminder from COVID-19: We should be grateful for the conditions that allow us to exist at all, because they won’t last forever. Scientific American. Retrieved from www.blogs.scientificamerican.com. Lucht, W., & Pachauri, R. K. (2004). The mental component of the earth system. In H.  J. Schellnhuber et  al. (Eds.), Earth system analysis for sustainability (pp. 341–365). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Macchi, A. (2018). Environmental psychology “in action”: Understanding the dangers of noise to humans. Psych Learning Curve. Retrieved from http:// psychlearningcurve.org/environmental-psychology-action/. Mansharamani, V. (2020, June 15). Harvard lecturer: ‘No specific skill will get you ahead in the future’—But this ‘way of thinking’ will. cnbc.com. Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper. Mead, E. M. (2013). Promoting lasting ecological citizenship among college students (2013). Theses and dissertations. 1289. Retrieved from https://preserve. lehigh.edu/etd/1289. Moolakkattu, J.  S. (2010). Gandhi as a human ecologist. Journal of Human Ecology, 29(3), 151–158. Murray, H., Lyubansky, M., Miller, K., & Ortega, L. (2014). Toward a psychology of nonviolence. In E.  Mustakova-Possardt, M.  Lyubanski, et  al. (Eds.), Toward socially responsible psychology for a global era (pp.  151–182). New York: Springer. Naess, A. (1987). Self-realization: An ecological approach to being in the world. Trumpeter, 4, 128–131. NASA Global Climate Change. (2020, January 15). Climate change: How do we know? NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. (2020, January 15). NASA, NOAA analyses reveal 2019 second warmest year on record. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 17, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200115130446.htm. Nordblad, J. (2014). The future of the noosphere. E-journal. Forum Inter disziplinare begriffsgeschichte, 2,3 jg. Parekh, B. (1989). Gandhi’s political philosophy: A critical examination. London: Macmillan. Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. New York: Free Press. Piazza, E., & Dote, D. (2013). Modern psychology, Gandhi and peace cultures with special reference to Malana. Gandhi Marg, 35, 619–630. Pim, J. E. (2018). Exploring the village republic: Behavioral processes and systems of peace. In P. Verbeek & B. A. Peters (Eds.), Peace ethology: Behavioral processes and systems of peace. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Radder, A. J. (2015). Gandhian ecology and Vaishnava environmentalism. Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 24, 141–154. Rees, M. (2016, August 29). The Anthropocene epoch could inaugurate even more marvelous eras of evolution. The Guardian.

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Revkin, A. (2012). Beyond Rio: Pursuing ‘Ecological citizenship’. New York Times Dot Earth. Retrieved June 19, 2013, from http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes. com/2012/06/25/beyond-rio-pursuing-ecologicalcitizenship/?_r=0. Ripple, W. J., Wolf, C., Newsome, T. M., Galetti, M., Alamgir, M., Crist, E., et al. (2017). 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries, world scientists’ warning to humanity: A second notice. BioScience, 67(12, Dec.), 1026–1028. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix125. Sandhu, S. (2018, April 4). Cape Town water crisis: Why is water running out and what is Day Zero? i-news.co.uk. Sanford, A. W. (2013). Gandhi’s agrarian legacy: Practicing food, justice, and sustainability in India. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 7(1), 65–87. Saward, M. (2001). Reconstructing democracy: Current thinking and new directions. Government and Opposition, 36(4), 559–581. Schlosberg, D., Shulman, S., & Zavetoski, S. (2006). Virtual environmental citizenship: Web-based public participation in rulemaking in the United States. In A.  Dobson & D.  Bell (Eds.), Environmental citizenship (pp.  207–236). London: The MIT Press. Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered. London: Abacus. Shinn, L. D. (2000). The inner logic of Gandhian ecology. In C. K. Chapple & M. E. Tucker (Eds.), Hinduism and ecology: The intersection of earth, sky, and water (pp. 213–241). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Singh, R. P. B. (2019). Environmental ethics and sustainability in Indian thought: Vision of Mahatma Gandhi. , Abstract and keywords, author’s highlight. [our Pdf ref. 491.19]. Web publication. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/39436025/_491.19_._Singh_ Rana_P.B._2019_Environmental_Ethics_and_Sustainability_in_Indian_ Thought_Vision_of_Mahatma_Gandhi._ Skinner, B.  F. (1971). Beyond dignity and freedom. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Smith, A. (1776/1937). The wealth of nations. New York: Modern Library. Sörqvist, P. (2016). Grand challenges in environmental psychology. Frontiers in Psychology [Online publication]. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/ articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00583/full. Steffen, W., Grinevald, J., Crutzen, P., & Mcneill, J. (2011). The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, A, 369, 842–867. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2010.0327. Steffen, W., Rockström, J., Richardson, K., Lenton, T.  M., et  al. (2018). Trajectories of the earth system in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(33, Aug.), 8252–8259. https://doi. org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115.

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Tajfel, H. (1969). Cognitive aspects of prejudice. Journal of Social Issues, 25, 79–97. Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press. Torres, N. (2016, June). Generalists get better job offers than specialists. Harvard Business Review, 32–33. hbr.org. University of East Anglia. (2020, January 14). Climate change increases the risk of wildfires confirms new review. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 16, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200114074046.htm. Vaughan, A. (2016, January 7). Human impact has pushed Earth into the Anthropocene, scientists say. The Guardian. Wilson, C. (2016, August 29). Obituary: Remembering the Holocene epoch. Time. Yeo, S. (2016, October 5). Anthropocene: The journey to a new geological epoch. Carbon brief.continued

CHAPTER 2

The Gandhian Model of Education: Relevance for Educational Psychology

Opening Vignette

Gandhi’s views on education brought to the forefront by a United Nations event in Paris: A life-size hologram of Mahatma Gandhi discusses education for humanity at the Ahinsa lecture The place? It was not in India but halfway across the globe, in Paris at the UNESCO Headquarters. The event? It was the fourth Ahinsa Lectures, a series organized each year ever since its inception in 2016. The agenda this year was discussion on the progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Education The organizer? Not the Government of India as you would expect. Rather, it was organized by the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Peace and Sustainable Development in collaboration with the permanent delegation of India to UNESCO. The occasion? A panel discussion to commemorate the United Nation’s International Day of Nonviolence on October 2nd, as a tribute to Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary on October 2, 2019. Using state-of-the-art holographic technology, an avatar of Gandhi was created using a large number of images from the years 1930–1940 and advanced software and 3D printing to create a life-­ size wire frame of Gandhi. The image was then animated and using (continued) © The Author(s) 2020 V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1_2

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(continued)

voice lip sync techniques, it created this unique holographic image which discussed issues with the panelists. The importance that the world places on Gandhi’s views, in general, and to education, in particular, can be gauged by this global event featuring a panel of discussants, including eminent people to discuss progress on the Sustainable Development Goals for education. The event was inaugurated by the Ambassador of India to France and Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO and the Assistant DirectorGeneral for Priority Africa and External Relations, UNESCO. At this unbelievable event, Gandhi’s hologram exchanged views with Gregoire Borst, Professor of Developmental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience of Education and Vera El Khoury Lacoeuilhe, Member of Advisory Board of UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education and Peace (MGIEP)’s TECH 2019. The discussion was moderated by the Director of MGIEP and was attended by almost 1000 people including youth, educators, academics, policy makers and delegates from various member states of UNESCO. According to the Director of the Institute, who was moderating the discussion, For a better future, we must not just focus on an education that only builds human capital but also human flourishing by providing the next generation a cognitive and social emotional experience of the Gandhian values of Ahinsa (non-violence) and satya (truth). In this way, we can equip our youth to wage peace and sustainability….An education system that builds social and emotional competencies is vital for fostering pro-social behavior. Unless our present education systems embrace building emotional intelligence, we might end up in a world of highly literate people who are lacking empathy and only concerned with their own well-being. This is not sustainable and will not build peaceful and sustainable societies.

One of the quotes from the Gandhi Hologram (see below) presents the essence of the ideals of Gandhi, who emphasized that The essence of all education is kindness—kindness to all, friends, foes, men and beasts. The chief objective of education is the building of character. Imparting knowledge should aim at character building. Knowledge is the means and character building is the end. (UNESCO, MGIEP 2019)

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The UNO Sustainable Development Goals and Gandhi In the year 2015, the United Nations General Assembly set up seventeen global goals, known collectively as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designed specifically to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all” as part of the 2030 Agenda. The importance of these SDGs can be gauged from the words of Ban Ki-Moon, the UNO Secretary-General, who stated in a press conference in 2016 that: “We don’t have plan B because there is no planet B” (UNO November 2016). This is the thought that guided the development of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, some of which are as follows: no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, affordable and clean energy, reduction of inequality, decent work and economic growth, responsible production and consumption. The goals are broad based and are interdependent, each with a list of targets and indicators to measure achievement of the targets. That the thoughts and practices of Gandhi are relevant even in the twenty-first century is revealed through the ways in which scientists and thinkers from the world over have come to the common understanding that the future of the world is in realizing that a sustainable future is the call of the day and that this is possible by following many of the ideas put forth by Gandhi a century ago. As can be seen from the SDGs many of them are in line with the thoughts and ideas propounded by Gandhi in the early 1900s. The Sustainable Development Goal 4 is on education, namely, that of quality education the mission for which was to, Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. (UNDP 2017)

Establishment of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education and Peace and Its Objectives In order to facilitate the pursuance of this SDG for education, a Category 1 research institute was established and was named the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, showing the amount of importance given to Gandhi’s ideas on the education of children and youth in shaping a sustainable future. It was set up in 2012 in New Delhi, the capital of India, by the UNESCO in collaboration with

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the Government of India. The primary objective of this Institute is in line with SDG 4.7, that is, to work toward education for peaceful and sustainable societies. It operates in collaboration with the United Nations University and its founder director is Anantha Duraiappah. The vision of the Institute is “Transforming education for humanity” and the programs and the products are designed such that social and emotional intelligence can become part of mainstream educational systems. It also envisages the innovation of digital pedagogies so that rather than being mere instruments for the transmission of knowledge it enables transformation through appropriate pedagogy. Further, it will attempt to put youth as global citizens right at the center of Agenda 2030. According to the website of the Institute, its approach for fulfilling its objectives is as follows. First and foremost, it is of the opinion that educational systems in all sectors, whether it is the formal, informal and even nonformal sectors, throughout the world need to be transformed. In line with the current research on the neuroscience of learning and cognition (see Kool and Agrawal 2016 for a detailed discussion) which has demonstrated that certain areas of the brain can be “wired” or trained for cognitive and emotional intelligence, the approach uses the whole brain approach. At the same time, keeping up with modern technology, it proposes the harnessing of artificial intelligence systems through its indigenously designed learning platform, FramerSpace. What a way to couple Gandhian thought on the building of moral values with latest advances in science and technology, already being utilized to a considerable extent but with purposes quite different! In an interview with Chaudhary (2020) of the eminent financial newspaper the Financial Times, in January 2020, the Director, Anantha Duraiappah spelt out some of the future directions to be undertaken by the Institute. Anantha Duraiappah pointed out that most educational systems around the world tend to focus on the building of cognitive intelligence, with social and emotional intelligence often getting sidelined. The need of the hour is, however, to pay attention to the ways through which learners can be equipped with social and emotional intelligence. When asked how this could be achieved, his answer was that we can inculcate social and emotional skills through mindfulness, empathy and compassion. Then, only, would students be better able to appreciate and understand other cultures and interact respectfully with them. The onus lies on the teacher; they must change: rather than being mere transmitters of knowledge, they must become nurturers, facilitators and guides.

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The importance of the above is clear from the scenarios so common in the world today, where frustration, aggression and violence run rampant, not to speak of gun-toting teenagers. With the erosion of values, one is witnessing increasing levels of crime, substance addiction and sexual harassment providing evidence that it is now or never. The time has come when we can no longer afford to neglect moral, social and emotional development of children and, even more so, of the youth, who are the citizens of tomorrow. It is also evident that while parents play an extremely significant role as far as such development is concerned, the role that can be played by schools and other educational institutions is equally important (Agrawal 2019). Moreover, it is not just the curriculum and the pedagogy that need to be changed. We need to look much deeper and examine the philosophy underlying the present-day educational systems.

The Philosophy of Education and Educational Psychology Associated with almost every discipline is a science and an art, and, behind these two, there is a philosophy. The same holds for education. The science of education lays out in a scientific manner, on the basis of empirical research, the pedagogy that would be the most appropriate for the particular set of learners. The art of education determines the teaching skills which will determine the extent to which the learners learn. The philosophy of education decides what would be the aims and objectives of education. In other words, the philosophy of education attempts to provide answers regarding the curriculum, the learner and her characteristics and the moral and social considerations of education. From time immemorial, various philosophies of education have been laid out, prominent among which are those of Socrates and his student Plato, Rousseau and Dewey from the Western world. As far as Asia is concerned, Indian thinkers laid out their views in various treatises and scriptures and the views and writings of Confucius were important in China. An analysis of the salient features of the above thinkers would go a long way in determining what should be taught and how it should be taught. One of the earliest thinkers regarding the philosophy of education was Socrates (469 BCE to 399 BCE) though he, himself, did not leave anything in writing. Whatever we know about his ideas is through the writings of his student Plato (427 BCE to 347 BCE). The Socratic method of

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teaching was basically through appropriate analogies drawn from the daily lives and environment of the students. Using the very ingenious analogy of a midwife, he was of the opinion that the teacher can be said to be akin to a midwife, whose job is to simply assist in the process of delivering the child. The actual process takes place within the mother who is the only person who can control the process of childbirth. In a similar vein, the teacher acts as a facilitator, drawing out whatever goodness resides within the child, or as he says, to find a way to pull out the knowledge that is inherent in the child through the active process of recollection by the child. Plato, then, went on to describe what is a virtue, the extent to which it can be taught and the process of learning. Other Western thinkers include Rousseau and Dewey who stressed upon the use of a naturalistic approach, in that the goals of education should emanate from Mother Nature. They also emphasized the inherent goodness of the nature of children, with society being seen as the corruptive element. As far as pedagogy is concerned, they were of the view that a nonauthoritarian approach should be followed, with no coercion being used by the teacher. Instead, the child should be motivated to learn. At the same time, these thinkers realized that children of different ages need to be educated in different ways, with both the pace and the content being varied according to the needs of the developing child. Eastern thinkers such as Confucius followed a very different line of thought. Rather than pulling out what was there in the student, Confucius stressed upon filling in the blank slate or the tabula rasa. The child is not born with knowledge; s/he seeks it through diligence and hard work. According to Li (2012), there are seven virtues that Confucius laid emphasis on and which he felt should be inculcated through education. These are as follows: • Sincerity • Diligence • Endurance of hardship • Perseverance • Concentration • Respect for teachers • Humility (Source: Li, 2012, p. 49)

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As far as India is concerned, education has had a long history and has been spelt out in many ways through various Hindu scriptures such as the Vedas and the Upanishads. According to the Vedas, the goal of education is self-reliance, while according to the Upanishads it is to get salvation. A particular mode of education was advocated, namely, that of the Gurukul. This was a residential system in which a handful of students would live and learn at the home of the teacher (guru). More importantly, the teacher did not merely impart knowledge but acted as a mentor, both spiritual and academic. In comparison to the philosophy of education, educational psychology, as its very name suggests, deals with the psychological aspects of education. It focuses on a variety of issues including characteristics of the learner and the material to be learned, level of cognitive development of the child and teaching, motivating both learner and teacher, attributes of an effective teacher, effective pedagogy, especially issues regarding varying pedagogy depending on the subject matter, the process of learning and the designing of syllabi keeping in mind both the subject matter and the level of cognitive development of the child. Over the years, a variety of teaching and learning systems have been proposed and empirical research has been undertaken to establish the efficacy of these methods and systems of teaching. When one considers modern educational systems with those seen traditionally, both in the Eastern and the Western parts of the globe, things have certainly changed. For one thing, the small residential school with a single guru or mentor is a thing of the past. A common thread running through almost all educational systems around the globe is that while considerable time is spent regarding what should be taught, there is not enough thought being given to ways “to engage, empower, enlighten, and nurture the love of learning” as a result of which the “desire to know is often missing, lost, or has been stolen from the learning experience” (George 2015, p. 3971). Socrates, for one, spent considerable time and effort in spelling out the exact techniques through which learners not only imbibe the knowledge being imparted to them, but also find it meaningful and relevant. Gandhi’s Philosophy of Education According to Alladi (2016), Gandhi drew inspiration for his views on education from the writings of Ruskin, who attached great importance to

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education and constructive programs. Gandhi’s first experiments in education began at the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, where, with the passage of time, it was felt that the children of the residents needed schooling. Gandhi, along with his friends and associates decided to impart education, there at the Farm itself, rather than to send the children to regular school. The founding motto of Ohlange High school, the first school started by a black person in South Africa in 1901, “to teach the hand to work, the brain to understand and the heart to serve” could as well have described, not only Phoenix and Tolstoy Farms, but also Gandhi’s philosophy of education. Understandingly, the pattern being followed in imparting education at the Tolstoy Farm had flaws, but in the words of Gandhi, these were experiments on the basis of which they brought about improvements as they went along. It was here, at Tolstoy Farm, between the years 1910 and 1913 that Gandhi tried out many of his views on education the principal one being that vocational training should be an integral part of education. It was much later, while living at Sevagram (in the year 1937) and in the heat of the Independence struggle, that Gandhi was to write his influential article in the Harijan, putting in black and white, his views on education. On his return to India from South Africa, Gandhi was struck by the failure of the prevailing Macaulay’s system of modern educational system under the British rule. He realized that the pattern of education being followed and the syllabi and pedagogy being used tended to alienate students from both their nation (namely, India) and their environment. Further, it failed to provide the student with a vocation through which he could earn his livelihood. As he ruminated over the problem, it finally dawned upon him that the most viable method for educating the youth of India would be through handicraft. This created a revolution in terms of pedagogy, but, more importantly, it was to be a social revolution. He decided to term this revolutionary form of education, Nai Talim (New Education). The way it was created has been described in Box 2.1. Box 2.1  The Formal Genesis of Nai Talim

In 1937, the Marwadi Shikshan Mandal (Marwari Education Society) was celebrating its silver jubilee. The management conceived of the idea of celebrating the event with a small conference of like-minded educationists to discuss the plan of education advocated (continued)

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Box 2.1  (continued)

by Gandhi. The Secretary of the Society consulted Gandhi with the desirability of convening such a conference and asked him to preside over it. With the assent of Gandhi, the conference was held at Wardha on 22nd and 23rd of October, 1937. Gandhiji approached the task with confidence but in all humility, with an open mind and with the will to learn and to revise and correct his views whenever necessary. He proposed his ideas of education at the conference for consideration as they had appeared to him at that point in time.

Participants of the conference discussed their views on the scheme proposed by Gandhi and at the end of the day, certain resolutions were passed. These were as follows, That free and compulsory education should be provided for seven years on a nationwide scale; that the medium of instruction should be the mother tongue; that the Conference endorses the proposal made by Mahatma Gandhi that the process of education throughout this period should centre round some form of manual and productive work, and that all the other abilities to be developed or training to be given should as far as possible, be integrally related to the central handicraft chosen with due regard to the environment of the child; that the Conference accepts that this system of education will be gradually able to cover the remuneration of the teachers. At the end of the second day, the resolutions were put to vote and they were almost unanimously accepted and a committee was formed to prepare a detailed syllabus on the lines of the resolutions under the Chairmanship of eminent educationist, Dr Zakir Hussain. The committee submitted their report with a detailed syllabus on December 2, 1937. Later, the Indian National Congress passed the same resolution (except the last point, viz., self-supporting nature of education) at its Haripura Session in 1938 and requested Dr Zakir Hussain and Mr. E.  W. Aryanayakam to take immediate steps, under the advice and guidance of Gandhi, to bring an All India Education Board into existence, in order to work out a program in a consolidated manner. (Source: Gandhi, Harijan, 2-10-1937b)

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It was decided to introduce this indigenous system of education in a village near the town of Wardha, in the Indian state of Gujarat in October 1937. Thus, the first formal school using the new pattern of education, namely, Nai Talim, was set up at Sevagram, near Wardha, Gujarat under the very supervision of Gandhi and based on the system of Nai Talim.

Gandhi and Education Gandhi was an educationist par excellence, who realized that a sound educational system led to social, moral and economic progress of the country. Gandhi wrote at length on the topic of education, not only in his autobiography but also through the Hind Swaraj and the Harijan. Gandhi’s writings on education, drawn from his letters, speeches and extracts from books and magazines have been compiled and edited in the form of two volumes, entitled Basic Education (1951) and Towards New Education (1953) by Bharatan Kumarappa. In this chapter we will attempt to summarize the basic tenets of Gandhian Buniyadi Shiksha (Basic Education) and Nai Talim. First and foremost, what according to Gandhi constitutes education? He was of the view that in every person there resides an inherent goodness. It is the duty of the teacher to draw out this goodness. For this, the teacher, herself, must possess a character that is, totally, unsullied. Moreover, the teacher should be always ready to learn and to grow from “perfection to perfection.” Gandhi, himself, was always ready to learn and evolve through the learning process, becoming a person very different from what he was originally. With each experience he learned and grew by incorporating that learning into his personality and behavior. This is what he expected from teachers. Here, one can see the similarity between what Gandhi was advocating and the tenets of the philosophy of education posited by Socrates (Box 2.2). Box 2.2  Gandhi, Socrates and Confucius on Education and Its Psychological Basis

Education is rooted in the culture of a society. While the West is guided more by the focus on the individual who must, in the Socratic tradition, find the answer himself/herself (i.e., individualism), for the collectivist Eastern cultures, there is no escape from the outer (continued)

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Box 2.2  (continued)

world and therefore, learning how to create a balance between individual thinking and the context of the social forces must be the goal of education. Recently, several good publications have emerged to highlight the difference between the two approaches (see Jin Li 2012; Peters 2015). An evaluation of Gandhi’s approach reveals that he was, first and foremost, impressed by the philosophy of Socrates though he also admired Confucius’ famous saying, “to study without thinking is worthless, to think without study is dangerous.” So, how did Gandhi apply these two vastly different approaches to educating the human mind? Let’s take the lesson he offered to his volunteers, that is, the satyagrahi, who wanted to be a part of his independence movement. The cardinal principle, imperative for every satyagrahi was to believe in oneself before joining the movement. According to Raghavan Iyer (1983) Gandhi, like Socrates, gave importance to the inner voice and valued conscious objectors. But at the same time, Raghavan Iyer concluded that Gandhi also encouraged his volunteers “to find the basis for social solidarity and authentic community life in action, motivated and checked by conscience” (p. 124). Gandhi’s search for truth was akin to Socrates’ famous saying, “the unexamined life is not worth living,” but seeking common progression by working together to benefit society, which was the goal of Confucius, was also never underestimated by Gandhi. The main caveat in understanding and integrating these two approaches is that when Confucius demanded respect and obedience from the learners to maintain social order, it was in direct contrast to the approach used by Socrates who never hesitated in condemning or humiliating authority. In the context of our global view of humanity, the warning given to educational psychologists about the dangers of preferring one over the other by Tweed and Lehman, in their thought-provoking article in the American Psychologist, February 2002, would appear redundant. In contrast, Gandhi could strike a balance between the two approaches, using truth and love as the core instruments for the (continued)

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Box 2.2  (continued)

imparting of education, yet, not forgetting cultural priorities. Understandingly so, and with the increasing blend of Eastern and Western cultures both through physical mobility and the Internet, Gandhi’s life and work are more relevant now in the current millennium than ever before.

Nai Talim (New Education) and its Salient Features Moreover, education as envisaged by Gandhi had to be multifaceted, not being the mere transmission of knowledge and information. Rather, it had to be an integration of methods and syllabi that would lead to the all-­ round growth of the child. According to Gandhi, Man is neither mere intellect, nor the gross animal body, nor the heart or soul alone. A proper and harmonious combination of all the three is required for making of the whole man and constitutes the true economics of education. (Gandhi 1940)

Free Education from Seven to Fourteen Years of Age At the Conference at Wardha, the scheme of education was formalized, which included universal education for seven years, starting at the age of seven years and going on up to the age of fourteen years. The reason why Gandhi advocated that education should start only at the age of seven and not before that was because of his conviction that “There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.” He, therefore, did not want to separate the child from the parent especially during the formative years of early childhood. Gandhi impressed upon everyone that these seven years were enough to not only develop the mind but also to inculcate the social values necessary for a healthy society based on the principles of tolerance and nonviolence. These seven years formed what Gandhi called Buniyadi Shiksha (Basic Education) and the system of education was named Nai Talim (New Education) under which literary education would be imparted through vocational training and productive craft.

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The basic assumption underlying Nai Talim can be summed up in the words of Gandhi, as, I hold that true education of the intellect can come only through proper exercise and training of the bodily organs….I hold that the highest development of the mind and souls is possible under such a system of education. Only every handicraft has to be taught not merely mechanically as is done today, but scientifically, i.e. the child should know the why and wherefore of every process….I have myself taught sandal-making and even spinning on these lines with good results. This method does not exclude a knowledge of history and geography. But I find that this is best taught by transmitting such general information by word of mouth. One imparts ten times as much in this manner as by reading and writing. The signs of the alphabet may be taught later…Of course, the pupil learns mathematics through his craft….I attach greatest importance to primary education, which according to my conception should be equal to the present matriculation less English. (Gandhi 1937a)

Gandhi also made it clear that he would not make these seven years of education compulsory for all children. In fact, he maintained that he had a distaste for the word “compulsory” because of its connotation of force or coercion, a form of violence, in other words. He would certainly want every child to be educated, but without the use of force of any kind. Rather, he insisted that the school and the teachers should, by their very behavior and the course content, be able to lure the parents to send their children to school. As the child got older, the attraction of the school system should be so great, that s/he would want to attend school. Thus, even without making it compulsory, every child would be educated. Universal Education Once, when he was about to embark on a journey from Johannesburg to Durban, in South Africa, a good friend of his handed him a book. The book, none other than Unto This Last by John Ruskin (1860), gripped Gandhi to the extent that he was unable to sleep the entire night. Later, in 1908, he paraphrased the book in Gujarati and entitled it Sarvodaya (Guha 2013). The basic theme of Ruskin’s book was total inclusiveness, right down to the lowliest person, and that individual welfare is contained in the welfare for all. In other words, individual welfare would be served only when the welfare of each and every person in the society is looked

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after. Moreover, Ruskin insisted that every person has the same right of earning their livelihood from whatever work they are capable of doing. As such, no one should be deprived of this right to work and earn. Gandhi translated this concept into the Hindi word sarvodaya meaning compassion for all. Basically it refers to universal upliftment, progress for all and equality in all aspects, at all strata of society (Patankar 2011). It was with reference to this principle of sarvodaya that Gandhi insisted that there should be universal education. According to the caste system prevailing in India at that time, the general perception was that only people of the higher castes (i.e., the Brahmans) were entitled to education. There was no need for either the warrior class (the Kshatriyas) or the trading caste (Vaishyas) to be educated. The lowest caste (the Shudras) who undertook menial work of the community was normally deprived of not only education but all other facilities and was considered untouchable. For Gandhi, this was a matter of great shame and he, therefore, gave them a new name, with a new connotation. He started calling them harijan (God’s people) and insisted that there should be no discrimination against them. For Gandhi, it was mandatory that the children from harijan families have as much right to education as children from Brahman families (a caste considered to be the highest caste) and that there should be no discrimination in the schools, based on caste, creed or any other factor. Education should be vehicle for social revolution such that “Education should be so revolutionized as to answer the wants of the poorest villager, instead of answering those of an imperial exploiter.” The government would have the onus of starting these schools, but once in operation, the schools should be self-supporting by generating their own income from the sale of products made by the teachers and the students. In this way, the education would become not only universal but also free as far as the parents are concerned and at the same time would not be a burden on the government exchequer. Education Through Handicraft Gandhi emphasized that the goal of education is not just the transmission of mere bookish knowledge from the teacher to the taught. Rather, Nai Talim was to be a craft-based education which would lead to the development of mind, body and soul, in contrast to the system prevailing at that time, which cared only for the mind (Gandhi, Harijan, 1937b). Going a step further, Gandhi emphasized that this new system of education should

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be defined as education for life, through life and throughout life. Gandhi himself was a life-long learner, drawing upon the results of his experiments on himself and evolving according to the results (Sanghavi 2006). This was the vision that he had for all citizens of India. Gandhi had a firm belief in “bread labor,” in that a nation can become strong and independent only when each and every person realizes the importance of work and the dignity of labor. For Gandhi, no work was mean or lowly, there was no work that could not be done by the people themselves and for which one needed to employ paid staff. He followed this principle in earnest himself and expected it from his wife Kasturba, his children and later at his farms and ashrams, he expected this of each and every member. In order to understand the dignity of work, children must be brought up in a manner by which they inculcate the habit of doing all kinds of work. Toward this end, Gandhi made it mandatory that every child should be taught at least one craft, laying greatest importance to the teaching and learning of spinning. The important function served by education through handicraft would be that the child would learn, from its very childhood, the dignity of labor. Compare this to what happens when we educate children of peasants and villagers in our so-called modern schools: the majority of them do not want to engage in farming activities, thereafter. For an agriculture-based country such as India, where the majority of the population resides in the rural areas and farming is the basic occupation, the development of such anti-farming attitudes among the youth is extremely deleterious, both for the family and the country. Training the child in a vocation right from early childhood would also help to overcome the problems of unemployment which lead to frustration with violence and crime as the end result.  he Logic for Education Through Handicraft T Besides craft being used for teaching children the value of work, Gandhi was of the opinion that craft could be used to develop the intellect. Giving the example of spinning, he stated that one could teach children, not just the craft of spinning but also history, geography, basics of science and technology and engineering and even ecology. How could this be accomplished? Answering criticisms and questions regarding how spinning could help in the development of the intellect, he stated that spinning is important because it could serve a number of purposes. First and foremost, the children would be learning by doing and doing something that they could

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identify with. As they spin the cotton into yarn, the teacher could introduce them to their first lessons in geography by telling them about the region from where the cotton came from. They could be introduced to the type of soil needed for the cultivation of cotton and from there proceed to the different types of soil and other principles of agriculture. The children’s appetite for history could be vetted by explaining the history of the spinning wheel. As they would spin and count the number of reams of yarn they had spun, they would learn the basics of mathematics. Explaining how the spinning wheel works would ensure that children understand the principles of science and engineering, while the ways by which spinning does not disturb the environment would make significant contributions toward developing a healthy attitude toward nature and the environment. All this could be accomplished without a single textbook and would, thereby, free the school and the parents from the burden of books and notebooks, stationery and other paraphernalia commonly seen in the school bag of any child. According to Gandhi, such education is not derived from textbooks, but from the “Book of Life,” which cannot be taken away from the individual by any person on earth. Only after the children had mastered the art and science of spinning and in the process have been introduced to basic concepts of history, geography, mathematics and science, should they be introduced to writing. According to Gandhi, this initial process of mastering a craft should take at least six months, during which the children should do only handicraft. Literary education should follow the education of the hand—the one gift that visibly distinguishes man from beast… “Literacy is not the end of education not even the beginning. It is one of the means whereby man and woman can be educated. Literacy in itself is no education. (Gandhi 1937b)

Thereafter, they could be introduced to writing but only by following a logical sequence, starting with the children being taught how to recognize the letters and words (reading), followed by the drawing of simple shapes, patterns and figures such as that of birds and animals and other objects seen in their immediate surroundings. Only after the children had learned to use their fingers dexterously should they be taught writing. Taught in this fashion, the children would develop a beautiful handwriting, because for Gandhi, “I consider writing as a fine art. We kill it by

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imposing the alphabet on little children and making it the beginning of learning.” It is often been said that Gandhi was against modernity, in general, and technology in particular. While considering Gandhi’s views on modernity, it is mandatory that one also considers the reasons for his criticism. What Gandhi wanted was that, rather than hurtling forward, at a pace that hardly gives one time to pause and think, one needs to contemplate on the repercussions and implications of one’s thoughts, one’s ideas and one’s inventions (Hofmeyr 2014). In our book, Psychology of Technology (Kool and Agrawal 2016), we have discussed at length how the Internet is changing our very method of reading and comprehending. It was in this context that Gandhi wanted that not only writing but also reading should be slow, giving time for the mind to not only grasp what is being read but also to contemplate. Through such a slowing down, one could accomplish, Small moments of intellectual independence… this focus on bodily rhythm… became central to his larger and world famous critique of modernity that questioned the equation of speed with efficiency and technology with progress. (Geetha 2014)

It was in this way that Nai Talim would be far different from ordinary education, which cared for little else besides the mind. While accepting that development of the intellect is important, Gandhi emphasized that it should not be the only aim of education. Our system of basic education leads to the development of the mind, body and soul while ordinary education cares only for the mind. (Gandhi 1947, p. 401)

Self-Supporting Aspect of Education While crafts such as spinning would help in the development of intellect, it would also enable the children of the school to make objects which could be sold and the sale proceeds be used for running the school. Other vocations that could be taught to the children included animal husbandry and horticulture and the making of decorative items, which could be easily sold to generate revenue for the school. This would not only help to inculcate the spirit of “bread labor” that Gandhi stressed upon, but also make the schools self-supporting.

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While education through handicraft would be a highly enriching experience for the child, it would also serve an important economic function. Pointing to America, a rich country, where children earn while they learn, Gandhi emphasized that such a philosophy was even more important for a poor country like India. Through the making of handicrafts and developing other vocational skills such as animal husbandry and dairy farming and even agriculture, the child would be able to earn, and the school would have a source of revenue. Thus, for developing countries like India, the school would cease to be a burden to either the state or to the society; rather, it would become self-sufficient (Chauhan 2004; Gandhi, Harijan, 1937a). This was, probably, the original concept of self-financing educational institutes that we see mushrooming everywhere. But, there is an important difference. While the self-financing institutes of today generate revenue through hefty fees obtained from students, Gandhi’s schools generated revenue from the handicrafts and other products made by the students and their teachers. He implored upon students to think of the high degree of satisfaction that they would derive, knowing that they had not depended on anyone to pay for their education. Obtaining a scholarship would certainly not lead to the same sense of satisfaction. At the same time, by working for their education they would develop self-reliance and independence. The Medium of Instruction According to Gandhi, that education is the best which can be grasped by the students. It is but obvious that the native language, or what in India is known as the mother tongue, would be the language to which the child is exposed right from the very time of its birth. Due to this initial exposure, s/he would well understand the multiple nuances and connotations of every word. Further, this would be the language in which his/her vocabulary is the strongest. At the same time, there are so many aspects of life in general, for which words exist only in the native language, whether it is different types of fruits and vegetables that are locally grown or it is the festivals and rituals of that particular region. Is it possible to explain these in a foreign language? While upholding the advantages of teaching in the native language, Gandhi professed that his views on the above should not be taken otherwise,

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I must not be understood to decry English or its noble literature…but the nobility of its literature cannot avail the Indian nation any more than the temperate climate or the scenery of England can avail her. (Gandhi 1938, p. 177)

He went on to explain in great depth the needlessness of teaching the students in English. According to him, one does not have to know Bengali to understand the beauty of the poetic works of the great Indian poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Similarly, one did not need to learn Russian to appreciate the works of Tolstoy. Thus, in the system of education enunciated by him, children would have exposure to the literature and religious works of the world and the contributions of various scientists and their inventions and discoveries, but all in their native language. Only then, would they be better able to appreciate the thoughts and the works of people who had written in English or for that matter, in any language. At the same time, he admitted that English was, no doubt, a world language, and that he would be the last person to refute this fact. But, it should be taught as a second language, only after the child had had her basic education, and it should be for a select few. There was no need for the masses to either learn English or for basic, primary education to be undertaken in English.

Education and the Creed of Nonviolence For Gandhi, nonviolence was not just a simple strategy for obtaining independence or for resolving conflicts. It was a creed which had to be imbibed by all, and, one of the important vehicles for the learning of nonviolence is education. One of the ways in which this is being incorporated in education in the twenty-first century has been described in Box 2.3. For Gandhi, whatsoever the political system, it had to be aligned with and be connected to education. Moreover, to a righteous and virtuous political system it would be apparent that there is an element of goodness present in every person. All that is needed is to bring out this inherent goodness, through a proper education system aligned to the principles of such a political system. Basing education on the creed of nonviolence would ensure the bringing out of this element of goodness.

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Box 2.3  Taking Gandhi’s Nai Talim to Schools

As part of the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of the Mahatma, an effort is being made to take Gandhi’s ideas on education in general and Nai Talim in particular to various educational institutions all over India. In fact, on the occasion of Teacher’s Day, celebrated on September 5th every year, a book was released, entitled Experiential Learning—Gandhiji’s Nai Talim containing the basic principles along with the educational curriculum for schools, teacher training programs such as those of D.Ed. and B.Ed. and for faculty development programs. The book and the project is a joint venture of the state universities, the State Council for Educational Research and Training, the Mahatma Gandhi National Council of Rural Education and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), Government of India. In the state of Goa alone, this book and movement will be reaching out to over 97,044 students and 4162 teachers in 1157 primary schools; 71,160 students and 2975 teachers in 64 middle schools, as well as 71,630 students and 3433 teachers in 408 secondary schools and 36,975 students and 1790 teachers in 100 higher secondary schools as part of the campaign. Further, a one-day consultative workshop was also organized by the Directorate of Higher Education, Goa and supported by the Department of Higher Education, Mahatma Gandhi National Council of Rural Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. It was inaugurated by the Director of Higher Education, Prasad Loleyakar, and was well attended by teachers and educators alike to discuss the possibilities of integrating Nai Talim into the prevailing curriculum of education in India. The Director emphasized on the need for the introduction of the Gandhian ideology based on ability, confidence building, tolerance and skillfulness in the present education system.

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I believe implicitly that the child is not born mischievous in the bad sense of the term. If parents would behave themselves whilst the child is growing, before it is born and after, it is a well-known fact that the child would instinctively obey the law of Truth and law of Love. And when I understood this lesson in the early part of my life, I began a gradual but distinct change in life… If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won’t have to struggle, we won’t have to pass fruitless idle resolutions. But we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which, consciously or unconsciously, the whole world is hungering. (Gandhi 1911–1931, p. 361)

Thus, Gandhi stated that the goal of education is to build up a “nonviolent, non-exploiting social order, in which the ideals of freedom, equality and brotherhood can be fully and universally recognized” (Pyarelal 1956, p. 332) because “there is no way to peace; peace is the way” (quoted by Sykes 1988). For Gandhiji, Nai Talim was the expression of the principle of non-violence in the educational sphere. It was the preparation for, and practice of, the peaceful organisation of a co-operative human community. … There is a tendency to think of “peace education” as another “subject” on the school timetable, concerned with “putting in information” on relevant aspects of the international political and economic structure… Yes, information of this kind may have its place…. It comes alive, as a real part of peace education, only if it is related to an attitude of mind and spirit which is as relevant at the school level, at the village level, as at the international level—an attitude which says, in effect: “There is no, way to peace; peace is the way”. Education for peace means learning to live peace, daily and hourly, wherever one happens to be, learning to tackle and resolve the tensions and conflicts of outlook and interest which are a necessary and valuable part of human experience. To this learning of the way of peace the principles and practice of Nai Talim have a great deal to contribute. (Sykes 1988)

For inculcating the spirit of nonviolence, Gandhi suggested that children should be initiated to the scriptures not only of their religion or faith but to that of all the major faiths of the world. That would enable the child to appreciate and respect people of diverse religions and creeds and to be broadminded. Understanding the religion of others would also make the children tolerant of other people, thereby minimizing conflicts between

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them. As stated by Gandhi, “An education which does not teach us to discriminate between good and bad, to assimilate one and eschew the other is a misnomer.” Education and Character Building In fact, in Gandhi’s opinion, the goal of education should be character building and it should lead to self-realization. According to Gandhi, character building is the central purpose of education, implying that education should be able to bring out the best in the person and should be able to cultivate virtues such as courage, strength of conviction, a purity of heart, righteousness, inner discipline, the subordination of one’s own interests to the greater interest of the society, service to mankind, universal love and nonviolence. The same was stressed by President Kovind of India, at an event in Bolivia (see Box 2.4). Such

Box 2.4  Gandhi and Character Building in Bolivia

In March 2019, the President of India spoke regarding the importance of character building as he inaugurated an auditorium at the University at Santa Cruz, Bolivia, naming it after Gandhi, to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of the great leader. During his address, President Kovind said that, like Bolivia, India gives great importance to the preservation of indigenous languages and knowledge systems and, Gandhiji remains extremely relevant to 21st-century global concerns. In his advocacy of sustainability, ecological sensitivity and living in harmony with nature, he anticipated some of the pressing challenges of our times. The Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations are Gandhian philosophy in action. President Kovind was quoted as saying in a statement released by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. (Business Standard 2019)

The President of India, Kovind spoke at large, on the ways in which Gandhi anticipated many of the problems besetting the youth of the twenty-first century, such as the erosion of social, ethical and moral values, increasing cynicism, youth unrest and frustration and ecological violence. (Adapted from Business Standard March 30, 2019)

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character building and the strengthening of morality and ethics among students could be attained through the introduction of religious education, which would inculcate forbearance and tolerance in the individual. Explaining the importance and need of religious education, Gandhi wrote in Young India on December 6, 1923, A curriculum of religious instructions should include a study of the tenets of faiths other than one’s own. For this purpose the students should be trained to cultivate the habit of understanding and appreciating the doctrine of various great religions of the world in a spirit of reverence and broadminded tolerance. (Gandhi 1923)

While the school and the teacher would play an important role in helping the students inculcate such high moral values, he also insisted that part of the onus lay on the students themselves to draw and learn from their teachers, parents and society. Very rightly, he pointed out that no one can build a person’s character. It is built only when the individual desires it and works upon it. Delineating some of the ways through which a sound moral character could be inculcated, he even advised students regarding how to go about it. Character cannot be built with mortar and stone. It cannot be built by hands other than your own. The Principal and the Professor cannot give you character from the pages of books. Character building comes from their very lives and really speaking, it must come from within yourselves. (Gandhi 1962)

Gandhi also implored upon students to use their free time for service to the society. In fact, in his writings we find several suggestions for the ways in which students could use their vacations. He asked them to run short-­ term classes and courses based on their own learning for children who were not getting an education for some reason or the other. To inculcate inclusiveness among the students, he asked them to go to the harijan communities, to teach them the basics of hygiene and sanitation, to take the aged and the sick to hospitals and to enable them to get medical treatment. Students could even conduct night classes for illiterate adults from such low-caste communities. In this manner, they would become a vehicle

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for a silent social revolution and at the same time get immense personal satisfaction by being of help to the disadvantaged. Thus, for Gandhi, education would be for “the creation of a new world.” Take the Educational Institutions to the Village Gandhi always emphasized that it was far better to bring the school to the village than to take children to the city. He stated that “true education must correspond to the surrounding circumstances or it is not a healthy growth.” Then only, would we be able to impart an education best suited to the needs of the villages. According to him, many of the problems seen among students emanate from the difference between the culture of the village and that of the city school. In the prevailing scheme of education, in which education was being undertaken in the cities, the village child was forced to come to the city to imbibe education. First and foremost, this led to problems of adjusting to the urban life because of the vast difference between rural and urban cultures. Secondly, the child was separated from his or her parents and family, creating problems of its own, including the burden of extra expenditure on the child for lodging and boarding. At the same, the child, separated as s/he is from the parents, is also unable to imbibe important values from the parents and the family. When the child returns to the village after education, more problems come his way. S/he is no longer ready to adjust back to the life of the village, nor does s/he want to engage in farming and other activities of the rural or village home. S/he therefore becomes a misfit in both places. All of the above could be avoided by taking the school to the village instead of calling the village boy or girl to the city for educational purposes. The goal of education should be to make village children into model villagers. For such a scheme of education which would understand the verities of the local culture, Gandhi advocated that teacher training should also be imparted in the villages themselves so that teachers would comprehend the needs of each village and impart education accordingly.

Character Building in Modern Education How right Gandhi was regarding the importance of character building as an integral part of education has been borne out by both empirical research and practice over the years. The year 1966 marked a milestone in research and understanding about character development. The cause of this

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excitement was a paper in the School Review by Lawrence Kohlberg linking his theory of the ways in which cognitive development leads to moral reasoning among children to the practice of moral development in schools at that time. For the next twenty years, discussion on moral dilemmas and their role in the development of moral reasoning dominated the field of moral education and was extensively researched upon (Kool 1993, 2008; Kool and Agrawal 2013). The buzz was regarding the ways that Kohlberg suggested for enhancing the development of moral reasoning. According to him, teachers should not moralize. Rather, their task was to facilitate moral reasoning among students by assisting them in resolving moral dilemmas with active, interactive discussion undertaken in an atmosphere conducive to such thinking. Over the past twenty years or so, research interest in this field has intensified (Berkowitz and Bier 2007; Dusenbury et al. 2014) mainly because of public concern over the rapidly rising levels of substance use and violence among children (Lerner et  al. 2009; Lerner 2005). Over the ages, character education has been known by a variety of names, including social and emotional learning, moral education, character strengths, positive youth development, prosocial behavior, ethical education, cognitive-socio-emotional competencies and skills for successful living and learning, to name just a few (Snyder 2014). But, whatever the name it goes by, the basic elements are the same, in that character refers to socio-moral competencies. According to Berkowitz (1997), it is a psychological competency involving seven aspects: • Moral action • Moral values • Moral personality • Moral emotions • Moral reasoning • Moral identity • Foundational characteristics One can see, from the above, that the fundamental dimension is that of morality and ethics, so if you call an individual a person of character, it is probable that s/he possesses many of the above mentioned characteristics. We would, also, like to draw the attention of the reader to the large number of empirical studies that we have conducted which have revealed that morality is a salient feature of the nonviolent personality (Kool 1990,

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1992, 2008; Kool et al. 2002; Kool and Keyes 1990; Kool and Sen 1984). More details are provided in Chapter 7 of Volume 1 of this book. The bulk of the research has corroborated the finding that social-­ emotional development is not just a predictor of moral values exhibited by the person later in life but that it also shows positive and significant correlations with academic achievement, attendance and discipline (Snyder et al. 2010). Moreover, such discipline inculcated during the school years goes a long way in predicting violence in school (Heaviside et al. 1999) and to prevent substance use, violent behavior and even sexual activity among elementary school children (Beets et al. 2009). Besides this, there is the growing awareness that most health behaviors are interlinked and socio-emotional and character development can positively affect multiple behavior domains such as conduct-related behaviors, social and emotional skills, and academic achievement (Catalano et  al. 2004, 2014; Dodds 2016; Durlak et  al. 2011; Montonye et  al. 2013). Further, studies have pointed out that investment in promoting such development in schools offers strong economic returns for the community (Belfield et al. 2015) and suggest that it should become an integral part of education (Cohen 2006; Elias 2014; Elias et al. 2014). In view of the above, considerable emphasis has been put on making character education an integral part of education, so much so, that it has been termed the “future of education” (Spallino 2017). Yet, problems facing educators interested in focusing on such development are also many. Most schools are beset by issues of accountability regarding the completion of the core curriculum with comprehensive syllabi and may thus focus solely on math, reading, writing and science. Due to time and resource constraints teachers often find that they do not have time for anything other than the core syllabus, leading to the abandoning of social-­ emotional character building. Another issue is regarding the ways through which character development is being carried out. Most programs that have been developed and are being implemented show promise but fail to achieve the intended purpose, mainly, because they are problem centered and tend to address only proximal issues (e.g., violent behavior) and not the ultimate, distal issues of neighborhood safety or bonding with parents (Catalano et al. 2004; Flay 2002). But first and foremost, what is character education? Berkowitz et  al. (2012) define it as,

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The intentional attempt in schools to foster the development of students’ psychological characteristics that motivate and enable them to act in ethical, democratic and socially effective and productive ways. (Berkowitz et  al., 2012, p. 72)

Does character education work? According to Berkowitz and Bier (2007), the answer would certainly be “yes, it works,” but under certain conditions (Snyder 2014). Many of the ways through which the school can help in the socialization of the child and wean him/ her away from violence have been discussed by Kool and Agrawal in their books (2006, 2016). The Theory of Triadic Influence (Snyder 2014) Over the years, a vast amount of empirical data and observations has accumulated regarding character building, causing considerable confusion for practitioners and researchers alike. It is to unravel these multifarious factors that an attempt was made some years back to develop a coherent theory of character building. By taking into account the various intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological models and the vast amount of empirical research on character development through education, the theory of triadic influence (TTI) was developed. The main objective of the TTI was to provide an overarching theory to understand two aspects, namely, (a) what causes health-related behaviors and (b) how to effectively promote positive behavior, a primary goal of socio-emotional character development (SECD) programming. A salient feature of the TTI is the ecological aspect which is based on Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) conceptualization of cultural/environmental factors. The theory also incorporates the time factor, showing that lower level factors are not only easier but also faster (Fig. 2.1). To have the greatest impact, SECD should not be relegated to merely the school but should take into its fold, the out of school environment, for example, the parents and the community. The TTI clarifies that, if implemented properly and with sufficient resources, the program should be able to address changes in intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental streams, provided that they are comprehensive programs with multiple components and started early in the life of the child (Lapsley 2014). Berkowitz and Bier (2007) recommend that programs should endeavor to systematically change classrooms and the entire school culture. Also,

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Cultural/Environmental Interpersonal Intra-Personal Ultimate

Emotional aspect Cognitive aspect

Distal

Proximal

BEHAVIOR Fig. 2.1  The theory of triadic influence (based on Snyder 2014)

the efforts must persist over time if they are to have any effect (Denham and Weissberg 2004). One review (Flay 2002) has acknowledged the utility of the TTI in explaining the causes of behaviors, and a large number of studies have provided corroborative evidence (e.g., Beets et  al. 2009; Ji et  al. 2005; Lewis et al. 2013; Snyder et al. 2012, 2013). From the research on SECD and the implementation of the programs, it is clear that an integrated theoretical approach such as the TTI leads to greater success. In fact, the TTI serves a multitude of aims, from designing the program to building up expectations regarding the results and evaluating the program. As far as implementation of SECD is concerned, one program which has been developed according to the tenets of the TTI is the Positive Action Program (Flay and Allred 2010). It has been found to have considerable success in building character and aiding socio-emotional development as well as in aiding academic achievement (Bavarian et  al. 2013; Beets et  al. 2009; Li et  al. 2011; Marini 2017; Snyder et  al. 2010). Teachers, too, play an important role in character building and in the development of attitudes and behaviors necessary for success in life (Blazar and Kraft 2017; Gershenson 2016).

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Nai Talim Schools of the Twenty-First Century If the scenario described in Box 2.5 could take place in a couple of days of intense exposure to Gandhi, just think of how much can be and is being accomplished by schools which are patterned after Gandhi’s Nai Talim.

Box 2.5  A Practicum Using Gandhi

In a very meaningful manner, an educator and anti-bullying resource person from India, Rohit Kumar, demonstrated that Gandhi is relevant in the twenty-first century and that, too, for the youth. One of his friends celebrated Gandhi’s birth anniversary on October 2, 2019, by watching the movie Gandhi. It was but natural that what followed was an avid discussion on Gandhi, his life, his thoughts and his relevance for the twenty-first century. Seeing the powerful effect of the movie, this educator decided to see whether the showing of this movie would have a similar effect on students. He decided to try it out with an adolescent audience of a school known for its high incidence of bullying through a five-day workshop entitled “Catching Up with Gandhi.” The workshop started by asking the students to enumerate the problems facing present-day India and the ways through which they could be tackled. The students were then asked whether the actions of a single person make a change as far as these problems were concerned. The answer given by one girl stood out above the rest. She said, “yes, one person could make the difference, but only if he is truly trustworthy and is a man of strong personal integrity.” Could the organizers ask for a better introduction to Gandhi? The students then saw the movie, Gandhi. None of the children had seen the movie earlier and none were familiar with the many episodes depicted in the movie. As they watched the events unfolding, from Gandhi’s life to Tolstoy Farm, the Dandi March, Sabarmati and Champaran, there was complete attentiveness, to the extent that it amazed the organizers. In the words of Rohit, It was remarkable to see a class full of ‘digital natives’ steeped in the world of smartphones and sound bites, and with ostensibly short attention spans watch a lengthy 1982 movie in near total silence. This silence was so pervasive that it continued for several minutes even after the movie had ended.

(continued)

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Box 2.5  (continued)

They then asked the students “to do the Gandhi thing” and take a moral inventory of their own lives, and to examine the extent to which they practiced truth and nonviolence in their own lives. They did so and the large majority admitted, though sheepishly, that their behavior left much to be desired. Commending them on their honesty, they were then asked to sit with someone whom they either did not know very well or with whom they did not get on very well. This turned out to be a powerful experience and soon new friendships were forged. Thereafter, they were seated in a circle and were asked them to share what it felt like to be in this class. Haltingly at first but slowly and surely, they started speaking freely. The victims of bullying expressed the agony they had gone through leading to others coming and even hugging them. But the most powerful effects of satya and ahimsa came out through the ways in which the bullies became sobered when they realized how much harm they had done, often unknowingly. Perceptions were changed and empathy was built. The message of Gandhi was not only transmitted but also wrought immense changes in the students. This was how Gandhi changed a few students in one school. It is a vivid portrayal of the power wielded by this person even today. The last time Rohit checked with the school he was happy to learn that the incidence of bullying had come down tremendously and conviviality in general had increased. Could one ask for more? (Adapted from Rohit Kumar, October 20, 2019, The Wire)

While the first school incorporated on the basis of the principles of Nai Talim was set up way back in 1937 in Sevagram, Gujarat, under the very guidance of Gandhi, a large number of schools followed suit, especially in the state of Gujarat. The majority are still in operation and are yielding tremendous benefits for the region in which they are operating. There is also a Nai Talim Sangh (association) which not only promotes the principles of Nai Talim but also organizes workshops and seminars for

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the dissemination of information about this system of education. In the year 2002, the Government of India-run National Council of Rural Institutes sanctioned a project to the Nai Talim Sangh to set up a status report on Nai Talim in Gujarat. Twenty-five model institutes were identified. After a detailed study of these institutes, success stories were published in the form of small booklets. One such highly commendable school is the Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya in Bardoli, the seat of a famous Satyagraha. The school is run by a lady Niranjana Kalarthi, steeped in Gandhian values, being born and having lived in the very place from which Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel operated. Both of us authors have had a chance to meet Niranjana and the school which she runs. An interview with her has been given in an earlier chapter (Chapter 3 of Volume 1 of this book). Here we give the details of the school itself. The Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya, Bardoli (India) The famous Bardoli Satyagraha started in the year 1928, under the able leadership of the “Iron Man” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, later to become the first home minister in independent India. The success of the Satyagraha soon made the small village of Bardoli famous giving rise to the slogan “Bardolize India” implicating that the example set by Bardoli should be followed by others. After India got independence, the village became a historical place due to its connection with the freedom struggle. The Swarajya Ashram, the seat of the Satyagraha, at Bardoli started receiving visitors from far and wide. One such visitor happened to be an educationist who pointed out to the manager of the ashram, Uttamchand Shah, that while this place has everything, one thing that was noticeable by its very absence was a school along the lines advocated by Gandhi. Discussions took place with the trustees of the ashram and it was finally decided that Uttamchand’s daughter, Niranjana and her husband, Mukul Kalarthi, who were already doing superb work in this field at another place, should be entrusted with the management of a girls’ school to be established there. One building was renovated accordingly, and in 1966, with much fanfare, the school was inaugurated by the famous Gandhian Kakasahib Kelkar and started functioning with twenty-two girls to be attending the eighth grade. With each successive year, one more grade was added, till in 1969, they were running classes from the eighth to eleventh grade or

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Matriculation (equivalent to the high school). Thus, in four years, a full-­ fledged residential school with four grades was established with almost 125 girls. Trees were planted, a garden was set up, and new buildings were constructed to house the school and its inmates, all under the supervision of Niranjana and her husband Mukul, with the able guidance of her father Uttamchand. The girls came from far-off regions, from areas that were primarily jungle land; they had to travel far and the vast majority of them had never seen a town, leave alone anything connected to civilized living. An art room, a science laboratory, a kitchen, a spinning room, a library, well-crafted gardens, each of these is part of the school. Each year, there is normally a rush for admission, but due to several constraints, not all those who seek admission can be admitted. Priority is given to those who come from areas where there is no facility for secondary education and to those who are needy. The SSC (a public examination equivalent to high school) results of the school have always been excellent and many of their students have gone on to college and university to become professionals. There are a large number of projects running in the school including the forest-medicinal garden, solar energy based gadgets such as solar cooker and solar water heater, a gas plant based on organic waste collected in the school, a kitchen using smokeless stoves and gas produced from cow dung, a well-equipped chemistry and physics laboratory and a social studies room. Education through craft and industry is the core of Nai Talim. In view of this, all the work of cleaning and maintaining the premises is carried out by the girl students, there being no helpers of any kind. Moreover, productive crafts, crafts that would be useful to them when they went back to their homes, are taught to them. The curriculum has been so arranged that only four hours are devoted to academic subjects with almost three hours being devoted to various crafts. From the day the school started, agriculture was the core craft being taught to the girls. Though they were daughters of farmers and herdsmen, they learned how to do farming in a scientific manner, which included evaluation and identification of soil types, watering and weeding and the rotation of crops. Crops of both wheat and rice were grown and through the process the children learned about the types of seeds, tilling, manuring and weeding. Gandhi always stressed upon the use of craft for educating. This principle was followed in earnest. For example, while the girls learned the importance of weeding, they were explained that weeding of plants is

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synonymous with the removal of vices from humans. Just as vices have to be removed in order that the virtues show up, so also, weeds must be removed for the beauty of the crop to come to the surface. In this manner, moral education was imparted through craft. They even grow fruits such as grapes and have a kitchen garden to grow vegetables, the produce of which are consumed by the students themselves. Imagine the deep sense of pride in eating what you have grown! In keeping with their agricultural pursuits, the timetable was also kept very flexible, depending on the seasons and the amount of time needed to be devoted to agriculture and other such activities. The girls also learned animal husbandry and dairy farming, both being of great help when they finished their education and went back to their homes in the jungles. Even when they went homes for the vacations, they would teach their parents techniques by which farming could be improved and made more scientific. When parents visited their wards in the school, they would be ecstatic about the newfound knowledge and information that had been imparted to the girls. From 1966 to 1992, agriculture was the major craft being taught. Thereafter, due to the rapid urbanization of Bardoli, the school was unable to continue with its agricultural pursuits. They, then, decided to change the craft and started the teaching of home science, which itself was of great utility to the girls. The girls learn how to cook along with the basics of foods and nutrition; they also learn the importance of maintaining hygiene and sanitation in and around their homes and in the neighborhood. Besides these, they are taught sewing, knitting and embroidering and spend their spare time making articles which are then used by the students with the excess being sold so as to generate revenue. Figure 2.2 shows the students and the principal of the school with Kool. Gandhi had always insisted that every student learn how to spin and that spinning should be an integral part of the curriculum. Here, at the Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya, the girls do mass-spinning every day, with each girl spinning as much yarn as would be enough for making two pairs of clothes each year. The satisfaction, thus, obtained through the creation of something was evident from the faces of the students. Apart from these crafts, the girls do all the work of cleaning and maintaining the premises, whether it is maintaining the beautiful garden or keeping the pathways and rooms clean. They also do all the cooking themselves along with the cleaning of the cooking utensils and the plates and so on, in which they have their food. Every nook and corner of the school is

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Fig. 2.2  The Principal and students of Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya, Bardoli with Kool

kept spotless and it is amazing to know that all this is the work of the girls themselves with no paid help whatsoever. Truly, here at the Sardar Vidyalaya, one sees the very embodiment of Gandhi’s dreams and the active realization in spirit, letter and deed of Gandhi’s ideal to labor intelligently, to labor scientifically and to labor with understanding. On the academic front, too, the girls are not found wanting. The school boasts of 100% of the students passing the final public examinations, with many being awarded distinctions and awards. Many of the girls go on to pursue higher education, becoming teachers, doctors and engineers. Some have moved to other cities and towns and some have even moved to the USA and other places in the West. Their schedule for the day starts in the wee hours of the morning with the chanting of prayers. Thereafter, the girls do yoga followed by a light snack. That is followed by clean-up activities of the entire premises, which is fairly large. We saw the girls carrying buckets of water to water the plants in the gardens and the many trees and bushes that adorn the school and

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the campus of the Swarajya Ashram. Thereafter, they have a bath followed by a nutritious breakfast, cooked by the girls, with clean-up also being undertaken by them. By this time it is 9 am and they are now ready for school. Classes are over by 3 pm after which they start on mass-spinning followed by home science. Once the craft periods are over, the girls change their clothes, and once again work on cleaning up the campus. The day ends with dinner, cooked by the girls, clean-up, evening prayer, some time for self-study and then to bed. Our trip to the ashram and especially to the school was definitely well worth its while. We, like all visitors from far and wide, were highly impressed by the students, the teachers and the principal. In fact we were left speechless. We were told that all visitors including those from foreign countries were left amazed at the kind of education being imparted here and the ways in which character building was being taken up. The neatness, cleanliness, etiquette and manners of the girls leave most people spellbound. Moreover, the girls appear healthy, happy and clever. And most of all, there is this pride in their institution, in doing things by hand, and in the dignity of labor. It is not a surprise that year after year there is a rush for admission to the school, from girls who have to travel through wilderness and jungle terrain in order to reach Bardoli. What a change from the regular school which more often than not, alienates the student from her home environment and from the culture of her village. The Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya at Bardoli is just one such example of the way in which education is being imparted based on the principles of Nai Talim. There are many such schools, the majority of them being in the state of Gujarat but with many being in other parts of the country, too. There is a national association of Nai Talim schools by the name of Akhil Bharatiya Nai Talim Sangh (All India Nai Talim Association) based at Sevagram, where Gandhi started the first school. The association exists even to this day and is doing highly commendable work in disseminating information about Nai Talim, carrying out workshops and training programs and in general coordinating the activities of the Nai Talim schools. Truly, this is a silent social revolution taking place slowly, but, surely. Many people have been benefited and with the UNESCO now in the fray, it will surely lead to the expansion of Nai Talim at the global level.

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Nai Talim at the Global Level The Opening Vignette describes an event held in Paris to discuss the role of Gandhian ideas on education to meet the United Nation’s SDG of education. With educationists of eminence and senior government officials talking about how Gandhi’s education could be used to solve the pressing problem educating the masses in many parts of the world. Another key objective of the host institute, namely, the MGIEP, is social-emotional development and character building of children. Another such initiative took place more recently, to mark the death anniversary of Gandhi. On January 27, 2020, a panel discussion was held in New Delhi to celebrate the International Day of Education, with dialogue with a 3D hologram of Gandhi (UNESCO, MGIEP 2020). Excerpts from the discussion are presented below. It was inaugurated by the Government of India, HRD Minister who highlighted the importance of promoting the Gandhian values of peace and nonviolence in educational systems for building a culture of sustainable peace. As stated by him, Academic success, while important, cannot be the end goal of our education system. Education must pursue a grander goal; an education for human flourishing. If real societal change is to be achieved, Gandhi learnings will need to be built into our education systems and exemplified in our daily lives.

At the same dialogue, the former minister of education, France observed that Education systems today need to look beyond developing skills suited to the work force. We need to develop the emotional skills of our children and in this Gandhi’s teachings and practice of empathy, compassion, nonviolence and emphasis on truth, can be extremely beneficial for our education systems.

Another eminent educationist, Dr. Karan Singh added, When we look at the world today, we realize we need future leaders who are not just brilliant in their leadership and intellectual skills, instead we need emotionally resilient, kind, compassionate and empathetic leaders—leaders such as Gandhiji….I think our education systems can play an imperative role in introducing such qualities at a young age.

Many such initiatives are called for. Further, it is not just the underdeveloped and the developing countries that are in dire need of such a

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revolutionary pattern of education. Highly developed countries across the globe could certainly gain by incorporating many aspects of Nai Talim. What is important is that character building and socio-moral values be focused upon and not relegated to the back burner. Then only would we be able to create a truly sustainable world, a world in which there is peace and harmony among all people and war and violence become a distant past. As professed by the Director, MGIEP, For a better future, we must not just focus on an education that builds human capital but human flourishing…unless our present education systems embrace building emotional intelligence, we might end up in a world of highly literate people who are lacking in empathy and only concerned with their own well being. This is not sustainable.

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Patankar, P. S. (2011). Sarvodaya philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi—the base for inclusive philosophy and inclusive education. Indian Streams Research Journal, I (VI). https://doi.org/10.9780/22307850. Retrieved from http://oldisrj. lbp.world/UploadedData/345.pdf Peters, M. A. (2015). Socrates and Confucius: The cultural foundations and ethics of learning. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47, 423–427. Pyarelal. (1956). Mahatma Gandhi—the last phase, vols. 1 and 2. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. Ruskin, J. (1860). Unto this last. Cornhill Magazine. Sanghavi, N.  D. (2006). The agony of arrival: Gandhi, the South African years. New Delhi: Rupa. Snyder, F. J. (2014). Socio-emotional and character development: A theoretical orientation. Journal of Character Education, 10(2), 107–127. Snyder, F. J., Cock, A. C., Vuchinich, S., Beets, M. W., Washburn, I. J., & Flay, B.  R. (2013). Preventing negative behaviors among elementary-school students through enhancing students’ social-emotional and character development. American Journal of Health Promotion, Socio-Emotional and Character Development, 28(1), 50–58. Snyder, F. J., Flay, B., Vuchinich, S., Acock, A., Washburn, I., Beets, M., & Li, K.-K. (2010). Impact of a social-emotional and character development program on school-level indicators of academic achievement, absenteeism, and disciplinary outcomes: A matched-pair, cluster-randomized, controlled trial. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 3(1), 26–55. Snyder, F.  J., Vuchinich, S., Acock, A., Washburn, I.  J., & Flay, B.  R. (2012). Improving elementary school quality through the use of a social-emotional and character development program: A matched-pair, cluster-randomized, controlled trial in Hawai’i. Journal of School Health, 82, 11–20. Spallino, J. (2017, January 23). How character education helps kids learn and develop. Method. Retrieved from methodschool.org. Sykes, M. (1988). The story of Nai Talim: Fifty years of education at Sevagram, 1937–1987: A record of reflections. Sevagram, Wardha: Nai Talim Samiti. Tweed, R. G., & Lehman, D. R. (2002). Learning considered within a cultural context: Confucian and Socratic approaches. American Psychologist, 57(2), 89–99. U.N.O. (2016, November 15). Secretary-general’s remarks to the press at COP 22. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from www.un.org. UNDP. (2017). Goal 4: Quality education. Retrieved April, 13, 2017, from www.undp.org. UNESCO, MGIEP. (2019, October, 1). Life size hologram of Mahatma Gandhi discusses education for humanity at the Ahinsa lecture in Paris. Paris. UNESCO, MGIEP. (2020, January, 27). UNESCO MGIEP discusses future of education, using core ideologies of Mahatma Gandhi to celebrate the International Day of Education. New Delhi. Retrieved from mgiep.unesco.org.

CHAPTER 3

Gandhi and the Psychology of Technology

Opening Vignette

In the days of yore, even till a few centuries back, when science was still in its infancy, scientists persisted in their scientific pursuits, discovering many a new thing, inventing a variety of mechanical and other aids and attempting to understand the multitudinous aspects of what we call the Universe. But, at the same time, they had a deep sense of what they were working on—that science should not discover and, even more so, invent something which would be harmful for humankind or even for the environment. Gangrade (2004) helps us understand the psyche of those scientists and points to the moral values of a number of scientists. So strong was this belief in pursuing aspects which would serve the welfare of people that scientists from the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, such as Galileo and Kepler, thought that it was wrong to resort to the practical verification of destructive weapons. Newton, too, had vague ideas regarding atomic power but “his reluctance to probe it further suggests that he feared the destructive powers that it would unleash.” Along the same lines, scientist Boyle was of the opinion that science should have nothing to do with the discovery of “hellish machines of war” and even made it his duty to persuade other scientists not to do so. (continued)

© The Author(s) 2020 V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1_3

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(continued)

It seems that a significant number of modern-day scientists fail to realize that science does not operate in a vacuum. It seems to have become the fashion to profess that science is value neutral and consequence neutral and that a belief in religion or spirituality connotes an unscientific bent of mind. But our values are derived from religion which is not limited to any one faith or another but is based on universal truths. Since religion, spirituality, values, morality, ethics and other virtues appear to be nonscientific in nature, science and morality have become disjointed and are often being considered as two mutually exclusive categories with the scientist professing that the business of science is to explore, examine and verify only those phenomena that are observable. Anything which is not observable should lie outside the realm of science. Thus, knowledge and science seemingly belong to a realm totally different from that of virtues which according to most scientists falls in the domain of philosophy and armchair speculation. Gandhi was forthright in his disapproval of such a dichotomization, insisting that science and scientific pursuits make sense only when they are deeply related with and embedded within human values (Gangrade 2004).

Gandhi and Machines One major criticism of Gandhi has been that he was against machines of any kind (being obsessed with the idea of the charkha), that he was against industrialization (wanted things to be done by hand) and that he was against technology (saying that technology was not for a poor country like India). But, sad to say, this is probably one of the biggest misconceptions regarding Gandhi. What I object to is craze for machinery, not machinery as such. (Gandhi 1924a, p. 378)

Gandhi realized that even at the turn of the nineteenth century, the era of machines and technology had already set in and that there was no going back. He agreed that with the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the large number of inventions that followed in its wake, the methods of mass production had become well ensconced in the social and economic order

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and that machines, definitely, had their place. But, at the same time, he was of the view that mechanization should not cause hardship to those who could not afford to buy or use machines, whether individuals, groups or nations. He, sincerely, felt that it is because of the unequal access to machinery that some nations have been able to exploit others. As expressed by him, Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the back of millions. The impetus behind it all is not the philanthropy to save labour, but greed. It is against this constitution of things that I am fighting with all my might. (Gandhi 1924b, p. 378)

Machines and the Tragedy of the Commons In 1968, Garrett Hardin introduced to us the concept of the tragedy of the commons (detailed in Chap. 1 of this volume) which shows that if each individual wishes to serve only his selfish ends, without a thought about the good of the people at large, everyone would finally suffer, even the person who started it. In our greed for more we tend to exploit the environment forgetting the limited nature of resources, either natural or manmade. Half a century earlier, this half-clad Indian saw the futility of mechanization because he was sure that it would produce a situation such as that described by Hardin. Machinery has its place; it has come to stay. But it must not be allowed to displace necessary human labour. An improved plough is a good thing. But if by some chance one man could plough up, by some mechanical invention of his, the whole of the land of India and control all the agricultural produce and if the millions had no other occupation, they would starve: and being idle, they would become dunces, as many have already become. There is hourly danger of many more being reduced to that unenviable state. (Gandhi 1925a, p. 377)

Taking the same idea further, Gandhi stated that God never creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment, with the result that if any one appropriates more than he really needs, he reduces his neighbour to destitution. The starvation of people in several parts of the world is due to many of us seizing very much more than they need. We may

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utilize the gifts of nature just as we choose, but in her books the debits are always equal to the credits. There is no balance in either column. (Gandhi, Ashram observations in action 1955, pp. 62–63)

Today, we are in the midst of this tremendous tragedy of the commons, for example, as regards the common water bodies that are being used for dumping countless tons of waste such as plastics which are nonbiodegradable; our forests that are being cut down so that we can have more wood or more paper that is, more often than not, being wasted, or being used simply to expand our urban areas and house more people who are working in our factories and offices; and, our soil and groundwater that is being polluted by industrial effluents. Moreover, there is a huge divide between the so-called developed countries and those that are developing or are still underdeveloped, with the first category becoming all-powerful. They are in control of not only a large proportion of the natural resources but also the very means of production and the policies which decide those means of production. What is the reason for this power? None other than what Gandhi had professed so many years earlier, that those who have the machines will be able to capture everything, leaving nothing for those who cannot afford to have them. Even within nations, it is the capitalist that has control over all and sundry, with distribution being based not on egalitarian principles but on the amount of power one has. So the poor farmer who can ill-afford to use mechanized farming on his extremely small holding of land can never compete with those who are rich, have large landholdings and can afford tractors and threshers. The end result is a vicious cycle, with the poor becoming poorer and the rich, richer. This is what Gandhi had feared and this was why he was against machines and mechanization. If by any chance, the machine would enable the poor to become richer or it would help to save his labor, Gandhi would have no objection to it. Machines and Unemployment Another reason for Gandhi’s aversion to machines was his fear that it would cause large-scale unemployment. As he had written in Young India in 1925, I would welcome every improvement in the cottage machine, but I know that it is criminal to displace hand-labour by the introduction of power-­

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driven spindles unless one is at the same time ready to give millions of farmers some other occupation in their homes. (Gandhi 1925b, p. 377)

Thus, what Gandhi was asking for was that machines should not lead to the unemployment of millions. If the state could provide some others means of livelihood, then only did it have any right to replace the handloom with the power loom, or, for that matter to replace any kind of handwork with machines. The beliefs of Gandhi regarding technology and unemployment had been echoed by people in the West, too, with noted economist and thinker, John Maynard Keynes being one of them. In 1933, he wrote an article entitled, Economic possibilities for our grandchildren, in which he posed questions regarding “Unemployment due to our means of economizing the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.” Thus, Gandhi was not alone in thinking that the pace at which the world was moving, technologically speaking, was not correct. But, that was almost a century back. What are people saying today? Elon Musk (2017) of Tesla, in an interview with the television channel CNBC (Clifford 2017), has predicted that technology will replace so many jobs that it might become a possibility that a universal basic income would be needed to support them because “robots will be able to do everything better than us.” Even the World Economic Forum (Schwab 2016) is pessimistic adding that with the onslaught of the “fourth revolution,” we will witness the loss of many more jobs than we would be able to replace. In other words, the technological unemployment beginning with the Industrial Revolution remains with us even today, in the twenty-first century, and all the discussion of it being a passing phase is being nullified.

Technology and Unemployment In fact, studying the causes of unemployment today in different parts of the world, the picture that emerges is that while there are a number of causes for unemployment, one major cause is technology (see Fig. 3.1), making people such as Summers profess that, There are more sectors losing jobs than creating jobs. And the general-­ purpose aspect of software technology means that even the industries and jobs that it creates are not forever. (Summers 2014)

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High interest rate

Frictional

Causes of unemployment

Structural mismatch of skills

Negative multiplier effect

Global recession

Deficiency in demand

Financial crisis

Deficiency in supply

Technological change

Geog immobility

Real wage unemployment

Fig. 3.1  Causes of unemployment

A more recent estimate (Stettner 2018) is of the view that as many as 47% of current jobs could be replaced by technology. Going by, even, conservative estimates, he opines that one out of ten jobs is at high risk. Some of the reasons cited by him include, • e-commerce replacing brick and mortar stores • Self-driven cars replacing drivers • Reduction in agricultural employment from over 40% in the 1900s to less than 2% today • Robotic and automated production • Artificial intelligence The above is, of course, far from being an exhaustive list but enumerates some of the major reasons.

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Compensation Effects for Unemployment Due to New Technology While many were frustrated when their jobs were taken away because of technology or even mechanization, there were a large number of theorists (reviewed by Vivarelli 2012) who predicted that there would be a pronounced compensation effect with many new jobs being created for jobs being lost or that there would be other changes which would help to compensate the workers for the loss of jobs due to technology. Such compensation effects could be due to any or more of the following: 1. New machines would have to be constructed: while many people would lose their current job, new jobs would be created because of the labor needed to build the new equipment that would be required. 2. There would be new investments from the increased profit due to the new technology which would have payoffs for everyone, including those who lost their jobs. New investments would, in turn, lead to the creation of new jobs. 3. There would be wage changes caused by the increased profitability of the organization which in turn would lead to a cycle of increased income, more spending, greater demand and, therefore, more jobs. 4. As production increases it would be paralleled by lower prices which would lead to more demand, and, therefore, more employment. 5. New technology, often, means new products which, in turn, would create new jobs. The above seems to suggest that many job losses due to technology would be offset by other changes leading, finally, to overall positive effects. However, the controversy about whether there are actual compensation effects is still raging, with results being far from unequivocal (Vivarelli 2012). But, what seems apparent is that unemployment due to technological advances is real and can hardly be ignored. There is a prevailing opinion that we are in an era of technological unemployment—that technology is increasingly making skilled workers obsolete. (MacCarthy 2014, p. 80)

Another significant aspect of such technological unemployment is labor market polarization, with growth of jobs at the high- and low-income

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ends but rising unemployment in the middle-income segment (Stettner 2018). The reason is easy to understand. At the low end, there would be many jobs that machines cannot do, for example, cleaning, gardening and cooking. While robotic equipment can help jobs such as these, they cannot be carried out without the intervention of human beings. Similarly, at the higher income end, managerial work cannot be undertaken by a robot or even by artificial intelligence. It is jobs that lie in between the two that are most affected. Personal secretaries, typists and office staff have been dispensed with in most places. Many skilled and semi-skilled jobs in the production sector have been replaced by robots and CAD/CAM. It is this type of unemployment fueled by technology Gandhi had feared—unemployment with financial deprivation leading to great hardship for all concerned, to the extent that it might cause, what Gandhi termed, “pauperization.” What Gandhi feared a century back seems to be coming true in the twenty-first century as professed by, the then US President, Barack Obama in an interview with Wired Editor in Chief, Scott Dadich and MIT Media Lab Director, Joi Ito in 2016 (Wired 2016), in which he professed that due to the growth of artificial intelligence, society would be debating “unconditional free money for everyone” within ten to twenty years. While speculation is rife regarding whether we will see an increase or decrease in unemployment due to technology (see Box 3.1 on the World Economic Forum meetings at Davos), there is greater unanimity regarding the rapid pace of technological advances being witnessed today. Technology will lead to loss of some jobs and it is, but natural, that it will also create new jobs as pointed out above, but will we be able to re-skill

Box 3.1  Unemployment Due to Technological Advances

At the 2014 Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, Thomas Friedman reported that the link between technology and unemployment seemed to have been the dominant theme of that year’s discussions. A survey at the meeting found that 80% of 147 respondents agreed that technology was driving jobless growth. By the year 2015, this figure had become larger and Gillian Tett found that almost all delegates attending a discussion on inequality and technology expected an increase in inequality over the next five years, the (continued)

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Box 3.1  (continued)

reason for this being the technological displacement of jobs. The year 2015 was a landmark year as it saw Martin Ford win the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award for his Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. It was also the year that the first world summit on technological unemployment was held in New York. In late 2015, further warnings of potential worsening for technological unemployment came from various other quarters. By 2019, things had changed completely, with computer scientist and artificial intelligence expert Stuart Russell stating that “in the long run nearly all current jobs will go away, so we need fairly radical policy changes to prepare for a very different future economy.” In a book he authored, Russell claims that “One rapidly emerging picture is that of an economy where far fewer people work because work is unnecessary.”

people fast enough so as to take on the newly created jobs? Or, will we be, even, able to create jobs fast enough? As MIT economists, Brynjolfsson and McAfee, estimated in 2011, technology is potentially destroying more jobs than it is creating. Middle-­ level jobs are being eliminated by advances in technology and that this trend will continue till when we reach the stage that “we’re going to find ourselves in a world where the work as we currently think about it, is largely done by machines.” In fact, with increasing population and longer life spans where will we find jobs to accommodate the large number of people who will lose their jobs? Lack of employment would lead to frustration with violence, crime and other societal problems as the end result. What Gandhi feared a century ago is becoming reality today, in that we are witnessing a shift in the distribution of income from the hands of the workers to that of the capitalists. As discussed by economist Paul Krugman in The New York Times in 2012, “This is an old concern in economics; it’s ‘capital-biased technological change’, which tends to shift the distribution of income away from workers to the owners of capital… Twenty years ago, when I was writing about globalization and inequality, capital bias didn’t look like a big issue; the major

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changes in income distribution had been among workers… rather than between labor and capital. So the academic literature focused almost exclusively on ‘skill bias,’ supposedly explaining the rising college premium. But the college premium hasn’t risen for a while. What has happened, on the other hand, is a notable shift in income away from labor… I think we’d better start paying attention to those implications” (Krugman used a chart to show how the share of compensation income as a % GDP had fallen consistently from 60% in 1970 to 55% in 2011). (Krugman 2012)

Psychological Effects of Unemployment What is manifest and appears on the surface is of importance but, for most phenomena, that which is below the surface, that which is latent, is often of far greater importance, as in the case of the iceberg. The same is with effects of unemployment which leads to not only the manifest effect of financial loss and deprivation but also to various other effects that are latent but, maybe, of greater significance (Dolan 2019; Goldsmith et al. 1996). Most of these latent, below-the-surface effects are psychological in nature causing considerable psychological damage that may last for a longer period than one may suppose. In other words, employment does not provide the worker with just pay, it helps to fulfill many other needs alongside (Dolan 2019). Some of these needs are personal while others are social. For example, jobs help us to maintain a schedule or to structure time; they go a long way in creating and establishing our personal and social identity and they provide us with activity that is so necessary for the physical well-being of the person. At the same time, jobs create in us a feeling of self-efficacy and mastery and help to prove one’s competence. An important social function served by a job is that it enables networking and other forms of socializing, so vital for fulfilling our need for gregariousness. Last, but not the least, it provides an avenue for collective purpose, creating a sense of community. In a recent, six-wave longitudinal investigation by Zechmann and Paul (2019), the authors have concluded that lack of both manifest and latent benefits cause distress among the unemployed and, from among the latent effects listed above the most important appeared to be the lack of fulfillment of the need for collective action. In other studies, the lack of structured time and financial deprivation have also been found to affect the amount of distress among the unemployed with women and people with lower educational levels being affected to a greater degree (Frasquilho et al. 2016). That Gandhi was well aware of the

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importance of work has been pointed out by Key (2018), according to whom this could well be behind the fact that in Gandhi’s volume, Roots of violence (1925), the first citation is Wealth without work. Researchers have also attempted to delineate some of the other causes of distress seen among the unemployed and have concluded that one factor that is significant is the perceived injustice meted out to the unemployed by various employment agencies (Zechmann et al. 2019). Injustice may be meted out in many ways, but, as far as the unemployed and their relationships with employment agencies are concerned, the major form of injustice perceived by the people is procedural injustice. Another cause of distress among those who are jobless is the perceived incongruence between employment commitment and their present employment status, individuals may feel that despite their commitment they have lost their job (Paul and Moser 2001). At the same time, it is not surprising to find that one major predictor of amount of distress due to unemployment is the level of personal coping resources in the form of self-esteem and social support (Agrawal 2001; Paul et al. 2016). The Scars of Unemployment That employment or the lack of it is an important part of one’s self-­identity and self-image with loss of the job causing huge detriments to both has been the conclusion reached by Dance (2011). Much as physical trauma leads to physical scars that often last for a long period of time, so, too, psychological damage due to unemployment can lead to scarring (Key 2018). What is such psychological scarring? It has been defined as follows: “Scarring” is defined as the negative long-term effect that unemployment has on future labour market possibilities in itself. Thus, an individual who has been unemployed will be more likely to suffer from negative labour market experiences in the future, compared to an otherwise identical individual who has not been unemployed. In the short-term, an unemployment period will imply a direct income loss. There are several studies, however, indicating that an unemployment period deteriorates future labour market possibilities and thus has severe long-term consequences as well. (Nilsen and Reiso 2011, p. 4)

Scarring effects of unemployment have been obtained on a variety of samples, including those from Norway (Nilsen and Reiso 2011),

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Switzerland (Shi et  al. 2018) and Germany (Biewen and Steffes 2010). The extent of the scarring is tremendous, so much so, that length of unemployment tends to decrease the perceived suitability for a particular job and for even future earnings (Arulampalam et al. 2008). Professor of Economics, Ronald McQuaid (2015) from the London School of Economics is of the view that unemployment, when still in one’s youth, leads to a greater likelyhood of long-term scarring as far as subsequent lower pay, higher unemployment and reduced life chances are concerned. There is also evidence of greater mental health problems when such people are in their forties or fifties. As a result, the chances are that the impact of current high levels of youth unemployment will be felt by the society for decades. The Economic and Social Research Council of UK has also come to similar conclusions, being of the view that unemployment has serious and long-lasting repercussions for both the youth and the society. Seeing the great amount of distress caused by unemployment, governments have attempted, at various periods of time, to bring in anti-poverty programs under the assumption that the distress is being caused by financial deprivation. However, most of the programs have shown little or no success, mainly because they, probably, lacked a sound scientific base and failed to consider the psychological effects of the deprivation of work. It is with respect to issues such as these that the emerging area of psychology of technology can be of considerable help. While psychology of technology has been defined in various ways, for our purposes, it can be defined as a discipline which attempts to unravel the ways in which humans engage with or are affected by technology (Kool and Agrawal 2016). As such, the scope of the discipline would embrace all those motivational, affective, cognitive and behavioral attributes that affect our use of technology and in turn, how these human aspects are affected by technology. In other words, it acts as an interface between the individual user and the technology, helping in the co-development of the two. One of the novel ways in which psychology, in general, and psychology of technology, in particular, can help to alleviate the pains of job loss due to technology, or for that matter, due to any other factor, is through the ingenious use of the principles of operant and social learning (Skinner 1938; Bandura 1977). Thus, while many state-run measures have failed to mitigate the problems of unemployment, Silverman et al. (2018) report a sound, operant-based poverty reduction program entitled the Therapeutic workplace. Through this innovative technique people are paid for coming to work but only if they test drug free, every week (see Box 3.2).

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Box 3.2  The Therapeutic Workplace (Adapted from Silverman et al. 2018, p. 515)

Both research on the effects of unemployment and practical observation have clarified that unemployment leads to a whole host of problems, not the least of which is financial deprivation, bringing in its wake, poor mental and physical health along with problems of substance addiction. Research has also uncovered the long-term cost to the public purse, in terms of future benefit claims and lost tax revenues due to “scarring,” which according to some estimates could run into millions. Despite such costs, the policies have not been able to alleviate the poverty or its repercussions on health and addiction. A novel approach has been brought to the fore by Silverman and his colleagues, entitled Therapeutic workplace. “The therapeutic workplace, an operant intervention designed to treat unemployed adults with histories of drug addiction, could form the basis for an effective anti-poverty program. Under the therapeutic workplace, participants receive pay for work. To promote drug abstinence or medication adherence, participants must provide drug-free urine samples or take scheduled doses of medication, respectively, to maintain maximum pay. Therapeutic workplace participants receive job skills training in Phase 1 and perform income-­ producing jobs in Phase 2. Many unemployed, drug-addicted adults lack skills they would need to obtain high-skilled and high-paying jobs. Many of these individuals will attend therapeutic workplace training reliably, but only when offered stipends for attendance. They also will work on training programs reliably, but only when they earn stipends for performance on training programs. A therapeutic workplace social business can promote employment, although special contingencies may be needed to ensure that participants are punctual and work complete work shifts. …Therapeutic workplace participants will work with an employment specialist to seek community employment, but primarily when they earn financial incentives” (p. 515). From the above description it is clear that the aim of the authors is the reduction of poverty but not by providing subsidies or a minimum guaranteed income as normally envisaged by various governmental bodies. Instead, the intervention is three-pronged. The first (continued)

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Box 3.2  (continued)

objective is the reduction of poverty. The second, and the more significant objective, is the creation of a habit of working, which most of these unemployed people have lost due to their addiction. The last objective is to free these people from the scourge of drug addiction. Using operant conditioning techniques with suitable contingencies of reinforcement, all three of the objectives are being achieved. As professed by the authors, “Reducing poverty is more challenging than promoting employment, since it requires promoting employment in higher paying, full-time and steady jobs. Although a daunting challenge, promoting the type of employment needed to reduce poverty is an important goal, both because of the obvious benefit in reducing poverty itself and in the potential secondary benefit of reducing poverty-related health disparities” (p. 515).

Bread Labor While Gandhi did not use the term scarring, he had a deep understanding of the extent of unemployment in India and the long-term effects of unemployment. The amount of misery and distress it caused to him is evident from the quote below: I have indeed wept to see the stark poverty and unemployment in our country, but I must confess our own negligence and ignorance are largely responsible for it. We do not know the dignity of labour as such… There is enough employment in India for all who will work with their hands and feet honestly. God has given everyone the capacity to work and earn more than his daily bread, and whoever is ready to use that capacity is sure to find work. No labour is too mean for one who wants to earn an honest penny. The only thing is the readiness to use the hands and feet that God has given us. (Gandhi 1936, p. 356)

Seeing this attitude among the people of how they would refuse certain occupations simply because they considered them below their dignity and preferred to remain unemployed, Gandhi introduced the concept of “bread labor,” an idea he derived from his readings. Gandhi professes that,

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The law, that to live man must work, first came home to me upon reading Tolstoy’s writing on bread labour. But, even before that I had begun to pay homage to it after reading Ruskin’s Unto This Last. The divine law, that man must earn his bread by labouring with his own hands, was first stressed by a Russian writer named T.M. Bondaref. Tolstoy advertised it and gave it wider publicity. In my view, the same principle has been set forth in the third chapter of the Gita where we are told that he who eats without offering sacrifice eats stolen food. Sacrifice here can only mean bread labour. (Gandhi 1933, From Yeravda Mandir, p. 35)

How did Gandhi propose to alleviate unemployment and the resulting poverty through bread labor? We must, always, remember that Gandhi never suggested any measure about which he was not convinced or had not experimented upon. Phoenix Settlement in South Africa had provided him a place for experiments in bread labor and he well comprehended the economics it entailed. The economics of bread labour are the living way of life. It means that every man has to labour with his body for his food and clothing. If I can convince the people of the value and necessity of bread labour, there never will be any want of bread and cloth. I shall have no hesitation in saying to the people with confidence that they must starve and go naked if they will neither work on the land nor spin and weave. (Gandhi 1947, p. 316)

At the same time, simply laboring as any laborer would do, would not suffice. The labor had to be carried out using one’s intelligence. As Gandhi wrote, The adjective ‘intelligent’ has been prefixed to labour in order to show that labour to be social service must have that definite purpose behind it. Otherwise every labourer can be said to render social service. He does in a way, but what is meant here is something much more than that. A person who labours for the general good of all serves society and is worthy of his hire. Therefore, such bread labour is not different from social service. (Gandhi 1935, p. 125)

Another aspect that distressed him was the way in which money was shifting from the hands of labor to that of the capitalist. Gandhi, earnestly, felt that it was time for a social revolution, a revolution that could be undertaken by nonviolent means, through “bread labor.”

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There is a world-wide conflict between capital and labour, and the poor envy the rich. If all worked for their bread, distinctions of rank would be obliterated; the rich would still be there, but they would deem themselves only trustees of their property, and would use it mainly in the public interest. (Gandhi, From Yeravda Mandir 1933, pp. 35–36)

In line with his concept of bread labor, he abhorred beggary. As a famous Chinese proverb goes, “it is better to teach a man how to fish than to give him fish.” Gandhi, truly, believed in the deep philosophy engrained in this simple sentence and it was in this way that he was using the workplace as a therapeutic aid, much in line with the therapeutic workplace described in the box above. According to him, beggary was doing considerable harm to the nation. It has degraded the nation and it has encouraged laziness, idleness, hypocrisy and even crime. Such misplaced charity adds nothing to the wealth of the country, whether material or spiritual, and gives a false sense of meritoriousness to the donor. How nice and wise it would be if the donor were to open institutions where they would give meals under healthy, clean surroundings to men and women who would work for them. I personally think that the spinning wheel or any of the processes that cotton has to go through will be an ideal occupation. But if they will not have that, they may choose any other work; only the rule should be “No labour, no meal.” (Gandhi, Young India 1925a, p. 282)

Thus, Gandhi used the therapeutic workplace in his own way—by focusing on self-reliance and with everyone contributing to the revenue whether at the farms at Africa or the ashrams in India. In this manner he was able to eradicate unemployment and also inculcate the dignity of labor among his followers. As outlined in our chapter on community psychology and Gandhi (Chap. 5) there are three levels of community interventions. While the first is intended to merely alleviate problems, the second category is restorative in nature, in that, it helps to overcome inequalities in power and resources meted out. The chapter also points to a third level of community intervention. Gandhi’s intervention as regards poverty eradication is at this third level, which envisages a change in the very culture of the community such that the problem disappears. Gandhi worked on changing the culture, from one of attitudes and feelings of being downtrodden to that of heightened feelings of

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self-­efficacy (Bandura 1997) due to which he was able to achieve a number of objectives. Through bread labor, he eradicated unemployment but also increased the confidence level of the inmates, giving them courage to fight any odds. As pointed out in the earlier section, Gandhi focused on the latent effects of employment also, providing through his regimen at the ashram, a structured time frame, a spirit of collective purpose, fruitful activity, status in and identity with the group, social contact and competence. What more could one ask for?

The Music of the Spinning Wheel Why was Gandhi obsessed with the spinning wheel? Or, was he obsessed? For all practical purposes, his constant insistence on the spinning wheel and that alone did sound as if he was obsessed. But, in reality, it was not the spinning wheel with which he was obsessed; he was obsessed by the desire to ameliorate the heart-wrenching poverty that he saw when he traveled through a large number of villages of India. For this he needed a tool, a machine, which would help the people of India attain not just independence from the British but would also ensure a second freedom (doosri azaadi), a freedom from poverty and unemployment. Moreover, this tool had to be inexpensive, simple to operate and fit in with the culture of the Indian villagers. In the spinning wheel, he found all three criteria being fulfilled. At the same time, the spinning wheel, with its deep cultural and religious connotations, would act as a symbol, as an icon of peace and nonviolence. As Kulkarni (2012) points out, He repeatedly exhorted both his followers and critics that they would err in understanding his charkha campaign if they ignored what the charkha ‘stands for’, ‘connotes’ and ‘implies’. … In other words, khadi did not refer merely to another type of cloth …. Khadi was an advertisement for a new national and world order anchored in human values, and the charkha was a symbol of those technologies that could help usher in the new nonviolent global order. (Kulkarni 2012, p. 59)

For Gandhi, the spinning wheel carried with it three vital messages: • The economic message, • The cultural message, and • The spiritual message.

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In other words, the spinning wheel would help remove poverty; it would help people to, once again, identify with the poor villagers of India and last, but not the least, it would be a symbol of simple living and high thinking. This was the triple message he articulated when he launched the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920, saying that the spinning wheel “is a symbol not of commercial war but of commercial peace” and how he made a mere machine a symbol for his “call for a civilizational transformation” (Kulkarni (ibid), p. 64). In recommending the spinning wheel, my sole idea has been to place before the country a programme, which would easily appeal to the common mind and also be a unifying force. (Gandhi 1924a)

The Spinning Wheel and Moral Inclusion It has been pointed out in another chapter of this volume, namely, the chapter on Gandhi and the psychology of religion and morality, that the circumstances and his experiences in South Africa brought about tremendous changes in Gandhi. It has been suggested in that chapter that there were at least three events which led to permanent change in the psyche of Gandhi, making him extremely morally inclusive, both in his thought and in practice. These three events were the Boer war, the Zulu rebellion and the fight against the Black Act (Opotow 2013). On his return to India, as he traveled far and wide, in order to feel the pulse of the masses, one of the aspects that created a lasting impression upon him, and became the guiding force behind many of his programs was untouchability. What started in ancient India as a sound system for the division of labor (the importance of which had later been vouched for by eminent scholars such as Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol, who posited the principles of scientific management based on division of labor and task specialization), later became a vehicle for caste prejudice and discrimination, with the scourge of untouchability as the end result. By offering the spinning wheel and spinning itself to the people of India, Gandhi was attempting to ensure the eradication of this heinous practice. For one thing the spinning wheel was affordable and simple to use; for another, upper-class people would not have any objection to the so-called untouchables taking to this occupation. With everyone spinning together, through community spinning sessions as practiced in his ashrams, Gandhi envisaged that people would gradually lose their

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prejudices and, therefore, not engage in discriminatory behavior (Kool 1993, 2008). That such a program incorporating intergroup interaction would be highly successful has been validated today by a whole hosts of psychologists, ranging from Deutsch (1949), Allport (1954) and Tajfel and Turner (1979) to more recent work as reviewed by Paluck and Green (2009), Kool (2013) and Kool and Agrawal (2006). In his communities and among his followers in India and earlier in South Africa there were also people belonging to a variety of faiths. Gandhi used the community and village spinning program to amalgamate all these people and to help people cast aside the narrow walls built on religious differences. The important ways through which Gandhi was able to inculcate moral inclusion through the use of various concepts such as anasakti (detachment) and aparigraha (nonpossession) has also been brought to the fore by Kool and Agrawal (2013, 2018). It is only recently that scholars have shown concern regarding the issue of morally responsible design and value-sensitive technology (Roeser 2012; van den Hoven and Weckert 2008). In fact, researchers have urged engineers to refrain from being like unemotional calculators (Burg and Gorp 2005), and to realize that technology is far from being non-neutral and gradually becomes an embodiment of the person (Ihde and Selinger 2003). But what is the present technology creating? Has it been able to realize the above goal of technology? Engineers and designers of technology, often, continue to perceive technology as being value neutral. Is technology in the twenty-first century creating moral inclusiveness in terms of demographic, social or cultural factors? More often than not, we stand as mute witnesses to the divide that technology creates, not the least of these being, the digital divide.

The Digital Divide What exactly is the digital divide? The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD 2001, p. 5) defined the digital divide as, The gap or division between people, homes and geographic and economic areas with different socio-economic levels regarding both their opportuni-

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ties of accessing Information and Communication Technologies and the use of Internet for a wide variety of activities.

The Organization further explains that the digital divide can be based on a variety of variables such as income, education level and other socio-­ demographic variables such as race, gender, family type, linguistic limitations and age. These variables create wide differences in the access to and use of the Internet across different regions of the world, which have been analyzed and have been reported on the Internet World Stats website. Surprising, though it may seem, Asia has the largest number of users. The anomaly can be understood if one takes region-wise population into account as Asia also accounts for the greatest proportion of the world’s population. Current statistics reveal that Asia accounts for the largest number of users, approximately, 2300 million as of March 3, 2020, while Oceania/Australia has the smallest number, that is, roughly 29 million users as of the same date (Internet World Stats 2020). Several factors have been posited for the existence of such a digital divide, the main ones being income, education, employment, gender, geography, physical disability and ethnicity (NTIA 1999). Yet, for certain populations, the main reason for being excluded from using the Internet continues to be the cost factor. Surveys reveal that in the USA alone, there are 62 million people who are too poor to afford either a computer or Internet services. While nonprofit organizations such as the EveryoneOn is doing its best to decrease this divide and have connected over 500,000 people since 2012 across 48 states of the USA, we still have a long way to go. This is especially problematic for students with many teachers giving online assignments, lectures and even sharing material (Simmons 2017). The digital divide exists in other parts of the world, too. Afolyan (2018) has conducted a survey to describe the extent of the digital divide in Nigeria and has also delineated many of the causes and problems. Along the same lines, Hong and his colleagues (2017) have conducted a survey in China and have shown how the digital divide prevents people from access to crucial e-health programs. As far as the UK is concerned, researchers such as Robotham and his colleagues (2016) and Tobitt and Percival (2019) point out how the prevailing digital divide deprives people from important mental health treatments and programs. Over the years we have, however, witnessed a rapid drop in the price of both equipment (computers, modems, smartphones, etc.) and Internet

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services through dedicated lines, broadband or Wi-max which should have decreased the extent of the digital divide. That this has not happened is making government bodies and other policy makers realize that the divide is not due to just economic factors. There is clearly “something else” that accounts for the differences in usage among different populations. This “something” is the psychology of the person with a large mass of research clarifying that more than economic or demographic factors, the socio-psychological factors are important. Once again, this is a domain wherein the recent developments in psychology of technology can come to the fore and help to mitigate the commonly seen divide. So pervasive are the effects of these psychosocial factors that, according to Partridge (2007), it has become mandatory to redefine the digital divide. As far as the USA is concerned, the Pew Internet and the American Life Project (Lenhart et al. 2003) have suggested that it is, now, more a question of “don’t want it” rather than “can’t afford it” with over a quarter of Americans being “truly disconnected” and another 20% being Net Evaders, who live with or depend on someone else using the Internet at home. An even more recent survey reported in the Time magazine by Vick (2017) maintains that a large fraction of the digital divide is not about not having the equipment but is about not having enough data, with approximately 25% of Americans being without access to broadband facilities. In fact, according to Nielsen (2006) of the Nielsen Norman Group, the digital divide can be visualized as moving through three stages, namely, the stage of the economic divide, that of the usability divide and that of the empowerment divide. This last is the most difficult to tackle because it is characterized by the person feeling that they lack the initiative or the skill to take things in their own hands and, thus, prefer to depend on others. Another reason, often, cited for the divide is a cognitive factor, in terms of what has been called the negativity bias (Loranger 2016) by cognitive psychologists such as Kahneman (2012) according to which one tends to remember negative events much better and for a longer period of time than positive events. So, one tends to take for granted all those days when the Internet worked seamlessly. But, one day, it starts to have burps and works in fits and bursts and that is, vividly, remembered and recalled. In other words, one remembers all the flaws in the system but not its virtues even though they much surpass the flaws.

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Digital Divide and the Elderly The use of information and communication technology (ICT) by the elderly is a complex subject with many people holding a stereotypical view that the elderly are cut off from new technologies or are wary of using it. There are a number of studies (e.g., Chua et al. 1999; Dyck and Smither 1994) which state that the age of an individual is one variable which determines their use of ICT. Nevertheless, there is other research (e.g., Ramón-­ Jerónimo et al. 2013) which reveals that this segment of the population is very heterogeneous in nature, with age not being the only factor. Within this group, of the elderly, can be seen differences due to gender, education level and the socio-economic class such that it is considered more appropriate to term this a socio-digital divide (Peral-Peral et al. 2015) based on three variables, namely, cognitive age, technology anxiety and level of venturesomeness. Companies, such as McAfee, have developed innovative ways to tackle the divide among the elderly by allowing potential customers to experiment with new products through a program ingeniously entitled Online safety for silver surfers! On the other hand, there are also a fairly large number of elderly people who are enthusiastic about using the Internet while for others increasing their self-confidence may help to alleviate the problem (Zhao et al. 2008). In fact, digital divides can be seen to be of two types (Partridge 2007)— one is the access digital divide based on financial factors and the second is the socio-digital divide based on psychosocial factors. It is this latter type of digital divide that is more complex and, also, more difficult to resolve. One useful and overarching framework for understanding the socio-­ digital divide is the social cognitive theory (Bandura 1997) which sees behavior in the context of a triadic reciprocity between the person, the environment and the behavior. These three aspects are highly interlinked and also interdependent upon one another (see Fig. 3.2). According to Wagner and his colleagues (Wagner et  al. 2010), the triadic reciprocity theory proposed by Bandura could be effective in understanding the needs and problems of Internet use by the elderly. As pointed out on the basis of a survey undertaken on elderly people in Lisbon, Portugal (Neves and Amaro 2012), the elderly divide can be understood better by looking at their patterns of usage and their problems. The triadic reciprocity theory is, further, based on two key constructs, namely, self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. According to Bandura, self-­ efficacy is the belief “in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the

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Person

Behavior

Environment

Fig. 3.2  Bandura’s triadic reciprocity theory (adapted from Kool and Agrawal 2016)

courses of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura 1997, p. 3). Those with low self-efficacy should be less likely to perform related behaviors in the future (Bandura 1982) in comparison to those with high self-efficacy. As far as the Internet is concerned, the theory predicts that people who have little confidence in their ability to use the Internet, who are dissatisfied with their Internet skills or who are uncomfortable using the Internet may be said to have weak self-efficacy beliefs and would, therefore, be less likely to use it. A number of empirical studies (e.g., Eastin and LaRose 2000; Partridge 2007) validate that self-efficacy is a significant predictor of Internet usage. Thus, by increasing the sense of self-efficacy among the elderly, it would be possible to enhance their use of the Internet and related technologies. Such an increase in feelings of self-efficacy would produce changes in outcome expectancy. In other words, once the elderly start feeling that they can master the art and the science of technology, their technophobia would decrease and the scale would tip in favor of the benefits accrued in comparison to the costs associated with the use of the Internet (in terms of problems of usage and the inability to comprehend the technicalities), thereby increasing their probability of usage (Liebana-Cabanillas et al. 2014). In contrast to the divide seen as far as Internet technology is concerned, the spinning wheel is a machine that could be used by all, young or old. At the settlements and ashrams of Gandhi, every individual was involved in the process of spinning, with enough work being there for even

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children and women to be involved. Even today, in the Nai Talim schools, one finds that all the children have not only learned how to ply the spinning wheel from a very early age but also spend a couple of hours at it daily. Rather than the spinning wheel being a divisive machine, it was one that united people, from all castes and religions, helping to create intergroup harmony and peace. This was what Gandhi wanted from a machine, in that the machine should not lead to ill effects and also that it should benefit all. Both of these criteria were clearly achieved by the spinning wheel. So, we have a clear message from Gandhi here: use technology but let it not divide our communities. At the same time, we should be able to be proactive in the control of its evil effects. Poor management of technology has increased problems concerning equality and equity of justice. In terms of classic issues of justice, Deutsch (1985) raised issues regarding what one gets (distributive justice) versus how one gets it (procedural justice). Additionally, some people receive the same reward with more respect and appreciation than others—known as issues of interpersonal justice. With the ever-increasing role and use of technology, some people are deprived of information in comparison to others leading to informational injustice, as evident in our Right to Information. Needless to say, wrote Kool (2008), a sense of justice is germane to nonviolence. In the communities established by Gandhi, as described earlier, there were no issues regarding any of the abovementioned four aspects of justice. Also, we are forced to appreciate the amazing ways through which Gandhi could foresee the harm and injustice being meted out to human existence. We believe that this ability was because of his having spent so much of his life in the villages of India and South Africa. As a result of these experiences coupled with his vast reading and interactions with people of various communities (including Christians, Muslims, Hindus and more), he gained considerable insight into the real problems of the people and could provide them with appropriate indigenous technologies, rather than advocating those borrowed from alien cultures.

Technology and the Means-Ends Relationship This attempt at community integration was not the, only, aspect that Gandhi was concerned with. He insisted on integration at the personal level also. Thus, unlike the science of today which tends to

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compartmentalize science, ethics and religion, Gandhi’s world view was essentially holistic. In fact, Eric Erikson, author of the finest books on Gandhi, Gandhi’s Truth (1969), described Gandhi as “The wholest of men.” Accordingly, as far as science and technology are concerned, the judgment of any machine should be made only after deep thought regarding its consequences, because for Gandhi, we cannot separate the means from the ends. For him, the two are inextricably linked. He insisted that if the ends were impure, the means should also be considered as being impure. In other words, if the machine or the technology leads to ill effects, that machine is of no use and should be abandoned. In contrast, any technology which would improve the functionality of the spinning wheel, the production of jaggery or the pressing of edible oil from various seeds would be tremendously useful and should be encouraged. In fact, Gandhi even instituted a competition for such innovation.

From Ergonomics to Hedonomics Psychology of technology has accomplished considerably as far as the effect of human anatomical and muscular limits on the design of technology is concerned, through the study of ergonomics and human factors in engineering. At the same time, modern technology has brought in its wake multifarious problems, for many of which we do not have any technological fix (Hardin 1968). These are problems associated with how we cognize technology and the effects it has upon our feelings and emotions and the consequent motivation to use the technology. Yet, it is heartening to note that emergent research in psychology of technology is providing some respite. One of these is the shift from an emphasis on ergonomics to that of hedonomics. As professed by Helander and Tham (2003), hedonomics is not about evaluating the user (as is done in the traditional fields of ergonomics or what has been called human factors engineering and anthropometrics) but, it is all about the user evaluating the technology, in terms of the pleasure and positive emotions derived through the use of that technology. This is the nascent field of hedonic designing or engineering aesthetics (Liu 2003). In fact, it has been proposed that much as the needs of an individual change and s/he moves through the hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1943), so, too, the needs fulfilled by technology also change over time. While technology in its emerging stage must fulfill the basic needs for safety, prevention of accidents and

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functionality (through the application of ergonomics), it has to move on. It is imperative that technology continues to evolve and helps to serve the higher order needs for pleasurable experiences and individuality (through the application of hedonomics). In other words, while the technology could have been originally developed to fulfill certain ends, or as a mere tool, it should serve different ends as it evolves (Hancock et al. 2005). An example is the common kitchen knife or even the smart iPhone. While in the days of yore, a knife was a knife, today, it comes in pleasing shades of pink, purple and blue. The color of the iPhone and the design of its home page decide its sale as much as its features. Today, the importance of hedonomics is being realized in many types of technology, ranging from the “funology” in simple computer interfaces, to the design of digital health care systems (Lupton 2013) and to that of the complex technology of nuclear power plants (Savioja et  al. 2013). Yet, much more remains to be accomplished and we are optimistic that technology, with help from research in psychology of technology, will continue to evolve and serve the higher order needs of pleasurable use. The importance of the consideration of such cognitive and affective aspects in the design of technology is also clear in terms of the Broaden and Build Theory (Fredrickson 2008; Fredrickson and Cohn 2008). The theory posits that the experience of five positive emotions (joy, pride, interest, love and contentment) leads to the development of upward cognitive spirals, helping people to build positive resources for facing future problems. Thus, technology of any type which helps people to derive the five emotions posited by Fredrickson will enable them to be more productive in all their life endeavors. Once again, Gandhi’s deep perception of and insight into human psychology is more than evident. Gandhi manifested much greater foresight than the engineer of today. Rather than developing a tool, first, and then thinking of how to design it, he preferred to abandon any tool or machinery that created problems of any type. For Gandhi, machinery could not just be any tool; it had to serve pure ends, one of them being the pleasure derived from working on the machinery, knowing, fully well, that productivity can only be derived only from the pleasure inherent in the use of the machinery. But, compare and contrast this to the many of the technologies of the twenty-first century—while they are useful, and have, at times, been pleasurable, they have also brought many problems in their wake. As an

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example, we can think of information and communication technology and the Internet in particular, and we are immediately reminded of the many problems that it has brought along. Not the least among these is the way we use the Internet to read and collect information or the way we process information. As Rowlands and his colleagues (2008) put it, the new generation is “hungry for highly digested content” and their “information seeking behavior can be characterized as being horizontal, bouncing, checking and viewing” (p.  294). With search engines offering advance search options, one can obtain the thinnest slice of information, no longer having to sit in libraries, searching for material. As Nicholas Carr (2008) writes while analyzing what Google does to us, My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski. (www.theatlantic.com)

How different was Gandhi’s approach! When Gandhi started his printing press in Durban and later moved it to the Phoenix Settlement, such was the modus operandi of the other printing works. With mounting intensity, an industrialized information order bombarded readers with more and more printed matter. Ever briefer media genres like the headline, summary and extract speeded up the tempo of reading. In Gandhi’s view, such reading ‘macadamized’ the mind…and reinforced the dangerous equation of speed with efficiency. (Hofmeyr 2014, p. 29)

Gandhi, in contrast, focused on ways to slow down the reading process, giving the reader the time to digest the information. He even slowed down the printing process, preferring to use hand printing and textual production, because he was convinced that serious reading and thinking could only be done at one’s own individual pace of perception and comprehension. Therefore, He interspersed the news reports with philosophical extracts; he encouraged readers to contemplate on what they read rather than hurtling forward. In effect, he experimented with an anti-commodity, copyright free, slow motion newspaper. (Hofmeyr, ibid., p. 29)

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In other words, for Gandhi, this focus on slow reading was one way to slow down the pace of industrialization, and bring it in line with what the human body and brain could cope with. As stated by Hofmeyr, This focus on bodily rhythm as a way of interrupting industrial tempo became central to his larger and world famous critiques that questioned the equation of speed with efficiency and technology with progress. (Hofmeyr ibid., p. 29)

One can understand the differences between such speed reading on the Internet and Gandhi’s way of reading through Heidegger’s dichotomy of calculative versus meditative thinking (Heidegger 1966). Modern technology tends to bedazzle us to the extent that we start to think that calculative thinking is the only way. We forget to stand and stare as was done by the poets of the Romantic era, such as Wordsworth, Byron, Keats and Shelley. It was only because these poets indulged in meditative thinking that poetry rich in imagery and philosophy could be had. Then only could one attain the Truth that Gandhi had lived his entire life for. What Heidegger feels regarding technology and what it does to our thinking add volumes to the understanding of the effects of modern technology on our perception and other cognitive processes. The ideas are contained in Conversation on a Country Path About Thinking, written between 1944 and 1945 and first published in 1959 in a book entitled Discourse on Thinking (Heidegger 1966). The conversation is ingeniously crafted, the ideas being incorporated within a conversation between a scientist, a scholar and a thinker (Heidegger himself), with the first two becoming transformed through the process of the dialogue. As discussed by philosopher Barbara Pezze (2006), But gradually, under the guidance of the teacher, the interlocutors begin to give up their own standpoints and, with that, their accustomed form of thinking. They let the dialogue itself take charge, so to speak. As they abandon the will to dictate and lead the search, a different approach and way of thinking discloses itself through the dialogue. The interlocutors, as the dialogue proceeds, no longer impose their view, but let the elements of their search emerge from their dialogue with one another…. What the Conversation shows is the transformed nature of thinking, in its transforming process. During the Conversation we witness in the interaction between the three speakers what I would call the transforming transformation of our

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own way of thinking, which is forced to change in its core in order to be part of the scene settled by Heidegger. (Pezze 2006, The Minerva)

Through the dialogue, Heidegger attempts to point out that today, under the influence of modern technology the kind of thinking that we engage in is calculative thinking, which can be explained as follows: Calculative thinking, despite being of great importance in our technological world, is a thinking “of a special kind.” It deals, in fact, with circumstances that are already given, and which we take into consideration, to carry out projects or to reach goals that we want to achieve. Calculative thinking does not pause to consider the meaning inherent in “everything that is”. It is always on the move, is restless and it “never collects itself” (Heidegger 1966, p. 46). This fact hides and shows that man is actually “in flight from thinking.”

In direct contrast to this is meditative thinking, which does not rush us on. It requires conscious effort and commitment, determination and practice. At the same time, it does not remove us from reality. In fact, it helps us to move closer. But as Heidegger points out, we have to “be able to bide its time, to await as does the farmer, whether the seed will come up and ripen” (Heidegger 1966, p. 47). Further, in order to engage in meditative forms of thinking, we must, dwell on what lies close and meditate on what is closest; upon that which concerns us, each one of us, here and now; here, on this patch of home ground; now, in the present hour of history. (Heidegger 1966, p. 47)

While delivering the Memorial address, Heidegger actually helped the audience move, from a stage of calculative thinking that they were normally accustomed to, to meditative thinking. Rather than being mere passive consumers of the talk, they are made to sit up and attend, to actually meditate and think about what is going on. A few lines from the address help us to understand what Heidegger was referring to. The poet means to say: For a truly joyous and salutary human work to flourish, man must be able to mount from the depth of his home ground up into ether. Ether here means the free air of the high heavens, the open realm of the spirit. We grow more thoughtful and ask: does this claim of Johann Peter Hebel hold today? Does man still dwell calmly between heaven and

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earth? Does a meditative spirit still reign over the land? Is there still a life-­ giving homeland in whose ground man may stand rooted…? (Heidegger 1966, pp. 47–48)

The question he asks at the end is with reference to our age of technology, which according to Heidegger is much more than a means to attain certain ends. Technology is not just a tool. Technology not only enmeshes us but also tends to enframe a whole new mode of existence, an existence that is centered around calculative goals (Miles 2015). The risk for man is to be uprooted not only from his reality, from his world, but also from himself. If we think meditatively, however, we allow ourselves to be aware of the risk implied in the technological age and its usefulness, and we can hence act upon it. (Pezze 2006, The Minerva)

In our interview with Justice Dharmadhikari, a close associate of Gandhi, he informed us that Gandhi tended to differentiate between thought and thinking. We can become stagnant with thought, but it can never be so if we keep on thinking, very much akin to the meditative thinking of Heidegger. If modernization meant more machinery, Gandhi had no objection to it so long as it was need based and not geared to create a technological divide between the rich and the poor. Technological growth, according to Dharmadhikari, was good in the eyes of Gandhi as much as it supported the local economy and focused on equality of community members (for details, see Chap. 3, Volume 1, interview with Justice Dharmadhikari). It is, indeed, fortunate that we were able to draw such great insights on the basis of our meeting with Justice Dharmadhikari. We have since been informed that he passed away in 2019. The need of the hour is a paradigm shift, from a product-based technology to a user-based technology. In other words, rather than developing a technology and then attempting to fit people into it, it is imperative to be proactive (as exemplified by Gandhi) and focus on a user psychology, with the user as the epicenter of all technological advances. Thus, we advocate a shift from “a product first” approach to “a people first” approach (Kool and Agrawal 2016). Such an approach would also be in line with Glassman’s (2012) view that the need of the hour is a humanists’ psychology of technology (HPT) in contrast to the engineers’ psychology of technology (EPT) that is presently in vogue. Further, it would go a long way in the advancement of transparent technologies that can meld

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with the natural skills of the user as against opaque technologies that require capabilities beyond those normally seen in humans. As put, very succinctly, by Clark (2003), psychology should be able to help engineers design equipment and technology that would have low cognitive costs as a result of which many of the problems such as those of the psychosocial digital divide described above would be considerably mitigated. It is only then that the goal of psychology of technology would be achieved. It is such effects of machinery on cognition and meditative thinking that Gandhi was aiming at through the extremely simple and inexpensive spinning wheel and the activity of spinning. It was this same aspect that he was insisting upon when he started his first newspaper in Durban, which was later shifted to the Phoenix Settlement (see Box 3.3, for a twenty-first-­ century approach to meditative goals served by technology).

Box 3.3  Twenty-First-Century Approach to Meditative Goals Served by Technology Usage

One leading scholar who has demonstrated the ways in which designs influence our behavior is Donald Norman. In his book Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things (2004), he has concentrated on how “everything we do, everything we think, is tinged with emotion, much of it subconscious” (p. 7), explaining it using countless examples from objects of daily use. So pervasive is the affective aspect that it often overrides our rationality and logic (remember Kahneman’s systems of thinking). Norman analyzes the phenomena further by differentiating between three levels of design, the visceral level, the behavioral level and the reflective level, with varying emotions being derived at each level. While the first level of designing is based on physical features of the object, such as its color, shape, look, feel or sound, the second level is dependent on the extent to which the object manifests functional utility. The third or highest level of design focuses on what the object means to the user, over and above its functionality. This last is the most difficult part of designing owing to its highly idiopathic nature. The differences between the first and the third levels could well be understood in terms of Heidegger’s calculative means and the meditative goals served by any technology.

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The discussion in the previous paragraphs reveals the very ways through which Gandhi used the fruits of industrialization, using it only so far as he felt that it would benefit the human being. Contrast this to the philosophy of modern science and technology, which professes that it is value neutral and consequence neutral, not realizing that everything that we use, including technology, has important implications and repercussions for all aspects of human pursuit.

The Consequences of Modern Technology Despite there being many advantages to modern technology, one also notes the disadvantages. As has been often remarked for any technology, there are pros and cons to each of them. While the computer helps us increase our processing speed and capacity tremendously, it also produces physical ailments such as the carpal tunnel syndrome (e.g., Riccò et  al. 2016), back pain, cervical problems and problems associated with vision (e.g., Blehm et al. 2005). Similarly, the mobile telephone has made it possible for us to connect with people hundreds of miles apart almost instantaneously and seamlessly, but it has also created problems of obsessional mobile usage for texting leading to many of the accidents that occur when texting while walking (Thompson et al. 2012). The Internet has opened up a whole gamut of new means of communication, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, to name just a few. What is the result? Many of us have hundreds of Facebook or other virtual friends, leaving us little time to spend with friends in real time and space, leading to a strange paradox, Alone together described by Sherry Turkle (2011) in the book of the same name. We are becoming more aloof, distancing ourselves from actual social interaction while interacting through the virtual world. Mobile technology has made it possible to transfer money, to buy things online and to make payments. But it has also led to cybercrime with fraudulent transactions robbing people of hard-earned money. Another major disadvantage of the Internet is problematic Internet use (PIU) such as cyberstalking (Nuccitelli 2014) and Internet addiction (Rosen et  al. 2014), with de-addiction centers being needed much as in the case of substance addiction. These and many other negative consequences have been described at length in our book Psychology of Technology (Kool and Agrawal 2016). Summarizing empirical work on the psychology of technology, it would not be wrong to suggest that the negative consequences of technology can

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be described around three dimensions, each being related to the other. These are as follows: firstly, we have the psychological consequence— being alone together, giving greater importance to our virtual self, that is, our second self and PIU; secondly, there is the physical consequence in terms of carpal tunnel syndrome, back pain and lack of physical exercise with too much time spent indoors; and thirdly, there is the social consequence of becoming a couch potato, indulging in cybercrime and in cyberstalking. These three give rise to certain societal consequences—for example, increased levels of violence among children after watching violence on TV, higher levels of crime and the fragmentation of the social structure. While multitudinous measures and therapies have been suggested to ameliorate the above, their effect is so pervasive that it has proved to be extremely difficult to eradicate them. Even people, as eminent as the co-­ founder of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy have misgivings about the directions that technology is taking. We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes… the only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limiting our development of technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge… As Thoreau said, ‘we do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us’; and this is what we must fight, in our time. The question is, indeed, Which is to be the master? Will we survive our technologies? (Bill Joy in the Wired 2000)

Technology and the Wisdom of Gandhi’s Swaraj Thus, technology would be beneficial only to the extent that it is backed by wisdom. What is the nature of this wisdom? From where are we to derive such wisdom? Gandhi’s concept of swaraj (self-rule) points to the answers that seem otherwise illusive. What was swaraj according to Gandhi? It was much more than simply political freedom or independence from foreign rule. It was explained by Gandhi as follows: Swaraj really means self control. Only he is capable of self control who observes the rules of morality….My swaraj is to keep intact the genius of our civilization (Gandhi, Young India, June 1924a, p. 210)…If swaraj was not meant to civilize us, and to purify and stabilize our civilization, it would be nothing worth. The very essence of our civilization is that we give paramount place to morality in our affairs, public or private. (Gandhi 1930)

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Thus, for Gandhi, swaraj meant self-restrained, self-government, or what we can call, a self-government-guided fully by moral values. And, this was what the spinning wheel and its associated technology was able to fulfill while modern technology seems wrought with problems, as has been described in the previous pages. Gandhian Engineering Another useful construct is what has been nomenclatured Gandhian engineering developed by R.  A. Mashelkar, former Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India and former President of the Global Research Alliance. According to this concept, Gandhi is referred to as an Innovation Leader and Mashelkar defines innovation as, doing things differently, making a big difference, and making the impossible possible. (Mashelkar, cf. Kulkarni 2012, p. 639)

One is immediately seized by the difference between this definition and standard definitions of innovation which restrict themselves to only the first part of the definition, namely, “doing things differently.” Gandhi fulfilled all three criteria using two simple tools, ahimsa and swadeshi with which he was able to challenge the mighty British Empire and achieved what to most people would seem impossible. According to Mashelkar, our challenge is to lift society above the surface, ensuring a quality life for each and everyone. The slogan of Gandhian engineering could well be “getting more output from less resources to benefit more people” or what has sometimes been summarized as “getting more from less for more.” Mashelkar provides many examples from the twenty-first century, technological innovations which fit the bill in the sense of the word as described above, including the Jaipur foot, a low-cost prosthetic artificial foot which has enabled thousands of polio patients to walk again; the use of information technology to take up the challenge of making people literate and the production of low-cost vaccines such as those which have been produced in India for hepatitis. The idea behind Gandhian engineering is that our scientists and engineers should be engaged in finding solutions that can be extremely affordable to meet the problems of not just people in India but those from all over the world (Kulkarni 2012). This would be fulfilling Gandhi’s dream

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that some such technology would be invented which would help to look after the welfare of the poorest of the poor, as envisaged by Ruskin’s Unto This Last. There have been some other recent advances in this field with the advent of the science of eco-hedonism or sustainable hedonism. As the name suggests, the focus is on maintaining a balance between what we as humans want and like and, yet, maintain ecological balance. This is done by mimicking nature, which is never wasteful. The example provided is that of the cherry tree, no part of which is ever wasted, whether it is the cherry blossoms that turn into fruit, humus or a new tree itself. In view of this, a company EPEA has already been created by Braungart and McDonough and the cradle-to-cradle technology has been described in the books Cradle to Cradle (Braungart and McDonough 2002) and Upcycle (Braungart and McDonough 2013). IPEA’s clients are many and varied and include the likes of Volkswagen, Unilever and BMW. This was the reason for Gandhi’s insistence on the simple spinning wheel and his writings at various points of time clarify that he was not against science and technology, per se, but was against technology if it worked for the detriment of the people at large as proved by the following, Opposition to mills or machinery is not the point. What suits our country is the point. I am not opposed to the movement of manufacturing machines in the country, nor to improvements in machinery. I am only concerned with what these machines are made for. I may ask in the words of Ruskin, whether these machines will be such as would blow off a million men in a minute or they will be such that they turn waste land into arable and fertile lands. (Gandhi 1924, p. 378)

And in 1936, in reply to a Japanese correspondent who asked him as to whether he was against the machine age, he replied, To say that is to caricature my views. I am not against machinery as such, but I am totally opposed to it when it masters us. (Gandhi, in Hind Swaraj and other writings, Parel)

How farsighted was Gandhi? Today, we are indeed witnessing the fact that we are not just slaves to machine but that machines have overpowered us. The ill effects of the Internet and many of the other technologies are more than evident today.

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That Gandhi was not against either science or the fruits of science, namely, technology is clear from a variety of things. For one, the major function of the Satyagraha ashram in India was to train “satyagrahi scientists” who would be able to conduct research on ways to improve the art of spinning and other cottage industries being run for the village economy. He even established the All India Village Industries Association (AIVIA) and people on its advisory board included eminent scientists of the day, for example, Nobel Laureate, Sir C. V. Raman and J. C. Bose. He favored innovation, especially if it affected the ways in which the village and the village economy could profit from it. So great was his focus on innovation that he even instituted a prize for it (see Box 3.4). Gandhi was not against industrialization either as evidenced by his keen interest in the electrification of the villages and his support for the shipping industry. He was even good friends with, and thought highly of,

Box 3.4  Gandhi and His Obsession for Innovation

So obsessed was Gandhi with innovations that would improve technology related to village life and village pursuits that he even instituted a prize of five thousand rupees for it in 1921. This amount may seem meager today but in terms of purchasing power, it is equivalent to more than 2,00,000 rupees today—a huge amount by any standards. What was this prize instituted for? It was to attract inventors from all over the world to help improve the efficiency of khadi production. Eight years later, he increased the amount, from the original 5000 rupees to 1,00,000 rupees. In his own characteristic manner, he wrote to inventors in various parts of the world, In one thing I do not mind being a beggar. I would beg of you your scientific talent. You can ask your engineers and agricultural experts to place their services at our disposal. They must not come to us as our lords and masters but as voluntary workers. A Mysore engineer who is a Pole (Maurice Frydman) has sent me a box of hand made tools made to suit village requirements. Supposing an engineer of that character comes and studies the tools and cottage machines, he would be of great service. (Gandhi, Complete Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 64, p. 99)

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inventor-industrialist Ardeshir Godrej (founder of what is, today, the Godrej conglomerate) and J. N. Tata, the great industrialist and philanthropist who set up the Tata group of companies way back in the early 1900s. Would you believe that even the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) was started with the blessings of Gandhi in 1927. It flourishes to this day and is an important platform and meeting ground for Indian industrialists. Technology and Flow: The Music of the Spinning Wheel We end this chapter with the brief note on the music of the spinning wheel. A study of the writings of Gandhi reveals that he would often use the phrase “Music of the spinning wheel.” What was he referring to? Normally, he preferred silence to sound, and the only music to which he had affinity for was the music of hymns and other sacred songs. In a volume entitled Music of the Spinning Wheel, Sudheendra Kulkarni (2012) has given us a beautiful analysis of what was the nature of the sounds of the spinning wheel, and why it was music to the ears of Gandhi. Kulkarni describes the paradox we see in Gandhi. On the one hand he wanted his spinning wheel to be noiseless and yet, on the other Gandhi stated that it provided him with the “music of universal love.” How does one solve this paradox? Though not a psychologist, Kulkarni refers to the work of eminent positive psychologist Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi and his work on “flow” which is attained when one is enraptured and totally engrossed in some activity. Just as water simply flows along imperceptibly, not disturbing anything, not making any sound, so one can be transformed into another world by the activity one is engaged in. Kulkarni (ibid) uses a quote from the abundant writings of Csikszentmihalyi to explain his point. Music helps organize the mind that listens to it, and therefore reduces psychic entropy, or the disorder we experience when random information interferes with goals”… He also writes, ‘greater rewards are open to those who learn to make music’ and still greater rewards to those great musicians who can connect their ability to create harmony in sound to “the more general and abstract harmony that underlies the social order we call civilization.” (Csikszentmihalyi, cf. Kulkarni 2012, p. 171)

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The spinning wheel provided Gandhi with flow experiences, with that “one-pointedness” of mind, which is obtained when one is engaged in something that gives us a feeling of fulfillment. So great was the effect of spinning upon Gandhi, that he even professed at one point that it gave him more joy and helped him reach a higher state of self-purification than even the reading of scriptures could do. One can realize the immense joy that spinning gave Gandhi. For him it provided not just an experience of flow but also moments of meditative thinking, when one could become one with God, which for Gandhi was Truth. If one has to establish communion with God through some means, why not through the spinning wheel? (Gandhi, Harijan 1937)

It is envisaged that psychology of technology and designers of technology will work hand in glove to provide such moments of “flow.”

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CHAPTER 4

Gandhi’s Calling Orientation: Applications to Organizational Behavior

Opening Vignette: SEWA: An Organization Along Gandhian Lines and Gandhi’s Dreams

The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) with its headquarter at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, is “both an organization and a movement.” The origin of this amazing organization can be traced to the Textile Labour Association (TLA) founded by Gandhi, himself, in 1920 and is regarded as being the oldest and largest trade union in India. In describing the roots of nonviolence, the role of TLA figures prominently in Erikson’s famous book Gandhi’s Truth. The founder of SEWA (though an acronym, the word “sewa” itself means service in many Indian languages) is Ela Bhatt, a person who grew up in a family and an environment steeped in Gandhian values and whom we personally met and interviewed (the details of which are presented in Chap. 3 of Volume 1 of this book). After completing her studies in law in 1955, she joined the TLA’s legal wing and helped fight small cases related to problems of the textile workers with the mill owners. Bhatt was deeply inspired by Gandhi’s ideals, especially his emphasis on simplicity, dignity of labor, humanity and nonviolence, which were to later become the central components of SEWA and are in line with the second freedom (Doosri azaadi) envisaged by Gandhi, (continued) © The Author(s) 2020 V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1_4

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(continued)

a freedom from poverty and despair. Her days at the TLA made her realize the plight of the women, who would often be called upon to work part time so as to supplement the family income. Being unorganized, they had no rights and were oppressed by both their employers and the men-folk at home. In 1971, Bhatt was approached by a group of self-employed, women cart pullers and head loaders to help them with their problems. SEWA was born in 1972, as a trade union for self-employed women working in the unorganized sector, with its first few years being witness to many small victories for these unsung heroes of the Indian urban populace. The first challenge was that of arranging finances. With the help of the contributions of these women, a corpus of about USD 20,000 was collected, an amount which, to say the least, was intimidating for these poorest of the poor women. But their indomitable spirit, characterized by the slogan “we may be poor but we are so many,” helped them along and the SEWA Bank was formed. This was their first taste of success. In 1986, SEWA started organizing landless agricultural workers into a cooperative, in one of the districts of Gujarat, the success of which soon became a model for not only that particular village but for also other parts of Gujarat. Then came the year, 1981, when the TLA asked SEWA to shut its operations from within the TLA premises, presenting a new set of challenges. Despite invitations from many quarters, SEWA decided to remain independent, having at that time 4900 members, a small cooperative bank, a rural center, one vehicle and a few typewriters. Since then, it has multiplied manyfold, both in size and in the scope of its operations. In a short span of five  years, eleven new SEWA organizations were formed. By 2012, its membership rose to 1.75 million women spread across twelve states of India. Currently, it is the largest primary union in India, with over 2 million women members and has inspired women in many parts of the world, including, South Africa, Yemen, Turkey and Afghanistan to be affiliated with SEWA as sister organizations. Organizational Structure: The structure consists of state-level unions which are affiliates of the national union and are represented in the National Council. At the national level, SEWA’s membership (continued)

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is tied together in a federation of all SEWA organizations, called SEWA Bharat. The governance is based totally on democratic principles that promote leadership and dignity of self-employed women so as to empower them. There are 125 specific trade groups and each member is assigned to one of these groups, which form the foundation of SEWA’s governance arrangement. Each group is managed by grassroots leaders who are nominated by the group members. The corporate management is handled by a group of dedicated women led by the Secretary-General, who till 1996, was the founder Ela Bhatt, when she resigned, after having ensured that the organization was in the capable hands of committed women. All positions are based on an election process. SEWA is dedicated to achieve its twin goals of full employment and total self-reliance, with most programs being run on funds generated by the members. The size of the operations can be gauged by the annual turnover of the different organizations under the aegis of SEWA. In 2012, the SEWA Bank had an annual turnover of approximately USD 3.1  million, its agricultural brand RUDI (acronym derived from RUral Distribution) had a turnover of USD 46,000 and the SEWA construction workers company, Nirman had a turnover of USD 40,000. Today, it partners with several national and international organizations and helps to provide a model of empowerment for the world over. It has created grassroots organizations, fostered livelihood security and has developed market linkages. Though there are challenges, SEWA continues its operations, growing by leaps and bounds and in keeping with the Gandhian traditions of nonviolence, swaraj (self-rule) and doosri azaadi (second freedom) in letter and spirit. SEWA is truly an organization that is worth emulating in the twenty-­first century. SEWA is both an organization and a movement, the latter being “a confluence of three movements: the labor movement, the cooperative movement and the women’s movement. But it is also a movement of self-employed workers: their own, home grown movement with women as leaders. Through their own movement women become strong and visible. Their tremendous economic and social contributions become recognized …. More than ever, our members are ready to face the winds of change.” (Source: SEWA website, (2020) www.sewa.org)

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The Beginnings of Organizational Psychology The history of organizational psychology is almost as old as that of psychology itself, dating back to when Wilhelm Wundt established one of the first psychological laboratories in the city of Leipzig in Germany. Wundt trained two scholars, J. M. Cattell and Hugo Münsterberg, who were to set the stage for some of the early research related to work and organizational behavior (OB) with Cattell being one of the first to recognize the importance of individual differences for understanding work-related behavior. Cattell, along with some other psychologists, namely, Walter Dill Scot and Walter Bingham, developed procedures for the scientific selection, training and placement of personnel. Then came World War I, bringing with it, the need to recruit over a million people for the army, quickly, but, scientifically. This led to the adaptation of the Stanford–Binet test of intelligence for use for army selections and was named Army Alpha. It was Hugo Münsterberg (1863–1916), the German “father of psychotechnology,” who was the first to face this problematic field of psychology of work in its entirety and conceived the field (psychotechnik) as the “science of practical applications of psychology in the service of culture” (Münsterberg 1913, 1914). World War II gave an added impetus to the nascent discipline, of what was, then, known as industrial psychology, with a need for selection and placement of people in the newly developed war-based industries which were set up to provide for the large amount of equipment, uniforms, boots and other necessities needed for the soldiers. However, it was much later that the American Psychological Association started an independent division for industrial psychology, which after a few name changes finally came to be known as the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in the year 1982. Since then, the scope of the discipline has expanded tremendously, and with the ever-increasing importance of organizations and their management the world over, has led to considerable theorization and empirical research. Today, the discipline is known by a variety of names, including industrial psychology, organizational psychology, occupational psychology and human factors engineering. Its theories and research have proved to be of great significance for the management of organizations, the people working in them and the systems and procedures through which they operate. The discipline of managerial sciences has a, somewhat, longer history, starting soon after the economic Depression in the USA/Europe in the

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1870s, at a time when maintaining the efficiency of business processes was of utmost importance. It was at that time that people, such as Frederick W. Taylor and Henri Fayol, were to posit the principles of scientific management, which to a certain extent, continue to have a hold on industrial and organizational management. As far as the managerial sciences are concerned, the discipline of industrial/organizational psychology (I/O psychology) is more commonly known as Organizational Behavior (OB), though there is considerable overlap between the subject matter of I/O psychology and that of its sister discipline of personnel or human resource management. Taken together, these disciplines set the stage and have attempted to pave the way for the creation of scientific knowledge that would help to maximize the goals of both the organization and the people who work for them. Among the most influential directions in I/O psychology, were (1) the sociotechnical or holistic perspective, (2) the humanistic and motivational approach, and (3) the cognitive view of decision processes.

Nature of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior “Organizational psychology” or I/O psychology represents the area of psychology that applies psychological principles to the workplace, including the structure of organizations, the ways its members work together and how the organization attempts to improve itself through motivation, diversity, work attitudes, leadership, culture, and other related processes. (Dawson et al. 2014, p. 471)

Though primarily an area of applied psychology, it is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on a variety of other disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, anthropometrics, engineering and economics. An organization is a group of people (different from other groups such as an audience or a crowd) that works for a common goal in an interrelated and interdependent fashion. It is normally a complex entity containing multiple members, generally arranged in the form of a hierarchy, and, existing for a variety of purposes. So, a hospital is an organization, so is a school, hotel, factory or business concern. A well-known definition sees social organizations as “role systems,” with interrelated people operating

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according to certain norms and looking for certain desired and valued goals (Katz and Kahn 1966). Organizational behavior can, probably, be best understood in the light of the open systems approach, which posits that every organization consists of subsystems that are not only interdependent on and interrelated to each other, but that they are also influenced by each other. Levitt (1965) emphasizes four major internal components of this system, namely, task, technology, structure and people, all of which are interrelated and interdependent on each other. At the same time, the organization does not exist in a vacuum but in an environment that has various constituents such as the state and legislations, competitors, the economic conditions both at the local and the global level. These four aspects have been depicted in Fig. 4.1. Further, the behavior of human beings in an organization can be analyzed in terms of three sets of factors, namely, the individual, group and organizational, leading to what has been generally referred to as three levels of analysis: the individual level, the group level and the organizational level. The individual-level factors are many and include those aspects of the individual that influence his or her behavior at work, including his or her perceptions, personality, values, attitudes, motivations, learning, Task environment

Structure t

Inputs

Task task

organization

Technology

People Organizational boundary

Fig. 4.1  A systems approach to organizations (based on Levitt 1965)

Output

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morality and ethics, stress and well-being. Since people are members of different groups, both formal and informal, the characteristics of the groups to which they belong also define their behavior. Some of these characteristics include the structure of groups, group dynamics, leadership, conflicts and their resolution and communication. Last but not the least, the organization for which these people are working has certain specific characteristics which will cast its influence on the behavior of the members. Included among these variables are the organizational structure and culture, the vision and mission of the organization and organizational change and development.

Individual Factors, OB and Gandhi With this as a brief introduction to organizational psychology, we will, now, focus on some of the factors mentioned above, with special reference to the ways in which Gandhi managed the various organizations and groups during his lifetime, both in South Africa and in India. Specifically, we will attempt to draw from Gandhian organizations, new insights which can help twenty-first-century organizations achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness, the twin objectives of any organization run for social, political, religious, educational, business or for that matter, any purpose. The Calling Orientation In 1997, Amy Wrzesniewski along with her colleagues conducted an investigation to study attitudes toward work. Using employees from different occupations and levels in the organizational hierarchy, they concluded that there were three distinct categories of employees as far as their attitudes toward work are concerned. While some saw it merely in terms of the financial and other gains associated with it, there were others who perceived their job as a path for helping them to move ahead in life. Then, there was this last category of people who enjoyed the work and found it fulfilling. The researchers concluded that the above were three, distinct orientations to work, and named them, job orientation, career orientation and Calling Orientation (CO) respectively (Wrzesniewski et al. 1997). Who are the people in the last category, that is, those with a Calling Orientation like? According to Kool and Agrawal (2013), they are the good citizens of an organization and bring a number of positive qualities to work.

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Following their seminal research in 1997, Amy Wrzesniewski and her team set out to use the findings on the Calling Orientation, a concept first proposed by Protestant theologian, Luther, to help people manage their job and to turn it into the job they want, that is, their dream job (Wrzesniewski et al. 2010). What was being proposed was that each individual should think of the job as comprising a set of building blocks, which one could configure and reconfigure to make the work more fulfilling. This is what the researchers called job crafting, and in an article in the Harvard Business Review, they set out the ways through which such crafting can be undertaken. A growing body of research suggests that an exercise we call “job crafting” can be a powerful tool for reenergizing and reimagining your work life. It involves redefining your job to incorporate your motives, strengths, and passions. The exercise prompts you to visualize the job, map its elements, and reorganize them to better suit you. In this way, you can put personal touches on how you see and do your job, and you’ll gain a greater sense of control at work—which is especially critical at a time when you’re probably working longer and harder and expecting to retire later. Perhaps job crafting’s best feature is that it’s driven by you, not your supervisor. (Wrzesniewski et al. 2010, hbr.org)

In an attempt to help people engage in job crafting, Barnett (2012) expanded on the concept and explained what people with a Calling Orientation are like. According to Barnett, there are at least three characteristics that help to set such people apart from others, namely, that, • They emphasize service • They emphasize craftsmanship in that they want to make things happen and reach excellence in all that they pursue because it leads to self-fulfillment • They de-emphasize money. “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life” Confucious In the competitive world of today, it is hardly possible to choose your dream job. But, what one can do, is to reconfigure one’s present job such that it becomes as close as possible to one’s dream job. One may ask, “Is it possible to reconfigure one’s job with all the ‘givens’ already in place?”

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Wzresniewski is of the view that it can be done, through the process of job crafting. Despite many of the aspects of the job being set up by the organization which are hardly amenable to change by the employee, a careful look reveals that there are some that are, certainly, in the control of the individual employee. According to the advocates of job crafting, there are three core characteristics that an individual can change in any job. These are the task, the relationships and the perceptions. As far as the task is concerned, one can expand the boundaries of the job, in ways that Pareek et al. (1981) call role making rather than role taking. Over and above the role description provided to you, you can always find ways of adding responsibilities and duties that change the task and make it more satisfying; relationships undergo a change when you change the extent and the intensity of your interactions with people; and the perceptions change when you start seeing your work as being significant and purposeful (Wrzesniewski et  al. 2010). In a recent podcast (Kaufman 2018), Wrzesniewski points out some of the other salient features of the Calling Orientation and the ways through which they can be promoted. While she has focused on a number of aspects, there are two that we would like to specify, firstly, spirituality as a potential source of meaning at work and, secondly, the importance of self-resonance (i.e., the individual self-­ resonating or empathizing with the other). The above have been further explained by Duffy and Dik (2013, p. 429). They point out that first and foremost, the person experiences an “external summons” as if someone was calling out to him/her to come forward. The second is to have a “broader sense of purpose in life,” while the third is that the person’s career becomes pro-socially oriented. The first two would give the spiritual orientation so necessary to make work meaningful while the last would entail the self-resonating aspect. Then, the person could be said to be living the calling in letter and spirit (Afsar et al. 2019). Looking at Gandhi from the perspective of the Calling Orientation, a number of aspects are clear. First and foremost, he definitely had a Calling Orientation in terms of the three characteristics mentioned by Duffy and Dik (2013). Secondly, in line with the ideas put forth by Barnett (2012), for Gandhi, not only was service of paramount importance, it was the sole purpose of his life and work, saying that “God could be realized only through service.” At the same time, money meant nothing to him, except as a means to render proper service to people, whether through the

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newspaper published at Phoenix Settlement, South Africa, or to provide for the satyagrahis and their families during the struggle for freedom in India. Moreover, all his pursuits were undertaken for a single motive, the search for the ultimate Truth and, thereby, led to an intense feeling of self-fulfillment. Thirdly, we would like to point out what Wzresniewski says in her podcast (Kaufman 2018) regarding spirituality as an avenue for making work meaningful. Is that not exactly what Gandhi emphasized all his life? For him, the Satyagraha based as it was on nonviolence was not simply a strategy for gaining independence, “Satyagraha is the religion that stays in all religions” (Skaria 2014, p.  31) and what was his religion? For Gandhi, God was not the ultimate Truth. Rather, Truth was God. He worshipped the Truth, spent his entire life pursuing the Truth, and all his endeavors were nothing but the different paths leading to this Truth. Even the concept of self-resonance brought up in the podcast is relevant as far as Gandhi is considered: he was empathy incarnate, being able to empathize with the thief, with a calf in pain and with his worst enemy such as the British. His constant reminder to his followers was that they should hate the acts of the British but not the British. Another important aspect of Gandhi’s Calling Orientation was that not only did he himself live his calling (Afsar et  al. 2019) but that he also enabled his followers to pursue whatever they were engaged in as their calling. This capability of being able to inculcate an attitude in others even while understanding their weaknesses and problems is self-resonance in the real sense of the word. As described in Kool and Agrawal (2013), For Gandhi, a cardinal virtue of nonviolence was to lead an individual to the highest form of civility, a hallmark of CO. Gandhi never offered a satyagrahi a rigid set of rules for practicing nonviolence, but encouraged them to listen to their inner voice and to carve their behavior through continuous self-­ evaluation. In doing so, an activist was encouraged to keep in mind the following (Iyer 1983): • • • • • •

Satyagraha is meant to fix injustice Obey the laws, but resist the unjust portion of the law There should be no vilification of the opponent Be prepared to suffer; self-sacrifice Discipline yourself Display unconditional humility to everyone including the oppressor, and

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• Never seek personal gain; keep working for the just cause. (Kool and Agrawal 2013, p. 508)

Thus, while Amy Wrzesniewski along with her collaborators advanced the notions of CO and job crafting, Gandhi offered a set of noninstitutional codes for behavior in all settings—be it at work, home or in the church. Extrinsic Versus Intrinsic Motivation A major task for organizations is keeping their employees motivated so that organizational goals can be fulfilled. Organizational psychology has drawn theories and findings from research in basic psychology and the field is replete with a large number of theoretical frameworks. On the one hand we have a number of need-based theories, such as those of Maslow, Alderfer, Herzberg, McGregor and McClelland all of whom posit that the motivation or the drive springs from a wide variety of needs that require fulfillment. Once the need is satiated, the drive decreases till the time that the need is, once again, felt by the individual and the cycle continues in this manner. Along a very different vein, we have the behavioristic theories of motivation such as those offered by Pavlov and Skinner, for whom the amount of motivation depended on externally applied forces, either through association (as in the case of Pavlovian classical conditioning) or through reinforcements (as in the case of Skinnerian operant conditioning). Bandura added a third dimension to extrinsic motivation, namely, that of vicarious reinforcement, in that the observation of reinforcements being given to some other individual becomes reinforcing for the observer also. A totally different category of theories are those which take into account social processes; which focus on the ways in which the individual interacts with and perceives the environment, especially the social environment. Such theories include Adam’s Equity theory (1965), social exchange theories (Blau 1964; Etzioni 1969) and Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory (based on how individuals perceive their efforts and performance results). While all of the above mentioned theories have important implications for the motivation of employees and members of an organization, we must keep in mind that the majority have been developed in the USA and validated on American samples (Adler 1991; Nelson and Quick 2000). Will they be equally applicable to people in other regions of the world where the culture may be different from that in the USA? Attempts have been

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made to answer this question by trying out the theoretical frameworks in a variety of cultural settings. The classic work in this direction was undertaken by noted researcher Hofstede, and reported in his paper, Motivation, leadership and organization: Do American theories apply abroad (1980) in which it has been reported that there are wide cultural differences as far as Maslow’s, McClelland’s, Hertzberg’s and Vroom’s theories are concerned. For example, while self-actualization may be at the zenith of the needs hierarchy as far as Americans are concerned, security is the most important need for people in Greece and Japan. Similarly, the American emphasis on achievement may not be universally true. Along the same vein, expectancy theory holds for individualistic cultures but not for more collectivistic cultures. As a result of noticing several limitations in the nature and scope of psychology in the USA, Arnett (2008) categorically stated that psychological researches in the USA tend to focus on less than 5% of the population of the world. The question that is implied is, ‘what about the remaining 95%’ (which, in fact, is the title of Arnett’s paper)? Another limitation of the abovementioned theories of motivation is that they give, hardly, any importance to the cognitive-moral dimension. Shall we conclude that people work only so that their own personal, selfish needs are met? Will it be enough if people are rewarded for good behavior and punished for bad behavior? But, what I may consider “good” or “appropriate” behavior may be considered as “bad” or “inappropriate” behavior by someone else. Situational factors would also need to be brought into the picture. Behavior in one situation may be considered “appropriate” but the moment the situation changes, the same behavior can be judged as being inappropriate. The moment we start debating about “good” and “bad” behavior, we are stepping into the realm of values and value systems, and are reminded of the adage, “one man’s meat may be another man’s poison.” What about altruistic behavior in which one is ready to forego one’s own needs so that those of another may be served? What about justice and fairness? Many of these dimensions fall squarely in the realm of morality and ethics, and what needs to be considered is the level of moral maturity, both of the employees and that of the employer. This is an aspect of organizational psychology which can draw insights from Gandhi and the ways in which he motivated the members of his farms and ashrams and those following him in the Satyagrahas in South Africa and in India. For one thing, he refrained from using external

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reinforcement; he wouldn’t think of rewarding a person for good behavior or punishing another for bad behavior, unlike the organizations of today, which depend on the use of reinforcement in more ways than one. Employees receive rewards in the form of monetary remuneration and are given punishments in the form of penalties or the forgoing of rewards. Gandhi thought differently. The role of man in society, Gandhi asserted, is not built around mere contingencies that the society offers, but takes shape in interaction with his conscience and with the demands placed on him. He firmly believed in the supremacy of the individual and that his role in society should be evaluated in terms of his ability to use justice and caring soaked in his moral position, a point very well addressed in Gilligan’s research describing Gandhi as a role model. (Kool and Agrawal 2013, p. 498)

At the same time, he did see to it that the needs of his followers were fulfilled, especially their basic needs. Social needs were fulfilled through the community activities, such as community prayer meetings and community spinning sessions. Otherwise also, the members did everything together; their responsibilities were conjoint, so also were their duties. The need for self-esteem was achieved, not through status symbols as is being done today, but by caring for each and every person’s self-respect. Gandhi made sure that the self-respect of any person was not hurt on any ground. The best example of this is the way he insisted that no work is small or big and that every person must learn to respect the dignity of labor, even the labor of scavenging, erstwhile being done by only people of the lower castes (referred to as untouchables). Gandhi insisted that each person helps in the cleaning of toilets so that every person becomes untouchable, which for obvious reasons cannot happen. He gave them a new name, Harijan (God’s own people) in an attempt to reduce the stigma attached to their image and the ensuing prejudice. As far as self-­actualization is concerned, it was given highest priority by Gandhi. He professed that not only was self-actualization his goal but that it should also be the goal of every person. It was this voice within Gandhi that led Gandhi to the conclusion that life was a quest for truth and a struggle for justice. (Jahanbegloo 2018, p. 105)

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Most of all, Gandhi focused on intrinsic motivation through what he called “soul force” in contrast to the usual “brute force.” It was through this soul force that his volunteers could engage the oppressor in a moral jiu-jitsu, unnerving him, making him lose his moral balance and dis-­ balancing his equanimity through the nonviolence that they had espoused (Gregg 1958). This was what created the drive and the commitment in his followers, enabling them to suffer torture and prison without a word. They laughed when they entered the prison; there was gaiety in the air. This could only take place because of a drive that was not created through coercion but through their “inner voice” motivating them to manifest self-control of the highest order and helping them to refrain from violence, no matter what the provocation. Tendulkar, in his eight-volume biography of Gandhi, has delineated how the entire concept of Satyagraha was based on self-control achieved through soul-searching, a concept similar to what we would describe as a motivational variable in typical psychological research. We invite the reader to peruse through the following statement by Gandhi reported in Tendulkar’s masterpiece: The military strategy depends on the changing tactics of the enemy. The satyagrahi general has to obey his inner voice, for over and above the situation outside he examines himself constantly and listens to the dictates of the inner self. Both in satyagraha and military warfare, the position of the soldier is very nearly the same. He knows no rest, no certainty of movements; the only certainty for him is to face heavy odds and even death. His promise to be under discipline and to obey the general’s command applies even during the period of suspension of hostilities. But I have never asked for this kind of discipline. I have always tried to carry conviction to my co-workers, and to carry their hearts and their reasons with me. I shall go on doing so always, but then there you cannot follow, you will have to have faith. (Tendulkar 1951, p. 111)

Like Thoreau, Skinner was also interested in creating a community patterned on utopian ideals. In fact, in 1967, eight followers of Skinner founded a small commune in Twin Oaks, Virginia, USA, and within a few years, it grew to a size of eighty-one with its members actively using the principles of behavioral engineering based on the concept of reinforcements. But, it failed soon after. In contrast, each one of Gandhi’s communities was highly successful, with many of these running in full swing even today. The reason was the way in which Gandhi’s followers embraced

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Satyagraha in its entirety, practicing the highest order of self-sacrifice through stringent vows and action plans developed by Gandhi. Through self sacrifice, satyagrahis offer fearlessness to their opponents and experience it themselves. Their fearlessness differs from that of warriors— while the latter require a mastery of fear, the former require a welling of love or compassion. (Skaria 2014, p. 33)

This was the nature of the moral maturity that Gandhi focused upon. It incorporated the development of a capacity to embrace not only our community as our family but by going beyond that, to embrace the entire universe as our family (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam). Thus, while both Gandhi and Skinner focused on behavior, their ways were entirely different, leading Pulitzer Award-winning author of the book Gandhi’s Truth, Erikson (1969), to conclude that Behaviors based on reinforcement and contingencies alone have little value without a genuine sense of identity with the community. Without a sense of our own identity and affiliation, reinforcements often become meaningless and remain ineffective. In fact, it is often been said that Gandhian nonviolence is not a simple strategy. It is a way of life that one has to embrace whole-heartedly in order to become a true satyagrahi. (Kool and Agrawal 2013, p. 491)

In what has been considered a classic article written by Skinner, in the American Psychologist shortly before his death, he attempted to extend his concept of reinforcement to the newly emerging area of nonviolence: When Gandhi was asked, “What are we to do?” he is said to have replied, “Think of the poorest man you have ever met and then ask if what you are doing is of any benefit to him.” But he must have meant “of any benefit to the many people who, without your help, will be like him.” To feed the hungry and clothe the naked are remedial acts. We can easily see what is wrong and what needs to be done. (Skinner 1987, p. 783)

From the above, it is clear that Skinner considered all behavior, including nonviolent behavior similar to that of the rats in the Skinner box, in that people tend to build contingencies at work and even in other places so as to get rewards and avoid punishments in line with what he had written much earlier, in his book Beyond Dignity and Freedom (1953),

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The behavior is epitomized by the mule which fails to respond to the aversive stimulation of the whip. The child, unsuccessful in avoiding or revolting against parental control, simply becomes stubborn. … Thoreau’s civil disobedience, practiced perhaps most conspicuously by Gandhi, is the parallel reaction to governmental control. (Skinner 1953, p. 360)

But, this was not the case with Gandhi or with his followers. They were hardly like mules; they were far from being stubborn. According to Skinner, punishment should lead to an aversion to the behavior that is being punished, whereas according to Martin Seligman (1998), constant punishment generally produces a feeling of learned helplessness or the feeling that “I am useless.” In the case of Gandhi’s satyagrahis, punishment time and again, at the hands of the British, made them neither aversive toward the nonviolent ways of resistance, that they were being punished for, nor did they develop a feeling of learned helplessness. Rather, each successive punishment simply went to heighten their commitment to the cause and to their goal. How would Skinner explain such behavior? While Skinnerian reinforcement is unable to explain this seeming paradox, we can draw a leaf from Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy or one’s perception of competence in negotiating adverse events (Kool 2008). Self-Efficacy In fact, Bandura even referred to Gandhi in his explanation of self-efficacy, Gandhi provides a striking example of self-sacrifice in the exercise of commanding personal efficacy. He spearheaded the triumph over oppressive rule through unceasing nonviolent resistance and repeatedly forced concessions from ruling authorities by going on life-threatening fasts. He lived ­ascetically, not self-indulgently. Without a resilient sense of self, people are easily overwhelmed by adversities in their attempts to improve their group life through collective effort. (Bandura 1997, p. 32)

The above points clarify the limits to which most modern theories of motivation are applicable as far as the satyagrahis are concerned. It also delineates some of the ingenious ways through which Gandhi was able to inculcate intrinsic motivation among his followers, which has been known to be a far better source of motivation than any externally applied force.

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Group Dynamics, Organizational Behavior and Gandhi We, now, move on to some of the variables from the next level of analysis of organizational behavior, namely, that of the group level. Generally the study of groups and the processes by which they function comes under the rubric of group dynamics, which itself can be divided into two aspects, group structure and group function. Starting with the work of scholars such as Le Bon and McDougall in the early 1930s, there has been a burgeoning of research findings on group dynamics and its implications for the understanding of organizational behavior. The general conclusion that can be drawn is that groups have a positive impact on both individual efficiency and effectiveness as also on organizational effectiveness (Nelson and Quick 2000). Research on groups has consistently revealed that the structure of the group, including variables such as size of the group, the ways in which it is structured in terms of the relationships between the members, the number of subgroups and the leader/leaders, plays a significant role in the functioning of the group (Kool and Agrawal 2006; Luthans et al. 2015). Interdependence Among Members As far as the size of the group is concerned, empirical findings show that the smaller the group, the more efficient and effective it is. As the size increases, subgroup formation starts taking place and the cohesiveness shows a dramatic decrease. In fact, small group dynamics has been found to be different from that of large groups. If we think of Gandhi’s groups of followers, all the communities and the groups of villagers who rallied around him from time to time would definitely fall in the category of large groups. Yet, subgroup formation was nil and cohesiveness was extremely high. What was the social glue that Gandhi was using? For one thing, Gandhi created strong feelings of interdependence among the people. A good example is the way they operated the press at Phoenix Settlement. As described by Hofmeyr (2014, p. 28), The personnel that worked on the press were diverse, comprising different languages, religions, castes, races and genders …. Virtually all residents— men, women and children—were involved in some aspect of the printing

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process. Typesetting was mandatory for all literate members of the settlement, some proving more adept than others with Gandhi describing himself as a dunce. Most men assisted with the operation of the presses while everyone folded the newspapers, put them in wrappers, and pasted on addresses.

The same practice was followed at Tolstoy Farm and in his other communes, with everyone, men, women and children, sharing equally all the work that was to be done. This was how Gandhi created interdependence among the followers, under his insistence on the duty of “bread labor,” or, that it is the duty of everyone to work and to add in some way to the business of the community. Apart from such interdependence, he also created a strong feeling of camaraderie, by his own example and through his exhortation that it was the duty of every member to not only respect the faith of others but also to take part in the festivities and fasts of all faiths. For the propagation of such an ideal he organized community prayer meetings: not just once in a while but everyday—the day started with prayer and ended with prayer, always being performed by the community as a unitary body. It has been noted in the science of organizational behavior that the formation of a superordinate goal, which is over and above the personal goals of the individual members, goes a long way in creating high group cohesiveness. The superordinate goal was the revocation of oppressive laws and practices in South Africa and independence from the British in India, both being far more important than any personal goal that the people may have had. From centuries together, it has been seen that in every culture, including that of India, there are certain rites of passage which have to be adhered to and which signify group membership. Gandhi, through his insistence that each potential satyagrahi should join only if their inner voice told them to do so, along with the mandatory vows acted as rites of passage for entry to the group. Gandhi was adamant with regard to these vows. They applied not only on his followers but also to himself, proving that he believed in leadership by example. Another factor which increased the “we feeling” in the group was the training and induction provided to each satyagrahi. In fact, Gandhi saw the Phoenix Settlement as a training ground for the satyagrahi warrior, not being trained in the use of violent weapons, but in the use of nonviolence for protecting the Truth. As such, there was rigorous labor performed with a strong sense of discipline. Gregg (1958), in his book The Power of

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Nonviolence, describes the need for training of Gandhi’s followers in a very succinct manner. Military discipline, another kind of tool, changes men of indifferent courage into heroes. So Gandhi’s invention of a discipline for nonviolent resisters made this method possible for hundreds of thousands of Indian peasants who were not saints but ordinary people. (Gregg 1958, p. 165)

Group Cohesiveness One of the most widely used concepts is that of group cohesion or group cohesiveness. Cohesiveness is the social glue which binds people to the group and keeps the group from falling apart especially in times of crisis or in the face of adversity. A standard definition of group cohesion is that by Festinger et al. (1950) according to which cohesion can be understood “as the total field of forces acting on individuals to remain in the group,” with the total field connoting the sum total of external and internal factors acting on the group. Another popular definition of group cohesion is that it depicts a broad and dynamic process, through which develops the tendency for the members of a group to stick together, and to remain united in the pursuit of its goals and those of the organization. Even a casual survey of research in the field of group dynamics reveals that group cohesion or cohesiveness has remained a popular topic mainly because it is one of those few areas wherein results have been fairly consistent in showing that there is a positive relationship between cohesiveness and performance (Chiocchio and Essiembre 2009; Greer 2012; Pescosolido and Saavedra 2012; Wise 2014). Research shows that group cohesiveness is a function of a large number of variables (Nelson and Quick 2000), but those discussed in the preceding paragraphs are of primary importance. In other words, the degree of interdependence, the formation of a superordinate goal, the social relatedness among the members and the type of induction provided have generally been found to add to the cohesiveness of the group. There have also been some specific studies in social psychology which have provided a number of insights. One of these is the classic study by Schachter and his associates (Schachter et al. 1951). In order to test the effect of group cohesiveness and induction on productivity, Schachter and his associates conducted a study, the subjects of which were divided into four groups, which were as follows:

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• High cohesiveness-positive induction (High coh/+ind) • High cohesiveness-negative induction (high coh/−ind) • Low cohesiveness-positive induction (low coh/+ind) • Low cohesiveness-negative induction (low coh/−ind) Figure 4.2 presents the results. Take a note of the shape of the graphical representation because of which the study has been known as the pitchfork experiment. As can be seen from Fig.  4.2, highest productivity is attained when the group is characterized by high cohesiveness coupled with positive induction, followed by the group with low cohesiveness but positive induction. The other two groups, namely, the group with low cohesiveness and negative induction and that with high cohesiveness and negative induction show below-par performance. What are the implications of the study? First and foremost, the type of induction, which in many cases, may be akin to the type of leadership, is of far greater importance than level of cohesiveness, with groups provided with negative leadership (a leader who has no power over the group or even no leadership) being much lower on their performance than those provided with positive or good leadership. Secondly, when good leadership is coupled with high cohesiveness, the impact on performance is tremendous and surpasses that

Coh---Cohesiveness Ind---Induction

High coh/+ ind

Low coh/+ ind

Productivity

Control Low coh/--ind

High coh/--ind

Induction time Fig. 4.2  Results of Schachter et  al.’s (1951) pitchfork study. (Adapted from Luthans 1995)

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of all the other groups. Thirdly, high cohesiveness coupled with negative or no leadership is the worst possible scenario. While the abovementioned results were obtained more than six decades back, the implications remain much the same, even after so many years. As pointed out by later research, cohesiveness is strengthened by good leadership, a strong group culture and structure and goal clarity (Wendt et al. 2009). Further, the nature of cohesiveness in a group is a reflection of the level of communication and bonding among group members and results in task, role commitment, group pride and interpersonal attraction (Banwo et al. 2015; Rosh et al. 2012; Shaw 1981) revealed through group solidarity, harmony and commitment among group members (Mudrack 1989). Another factor that has been found to be important in promoting group cohesiveness is the energy level of the members, wherein energy refers to not just physical energy but moral energy in the form of ego energy (Muceldili and Erdil 2015; Quinn and Dutton 2005). Energy has been the focus in a number of related concepts such as job engagement (Rich et  al. 2010), subjective vitality (Ryan and Frederick 1997), zest (Peterson et  al. 2009), thriving (Spreitzer et al. 2005) and momentum (Jansen 2004). Kahn (1990, 1992) and Ashworth and Humphrey (1995) have found a positive relationship between coworkers’ emotional and behavioral energy and positive connections. Group members who are energized, both emotionally and behaviorally, are more likely to reflect strong ties and are tightly coupled together. Additionally, energized groups tend to have a desire to remain in the group and manifest a sense of belonging. As has been demonstrated by Cole et al. (2012), energized groups are committed to the organization and its goals. Besides this, energy is an important component of crisis management. Organizations handle burnout and exhaustion via energy. Energy also provides avenues for broadening perspectives as suggested by Broaden and Build Theory of Fredrickson (2008) which, in turn, helps to build new resources. In other words, the conclusion that can be drawn is that the moral, emotional and physical energy level of the group members contributes to group effectiveness in a variety of ways. Comparing the findings reported above with the cohesiveness and the nature of leadership in Gandhi’s groups of followers, two aspects are more than clear: that the groups were characterized by an extremely high level of cohesiveness and that the leader was strong and committed and had a positive influence over the group. With the leader being none other than Gandhi himself, it is but natural that the followers should manifest very

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high levels of performance in all the realms of endeavor, whether in the communities, the prisons or out on the streets during their nonresistant marches. Research has also clarified that groups that are highly cohesive are difficult to break asunder, because cohesiveness is the social glue which binds them together. This is the reason why, no matter how much the oppressors pressurized and coerced the people, they could not pull them apart. While results such as those of Schachter were obtained under controlled conditions, Gandhi’s Satyagrahas provide a living example of the role of cohesiveness and induction (either in the form of training or leadership) in enhancing the commitment and performance of the group. Leadership Leadership has probably been written about, researched and discussed more than any other single topic in organizational psychology. Yet, corporate houses have not always seen the best of leaders. In fact, in 1990, Abraham Zaleznik lamenting about the state of affairs of business in the USA was of the view that Business in America has lost its way, a drift in a sea of managerial mediocrity, desperately needing leadership, to face worldwide economic competition. (Zaleznik 1990, p. 9)

This was despite the fact that the twentieth century saw a slew of research in the area of leadership. Starting with the earliest study on leadership conducted by Kurt Lewin and his students in the 1930s we have had many theories positing different types of leadership, based on a wide variety of factors such as personality and personal traits, situational and contingent factors and types of followers. The latter part of the twentieth century saw the emergence of new trends in our understanding of leadership through concepts such as charismatic leadership, transactive versus transformational leadership and substitutes for leadership. From this very diverse field, we will make an attempt to draw on those theoretical frameworks that will help us in our analysis of Gandhian leadership. At the same time, we will endeavor to decipher how Gandhi’s leadership style may offer fresh insights for leadership in the management of twenty-first-century organizations.

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 he Charisma of Gandhi’s Leadership T Gandhi has been described by most people as having a charisma about him. Even the British were unable to resist his arguments once he started convincing them. That they could not act in his favor immediately was because of the various legal and governmental constraints they were under. The same can be said of his followers. They would follow Gandhi as if they were spellbound. It is difficult to imagine such a lean person, half-clad for a major portion of his political days, to have such influence over people. But this is the reality and in the true sense of the word, he may be called a charismatic leader. Rather than deriving power from any position that he held (he did not hold any office as such), his power came from his very personality. Being a stringent adherent to the creed of nonviolence, Gandhi used the form of power which eminent scholar, Boulding, referred to as integrative power (Kool 1993, 2008). And, as in the case of other charismatic leaders, by the force of their personal abilities are capable of having profound and extraordinary effects upon their followers. (House and Baetz 1979, p. 399)

While charismatic leadership has been recognized from the times of the ancient Greeks, its modern development is attributed to the efforts of Robert House (1977). According to House, Charismatic leaders are characterized by self confidence and confidence in subordinates, high expectations for subordinates, ideological vision, and the use of personal example. Followers of charismatic leaders identify with the leader and the mission of the leader, exhibit extreme loyalty to and confidence in the leader, emulate the leader’s values and behavior, and derive self esteem from their relationship with the leader. (House 1977, cf. Luthans 1995, p. 355)

The concept was expanded further by Bass (1985) to include characteristics such as superior debating, persuasion skills and technical expertise. At the same time they are able to nurture a variety of changes in their followers, including attitudinal, behavioral and emotional changes. As explained by Antonakis et al. (2012), one can understand the influence of charismatic leaders from the point of view of the alchemy between what Aristotle referred to as the logos (powerful reason and logic), the ethos (personal and moral credibility) and the pathos (arousal of passions and

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emotions of the followers). Any leader capable of these three will, certainly, be able to inspire the followers to achieve what may often seem to be impossible. In fact, Bass has suggested that charismatic leadership is basically transformational leadership, a concept that was first introduced by James Downton and developed further by James MacGregor Burns. According to Burns, people who manifest the transformational leadership style are able to make both themselves and their followers advance to a level of morality and motivation not seen before (Burns 2004). Thus, because of the strength of their vision and their personality, transformational leaders are able to inspire followers to change expectations, perceptions and motivations enabling them to work toward common goals of the team, organization, community or even the society (Barling and Cooper 2008). This type of leadership is in direct contrast to what has been called transactional leadership, which is based on a give and take relationship, in which the leader promises something to the followers in return for their performance or their loyalty. Transformational leadership is also vastly different from the laissez-faire type of leadership, wherein the leader leaves the followers to manage their affairs in their own way. At the same time, transformational leaders are seen as moral exemplars and generally manifest the following four aspects in their behavior (Crede et al. 2019). These are as follows: • Idealized Influence: The transformational leader serves as an ideal role model for followers; the leader “walks the talk,” and is admired for this. Moreover, s/he can be trusted. • Inspirational Motivation: Transformational leaders have the ability to inspire and motivate followers by having a vision and being able to present that vision. One very important characteristic of such leaders is that they are able to convey their message in a way that is simple to follow. • Individualized Consideration: Transformational leaders demonstrate genuine concern for the needs and feelings of followers and help them self-actualize. S/he devotes personal attention to each and every follower, thereby inculcating a feeling of trust among the followers. • Intellectual Stimulation: The transformational leader enhances intellectual stimulation through training and challenges the followers to be innovative and creative and to challenge the status quo. While a

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common myth is that such leaders are soft, mainly because of their high degree of empathy and compassion, in reality they are not so and continually challenge the followers to achieve higher levels of performance. Last but not the least, transformational leaders aim at levels far beyond self-actualization. Their focus is much above self-interest; they are more interested in the development of their followers (Bass 1999). However, the degree to which such a leader is effective and is able to enhance the performance of the followers is highly dependent on the culture of the organization, community or nation. It has been recognized that organizations with a poor culture, where people fail to understand the vision or doubt the credibility of the vision, or if they do not have collective enthusiasm for the mission stand most to gain from such a type of leadership (Difranza 2019) In view of the above mentioned characteristics, let us consider the leadership shown by Gandhi. In his own words, he was not autocratic. I have often been charged with having an unyielding nature. I have been told that I would not bow to the decisions of the majority. I have been accused of being autocratic …. I have never been able to subscribe to the charge of obstinacy or autocracy. On the contrary, I pride myself on my yielding nature in non-vital matters. I detest autocracy. Valuing my freedom and independence I equally cherish them for others. I have no desire to carry a single soul with me, if I cannot appeal to his or her reason. My unconventionality I carry to the point of rejecting the divinity of the oldest shastras if they cannot convince my reason. But I have found by experience that, if I wish to live in society and still retain my independence, I must limit the points of utter independence to matters of first-rate importance. In all others which do not involve a departure from one’s personal religion or moral code, one must yield to the majority. (Gandhi 1920, p. 4)

It is also very clear that Gandhi manifested in his leadership, all the four qualities pointed out by Crede et al. (2019) and discussed above. He definitely “walked the talk,” he was always a leader by example, first trying it out on himself and then only asking his followers to do something. As he would say, “Be the change you want to see.” Not only did he profess this but he also practiced it in thought, speech and action. As far as having a vision is concerned, no one can doubt that he had a vision, that of Truth, with nonviolence being the only path to attain the Truth.

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At the same time, he was able to convey the nuances of nonviolence to all his followers, illiterate though most of them were. Whenever he would address a gathering, large or small, it would appear as if he was addressing each person individually. This was because of his deep perceptiveness of the needs and the welfare of all followed by compassionate action and not mere thoughts. Last but not the least, he insisted on the intellectual stimulation of all and sundry through the rigorous training he imparted to all the satyagrahis. He was never soft. In fact, one of the most well-known quotes is that nonviolence is not for cowards. My nonviolence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice (Gandhi 1924a, p. 178)

Jorgen Johanson (2007) has differentiated between nonviolence for the weak and nonviolence for the strong. While the former is used by people who see nonviolence as a pragmatic force to enable them to achieve their goals, the latter term is reserved for those who are committed to the nonviolent lifestyle, an inner search for truth, total self-discipline, a stoic lifestyle and great moral courage to confront the opponent (Kool 2008; Kool and Agrawal 2013, 2018). This definition fits in totality to the way in which Gandhi approached nonviolence. Over the years, there has been an ongoing debate regarding whether charisma is inborn or whether it can be developed. One way to resolve this debate is to look at it as a function of both heredity and environment as is the case with most of our qualities, hardly any of which can be said to be either totally inborn or nurtured by the environment. This has been the traditional way of resolving the nature/nurture controversy on the basis of research on a large gamut of psychological characteristics. Another way of resolving this dilemma is to view charisma as a process involving an interaction between the qualities of the charismatic leader, the needs of the followers and the nature of the situation in terms of the extent to which it demands a charismatic leader (Riggio 2012). How does this apply to Gandhi? As far as Gandhi is concerned, it is difficult to see the charisma as being inborn. As a child he was known to be shy and introverted, afraid of the dark and mediocre at school. Even when he stood up to speak at his first sitting in court, he was not able to utter a word and sat down, sheepishly. How was it that just a few years later he was able to rouse the crowds and get them to tolerate the atrocities heaped

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on them during their struggle against oppression? For one thing, he was aware of his faults, he took due cognizance of them and, then, worked on removing them (Sanghavi 2006). Another important aspect was his deep conviction as regards what he was proposing, namely nonviolence. If we think of his followers in South Africa, they were in desperate need of a leader. Having suffered the atrocities for such a long time had made them develop what Seligman would call learned helplessness, an attitude in which the individual feels that s/he is not only helpless but also useless and would never be able to improve his or her situation. Such were the followers of Gandhi, whether in South Africa or in India. It was definitely a situation that demanded a crisis handler in the form of the charismatic Gandhi to tide them over the numerous atrocities they were suffering at the hands of the White government. In short, he was a “crowd-puller” and his actions and behavior spread among his followers through what has been termed social contagion in social psychology (Meindl 1990). A good example of the above is the Champaran Satyagraha as seen in Richard Attenborough’s award-winning film Gandhi. When Gandhi went to Champaran to take stock of affairs there, his very presence in Champaran led to his arrest. What followed was extraordinary. Rioting broke loose, there was pandemonium everywhere and people even swarmed the courtroom where the hearing was being carried out. Finally, Gandhi was able to pressurize the British to revoke the horrendous act. He had not used heroics of any kind, yet for his followers, he was a hero, he was exceptional, because only he could convince the British. This feeling soon spread throughout the country, spontaneously, but, like wildfire, igniting the people into action, but action that was nonviolent. Such was the social contagion started by Gandhi. Another major reason for the social contagion was the deep sense of identification the crowds had with Gandhi. The reason for this was none other than that Gandhi practiced what he preached. He led from the front; he led by example. Based on the philosophy of aparigraha (nonpossession), he worked for the poor and the desolate, in what in today’s terminology has been called a servant leader (Greenleaf 1970). The servant-leader is servant first … It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. … The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become health-

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ier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived? (Greenleaf 1970)

Let us make an attempt to summarize the leadership lessons that Gandhi has left behind as a legacy for all those in leadership positions. • Gandhi manifested utter humility even when he was being lauded by the people. He was never afraid of accepting the fact that he, too, could make mistakes. He was humble and appreciative, and never hesitated in saying “Thank You.” • For Gandhi, action speaks louder than a thousand words. In his words, “An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.” • Constant change is achieved through constant learning: It is said that the only constant thing in this world is change. However, this change must be for the positive. • Change starts from within: Gandhi professed from time to time, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” • Persistence is as essential as other positive qualities: As Gandhi said, “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” Achieving a goal requires persistence. • Believe in the good nature of people: Gandhi was of the opinion that “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean, if a few drops of the ocean are dirty not everything in it is dirty.” • Leadership does not mean seriousness and busy-ness compromising laughter and fun working with people around: According to Gandhi, “If I had no sense of humour, I would long ago have committed suicide.” • Unity makes history: Gandhi insisted that “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the cause of history.” If a leader and his followers pursue the same goal, with the same enthusiasm, same positive attitude, same strategy and same expectations, and that too, absolutely, they will make history. Mahatma Gandhi strode the Indian National movement like a colossus and India gained its independence under his unquestioned leadership. It will

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be no exaggeration and in fact the truth to say that Gandhi was a great transformational leader. He impressed his countrymen as well as the international community through his path-breaking thought and action. (Parijat 2014, p. 70)

 egative and Positive Charisma N One can use, abuse and misuse charisma much as one can use, abuse and misuse anything else, human attribute, objects, people or technology. Thus, we often see people who are able to sway the masses but for their own selfish, vested interests. In other words, the consequences of positive and negative charisma would be different for the followers. While positive charisma leads to the internalization of core, universal values of thrift, love, empathy, morality and ethics, negative charisma aims at self-­ aggrandizement of the leader. It is a personalized power orientation, with power being used in a centralized way and rewards being used to manipulate and control the followers. As far as Gandhi is concerned, there is absolutely no doubt that he not only refrained from, but was also dead against, behavior which can be termed as negative charisma. It has also been posited that a curvilinear relationship exists between charisma and organizational effectiveness. According to Vergauwe et  al. (2017), too much of charisma can lead to deleterious effects with the person not being attuned to day-to-day operational problems. And of course, too little of charisma is obviously not of much use and signifies a lack of tuning with the followers. Gandhi’s level of charisma was, unfortunately, never measured, such measures did not exist during his times, but we can be sure that he never lost sight of operational problems or the feasibility of his plans. Nor did he lose his magic touch with his followers, his perceptiveness, empathy and compassion vouches for that. In other words, no matter where he stood on the graph of charisma, his effectiveness was high, and this was so, no matter what the criteria being used. Gandhi knew, for sure, the ways in which emotions disturb relationships and through the applications of his nonviolent techniques, he avoided burning the bridges in interacting with people at all levels. It bears testimony to the myriad ways in which he displayed his emotional intelligence, a hallmark of a charismatic leader. As we have been stating all along, Gandhi was not a person to be comprehended easily. In other words, the more you know about Gandhi, the more enigmatic he may appear, but, yet, his charisma does not fade. This

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is in line with recent research by Michael Ferrari et  al. (2016) through which they have attempted to answer the question, why is Gandhi wise? Empirical findings on the concept of wisdom clarify that though the socio-­ cultural backdrop often determines the degree of wisdom manifested by an individual, it is, finally, the personal knowledge base of the individual that is of primary importance. This is the reason for the oft faced difficulties in understanding the charisma of Gandhi. One needs to be exposed to his life and work and to study it in detail in order to “see” his wisdom and charisma. In fact, Bligh and Robinson (2010) have suggested a number of possible explanations for Gandhi’s pervasive appeal. At the same time, they are of the view that in the charisma of Gandhi, we find various implications for future research, helping us to gain insight into such visionary leadership its meaning for the followers. Esprit de Corps and Organizational Citizenship Behavior Additionally, it was because of the high cohesiveness and his visionary leadership that Gandhi was able to inculcate and maintain extremely high levels of morale or esprit de corps in the groups of satyagrahis. The level of morale in Gandhi’s groups was akin to that found in most armed forces of the world, members of which are ready to do or die for the nation. Similarly, his followers were more than willing to do anything that Gandhi wanted them to do. That they were even ready to die is clear from the extreme tortures that they endured without retaliation of any kind, maintaining their calm and nonviolence. It was for the very same reasons that the groups manifested high levels of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), a characteristic that most organizations are hard-pressed for and spend considerable time, money and energy in inculcating, at least, a moderate level of OCB in their employees. Whenever OCB levels of an organization are high, one sees employees with a strong sense of personal responsibility, whether in terms of the use of organizational resources or even time. Among Gandhi’s followers OCB was definitely high, evidence for which comes from the ways through which they manifested responsibility, organizational commitment and job involvement in whatever work they were assigned.

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Organizational Factors, OB and Gandhi From group dynamics which form a part of the analysis of organizational behavior from the meso level or the group level, we proceed to the macro or organizational level of analysis, one of the most important aspects of which is organizational culture. Organizational Culture Just as every society has a culture, so does every organization. The culture of a society defines the norms, modes of behavior and expectations of the society, according to the specific needs and environment of the society. So, a society of American people will grow up in a culture that is suitable for the American people in terms of the environment they are living in, whereas the people of Africa will grow up in a different culture because their environment is different. In other words, as the environment changes, so must our behavior, to ensure mastery over the unkind environment. Much in the same way, every organization develops its own culture, depending on its vision, mission and objectives, both long term and short term. Very often, when a person enters an organization, s/he may be coming from a cultural background very different from that required by the organization. In such a case, the individual must be reoriented or inducted into the organization, told about the expected practices and behavior, both formal and informal. Such induction may be very stringent as in the case of cult groups or may be flexible, with only some specific rules demanding total obedience. The former are known as proscriptive norms and lead to punishment if not followed; the latter are known as prescriptive norms which offer suggestions for behavioral modes much as a doctor’s prescription does. Taken together, norms and roles define the “oughts” of behavior of a group, organization or society. Such norms and roles serve a variety of purposes, a few of which have been listed below: • Help in group survival • Simplify or make the behavior of others predictable • Help the group to avoid interpersonal problems • Express the central values and goals of the group • Clarify what is distinctive about the identity of the group

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What is organizational culture and what are its characteristics? There is no single definition for the concept of the organizational culture. Instead, there are several. According to noted scholar Edgar Schein (1985), organizational culture is, a pattern of basic assumptions—invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration—that has worked well enough to be considered valuable and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems. (Schein 1985, p. 9)

Organizational culture is manifested in many ways, for example, through the dress norms, the stories that people share, its formal code of behavior, procedures followed, rituals, tasks, jokes and so on (Martin 1992). Even if there is no single definition for the concept of the organizational culture and even if cultures are very different from one to another, commonalities do exist. Hofstede (2011) introduced an onion model to cover the total concept of culture, including four aspects: symbols, heroes, rituals and values. In Fig. 4.3, these four aspects represent the skins of an onion, indicating that symbols represent the surface and values, the deepest manifestation of the culture, with heroes and rituals in between. In other words, at the core of the culture, whether that of an organization or of a society, are the values, according to which people are judged (e.g., what is considered to be a heroic act) and certain rituals become established. This culture is, generally, revealed to people through the symbols. Shaped as it is like the skins of an onion, it also helps to demonstrate that the innermost core would be the most difficult to change while symbols would be easier and can be peeled off much like the outer skin of an onion. Fig. 4.3  The onion model of organizational culture. (Adapted from Hofstede 2011)

Symbols Rituals Heroes Values

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Organizational culture serves a variety of functions. According to De Zhang and Jun Pen (2007), organizational culture affects behavior in six specific ways. These have been outlined below: • Organizational culture has a guiding role, defining the long-term objectives of the organization and also the goals for individual members. • Organizational culture restrains peoples’ behavior through its prescriptive and proscriptive norms. • Organizational culture leads to greater group cohesiveness, by becoming a social glue for like-minded people who follow the same values. • Organizational cultures decide what behavior will be rewarded and how people will be rewarded. • Organizational culture leads to a radiation effect, in that, it is transmitted to the rest of the society through various channels. • Innovation is decided by the organizational culture because it is the culture which will decide what the need of the hour is. Cultures of different organizations differ from each other, in so much as their goals and values are different. At the same time, they will differ in terms of strength, with some organizations having strong cultures while others are characterized by weak cultures. Strong cultures are, generally, shaped by strong leaders. Two other factors are also important for determining the strength of the culture. One is the degree of sharedness and the other is intensity. The former refers to the extent to which members share common values, which in turn is decided by the nature of the rewards and the induction provided. Intensity, on the other hand, is dependent upon the reward structure according to which people receive rewards for behaving as per the norms set out, which, in line with the Skinnerian principle of reinforcements, will determine the process of habit formation. The natural corollary is that strong cultures would be difficult to break or to change while weak cultures could be upset very easily. Organizational Culture in Gandhi’s Organizations With this brief introduction to organizational culture, we will now attempt an analysis of the culture in Gandhi’s organizations, namely, the various

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communities he set up in South Africa and India and even among his followers at large. We start with Phoenix Settlement which was set up near Durban to house the newly started printing press and to accommodate the workers and other people who wanted to join Gandhi. The settlement was fashioned after another similar settlement, the Ohlange Institute started by J. L. Dube. A significant similarity between the two has been described by Hofmeyr (2014), who writes, The founding motto of Ohlange, ‘to teach the hand to work, the brain to understand, and the heart to serve’ could as well have described Phoenix. (Hofmeyr 2014, p. 27)

The above can be said to constitute the core values of not only Phoenix but all of Gandhi’s communities, in each of which the same principles that he had discovered through his experiments with Truth and had expounded in the form of Satyagraha, would apply. There were no heroes, as such, because for Gandhi, “all men are brothers” and there is no distinction between them. Yes, there were rituals, in fact, a number of them, with the most significant being the way the day started and ended, that is, with an all faith prayer meeting. The biggest symbol was the charkha or the spinning wheel which was not just a tool for economic self-reliance but the shape of which was already deeply embedded in the Indian culture and spirituality. If one goes by the definition of organizational culture (Schein 1985) and discussed in the preceding pages, the culture at Phoenix was invented and developed by none other than Gandhi himself in view of the particular circumstances that existed in South Africa as far as the Indians there were concerned. On his return to India and in view of the abject poverty of the people, he stood witness to a new set of circumstances of poverty, untouchability and illiteracy in the real sense of the word. In view of these, he added two new values to those already in existence, those of swadeshi and swaraj, both of which went far beyond the literal sense of the words and connoted a deep sense of self-reliance and bread labor. For untouchability, he focused on inculcating a culture in which every person would willingly do all types of work, including scavenging, helping people to imbibe the value of work and the dignity of labor. As has been discussed in the preceding paragraphs, the strength of the culture is decided primarily by the strength of the leader along with the degree of sharedness and intensity. There can be no doubt that Gandhi

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was a strong leader with strong convictions which he was able to transmit to his followers. His vision was clear, envisaging an India that was not only free of foreign rule but also free of poverty and despair (doosri azaadi, or second independence), Mere withdrawal of the English is not independence. It means the consciousness in the average villager that he is the maker of his own destiny, he is his own legislator through his chosen representative …. Hence for me the movement of swaraj is a movement of self-purification. (Gandhi 1924b, pp. 192–195)

As clear as Gandhi’s vision was also his mission, to see that every man, women and child had enough to fulfill his needs, right down to the last person in the queue (antodaya based on Ruskin’s Unto This Last) and sarvodaya (compassion for all to the extent of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, or nature is my family). The sharedness was created in two ways. First and foremost, each satyagrahi was told to join only if his or her inner voice told him or her to do so. So, there was no coercion of any kind. Secondly, there was a rigorous induction process in the form of the eleven vows that every satyagrahi had to undertake and the training that was imparted to each. Gregg (1958) very aptly describes that the satyagrahi required as much training as a soldier, only the methods were different: Let us then follow the analogy of military training, realizing that while our purposes and methods are different from those of the soldier, we are aiming at a substitute for violence and war and can therefore use some of the knowledge of human character which soldiers have learned. (Gregg 1958, p. 173)

Gregg then goes on to describe some of the special virtues which have to be cultivated by the satyagrahi and which cannot be acquired without due training. The nonviolent resister will, like soldiers, need courage, self respect, patience, endurance and the ability to sacrifice himself for a cause. He will need persistence and tenacity in spite of apparent failure, willingness to undergo training, order and a sense of unity with his fellows. In addition to these qualities, he must, unlike a soldier, cultivate an interest in all people, combined with goodwill and, as far as possible, affection toward them. He must develop his respect for personality, love for truth, tolerance, poise, equanim-

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ity, loyalty, humility, hope and faith in the ultimate fine possibilities of human nature. All of these qualities can be cultivated and strengthened in each of us. (Gregg, ibid, p. 177)

That despite this long list of virtues needed for being a nonviolent soldier, people followed Gandhi is a tribute to the type and strength of culture he could establish, all aspects of which have been validated by later research and theory as discussed in the foregoing pages. Galtung (1969, 1996) categorizes violence in terms of three categories, direct violence, structural violence and cultural violence, each with its nonviolent antithesis. Gandhi focused on the third category, namely, that of cultural nonviolence. He attempted to create a new culture based on the values that form an inherent part of his creed of nonviolence: nonviolence toward all beings, service to all, love and compassion and a profound faith in the ultimate goodness of the human nature. In other words, he was working steadfastly toward a tradition of nonviolence which would last even after independence was attained. The ways in which he led the people toward such cultural change incorporated all the three characteristics advocated by Aristotle, namely, logos, ethos and pathos—they were integral parts of the nonviolent package offered by Gandhi. Even the persistence so frequently cited as a part of transformational leadership found place in Gandhi—his persistence was exemplary, driven by his firm faith in nonviolence as a tool to convince the oppressors that they were wrong. Diversity Management and a Culture of Inclusivity Another aspect of organizational culture and one for the cultivation of which important lessons can be drawn from Gandhi is the management of diversity. One important way in which the twenty-first century organization is different from its predecessors of the middle of the last century is the massive change in the composition of the workforce. No longer does it consist of young and middle-aged men, coming from a particular segment of society and having almost the same type of educational background. You step into the portals of almost any large organization and are sure to see people from diverse groups, men and women, some just out of college moving around with colleagues almost fifteen  years older. With national borders opening up to international trade and commerce, one is bound to find people from a variety of cultural backgrounds within the organization. There could also be differences in terms of religious

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backgrounds, socio-­economic status, sex orientation and disability. All of these call for a new type of management, the management of diversity. Moreover, since employees may not have faced such a diverse group earlier, a new type of training becomes imperative. This is what has been termed diversity training. While organizations expend considerable cost on such trainings, the efficacy of the training needs to be looked at. Unfortunately, despite the cost of such training, they have not always been found to be effective, often leading to a disillusionment regarding such training. Recent research has clarified that the effectiveness of diversity training is a complex phenomenon and depends on a vast variety of factors, including the nature of the training being imparted, the personality of the trainees and the ways in which the training outcomes are measured. Recent research reported in the Harvard Business Review (Lindsey et al. 2017) clarifies that there are at least two diversity training exercises, namely, perspective taking and goal setting that have been proved to be effective, leading to fairly stable changes in both attitude and behavior toward LGBT individuals and people from marginalized populations. Moreover, the study also revealed that even with people who tend to be high on the social dominance factor, a strong leader, who is able to point out the importance of pro-diversity attitudes, is certainly able to create attitudinal and behavioral changes toward the out-group. At the same time, it is important to point out that the true purpose of diversity training is not to cloak the diversities among the employees, such that people become blind to them. Instead, to draw the true benefit of workforce diversity, all individuals must not only recognize the existence of diversity but must also accept it. Members of the organization must be able to acknowledge the fact that diversity is the rule and be able to respect the dignity of different people. As pointed out by McGuire and Bagher (2010), it is imperative to embed diversity in the culture and to foster an outlook that does not attempt to silence diversity. For this, the role of senior leaders cannot be overemphasized. Further, the effectiveness of the training will depend on the ways in which it is carried out, as has been pointed out by various scholars and corporate leaders and trainers in a report by Paula Fernandez of the Business News Daily (November 2019). Some of the salient features have been delineated in Box 4.1.

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Box 4.1  Planning and Implementing a Successful Diversity or Inclusivity Training Program (Excerpted and Adapted from Fernandez (November 2019, Business News Daily))

According to Fernandez, despite the best efforts of organizations, they are generally hard-pressed to overcome the biases that often limit the ways in which one employee perceives another. One way to solve this perennial problem is through well-designed diversity and inclusivity programs. The designing of the program is important because so problematic can diversity training become that rather than overcoming intergroup prejudices, it sometimes leads to the exacerbation of such prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior. As reported, it may be highly successful or it may backfire. Thus, proper planning and implementation of the training program are mandatory. According to the viewpoints reported in the article, the following aspects have to be taken care of: . Develop an understanding of diversity and inclusion training. 1 2. Extend and maintain diversity and inclusion training over time. 3. Customize diversity and inclusion training to your company. 4. Plan an integrated approach. 5. Include workers of all levels. 6. Hire an expert. “To become a diversity trainer, an individual should obtain experience in multicultural and diverse programs, become well versed in diversity and inclusion terminology and definitions, and learn about various instructional design and delivery,” …. There are various diversity professional training programs as well as different designations you can earn, including Certified Diversity Trainer (CDT), Certified Diversity Professional (CDP) and Certified Diversity Executive (CDE).” Yet, you may have all the credentials but in the end what matters is your skill in managing diversity training. When one considers the problems described above and the costs of inclusivity training on the one hand, one is amazed to see that Gandhi could inculcate inclusivity, almost, naturally. In all his communities and in all his Satyagrahas, there were people from diverse backgrounds, in terms

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of religion, caste, language, age, education and gender. Yet, it has been pointed out that nowhere did one see prejudice or discriminatory practices. What were the techniques used by Gandhi? Going by the checklist provided by Fernandez, each and every one of the points were taken care of by Gandhi. He always made it a point to emphasize the importance of not just acceptance of all, but love and compassion for all. At the same time, this was not a simple orientation program carried out in the beginning; Gandhi continued to emphasize it over extended periods of time. He did not have to hire an expert; he was the expert trainer, his credentials being the experiments he undertook on himself and which had made him inclusive to the hilt. Further, he always used an integrated approach, based as it was on vows, self-control, community activities such as spinning and prayer meetings, and his routine of asking everyone to partake in the festivals and fasts of people from differing faiths. Whether it was at Tolstoy Farm or Sevagram, everybody took an equal part in performing all the daily chores. They worked together, and they lived together, under the guiding spirit of a leader who was committed to the cause of moral inclusion, for whom his personal identity was rooted in the social identity of the following masses. There were two exercises that Lindsey and her colleagues enunciated as leading to effective diversity training. These were perspective taking and goal setting. Even without undertaking any scientific research, Gandhi used both of these to a very great extent. The heights of empathy manifested by this individual but naturally filtered down to his followers. Taken together, all these various techniques helped foster a respect for the dignity of diversity and to inculcate a spirit of tolerance as against that of dogmatism. It was through these and a variety of other means that Gandhi could create, in an effortless manner, a culture in which diversity was not silenced but was allowed to bloom and flower, much in the ways posited by McGuire and Bagher (2010). Today, while theories of diversity management have been posited and programs have been developed, we still have a long way to go. It is hoped that by following in the footsteps of the Mahatma, the globalized corporation would gain considerably. Trusteeship as an Organizational Vision Another aspect regarding the macro variables which decide organizational behavior is the vision of the management. According to Gandhi, every business organization has certain duties, the first of these being that it

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cannot deny the right to the fulfillment of the basic needs of the workers. While the ideal would be economic equality, even Gandhi realized the impossibility of such a state of affairs. Despite the inequalities being seen in the business world, mostly due to the exploitation by the management itself, Gandhi firmly believed in the inherent goodness of all people, no matter what their vocation or their avocation. He, therefore, had no doubt that the businessman was a good person. As professed by him, I do not believe that the capitalists and the landlords are all exploiters by an inherent necessity, or that there is a basic or irreconcilable antagonism between their interests and those of the masses. All exploitation is based on co-operation, willing or forced, of the exploited. However much we may detest admitting it, the fact remains that there would be no exploitation if people refused to obey the exploiter. But self comes in and we hug the chains that bind us. This must cease. What is needed is not the extinction of landlords and capitalists, but a transformation of the existing relationship between them and the masses into something healthier and purer. (Gandhi 1934)

If this is the case how does one transform the relationship between the capitalist and the masses? How does one attempt to decrease the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few who had power such that the rest were left naked and semi-starved? The system Gandhi gave to the world of business was something that was unheard of then and is still not being practiced today, almost a century later. It was the concept of trusteeship. Indeed at the root of this doctrine of equal distribution must lie that of the trusteeship of the wealthy for superfluous wealth possessed by them. For according to the doctrine they may not possess a rupee more than the neighbours. How is this to be brought about? Non-violently? Or should the wealthy be dispossessed of their possessions? To do this we would naturally have to resort to violence. This violent action cannot benefit the society. Society will be the poorer, for it will lose the gifts of a man who knows how to accumulate wealth. Therefore the non-violent way is evidently superior. The rich man will be left in possession of his wealth, of which he will use what he reasonably requires for his personal needs and will act as a trustee for the remainder to be used for the society. In this argument honesty on the part of the trustee is assumed. (Gandhi 1940)

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Gandhi rejected the Marxist concept of socialism since it tried to create equality but through what Gandhi would consider as violent means, that is, by snatching power and wealth from the capitalist and distributing it among the masses. What Gandhi was advocating through trusteeship was different. While the end was the same, that is, the attainment of social equality, the means were totally different. Trusteeship involves serving others without making any claim to ownership. Businessmen should act as trustees of the firms of which they are owners, drawing a reasonable profit but distributing the rest among the employees. Entrepreneurs have a right to earn more because of their capability, but it is the way in which this earning is used that should be changed. My idea of society is that while we are born equal, meaning that we have a right to equal opportunity, all have not the same capacity. It is, in the nature of things, impossible. For instance, all cannot have the same height, or colour or degree of intelligence, etc.; therefore in the nature of things, some will have ability to earn more and other less. People with talents will have more, and they will utilize their talents for this purpose. If they utilize kindly, they will be performing the work of the State. Such people exist as trustees, on no other terms. I would allow a man of intellect to earn more, I would not cramp his talent. But the bulk of his greater earnings must be used for the good of the State, just as the income of all earning sons of the father go to the common family fund. They would have their earnings only as trustees. It may be that I would fail miserably in this. But that is what I am sailing for. (Gandhi 1931a, p. 368)

Seen in the context of entrepreneurship the above sounds idealistic and one that most business houses would not like to adhere to. However, the twenty-first century has seen another concept becoming the buzzword in corporate circles with many nations, including India, even making it mandatory. This is the emerging concept of corporate social responsibility whereby business houses plow back some of their earnings for the welfare of the society from which they are drawing manpower and other resources. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would be two examples which immediately come to mind, but there are many others who are doing their bit to better the society and to reduce the gaping difference between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” If Gandhi asked people to do something, it was always exemplified by his own behavior. When he asked entrepreneurs and wealthy landowners to draw only slightly more than what they actually needed, he had already

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gone a step further. He had reduced his wants to nil and even the necessities to the bare minimum. The reason for this was his firm belief in the philosophy of aparigraha (nonpossession) drawn from the Hindu scripture, the Gita. Aparigraha was also one of the eleven vows that were mandatory for every follower of Gandhi. The gains of aparigraha are noted by Gandhi through the following: And I said to myself: possession seems to me to be a crime; I can only possess certain things when I know that others, who also want to possess similar things are able to do so. But we know—every one of us can speak from experience—that such a thing is an impossibility. Therefore, the only thing that can be possessed by all is non-possession, not to have anything whatsoever. Or, in other words, a willing surrender…. Therefore, having that absolute conviction in me, such must be my constant desire that this body also may be surrendered at the will of God, and while it is at my disposal, must be used not for dissipation, not for self-indulgence, not for pleasure, but merely for service and service the whole of your waking hours. And if this is true with reference to the body, how much more with reference to clothing and other things that we use? And those who have followed out this vow of voluntary poverty to the fullest extent possible—to reach absolute perfection is an impossibility, but the fullest possible for a human being—those who have reached the ideal of that state, testify that when you dispossess yourself of everything you have, you really possess all the treasures of the world. (Gandhi 1931b, address delivered at the Guild Hall, London, on September 27, 1931)

Gandhi and Means-End Relationship in Organizational Governance While there are several aspects of Gandhi’s way of working which provide deep insights, we would like to focus on his insistence on the relationship between means and ends as envisaged by him. Drawn from the teachings of the Gita, wherein it has been stated that all mortals can do is mere action, that is, karma, without bothering about the fruits of that labor. Gandhi expounds that for him there is no difference between the means and the ends and that impure means cannot and will not under any circumstances lead to the attainment of pure ends. On the other hand, he insisted that if our means are pure then the ends reached will surely be pure. As he was wont to profess, ahimsa is the means and Truth is the end. In fact, for Gandhi, the means were always of far greater importance than the ends, and there was only one means, that of nonviolence, and by taking care of the means we shall surely reach the end someday.

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What lessons can the entrepreneur derive from this means-ends relationship as envisaged by Gandhi and also implemented by him throughout all his endeavors? For the corporate world of today, it seems that the end is of far greater importance than the means, with there being only one end, that of greater and greater profit, no matter how it is achieved. Even managers and other employees are, often, told not to bother about how they rake in the profit. It is literally by hook or by crook, working on the principle that all is fair in love and war. What is the result? First and foremost, we are witnessing the rising corruption and evasion of taxes in many spheres of business in various parts of the world. Books of accounts are often fudged, balance sheets undergo window dressing, and auditors, independent directors and other people who are responsible for ensuring good governance are being offered bribes, both in cash and in kind. But, this cannot last as evidenced by the subprime crisis of the early part of the century and the demise of corporate stalwarts such as Lehman Brothers. The case of Enron is another one which can be pointed out. Lack of transparency as regards many aspects, finally, caused the company to die a sudden death. Many other examples will come to the minds of the readers. Let it suffice to say that all of them clarify that the use of wrong, illegal means will ultimately lead to loss, if not, to the total failure of the company. Gandhi also pointed out the reason behind the use of such impure means. According to him, it is nothing but greed, and as pointed out since the days of yore, there is no end to greed. The more one has, the more one wants, whether it is power, status, market share or profit. According to cognitive psychologist, and author of the book Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman (2011), there are two ways of taking decisions. One is through quick, intuitive processes, using heuristics and basing it on biases such as the availability bias. The other is when we allow our mental framework to pause and think. That is when we are able to use the System II of our cognitive framework. This system is rational and does not base decisions on biases and other human errors such as attributional faults. Rather, it allows for well thought out decisions. The subprime example of the early part of this century is seen as a classic example of using System I thinking, with bank officials becoming overconfident and releasing heavy loans to people without undertaking due diligence. According to Gandhi, we have to stop and think. We have to base our decisions on our inner voice. We have to use soul force, based on the ultimate Truths and not on brute force which is based on simple physical power (Box 4.2).

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Box 4.2  Honestly Dishonest: A Behavioral Model of Financial Dishonesty (Based on Article by Sahibzada 2018)

The author is of the view that governments as well as organizations are trying to fight dishonesty in ways that are wrong. While agreeing that dishonesty cannot be completely eliminated, the author suggests that the dynamics of such dishonesty can be better understood and thereby, Save on the enormous cost of compliance and surveillance that is currently being spent on monitoring, controlling and detecting dishonesty.

Once again Gandhi is proved right. As summarized by the Interim Report of the Australian Financial Services Royal Commission, it is “greed behind dishonesty …. Greed was behind Enron, the GFC, Charles Ponzi and every wolf on Wall Street.” Governments and companies are spending millions on ethical training, good governance practices and compliance software. Yet, Sahibzada feels that “little is being done to understand why people behave dishonestly. Maybe we are fighting the wrong enemy.” Sahibzada points to recent research in the emerging field of behavioral economics and the works of Dan Kahneman and Richard Thaler who have provided enough empirical evidence that the traditional view of the “rational man” or the “economic man” does not hold sway anymore and that it maybe a mere “delusion.” What seems to be the reality is that we are “riddled with cognitive biases, such as the confirmation bias, hindsight bias and loss aversion.” While these biases had considerable adaptive value for the hunter-­ gatherer mortal, “as it helped those foragers to make quick decisions in the face of life threatening situations based on past experience and intuitive gut instincts. But the same cognitive biases which helped ancient humans survive and thrive … have now become an evolutionary burden on the techno-humans of the twenty-first century.” In other words, the call of the moment is to reconsider the methods presently being used to curtail dishonesty and focus more on the development of a sound conscience and superego. By doing so, we would not only save countless dollars and pounds but would also be able to build a culture of honesty. Is this not the crux of what Gandhi professed all his life? The question is how to build such a morally mature culture, Gandhi showed the way.

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Conflict Resolution and Integrative Negotiation The business houses, of today, are witness to countless conflicts, between employee and employee, one group and another, one organization and another, between the trade union and the management and between the organization and the various external stakeholders including suppliers, creditors, customers and the government. Noted scholar Richard Gregg, who had spent considerable time with Gandhi, in order to understand his life and work, describes the conditions of a conflict and the differing ways in which it is perceived and handled by the violent person and the nonviolent resister. As stated by Gregg (1958), one basic difference is regarding the nature of the relationship between the two parties, being one of subordination/domination violent parties but of integration among nonviolent parties. In most conflicts, there is present in both parties the desire to dominate. We may say that the prevailing concept of human relationships involves dominance of one person and subordination of the other (Harding 1941). … War is merely an application of this same pattern in a critical situation between nations. People accept wars because they do not see the possibility of any other pattern of human relationships.” … But nonviolent resistance, together with kindness, offers an entirely different pattern based on a relationship not of dominance-submission but of integration. This is a relationship that often exists momentarily and could be made permanent and prevalent …. in this relationship, each party is in search of common purposes in activities that are of mutually satisfying to himself and to others. Each party is sure of his essential nature, shows trust and expects trust. Each is eager for growth and aware that growth means change in himself and his relationship, and is respectful of the personality of others, free from fear and eager for truth. (Gregg 1958, p. 151)

It has been estimated that by using traditional methods of negotiation, considerable time and money is lost. Over the years, a new set of techniques have been advocated, under the rubric of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods, one of the main ones being that of negotiation. However, traditional methods of negotiation have failed to fulfill either the substantive goals or the relationship goals as pointed out by Mary Follett (1940). Based on these principles, another methodology has been perfected, that of integrative negotiation (Fisher and Ury 1981) which offers many advantages.

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But this had been advocated, years back, by that half-clad Indian votary of nonviolence, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It was through such integrative practices that he handled General Smuts in South Africa and also the British government during India’s struggle for freedom. Comparing traditional violent methods of conflict resolution with those offered through nonviolent Satyagraha, Gregg (1958) writes, Violent struggle is an attempt to solve a contest at the level of the conflict. The defeat of either party results in suppression or repression of energy of the wishes or will of the defeated party, and this is certain to result in waste, friction or trouble sooner or later. The repressed energy of the thwarted or defeated person will eventually find an outlet, a sort of revenge. Nonviolent resistance, followed up with moderate wisdom, offers a solution which gives satisfactory scope for the energies of both parties. Often it enhances their energies, as a result of the subsequent good feeling. New associations open up new channels for pleasurable and fruitful activity. … In peace secured by true nonviolent resistance, there is no longer any inner conflict; a new channel is found, in which both the formerly conflicting energies are at work in the same direction and in harmony … this is why Gandhi called this mode of solving conflict satyagraha—‘holding to truth’. Such a peace endures. (Gregg 1958, p. 63)

Let us now attempt to understand the salient features of the modern integrative negotiation strategy. In 1981, in the best-seller volume, Getting to yes, authors Roger Fischer and William Ury, two US lawyers and professors at Harvard University, described the principled negotiation theory which was first applied to the Camp David negotiations between Egypt and Israel in 1978. In 1991 the second edition of the book was released with Bruce Patton as a coauthor (Fisher et al. 1991). The third edition was published in 2011. So great was the readership of this book that it became a perennial best seller and even in 2007, it was still making the list of the “Longest running best sellers” among business books. The third edition was published in 2011. The aim of the technique is to find ways of resolving the conflict while safeguarding business relationships with the opponent. Basically it requires a change to a new state of mind and unlike traditional negotiation focuses on expanding the pie rather than finding solutions within the fixed pie over which the two parties were fighting. Integrative negotiation is based on four cardinal principles, namely,

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• Separate people from the problem • Focus on interests not positions • Invent options for mutual gain • Derive objective criteria. As a result of the application of these four principles, the very stance taken by the two parties undergoes a change. Instead of being in an adversarial relationship, they become mutual problem solvers (Luthans 1995). According to Johnson and Johnson (1989), the psychological basis of principled or integrative negotiation can be best understood in the light of the classical social interdependence theory (Deutsch 1949) according to which the ways in which the relationship between the adversaries is structured will determine the nature of the interaction between the two, which, in turn, will decide the outcome of the negotiation. Later Johnson and Johnson (2003) delineated six steps for effective integrative negotiation. The first two steps help to define the exact nature of the conflict by separating people from the problem and getting down to the problem itself. The third step involves the description of the interests of the two parties. The fourth step is that of perspective taking in which each party tries to understand why the other is thinking the way s/he is. The fifth step attempts to delineate options while the sixth step is deciding which option to adopt. However, for integrative negotiation to be successful certain conditions must be fulfilled. It is imperative that the entire process rests on three pillars, namely, attitudes, behavior and information. Firstly, each party must develop an attitude of trust in the other, a willingness to listen to each other and to share and ask questions. The second pillar is that of expected behavior which basically involves the four principles mentioned above. The third pillar, that of information, is to be able to create your BATNA, that is, the Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement. In other words, each party must have options that it can fall back on if the negotiation fails, giving more bargaining space to the party which has a better BATNA. These have been depicted in Fig. 4.4. Research has also arrived at certain moderating variables, which if present, make the negotiation more amicable and make it possible for integrative negotiation to take place. Some of these are the level of motivation (Beersma and De Dreu 2002), logrolling or the making of initial concessions on matters of lesser importance so that the process can start (Moran

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Integrative negotiation

Attitudes

Behavior

Information

Willingness to •Trust BATNA •Listen •Ask questions •Separate people from problems •Focus on interests •Build options •Derive objective criteria

Fig. 4.4  The three pillars of integrative negotiation

and Ritov 2002) and greater goal clarity, higher learning values and more group discussion (Bereby-Meyer et al. 2004). Besides the model for integrative negotiation developed by Fisher and Ury, there are various other factors which enable the resolving of conflicts, especially intractable conflicts. One of these is the role of forgiveness and the other is that of ripeness. While Bono (2005) has provided evidence that forgiveness can go a long way in resolving conflicts of many types, Long and Brecke (2003) examine a large number of political conflicts to show how forgiveness can help in the reconciliation process. At the same time, we must remember that forgiveness helps only if the person is in a state of mind in which s/he is ready to be forgiven. This is the stage of ripeness (detailed in Kool 2008). A further problem in conflict resolution is that of attitude polarization such that each party thinks that the other party is “really” bad, as in the case of military decisions (Roblyer 2005). In such cases, Morton Deutsch (2005) has advocated that misjudgments need to be clarified. There are at

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least five ways through which it is possible to confirm and clarify facts. These are as follows: • Checking the reliability and validity of information about each other • Focusing on feedback, especially from sources other than the parties in conflict • Consideration being given to counter arguments • Bringing outsiders in to study the problem in an objective manner • Combining all of the above to redefine one’s perceptions. Gandhi and Conflict Resolution If one studies in detail the ways through which Gandhi attempted to resolve the conflicts with the oppressors in South Africa and in India, it becomes clear that many of the features brought to the fore by recent empirical research in integrative negotiation were being practiced by Gandhi. First and foremost, integrative negotiation envisages a change in the state of mind of both parties, from an adversarial relationship to one of mutual problem solving. If one studies the details of the ways in which he engaged with General Smuts during the fight against the Black Act in South Africa, this aspect is more than clear. Through gradual, reciprocal negotiation, he could convince General Smuts that the whites were wrong. It caused what Gandhi calls a change of heart. When a railway strike came in the way, Gandhi even ordered the suspension of all resistance till the strike was over, much to the consternation of the White authorities. The Fisher and Ury model of integrative negotiation is based on three pillars, namely, attitudes, behavior and information. As far as the first is concerned, this change in attitude was a primary concern of Gandhi. Not only did he try to inculcate trust among his followers, but by helping in the Zulu rebellion and the Boer War, he won the heart and the trust of the Whites and that of the indentured labor. At the same time, Gandhi encouraged discussion, the asking of questions and the sharing of information so important for the negotiation to succeed. With reference to the second pillar, Gandhi’s approach was well in line with the four principles set put by Fisher and Ury. He always separated the people from the problem as evident from the way in which he would insist that the satyagrahis should hate the acts of the British but not the British. He would, also, attempt to get down to the basic problem rather than

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going by the said position taken by the oppressors. In a similar fashion, many of his acts were in line with the last two principles. If one talks about the third pillar, that of information, it was of utmost priority to Gandhi that he would attempt to gather as much information as possible and from all possible sources before starting any Satyagraha. It is certainly not surprising that each of his Satyagrahas was successful, much beyond what people could expect. It is also the reason why he had and still has so many followers from all over the world. People such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela decided to use Gandhi’s method to fight against atrocities because they had seen the level of success he could attain. Finally, it was because the nonviolent method of Satyagraha was scientific that it has been validated by current theorization. Is it not amazing that the very same principles that modern scholars are advocating in the recent past had been used with such precision almost a century ago? The answer lies in the way the method and the methodology were scientifically perfected by this practical psychologist, Gandhi. All along this chapter an attempt has been made to understand Gandhi and his organizational skills in the context of empirical research and theorization of organizational psychology. It is evident that many of the concepts that were delineated much later were espoused by Gandhi, offering to us living examples of their application to solve problems rife in twenty-­ first-­century organizations. One can truly say that one sees the embodiment of an ideal manager in Gandhi. As stated by Kool and Agrawal (2013) Through this blending of his personal goals with higher order social obligations, Gandhi embodied the path of Maslow’s self-actualization, Bandura’s personal and social efficacies, Fredrickson’s upper spiral of development in the Broaden and Build Theory, and Wrzesniewski’s calling orientation (CO), and asserted that such instances of human strength emanate from the trust that a human being is capable of demonstrating as an individual enterprise, leading to its submergence in the social good. Aparigraha is reflective of a change of heart to develop positive relationships. It is the oxygen of life and offers a fresh whiff of air to the growth of modern psychology. (Kool and Agrawal 2013, p. 512)

At the same time we would like to point out that Gandhi offered to us many new ideas, such as those of trusteeship and nonpossession, which have still to be incorporated in the modern-day management systems. As

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Groebel and Hinde (1989) have contended, this constitutes a major reason for why psychologists have had a poor say in public policy issues as compared to other social sciences. Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship, though intensely psychological in nature, has received little or no attention in psychological research, and helps to substantiate Groebel and Hinde’s position regarding the fragile role of psychology in serving communities.

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CHAPTER 5

Gandhi’s Nonviolence and Community Psychology for the Twenty-First Century

Opening Vignette

Even as we are finalizing this chapter, the latest issue of the journal, Science (February 21, 2020) carries a report of how symbiotic relations between plants and certain types of fungi are ubiquitous in plant communities and are the key to their very survival. While largely invisible, such interactions have important implications for regulating nutrient flow and competitive interactions between both within and between plant species. This relationship also determines the all-important aspect of seedling establishment, so much so that it influences practically all aspects of plant ecology and coexistence. The authors report several interesting facts about these associations between plants and different species of fungi. Drawing an analogy with human communities seems to fail at this point. While the world of human beings has been witness to much internecine fighting, nonhuman living beings, such as plants have developed ways of coexisting with other species through a third species (fungi) which not only preserves itself but also acts as destroyers in some cases and protectors in others. One type of fungi intensifies intraspecific competition and alleviates interspecific competition by (continued)

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(continued)

promoting the performance of inferior competitors while suppressing the performance of superior competitors. What a case of protection of the underdog? Another species of fungi protects plants from soil-borne pathogens by ensheathing the feeder roots from acidifying soil and promoting seedling establishment near-adult plants. Similarly orchids produce millions of dust seeds to encounter compatible fungal partners which nourish plants, especially in the seedling stage (Tedersoo et al. 2020). The human being is known to be a gregarious animal. But did it ever strike you that most animals are gregarious? You see herds of cattle and schools of fish. From the lowly ant to the gigantic elephant, gregariousness is the key to their survival. But, is it not even more amazing to know that sociality exists even in plants, trees and shrubs, and not to forget to mention the ever-salient role played by microbes such as fungi and bacteria? Just as people live in communities, so do plants. Moreover, even the reason for the banding and community formation of nonhuman animals and plants is very similar to that of human beings as clarified by the report cited above. Analogous to human communities, the diversity of species and genes in ecological communities affects the functioning of these communities. While there are symbiotic relations between some species, there are conflicting relations between others, an example of how biodiversity functions in ecological communities. In fact, we find a variety of types of interactions taking place within ecological communities, including competition, predation, mutualism, commensalism and parasitic relationships. Once again, the commonality with human communities is evident. Another amazing aspect is that we have a discipline which purports to study the sociology of plant communities, phytosociology, normally defined as the branch of science which deals with plant communities, their composition and development, and the relationships between the species within them (Oxford English Dictionary). There is even a phytosociological system for classifying these communities.

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Communal Living and Communities What are the learnings from plant and other ecological communities such as those mentioned in the Opening Vignette? First and foremost, both animals and plants have developed their unique ways of coexistence. Unharried by the pursuits of human beings, such symbiotic relationships have been maintained by the law of the jungle, and are probably best exemplified by the complex ways through which plants thrive and grow, helping each other, protecting each other and in the process maintaining the ecological balance. How unlike what happens in human communities where written laws often fail, not to mention those that are unwritten and implicit. Maybe, a lesson or two should be drawn from these nonhuman communities, to understand the factors that are crucial for the coexistence of both intraspecies and interspecies members in ecological communities. In fact, communities are common across not only animal species, but throughout the ecological system. While the term community has various connotations, in its simplest form it refers to the presence of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at a particular time. So, we may think of the fish community of a certain lake or sea, or the community of trees, shrubs and plants in the rain forest in the twentieth century. Community ecology refers to the study of the interactions between these species that are occupying a particular territory, including its distribution, structure and even demography. These communities have been studied both in terms of the effects of the environment on them and also in terms of the evolution of these communities and the reasons for the survival of some and the extinction of others. Over the millions of years that humans have inhabited this earth, their bodies and their brains have evolved considerably through the process of Darwinian natural selection. When one considers the evolution of the brain, it is clear that with time, it not only became larger but also more highly differentiated. However, it must be kept in mind that a larger brain, though of great advantage, places greater requirements in terms of feeding it and housing it. Such evolution would definitely not have taken place had the advantages not outweighed the associated nutritional costs. Neuroscientists are of the view that the main reason for the larger brain seen in humans is the need for intensive and prolonged interaction and relationships with other human beings, leading to what has been termed the social brain hypothesis (Dunbar 1998). Thus, it was the ecological pressures in the form of foraging, survival and the rearing of offspring

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which forced the evolution of the brain, becoming gradually larger and more differentiated. This is the reason why primate sociality is very different from that of other species of birds and mammals (Dunbar 1998; Dunbar and Shultz 2007). Herein lies the origin of communal living and the need for rules and norms to assist such living. Gradually, these communities became larger and societies were established. From tribes, there developed villages, which, with industrialization and means for mass production, led to the concentration of populations around manufacturing units, to be later developed into towns and cities. However, it is not just human beings who have realized the advantages of group living. There are many other mammalian species that also live in herds. The same may be said of several species of birds, fish and even insects (remember the anthill or the beehive?). As the Opening Vignette shows, scientists have even unearthed plant communities. Each of these human groupings became a complex network, interacting not only with each other but also with the environment of which they were a part. While this was many eons back in the history of humankind, it is only in the twentieth century that psychology has started to show an interest in studying communities, the relationships among the people in the community and the relationship between one community and another. Basically, the goal of community psychology has been to improve the quality of community life through an enhancement of those factors which promote communal harmony on the one hand and mental health of individuals on the other. Community psychology can also be understood from the ecological perspective, focusing as it does, on the fit between people and the environment (Rappaport 1977). An interdisciplinary domain, community psychology draws from knowledge and research in various fields, both from within psychology and from its sister social science disciplines. Over the years, it has been known by a variety of names, including community development, community practice, ecological psychology and applied anthropology.

The Beginnings of Community Psychology When one considers the history of community psychology, especially as far as the USA is concerned, there are several factors which contributed to the emergence and growth of the discipline in the 1950s and the 1960s, including the rapidly increasing incidence of mental health problems

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emanating after World War II, the growing interest of social psychologists in issues of racial discrimination, poverty and the inequities accorded to the disadvantaged and marginalized populations in the community. This led to a shift from individual focused mental health programs to those that were mass-oriented. So, in a way, it may be said that community psychology grew out of mental health concerns. At the same time, this was the era in which the deleterious effects of institutionalization were being realized with the seminal research of Bowlby (1980) and many others, revealing that children and adults who are institutionalized tend to develop personalities vastly different from those who live with their families and the community. Soon after, came the Swampscott Conference, held in 1965, which is generally considered as the birthplace of community psychology, calling for community psychologists to become agents of social change as what has been called “Participant conceptualizers” (Dalton et al. 2001). Beginning with volumes by Sarason (1974) and Rappaport (1977) in the latter half of the twentieth century, the twenty-first century saw a flood of new volumes on the subject, including those by Levine et  al. (2005), Dalton et al. (2012), and Jason et al. (2019). Objectives of Community Psychology What are the core objectives of the discipline? As is clear from the above discussion and from personal experience, human beings do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they are engulfed by and embedded in an environment, which includes not just the physical environment but also the social environment. Over a period of time, this social environment gets structured, such that individuals are situated within a complex network of interrelated systems, including their families, communities, and the broader society (Bronfenbrenner 1979; Kloos et al. 2012). The primary goal of community psychology and the community psychologist is the betterment of this social structure in the form of community health and harmony, empowerment and social justice and to enable a psychological sense of community participation and citizenship behavior. At the same time, it focuses on the prevention of problems of diversity, equality and equity along with the promotion of individual health and wellness through a scientific enquiry into the dimensions and factors of each of these. Basically, it involves the use of social science concepts, theories and methods to understand the functioning of communities and to work on change in policy matters so that communities become better equipped to exist and thrive

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autonomously (Kloos et al. 2012; Wolff 2013). Further, with its distinctive blend of social justice values, empirical grounding and interdisciplinary orientation, community psychology offers a unique opportunity for shaping social policy (Hill 2016). Unfortunately, despite the presence of such strengths, we see a hesitation on the part of professionals to engage with policy work (Maton et al. 2013). This is where we can draw lessons from Gandhi and his fellow Gandhians, who worked not only for the improvement of local communities but also with the government to help create policies that went a long way in ridding communities of the various ills that they were straddled with. The SEWA organization founded by Gandhian, Ela Bhatt and whom we had an opportunity to interview (detailed in Chap. 3, Volume 1) and learn from (detailed later in this chapter), is a good example of how people, communities and organizations can work hand in glove with governmental agencies so as to help take the necessary policy decisions. Over the years, considerable research has been conducted leading to the positing of several models and theories to explain the complex ways in which people and communities are related. The theories have attempted to delineate those factors that decide the ways in which a community is structured and is functioning, and thereby provide considerable help in laying down the principles underlying effective community interventions. These theories have focused on different aspects, each being important in its own way, each adding aspects relevant for our understanding of communities in general and community intervention in particular (Jason et al. 2016). For example, while Kelly (1968) has focused on the ecological aspects of the community, Moos (2003) has emphasized the social climate as a major determinant of community effectiveness. Sarason (1974), in contrast, has stressed upon the factors that lead to sense of community. Without the type of understanding induced by the theoretical formulations, any change being introduced could have deleterious effects not only on the individuals who comprise the community, but also on the community itself. Another theory that would be of interest to us is Liberation psychology and how it has approached the problems of communities. Developed in Latin America in the 1970s, it was developed to better understand oppressed, impoverished and downtrodden communities (Montero and Sonn 2009). Thus, the role that community psychology can and should play is immense. According to Levine et al. (2005),

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The world’s greatest problems—poverty, disease, hunger, violence, war, oppression, environmental contamination, resource depletion … have as root causes, solutions, or both, complex political, economic, environmental, and sociocultural issues. If community psychology is to contribute anything useful to addressing those problems, we must think more ecologically, act more politically, and actively engage the various disciplines that understand those issues, or at least their particular piece of those issues, including political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, public health, law, urban planning, community development, and others (Levine et al. 2005, p. 471). (Maton et al. 2006)

Gandhi as a Community Psychologist Gandhi was acutely aware that India, poor as it was in those days, was beset by most of the problems enumerated above by Levine and his coworkers (ibid.). He was also cognizant of the fact that the resolution of these problems would be possible only through the concerted action of all people in the community. Most importantly, Gandhi was, definitely, of the view that we must “think ecologically” and “act politically.” While Thoreau’s essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience attracted Gandhi to the extent that he named his own program of resistance after it, he was equally influenced by the book Walden, in which Thoreau describes a Utopian society. Gandhi first read Walden in the year 1906 while he was still in South Africa. He was greatly influenced by many of the ideas put forth by Thoreau, and, in fact, adopted many of them. Thoreau’s started his essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, with the line “that government is best which governs the least.” Gandhi went a step further. He placed the onus of change on the individual and the community, in that it is every individual and every community which must practice swaraj (or self-rule). We must keep in mind that Gandhi advocated nonviolence in every sphere of human endeavor. For him, there was no dichotomy between nonviolence as a political strategy and nonviolence as a social strategy. When he called for a nonviolent society, he was translating the principles of nonviolence, egalitarianism and cooperation (in line with the three-­ dimensional model of nonviolence posited by Kool (1993, 2008) from the political realm to that of the community).

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Gandhi and Oceanic Circles How did Gandhi plan to achieve this end of creating nonviolent societies? Realizing that the major portion of Indian population resided in the villages, he was convinced that the epicenter of the social order must be none other than the village and advocated decentralized village republics. Pim, of the Center for Global Nonkilling, Hawaii, provides a succinct description and analysis of village republics, based on the Gandhian vision of “oceanic circles” which can be understood as a structure of innumerable villages with “ever-widening, never ascending circles” and not a “pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom” but a “circle whose center will be the individual” (Pim 2018). Have you ever dropped a pebble in a pond or in a lake? Surely, you would have witnessed the ever-widening ripples that are created by the pebble. This is the analogy that Gandhi had in mind. The ripples are not created by the outermost circle but by the innermost circle, which also has maximum force, decreasing with every new ripple created. So also, the individual must be the epicenter, with every individual, village and community practicing swaraj (self-rule). Such an independent village swaraj would not need external authorization or policing. They would be self-­ governing and would entail moralistic social control “that can tackle antisocial deviance with gossip, mockery, ostracism or shaming” rather than coercive action. We would not have to wait for a political revolution to begin and nor would there be a need for a legal system based on penal action. Swaraj, Swadeshi and the Village Republic Swaraj (self-rule) and swadeshi (made in one’s country) were the cornerstones of Gandhi’s village republic. The outer circle would be a world federation of interdependent units based on such small, self-sufficient village republics (Summy 2013), sharing many of the attributes of “peace systems” suggested by Fry (2012). Rather than being top-down, male-­ oriented systems, they would be bottom-up, with each village being self-­ sufficient and internally nonviolent, moving to ever-widening domains, much like oceanic circles. That such a society is feasible even today is evident from the many examples of non-warring, independent, self-reliant societies being seen today in different parts of the world, ranging from the Americas to Asia and to Australia (Pim 2018).

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Gandhi did not simply expound on a philosophy of self-governed independent communities. He actually established many such communities, including the Phoenix Settlement, and Tolstoy Farm in South Africa and Sabarmati Ashram and Sevagram in India, each of which were living examples of cooperative, self-governing, nonviolent communities at their very best. The Village Republic and the Dunbar Number That Gandhi’s vision was a natural sequel to the history of human ancestry is probably why they were so successful. It is a well-established fact that for a very long period of time, human beings organized themselves socially as small bands of hunter-gatherers. That these societies could be sustained over time was possible only because of the high degree of reciprocity based on mutual cooperation, and a spirit of egalitarianism and nonviolence that pervaded these social groupings. At the same time, they refrained from playing with nature. In direct contrast to modern humankind, our ancestors were deeply embedded in the natural environment which determined the extent to which their needs were satisfied, the kind of food they ate and the type of lodging they could have. Whether it was the caves in the jungles or the igloos built in the Arctic regions, the decision was based on what the environment offered. That the idea of village republics, deeply entwined with the natural environment is also neurologically sound is reiterated by Narvaez (2014) who argues that immersion in the natural world from childhood is crucial for the development of “receptive intelligence” so important later in life. It is also in line with the neuroscientific evidence advanced by Dunbar and his colleagues (Dunbar 2016) that the computational structure of the human brain does not permit effective social interactions with beyond the maximum of 150 people. As pointed out in a paper by Pim (2018), Gandhi’s ideas about community living were not for India alone. Rather, the model is suitable for the world at large, as can be seen by the many examples enumerated by the author, who writes that These actual examples, together with multiple proposals around direct democracy currently stemming from social movements such as “occupy”, Transition towns, the ISM movement in Spain and a variety of nonviolent

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grass-root initiatives around the world indicates that Gandhi’s oceanic ­circles are indeed plausible and that the time for their consideration is ripe. (Pim 2018)

Oceanic Circles in the Twenty-First Century This is where community psychologists can play an important role by pointing out such models and examples which would enable the removal of the vast amount of communal strife being witnessed today. The Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Municipalities and the Kurdistan Communities Confederation are living examples of community systems that have been able to secure peace and cooperation among themselves, while at the same time, are preserving their autonomy. The Gandhian model is, in fact, one of the models that have been advanced in the late twentieth century as a remedy for the multifarious ills and evils facing the large hierarchical, competitive and often violent communities of today. As professed by Pim (2018), This places Gandhian thinking on integral, simple living as a clear precedent for many proposals that were advanced in the last quarter of the 20th century in the fields of economy (Schumacher 1973; Ostrom 1990), technology (Mumford 1967, 1970; see also Glendinning’s Neo-Luddite manifesto), energy (Trainer 2010) and politics (Bookchin 2003). The practical application of such principles in intentional communities such as the ashrams also spread into numerous experiments around the world. Lanza del Vasto’s “Community of the Ark” is one early example of what would later develop into a global ecovillage movement (see Drago and Trianni 2008). (Pim ibid., p. 13)

Such eco-villages are based on a common set of principles and are probably the best way to integrate “voluntary simple living, permaculture, consensual decision-making and ecological sustainability.” In fact, it has been suggested that the eco-village movement was the most significant event in the twentieth century as the “first significant attempt to build settlements that are ecologically, socially and spiritually satisfactory” (Trainer 2010, p. 285) and provide evidence of how city dwellers can be transformed into inculcating values of the nonviolent rural culture that is possibly very close to the ideals of Gandhi.

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Gandhi’s Communities Let us now focus on the communities established by Gandhi in an attempt to understand how he was able to translate his creed of nonviolence into community practice that had at its goal, the spiritual, economic and cultural betterment of all. Phoenix Settlement The first community that Gandhi was to establish was the settlement at Phoenix in South Africa. A desire to experiment with communal living was already growing within Gandhi when he reached South Africa in 1893. While his reading of the works of Tolstoy and Thoreau influenced his ideas, it was mainly the Order of the Trappist monks living in Pinetown, some 16 miles from Durban that provided him with a functional example of a microcommunity, living on the principles of voluntary poverty coupled with self-renunciation and constructive work. In 1903, Gandhi started a journal Indian Opinion as a vehicle to serve and consolidate the Indian community. While there were many printing presses in and around Durban, Gandhi and his followers established their own press to print the newly founded journal. Soon after, he was able to convince his dear friend Albert West to take charge of this press at Durban. While the press was receiving monetary support from people in India, it ran into dire straits with the financial condition of the press spiraling downward. Then, came that eventful night when Gandhi was to travel from Johannesburg to Durban to take stock of affairs at the press. His good friend, Henry Polak handed him a book, none other than Ruskin’s (1860) Unto This Last which was to become the mainstay of what Gandhi professed. In fact, while the book had a dramatic effect upon Gandhi, it also convinced him of the virtues of an agrarian life. On arriving at Durban, he proposed that the press be run on a cooperative basis, on land purchased far out in the rural areas. Despite much dissent and disapproval, land was finally purchased, 100 acres near the Phoenix station about 14 miles from Durban. In October and November 1904, the press was transferred, though with great difficulty, but Gandhi was convinced that there was no help better than self-help and insisted that the press workers should manage the problems, no matter how big or small, by themselves.

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After the press was set up, the next priority was accommodation for all. This was achieved with people helping each other to erect homes and gradually the settlement took the shape of a neat colony. Encouraged by the original settlers, other Indians soon sent for their families to join them at Phoenix. The number of settlers became larger and various other, much-­needed facilities, such as that for medical aid, were established. All the settlers lived together and imbibed the principles of nonviolence, self-­ reliance and minimalistic living set forth by Gandhi. In a book entitled Gandhi’s Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading (2013) and a related article in the Seminar (2014) the author Isabel Hofmeyr details not just the circumstances under which the press was established but also the ways through which it was transferred to Phoenix and the hard life at Phoenix. During the early 1900s, it appears that Durban was dotted with printing presses, run by different faiths and for differing purposes. Very different from all these others was the printing press known as the IPP, launched in 1898, with backing from Gandhi. Would you believe that it offered printing services in ten languages involving seven different scripts? Five years later, Gandhi launched the Indian Opinion in four languages using four different scripts. When it was shifted to Phoenix a year later, it was not very different from the other printing presses in the area. But, there was one important difference as far as the settlement was concerned. It seemed to be patterned after Ohlange Institute, whose motto was “to teach the hand to work, the brain to understand and the heart to serve,” with the paper published at Ohlange often being regarded as the model for Gandhi’s Indian Opinion. Hofmeyr (2014) provides vivid details of the personnel that worked on the press, in that they were extremely diverse, in terms of religion, language, caste, race and gender. Despite such diversity the feeling of camaraderie and the mutual respect for each other was exemplary. It was mandatory that all inmates, men women and even children perform some task in relation to the publishing of the paper. While the literate had to learn typesetting, those who were not literate helped with the manual work, while women and children performed simple tasks such as folding the paper, putting them in the wrappers and pasting the addresses on them. This was putting the “hand to work.” What a leveler was the settlement! While the work was overseen by members of Gandhi’s family, it was not a family business as seen today. As Prabhudas Gandhi (1957, p. 18) puts it, blood ties were replaced by “common ideology and a common

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devotion to duty” and “entry and exit was by choice rather than by lineage” (Randolph and Randolph 2006, p. 55). Since Phoenix was also a training ground for the rigors of Satyagraha, the inmates had to labor for long hours, despite the fact that this would often cause back and kidney problems and even infections. Another important dimension of life at the settlement was religion and along with the farming activities and those of the press, the day ended with a half an hour of all faith prayers. After some time, in furtherance of the Utopian goals professed by Gandhi, all job work that had, hitherto, been performed at the press was stopped. This was because Gandhi felt that such job work acted as a distraction from the real work of the press which was to publish pamphlets taking up the cause of the Indians settled in South Africa. Alongside, he also decided to stop all advertisements except for those which served the social cause. The final step was to set aside copyright issues that were so stringently followed by the other publishing houses. In contrast to the prevailing custom, all the material published from Phoenix explicitly stated, “No rights reserved.” Thus, the Phoenix Settlement served a dual purpose, firstly, to carry forward the work of the press and, secondly, to further the more important function that is the ethical function. In other words, for Gandhi, the settlement offered an opportunity to help inculcate moral and ethical values, coupled with the rigors of strict discipline in order to train the people to be ready, not just physically but also morally, for the type of sacrifices that they would be expected to make during a satyagraha. As Hofmeyr (2014) puts it, Gandhi and his colleagues experimented with the ways in which printing and publishing could enlarge new kinds of ethical selves. Situated on an ashram (or ashram like settlement), the printing press, on a daily basis enacted a novel order of community, drawing in different castes, religions, languages, races and genders. (p. 29).

Even after Gandhi departed for the last time from South Africa in 1914, the press and the farm continued. In fact, they continued even after the death of Gandhi, run by his son Manilal and his wife Sushila. Tragically, it was destroyed in a fire due to intertribal fighting in the 1980s, but, true to its proverbial name, the Phoenix rose again, to be reopened on February 27, 2000, among much fanfare and attended by many dignitaries.

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Tolstoy Farm This was the other community Gandhi established in South Africa. It was during the final phase of the Satyagraha in South Africa that Gandhi noted that there were many people who were abandoning the Satyagraha even before the goal was achieved. This pinpointed a need for imparting training such that the satyagrahis could inculcate the resolve and persistence necessary for the kind of movement that Gandhi envisaged. It was to fulfill this need that a central place was necessary to house and to train the satyagrahis. Another problem was that many of the men were worried about the welfare of their wives and children while they were away taking part in the Satyagraha. There was a system of providing some money to the dependents but that was hardly enough and finances were steadily dwindling despite the fact that Gandhi received some monetary support from people in India. It was then that the idea of setting up a farm took birth. It would serve a variety of purposes, from accommodating the satyagrahis and their families to providing a source of monetary sustenance for the movement and for the satyagrahis through work undertaken on the farm. For Gandhi personally, it would provide a place to experiment with many of his ideas regarding communal living, away from the hustle and bustle of the urban areas. A wealthy white farmer, Hermann Kallenbach, who was highly impressed by Gandhi, bought a large piece of land near Johannesburg and placed it at the disposal of the satyagrahis on May 10, 1910. Gandhi was highly impressed by this act, coming as it was from a white person, and praised Kallenbach’s action as one “calculated to bring East and West nearer in real friendship than any amount of rhetorical writing or speaking.” At the suggestion of Kallenbach, the farm was named after Tolstoy, by whom both Gandhi and Kallenbach were highly impressed and influenced. Gandhi wrote to Tolstoy on this occasion, No writing has so deeply touched Mr. Kallenbach as yours; and as a spur to further effort in living up to the ideals held before the world by you, he has taken the liberty, after consultation with me, of naming his farm after you. (Gandhi 1910)

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There were about seventy to eighty residents—forty “young men,” two or three “old men,” five women and twenty to thirty children. Most of all, Gandhi recalled that “It was a heterogeneous microcosm in which his leadership would prepare him for his role in the macrocosm of his battles in India later.” Writing about the activities of the farm, Gandhi called the experiment “a cooperative commonwealth” and attributes the success of the final Satyagraha to the “spiritual purification and penance” afforded by the Tolstoy Farm. He wrote: I have serious doubts as to whether the struggle could have been prosecuted for eight years, whether we could have secured larger funds, and whether the thousands of men who participated in the last phase of the struggle would have borne their share of it, if there had been no Tolstoy Farm. (Gandhi, in Bhana 1975)

While Tolstoy Farm afforded Gandhi a place where his own growth could get consolidated, its primary purpose was the growth of the inmates. Gandhi was convinced that the true development of a person would be most fruitful when undertaken during the formative years, and, therefore, stressed on the education of the children at the farm. It was at Tolstoy Farm that he experimented with his ideas on education, which was to culminate in the form of what he called Nai Talim (New Education) detailed in Chap. 2 of this volume. For Gandhi, textbooks were of no use; the real textbook was the teacher, who, in this case, happened to be Gandhi himself. He decided to live among them, even more so because he regarded the farm as a family with him being the father. The education of the children included both manual and mental training, and for the first time, vocational training was also included. The children engaged in manual work for about eight hours per day with approximately two hours of mental work. This was also the first experiment in coeducational education. Through such a pattern of education, the children inculcated the value of work and the dignity of labor. They engaged in whatever work was being carried out in the farm, whether it was water fetching, cleaning and sweeping, gardening, general laboring and even scavenging. They were imparted training in simple vocations such as sandal making and carpentry. While the farm was totally self-sufficient, it was also a successful experiment in self-government. The open spaces provided ample scope for gardening and agriculture, the fruits of which were used to generate revenue

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for the maintenance of the farm. The simple communal life provided an environment where virtues such as asteya (non-stealing) and aparigraha (nonpossession) could be cultivated. Total nonviolence was practiced so much so that even hunting was forbidden. The diet was totally vegetarian, with the meals being extremely simple yet nutritious and consisting of mostly home-grown products. The agrarian life also made it possible for Gandhi to experiment with and practice various types of nature healing and naturopathy, such as hydropathy and mud therapy. The farm also helped inculcate self-reliance among the inmates so much so that they were able to build three much-needed buildings. Besides these, the tailoring department catered to all the clothing needs of the inmates, while the sandal-making department was responsible for crafting the footwear for the inmates. The schedule for the day was such that it imparted a deep sense of discipline among the inmates with there being absolutely no time for idling. Spiritual development was also focused upon. Each day started and ended with community prayer. Gandhi’s upbringing in an atmosphere of religious tolerance was translated to this farm also. There were children of all faiths, and to inculcate an attitude of religious tolerance he encouraged children and adults to observe the fasts of other religions. Such a life and with such a schedule, helped, but naturally, to develop personal self-esteem and confidence on the one hand and mutual tolerance and compassion on the other, among both adults and children. Mutual respect and tolerance between Hindus and Muslims assumed an important role in India at the time that he reflected on his South African experiment some fifteen years later. Gandhi proudly records that he taught the Tolstoy Farm residents against “infection of intolerance, and… to view one another’s religions and customs with a light-hearted charity. They learnt how to live together like blood-brothers”. It is not surprising, in view of this, that he should have remembered his religious experiment as “among the sweetest reminiscences of the Tolstoy Farm….” (Bhana 1975)

Born, as it was out of dire necessity, the Tolstoy Farm proved to be a boon, with money being saved, morale being boosted and training in Satyagraha and nonviolent resistance being imparted. Most of all, the residents, both young and old loved it.

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Sabarmati Ashram On his return to India from South Africa, Gandhi established his first ashram in India in the city of Ahmedabad on May 25, 1915. It was then called Satyagraha Ashram. The ashram was later shifted to the banks of the river Sabarmati in 1917 on a site of 36 acres of wasteland infested by snakes. But, true to Gandhi’s creed of nonviolence and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (nature is my family), he ordered that they should not be killed. This is the right place for our activities to carry on the search for Truth and develop Fearlessness- for on one side, are the iron bolts of the foreigners, and on the other, thunderbolts of Mother Nature. (Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal 2020)

The above is the way in which Gandhi described the site of Sabarmati Ashram when he first visited the place for assessing whether it would be suitable for carrying out his work. On one side of the ashram was a crematorium and on the other was a prison and he, earnestly, believed that a satyagrahi has to, invariably, go to either place. It was the combination of these two that made Gandhi remark that this would be the best place for them. The major reason for this shift was that Gandhi yearned for a piece of barren land where he could perform his experiments with farming, animal husbandry, cow breeding, khadi and related constructive activities. In fact, it was started with a twofold purpose, one was to carry on the search for Truth, and the other was to create a nonviolent group of workers, who would organize together and help in the struggle for freedom for the country. It was home to Gandhi from 1917 until 1930 and served as one of the main centers of the Indian freedom struggle. It was also from here on March 12, 1930, that Gandhi launched the famous 241 mile-long Dandi March with seventy-eight companions in protest of the British Salt Law, which taxed Indian salt in an effort to promote the sale of British salt in India. The ashram was fairly small and consisted of a few huts built to house the inmates. There was also a cluster of rooms for those who had decided to become satyagrahis and an open prayer ground for the all-faith prayer meetings that were held as part of the daily routine. The Bhagwad Gita was recited daily and became an integral part of the ashram schedule. Gandhi also established the first Nai Talim school at the ashram that focused on his principle of craft-based education which included manual

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labor, agriculture and literacy, in an effort to take forward an attitude of self-sufficiency in the emerging nation. Sevagram Ashram On March 12, 1930, Gandhi started on the historic Dandi March to produce salt in defiance of the prevailing British laws from Sabarmati Ashram, vowing never to return to it till India attained independence. He completed the march in twenty-four days which was followed by the production of salt at various other places along the western coastline for which he was arrested and sent to Yerawada jail in Pune. True to the words of a person known for his stringent adherence to vows, he did not return to Sabarmati on his release from prison a year later. He started on a pan-India march, covering more than 20,000  km, campaigning against social ills such as untouchability. This was when he became convinced that the epicenter of the freedom movement had to be in a centrally located place, finally opting for Wardha in 1934, Maharashtra, where an eminent industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj donated a building with extensive fruit orchards. Gandhi started the All India Village Industries Association (AIVIA) through which he focused on the restructuring of the village and the village economy. He revived rural crafts and promoted agro-industries. Training was imparted to the villagers in various vocations which included not only spinning but also dairy farming, jaggery making, beekeeping, oil pressing and pottery. As much, if not even more, importance was given to the maintenance of hygiene and sanitation and the drive against untouchability. He spent two very fruitful years here, but, the urge to return to the life of a farmer made Gandhi shift his residence to a small village Shegaon in April 1936. This was a tiny village, some eight kilometers from Wardha and in spite of many difficulties Gandhi took the decision to move there. There were no facilities at Shegaon, not even a post or telegraph office. The letters used to be brought from Wardha. Though he did not have any intentions of keeping anybody with him except his wife, Kasturba, the pressure of work necessitated that more colleagues be accorded permission to live there, till finally it became a full-fledged institution. In 1940, Gandhi renamed this village, Sevagram or “the village of service.” He lived there, much as the villagers did, that is, without electricity and telephone. He built the house himself with locally available material.

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When Gandhi came to Sevagram, he was 67 years old and one often wonders why he wanted to leave the well-established and centrally located ashram at Wardha and start afresh in one of the poorest and remotest of villages. Why did Gandhi choose this area to be his headquarter? But the reason for his shifting is clear from his writings. He wrote in the Harijan, You may be sure I am living now just the way I wish to live. What I might have done at the beginning, had I more light, I am doing now in the evening of my life, at the end of my career, building from the bottom up. Study my way of living here, study my surroundings if you wish to know what I am. Village improvement is the only foundation on which conditions can be permanently ameliorated. (Gandhi 1936)

Sevagram was Gandhi’s residence for almost a decade and became an inspiring and central place for a number of institutions for the nation-­ building activities devised by Gandhi including the AIVIA.  It was from here that many ideas which shaped the newly emerging nation were born. The first draft of the Quit India Movement was conceived here. It was here, at Sevagram, that many of the senior leaders of the Congress party received their mandatory exposure to rural life and learned the basics of the Gandhian model of village restructuring. In fact, Sevagram is remembered as the most important laboratory where Gandhi conducted many of his experiments in social engineering through the new educational system, Nai Talim. The first school under the new educational system Nai Talim was set up here and flourishes to this date. Sahu (2018) quotes noted Gandhian thinker, Chinmay Mishra who is of the view that Gandhiji believed that Nai Talim—or ‘new education’—was his best innovation for evolving a new social order before India attained independence. He successfully implemented it in Sevagram and later it was replicated in other ashrams across the country. (Sahu 2018)

Everything at the ashram was minimalistic, with huts built out of locally available material, and, by the dwellers themselves. The possessions of the dwellers were also barrack style, although these were barracks for nonviolent soldiers but it was again kept at the minimum such that they could abandon it and move to some other place at a time of crisis (Box 5.1).

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Box 5.1  Minimalistic Living at Sevagram

“The house you will construct for me should be no different than an average farmer’s house. Don’t spend more than a hundred rupees,” Gandhi told Munnalal, a disciple, who supervised the building of his ashram. Bapu’s modest hut, another for Kasturba, one for guests, a common kitchen and a courtyard for daily prayers—these together constituted the Sevagram ashram. But this list fails to capture the magic in the atmosphere, the ethos. The author Abhay Bang’s mother, now ninety-four, actually lived in Sevagram during the days of Gandhi, while he had studied in the Nai Talim school during the 1960s. Filled with nostalgia coupled with awe and respect, Abhay recounts the days of his childhood. During my childhood, everybody around me was a freedom fighter or a satyagrahi. Everybody spun the spinning wheel and wore white, coarse khadi. Everybody cleaned the toilet, everybody helped in cooking, childcare and looked after the sick. No class, caste or gender discrimination existed for us. In 1980, the Croatian Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich visited Sevagram ashram for a week. Everyday, he sat silently inside Bapu Kuti. On the last day he broke his silence and told me that the hut made him wonder how little one needed to live happily and productively. In the West, five-room houses and two cars per family were norm; enormous amounts of energy were consumed to heat or cool buildings; mountains of waste were generated. The hut taught him, he said, that such modern affluence was a form of slavery—to wants and greed. This need not be so, there is an another way of life, he said. He had experienced it inside Bapu Kuti.

Abhay Bang is a doctor by profession and the director of nongovernmental organization SEARCH and works among tribal people in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. He is a Padma Shri awardee (Adapted from Bang 2019, the Hindustan Times).

Gandhi, himself, never slept inside the hut, but slept on a plank outside. He even took his bath outdoors. Gandhi’s insistence on self-reliance was followed in word and deed, with most of the necessities being derived from the ashram itself, including

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the milk, the vegetables, the grain and the material needed for construction. Village products and crafts provided enough money to finance the ashram, making it self-sufficient. People lived in harmony with each other and at the same time imbibed nonviolent attitudes. Gandhi’s disciple J. C. Kumarappa aptly described Gandhi’s hut (Bapu Kuti) at Sevagram as “the de facto capital of India since service of the country is the function of a capital city” (cf., Sahu 2018). The then British viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, had even installed a hotline in the little hut not because Gandhi needed the luxury but because the British wanted to remain in constant touch with him. Would you believe that the viceroy even spent a night under the open sky in the ashram with Gandhi! The Ashram is very much functional to this day and bustles with activity as described in Box 5.2. From the various ashrams and settlements that Gandhi established, it is clear that they were not mere camps for training satyagrahis and inculcating the spirit of nonviolence in them. Coupled with this motive was

Box 5.2  The Ashram Today (Excerpted from Anuja, Live Mint, 2018)

“It is a Monday morning at the school, bustling with activity. At the entrance of the one of the classrooms hangs a blackboard with a timetable assigning responsibilities to students for the coming week.” They range from cooking, cleaning and gardening duties. Additionally, students also learn skills such as stitching, embroidery, bicycle repair, music, and dance. “We are taught cooking which none of the boys in my neighbourhood from other schools learn. I often help my mother in the kitchen,” said Pratik Tripathi, a class eight student from the school. He smiled and added that he is good at cooking vegetables and makes a great cup of tea. “It is not a different curriculum but a different form of pedagogy which makes it more challenging,” said Sushama Sharma, Principal, Anand Niketan. “We link knowledge with productive work and talk about social issues through crafts. For instance, each student learns embroidery and we tell the boys that no role is gender specific. Everyone joins in cleaning and students learn that no one should be discriminated on the basis of community or caste,” she said.

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another equally important motive, that of transforming their thinking into becoming self-reliant, confident people. The communities themselves were hubs of self-sustaining activity ranging from the press at Phoenix to the fields and orchards, dairy farming and sandal making at Tolstoy Farm to an even larger number of activities undertaken in the ashrams in India. Alongside went Gandhi’s bid to end social ills such as untouchability, alcoholism and other addictions and to inculcate values of aparigraha (nonpossession), asteya (non-stealing) and nonviolence in word and deed. In modern terminology it was community intervention of the highest order and revealed the reasons for why Gandhi could establish successful, sustainable communities, unlike that established by noted psychologist Skinner, which did not last long (Kool and Agrawal 2013).

Community Intervention Whenever action is taken to optimize a community, a variety of changes can be introduced depending on the level of change desired. According to Maton et  al. (2006), there are two levels at which the change can be focused, namely, first-order change and second-order change. Alternatively, they have been termed ameliorative change and restorative change, respectively, by Prilleltensky and Nelson (1997). As the very name suggests, ameliorative or first-order change attempts to be curative, in that it is focused on changing the factors that are causing communal disruption and disharmony. Restorative or second-order change aims not only at finding solutions but also at removing the inequities that are causing the disruption. According to Maton et al. (2006), there are seven factors on the basis of which the two levels can be differentiated. These have been outlined in Table 5.1. According to Maton et  al. (2006), most interventions taken up by community psychologists are ameliorative in nature, though it is evident that a much greater emphasis is needed on the introduction of restorative changes. It is also possible to blend the two as shown by Evans et  al. (2007). That principles of psychology can be effectively applied to enhance the functions of various types of environments, including built-up spaces and communities, has also been discussed in detail by Kool and Agrawal (2006).

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Table 5.1  Differences between ameliorative and restorative community change (based on Maton et al. 2006) Dimension

Ameliorative change

Restorative change

Framing of issues Issues are technical matters Issues are framed in terms of which can be resolved through inequities requiring both liberating rational problem solving solutions and rational problem solving Values Only values that are important Values of self-determination, justice are those of health and caring and respect for diversity are important Levels of analysis Interventions targeted at Interventions occur at all levels, but improving personal and community level is most important relational well-being Prevention focus Aimed at enhancing protective Aimed at removing systemic factors factors Desired Individual well-being Socially supportive relations and outcomes community participation Intervention Driven by the expert Driven by partnership between all process stakeholders Role of Primarily as expert, driving the Primarily as facilitator, helping community intervention people to discuss and mutually psychologist resolve problems

Gandhi and Community Intervention If one attempts to delineate the objectives and features of the communities established by Gandhi and detailed in the preceding pages, it is evident that Gandhi was an astute community psychologist. His attempts at community reconstruction were certainly of the second-order seeing the ways through which he attempted to establish equitable feelings and harmonious living as well as to create self-reliance and confidence. In terms of the differences outlined in Table 5.1, it is clear that Gandhi promoted restorative changes by involving all stakeholders and at the same time facilitated mutual cooperation through his personal example. In fact, it will not be wrong to state that he went a step further from the two levels described above. A third and still higher level has been envisaged by Jason (2012). This has been termed third-order change and focuses on changing the culture of the community such that it leads to the very eradication of the problem.

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So, if a community starts accepting a minority group, the problem of racial discrimination vanishes without any other intervention being needed. Another example that comes to mind is that of stopping the wastage of water and other resources. If the culture is changed such that people develop pro-environmental attitudes, the problems accruing from wastage would be resolved. The Gandhian communities and ashrams in South Africa and India are some of the best examples of community intervention of the third order, wherein Gandhi attempted to change the entire culture rather than working on individual problems. Whether it was his system of craft-based education, vocational training, the encouragement of village economy or the restructuring work that he so avidly undertook, the reliance on local resources, the drive against social ills such as untouchability, these are just a few of the ways through which he successfully changed the very culture of the communities, which in turn helped to bolster the flagging morale and build confidence of the inmates. At the same time it went a long way in reducing the vices of alcoholism and other addictions and made for harmonious living. Truly, he was able to establish Utopia, as close as it is possible, clarifying that persistence in the right direction (i.e., on the path of truth) truly pays dividends. Inspired as he was by Ruskin’s (1860) Unto This Last and the works of Thoreau, he followed them not only in letter and spirit but also through his actions, reaching the poorest and lowliest person in the social hierarchy. Another community, which can be said to be truly nonviolent, is that of Malana, India, which was visited by Kool and has been detailed in Box 5.3. The success of the communities set up by Gandhi brings to the fore once again that he was a practical psychologist, who, through his empirical research with himself as the subject, could drive one of the greatest and most successful ventures in social engineering in the history of humanity. While not a psychologist, he was following all the principles to be laid down by community psychologists much later. We will focus on one theory which has been particularly influential, namely, that forwarded by Kelly (1968) who posits that any community intervention would be successful only if it follows certain principles. Let us put Gandhian communities to the test and see the extent to which the principles posited by Kelly are upheld.

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Box 5.3  Malana: A Living Example of a Nonviolent Community

Based on extensive research conducted among various cultures of the world, anthropologists such as Montagu (1978) identified communities in Malaysia and New Guinea which manifested all the characteristics of nonviolence. A couple of decades later, Bonta identified twenty-three such peaceful cultures in the world, all having one commonality—their nonviolence was rooted in the child-rearing practices of the cultures. While on a Fulbright assignment to India, Kool (Kool et al. 2012) was able to visit another culture marked by extremely high levels of nonviolence, but unknown to most people. Situated in the remote areas of the Himalayas, the place is Malana, also known as mini-Greece because it is believed that this community originally consisted of soldiers from Alexander’s army, who stayed back when Alexander took ill and returned to his country. While the people of Malana live a very ordinary life, they show exemplary behavior, marked by compassion, forgiveness and tolerance. It is a small village with about 214 houses and a population of about 1100 people and is located at an altitude of about 2600 meters above sea level. The village is extremely difficult to reach, but with the help of local people, Kool was able to visit this unique community, Malana, and even conduct research there. Malana has one of the oldest democratic governments in the world, its own system of government and its own courts for settling conflicts. A truly democratic community, Malana involves all its members in all stages of decision making. The people maintain high levels of morality basically by inculcating morality in children from a very young age. They use integrative power, show very high levels of self-control and are deeply respectful of Nature and the environment as revealed by their anti-logging and anti-hunting norms, being exercised to enable only the bare minimum required for the subsistence of the people. According to a paper published by two of Kool’s students in which they have presented the salient features of this democracy, there are three characteristics which make it a peaceful community. These are as follows: Malana, howsoever primitive and simplistic, has a unique system of governance with a provision for referendum and it represents an ideal

(continued)

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Box 5.3  (continued) form of democracy, which many nations and communities are struggling to establish in their governance. Malana is an exceptional example of gender equality, where men and women have equal rights. Given their primitive lifestyle, women are free to seek a divorce and maintain their rights for property and land. While the youth in our modern world are struggling with issues of teenage pregnancy and drugs, people in Malana offer their youth full freedom with reference to sexual interaction and consumption of drugs. In view of their tolerance and trust in their youth, there are hardly any issues and concerns that our modern society continues to worry about. (Piazza and Dote 2013)

Malana is a living example of the Gandhian village republic, surviving even in the tumultuous times of the twenty-first century, maintaining peace and living in harmony with nature. When Kool administered his test of nonviolence (NVT) among the people, he was surprised to find that they scored extremely high on nonviolence, being 20% higher than other normal samples and more or less similar to the scores of Quakers, Buddhists and other such sects. The visit was truly an enlightening experience for Kool, providing deep insights into the ways in which nonviolence can be inculcated by members of a community and the dynamics of the community. At the same time, it provided additional data for the cross-cultural validation of the NVT. Of the photos presented below, the left photo shows Kool, (in the middle), with his team of local researchers, without whose help this visit would not have been fruitful. The photo on the right is of the local inhabitants (based on Kool 2015; Kool et al. 2012; Piazza and Dote 2013).

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Gandhi and Kelly’s Fourfold Ecological Model Specifically, Kelly suggests that there are four important principles that govern people and their community settings. These four are as follows. Interdependence All levels of a community are found to be interdependent on and interrelated to each other, such that any change at one level has a rippling effect on the others. Community interventionists must, therefore, be careful while introducing changes. Thus, one example clarified that mini-grants given to certain communities to help them make infrastructural improvements also provided fresh opportunities to build relations between people by increasing the interaction and communication among the dwellers (Foster-Fishman et al. 2007). In a similar manner, working together, while transferring the press to Phoenix, or farming and constructing houses in Tolstoy Farm, or the community spinning and prayer meetings at Sabarmati and Sevagram, lead to the inculcation of attitudes of egalitarianism and compassion (see Box 5.4). While they were also training grounds for Gandhi’s nonviolent soldiers, each became an oasis of mutual love and tolerance. Gandhi’s focus on leading from the front got commitment of a level unheard of before.

Box 5.4  Building Community Feeling Through Community All Faith Prayer Meetings

Even when Gandhi was in South Africa and he set up the Phoenix Settlement and later, Tolstoy Farm, community all faith prayer meetings formed an integral part of the daily activities. The activities at these meetings included prayers from different religions along with singing of religious hymns and chanting. He continued this practice at the various ashrams he established in India. While Gandhi would not have known anything regarding the scientific basis of such gatherings, he was certain that they worked to bring people together, to boost the morale of the people and to increase their ability to empathize with others. Today, with modern state-of-the-art techniques of brain imaging, neuroscientists have been able to pinpoint the activities of the brain (continued)

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Box 5.4  (continued)

during musical events of any type. An interesting piece of research has been reported by Martone (2020) in the Scientific American, in an article entitled Music synchronizes the brains of performers and their audiences. The article discusses the brain processes taking place between performers and audiences and reveals that Music is a shared experience that integrates our intellect, emotions and physical movements… Music unites these processes within us and among and between audiences and performers.

The most amazing part is that the popular music evokes greater synchrony between and among performers and audience. Also, the amount of synchrony increases as the performance draws on, with insignificant synchrony during the early parts and greatest toward the end. The greater the synchrony, the more people enjoy the performance, helping us to draw important … insights into the nature of musical exchanges and demonstrates that musical experience runs deep: we dance and feel the same emotions together, and our neurons fire together as well.

The exact localization of such synchrony has also been established. It has been found localized in parts of the temporal parietal junction of the left hemisphere, an area known for being important for empathy. Further, synchrony was also localized in those areas of the right hemisphere, in which “mirror neuron” (also referred to as “Gandhi neurons”) have been found. This points out a powerful means by which music promotes positive social behavior.

The power of prayer meetings, accompanied by singing and chanting, is just one more of those countless techniques that Gandhi discovered over the course of his experiments with truth and which are being validated by science today.

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Adaptation Whatever the individuals do in the community are not random events. Rather, they are adaptations to the environment. In fact, such interaction and subsequent adaptation is a two-way affair, with people adapting to the environment and the environment adapting to the people. This is also the reason why behavior that is highly adaptive in one environment may not prove to be so when the environment is changed. This principle of adaptation is also evident in the Gandhian communities. Whatever and howsoever he went about in the various communities was clearly adaptive. Activities at the farms in South Africa were totally different from those at the Indian ashrams. While sustaining the press was the primary objective at Phoenix, it was providing a place to stay that was uppermost when Tolstoy Farm was established. When finances started dwindling in Phoenix, new modes of adaptation were put into practice so that expenditure could be curtailed. The views of Gandhi as far as education is concerned are certainly adaptations to the needs of the newly emerging nation. Succession Communities are in a constant state of flux, requiring new modes of adaptations by both individual members and the community as a whole. As community members change, so must the community. So, when there is an increase in the number of gray-haired people, the community must adapt to their needs by providing facilities for the older generation. Along the same vein, as the number of people, especially children, increased at Tolstoy Farm the need for a school became evident and Gandhi served as the impromptu teacher. Later, in India, when the need to create an attitude of self-reliance, confidence and at the same time overcome problems of unemployment gained prominence, a regular craft-based Nai Talim school was set up at both Sabarmati Ashram and Sevagram. Cycling of Resources Every community has certain inherent personal, social and environmental resources. It is imperative that these resources are not only identified but also used to the fullest extent. At the same time, it is imperative that the resources are used in a way through which depletion does not take place,

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or even if it does, they are replaced at the earliest. Hoffman (2019) has shown how unused community resources can be used to create new green spaces, as also human expertise in greening could be used for the betterment of the community. Nowhere is this better exemplified than at the Gandhian communities. One of the first principles espoused by Gandhi was regarding the mandatory use of local resources. In fact, while construction was taking place at Sevagram, he insisted that all necessary resources be procured from within a maximum of a 5-mile radius. At the Indian ashrams, Gandhi stressed upon the encouragement of crafts that the villagers were already engaged in, such that their personal expertise could be harnessed to become revenue yielding. Even as far as education is concerned, his insistence was upon bringing the school to the village rather than taking the child to a distant school, away from his/her natural environs. Gandhi’s view regarding parents being the best teachers is also one more way of using local resources. At the same time, he was always against the wasting of resources, either natural or manmade. As he was wont to say, “There is enough for man’s need but not for man’s greed,” implying that one should use only as much as one really needs and not beyond that. His view of each of us being trustees of Mother Nature, also upheld the focus on the responsibility that each of us has as far as maintenance and sustainability of this earth and nature are concerned. From the above, it is clear that the communities established by Gandhi were as per the scientific principles posited much later. What is even more important was that while the theoretical underpinnings of modern-day community psychology provide the principles, Gandhi provided examples of the successful implementation of these principles. When the United Nations decided to focus on Sustainable Goals for 2030, the goals were more or less the same as those focused on by Gandhi and achieved through the ingenious handling of community living. There was no government lending a helping hand, there was hardly any financial help from external sources, but each community was able to fulfill the needs of all the inmates, both young and old, not the least was the fight against poverty.

Second Freedom (Doosri Azaadi) Traveling across India as part of his campaign for freedom accorded Gandhi an opportunity to mingle with, and to experience first-hand, the plight of the masses. This was when he realized that the major proportion

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of India’s population was living from hand to mouth, making him add a second agenda to his campaign that of freeing the starving millions from hunger. He called this the second freedom or doosri azaadi. Probably, as no researcher had done before Gandhi, he set about to understand the cause of this poverty and came to learn that the cause was lack of work for a fairly large portion of the year. According to Gandhi’s figures, the average farmer had no work for at least four months in the year and that literally 85% of the rural population was on the brink of starvation during those months. The complex ways in which unemployment, due to whatever reason, casts psychological effects upon job-losers has been discussed at length in Chap. 3 of this volume. Gandhi had decided that true independence meant not merely freeing India from the British. For him, swaraj or self-rule involved much more. In fact, he envisaged swaraj or self-rule as essentially entailing self-reliance and autonomy at the local level, which in turn, would lead to freedom from poverty, freedom in the real sense of the world. For Gandhi, these poverty-stricken people were his first care and also his last care. It was for these teeming millions that Gandhi wanted freedom, freedom from the British, but more importantly, freedom from poverty. An independent India did not mean merely transferring the established British administrative structure into Indian hands. He warned, You would make India English. And when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but Englishtan. This is not the Swaraj I want. (Gandhi 1909)

What Gandhi wanted was self-rule for the impoverished. He wrote, I am working for winning Swaraj… for those soiling and unemployed millions who do not get even a square meal a day and have to scratch along with a piece of stale roti and a pinch of salt. (Gandhi 1931a, p. 53)

For Gandhi, God was not Truth, rather Truth was God. But for the starving millions, the only truth they knew was the pang of hunger and the lack of clothes to save themselves from the stark winter or the raging sun in the summer. How could one talk about God to them? As he wrote in the journal, Young India in 1931,

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I dare not take before them the message of God. I may as well place before the dog over there the message of God as before those hungry millions, who have no luster in their eyes and whose only God is their bread. I can take before them a message of God only by taking the message of sacred work before them….It is good enough to talk of God whilst we are sitting here after a nice breakfast and looking forward to a nicer luncheon. But how am I to talk of God to the millions who have to go without two meals a day? To them God can only appear as bread and butter. Well, the peasants of India were getting their bread from their soil. I offered them the spinning wheel in order that they may get butter and, if I appear today…in my loin-cloth, it is because I come as the sole representative of those half-starved, half-naked dumb millions. (Gandhi 1931b, p. 310)

It was in view of the above that Gandhi placed the spinning wheel before the farmers. It was an inexpensive and simple instrument which could be used to earn their livelihood during the lien months, when agriculture was not possible. In offering them the spinning wheel, he had two things in mind. One was that agriculture was at the point of saturation and, therefore, could not absorb extra people. Second, most farmers lacked a secondary occupation on which they could fall back when farming was not possible. Also, in those days, spinning was a common village handicraft and could go a long way in earning a decent living through a means that was acceptable to most people. Gandhi proposed the spinning wheel program for all of rural India, as a vehicle for three important messages: the economical message, the cultural message and the humane message (Pulla Rao 2011). Apart from the above, almost one-third of the rural population was being treated as untouchables. This was the lowest caste in India, namely, those who were engaged in the all-important task of scavenging and picking up the night soil. Despite their work being of such great importance, they were considered to be untouchable and were not allowed to mix with the other caste groups. In fact, they were ostracized from the general village community, being not only forced to live on the outskirts but also to not having permission to draw water from the village wells. The upper caste would never allow these people to engage in vocations that the other castes followed. Spinning was, apparently, a noncaste-based vocations with which people of the upper castes would not have any problem. Moreover, the spinning wheel would also fulfill another basic need of the rural people, that of clothing. Gandhi observed that the rural poor were severely short of clothing, more often than not, having barely enough

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to cover their private parts. It was this which had made Gandhi give up the wearing of normal clothes and taking to the briefest of clothes to cover himself. The spinning wheel would, thus, go a long way in fulfilling this very basic need of clothing. Once again, we stand witness to the ways through which Gandhi would often proverbially kill three birds with a single stone, much in line with what Kelly (1968) proposed as interdependence in community interventions. Through the spinning wheel, Gandhi proposed not just the amelioration of poverty but also the creation of a culture through which the upliftment of the downtrodden could take place. This was the “doosri azaadi” (second freedom) that Gandhi emphasized and also took active steps for. Gandhi saw democracy as more than a system of government; it meant promoting both individuality and the self-discipline of the community and as a system that distributed power and assisted the development of every social class, especially the lowest. This is what Gandhi’s close follower and admirer, Kumarappa (1951) termed as Gandhian economics, based on three principles, that of plain living, the promotion of simple local-based means of production and the concept of trusteeship. What Gandhi was proposing was a spiritualization of economics leading to an economy which would be free of class inequalities and injustices that are the most prominent cause of violence. It was socialism, but, very different from that proposed by Karl Marx. While it envisaged the upliftment of all, the onus of this upliftment would be in the hands of the rich, who would see themselves as mere custodians of the resources and the environment. In this manner, rather than the “haves” exploiting the “have-nots,” the economy would be embedded in and engulfed by a spirit of trust and mutual cooperation. An economy which would be classless but at the same time casteless, with each person taking only so much from the environment as needed and reserving the rest for those who are needy. Thus, while Marx advocated the destroying of the capitalist economy, Gandhi proposed reforming it and running it on the principle of trust and nonviolence (Kesuvulu 2004). The Village Republic Beyond Gandhi Another living example of the Gandhian model of village republics has been actively pursued by a staunch Gandhian, Ela Bhatt (whom we interviewed in person) and whose ideas have been put forward in her book

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entitled Anubandh (Bhatt 2015). Anubandh (co-relatedness) is a concept that connotes a kind of solidarity, a mutual interconnectedness. The term was, perhaps, first used by two eminent Gandhians, Vinoba Bhave and Kaka Kalelkar, though Gandhi never used it himself. Her basic proposition is that of “100 mile communities.” These would be communities in which the six basic needs of human beings, namely, food, clothing, housing, health care and education are to be served from within the radius of 100 miles, such that women do not have to walk long distances to fill potable water, or children have to travel from the villages to the schools in the towns. “Doosri azaadi” has been taken forward at the grassroots level through an organization named SEWA, the Self Employed Women’s Association, started in 1972 by Ela Bhatt in Ahmedabad with a handful of worker-­ leaders who were, mainly, street vendors and handcart pullers. Fired by Gandhi’s call to serve the needs of the poor, the organization started by Bhatt is now a movement with over 2 million women spanning thirteen states of India (Chatterjee 2014). Ela Bhatt is a much-traveled person, honored and respected both within India and outside. She is one of those eminent few who have been awarded honorary degrees by Harvard and Yale, as well as receiving a large number of awards including the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award. In the last ten years or so, she has been a part of an international group The Elders, founded by Nelson Mandela, which now includes the likes of Jimmy Carter, former president of Brazil Fernando Cardoso, Kofi Annan and Algerian leader Lakhdar Brahimi. The Elders seek to make humanitarian intervention in global crisis situations. Bhatt has described her experiences with the upliftment of scores of women in a volume entitled Anubandh (2015) and hopes that young people would read this book and would be able to think differently about how to solve a number of problems plaguing the world today. Today, SEWA members are engaged in over 65 different types of occupations. There are a variety of institutions under the banner, including the SEWA Co-operative Bank, the Rudi Multi-trading Company (a marketing network for rural farm produce) and the Lok Swasthya Mandali (a people’s health cooperative). They have successful water communities which have been established through collective efforts to bring water to the community such that women do not have to walk long distances to procure water. The time saved is now being used for revenue-generating embroidery crafts using the local expertise of the women. They even have a tool library and an equipment library from which community dwellers can borrow equipment that is too costly to purchase.

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As Bhatt puts it, “Mahatma Gandhi firmly believed that strengthening the village economy was the key to removing poverty and exploitation in India.” What makes rural communities vulnerable to poverty, to exploitation and to migration? If the needs of the community could be met with locally generated resources, it would benefit not only the local economy but also the local ecology. Many years ago, when Bhatt was at an international conference, some farmer women from Ghana told her that their staple diet consists of tomatoes and rice, which in the days gone by, grew on their farms. Today, they grow mulberry to feed the silkworms and their economy rests on the silk produced and are forced to buy imported, packaged food from supermarkets. Thus, “We do not eat what we grow and do not grow what we eat.” When the silk market collapsed, they starved. And starve, they certainly do even for as little a thing as toilet paper. Even as we are putting the final touches to this chapter, we have an example of what happens when self-­ reliance is missing. When self-reliance is missing, even the richest and the most powerful country on earth, the USA, is facing an acute shortage of the toilet paper these days, in the midst of the pandemic caused by COVID-19. And, today is Panchayati Raj day, (April 24, 2020), here in India, a day dedicated to local governance at the village level through what are called Panchayats (literally meaning a group of five people, but in reality referring to the mode of governance through local civic bodies at the village level). The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, in a video conference meeting with these village heads (video conference because of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic) congratulated them saying that there is much that urban areas can learn from the villages. Further, he was of the view that social distancing and isolation is being practiced more effectively in the villages of India than in the urban areas. Last but not the least, he said that the biggest lesson that we have learned from the pandemic is the importance of self-reliance. How right Gandhi was when he emphasized swaraj as meaning self-reliance and not just self-rule! Today, not just in India but in many of the developing and underdeveloped nations, there are teeming millions who suffer from dire malnutrition, extremely poor hygiene and sanitation and who are prone to a variety of diseases simply because there is no alternative to agriculture. What Gandhi was able to do almost a century ago seems to be even more necessary today. One example of what ordinary people are doing for the upliftment of the community has been detailed in Box 5.5. While the spinning wheel is one option there are many other village crafts that can be

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Box 5.5  Gandhi Is Still Alive—Very Much There in Several Households of India

Gandhi’s concept of community service has continued to enlighten scores of Indians in unbelievable ways. They might not be as popular, elaborate and well documented such as the efforts of Ela Bhatt, but they certainly remind us of the great legacy of Gandhi, even in small ways, as letting one’s home be used as a school and feeding hungry children who collect food from the garbage heaps. In 2013, we visited a home in Varanasi, India where we found that after retirement, the owner of the home, in collaboration with other retired teachers, had set up a school at her home, and was, in the process, sacrificing the rental income that used to be generated earlier from the ground floor of her home. With the support from the monies earned through their retirement, this group of ex-­ teachers started their mission of picking up children from the streets and bringing them to this home. Here, the children were given a bath, clothes, shoes and food. At the same time, basic hygiene was seen to, by cutting the nails and the hair of these street children. Later, they were encouraged to join the school. The school started with less than fifteen kids, but now, the numbers have swelled to seventy-seven, the full capacity of the ground floor. During our visit, we saw how a handful of children saved a part of their meal to be taken home, either for consuming later in the evening or for their younger sibling or parents. The meal was good and nutritious and we knew that the children, obviously, could not afford such food at their homes. Gandhi was so right in stating that food was literally God for the poor and he was also disappointed that in the name of God, food is often being used as a tool for the purpose of religious conversion. We cannot end here without writing that even on Sunday when the school was not in operation, a few kids would come to the home of this lady to inquire whether there would be classes today (Sunday). But, we knew that, in reality, it was their hunger that had brought them there, with the ostentatious pretention of school. They addressed her as Ma, (mother) and the name of the lady is Ms. Bina Mishra. We salute her and her team for the wonderful work they are doing. (continued)

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Box 5.5  (continued)

We also salute all those men, women and families who are contributing to the upliftment of poverty-ridden people. We can well visualize how such humanity is the hallmark of several households of India, who, without any publicity or financial support, are demonstrating that they have never stopped using the light that Gandhi offered to them for their freedom from Britain (first independence) and then the second independence (Doosri Azaadi—to serve people, lift them from poverty and despair and build our own strength).

encouraged. Pottery, handicrafts made with locally available material and skills, simple carpentry and brick making are some of the other alternates that require active promotion to provide these peasants with the second freedom that Gandhi envisaged. Metro cities, the world over, are groaning under the weight of an exploding population, not to speak of the geometric increase in the number of vehicles. Public transport systems have been put into place but very often even before a project is completed, the population using that system doubles. Ecological depletion, environmental pollution, groundwater depletion, and rapidly vanishing green cover, these are just some of the problems facing urban areas which governments and community psychologists are struggling to resolve. Another problem on the rise is that of marginalized populations, most of which have migrated from distant rural areas in search of greener pastures. Yet, we continue with such dysfunctional and unsustainable models, with the state and professionals struggling to find solutions. Gandhi, in his days, and ardent followers of Gandhi, today, are showing the way. All that we need to do is, as Gandhi proclaimed many decades back: we need to “test them” in a variety of locales and for a variety of problems, and answers will surely be forthcoming and we will be inculcating a spirit of nonviolence in the true sense of the word. As professed by Murray et al. (2014), Nonviolence, in short, is not concerned simply with resisting injustice or with personal consciousness. For all major practitioners, it has involved building communities and movements with alternative cultures and social

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structures-structures which reveal and illustrate alternatives to global capitalism, militarism, patriarchy and institutional racism. Such communities and practices, with all their flaws, serve as vital reminders that materialism and militarism are not inevitable outcomes in the age of globalization. (Murray et al. 2014, p. 167)

References Anuja (2018, October 31). Inside Sevagram: The village that changed India. Live Mint. Retrieved from www.livemint.com. Bang, A. (2019, September 30). Growing up in Mahatma Gandhi’s Sevagram Ashram. Hindustan Times. Retrieved from hindustantimes.com Bhana, S. (1975). The Tolstoy Farm: Gandhi’s experiment in cooperative commonwealth. South African Historical Journal, 7, 88–100. Bhatt, E. (2015). Anubandh: Building hundred mile communities. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.mkgandhi. org/museum/Sabarmati.htm Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss (Vol. 3). New York, NY: Basic books. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chatterjee, M. (2014). A quest for doosri azaadi. Seminar, 662, 74–78. Dalton, E. M., Mckenzie, J. A., & Kahonde, C. (2012). The implementation of inclusive education in South Africa: Reflections arising from a workshop for teachers and therapists to introduce Universal Design for Learning. African Journal of Disability, 1(1), a13. https://doi.org/10.4102/ajod.v1i1.13. Dalton, J.  H., Elias, M.  J., & Wandersman, A. (2001). Community psychology: Linking individuals and communities. Stamford, CT: Wadsworth. Dunbar, R.  I., & Shultz, S. (2007). Evolution in the social brain. Science, 317(5843), 1344–1347. Dunbar, R. I. M. (1998). The social brain hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology., 6, 178–190. Dunbar, R. I. M. (2016). Do online social media cut through the constraints that limit the size of offline social networks? Royal Society Open Science, 3150292. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150292 Evans, S. D., Hanlin, C. E., & Prilleltensky, I. (2007). Blending ameliorative and transformative approaches in human service organizations: A case study. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(3), 329–346. Foster-Fishman, P. G., Nowell, B., & Wang, H. (2007). Putting the system back into system change: A framework for understanding and changing organizational and community systems. American Journal of Community Psychology, 39, 197–215.

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Fry, D. P. (2012). Life without war. Science, 336(6083), 879–884. https://doi. org/10.1126/science.1217987. Gandhi, M. K. (1909). Hind Swaraj. Gandhi, M. K. (1910, August 15). Letter to Tolstoy. Gandhi, M. K. (1931a, March 26). Young India. Gandhi, M. K. (1931b, October 15). Young India. Gandhi, M. K. (1936, August 8). Harijan. Gandhi, P. (1957). My childhood with Gandhi. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. Hill, J. (2016). Public policy. The Community Psychologist, 49 (1, Winter). Retrieved from http://www.scra27.org/publications/tcp/tcp-past-issues/tcpwinter2016/ publicpolicy/Hill2016. Hoffman, A. J. (2019). Creating a culture of transformation in Guatemala: One fruit tree at a time. Electronic Green Journal, 1(40) Retrieved from https:// escholarship.org/uc/item/3p03s4gk. Hofmeyr, I. (2013). Gandhi’s printing press: Experiments in slow reading. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press. Hofmeyr, I. (2014). Gandhi and South African print culture. Seminar, 662, 25–30. Jason, L. A. (2012). Principles of social change. New York: Oxford University Press. Jason, L. A., Glantsman, O., & Ramian, J. F. (2019). Introduction to community psychology: Becoming an agent of change. The Rebus Foundation. Jason, L.  A., Stevens, E., Ram, D., Miller, S.  A., Beasley, C.  R., & Gleason, K. (2016). Theories in the field of community psychology. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 7(2), 1–27. Kelly, J. G. (1968). Toward an ecological conception of preventive interventions. In J. W. Carter Jr. (Ed.), Research contributions from psychology to community mental health (pp. 76–100). New York, NY: Behavioral Publications. Kesuvulu, Y. (2004). Gandhian trusteeship as an instrument of human dignity. Gandhi Marg, 25 (4), January–March. Retrieved from www.mkgandhi.org. Kloos, B., Hill, J., Thomas, E., Wandersman, A., & Elias, M. J. (2012). Community psychology: Linking individuals and communities. Cengage Learning. Kool, V.  K. (Ed.). (1993). Nonviolence: Social and psychological issues. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Kool, V.  K. (2008). The psychology of nonviolence and aggression. New  York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kool, V. K. (2015). Psychology of democracy: Lessons from Malana. Invited lecture delivered at MVCC Cultural Series, Utica, NY, USA, April 3. Kool, V. K., & Agrawal, R. (2006). Applied social psychology: A global perspective. New Delhi: Atlantic. Kool, V.  K., & Agrawal, R. (2013). Whither Skinner’s science of behavior, his assessment of Gandhi, and its aftermath? Gandhi Marg, 35, 487–518. Kool, V. K., Dote, D., Jukic, D., Malinowski, T., Nicotera, D. B., & Piazza, E. (2012). Self-control and non-violence: Lessons from the peace culture of Malana. 25

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Jahrestagung des Forums Friedenspsychologie an der Universität Konstanz, 1–3 June. Kumarappa, J.  C. (1951). Gandhian economic thought (Library of Indian Economics) (1st ed.). Bombay, India: Vora. Levine, M., Perkins, D. D., & Perkins, D. V. (2005). Principles of community psychology: Perspectives and applications (3rd ed.). New  York: Oxford University Press. Martone, R. (2020, June 2). Music synchronizes the brains of performers and their audiences. Scientific American. Retrieved from www.scientificamerican.com. Maton, K., Strompolis, M., & Wisniewski, L. (2013). Building advocacy and policy committee: A survey of SCRA members. The Community Psychologist, 46, 13–16. Maton, K. I., Perkins, D. D., & Saegert, S. (2006). Community psychology at the crossroads: Prospects for interdisciplinary research. American Journal of Community Psychology, 38, 9–21. Montagu, A. (1978). Learning nonaggression: The experience of nonliterate societies. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Montero, M., & Sonn, C. C. (Eds.). (2009). Psychology of liberation: Theory and applications. Switzerland: Springer Nature. Moos, R. H. (2003). Social contexts: Transcending their power and their fragility. American Journal of Community Psychology, 31, 1–13. Murray, H., Lyubansky, M., Miller, K., & Ortega, L. (2014). Toward a psychology of nonviolence. In E.  Mustakova-Possardt, M.  Lyubanski, et  al. (Eds.), Toward socially responsible psychology for a global era (pp.  151–182). New York: Springer. Narvaez, D. (2014). Neurobiology and the development of human morality: Evolution, culture, and wisdom. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.. Piazza, E., & Dote, D. (2013). Modern Psychology, Gandhi and Peace Cultures with Special Reference to Malana. Gandhi Marg, 35, 619–630. Pim, J. E. (2018). Exploring the village republic: Behavioral processes and systems of peace. In P. Verbeek & B. A. Peters (Eds.), Peace ethology: Behavioral processes and systems of peace. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Prilleltensky, I., & Nelson, G. (1997). Community psychology: Reclaiming social justice. In I. Prilleltensky & D. Fox (Eds.), Critical psychology: An introduction (pp. 166–184). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pulla Rao, D. (2011). Empowerment of the rural poor: The Gandhian approach. Gandhi Marg, 33(1). Retrieved from www.mkgandhi.org. Randolph, L. I., & Randolph, S. H. (2006). Postmodern Gandhi and other essays: Gandhi in the world and at home. Chicago: Chicago University press. Rappaport, J. (1977). Community psychology: Values, research, and action. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

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Ruskin, J. (1860). Unto this last. Cornhill Magazine. Sahu, P. R. (2018, October 2). At Sevagram Ashram, Bapu found his ideal laboratory of social engineering. The Wire. Retrieved from thewire.in. Sarason, S. B. (1974). Psychological sense of community: Prospects for a community psychology. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Summy, R. (2013). Changing the power paradigm. From mainstream to nonkilling politics. In E. J. Pim (Ed.), Nonkilling security and the state (pp. 35–65). Center for Global Nonkilling: Honolulu. Tedersoo, L., Bahram, M., & Zobel, M. (2020, February 21). How mycorrhizal associations drive plant population and community biology. Science. https:// doi.org/10.1126/science.aba1223. Trainer, T. (2010). The transition to a sustainable and just world. Canterbury: Envirobook. Wolff, T. (2013). A community psychologist’s involvement in policy change at the community level: Three stories from a practitioner. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 4(2) Retrieved from http://www.gjcpp.org.

CHAPTER 6

Gandhian Nonviolence from the Perspective of the Psychology of Religion and Morality

Opening Vignette Locks are on doors only to keep honest people honest. One percent of people will always be dishonest and never steal. Another one percent will always be dishonest and always try to steal. And, the rest of 98% will be honest as long as conditions are right. Tempt them enough and they’ll be dishonest too. Locks mostly protect from every day honest people who get tempted and become dishonest. (Sahibzada 2018, LinkedIn.com)

The above excerpt is from a blog entitled Honestly dishonest: A behavioral model of financial dishonesty, by Junaid Sahibzada, CIO Advisory, Strategy and Planning Manager, KPMG, Australia on LinkedIn. In this blog, the author uses insights from Dan Ariely’s volume, The honest truth about dishonesty: How we lie to everyone— especially ourselves, to analyze the truth about dishonesty. Sahibzada ends the discussion with an amusing incident recounted by Ariely in his book. One of his friends gets locked in and is helped by a blacksmith to get back inside his home. The friend is really amazed and taken aback at how easily and quickly the blacksmith was able to “break” in. When the friend shared his amazement with (continued) © The Author(s) 2020 V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1_6

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(continued)

the blacksmith, his reply was the excerpt we started this chapter with!!!! We, including governments and organizations, tend to analyze dishonesty as just one other decision, akin to decisions regarding the purchase of a car or a house, of a sedan or an SUV, that is, based on rational cost/benefit analyses. This is where we go wrong. His suggestion is that rather than being based upon a simple rational cost/ benefit analysis, it is determined by one’s superego, one’s conscience. This alone can protect us from committing acts of dishonesty.

Gandhi’s Religion To me God is Truth and love; God is ethics and morality; God is fearlessness; God is the source of light and life and yet he is above and beyond all these….Indeed religion should pervade each one of our actions…It means a belief in ordered moral government of the universe; religion transcends Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. It does not supersede them. It harmonizes them and gives them reality. (Gandhi 1925, p. 81)

This was what religion meant to Gandhi. It did not mean a living God; it did not refer to the pantheon of deities worshipped in Hinduism. For Gandhi, religion was much above this. But, obviously, he was not born thus. One is forced to ask, what were the various influences that led to the creation of a creed of religion so different from that of his family and the community of his childhood days? Scholars who have attempted to analyze Gandhi’s religious development discern three distinct and decisive formative periods taking place at three geographically different places (Goedhals 2014). These three stages are as follows: • The India of his youth • England, where his personal exploration into Hinduism as well as exposure to Christianity began • “The crucible of his South African years” Why did Goedhals refer to Gandhi’s South African years as a crucible? Going by the Oxford Dictionary, the meaning of the word, when used

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figuratively, refers to “a place or situation in which people or ideas are tested severely, often creating something new or exciting in the process.” For Gandhi, South Africa was certainly a crucible, where not only his ideas on religion were to crystallize but were, also, to give rise to the exciting technique of Satyagraha. That such an interpretation is correct is also borne out by the writings of Brown (1989), according to whom, Gandhi did not have any religious commitment in the real sense of the word when he left England. In fact, he seemed to lack a clear vision for his life. It was in South Africa that he found “his true self and realized his vocation.” But, before going into further discussion regarding the role of the years Gandhi spent in South Africa, let us go back to the factors which help us to understand Gandhi’s religiosity and its development. The Development of Gandhi’s Religiosity Was Gandhi a religious person? As a young lad it seems he certainly was not one. In fact, his voluminous writing clarifies that during his school days, that is, from the age of six to that of sixteen, “he was many things except religious” (Kamath 2007, p. 5). Yet, like all children of his age and as professed by noted cognitive psychologist Piaget (1932), he kept imbibing aspects from his environment through the twin processes of assimilation and accommodation, which were to become the corner stone of his very persona. But, in other ways he was much like other adolescents, in his “intense ideological hunger, a striving for meaning and purpose and desire for relationships and connectedness” (King and Boyatzis 2004, p. 4). While his parents were devout Hindus, because of the eminent official position held by his father the child Mohandas was exposed to a variety of people, some of whom were Hindus but others belonged to faiths such as Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Jainism. From his mother, Gandhi heard tales from the Hindu scriptures and got an exposure to some of the Islamic traditions that she followed because of her own upbringing. In this way, Gandhi grew up in an environment that included people from a variety of religions, which, in all probability, laid the foundation of the religious tolerance that he stressed upon till his last days. Probably, the most important influence was that of his governess Rambha, who inculcated in this shy boy, afraid of the dark, the habit of reciting the name of the Hindu God Rama, a practice that was to remain with him till that unfortunate day when he was assassinated, with the last words he uttered being “He Rama.” The Hindu scripture, the Bhagawad Gita was read in his family on

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the eleventh day of every month of the Hindu calendar, but it failed to create any enthusiasm in the young Gandhi till much later when he read it, while in England. As far as Christianity is concerned, he apparently disliked it at this point of time. Thus, though he was tolerant of all religions from his very childhood, they did not really mean anything to him and he did not seem to have any living faith in God. Nor does one note that he practiced religious rituals of any kind in his younger days. If this was Gandhi’s stance as far as religion is concerned, his attitude toward morality and ethics was very different. From his very school days he refused to do anything that was not right, for example, cheat from other students during an examination despite his teacher telling him that he should do so. As a result, he obtained the poorest grade in the class but that hardly mattered to him. He was also opposed to lying as evidenced from the incident of when he was unable to attend school because of inclement weather and was severely punished, simply because he had told the truth, instead of making some plausible excuse for which he could have been let off. He jealously guarded his character all through his school days coupled with a firm belief in moral principles and especially the belief that morality is the basis of all things. The evidence for the moral integrity, of Gandhi’s character, is pinpointed from another incident. It happened that he once shaved off a small piece of gold from his brother’s amulet to pay off a debt. Having done so, he became, extremely, restless with the feeling of guilt and shame of having committed such a heinous act. The guilt and ensuing restlessness remained with him till he finally made a confession to his father. How old was he at that time? Mohandas was barely sixteen years of age, an age at which other children would be performing various acts, some right and others wrong, as part of their experimentation with life and the world and, yet, not making much of it. Truthfulness, thus, became a part of Gandhi’s life from a very early age. He, even, became a strict vegetarian, not because his religion told him to be one, but because the idea of lying to his parents was against his moral principles. Thus, we note that right from his very childhood, probably even without his realizing it or working consciously at it, he seemed to be striving for a spirituality which was to become the cornerstone for his life and all his pursuits. It was at this time that he came across a small Gujarati stanza which gripped him to the extent that it set the stage for many of his experiments in life. The last two lines were,

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But the truly noble know all men as one, And return with gladness, good for evil done. (Kamath 2007, p. 7)

After Gandhi passed the Matriculation Examination when he was about sixteen years of age, it was decided that the best course of action for him would be to go to England and pursue a degree in law. When Gandhi’s mother showed a certain amount of diffidence, mainly because she was concerned about Gandhi being able to lead a virtuous life while in England, he vowed not to touch meat, women or wine. His years in England stand testimony to the fact that despite considerable temptation during the early years in England, he warded off all of them simply because his heart did not permit him to break the vow he had made to his mother. It was while in England that he made a number of friends, including two theosophists who were deeply interested in the Hindu scripture, the Gita. As already mentioned, this text was regularly recited in his family once a month, but it was here in England that he really started reading it and imbibing much from it, so much so that it made him write that the Gita has been a mother to me ever since I became acquainted with it in 1889. (Gandhi, in Kamath 2007, p. 57)

The second phase of Gandhi’s development can be said to start from this point. It was also the time when he read the Bible and was especially influenced by the Sermon on the Mount, being able to draw apt comparisons between the teachings of the Gita and those of the Bible. It was also the time when he came to realize the importance of prayer. In his own words, My young mind tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, The light of Asia and the Sermon on the Mount. That renunciation was the highest form of religion appealed to me. (Gandhi 1955)

His years in England, amidst the many friends he made there, led Gandhi to the true meaning of spirituality, it made him realize that spirituality was much more than prayer or meditation or the mechanical performing of rituals. He understood that spirituality required a thorough change in one’s life, both internal and external. After his return from England and not being able to find much work in India, he was offered work in South Africa, for which he departed very

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soon. It was on that fateful night at Pietermaritzburg when he was thrown out of the first-class compartment of the train in which he was traveling, that he decided that despite all the difficulties and insults to his self-respect, he would continue to work for the rights of the oppressed in South Africa. This was also an important period as far as his spiritual growth is concerned as revealed by his writing that it was in Pretoria, that religion really became a “living force” within him, convincing him that his calling lay in more than mere public service, it was finding the Lord in the service of the downtrodden and that “God could be realized only through service.” The crucible in which his religion and spirituality were tempered, much as gold is tempered through burning, turned out to be the years he spent in South Africa, being introduced to not only the poverty and oppression of the Indians living there but also to the works and writings of Tolstoy, Thoreau and Ruskin. These, together with his family during his childhood days, his friends and the reading of different books and scriptures while in England created in Gandhi, a religion that was unique, a religion that can only be termed a vehicle for his quest for Truth. That his early childhood experiences with people of differing faiths went a long way in shaping his unique religiosity is in line with modern empirical research in the psychology of religion which clarifies that early childhood experiences and “significant others” are significant contributors to the development of religiosity in people. A study by King et al. (2002) attempted to explore the impact of family and peers on adolescents’ experience of God. The results clarify that the social influence from “significant others” such as parents and peers is a significant predictor of the importance of God and religion in the lives of adolescents. The results of an investigation by Lee (2002) are even more interesting. Carried out on college students, the results clarify that even though college students are generally considered to be highly susceptible to social pressures causing changes in their value systems, their religious affiliations remain unchanged. Gandhi and Religious Conversion The results of both these studies are validated by the life and religiosity of Gandhi, in that, the foundation laid in his childhood remained flawless and undaunted despite the changing circumstances. Even when some friends in South Africa attempted to convert him to Christianity, and

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others to Islam, he declined on the advice of his friend and mentor, Raychand. Historian, Ramachandra Guha, explains it as follows: Gandhi lived in the enclosure he was born into, but breached its walls by frequently travelling into other similarly well demarcated terrains. He never permanently abandoned his compartment for another, yet by visiting other compartments came to see more clearly what united as well as divided them all. (Guha 2013, p. 142)

Though a devout Hindu, Gandhi did not believe in idol worship and after a couple of disappointments on visiting Hindu temples, he decided never to visit one again. He was also firmly against animal sacrifice whether in Hindu temples or elsewhere. At the same time, Gandhi was totally against religious conversion of others including those who decided to become his followers. One incident which provides evidence of Gandhi’s objection to religious conversion was when he did not allow his English follower Madeleine Slade (Mira Bai) to convert to Hinduism, in spite of her wanting to do so. For Gandhi, religion was not a brand name or a signature; it was more important to adhere to its values. For all those Christians who came to him saying that they wanted to convert to Hinduism because they were enthralled by the Gita, he would say, No, what the Bhagwada offers, the Bible also offers. You have not made the attempt to find out. Make the attempt and be a good Christian. (Gandhi 1928a, p. 36)

Just think of how much violence would be reduced, today, if only all religions and especially religious leaders would offer similar advice to their followers. While most of us agree that religion should not lead to ethnocentricism and fanaticism, Gandhi showed the ways through which it could make us open and inclusive, showing compassion for all and not for just those who follow our own faith. As his mentor Raychand had put it, there are parallels in all religions and the basic teachings of all religions is the same convincing Gandhi that, Every religion is perfect from the point of its followers and imperfect from that of followers of other faiths. Examined from an independent point of view, every religion is both perfect and imperfect. (Guha 2013, p. 141)

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Politics and Religion for Gandhi On the one hand, we see Gandhi’s deep faith in prayer, in values imbibed through the scriptures of various religions and his increasing asceticism and renunciation of many of the worldly pleasures. On the other hand, we have the political strategist Gandhi, who was so deeply involved in the fight against injustice and oppression of the Indians in South Africa and in the struggle for freedom and independence in India. Further, if there is anything for which Gandhi stood, it is Satyagraha, his brand of civil disobedience. So what should he be called? Should he be called a politician? Should he be called a saint? Gandhi himself provides the answer: For me, politics bereft of religion are absolutely dirt, ever to be shunned. Politics concerns nations and that which concerns the welfare of nations must be one of the concerns of the man who is religiously inclined, in other words, a seeker after God and Truth….Therefore, in politics also, we have to establish the Kingdom of Heaven. (Gandhi 1925, p. 214)

Nonviolence or Satyagraha, though formulated with political ends in mind, was, in no way, independent from Gandhi’s religion. His greatness can be said to lie in the ways through which he was able to bring together nonviolence and political movements, both of whom are normally perceived to have antagonistic goals and put them on a common platform such that they do not subtract but support each other. In fact, Gandhi went much further; for him the political goal was but a part of the larger spiritual quest, leading to humanitarian concerns and peace in the world.

The Psychology of Religion The psychology of religion has a rich past, dating back to the period when psychology was attempting to establish itself as an independent discipline. It was during the early 1900s that William James, often considered the father of modern psychology, wrote a landmark volume The Varieties of Religious Experience (James 1902). During almost the same time, noted psychologist G. Stanley Hall (1904) analyzed the role of genetics in the development of religiosity. While a negative tinge was provided by Sigmund Freud, for whom religion and religiosity were a manifestation of an obsessional neurosis, behaviorists Watson and Skinner focused on the explanation of religious behavior as a form of learned behavior, similar to

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our other habits with faith being used to understand events for which there seemed to be no environmental explanation (Skinner 1974). The understanding of religion received an added impetus from the works of humanistic psychologists such as Maslow (1968), who differentiated between two types of people, Type Y and Type Z, the latter being those who experienced development to the fullest and being priest like were appreciated and respected by the society. In contrast, Type Y people were generally ill-treated. Maslow was also of the opinion that religion actually works to curb the development of the individual toward the ultimate need for self-actualization by being restrictive and placing sanctions on individuals who attempt to stray from the proven track. At the same time, Maslow regards Gandhi as one of those who not only strove to reach the stage of self-actualization but was actually able to reach it. If we consider research findings which show that there exists a negative correlation between self-actualization and religiosity (e.g., Gartner et  al. 1991), Gandhi should be low on religiosity which is, to all outward appearances, a direct contradiction to what Gandhi professed (quoted in the preceding pages) and research reported by Kool (2008, 2013). Religion and Spirituality This apparent contradiction is clarified when one considers the definition of religion according to various psychologists from which it becomes clear that Gandhi was certainly not religious in the traditional sense of the term. Religion has, generally, been defined as “an institutional, formal, outward, doctrinal, authoritarian, inhibiting experience” (Kool and Agrawal 2006, p. 152). It has also been operationalized as beliefs and practices associated with a particular religious worldview and community (Iannello et  al. 2019). We know from Gandhi’s writings that he was none of the above, adhering steadfastly to Hinduism but drawing from all the religions of the world, including Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Jainism. So, what was Gandhi’s religion? There is no other God than Truth and the only source of realization of truth is ahimsa. (Gandhi 1929, p. 42)

For Gandhi, nor was religion an outward manifestation; in fact, he never made any show of it. Rather, religion was an inward experience, helping him to look inward, to examine himself, his motives, his values

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and his behavior. Neither was he ever doctrinal or authoritarian about religion (as revealed by his complete tolerance of all faiths) and never were his beliefs and practices associated with a particular faith or community. The fact of the matter is that Gandhi’s religiosity can be understood to be more in line with what the psychology of religion has termed spirituality, as defined below by Villani and his associates (2019), the search for meaning in life, for a personal connection with transcendent realities, and for interconnectedness with humanity (Zinnbauer et al. 1999; Benson and Roehlkepartain 2008; Worthington et al. 2011), and it is thus operationalized as the human desire for transcendence, introspection, interconnectedness, and the quest for meaning in life (King and Boyatzis 2015), which can be experienced in and/or outside of a specific religious context (Benson et al. 2003). (Villani et al. 2019)

In contrast to psychologists who have differentiated between religion and spirituality, theologians, such as Miroslav Volf from Yale, have differentiated between types of faith (Volf 2002), describing two types, a thin faith and a thick faith. The former is doctrinal, authoritarian and non-­ tolerant, promoting hatred, prejudice and violence while the latter is based on a clear cognitive understanding and moral content leading to peace of mind for the individual and interpersonal peace for the group that practices it. In contrast, another theologian, Brian McLaren posits that while it would not be correct to dichotomize the two, he proposes a third and higher order of faith which blends the two leading to meaningfulness and peace. Another difference that has been made between religion and spirituality is in terms of the attributes of the two. Religious attributes include commitment to and identification with religion along with religious engagement, conservatism, skepticism and struggle. In contrast, attributes of spirituality are related to the spiritual quest, transcendence, care and compassion, service to others and inner peace (Astin et al. 2005). Elsewhere, religion has been defined as a “search for significance in ways related to the sacred” (Pargament 1997, p.  32). The search can, thus, refer to the ways through which the sacred is discovered or it can refer to the multiple pathways people use to reach the sacred. It can also refer to the multiple dimensions of the sacred per se, for example, ideology, ethical conduct or emotional experience, to name just a few. Moreover, the goals of religion can vary from person to person, with some

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manifesting religious adherence in order to achieve personal ends, others for pursuing social ends such as social justice and still others for pursuing sacred ends (Tarakeshwar et al. 2003). Religion can, also, be melded with efforts to help people, in general (Pargament and Raiya 2007). Taking all the different nuances and connotations of the term religion it would not be wrong to suggest that religion can come in many shapes and in many sizes. Thus, no matter what the terminology, or how it is defined, Gandhi’s religion seems to be akin to spirituality promoting values such as love, compassion, tolerance, self-control, self-sacrifice, morality and forgiveness. While describing events from his life would be beyond the scope of this volume, Gandhi’s life abounds with events which exemplify these values.

Gandhi’s Spirituality One way through which we can come to a better understanding of Gandhi’s spirituality is to look at it through the lens offered by Worthington and his colleagues (Worthington et al. 2011). According to Worthington et al. (2011) there are four types of spirituality, with the first one more related to religion: religious spirituality (closeness and connection to the sacred defined by religion), humanistic spirituality (closeness and connection to mankind), nature spirituality (closeness and connection to nature), and cosmos spirituality (closeness and connection to the whole of creation). (Shek 2012, p. 2)

Gandhi was the very personification of all of the above mentioned types of spirituality. First and foremost, through spirituality he attempted to achieve a closeness to what he defined as sacred. During his childhood days, he certainly believed in a God, he was not an atheist (in fact he disliked atheists) saying that God is the ultimate Truth. But as he evolved, we see a clear difference in his stance on God: no longer was he saying that God is Truth, rather he was of the view that Truth is God, worshipped through the religion of nonviolence. In other words, all his religious pursuits, be it prayer, renunciation (in the form of tapasya) or his readings of religious texts, were intended to bring him closer to this Truth which he considered as the only God, the only being who should be worshipped. Yet, for Gandhi, the highest form of religious pursuit was none of these, it was nonviolence and in his trial speech at Ahmedabad, he stated that

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“nonviolence is the first article of (my) faith and the last article of (my) creed.” According to Gandhi, All men are brothers and no human being should be a stranger to another. The welfare of all, sarvodaya should be our aim. God is the common bond that unites all human beings. To break this bond even with the greatest enemy is to tear God himself to pieces. There is humanity even in the most wicked. (Radhakrishnan 1960)

For Gandhi, the Truth that he worshipped was not restricted to personal ends of gaining transcendence. His religion of nonviolence, or call it his spirituality, was to be used for humanistic ends. It brought him closer to all mankind, especially the oppressed and the downtrodden. It was for this reason that when he was thrown out of the first-class compartment, he had for a moment, thoughts of returning to India rather than suffering such insults to his self-esteem, but then he took the decision—his life was not for personal comfort, it was for service to all those who needed him. Even a casual observation of the world reveals that there are two types of people, one, for whom, the religion and its associated rituals are of primary importance but at the same time believes in rendering service to society. In contrast, there is the second category of people for whom service itself is the religion. Certainly, Gandhi belonged to this second category. As far as the third and fourth aspects of Worthington’s categorization is concerned, namely, nature and cosmos spirituality, we have Gandhi’s emphasis on Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Nature is my family) to vouch for the deep respect he had for all aspects of Nature and his never-ending endeavors to see that no harm is done to the entire Universe. Gandhi, Religion of Nonviolence and Vows How did he ensure that he himself adhered to his creed of nonviolence and so did his followers? Why was it that not even a single person faltered, no matter what the temptation, the frustration on being heaped insults left and right or the oppression and torture at the hands of the British? Why were they not tempted to disobey Gandhi and show violence, like the 98% of people in Ariely’s book and described in the Opening Vignette of this chapter? What were these locks that prevented them? The locks were the stringent vows, the effect of which he had seen on himself when it protected him from temptations in England. Later, when he took the vow of celibacy, he was to feel the same,

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The freedom and joy that came to me after taking a vow (of celibacy) had never been experienced before 1906….Now the vow was a sure shield against temptation. (Gandhi 1927, Chapter 2)

Realizing for himself the efficiency of vows, Gandhi made it mandatory for all the inmates at the farms and ashrams established by him and, in fact, for all those who joined him in his marches and Satyagrahas to take not one or two vows, but eleven vows. The first five were those that are normally seen as the bedrock of religions of the world and are part of the Ten Commandments of Christianity also. Since Gandhi’s aim was not the realization of the Ultimate Truth for himself alone but for people in general, he added the other six vows which would go a long way in building selfcontrol and austerity, considered so necessary for service to humankind. Not one to start something simply because it was considered the thing to do, but basing it on sound experiments on himself, Gandhi once again proved that vows do act as a shield. For the common person, the reason for this infallible shield is that a vow is sacred and as such cannot be violated as all things that are considered sacred. For the person of science, the efficacy of vows as a shield against temptations has been scientifically analyzed by Kirby (2013) who has brought to the fore an analysis of the bundling effect of vows (this effect has been discussed at length, elsewhere, in Volume 1 of this book). Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health Today, despite there being burgeoning empirical evidence to show that religion and spirituality are deeply linked to physical and mental health (e.g., Ai et al. 2003; Ano and Vasconcelles 2005; Keefe et al. 2001), clarifying that both religion and spirituality can be effectively used in the psychotherapeutic process, this is generally not seen. There is, also, enough data to show that religion helps people cope with stress and even Post Traumatic Stress Disease (PTSD) (e.g., Loewenthal et al. 2000; Roesch and Ano 2003). Yet, clinicians are generally averse to the bringing up of these issues in their discussions with the client. It has been suggested that rather than evading the issue of religion or spirituality (even when it is brought up by the patient/client), mental health professionals should learn to address such issues (Pargament and Raiya 2007). Park and his colleagues (Park et al. 2017) provide interesting data regarding religious affiliations in the world, clarifying how clinicians would gain by using religion and spirituality in their clinical endeavors.

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Approximately 80% of people worldwide identify with a religious group, and many who do not identify with a particular faith still hold some religious or spiritual beliefs: among the unaffiliated, 7% of Chinese, 30% of French, and 68% of US adults share a belief in God or a higher power (Hackett et al. 2012). About 60% of American adults regularly report to feel a deep sense of ‘spiritual peace and well-being’ (Pew Research Center 2014). Nevertheless, social scientists have historically distanced themselves from religious and spiritual matters in the context of clinical research and practice (Delaney et al. 2007). This limited attention may be because academic scientists, on average, are less religious than the general population (Ecklund and Scheitle 2007) and may therefore be less comfortable with this area of inquiry. (Park et al. 2017, p. 39)

Gandhi’s life and work provide many practical lessons which clinicians can draw from to comprehend how Gandhi used religion to build persistence among the satyagrahis and help them cope with adversity. There is a desperate need for health care professionals the world over to address this issue and use religion as a force to help people cope with trauma of all types, and specifically with post-war stress (Agrawal 2001; Kool and Agrawal 2013, 2018). Further, is it not amazing that we do not observe harmful effects of Gandhi’s creed of religion, as often found in empirical research (Pargament et al. 2001; Cole 2005)? The reason for this is that Gandhi was opposed to any kind of religious orthodoxy or fundamentalism, which often tends to lead to effects which could be harmful for the believer. Religion, Spirituality and the Sacred There is one more aspect that needs to be considered while dealing with the effect of religion and spirituality on mental and physical health and coping. This is the concept of the “sacred.” While its centrality in coping cannot be doubted, psychologists have often faced difficulties while defining it. For our purpose, we may consider the “sacred” to refer to divine powers, to God, or to any transcendent reality (Pargament and Mahoney 2002). In fact, any aspect of life can be seen as being sacred if it is associated with the divine force. It may be a quality (e.g., wisdom, love), a relation (e.g., harmony, unity), a particular natural entity (e.g., sun, earth, sky, river, animal), a particular individual or group (e.g., king, the dead), nature as a whole, a pure form or

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realm of pure forms (e.g., good, truth, all Ideas), pure being (e.g., One, Being Itself, Ground of Being), a transcendent active Being (e.g., Allah, Yahweh, God). (Little and Twiss 1973, pp. 64–65)

Gandhi used the concept of the “sacred” to a very great extent. For Gandhi, nonviolence encompassed each and every aspect of this Universe (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) and as a result, all life was considered sacred. Thus, “all men are brothers” including the enemy and one could not and should not harbor ill feelings against anyone (his constant request was “hate the acts of the British but not the Britisher”), leave alone commit acts of violence against them. Since all life was considered sacred, one had to show the same degree of nonviolence toward all beings, big or small, harmful or helpful, as exemplified by the rule that hunting was prohibited in the jungles around Phoenix Settlement or Tolstoy Farm and even snakes could not be killed Box 6.1  Service to Society as a Sacred Value

One of the prime emphases of Gandhi was service to the society and the working for the societal welfare. One of the universities in India (the APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow), which is also the affiliating university for many of the professional institutes in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, has introduced a mandatory course for all students pursuing professional courses. This is the course on Human and Universal Values. Taking the cue from Ela Bhatt and her self-help groups, such as the SEWA, described elsewhere in this book, one of the present authors (Agrawal) took it upon herself to enable the students of her institute to inculcate human and universal values through service to some of the needy and marginalized populations of Varanasi, India. The twin goals of this project was, firstly, to prepare a complete database of a particular community of basket weavers who lived in makeshift tents along the roadside and help them to get some sort of relief through governmental schemes for the poor; and secondly, to help them through the distribution of clothes, cooking utensils, food items and polythene sheets to cover their tents during the incessant monsoon season. The photograph below (left) shows the author (Agrawal) in a green dress with faculty and students of the Institute, along with the clothes that they had (continued)

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Box 6.1  (continued)

collected for distribution. The photograph on the right shows the clothes being distributed to the community. The students and members of the faculty and staff have been taking an active interest in this project, which is undertaken twice a year, ever since its inception in 2015. The advantage is that help has been provided to these extremely needy people, and, even more importantly, it has encouraged the students and other members to inculcate empathy with people who do not have enough, while the majority of us have an excess of stuff. In other words, they are realizing that helping in the upliftment of the downtrodden and needy is a sacred universal, human value.

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at the Sabarmati Ashram (situated in an area infested with snakes). While Little and Twiss (ibid.) are of the view that the “sacred” may be any of the above aspects or domains mentioned in the quote above, Gandhi considered each of the above mentioned aspects as being sacred. There were no alternatives, no options; love was sacred, harmony and unity were sacred, all natural entities were sacred, every individual and group were sacred, and most of all God was sacred with God being nothing else but Truth, revealing the omnipresent nature of what Gandhi considered sacred (see Box 6.1). Each of the eleven vows mandatory for all inmates and followers was also sacred and therefore, once taken, they could not be violated on any account. This was the very crux of his religion. His keen understanding of the human psyche and his experiments on himself clarified the inviolable nature of anything that is considered as sacred. He used these principles for his own adherence to the highest levels of moral integrity and for communicating to his followers the importance of morality and especially the spirit of nonviolence. As stated by Pargament and Raiya (2007), To put it another way, religion represents a significant dimension of life that stands on its own ground. Though additional research is needed … it is highly unlikely that religion will be explained away. Religion certainly interacts with other basic human processes. Yet, extensive theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that religion is a distinctive dimension. (p. 758)

It has been pointed out earlier that one of the primary functions served by religion is the spiritual one. Despite this observation, the spiritual outcomes have often been neglected, the reasons for which are many. However, recent reviews of empirical work suggest that it is imperative to integrate spirituality in clinical practice. Thus, Koenig (2012) on the basis of an extensive review of original research between the period 1872 and 2010 on the effects of religion and spirituality on physical and mental health makes a number of cogent suggestions for health professionals, delineating at least eight reasons for why such integration is necessary. Salgado (2014), too, provides a review of empirical studies on the impact of religion, religiosity and spirituality as protective factors. Along the same vein, Pergament and his colleagues profess that Because religion is designed primarily to serve spiritual functions, the effects of religious coping strategies on spiritual outcomes (e.g., spiritual maturity,

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commitment to faith, religious stewardship, and spiritual security) seem crucial to consider….We hope that researchers will find these new directions for research in the psychology of religion and coping as fascinating as we do. We believe that answers to the questions we outlined will help us better understand how people utilize religion in coping with difficulties and crises. Because religion is perhaps the most distinctively human dimension of life, any psychological approach that neglects the religious dimension is necessarily incomplete. But by expanding our understanding of religious life, we can enhance our more general understanding of what it means to be human and, in turn, apply this knowledge to our efforts to enhance the lives of people in their communities. (Pargament and Raiya 2007, p. 761)

Religion, Spirituality and Peace Insights provided by Gandhi can be used to understand how Gandhi in particular and non-western cultures in general, have used religion, religiosity and spirituality to foster peace and goodwill among people. At the same time, Gandhi inculcated a commitment to religion, not of Hinduism or Christianity or Islam but the religion of nonviolence. Through this religion of nonviolence he also helped fellow satyagrahis imbibe a spirit of trusteeship toward the environment and a religious stewardship to steer his fight against the many ills prevailing in the society including that of untouchability, oppression and injustice. While this was probably first brought to light by Max Weber in his analysis of the protestant reformers and the protestant work ethic, Gandhi used it to the fullest extent realizing that religion can be used to shape development. As stated by Basedau et al. (2017), the link between religion and development, Is not just a phenomenon of the ivory tower but corresponds closely to reality. Religion plays a fundamental role in shaping societies, not only through its direct influence on human behaviour, but also, and especially, through its effects on formal and informal rules, norms and values, and public discourses. (p. 35)

From Religion to Morality From the days when the human race started banding together and living in groups, it soon dawned upon them that some rules and regulations would be needed to make possible the survival of all. At the same time, rules regarding women and children, those who have become old and are

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not able to contribute much to the life of the tribe, pregnant women, people who are ill—all of whom require special care, are imperative and there are special provisions made for them in almost all societies. Probably, there is no society that follows the ideology of caring for its members only so long as they are fruitful members and are capable of contributing in some form or the other. Thus, in all societies and communities there are do’s and don’ts which control and regulate the behavior of people such that they do not pursue selfish ends which could result in “human kill human” type of behavior. It is when such rules and regulations, some explicit and others implicit, which decide what is “wrong” and what is “right” become formalized over time that we see the formalization of the ethical code of the society which facilitates and maintains the social order. This is the crux of morality. In other words, morality indicates what is “right” and “wrong,” what is fair and what is unfair to others (Haidt and Kesebir 2010) with moral sanctions against those who transgress the moral code and pursue selfish ends which may cause harm to others. Such transgressions include, among other forms of behavior, lying, stealing and cheating (Ellemers 2017). In contrast, adherence to the moral and ethical code is regarded as morality and such behavior is labeled as moral behavior. The role of morality in the maintenance of the social order has been recognized by a variety of disciplines including biological and evolutionary sciences (Kool and Agrawal 2010, 2011). Psychology, too, has attempted to understand the dynamics of morality and various theories regarding the development of morality in the egocentric child have been posited (Kool 1993, 2008), the prominent among those being the theories by Piaget (1932) and Kohlberg (1976).

Gandhi and Morality But, Gandhi belonged to a different genre. He did not believe in following the path laid out by the society, if and when his own experiences and experiments proved them to be otherwise. Even if his family, other members of his kith and kin or his community were of the view that certain actions are right and others wrong, Gandhi refused to follow them blindly. One such incident took place when he returned from England and he and his family faced ostracization by the local community. This ostracization could be revoked only on the condition that they perform certain rituals mandated by the community. While Gandhi’s family was ready to

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perform these rituals, Gandhi refused to do so, saying that by going to England he had not, in any way, gone against his religion. As Gandhi wrote in the volume, Ethical religion (Ganesan 1930), True morality consists, not in following the beaten track, but in finding out the true path for ourselves and in fearlessly following it (p. 38)…. No action which is not voluntary can be called moral. So long as we act like machines, there can be no question of morality. If we want to call an action moral, it should have been done consciously and as a matter of duty. Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral. It also follows that all good deeds that are prompted by hope of happiness in the next world cease to be moral. (Ganesan 1930, p. 43)

That Gandhi also believed in taking decisions, only after due thought, is clear from various events. One such example is when Gandhi and other leaders were trying to rally around people from the Indian community against the Black Act in South Africa. When an old and highly respected person from the Indian community spoke, asking the crowd to take an oath in the name of God, this is what Gandhi had to say, There is no doubt, therefore, that the present is a proper occasion for taking pledges. But every one of us must think out for himself if he has the will and the ability to pledge himself. Resolutions of this nature cannot be passed by a majority vote… Every one must only search his own heart, and if the inner voice assures him that he has the requisite strength to carry him through, then only should he pledge himself and then only will his pledge bear fruit. (Gandhi 1928a, pp. 69–70)

Thus, it is clear, that for Gandhi, the mechanical adherence to norms and rules set by society did not constitute morality, nor did adherence due to fear or because of coercion. Instead, Gandhi believed in following his conscience, which in the words of Gandhi, was his “inner voice” (Anand 2007) and this was his appeal to every satyagrahi. Rather than going by what Gandhi was saying or was asking his satyagrahis to do, they were asked to follow their “inner voice.” Even when deciding to join the Satyagraha or not, he implored upon one and all to follow their “inner voice.” For leaders such conscientious action was even more imperative. Hence he wrote,

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None of us, especially no leader should allow himself to disobey the inner voice in the face of pressure from outside. Any leader who succumbs in this way forfeits his right of leadership (CWMG 34: 363-4). For a leader to follow the right path requires courage and its associated qualities: “Courage, endurance and above all, fearlessness and spirit of willing sacrifices are the qualities that are required today in India for leadership.” (Gandhi 1928b, pp. 21, 152)

To go against the prevailing moral code of a society simply because it does not seem rational requires courage of a different order. From where did Gandhi derive such immense courage? In the quote above, he points to the three qualities which are the hallmark of the courageous person, the person who is ready to go against the prevailing social order. These three qualities are endurance, fearlessness and willing sacrifice which were based on his conviction that he was following the path of Truth, though the Truth may vary with time and place. He did not believe in “brute force.” Rather, his was a firm belief in “soul force,” coming from within, through introspection and experimentation. And, true to his words, whenever he was proved wrong, he corrected himself and was, thus, constantly evolving, reaching higher and yet higher planes of morality and human endeavor (Sanghavi 2006). Morality and Religion Gandhi was opposed to religion which went against reason and was in conflict with morality. At the same time, for Gandhi, morality and religion are intertwined to each other to the extent that True religion and true morality are inseparably bound up with each other. Religion is to morality what water is to the seed that is sown in the soil. (Gandhi 1957, p. 255)

In other words, Gandhi was of the view that morality gains precedence over religion. If one were to place morality and religion on the two sides of a balance, morality would be heavier, being of much greater importance. Therefore, one cannot be cruel or untruthful and yet claim to be religious. And, what is the highest level of morality? The highest level of morality is working, incessantly, for the welfare of all humankind. Gandhi believed that such a commitment to service demanded a strong sense of

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character (this is the moral imperative) along with courage and integrity of character (Anand 2007). On which plane would Kohlberg place such a line of thinking? It is events such as these which made psychologist Flanagan (1991) profess that the Kohlbergian stages fail to account for the personal code of ethics and morality followed by people such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Ruth Linn (2001) was also critical of Kohlberg’s theory, in that it fails to differentiate between the morality of those who remain mute bystanders to wrongdoing and others who intervene to stop it. Would it be fair to say that both are at the same level of morality? The level of moral development of the second category of people is certainly of a level higher than those of the first. As Walzer (1988) remarked, what is so good about a moralist who fails to intervene and remains a silent spectator of action which is totally wrong? It is apparent that Gandhi belonged to the second category. In other words, attempting to understand the level of moral development of Gandhi, through theories such as those of psychoanalysis and even social learning, proves that they are insufficient. A somewhat better explanation can be had by using the cognitive developmental theory which posits the following: This approach maintains that, just as the child’s thinking and use of logic develops through several stages, so moral reasoning moves through stages that are progressively more complex and inclusive in scope. For cognitive development theory, the child does not simply take in or internalize an external morality, but rather produces his/her own moral understanding by constructing and re-constructing concepts of reciprocity and equality… which may transcend the conventional morality presented to them by their social surrounding. (Sunar 2011, pp. 5–6)

Morality as a Function of Means and Ends Another way of understanding what morality meant to Gandhi is by looking at the relationship he saw between means and ends (Barman 2016). Normally, one supposes that if the ends are fair, one can use any means to attain them. Thus goes the saying, “all is fair in love and war.” But for Gandhi, the means were more important than the ends for he firmly believed that one cannot achieve morally correct ends through the use of morally incorrect means. In fact, means becomes more important than the

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ends, which for Gandhi was the Truth. The only means through which this Truth could be attained was nonviolence. There was no other way. Thus, the revolution undertaken by Gandhi was, more of, a moral revolution than a political one, using means that were scrupulously clean, unlike the case of most political reformers and public figures. Over the years, nurtured by the environment of his childhood and his days in England, it came to bloom while he was in South Africa. Steven Smith’s analysis, given below, helps us to comprehend Gandhi’s moral compass. In the life of Gandhi we see a graphic example of this dialectical evolution of moral thought. The profound insights of satyagraha were the product of decades of experimentation and revision, of gradual purification of views that in the beginning were unsystematic and immature. In the tempering fire of South Africa, Gandhi steadily refined his moral thought, at times striking forward with brilliant thrusts of insight, at other times falling back in confusion, always searching and questioning himself. (Smith 1989, pp. 109–110)

Morality and Self-Control The psychology of morality has in recent years positioned self-control as the moral muscle, drawing an analogy, in more ways than one, between the muscle of self-control which drives our moral behavior and physical muscles which drive various parts of our body (Baumeister 2012). Another part of the analogy is that just as physical muscles get depleted in strength and energy such that their persistent usage renders them to become fatigued, so is the case with the self-control. This has been borne out by a number of empirical studies clarifying that once ego depletion takes place, further manifestation of self-control becomes difficult. The issue has been dealt with in considerable detail in Chap. 7 of Volume 1. Further, the reader is advised to see Chap. 1 of Volume 2, Kool (2008) and Kool and Agrawal (2013, 2018). Let it suffice to state here that this was not so for Gandhi or for his fellow satyagrahis. Rather than showing depletion leading to the loss of self-­ control, every blow from the opponent just went to increase the level of self-control evinced by the satyagrahis. In event after event, whether in front of General Smuts in South Africa or in India, much to the surprise of the British oppressors, the satyagrahis refused to be moved into taking up the cudgel and retaliating. While there is some research to validate such

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behavior and lack of depletion of the moral muscle of self-control (e.g., by Carter et  al. 2015; Muraven et  al. 2006), it is, generally, in nonviolent movements carried out by the likes of Gandhi and those who were influenced by his principle of nonviolence such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela that we stand witness to such an indomitable will which refuses to be shaken. Our understanding of Gandhi’s creed of morality gains strength by taking this analogy between physical and moral muscles, further, as has been done by Richard Gregg (1958). He is of the view that the high degree of self-control shown by Gandhi and his followers acted as a moral jiu-jitsu, much as one engages in a physical jiu-jitsu in which one player unnerves the opponent through surprise moves. Gandhi and his followers surprised and unnerved their opponents through the unimaginable degree of self-­control shown in the face of torture. No matter how they were beaten, abused or tortured, the strict injunction from Gandhi was that they would not retaliate. Such a high degree of nonviolence was unheard off and caused the opponent to be thrown off-guard, at a loss as to how to react to people who remained peaceful and calm despite the torture they were being put to. This was Gandhi’s method of moral shaming, a concept that has been put to test by psychologists to some extent, but live examples of which are few.

Morality and Moral Shaming That we are imperfect human beings has been oft validated by both research and practice, one example of which is the discrepancy seen between various attitudes professed by us and our behavior, and, even more explicitly, when it comes to the difference between our moral standards and our moral behavior. There are many explanations for such discrepancies ranging from those based on field theory (Lewin 1943) to interpersonal negotiation (de Visser and Smith 2004) and diffusion of responsibility (as seen in the famous bystander interventions studied by Latane and Darley 1968). Another factor is moral emotion, which, however, has often been neglected and has not found place in the above mentioned theorizations. It has been suggested that moral emotion may provide the crucial link between professed moral standards and actual moral behavior (Tangney et al. 2007). Recent research in attempts to understand this link has focused on the role of moral emotions in the progression from stated moral standards to moral decisions and to, finally, behavior. But first and foremost, what are moral emotions? Moral emotions can be defined as emotions “that are

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linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent” (Haidt 2003, p. 276). Such moral emotions act as the motivational drive to provide the power and the energy to do good and to avoid doing bad as far as others are concerned (Kroll and Egan 2004). Belying common conceptions, moral emotions are not always negative in nature and may even act in a positive manner, helping the person to manifest behavior through which he feels a positive sense of worth. However, we will, first, focus on three negative moral emotions, namely, shame, guilt and embarrassment. Gandhi, definitely, used all three to force the oppressor to perceive the oppressed in a light different from the ways in which they were being perceived. How do moral emotions work? Research reveals that, As the self reflects upon the self, moral self conscious emotions provide immediate punishment or reinforcement of behavior. They function as emotional barometers providing immediate and salient feedback on our social and moral acceptability. (Tangney et al. 2007, p. 346)

So great is the effect of moral emotions that their manifestation leads to massive physiological changes in the body acting as psychobiological indicators or physiological markers. These include a rise in cortisone levels (Gruenwald et al. 2004; Lewis and Ramsay 2002) and heightened cardiovascular reactivity (Gruenwald et  al. 2004; Herrald and Tomaka 2002). There are psychological effects also with people feeling that they have been exposed and undergoing considerable intrapsychic pain. This is generally because of “feeling small,” or feeling a sense of worthlessness and powerlessness (Tangney et al. 2007). As Manion (2002) puts it, it simply leads to “feeling bad,” being a crisis emotion, one that we do not enjoy and would rather not face. In fact, we dread it and suffer because of it. Is it not amazing that Gandhi realized the importance of moral emotions such as moral shaming decades before such phenomena were empirically established? And, that through experiments on himself, probably the first being when he was a lad, merely sixteen years of age, had stolen a small piece of gold from his brother’s amulet. So great was the shame and the guilt that he went through that he was unable to rest till he had made a confession to his father. When his father reacted with tears rolling down his cheeks, one can imagine the sense of shame that the young Gandhi went through. Experiences such as these convinced him that shaming can be used to force the opponent to come to understand the viewpoint of the other much more than any violent means could do. Gandhi also realized

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that we are all imperfect beings needing constant reminders to behave in accordance with our moral standards and that moral shaming could be used as one such technique.

Morality and Moral Reasoning While early work in the psychology of morality was more concerned with the development of morality (e.g., that of Piaget and Kohlberg), later work especially that by Jonathan Haidt and others focused on moral reasoning. It was a publication by Haidt in 2001 which provided the much-­ needed impetus for such a line of thinking, with research on the differences between intuitive morality and reflective morality. In other words is our behavior guided by what we intuitively feel is right or wrong, or do we reflect over the circumstances which could lead to a completely different line of action? One is reminded of the work of Carol Gilligan (1982) and her analysis of the Kohlbergian moral dilemmas in terms of gender differences, positing that girls look at the dilemma from a completely different perspective, that of care, while boys tend to focus on justice. The views of Dharmadhikari, presented in Box 6.2 are very much in line with the recent work in cognitive psychology. Adding considerably to our understanding of moral reasoning is the work of cognitive Box 6.2  Moral Dilemmas and Moral Reasoning

While Kohlberg placed children in hypothetical dilemma situations and asked them about their reactions, we often face moral dilemmas in real life, dilemmas which are not easily amenable to reasoning, creating stress and other problems. Chandrashekhar Shankar Dharmadhikari, an Indian lawyer of eminence, faced such moral dilemmas. He was an active participant of the Quit India Movement, with both his father Dada Dharmadhikari and himself being closely associated with Gandhi. He was acting Chief Justice of the Mumbai High Court and was awarded the Padma Bhushan (an award given by the Government of India to felicitate eminent civilians) and has authored various books. We interviewed him a few years back (detailed in Chap. 3 of Volume 1 of this book), during which he commented on the type of moral dilemmas he faced as a judge of the High Court. (continued)

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Box 6.2  (continued)

Dharmadhikari was of the view that it is not easy to manage the inner struggle between Gandhian principles and the demands of the present world. A prime example is how, as a High Court Judge, Dharmadhikari had to administer capital punishment, much against his Gandhian beliefs of ahimsa. He revealed how, the stress was so great, that he was unable to cope with it. As a result, he became ill and even developed diabetes. It is, certainly, not easy to be a Gandhian in spirit and undertake actions contrary to these values. How does one resolve the inherent moral dilemma? Dharmadhikari was of the view that one must remain neutral and calm and must refrain from becoming passionate. Then only, can one think and, thereby, resolve the dilemma. He goes on to give the example of Gandhi. Whenever Gandhi faced such dilemmas, he would focus on the end result. In other words, according to Gandhi, resolution of moral dilemmas is possible only when one does not allow one’s thinking to become stagnant. One must continuously think, experimenting and evolving through the process. Only then do conflicts wane into the background. We were extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Justice Dhamadhikari, who was in his late eighties. Much to our dismay, we have since come to learn that this great personality from the Gandhian era passed away in January 2019. May we take this opportunity to offer our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family.

psychologist Daniel Kahneman (2011) regarding thinking fast and slow, according to which we are said to be functioning at one of two levels of cognitive analysis, a fast intuitive system and a slow rational system. Where would we place Gandhi? In the words of Gandhi himself, he did not believe in the mechanical following of moral principles laid out by others. He stated that we must think, we must reflect, following which we would be able to understand the Truth and take a decision on the basis of it. The ways in which Gandhi used schemas, scripts and priming, concepts central to Kahneman’s theorization reveal his uncanny perception of the workings of the minds of people. For more information, please see Chap. 8 of Volume 1 of this book on the Cognition of Nonviolence.

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If Gandhi used moral shaming to bring down the opponent through nonviolence and sacrifice of the highest order, he also used a positive moral emotion, pride, to instill in his followers a feeling of self-worth. Psychologists have defined pride as an emotion “that is generated by appraisals that one is responsible for a socially valued outcome or for being a socially valued person” (Mascolo and Fischer 1995, p. 66) and which goes a long way in enhancing self-worth and encouraging future behavior that conforms to social standards of worth. The ways in which Gandhi created communities not only with a strong sense of commitment and cohesion but also with stringent moral values are further evidence for the fact that the conception of right and wrong emanate from identity to the social group to which one belongs (Ellemers 2017, 2018; Leach et al. 2015). As a matter of fact, this identity with the social group went a long way in imbibing deep moral courage among the followers of Gandhi. An incident recounted by Erickson, in his book Gandhi’s Truth, brings this to the fore. Erikson (1969) writes that Gandhi was unceremoniously locked up in a cell. There, for a moment, he lost heart. What if followers failed to fill the prisons in order to make the government’s position untenable. The spell of gay rebelliousness would be broken. But he reprimanded himself “How vain I was! I, who had asked the people to consider the prison as His Majesty’s hotels!” (Gandhi 2003, p. 95) He then for the first time, donned prison uniform and was locked up in a large cell… Before long however, laughing Satyagrahi prisoners began to arrive in droves—150 of them… All this gaiety was part of a new and invincible spirit which did not escape the country’s and the government’s notice. (Erikson 1969, p. 202)

Erikson’s account conveys the joy being felt by the people, a joy in using novel methods to make the oppressors understand their point of view. It was almost as if “they were obeying some destiny dictated by some divine truth” (p. 205). Such was the nature of moral courage evinced by Gandhi and which was imbibed by his fellow satyagrahis.

Morality and Moral Inclusion When Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 as a young England trained lawyer, he was barely twenty-four years of age and shared many of the racial and class prejudices prevalent in those times (Nauriya 2006). But by the end of one decade of stay there, Gandhi was a changed person, totally

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inclusionary. Even Sanghavi (2016) recounted the ways in which Gandhi changed: during his early days, Gandhi would often refuse to attend a wedding of people of certain castes and especially intercaste weddings, but over a period of time there were numerous changes in Gandhi, such that he was happiest when he was invited to an intercaste marriage. It was over the next twenty years of his stay at South Africa, that he developed a highly inclusionary attitude toward the people of South Africa such that by 1908, while addressing a gathering at the Young Men’s Christian Association in Johannesburg in 1908, he said, All races are entitled to justice, a fair field and no favour, immediately you give that to them, you will find no difficulty… If we look into the future, is not a heritage we have to leave to posterity, that all the different races commingle and produce a civilization that perhaps the world has not yet seen? (Gandhi 1908)

How did this enormous change take place in Gandhi and were there certain circumstances that catalyzed the change? Susan Opotow (2013) in a highly informative paper published in a special issue of the journal Gandhi Marg traces the trajectory of Gandhi’s inclusionary practices. Opotow pinpoints to three events taking place during Gandhi’s stay in South Africa which may have caused the change in attitude. The first was the Boer War, which began in 1899 while the second was the Zulu rebellion in 1906 against the British who had declared war on them. In both these events, Gandhi persuaded the British to allow him to form an Indian ambulance corps to render service to the wounded. While hesitant at first, he was finally accorded permission and the commitment of this Indian ambulance corps received accolades from every community including that of the whites. At the same time, both Gandhi and members of his team were awarded medals in recognition of the service rendered by them. The third important event was the passing of the Black Act by which all Indians had to get themselves fingerprinted and had to register, a practice hitherto followed only for criminals. Gandhi was able to propel the Indian community into active resistance and though the struggle was long and tortuous, it led to the revoking of the act. What was it that took place during these three events? First and foremost, Gandhi realized that rights follow from duties. Thus, as a dutiful citizen of South Africa, he took it upon himself to offer his services and volunteered to organize an Indian ambulance corps during the Boer War and the Zulu rebellion. The commitment of the corps caused a “change of

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heart” as far as the British were concerned and they began to perceive the Indians in a different light. When the members of the ambulance corps worked hand in glove with indentured laborers and lived with them, it went a long way in nurturing a feeling of egalitarianism between the Indian community and the indentured labor. During the Zulu rebellion when the whites refused to attend to the wounds of the Zulus, the Indian corps treated them with love and compassion and, thereby, commanded their respect. At the same time, the corps served to consolidate and bring together all the Indians, belonging as they did to different communities and classes. The resistance against the Black Act furthered this consolidation and brought about a new joy in working together for a common cause, uniting people from all communities and classes. While the link between the ways through which attitudes tend to shape behavior is more or less evident, these three events clarify once again that actions or behavior can bring about a change in attitudes as suggested by Kelman (1979) and that actions often serve to communicate attitudes not only to others but also to oneself (Self-perception theory, Bem 1972). Along with this was the role played by the enactment of inclusionary practices in public which generally brings about an escalation in commitment to such behavior in its wake (Wansink 2002). Taken together, Opotow is of the view that these three lines of theorization suggest that Gandhi’s own actions in response to the prevailing social and political environment of South Africa shaped his attitudes, making them much more inclusionary than ever before (Opotow 2013). This change of attitude in Gandhi also provides evidence for the validity of situational variables in attitude change, in general, and for inclusionary attitudes, in particular. It also brings to the fore, how circumstances can be created which force people to come together and manifest inclusionary practices, which in turn will bring about the necessary change in attitude and can be used as a powerful technique to overcome racial prejudice prevailing in many parts of the globe today. The crisis situation caused by natural disasters could be used to overcome many of the societal prejudices if people are influenced to help others irrespective of caste, class or creed. The well-known Robber’s Cave experiments by Sherif and his colleagues (1961) on boys at a summer camp and the ways through which the creation of a superordinate goal had far-reaching implications for attitude change provide an experimental validation for the same. However, that was an experimental situation wherein the stakes were hardly as high as those involved in the events taking place

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in South Africa, at the turn of the century. Gandhi’s time-tested methods of creating moral inclusion clarify that people can move from exclusionary to inclusionary attitudes. When Gandhi returned to India and as he traveled far and wide within India, in order to feel the pulse of the people, one thing that touched him deeply was the injustice being done to people of the lower classes, the untouchables. These were people who were responsible for one of the most important jobs of the community, that of picking up the night soil and scavenging for the entire community. This was when Gandhi decided that something would have to be done for the upliftment of these downtrodden people and he took it upon himself to bring about a change in the societal attitude, from one of stigma to that of self-respect (see Box 6.3) What was the modus operandi used by Gandhi as far as moral inclusion is concerned? Opotow is of the opinion that

Box 6.3  “Gandhi’s Anti-untouchability Campaign to Go Under the Hammer”

So goes one of the headlines in a leading newspaper of India, The Hindu, for a news article published on April 24, 2020. As discussed in this chapter and also in other parts of this book, Gandhi was deeply touched by the plight of the people of the so-­ called lower castes, who were made to perform menial work such as that of lifting the night soil and scavenging for the entire community. Despite the significance of the work they were doing, these people were ostracized from the mainstream society and were labeled, “untouchables.” The fact is that this was much more than a label, it was their reality and they were actually treated as untouchables, not being allowed to draw water from the village well, to visit temples or to attend schools or even live within the village precincts. In order to remove the stigma attached to them, Gandhi started calling them harijan (God’s own people) and in 1932, founded an organization, the Harijan Sewak Sangh, with his close friend G. D. Birla at its helm. The organization decided to raise funds in order to help rehabilitate these people and Gandhi once wrote the following letter in this context: (continued)

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Box 6.3  (continued)

Dear friends, I thank you for your letter of sympathy. The funds can be sent to the anti-untouchability assn formed under the chairmanship of Sjt. G. D. Birla for the furtherance of its subjects. The letter is handwritten and signed by M. K. Gandhi and will be put up for an online auction by Boston-based RR Auction and is expected to fetch a handsome amount. According to the auction official, “it is a superb letter, pertaining to one of the overlooked aspects of Gandhi’s activism.” The above remark stands testimony to the humbleness of this great person, Gandhi, who selflessly and tirelessly worked for the upliftment of the masses. It would, indeed, be gratifying to see the proceeds being used to augment some of the cherished dreams of Gandhi, many of which lie unfulfilled to this day, pining for growth due to financial constraints. (Adapted from The Hindu, April 24, 2020, www.thehindu.com)

Gandhi always tried to find a way to work with those in power, to trust them in negotiations and to allow them to save face and have an honorable exit from difficult situations….The image described by Erikson suggests that working for an inclusive society can be a joyful one….In Gandhi’s work to advance equality and justice, bravery, commitment and joy were integral elements of inclusionary change. (Opotow 2013, pp. 555–556)

The amount of joy felt by the satyagrahis goes a long way in validating the positive psychologist Frederickson’s Broaden and Build Theory (Fredrickson et  al. 2008) which posits that positive emotions broaden one’s awareness and encourage novel and exploratory thoughts and actions. Over time, this broadened repertoire of behavior helps to build new skills and resources. Thus, the experiencing of positive emotions such as joy and pride through participation in the ambulance corps helped the Indian community in South Africa to enlarge their vista, creating new skills and resources that they were to use in the Zulu rebellion and finally to force the British Government to revoke the infamous Black Act. Each step acted to create the upward spiral posited by Frederickson, leading to

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ever-increasing levels of joy and pride and in turn the creation of new skills and resources, both for Gandhi at the individual level and for his followers at the community level. At the same time, Gandhi as a leader, facilitated the feeling of positive emotions among his followers. When he calmly entered the prison cell without a crease on his face, it became infectious, with all his supporters and followers following suit, in fact with great gaiety and laughter. What were the new resources that were created in the followers? With the passing of each event of resistance they gained confidence, became more courageous and developed new modes of responding to oppression in a nonviolent manner. As Susan Opotow (2013) points out, “The present, therefore, is not always more enlightened than the past. Gandhi’s progressive statement about race in 1908 foreshadowed Gordon Allport’s 1954 Contact Hypothesis (Pettigrew 1998; also see Dixon, Durrheim, & Tredoux) in envisioning equality, diversity, and contact as a foundation for peace” (Opotow 2013, p.  554)….Gandhi’s inclusionary vision extended beyond the boundaries of any one group. He sought to foster cross-group interdependence that could build mass support for inclusionary societal change. (ibid., p. 555)

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Park, C. L., Masters, K. S., Salsman, J. M., Wachholtz, A., et al. (2017). Advancing our understanding of religion and spirituality in the context of behavioral medicine. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 40(1), 39–51. Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. New York: Free Press. Radhakrishnan, S.  V. (1960). Introduction. In K.  Kripalani (Ed.), All men are brothers. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publications. Roesch, S.  C., & Ano, G.  G. (2003). Testing attribution and coping model of stress: Religion as an orienting system. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 22, 197–209. Sahibzada, J. (2018, October 23). Honestly dishonest: A behavioral model of financial dishonesty. Retrieved from www.linkedin.com. Salgado, A. (2014). Review of empirical studies on impact of religion, religiosity and spirituality as protective factors. Propósitos y Representaciones, 2(1), 121–159. https://doi.org/10.20511/pyr2014.v2n1.55. Sanghavi, N. D. (2006). Gandhi: The agony years. New Delhi: Rupa. Sanghavi, N. D. (2016). Personal communication with R. Agrawal. Shek, D. T. L. (2012). Spirituality as a positive youth development construct: A conceptual review. The Scientific World Journal, Volume 2012, Article ID 458953, 8 pages. https://doi.org/10.1100/2012/458953. Sherif, M., Harvey, O. H., White, B. J., Hood, W. B., & Sherif, C. W. (1961). Intergroup conflict and cooperation: The robbers cave experiment. Norman: University of Oklahoma. Skinner, B. F. (1974). About behaviorism. New York: Vintage Books. Smith, S. S. (1989). Gandhi’s moral philosophy. In J. Hicks (Ed.), Gandhi’s significance for today. New York: St Martin’s Press. Sunar, D. (2011). Unit 2 theoretical and methodological issues subunit 1 conceptual issues in psychology and culture article 6, 8-1-2002. Psychology of Morality. Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. J. (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345–372. Tarakeshwar, N., Pargament, K. I., & Mahoney, A. (2003). Measures of Hindu pathways: Development and preliminary evidence of reliability and validity. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 9, 316–332. The Hindu. (2020, April, 24). Gandhi’s anti-untouchability campaign to go under the hammer. Villani, D., Sorgente, A., Iannello, P., & Antonietti, A. (2019). The role of spirituality and religiosity in subjective well-being of individuals with different religious status. Frontiers of Psychology, 10, 1525. https://doi.org/10.3389/ fpsyg.2019.01525. Volf, M. (2002). Christianity and violence. Boardman Lectureship in Christian ethics. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/boardman/2.

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Walzer, M. (1988). Emergency ethics. In Arguing about war (pp. 33–50). New Haven: Yale University Press. Wansink, B. (2002). Changing eating habits on the home front: Lost lessons from World War II research. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 21, 90–99. Worthington, E.  L., Hook, J.  N., Davis, D.  E., & McDaniel, M.  A. (2011). Religion and spirituality. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 67, 204–214.

CHAPTER 7

Epilogue: Modern Psychology and Gandhi in the Twenty-First Century

“Gandhi is one of the most widely known men of our age,” wrote Gene Sharp (1960) in the Preface of his well-known book Gandhi Wields the Weapon of Moral Power (with Foreword written by Albert Einstein). Yet, in the same Preface, he had concluded, Gandhi “is also one of the least understood.” Further, Sharp recommended that “theories of sociology, psychology, and political science” need to grow by understanding what Gandhi had offered to humanity. More than what we learn as psychologists from comments such as those stated above, is Sharp’s genuine message to all of us, so succinctly stated in his own words, “We cannot expect to bring our dreams of a peaceful, fine and just world into reality in less than a million years unless we understand and apply this weapon of moral power” (p. xii). Here, Sharp was referring to, none other, but the moral power of Gandhi.

The Relevance of Gandhi Why is Gandhi relevant today? A conference on this topic was organized in April 2017 at the University College, London (UCL) by Narinder Kapur, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Psychological Society. As part of this event, an essay competition was also organized, inviting young scholars to highlight the relevance of Gandhi in the twenty-first century. The exercise was a novel way of encouraging youth to explore, in their own ways, new ideas regarding Gandhi. And, © The Author(s) 2020 V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1_7

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amazingly, Gandhi emerged as being considered to be exceptionally relevant in the new millennium, with fear and violence gripping the world on one side and the need for freedom, justice and well-being on the other. Addressing the British Psychological Society, Kapur (2017) emphasized that the Gandhian philosophy and way of life have, always, been relevant, they were important during Gandhi’s lifetime and are even more important, today. A good example of this is when one thinks of how Gandhi had categorically stated that Ireland would gain nothing from adhering to violence. His remarks proved to be ever so correct, if you look at the history of the operation of the Sinn Feiners’ resort to violence and its consequences, thereafter. In September 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the American Psychological Association, a few months before he was assassinated. As a devout follower of Gandhi, King invited psychologists to, fearlessly, focus on the evils of the society and to accept the challenges. King believed that Gandhi’s nonviolence did not belong to any age or era, but that it belonged to all humanity, for all times. While on a visit to India, King had remarked that it was under Gandhi’s leadership that India had so successfully developed the technique of nonviolence which he had later used throughout the American South. When hardcore behaviorist and Harvard University professor Skinner, known for his reinforcement theory reported in every textbook of psychology, created an ideal community based on the contingencies of rewards and punishments, he had little success and the community did not last long. Why was he not successful in this practical endeavor, based as it was on the application of his very own theory that had gained such high popularity and considerable validity? The reason is that societies do not develop in a vacuum, since every group of individuals has unique features rooted in its culture. Moreover, even within the group, each individual happens to be unique. Thus, both groups and individuals will tend to evaluate the contingencies offered to them in terms of their unique features. A common, “one shoe fits all,” strategy, hardly works. Along the same lines, in his famous essay, Whatever happened to psychology as the science of behavior, published in the official journal of the American Psychological Association—the American Psychologist, Skinner (1987) attempted to understand Gandhi and his creed of nonviolence in terms of the theory of reinforcement and concluded that action was the problem and contingencies were the solution. In other words, according

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to Skinner, all behavior, including nonviolent behavior, could be explained in terms of contingencies of behavior. This is where Gandhi was different from Skinner. Gandhi, unlike Skinner, did not use a cookie-cutter approach to human existence and its growth and development. While Skinner ignored the role of human cognition, for Gandhi, decisions were important and it was imperative that they emanate from within the human mind and the heart, the “inner voice” as emphasized by Gandhi. The readers might recall here our reference to Gandhi’s Tolstoy Farm and other communities, reported in an earlier chapter, that captured the true ethos of human existence, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which took within its fold, love for not only fellow human beings but also for animals and the surrounding nature, making it possible to utilize and share the resources of nature in a rational fashion. We felt that in his book Gandhi’s Truth, Erikson (1969) had excelled when he wrote that for Gandhi, identity without affiliation had no meaning. Experiments after experiments in applied social psychology have concluded that as soon as reinforcements are withdrawn human beings tend, perhaps gradually, to revert to their baseline behavior, whether in caring for their environment or utilizing other resources of nature, mainly because their identity had not been established in line with the community and its purpose. Of course, those who internalize the usefulness of such behaviors tend to adjust their behavior accordingly. To seek such a stage of development in our life in which our identity is aligned with that of the community, we need to learn from Gandhi’s journey. It is imperative to explore the range of truth, love and nonviolence that each culture and religion offers in abundance, but, which we tend to use as mere contingencies so as to fulfill our own narrow, vested interests. Therefore, King was right in his assertion that Gandhi belonged to the entire humanity and that, even, the mightiest country on the earth, the USA, has to learn from his life and work. Another salient feature of Gandhi’s life was his emphasis on the ways in which we, personally control ourselves, and, the effects of the environment in which we are embedded. It is encouraging to note that psychologists such as Stanford University professor, Albert Bandura, have clarified how examples from Gandhi’s work could illustrate our understanding of a variety of complex concepts, such as those of self-efficacy, moral (dis) engagement and self-control. In his writings, Bandura has cited Gandhi, as being a prime example for our understanding of self-efficacy. As

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mentioned earlier in this book, self-efficacy refers to our self-confidence in developing and utilizing our skills. Highlighting the significance of understanding self-efficacy in terms of the life and work of Gandhi, Doug Oman (2013) has stated that Bandura’s self-efficacy is “among the most practical contributions of modern psychology… and how skill in Gandhian nonviolence might be fostered through positive synergies between theory, assessment, and practice that commonly arise from self-efficacy approaches.” Similarly, in his book Psychology of Nonviolence and Aggression, Kool (2008) has emphasized how Bandura’s analysis of moral disengagement is useful for understanding the roots of nonviolence. Gandhi never disavowed moral engagement even with the British against whom he was struggling to seek India’s independence. He sided with them, albeit in adversity, keeping his moral compass widely open and went on to criticize Hitler and violence in Ireland. For Gandhi, for the promotion of human welfare, there could be only one way—the search for truth and the relentless engagement with the highest levels of moral conduct to not only win against oppression but also promote nonviolence. According to Iyer (1983), Gandhi realized that some form of aggression is natural and has survival value, but the core of our existence lies in mastering it. Religion, sport, and many forms of organized activities provide ample opportunities to demonstrate the ways in which we maintain the highest moral conduct in dealing with the opponents’ strategies and behaviors. At the end of the activity, all the participants meet to experience the genuine flow of human existence through one common denominator known as God, in religion, or, winning or losing, in athletics, by following the rules and, thereby, enjoying life. Nevertheless, the violence and conflict that is, often, manifested in the name of religion or in the soccer events in Europe keep on challenging us to review our commitment to moral engagement so that the unity of our existence is exemplified in all realms of life, whether in following any religion (or not) or playing any sport, anywhere. While in the early part of the twentieth century, psychology as a new scientific discipline, was still in the process of seeking to establish its place at universities and colleges, Gandhi was way ahead, experimenting with truths to unearth the deeper levels of the human mind and to help us realize that aggression in any form, biological or learned, would destroy us. Just think of what happened to humanity in the face of violence—the loss of distinguished libraries and exotic habitats coupled with the destruction of peaceful communities. We are forced to think of how far our so-called

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scientific experiments would take us in promoting human lives so long as our minds remain destructive. Remember, that it has been said, that war and peace reside in the minds of the human beings. And, compare this scenario with what Albert Einstein mentioned: Gandhi enlightened his mind. No wonder, University of California at Berkeley professor, Nagler (1990) opined that the laws of nonviolence are more robust than the laws of physics. He further contended that “Gandhi tried to do for nonviolence what astronomer Hubble is said to have done for the universe with his famous constant” and created “something to the basis of everything” (ibid., p. 138). The dialogues regarding making a case for violence, as, for example, in dealing with the current situation in Afghanistan (or against it for whatever reasons), would always project the usefulness of nonviolence as solutions for the mitigation of conflicts. If this is considered a valid trajectory, the appreciation of nonviolence and Gandhi would remain significantly synonymous in the current millennium. Now, let us take a look at the other side of the current scenario. We notice that there is a general apathy about Gandhi in terms of his relevance to the modern world, in the face of the many technological and social changes, with the emergence of new problems as the end result. While it is a fact that Gandhi was never against technology, he is, by and large, perceived as being old fashioned and irrelevant, even, in his homeland India, and elsewhere. When Kapur, referred to in the beginning of this chapter, became a whistleblower and reported how his employer, the National Health Services, UK, was underserving patients and treating employees unfairly, his services were terminated in 2010. Later, he went on a hunger strike and the court found that his termination was illegal and that he should be reinstated, but that was never done. In the process, he lost a lot of his own money in fighting the case. Moreover, his friends and colleagues began distancing from him. But, he remained resolute and his values and resiliency paid dividends as witnessed by his being honored by the highest body of psychologists in his own country. When he addressed the British Psychological Society at the time of receiving the honor bestowed on him, he remarked that imaginary interactions with Gandhi were not new and that with Gandhi in the dhoti attire, Britishers might not like him. Kapur concluded by quoting the former president of the association, Tommy MacKay, that psychology could truly change the world, but also added that psychology would benefit considerably from Gandhi’s experiments with truth.

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Taking this point further, we firmly believe that the need of the hour is that modern psychology finds its own, hitherto lost, self-efficacy. While there are several ways in which psychology could expand its scope and applications, the issues concerning our own existence, and in conjunction with other forms of life and natural resources, make it imperative to reinforce a case for the psychology of nonviolence in general, and learning from Gandhi’s life and work in particular.

Gandhi’s Enigmatic Personality Raghavan Iyer (1983) asserted that Gandhi would be understood far better, at a psychological level than merely on the basis of some social, political or philosophical perspective. For Gandhi, personal examples based on moral considerations were far more relevant than external enforcement or exhortation. Iyer concluded that “the connection between the self-­ conscious adoption of specific moral values and the authenticity of moral exemplification is not logical but psychological.” (p. 9). Therefore, Sharp, as stated earlier, reminded social scientists that understanding Gandhi, comprehensively, would expand the range and applications of their individual discipline. One customary task facing most psychologists is to engage in preparing a personality profile of an individual. Thus, Murray, in order to help the allied forces, was given the task of preparing the personality profile of Hitler during World War II.  At that time, Murray was the Director of Harvard’s Psychological Clinic. Some of the behavior patterns of Hitler were so nonviolent that it became difficult to cast him in the frame of a cruel dictator. He was a vegetarian, he served everyone, including those at the lowest level of the hierarchy, before taking his own meal, loved his family and friends, and in addition, showed loyalty to Germany under economic troubles. According to Roy Baumeister (1999), it was difficult for many Germans to believe, even after Hitler’s death, that he was a cruel man. What was the reason? It was his affiliation with the people of his country, the Germans, who desired the strong leadership that he provided in order to take the country out of its troubles. Once again, as mentioned earlier, Erikson was proved right in his statement that identity without affiliation does not mean much. Hitler’s identity as the leader of Germany grew as he championed the causes of Germans. Gandhi, too, had a very complex personality and none other than Richard Gregg (1958), author of The Power of Nonviolence and a Quaker

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Lawyer from the USA, who spent seven months with Gandhi and four years in India to study Gandhi’s nonviolent movement, concluded that it was virtually impossible to understand Gandhi. His moral approach was an exercise in moral jiu-jitsu that was beyond the comprehension of a Westerner. That was in the late 1920s. But today, if you ask Indians, it appears that “we are a nation of 1.3 billion Gandhi experts” (Sopan Joshi 2019). And, when you browse through WhatsApp messages and groups, the number tends to increase phenomenally! Also, there is an inherent problem in understanding Gandhi—should he be called a saint, a rebel or something else? Let us go back to the days of Gandhi and the events when Subhash Chandra Bose (who followed and worked with Gandhi in the beginning but later revolted, adopting violent methods and collaborating with Hitler) declared Gandhi as the Father of the Nation and the Indians began to call him Mahatma (the great soul). Also, let us go back to the time of Richard Gregg’s visit to India in the 1920s and describe how Gandhi was perceived then. Edmund Candler, an English journalist, novelist and educator, traveled to India and interviewed Gandhi. From his article published in The Atlantic, July 1922, we quote, Probably there is no figure in contemporary history who means so many different things to so many different people. To the incurious Westerner, the name of Gandhi calls up the picture of a saint, or a charlatan, art ascetic, fanatic, or freak. If he reads many newspapers, the Mahatma will appear in turn as patriot, martyr, high-souled idealist, and arch-traitor; evangelist, pacific quietist, and truculent tub-thumper and revolutionist; subverter of empires and founder of creeds, a man of tortuous wiles and stratagems, or, to use his own phrase, ‘a single-minded seeker after truth’; generally, in the eyes of the tolerant who are without prejudice, a well-meaning but misguided politician. Certainly a complex figure.

Candler wrote very candidly that “I must confess that I never believed in Mr. Gandhi until I met him.” He further contended that “Happily or unhappily, the common man in the street does not understand Ahimsa or Satyagraha.” And yet, Gandhi offered a configuration of integrity to the millions of people divided by more than 22 major languages and multiple religions and above all, by various castes and local sovereignty. How difficult would it have been for the Mahatma to figure out the complexity of the constituents as he led India in its struggle for freedom? Despite all

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these challenges, he had his firm and, yet, charming ways of interacting with everyone. Now, we draw your attention to how Gandhi answered Candler who, in his own words, acknowledged Gandhi’s ability to develop affinity with him: When I met Gandhi, I suggested that it was idle to stir up violence in the heart and to forbid violence by the hand. But he regarded me pityingly as a materialist… yet with sympathy which he extends to all creatures.

A case in point is how Gandhi responded to British Prime Minister Churchill’s remark calling him a naked fakir (Box 7.1). One cannot but help develop affinity with him! But is it enough to simply develop an affinity with him? What we need to understand is how Gandhi, in spite of the complexity of his personality and his interactions, was able to build bridges with all and sundry, never hurting anyone, taking everyone along with him in his journey toward the discovery of truth. The psychological traits that go to make us truly human as compared to other living beings have been known to us since ages. Our levels of empathy, range of compassion and varieties of forgiving make us so distinct and positive that we are, sometimes, apt to forget where and how our

Box 7.1  On Meeting Winston Churchill

When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called Gandhi a naked fakir, Gandhi sought his permission to publish the following personal letter addressed to him, as presented by Tendulker (1953) in the biography of Gandhi published in eight volumes: “Dear Prime Minister,—you are reported to have a desire to crush the simple ‘Naked Fakir’, as you are said to have described me. I have been long trying to be a fakir and that naked—a more difficult task. I, therefore, regard the expression as a compliment though unintended. I approach you then as such and ask you to trust and use me for the sake of your people and mine and through them those of the world—Your sincere friend, M.K. Gandhi.” (Source: In D. G. Tendulker (1953). Mahatma: life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, volume VII. Page 9)

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cognition and emotions erupt or vice versa. But was Gandhi different? Gandhi did not allow himself to lose sight of his cognitions and, even more so, his emotions. Even in the face of victory over the opponent, he made it a point that there should be no show of exuberance or emotions, either after victory over the opponent or in the face of defeat. How was Gandhi able to maintain such high levels of self-control? And, what about the ego-depletion theory of self-control (often regarded as the moral muscle)? Why was it that even after repeated acts of oppression, neither Gandhi nor his followers manifested any sign of moral fatigue? Will any clinical psychologist dare to measure Gandhi’s dispositions by applying the most sophisticated measures developed in modern psychology? In the Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Kool (2013) has professed, The PTSD problems that the US soldiers are currently facing after participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are well known. However, mental health problems of soldiers after war are not going to provide us the answers we are searching for in our research of peace activists who receive humiliation and torture at the hands of their perpetrators because they engage themselves instrumentally by using nonviolence as a strategy to achieve the end that others find expeditious through violence…. Therefore the PSTD classification of panic and anxiety based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (DSM-IV-TR) might not apply to the traumatized activist… With over one billion people currently pursuing non-violent movements, psychology, psychiatry and allied disciplines need to take some proactive action to address this issue. (p. 237)

Modern psychology took its time, and considerable time, to realize the need to study positive human traits, capturing as they do, the very essence of our culture and civilization. Topics of subjective well-being, empathy, compassion and self-control are relatively new developments in the history of psychology. During the early 1950s when scholars, such as Maslow, analyzed the levels of self-actualization and found Gandhi to have reached the zenith of the needs hierarchy, he was not given much credence and remained ostracized, both academically and personally. At that time, the priorities of psychology were different, being more oriented toward abnormal behavior. Psychologists were attempting to cast psychology in the frame of the physical sciences, avoiding most positive forms of behaviors such as love, empathy, compassion and the like. In fact, during our training in psychology several decades ago, such topics related to the positive forms of human behavior were not considered as part of

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mainstream contemporary psychology. Therefore, psychology was considered ready to study the profile of Hitler during World War II, as stated earlier, but had no level playing field for Gandhi, the man whom Einstein felt was so important for enlightening the minds of humanity.

The Wisdom of Gandhi We are, indeed, happy to note that psychologists such as Baltes, known for the Wisdom Project at the Max Plank Institute of Human Development in Germany, and Igor Grossman, heading the laboratory of Wisdom and Culture at the University of Waterloo in Canada, have started learning about the psychology of wisdom. Further, they are attempting to demonstrate its significance, recognizing at the same time that Gandhi was one of the wisest human beings of the twentieth century. Whether they study wisdom in terms of its implicit nature involving our lay thinking of what wisdom is, or in terms of the explicit formal identification of behaviors that relate to it empirically, it is generally understood that intelligent people are not necessarily wise. One needs to think of what Lao Tzu said that, he who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened. For Gandhi, self-­enlightenment excels only in the context of the social good, aimed at serving fellow human beings genuinely. This is the reason for his extremely, skeptical attitude toward the Western concept of democracy, that gave us freedom, but which remained, only nominal in nature, with political representatives acting as mere pawns of the central authority. Gandhi’s search for truth was an exercise in what the Japanese call Kensho, that is, the seeking of wisdom with integrity and serving the community with transparent intentions. While he always expressed his love for the British people and made it so obvious during his meeting with industrial workers in the UK, he was critical of the British parliamentarians who acted without courage and failed to honestly express their opinion (Tsipursky 2017). Commenting on the parliamentary form of democracy, the symbol of our freedom and hope for a just world, eminent writer and novelist, Bernard Shaw was also, no less, critical as he believed that politicians merely talk a lot and use media for their vested interests. How far would such wisdom projects take us as far as our understanding of Gandhi, or persons like him, is concerned? Knowledge of the implicit nature of wisdom has been around us for centuries. Its explicit

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nature can evolve if we stick to our pragmatism in building the blocks of wisdom. Yet, the essence of wisdom lies in testing it during periods of uncertainties. Although generally considered under the rubric of psychology of morality, which Kohlberg tested by creating moral dilemmas, James Rest measured through his Defining Issues Test and Carol Gilligan evaluated in terms of justice and caring perspectives, the real issue, as Owen Flanagan (1991) emphasized in his book Varieties of Moral Personality, is reflection on the realistic, ethical issues, complex though they may appear, in terms of the predominant cause-effect paradigm of modern psychology. Without expressing any level of optimism or pessimism, when, as stated earlier, Skinner, a renowned psychologist, fails to develop a sustainable community rooted in his framework of knowledge, the relativism of values of different groups of people with varying levels of agreements and disagreements helps us in understanding the psychology of wisdom to a certain extent. The current scenario is certainly encouraging, investigating as it is, the science of wisdom in the context of human cognition and emotion (Tsipursky 2017). In fact, a recent book by Sternberg et al. entitled Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems (2019) makes the point even more explicitly. In applying his balance theory of wisdom, Sternberg has categorically stated that without addressing the common good, wisdom could be misinterpreted in the context of selfish ends, and then, writes Sternberg, “I looked at people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela—take your own pick—and if you compare them to Stalin and Hitler and Mao, they probably didn’t differ much in IQ. It seemed that what differentiated them was wisdom.” Another way, by which we could make an attempt to understand the wisdom of Gandhi, is through a term introduced by Maslow in his Theory Z, transcendence, a motivation higher than that of self-actualization. Transcenders seek peak experiences outside themselves and a social calling. In a recent book Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, Scott Barry Kaufman (2020) has enlarged upon this concept at length. Looking at the qualities of the transcender, it is clear that Gandhi can truly be termed a transcender. While examining wisdom, either from the implicit or the explicit point of view, would it be considered wisdom to use violence when an issue can be resolved through nonviolent methods, as questioned by Kool (2008)? The answer to this question is simple as no rational human being would use violence in such a scenario. On the other hand, for a situation in which

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nonviolence is likely to fail, how far should one go, in the continuing hope for a peaceful solution? Some say Gandhi, unnecessarily, waited for decades to seek freedom for India. In contrast, Nelson Mandela lost his wisdom and switched from nonviolence to violence while another famous Indian leader Subhash Chandra Bose was applauded for converting to violence. These are but two examples; history stands testimony to many more such examples. As we examine them case by case, the wisdom of the leaders, and how it has been offered to us by contemporary academic scholars in their essays and books on nonviolence in general, and, the relevance of Gandhi in the twenty-first century in particular, appear intriguing, if not less Gandhian. Extending this argument further, Kool wrote, With nonviolence as the salient norm of behavior of individuals in society, the answer to the second question will remain incomplete unless and until, with a sense of wisdom, one does not argue that violence will be used as a last resort because other prudent methods of nonviolence could not work. And this is exactly what most political leaders do to harness public opinion, giving the impression of acting with wisdom. Thus, wisdom involves personal strength in dealing with the dilemmas of life. (Kool 2008, p. 128)

True, but how do we gauge public opinion and determine the abandoning of nonviolence and the resorting to violence for our survival? Gandhi was very critical of the press in his time and it appears to be true, even, today. According to Gandhi, many people were simply misguided by the dishonest press. Moreover, the democracy in which they were living was, in fact, one of exploitation by the rulers, or as Galtung (1996) puts it, one of structural violence. For Gandhi, wisdom consisted of enlarging one’s moral compass, to create a superordinate goodness in the community. The same scholars who attempt to seek wisdom from Gandhi, today, appear to be so fragile in their thinking. When presidents like Obama and Bush ordered war in Iraq and Afghanistan, these scholars remained silent or were less critical as compared to the present times, when President Trump is trying to withdraw troops and negotiate peace with the adversaries. Irrespective of the personalities involved and their desirability and political affiliations, the focus must remain unchanged as far as peace and negotiation are concerned. For Gandhi, losing sight of nonviolence is the biggest threat to human existence and, therefore, while he loved the Britishers, he was against the suppression by their leaders. Noticing situations such as the above, Mann (1993) clearly posited that his subjects

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continued to show bias, in general, and even more blatantly, in competitive relationships in line with their affiliation with a particular group. No wonder, Gandhi was unhappy with the mass media that was biased and which tended to mislead the general public. In short, mass media can be counterproductive for generating wisdom. Realizing this danger, Gandhi always insisted that we must follow our conscience. Understanding Gandhi requires comprehending, first and foremost, the moral essence of human existence, but as Flanagan stated, there is no single moral ethic to judge human decision making. When Kool asked Gene Sharp (personal communication 1988) as to why he titled his book Gandhi as a Political Strategist and not as “Gandhi as a moral and political strategist,” Sharp’s reply needs to be considered. He replied that he considered Gandhi’s movement as emanating from political considerations first and then, only as he moved on, did he construct a moral platform to connect with the masses. In other words, for Gene Sharp, Gandhi was more of a political strategist than a moralist. In direct contrast to the above, Kool told him that he would have preferred to have Sharp’s book titled the way Raghavan Iyer did for his famous book The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. The reader will notice the word “moral” preceding the word “political” in the title of Iyer’s book. We would, however, like to add here that Sharp did publish another book, which was entitled Gandhi Wields the Weapon of Moral Power (1960), with a Foreword by Albert Einstein (as stated earlier in this chapter). Einstein earnestly felt the significance of the publication of this book, so much so, that when Sharp, only in his twenties, was in prison for disobedience to military conscription, Einstein continued to help him and prepared the ground for the publication of the above mentioned book. The need of the hour is many more revered scholars and leaders such as Einstein in order to bolster the relevance and significance of Gandhi, today, and, in the future. Both Gene Sharp and Raghavan Iyer are, without doubt, considered to be leading scholars on Gandhi’s life and work—and we know of only a very, few more who have influenced our thinking to the extent that they did. But, they did comprehend Gandhi in different ways. The thought that Gandhi did not live in any naive realism and tried his best to accommodate, even, one of his worst critics with self-correction and purification, bears testimony to the fact that wisdom creates opportunities wherein you would find only few leaders engaging in the creation of super identities in which most of us, if not all, find ourselves, isomorphically, elevated. With

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wisdom, elaboration of the self in the context of social good is a prudent head start, and this Gandhi believed to be the cardinal goal of human life. All of us are well aware of how Gandhi felt its initiation and momentum during his days in South Africa. In her Broaden and Build Theory, Barbara Fredrickson (2001) also claimed, on the basis of empirical research, that positive forms of human orientations, such as wisdom, grow in stages and with upward and downward spirals of experiences, as we proceed to attain our goal. The ways in which Gandhi encountered such spirals during his experiments with truth is highlighted by Kumarappa in the introduction to the book written by Sharp (1960), Science had achieved wonders in carrying on experiments in the material world and in the discovery of natural laws. Gandhiji spent his life in making experiments in the spiritual world, and in the discovery of the efficacy of the great spiritual laws taught by seers through the centuries. He saw, for instance, how these laws had to be applied in any given circumstance, what they implied in regard to the one who tried to apply them, what were the prerequisites to which he had to conform if he were to apply them effectively, what changes they produced or intended to produce in those in relation to whom they were applied… what were the pitfalls to be avoided. (p. 2)

Gandhi and Applied Psychology We began this book with the famous experiments conducted by Milgram in which the levels of obedience of his participating subjects were examined in the context of the lethal levels of shocks they were forced to administer to others for errors in simple, routine learning tasks. These experiments shocked psychologists around the globe. By and large, his results have been uniformly supported across cultures since the 1970s and as recently as during this decade, as reported elsewhere in this book. Does such obedience do any good? A number of Milgram’s subjects had nightmares with guilt and shame after participating in his experiments. Realizing such adverse effects on the mental health of individuals it is now almost impossible to replicate his experiments with the approval of a professional body of scientists. Gandhi realized the consequences of such external control of the human mind. As far as the community of psychologists is concerned, probably, no one knew more about it than Sigmund Freud through his analysis of hysteria among women of the Victorian era. Those psychosomatic symptoms, fears, anxieties and depressions

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manifested through a wide variety of sublimated or other forms of behavior are well documented in the early stages of the growth of psychology, known as the science of behavior. As is exemplified by Erikson, Gandhi himself experienced and realized what external controls could do to the human mind. Gandhi even considered Nietzsche’s “umwertungallerwerte,” or the transvaluation of values, as efforts in changing our evaluations and, therefore, to be viewed and addressed with caution or rejection. Gandhi was skeptical about how privately appealing values can become subservient to external social evaluations, often constructed by the corrupt media, self-serving politicians and religious leaders. For Gandhi, the exaltation of conscience, as Iyer wrote, was “the supremacy of the individual and of his role in society cannot be grasped without turning to his fundamental concept of conscience” (p. 119). This brings to the fore, the commonalities between the rebellions such as those of Gandhi and his supporters and those of the over one billion protesters, reported by the Time magazine (Stengel 2011). Further, are there commonalities between the above mentioned nonviolent protesters and the perpetrators of violence in the society? After all, each one of them, violent or nonviolent, is working for some form of common good. Taking a leaf from the work of Albert Camus on conscientious moral revolt, as described in his book The Rebel (1951), we see a parallel between Gandhi’s exaltation of conscience, (albeit, it would be totally wrong), and the other side of human nature leading to its identification with political violence and suicide. The recent multifold increase in suicide rates among American soldiers, returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan, might well fit into Camus’ theory of human nature. But, Gandhi always insisted on action based on love for all, including the adversary, and the seeking of truth based on your conscience. As a result of such a stance, the likelihood of committing any wrong would become less salient and it would refrain people, including army personnel, from being forced to comply or to seek exuberance in violence. When we choose an action based on our conscience, we would find no moral justification for working for the perpetrator of violence, as in a war. So, when Gandhi asked every volunteer to search his or her conscience before taking any action, he was giving hope for positive mental health in the future, despite being wrought by the bitter pill of suffering and sacrifice. At the same time, it would be without feelings of remorse regarding acts of

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destruction and violence. This is what differentiated his satyagrahi comrades from those serving in the military. While we leave the issue of the philosophical orientation of Gandhi, such as how far he was (un)supportive of Karl Marx, his resemblance, or not, to the Stoics, or whether he opposed capitalism, to scholars from other social sciences, our focus on augmenting mental health through the Gandhian way is, probably, best described by Gandhi himself, My knowledge of psychology tells me that if our actions or words produce upon others an effect contrary to what was intended, the cause for it must be searched for within ourselves. (p. 249, as cited by Iyer)

Gandhi firmly believed in diagnosing the core issues of mental health through self-examination and introspection. At the same time, he also realized the complex ways through which our attributional biases influence our well-being, long before psychologists demonstrated this phenomenon through their experiments in the 1970s (for further details, please see Kool and Agrawal 2018). Understanding Gandhi is, no doubt, a challenge for, even, experts in the domain of cognition. Thomas Hora (2008) reflected on “our understanding of the lack of understanding” as a source of visualizing the path for our moral journey. He argued that despite being deeply ensconced in and surrounded by the positive orientations of self-examination, we may, often, find our emotions and cognitions intertwined. Disentangling them in the face of wisdom helps to develop a vision of life, one that is genuinely meaningful and filled with compassion, forgiveness and tolerance. It leads us to the feeling of, “you are the world and the world is you,” as stated by prominent philosopher J. Krishnamurthi. We learn, then, the art of managing the outward pressures in our life, with a temporary reprieve or momentary euphoria afforded through nominal personal or social change. Gandhi was skeptical regarding such temporary gains in mental health that created illusions more than solutions. He, therefore, preferred to avoid practical or pragmatic nonviolence or what can be termed a limited search for truth, as it involved the risk of either compromising truth or the much-needed real changes in consciousness. Only then, would it be possible to view ourselves not as “being” but as “becoming,” not simply as a human being but as a human becoming, as Carl Rogers puts it, both in the mirror of our lives and in relation to others. The exercise of seeking the truth is unending and serves as a corollary for sound mental health. Using

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such orientations, along with mindfulness and other similar programs, helps us to focus on the issues of our mental health and we hope that, even, as individuals gain from such programs (Agrawal 2001), they would continue to look further, attaining additional upper spirals of human growth, as envisaged by Gandhi and corroborated by Fredrickson (2001) and the Broaden and Build Theory. In this book, we have discussed at length the ways in which several subfields of psychology, including community psychology, educational psychology, organizational psychology, environmental psychology and others (Kool and Agrawal 2006), would benefit from the life and work of Gandhi. To our knowledge, Gandhi is, relatively, better understood in his stance regarding social justice and change in comparison to that of his personal orientations, such as fasting and self-punishment (to improve one’s moral strength). Many of these personal orientations of Gandhi remain obscure and are, often, poorly understood, especially by the contemporary “me” generation and the countless other individuals from around the globe, coming as they are from multifarious cultures. The psycho-historically changing views of humanity, only, add to the difficulties of comprehending Gandhi. Gandhi was, amply, aware of this issue, as revealed through various incidents. One such incident took place in 1933 when Gandhi was in prison. At that time, Bernard Shaw, while on visit to India, suggested to Gandhi that he should not use the nonviolent technique of fasting for sending his message to British rulers. Compare this to the Indian perception of fasting and it becomes, more than clear, that most Indians, would and do admire Gandhi for his selflessness in sacrificing his own life to seek freedom and dignity for them. While perceptions may differ depending on the cultural orientations of the individuals concerned, Gandhi’s selfless service to the community can hardly be doubted. The model communities set up by Gandhi act as beacons, priming our existence as fellow human beings. He created a social order, much like what had been witnessed by social psychologists such as Sherif and his associates, in his widely known Robber’s Cave experiments, illustrating, in the process, how a new social order emerges in the face of cooperation in lieu of competition. Skinner could have traced the limits of his theory, not in artificial communities which failed to survive, but in the real human dilemmas facing humanity, or, even through self-reliant communities, such as those set up by Ela Bhatt, to inculcate self-esteem while defeating the curse of poverty confronting a significantly large proportion of the

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population of the world. Gandhi, in our view, was a very practical psychologist who, like the father of modern psychology, William James, regarded habits as being the flywheels of society. Yet, even these habits need to be changed in view of changing times, limited resources and the abuse and misuse of the environment. Those who believe that Gandhi was against killing and therefore against the use of animal products are mistaken. Gandhi encouraged the use of dead animals, especially the skin of the dead animals to be used as leather. But there was, always, a higher purpose to all that Gandhi did. On one occasion he asked a high caste Brahmin in the state of Bihar to make goods out of the skin of dead animals. As you may know, traditionally, such jobs were handled by the low-caste workers in India. By asking a high caste Brahmin to do the job, he intended to cleanse the social order of one of its evils, namely, the requirement that menial work should be performed only by low-caste members of the society. Did such work of Gandhi increase the levels of identity, creating a super identity of a fragmented nation then known as “united” India? As Nelson Mandela remarked, Gandhi acted as a sacred warrior working relentlessly to bridge some of the greatest contradictions of human society. One such contradiction for which Gandhi worked relentlessly was the upliftment of the untouchables in India, about which we have written in various chapters. There exist many such marginalized populations not just in India but across the globe. Community psychologists would do well to refine their theories of community intervention in the light of Gandhi’s work in this direction. The same goes for the ways in which we have disturbed the ecological balance, giving rise to the extinction of many species, global warming, the melting of glaciers and climate change. In Gandhi’s communities, no aspect of Nature was disturbed without reason. As he was wont to say, “there is enough for every man’s needs but not for his greed.” Environmental psychology is replete with theories and empirical research. The need of the hour is to translate these theories and results from the laboratory to real life in the real environment. This may entail the revision of theories and research results in the context of greater ecological validity, and a move toward field research and qualitative studies to gain more insight into the ways in which pro-environmental attitudes, and even more so, pro-environmental behavior can be inculcated by the masses. Further, psychology needs to work, hand in glove, with policy makers to ensure that the state is not, either knowingly or unknowingly, being a party to anti-environment practices (see Box 7.2).

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Box 7.2  We Have Created the Mess and It Is Our Duty to Help Clean It Up

In their recent book Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems, the authors (Sternberg et al. 2019) profess that they wrote this book with the aim of providing some direction in helping to clean up the mess, including that of climate change and the destruction of the ecological balance, caused by humanity. According to the authors, such house cleaning is possible only through the application of wisdom. While they agree that wisdom has various nuances and connotations, what most researchers in the area agree upon is that it entails much more than mere IQ or knowledge or even the combination of the two. It involves seeking for the common good, fair and just dealings, balancing one’s own needs with that of the society at large and showing the capacity to balance one’s cognition and affective aspects with the contextual givens. Wisdom, also, involves taking into account the viewpoint of others and most of all, “recognizing that what works today may not work tomorrow.” A telling example of the above is the way we continue to define intelligence. As Boulware, of the Center for Practical Wisdom, The University of Chicago (December 2019) states that according to Sternberg (famous for his theory of multiple intelligences), Our society is obsessed with the narrow kind of intelligence measured by standardized tests. This obsession has led to unacceptable consequences, not only for individuals, but for the world. The “smart” people in our societies are destroying the world through air and water pollution, lack of potable water, obscene levels of income disparity, nuclear weapons, and most of all, human-induced climate change that threatens to destroy life as we know it. (Boulware 2019)

What is the remedy? The authors of the book are of the view that “wisdom without action” is useless and that their book is all about not just wisdom, but to put wisdom into action to solve the problems of the world and “to create a better world and maybe even save the world before we destroy it.” The problem, however, is of isolating people of wisdom and the authors start the very first chapter of the book, with the title, “Where (continued)

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Box 7.2  (continued)

have all the flowers of wisdom gone?” We would like to point out that one such flower is Gandhi, as analyzed by a variety of scholars from various disciplines and discussed in the previous pages. The description of wisdom given by the authors seems to fit in, word by word, with the core characteristics of Gandhi’s, whose ideas on many aspects, including the problems of the world, are worthy of emulation. The remedy for many of the problems listed by the authors on the very first page of their book could well lie in the intelligent application of Gandhi’s life and work.

Gandhi was never against innovations and the use of technology but he was well aware of the evils it could create. To foster his social movement, he distributed pamphlets and used the press, having even established his own press at Phoenix Settlement coupled with prayer meetings in which people could raise questions. All of these can well be said to be equivalent to what Nish Acharya (2019) calls Gandhi’s alternatives to the social media of today. Gandhi’s methods were low-cost methods to reach the people combined with his foot marches and a readiness to address the concerns of people. According to Acharya, since 1979, there have been only 144 nonprofit organizations in the world which could raise more than 50 million dollars. Gandhi’s organizational leadership rooted in social entrepreneurship has lessons for them when we think of how he could raise the membership of his party, the Indian National Congress, to the massive figure of 2 million people, with each member having to pay a meager fee. He created local chapters for the organization in a country divided by several languages and religions in addition to poverty making, even, the meager contributions of such membership being felt as being too burdensome. All this was achieved in the early half of the twentieth century! Through his organizational skills, as Acharya (ibid.) aptly puts it, Gandhi offered insights in management that are timeless. Is it possible that there is a new model, perhaps called Gandhian entrepreneurship, that combines the best of organizational management practices and Gandhi’s extraordinarily framework for leadership and impact? It is hard

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to imagine these words going together given Gandhi’s well-known skepticism for industry, technology and universities. But at the end of the day, Mahatma Gandhi was the world’s most successful social entrepreneur. Over the course of a life time, he helped move British India from 565 princely states and British-controlled territories into a free country that, 70 years later, is on the cusp of becoming the third largest economy in the world. (Acharya, Forbes, October 31, 2019)

In the context of business ethics, Jaydeep Balakrishnan et  al. (2017) have demonstrated that corporate responsibility (CR) at all levels—situational, organizational or individual—could utilize Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship. As a relevant example, they cite how India’s largest conglomerates, including the Tata Group, incorporate this spirit into the management of their massive conglomerate. During the current crisis of the coronavirus, a number of business organizations have shown the same spirit around the globe, forcing us to put a question mark: if these business organizations can do it now, why don’t they do it as a matter of practice and incorporate it into the day-to-day running of their business? Is this being done, simply, to look good? Is it a form of window dressing to attract the customer and the shareholder? Gandhi’s dedication to serving humanity was not reserved for such special occasions! While psychological studies on conflict resolution are replete with sophisticated empirical paradigms such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma studies and the contributions of scholars such as Herbert Kelman, Morton Deutsch and others (Kool 2008), Gandhi does not figure in their work as prominently as he does in the other sister disciplines of the social sciences. The momentum created by Gandhi during the time when people in various parts of the world were seeking freedom from oppression, provided a fertile ground for new ideas—be it Gandhi or the Beatles of UK or socialism. There was a clear shift with the emergence of a new social order in the context of industrialization, urbanization, human mobility and education. Simply giving credit to Gandhi for what he stood for is easier to comprehend than to specifically determine and document the amount of his contribution toward the actual changing of any community. We would not be surprised if a large number of Indians would argue, today, that the green signal given by Gandhi to the partition of India, in order to resolve conflicts at that time, was the right decision. More than sixty years later, British Prime Minister, Cameron is said to have professed that he regretted the partition of India in 1947.

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The saintliness of a saint is, often, more valued and appreciated in the course of time rather than during his own lifetime. Conflict resolutions such as those achieved through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have their roots and inspiration in the vision behind Gandhi’s movements, namely, that of restoring our confidence in nonviolence and social justice. With his wide field of operation encompassing at least one nation (South Africa, India and UK) from three continents—Africa, Asia and Europe, and a prolonged struggle that panned out several decades receiving, as it did, continued coverage from the media, Gandhi happened to tell the world, in his own unique nonviolent ways, that resolving conflicts needs our prolonged positive overtures. Gandhi began his nonviolent movement in South Africa and left a legacy for the formation of TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Committee) several decades after his death, but, in his own country, India, there is nothing equivalent, or even coming close to it, which can establish harmony among divergent groups. Answers to such issues could be addressed in the psycho-historical times in which events occur and they require a broader understanding and analysis in an interdisciplinary context. More or less, we invite readers to weigh the psychological underpinnings of Gandhi’s life and work in their preferred context, academic or nonacademic, as presented in these two volumes. At the same time, he emphasized that, essentially, there is no pill for conflict resolution, being, as it is firstly, a moral war within oneself, before one can approach the perpetrators of the conflict. The laws for such purposes apply, equally, to both intra- and interpersonal conflicts. The basis of conflict resolution, as stated in the social sciences including psychology, tends to be too shallow, if one looks at the practical ways in which a Cold War is settled, an arms race is put on hold or a truce is arranged between nations. No doubt it is a practical way to solve problems of the world but it remains to be seen how we feel and absorb the richness of our mental and physical life while sitting on a bomb but superficially believing that, at least for now, we are fine. Veteran Gandhi scholar in Australia, Thomas Weber appears somewhat more optimistic about the role of Gandhi in the twenty-first century, taking cognizance of the fact that a new wave is emerging, with the youth showing an interest in Gandhi. Historically, celebrities like Gandhi tend to become institutionalized, writes Weber, but each community must find ways to keep the cardinal messages of their great people highlighted. In his recent book The Mahatma, His Philosophy and His Legacy, Weber argues that today, Gandhi has emerged more as a bureaucratic leader in India as

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compared to one characterized by genuine activism. This is, apparently, typical of newly formed organizations. Globally, too, communities tend to show bureaucratic orientations after the demise of their beloved leaders and their names often become sources of employment. While Gandhi might not be regarded as a practical person, seeing the decades he seemed to have sacrificed before reaching his goal of bringing freedom to India through the use of nonviolent methods, we believe that his notion of small vows of nonviolence (anuvrat) is useful for nonviolent conflict resolution in our everyday lives. For Gandhi, a common ground must be created to accept the moral responsibility for the occurrence of any wrongdoing. Once the virtues of moral conduct have been demonstrated (which Gandhi adhered to through stringent vows that helped him to remain focused), the opponent finds himself or herself in a difficult situation, being able to neither ignore nor reciprocate the nonviolent overtures. In other words, Gandhi believed that anuvrat, a core concept in Jainism, could be regularly used and experienced, even, in our daily lives, as illustrated in Box 7.3. Box 7.3  Conflict Resolution in the Modern World of Today

Janet Hagberg (1984), a business consultant, mentioned, several years ago, that success in business is commonly viewed in terms of status, profits, and degrees of control. But, in Gandhi, we see the antithesis of this: instead of the above, we witness an active use of love, caring, integrity and a distaste for improving one’s own gain in order to move ahead of others. Noting the positive, nonviolent qualities of Gandhi, Harvard University professor Erik Erickson, author of Pulitzer Award-winning book Gandhi’s Truth, wrote that when the cotton mill workers of Ahemdabad were locked in a dispute with the mill owners, Gandhi, acting, as an external mediator, managed to end the strike, while simultaneously ensuring that he did not lose his trust or friendship with either of the two parties. Power, whether in business sector or elsewhere, is about seeking control and dictating terms to determine the chain of command and the day-to-day operations for meeting intended goals. While Gandhi’s aparigraha, basically, means no possession, Gandhi believed that if we are not willing to give up in order to receive something, or if there is no sense of reciprocal give and take, peaceful functioning (continued)

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Box 7.3  (continued)

would not be possible in any organization. How handy this technique is in settling day-to-day disputes has been borne out by one of the present authors, Kool. It is worth noting and reveals the ways in which Gandhi continues to be relevant at any time, now or in the future. After my retirement from the university in NY, I moved to sunny California. Within a few weeks of my stay in Los Angeles, I received a request from one member of a religious congregation that as he was not expecting to live long, he wanted my support in settling a dispute between the Board of Trustees and the executive members who ran the daily operations of the organization. I was naive to the place as well as to the issues that were, already, under litigation with charges and countercharges in the local court, after several initiatives at mediation had failed to end the dispute. Having learned from Gandhi’s approach to management, I contacted both the groups, and surprisingly, received a positive response very promptly from the executive committee members to move on with my peace initiatives. The Board members, as per the constitution of the congregation, were hefty donors and used this privilege to govern the institution. The central issue was the mismanagement of funds in a new construction project that was being handled by the board, allegedly in secrecy. After some delay, when I met the Board members, they misperceived me as an agent of the executive group in spite of my telling them that I was a neutral person. It was only when I told both the groups that, neither had I any interest in the activities of the congregation, nor, do I wish to mediate or work for them in future, they were, finally, assured and got ready to sign a memorandum of understanding and even withdrew their court cases within a matter of days. Except for nominal dissent by a handful of members, the operation of the congregation is running very smoothly, at least for now, with good understanding between the two litigating groups. So, by taking one small step at a time, considerable can be achieved, as Gandhi had professed. One, only, has to show persistence and determination.

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For Gandhi, seeking meaning in service was always important, since for people like him, “energy and stamina comes from a transcendent source and flows through them to others, no matter what the setting” (Hagberg 1984, p. 140). The thought of losing power associated with money means giving up something and it has consequences in terms of a reduction in recognition and a worry regarding the emptiness associated with it. It is, almost, impossible to cast Gandhi in any preconceived category because, for him, genuinely caring about others is more important than himself. Unlike hermits, Gandhi believed in engagement with people and their problems rather than remaining in isolation and fearing backlashes. He was fearless to the core, unlike Skinner’s mules that became stubborn with an overdose of reinforcements. The more the oppression, the greater was his determination to fight back. People like Gandhi may not be liked in business and industry as they care about individuals more than the net monetary gains, but they offer wisdom to find what is good, rather than dedication to some established good already stated in the purpose of business. In other words, there is an intuitive appeal in applying knowledge in the process of evaluating circumstances to seek good over an already settled goal. It is a process, not an end in itself. This is, as pointed out in our chapter on organizational behavior, role making, in contrast to the role taking that is normally seen in most places. Gandhi believed in activism in all domains of life ranging from the business world to religious affairs and, though, on many occasions, his behavior may have appeared very paradoxical, it was never self-serving. Given the constraints and realities of life in the business world, Gandhi’s life and work will always act as a beacon of light, and it remains to be seen how much of it would illuminate the opulent 1% who control most of the business of the world, and suffuse them with wisdom. While not a teacher by profession, nor an academician by interest, Gandhi has given us a system of education that holds great promise for the future (as pointed out in Chap. 2 of this volume). The very fact that the UNESCO at its annual meeting in Paris in 2019 (MGIEP 2019) focused on the role of Gandhi’s ideas on education and the all-round development of the child, speaks considerably for the importance and significance of Gandhi in the domain of education. While the recent years have seen a burgeoning of research in the area of socio-emotional development, the emotional quotient and character building, as emphasized by Gandhi and pointed out by his granddaughter, Sumitra Kulkarni (whom we had interviewed, see Chap. 3 Volume 1), children need to be taught the dignity of

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work and respect for one and all. Moreover, we need to help them develop their social identity, not in the midst of the tumultuous social media prevalent today, but with their own neighborhood and community. The fast eroding human values, so important to not only Gandhi but to all thinkers through the ages, need to be revitalized. We have given one example of a Nai Talim school in the town of Bardoli, India. Many more schools which help children imbibe the virtues of the creed of nonviolence need to be established all over the world. It is not easy to teach Gandhi’s nonviolence to children. Even Gandhi’s own grandchildren told us that as children they had practiced many of the rituals of nonviolence without comprehending the substance of it. It was, as they said, a sort of obedience to authority coupled with a reverence that was overwhelming and akin to worshipping our God. When, around the year 2017, the state of Bihar intended to celebrate the centenary of the famous Champaran movement which had given a new twist to Gandhi’s movement and brought the little known town to fame, it launched a project for educating children on nonviolence. Although books were prepared but to motivate children to study them and explore their usefulness was arduously difficult. Cognizing Gandhi is difficult; while one can understand Gandhi’s nonviolence through films, plays and many new tools including computerized and interactive ones, it is the motivation which is missing. Box 7.4 shows how a well-known scholar of nonviolence demonstrated it, ever so ingeniously, during a conference, begging the question of whether it could be used as a model for demonstrating that nonviolence works. The way we teach students in schools is not congenial to their understanding of nonviolence. As Gandhi professed, it is not a garment that can be put on and taken off, it is a way of life. Unlike a short visit to temples or to other religious places, during which we think of the virtues of life, for the major part of our lives we are being, constantly, primed by episodes of violence on the mass media and by various other forms of negative interactions. Thus, we tend to develop the perception and the thinking that certain forms of virtuous behavior are fine for within the precincts of the place of worship, but are not suitable for practice once we leave the portals of this revered place and it becomes difficult to bring thoughts of virtuosity to our conscious functioning. Even to a trained psychologist it may become difficult to gauge nonviolence in an unfamiliar and strange context as illustrated in Box 7.4.

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Box 7.4  A Simple But Smart Way to Demonstrate Nonviolence in the Service of the Community

I received a very weird request from a speaker during a symposium that I was conducting in 1992 at SUNY, Utica, NY. He wanted two bins of garbage during the coffee break. With the help of my colleagues I provided him the garbage. When I re-entered the lecture hall to begin the proceedings after the coffee interval, the entire place was found littered with filth. I was grinding my teeth owing to the foolish behavior of the senior professor, but he was smiling and this demeanor appeared disgusting to me. He then started picking up the litter and putting it back in the bin. Two participants got up for help, four more, six more and the help kept pouring in. Within minutes, the entire lecture hall was clean again. The professor walked to the podium and said that if only a few of us joined hands and raised the level of community action, we could solve many problems without violence and conflict. (Excerpted from the book The Psychology of Aggression and Nonviolence, Kool 2008)

Implications for Scientific Research The major goal of our book has been to throw light on what Gandhi’s life and work could offer to the science of modern psychology. We are sure that the discerning reader would have noticed that almost every subdivision of psychology, each with its own unique content and explanation of human behavior, can be enriched by examples from the work of Gandhi. We remember our lessons from the books of social psychology more than five decades ago and the ingenious ways in which Leo Festinger crafted his theory of cognitive dissonance, bringing to the fore the vagaries of the human mind in terms of the gaps between our thinking, affect/ emotions and action (e.g., we like to smoke, but also know that it is bad for our health and, yet, we fail to stop our smoking behavior). In contrast, as revealed through various incidents, Gandhi’s life and work was primarily aimed at developing exercises in reducing, or possibly eliminating, such dissonances or gaps that continue to haunt us at every stage and moment of our lives. And, when Gandhi himself was confused or wanted to gain time to reflect on his own dissonances, he resorted to silence or to some

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experiment to seek the truth within himself and to, then, share it with others. In short, through many such examples (and they are available in abundance), we find that most theories in psychology could be enriched with Gandhi’s life and work currently, and, in the future. With this purpose, the Gandhi Peace Foundation published a special issue of its journal focusing on the psychological aspects of Gandhi’s life and work in 2013 (see Kool and Agrawal 2013). As illustrated in earlier chapters, it is these attempts of Gandhi, at reducing dissonances, through his own experiments in life and following the highest moral considerations, which have the strongest appeal for opening new vistas of psychological research. Even as we are finalizing this chapter during the coronavirus pandemic, we stand witness to the endless human choices, such as regarding the purchase of things and the rampant hoarding of supplies, which show our level of materialism, our greed and the poor consideration we show for other fellow human beings. Similarly, whether we should be violent or polite in our daily transactions, are everyday parameters that define our consonant or dissonant orientations in life and help to shape the quality of our humanity. This was the primary concern of Gandhi, and, in his own humble but determined ways, he tried to show what human choices could do to our existence. Let it not be misunderstood that we aim to conclude that modern psychology has failed to provide us with the much-needed alternatives, but, we are emphasizing that there is, definitely, a wide field that is open, should we focus more on the psychology of human choices in the context of Gandhi. Work in this area, certainly, got an impetus and a scientific temper through the early studies in experimental psychology, for example, those by Tolman, who was also interested in the issues of peace. Since then, as reported in an earlier chapter, there has been some progress, as revealed by recent literature in modern psychology. Unfortunately, the fact is that one of the greatest, pragmatic and wise thinkers of human choices, Gandhi, has been poorly explored and applied in the domain of modern psychology. It is, therefore, imperative that psychology expands its understanding of nonviolence through theories and models over and above those discussed in Chap. 7 of Volume 1 of this book. It would go a long way in helping to explain the amazing, albeit, consistent and neglected results, such as those which emanated from Milgram’s experiments. It would enable us understand the behavior of those subjects who agreed to give shocks to the erring learner in a simple learning task vis-à-vis those who refused and declined to be an accomplice in such a gruesome task. But

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more importantly, it would help us to unravel the mysteries of the choices made by people in the real world. Why is it that one person, one group or even one nation decides to take the route of violence while there are others who choose to journey along the road of nonviolence? An added corollary to this end is the need for the constant validation of psychometric tools for the measurement of nonviolent tendencies in people, so as to enable the assessment of the efficacy of ongoing programs of nonviolence at the community level. It is such research on a psychometric tool developed for the measurement of nonviolence, namely, the Nonviolence Test, (NVT; Kool 1993, 2008; Kool and Sen 2005) that a successful program for inculcating nonviolence among prison inmates had been implemented (The Gemstone Project at University of Maryland cited elsewhere in the book). Many more efforts, such as these, are mandated. Without the support of scientific investigations in the psychology of nonviolence, it would, probably, be impossible to explore into the vagaries of human inclination of choosing to manifest aggression and violence or of choosing nonviolence. While the above effort on prison inmates was undertaken following Kool’s work, it is certainly gratifying and encouraging to take note of an effort that has been reported, even, as we are finalizing this chapter. At the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison outside Chicago, USA, the administrators are doing their best to reduce the tendency of violence among inmates and they encourage them to take a course on nonviolence. Teaching incarcerated men, who come mostly from Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods, has not been easy. The first step in learning nonviolence, writes Henry Cervantes (April 28, 2020), is that they must unlearn violence. It is heartening to note that the registration in a course on nonviolence by inmates is high and that during their learning they respond favorably to the new material and visualize what had gone wrong in their life as also in their neighborhood. The content of some of the nonviolence curriculum even meets that of the Masters’ level instruction in courses of nonviolence at some of the top universities around the world. Moreover, these issues regarding the psychology of human choices are not going to go away in the new millennium, geared as they are toward the increasing role of robots and our continued dependence on technology. In our book Psychology of Technology (Kool and Agrawal 2016), we have raised this issue with the following argument, that

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technology does not operate outside of human endeavor and ‘brings the thing-like instrumentation of human nature’ (Kompridis 2009). The availability of a product makes a difference as has been so aptly presented by a well known social psychologist, Leonard Berkowitz (1993): that the finger pulls the trigger is as true as the gun attracts the finger. The availability of weapons around us tends to prime our thoughts for their use and the affordances they offer. (Kool and Agrawal 2016, p. 336)

It is unfortunate that with over 5000 books written on Gandhi, there is plenty to “prime” our thoughts but little in the domain of modern psychology to explore the vistas of our mind and to gradually prepare ourselves for the current evolution of technology moving along with biological evolution. While we have been aware of the latter course of evolution ever since the time that we recognized life on earth, the course that the former will take seems very much beyond the human imagination and comprehension. What was a figment of science fiction till just a few decades back, written by authors to give us moments of joy by transporting us into another realm, has become reality today. What technology holds for us in the future is unfathomable. While Gandhi was not against technology, he could foresee the abundance of its effects on human choices leading to several temptations unworthy of our common goal of collective goodness. As technology is set to alter our biological existence with consequences unknown to even the highest body of scientists in the world, the National Science Foundation of USA, the scenario raised by its experts (Rocco and Bainbridge 2002) and others has been illustrated below (see Kool and Agrawal 2016 for details). They envisage the future as being one in which, If the cognitive science can think it, The Nano people can build it, The Bio people can implement it, and The IT people can monitor it. (Rocco and Bainbridge 2002, p. 13)

The report on convergent technologies for improving human performance by the scientists at the National Science Foundation, USA, was thus an effort to garner support for four disciplines that could converge to produce an effect as powerful as that mentioned in the quote above. The interrelationship between these four disciplines, cognition, nanotechnology, biology and information technology is seen as the NBIC tetrahedron and has been explained diagrammatically in Fig. 7.1.

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Fig. 7.1  The NBIC tetrahedron (adapted from Kool and Agrawal 2016)

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Nano

Info

Bio

Cogno

Did you notice that experts in cognition are shaping and planning the future role of technology? And for this purpose, would you not need the wisest man of the previous century, Gandhi, on one end, and scholars like Kurzweil (1999, 2005), author of the well-known books The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity Is Near, on the other? We believe that an urgent task in front of modern psychology is to prepare us, through its researches and applications, for the extent and purpose of human cognition in aligning us with the technologies that promote our survival and growth, without alienating us—the human beings. Could there be a better and wiser message for the scientist than what Gandhi offered to our understanding of human cognition? The choice is before us, take it or leave it. Beyond illustrating and enriching concepts such as moral inclusion, moral disengagement, self-control, self-efficacy, cognitive dissonance, leadership theories, conflict resolution, and many more that form the core of textbooks in modern psychology, Gandhi can be seen to be a precursor of modern research, in many more ways. It may seem far-fetched and unrealistic, but if we believe that whatever we think and do has at its base, something that is organic in nature, as illustrated in Posner’s work on neuropsychology of self-control, reported in Box 7.3, Chap. 7 (Volume 1), then it is imperative to unfold the layers of our own brain, be it at the diencephalic or telencephalic level, in delineating what happens when we are violent versus when we are nonviolent; self-controlled versus disinhibited; morally oriented versus disoriented; empathetic versus non-­ empathetic; fearful versus fearless; and in terms of almost all the behavioral tendencies that we find on almost every page of books on modern

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psychology. That the majority of the above tendencies have been preserved through evolutionary processes (Kool and Agrawal 2010, 2011) reveals their continued importance for the survival of the human race. The good news is that the psychology of yester-years, that was, too, dependent on other sciences, is maturing, it is moving toward establishing its identity, and tabooed topics like wisdom and self-control are being studied abundantly in the contexts of many fields of modern psychology including neuropsychology, positive psychology, organizational psychology and psychology of religion. Priming our thoughts has been used heavily in psychology of advertising and has contributed enormously to make it a multibillion-dollar industry in the USA and elsewhere in the world. Priming is a subtle way of activating a thought process. As we are exposed to television programs loaded with violence in our everyday life as compared to those programs that promote nonviolence, the probability of priming our violent thoughts is higher, as compared to that for the nonviolent, especially in the context of conflict scenarios that require a quick fix. The overwhelming social media and the rate at which the nucleus of the family is eroding are, without doubt, moving us away from the positive priming of nonviolence and its associated attributes of care, love, compassion and empathy. The enriching experiences of early childhood with loads of positive priming in both the family and at schools could be the most valuable contribution of nonviolence to our community. It is our considered opinion that several subfields of modern psychology such as developmental psychology, educational psychology, child psychology and adolescent psychology could play a vital role in pursuing this goal. When Gandhi was invited in 1947 by the Director-General of UNESCO to give an address on human rights, he humbly replied that he had “learnt from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done… The very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world.” Did you notice that Gandhi was primed by his childhood experience? In a recent study by Michael Ferrari and his associates (2016), it has been clarified through empirical research that the wisdom, benevolence and intellect of Gandhi’s life have been filtered through varying socio-cultural contexts, but there was no denying the fact that the more you know about Gandhi, the more the inspiration you find in his wisdom.

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Concluding Remarks While understanding Gandhi might be considered difficult, we certainly find in him, an exemplar which will last not only throughout our lifetime but for generations to come. To enact him in any setting, be it a classroom or a film, will always be a challenge, as was realized by Lord Attenborough, who found that he had to invest twenty years of his life in creating a film on Gandhi, or, by the fledgling initiative of the Bihar government in India in teaching nonviolence to school children, in an effort to celebrate its link with Gandhi (and, in the process, inviting our curiosity as to why Gandhi is remembered on special occasions only). While such artifacts of nonviolence in the form of art and education are needed for concretizing our commitment to nonviolence, but, like religion, nonviolence in this form, serviced for short periods of time, will also remain unpracticed. Just as it is not enough to go to a place of worship without inculcating the goodness in life, so it is true of nonviolence that it must be experimented upon and experienced in all seasons of our life. One example, worth emulating, has been provided in Box 7.5. Box 7.5  Sanjit “Bunker” Roy and the Barefoot College

Born in West Bengal in the year 1945 and educated in some of the most prestigious and expensive schools and colleges of India, Sanjit happened to visit the state of Bihar in India, during a famine. What he witnessed, there, changed his life. Even though his mother was aghast at the thought, he decided to spend the next five years of his life as an unskilled laborer, digging open wells. This was not because he could not find a job despite his education, nor was he being followed by the police, or had been shown out of the door by his family. He did this because this is what he wanted to do, spend time with the villagers, learn about the masses and their lives, while residing in the rural areas of India. What he saw during those five years, made him realize that the road to development lay not with the youth (who would rush for the cities the moment they obtained a certificate) or even with men. It lay with the grandmothers of the villages, who would listen patiently and who did not want to leave the village. With this in mind he started the Barefoot College in the village of Tilonia, India. They train grandmothers, teaching them the basics of solar engineering and freshwater technology. (continued)

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Box 7.5  (continued) So the college works following the lifestyle and workstyle of Mahatma Gandhi. You eat on the floor, you sleep on the floor, you work on the floor. There are no contracts, no written contracts. You can stay with me for 20 years, go tomorrow. And no one can get more than $100 a month. You come for the money, you don’t come to Barefoot College. You come for the work and the challenge, you’ll come to the Barefoot College. That is where we want you to try crazy ideas. Whatever idea you have, come and try it. It doesn’t matter if you fail. Battered, bruised, you start again. It’s the only college where the teacher is the learner and the learner is the teacher. And it’s the only college where we don’t give a certificate. You are certified by the community you serve. You don’t need a paper to hang on the wall to show that you are an engineer. (an excerpt from a TED talk by Roy in 2011)

Today they have reached thousands of villages, not only in India, but also in Africa and Afghanistan and other countries and have trained over 3 million people, mainly women, in helping them to become solar engineers, midwives, weavers, doctors and architects. Roy is the recipient of a large number of eminent Indian and international awards, including being selected as one of the 100 most influential personalities in the world by the Time magazine in 2010 and being awarded the Clinton Global Citizen Award in 2013. Seventy-five-year-old Roy is going forward, training people, making villages self-sufficient, and, in the process, helping women attain self-confidence and a deep sense of self-worth. Highly influenced by Gandhi’s life and work, he is steeped in the Gandhian traditions and has demonstrated the power of grassroots level community development through empowering people who are illiterate. His suggestion to the people is, I’ll just wind up by saying that I think you don’t have to look for solutions outside. Look for solutions within. And listen to people. They have the solutions in front of you. They’re all over the world. Don’t even worry. Don’t listen to the World Bank, listen to the people on the ground. They have all the solutions in the world. I’ll end with a quotation by Mahatma Gandhi. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.” (TED talk, Roy 2011)

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The task of modern psychology is not limited to making Gandhi’s message widely and effectively known but also extends to finding the mental capacities and its associated behavioral characteristics for broadening the range of human potentials for survival in a sustainable community. Raghavan Iyer (1983) asserted, and we reiterate, that Gandhi would be best understood at the psychological level rather than merely from the social, political or philosophical perspective. For Gandhi, personal examples based on moral considerations were more relevant than external enforcement or exhortation. Iyer concluded (and we repeat this quote to bolster our argument), “the connection between the self-conscious adoption of specific moral values and the authenticity of moral exemplification is not logical but psychological” (p. 9). This seems easier than done. We strongly believe that as we learn about wisdom or any virtue, especially in the context of a wise person like Gandhi, it needs to be, firstly, made salient in our daily interactions—be it through mass media, textbooks or regular or occasional forums or meetings. It is sad to see some recent publications on the sesquicentennial of Gandhi that are solely aimed at lowering the anchors of the seemingly naive masses about the messages of one of the wisest person of the previous century. It has been empirically demonstrated and as claimed by Van Dessel et  al. (2018), on the basis of their recent research, that negative verbal information shifts automatic liking of historically famous people like Gandhi. In their multi-experiment study, they found that even implicit evaluations of great people change rapidly in the face of affective misattribution. With declining moral values including, but not limited to, the greed of corporations, the self-centeredness of the “me” generation, and the erosion of family as an institution, the backlash on Gandhi, as we see now in some recent publications, is not surprising and we are likely to have more of it in the new millennium. When the famous British play writer and thinker Bernard Shaw was asked during his trip to India in 1933 as to why people did not like him and Gandhi, and that, they were not as popular as they should be, he replied that Gandhi did not kill other human beings, for “war is the thing people get enthusiastic about.” He thought that Gandhi would have been more popular in the world had he killed 6 million people. Yet, people continue to admire him for the virtues he had offered to humanity. In short, nonviolence does not draw as much attention as violence does. As psychologists, it is, perhaps, easy to present a treatise on Gandhi, but to

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suggest ways of propagating the message of Gandhi and, even more, ways of emulating his practices would be of much greater difficulty. One way to address the above impasse is to find out how we adjust information that leads to judgments. Empirical researches based on Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, as cited in an earlier chapter, suggest that if the base level of the information is kept high, people tend to better adjust their decision as against a scenario that is initiated with a lower utility or value. In one study, for example, when one group of subjects was asked if Gandhi was younger or older than 9 years versus the other that was asked the same question but with a baseline of 140 years, the average responses of the groups were found to be different: the lower group averaged 50 years as compared to the older group with 67 years. Remember, the effect of the context of the information, younger or older, serves as an anchor or a frame to adjust our judgments. It is popularly known as the anchoring effect in cognitive psychology (Struck and Musssweille 1997). Creating and using such anchoring effects are easier in the age of technology (for more information on cognition and technology, see our book Psychology of Technology (Springer, 2016)). If lessons from the life and works of Gandhi are not highlighted continuously, or even periodically, they would diminish with the passage of time, like any other precious culture or civilization that we scarcely remember. The father of modern psychology William James once remarked that societies that did not value their teachers, health professionals and social workers were doomed in the course of time (please see Chap. 1, Volume 1 of this book and Kool 1993) and people in such societies are likely to manifest dual personalities. The action plan is simple, if we have the will to do it: we need to prime and reinforce the anchoring effects of Gandhi’s life and work through curriculi, books, media and public dialogues. His message embraces all aspects of our humanity—religion, politics or any ethnicity. Throughout this book we have focused on various anecdotes, real-life experiences and public events to demonstrate how, in more ways than one, the public can be educated about nonviolence and the level of moral engagement augmented. There are people, even psychologists, who consider Gandhi as their hero (Box 7.6). A school, a community, a dialogue at home or in the classroom based on the film Gandhi (as described in one of the chapters), the work of upliftment of the depressed and marginalized populations being undertaken by the likes of people such as Gandhi’s family members, and others such as Ela Bhatt, Radha Bhatt and Niranjana Kalarthi (all of whom we met and interviewed), provide just a few

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Box 7.6  Howard Gardner—Learning from Gandhi

Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an adjunct professor of psychology and Senior Director of Project Zero. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, while Gardner had been working with brain-damaged hospital patients as well as with children from various schools, he developed a theory that changed the way people study intelligence and, at the same time, transformed the fields of psychology and education. This is how it all happened. One of his first jobs at Harvard was as a research assistant at Project Zero, working with school children. Around the same time, he also worked at the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital helping with people with a variety of types of brain damage. It seemed almost by chance that during the same period of time, he was working with brain-damaged people in the morning and children in the afternoon. It was these experiences that transformed his thinking regarding intellect, and helped him frame his theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI). With his “theory of multiple intelligences,” Gardner challenged the notion of a singular entity of mind, mostly genetic, and instead put forward the idea that all of us possess different types of intelligences, including linguistic, spatial, and musical. He demonstrated through his theory of multiple intelligences that people can be taught through different ways, utilizing the particular strengths of the person (Mineo 2018).

However, our present concern with Gardner is because he is said to have been deeply influenced by Gandhi. For one thing, like Gandhi, Gardner remains a student even today, always ready to learn from his experiences. During the interview with Mineo (2018) of the Harvard Gazette, he expanded on why Gandhi continues to inspire him. The title of the interview with the Harvard Gazette reveals another important similarity: “The greatest gift you can have is a good education, one that isn’t strictly professional.” We present a short excerpt from the interview. (continued)

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Box 7.6  (continued)

“Q: I read that you consider Mahatma Gandhi one of your heroes. A: Gandhi understood that we live in a world where for the first time in human history, someone could destroy the world. That wasn’t true during the Punic Wars or during the Crusades or even the World Wars. As a result of this unprecedented situation, said Gandhi, we have to learn to dispute, argue in a nonviolent way. That’s a very hard lesson to learn, but it inspired Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, and anybody nowadays who protests injustice in a nonviolent way is really taking a leaf from Gandhi. I recommend his autobiography, “The Story of My Experiments With Truth.” Gandhi was supercritical of himself. Everything he did, he looked back and criticized and tried to do better. I don’t pretend to compete with him, but I try to learn from what I do wrong and I try to get other people to learn from what they do wrong. That’s how Gandhi lived every day—how could I do better, what can I learn from this? In addition to being an international giant, Gandhi gave us an example of a healthy and practical way to think about and lead your own life” (Mineo 2018). (Excerpted and adapted from Mineo 2018)

examples of how this work can be taken forward. But, this is merely a drop in this vast ocean of humanity. We close this book on the note and the hope that the material provided in the two volumes of this book will be helpful in developing and enriching the scientific roots of the psychology of nonviolence in general and with special reference to the underpinnings of the life and work of Gandhi, in particular. The current impetus in research in the field of psychology of wisdom, now receiving greater attention than ever before, bears testimony to the core of our argument presented throughout this chapter.

References Acharya, N. (2019, October 31). How would Mahatma Gandhi build his movement today? Forbes. forbes.com. Agrawal, R. (2001). Stress in life and at work. New Delhi: Response/Sage.

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Balakrishan, J., Malhotra, A., & Falkenberg, L. (2017, March). Multi-Level corporate responsibility: A comparison of Gandhi’s trusteeship with stakeholder and stewardship frameworks. Journal of Business Ethics, 141(1). https://doi. org/10.1007/s10551-015-2687-0. Baumeister, R.  F. (1999). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New York: Freeman. Boulware, J.  M. (2019, December 6). Solving the problems of the world through wisdom. Center for Practical Wisdom, The University of Chicago. Camus, A. (1951/2012). The Rebel. New York: Vintage. Candler, E. (1922). Mahatma Gandhi. The Atlantic. theatlantic.com. Cervantes, H. (2020, April 20). I teach nonviolence in the prisons hit hardest by COVID-19. Here’s why we must decarcerate now. Waging Nonviolence. wagingnonviolence.org. Erikson, E. (1969). Gandhi’s Truth. New York: Norton. Ferrari, M., Abdelaal, Y., Lakhani, S., Sachdeva, S., Tasmim, S., & Sharma, D. (2016). Why is Gandhi wise? A cross-cultural comparison of Gandhi as an exemplar of wisdom. Journal of Adult Development, 23(4), 204–213. Flanagan, O. (1991). Varieties of moral personality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fredrickson, B. (2001). The role of positive emotion in positive psychology: The broad and built theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218–226. Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. London: Sage. Gregg, R. (1958). The power of nonviolence. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. Hagberg, J. (1984). Real power. Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press. Hora, T. (2008). Compassion. New York: The PAGL Foundation. Iyer, R. (1983). Moral and political thought of Mahatma Gandhi. New  York: Concord Grove Press. Joshi, J. (2019, October 7). Gandhi for a New Generation. India Today. Retrieved from www.indiatoday.in. Kapur, N. (2017). Address to the British Psychological Society. The Psychologist, 30(5), 30–34. Kaufman, S. B. (2020). Transcend: The new science of self actualization. New York: Penguin Random house. Kool, V.  K. (Ed.). (1993). Nonviolence: Social and psychological issues. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Kool, V.  K. (2008). The psychology of nonviolence and aggression. New  York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kool, V. K. (2013). Applications of Gandhian concepts in psychology and allied disciplines. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 55, 235–238.

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Kool, V. K., & Agrawal, R. (2006). Applied social psychology: A global perspective. New Delhi: Atlantic. Kool, V. K., & Agrawal, R. (2010). The psychology of nonkilling. In J. E. Pim (Ed.), Toward a nonkilling paradigm (pp.  349–367). Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling. Kool, V. K., & Agrawal, R. (2011). From empathy to altruism: Is there an evolutionary basis for nonkilling. In D. J. Christie & J. E. Pim (Eds.), Nonkilling psychology (pp. 65–93). Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling. Kool, V.  K., & Agrawal, R. (2013). Whither Skinner’s science of behavior, his assessment of Gandhi, and its aftermath? Gandhi Marg, 35, 487–518. Kool, V. K., & Agrawal, R. (2016). Psychology of technology. Switzerland: Springer. Kool, V. K., & Agrawal, R. (2018). Gandhian philosophy for living in the modern world: Lessons from Satyagraha. In S. Fernando & R. Moodley (Eds.), Global psychologies: Mental health and the global South. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kool, V. K., & Sen, M. (2005, June). Research based on the nonviolence test by Kool and Sen. Paper presented at the German Peace Psychology Conference, University of Erlangen, Germany. Kurzweil, R. (1999). The age of spiritual machines. New York: Viking Books. Kurzweil, R. (2005). The singularity is near. New York: Viking Books. Mann, J. (1993). A social psychology of rules of war: A research strategy for studying civilian based defense. In V. K. Kool (Ed.), Nonviolence: Social and psychological issues. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Mineo, L. (2018). The greatest gift you can have is a good education, one that isn’t strictly professional. Harvard Gazette. Retrieved from www.news. harvard.edu. Nagler, M. N. (1990). Nonviolence as new science. In V. K. Kool (Ed.), Perspectives on nonviolence (pp. 131–139). N.Y.: Springer-Verlag. Oman, D. (2013). Building nonviolent self-efficacy to foster social transformation and health. Gandhi Marg, 35(4), 583–618. Rocco, M. C., & Bainbridge, W. S. (Eds.), (2002). Converging technologies for improving human performance: Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. NSF/DOC-sponsored report. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation. Roy, S. (2011, October 21). Learning from a barefoot movement. TED talk. Retrieved from www.ted.com. Sharp, G. (1960). Gandhi wields the weapon of moral power. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishers. Sharp, G. (1988). Personal communication with V. K. Kool. Skinner, B. F. (1987). Whatever happened to psychology as the science of behavior? American Psychologist, 4, 780–786. Stengel, R. (2011). Introduction: Person of the Year. Time, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011.

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Sternberg, R. J., Nusbaum, H. C., & Gluck, J. (2019). Applying wisdom to contemporary problems. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Struck, F., & Musssweille, T. (1997). Explaining the enigmatic anchoring effect: Mechanisms of selective accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 437–446. Tendulkar, D. G. (1953). Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Vol. VII). Bombay: Jhaveri & Tendulkar. Tsipursky, G. (2017, January 23). What would Gandhi do about Trump. Psychology Today. UNESCO, MGIEP. (2019, October 1). Life size hologram of Mahatma Gandhi discusses education for humanity at the Ahinsa lecture in Paris. Paris. mgiep. unesco.org. Van Dessel, P., Ye, Y., & De Houwer, J. (2018). Changing deep-rooted implicit evaluation in the blink of an eye: Negative verbal information shifts automatic liking of Gandhi. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 16, 266–273. Weber, T. (2018). The Mahatma, his philosophy and his legacy. Hyderabad, India: Orient Blackswan.

Author Index

A Abusafieh, S., 22 Acharya, N., 296, 297 Ackerman, C. E., 20 Adler, N. J., 147 Afolyan, T. O., 112 Afsar, B., 145, 146 Agrawal, R., 12, 23, 26, 27, 30, 54, 55, 67, 77, 103, 104, 111, 115, 122, 124, 143, 146, 147, 149, 151, 153, 162, 186, 216, 245, 250, 251, 255, 259, 292, 293, 304–308 Ai, A.L., 249 Alcock, A., 23 Alladi, V. R., 57 Allport, G., 111, 269 Ano, G.G., 249 Antonakis, J., 159 Anuja, 215 Arnett, J. J., 148 Arulampalam, W., 104 Ashworth, B. E., 157 Astin, A. W., 246

B Balakishan, J., 297 Bandura, A., 104, 109, 114, 115, 125, 147, 152, 186, 279, 280 Bang, A., 214 Banwo, A., 157 Barling, J., 160 Barman, K. C., 258 Barnett, B., 144, 145 Barry, J., 16 Basedau, M., 254 Bass, B. M., 159–161 Baumeister, R. F., 259, 282 Bavarian, N., 78 Beersma, B., 183 Beets, M. W., 76, 78 Belfield, C., 76 Bem, D. J., 266 Bereby-Meyer, Y., 184 Berkowitz, A. D., 75, 77 Berkowitz, M. W., 75–77 Bhana, S., 209, 210 Bhatt, E., 137–139, 200, 227–229, 251, 312

© The Author(s) 2020 V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1

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AUTHOR INDEX

Biagi, M., 18 Biewen, M., 104 Bilgrami A., 28 Blau, P. M., 147 Blazar, D., 78 Blehm, C., 124 Bligh, M. C., 166 Bono, G., 184 Boulware, J. M., 295 Bowlby, J., 199 Braungart, M., 127 Brockman, J., 11 Bronfenbrenner, U., 77, 199 Brothers, L., 179 Brown, J. M., 239 Brynjolfsson, E., 101 Burg, S., 111 Burns, J. M., 160 Business Standard, 72 Butler, T., 12 C Camus, A., 291 Candler, E., 283, 284 Cao, B., 15 Carr, N., 119 Carrington, D., 8, 9 Carter, E. C., 260 Catalano, R. G., 76 Ceballos, G., 12 Cervantes, H., 305 Chatterjee, M., 228 Chaudhary,V., 54 Chauhan, C.P.S., 68 Chiocchio, F., 155 Chua, S.L., 114 Clark, A., 123 Clark, W. C., 11 Clifford, C., 131 Cockburn, H., 6 Cohen, J., 76

Cole, B.S., 250 Cole, M.S., 157 Crede, M., 160, 161 Crist, E., 13–15, 28 Crutzen, P. J., ix, 6, 8, 10, 11 D Dalton, E. M., 199 Dalton, J. H., 199 Dance, A., 103 Dawson, B. L., 141 de Visser, R., 260 De Zhang, 169 Dean, H., 16 Denham, S. A., 78 Deutsch, M., 111, 116, 183, 184, 297 Dharmadhikari, A. D., 31, 38, 39 Di Fabio, A., 22, 23 Dietz, R., 13 Difranza, A., 161 Dobson, A., 16, 17 Dodds, D. M., 76 Dolan, E. W., 102 Dote, D., 18, 220 Duffy, R. D., 145 Dunbar, R. I.M., ix, 197, 198, 203–204 Durlak, J.A., 76 Dusenbury, L., 75 Dyck, J.L., 114 E Eastin, M. S., 115 Elias, M. J., 76 Ellemers, N., 255, 264 Engelman, R., 13 Erikson, E., 117, 137, 151, 264, 268, 279, 282, 291 Etzioni, A., 147 Evans, S.D., 216

  AUTHOR INDEX 

F Fernandez, P., 173–175 Ferrari, M., 166, 308 Festinger, L., 12, 155, 303 Fisher, R., 181, 182, 184, 185 Flanagan, O., 258, 287, 289 Flay, B.R., 76, 78 Follett, M., 181 Foster-Fishman, P. G., 221 Frasquilho, D., 102 Fredrickson, B. L., 118, 157, 186, 268, 290, 293 Fry, D.P., 202 G Galtung, J., 32, 33, 172, 288 Gandhi, M. K., v, 51, 94, 137, 200, 238, 277 Gandhi, P., 206 Ganesan, S., 256 Gangrade, K. D., 93, 94 Gartner, J., 245 Geetha,V., 25, 67 George, L., 57 Gershenson, S., 78 Gifford, R., 21 Gilligan, C., 149, 262, 287 Glassman, M., 122 Goedhals, M., 238 Goldsmith, A. H., 102 Gorp, A., 111 Greenleaf, R., 163, 164 Greer, L. L., 155 Gregg, R. B., 150, 154, 155, 171, 172, 181, 182, 260, 282, 283 Grinevald, J., ix, 8, 11 Groebel, J., 186, 187 Guha, R., 24, 43, 63, 243

321

H Hagberg, J., 299, 301 Haidt, J., 255, 261, 262 Hailwood, S., 16 Hall, G. S., 244 Hamilton, C., ix, 8, 11 Hancock, P. A., 118 Hardin, G., 3, 4, 12–14, 28, 39, 42, 95, 117 Harrison, R. D., 43 Heaviside, S., 76 Heidegger, M., 120–123 Helander, M. G., 117 Herrald, M. M., 261 Hill, J., 200 Hoffman, A. J., 224 Hofmeyr. I., 67, 119, 120, 153, 170, 206, 207 Hofstede, G., 148, 168 Hong, Y. A., 112 Hora, T., 292 House, R. J., 159 Humphreys, D., 17, 18 I Iannello, N. M., 245 Ihde, D., 111 Internet World Stats, 112 Iyer, R., 61, 146, 280, 282, 289, 291, 292, 311 J Jagers, S. C., 15 Jahanbegloo, R., 149 James, W., 244, 294, 312 Jansen, K.J., 157 Jason, L.A., 199, 200, 217 Ji, P., 78 Johanson, J., 162 Johnson, D. W., 183

322 

AUTHOR INDEX

Jones, D. M., 44 Joshi, J., 283 Joy, B., 125 K Kahn, W. A., 157 Kahneman, D., 113, 179, 180, 263, 312 Kamath, M. V., 239, 241 Kapur, N., 277, 278, 281 Katz, D., 142 Kaufman, S. B., 145, 146, 287 Keefe, F.J., 249 Kelly, J. G., 200, 218, 221, 227 Kelly, J. R., 18 Kelman, H. C., 266 Kesuvulu, Y., 227 Key, K., 103 Keynes, J. M., 97 Khoshoo, T.N., 26, 31 King, P. E., 239, 242, 246 Kirby, K. N., 30, 249 Kloos, B., 199, 200 Kluger, J., 9 Koenig, H. G., 253 Kohlberg, L., 35, 75, 255, 258, 262, 287 Kool, V. K., 18, 19, 26, 27, 30, 31, 54, 67, 75, 77, 83, 84, 104, 111, 115, 116, 122, 124, 143, 146, 147, 149, 151–153, 162, 184, 186, 201, 216, 218–220, 245, 250, 255, 259, 280, 285, 287–289, 292, 293, 297, 300, 303–308, 312 Kroll, J., 261 Krugman, P., 101, 102 Kulkarni, S., 32, 110, 126, 129, 301 Kumar, R., 79, 80 Kumarappa, J. C., 215, 227 Kurzweil, R., ix, 307

L Lal, V., 24, 26, 38 Lapsley, D., 77 Laszlo, E., 14 Latane, B., 260 Leach, C. W., 264 Lee, J. J., 242 Lenhart, A., 113 Lenton, T. M., 6 Lerner, J.V., 75 Levine, M., 199–201 Levitt, H., 142 Lewin, K., 158, 260 Lewis, K.M., 78 Lewis, M., 261 Li, C., 56, 61 Li, K. K., 78 Liebana-Cabanillas, F. J., 115 Lindsey, A., 173, 175 Linn, R., 258 Little, D., 251, 253 Liu, Y., 21, 117 Loeb, E., 41 Loewenthal, K.M., 249 Long, W. J., 184 Loranger, H., 133 Lucht, W., 11 Lupton, D., 118 Luthans, B. C., 153 Luthans, F., 156, 159, 183 M MacCarthy, M., 99 Macchi, A., 21 Manion, J. C., 261 Mann, J., 288 Mansharamani, V., 1 Marini, A., 78 Martin, J., 168 Martone, R., 222

  AUTHOR INDEX 

Mascolo, M. F., 264 Maslow, A. H., 24, 147, 148, 186, 245, 285 Maton, K. I., 201, 216, 217 McGuire, D., 173, 175 McQuaid, R. W., 104 Mead, E. M., 18 Meindl, J. R., 163 Miles, G., 122 Mineo, L., 313, 314 Montonye, M., 76 Moolakkattu, J. S., 26, 35 Moos, R.H., 200 Moran, S., 183 Muceldili, B., 157 Mudrack, P. E., 157 Münsterberg, H., 140 Muraven, M., 260 Murray, H., 26, 231, 232, 282 N Naess, A., 41, 42 Nagler, M., 281 Narvaez, D., 203 NASA Global Climate Change, 4 Nauriya, A., 264 Nelson, D. L., 147, 153, 155 Neves, B. B., 114 Nielsen, J., 113 Nilsen, A., 103 Nordblad, J., 11 Norman, D. A., 123 O OECD, 111 Oman, D., 280 Opotow, S., 110, 265–269

323

P Pachauri, R. K., 11 Paluck, E. L., 111 Pareek, U., 145 Parekh, B., 43 Pargament, K. I., 246, 247, 249, 250, 253, 254 Parijat, P., 165 Park, C. L., 249, 250 Partridge, H. L., 113–115 Patankar, P. S., 64 Paul, K., 103 Peral-Peral, B., 114 Pescosolido, A. T., 155 Peters, M. A., 61 Peterson, C., 157 Pezze, B. D., 120–122 Piaget, J., 239, 262 Piazza, E., 18, 220 Pim, J. E., 202–204 Prilleltensky, I., 216 Pulla Rao, D., 226 Pyarelal, 71 Q Quinn, R.W., 157 R Radder, A. J., 24 Radhakrishnan, S. V., 248 Ramón-Jerónimo, M.A., 114 Randolph, L.I., 207 Rappaport, J., 198, 199 Rees, M., ix, 9, 10 Revkin, A., 16 Riccò, M., 124 Rich, B.L., 157 Riggio, R. E., 162

324 

AUTHOR INDEX

Ripple, W. J., 12 Roblyer, D. A., 184 Robotham, D., 112 Rocco, M. C., 306 Roesch, S.C., 249 Roeser, S., 111 Rosen, L. D., 124 Rosh, L., 157 Rowlands, I., 119 Roy, S., 309–310 Ruskin, J., 37, 57, 63, 64, 107, 127, 171, 205, 218, 242 Ryan, R.M., 157 S Sahibzada, J., 180, 237 Sahu, P. R., 213, 215 Salgado, A., 253 Sandhu, S., 16 Sanford, A. W., 25 Sanghavi, N. D., 65, 163, 257, 265 Sarason, S. B., 199, 200 Savioja, P., 118 Schachter, S., 155, 156, 158 Schein, E. H., 168, 170 Schlosberg, D., 16 Schumacher, E. F., 33, 204 Schwab, K., 97 Schwagerl, C., 6, 10 Seligman, M., 152, 163 Sen, M., 76, 305 SEWA, 200, 228, 251 Sharp, G., xi, 277, 282, 289, 290 Shaw, M. E., 157 Shek, D. T. L., 247 Sherif, M., 266, 293 Shi, L.P., 104 Shinn, L. D., 25 Silverman, K., 104, 105 Simmons, D., 112 Singh, R. P. B., 34, 36 Skaria, A., 146, 151

Skinner, B. F., 13, 104, 147, 150–152, 216, 244, 245, 278, 279, 287, 293 Smith, A., 260 Smith, S. S., 259 Snyder, F. J., 75–80 Sörqvist, P., 21 Spallino, J., 76 Spreitzer, G., 3 Steffen, W., 7, 14 Sternberg, R. J., 287, 295 Stettner, A., 98, 100 Struck, F., 312 Summers, L. H., 97 Summy, R., 202 Sunar, D., 258 Sunstein, C. R., 50 Sykes, M., 71 T Tajfel, H., 31, 111 Tangney, J. P., 260, 261 Tarakeshwar, N., 247 Tedersoo, L., 196 Tendulkar, D. G., 150 Thaler, R. H., 22, 180 The Hindu, 239, 267, 268 Thompson, L. L., 124 Tobitt, S., 112 Torres, N., 1 Trainer, T., 204 Tsipursky, G., 286, 287 Turkle, S., 124 Tweed, R. G., 61 U UNDP, 53 UNESCO, MGIEP, 51–53, 85, 86, 301 University of East Anglia, 50 UNO, 53 Ury, W., 181, 182, 184, 185

  AUTHOR INDEX 

V van den Hoven, M. J., 111 Van Dessel, P., 311 Vaughan, A., 4, 8 Vergauwe, J., 165 Vick, K., 113 Villani, D., 246 Vivarelli, M., 99 Volf, M., 246 W Wagner, N., 114 Walzer, M., 258 Weber, T., 266 Wendt, H., 157

Wilson, C., 9 Wired, 100, 125 Wise, S., 155 Wolff, T., 200 Worthington, E. L., 246, 247 Wrzesniewski, A., 143–145, 147 Y Yeo, S., 8 Z Zaleznik, A., 158 Zechmann, P. A., 102, 103 Zhao, X., 114

325

Subject Index

A Adaptation, 27, 140, 168, 223 Ahinsa lectures, 51 All India Nai Talim Association, 85 Ameliorative change, 216 Anthropocene evidence, 7–8 and noosphere, 11–12 Anuvrat, 30, 299 Aparigraha, v, viii, 29–30, 34, 111, 163, 178, 186, 210, 216, 299 Aparigraha and pro-environmental behavior, 29–30 Applied psychology, ix, 141, 290–303 Appropriate technology, 33 Attitude change, 30–32, 266 Autocratic leadership, 161 B Bapu, vi, 214, 215 Barefoot College, 309–310 Bhatt, Ela, 137, 139, 227–230, 293 Bolivia, 18, 72, 73

Bread labor, 65, 67, 106–109, 154, 170 Broaden and Build Theory, 118, 157, 186, 268, 290, 293 Brundtland Commission, 34 Brute force, 25, 150, 179, 257 Buniyadi shiksha, ix, 60, 62 C Calling Orientation (CO), 137–187 Champaran, 32, 79, 163, 302 Character building, ix, x, 52, 72–80, 85–87, 301 Charisma, viii, 159–165 Charkha, 94, 109, 170 Churchill, Winston, 284 Climate change, viii, ix, xi, 4–6, 16, 19, 23, 27, 43, 294, 295 evidence, 4–6 Cognitive dissonance, 12, 303, 307 Communal living, 197–198, 205, 208

© The Author(s) 2020 V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence, Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1

327

328 

SUBJECT INDEX

Community/communities change, 108, 199, 201, 216, 217, 221 ecology, 196–198, 200 intervention, 108, 200, 216–218, 227, 294 prayers, 28, 31, 149, 154, 175, 210, 221 spinning, 28, 31, 110, 149, 175, 221 Community psychology beginnings, 198–199 objectives, 199–201 Conflict resolution, x, 181–187, 297–299, 307 Confucius, 55, 56, 60, 61 Corporate responsibility (CR), 297 COVID-19, 39–41, 229 Cradle-to-cradle technology, 127 Culture of inclusivity, 172–174 Cycling of resources, 223–224 D Deep ecology, 41–44 Democratic leadership, 139 Development of Gandhi’s religiosity, 239–242 Digital divide, 111–116, 123 and the elderly, 114–116 Diversity management, 172–175 Diversity training, 173–175 Doosri azaadi, 109, 137, 139, 171, 224–228, 231 Dunbar number, 203–204 E Earth charter, 14–15, 23 Ecological citizenship, 15–19 Ecological footprint, 17 Ecological movement, 25, 26

Education character building, x, 72–74 goals, 56, 57, 61, 64, 71, 72, 74, 86 and nonviolence, 70, 302 Educational psychology, x, 51–87, 293 Education through handicraft, 64–68 logic, 65–67 Engineer’s psychology of technology (EPT), 122 Environmental degradation, 2, 17, 27, 43 Environmental ethics, 24–27 Environmentalism and empty belly, 24 and full belly, 24 Environmental psychology, ix, 1–44, 293, 294 historical beginning, 20 Environment and aparigraha, 210 Equity theory, 147 Ergonomics, 117–124 Esprit de corps, 166 Expectancy theory, 147, 148 Experiential learning, 69 Experiments on obedience to authority, v Extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation, 147–152 F Father of the nation, 283 ‘Flow’—psychology, 130 Fourth revolution, 97 Free education, 62–63 Funology, 118 G Gandhi, M. K., v, 1–44, 51, 93–130, 137–187, 195–232, 238–244, 277–314

  SUBJECT INDEX 

and aparigraha, v, 34, 111, 163, 178, 186, 210, 216, 299 and applied psychology, ix, 290–303 and attitude change, 30–32, 266 communities, 150, 170, 205, 294 and community intervention, 108, 216–218, 294 community psychology, x, 108, 195–232 conflict resolution, x, 185–187, 299 and Confucius, 60, 61 and culture, x, 34–37, 74, 108, 169–172, 175, 180, 218, 227, 254 and the ecological movement, 25, 26, 32–34 and education, ix, 2, 51–87, 175, 209, 223, 301 enigmatic personality, 282–286 environmental ethics, 24–27 environmentalism, 24–26, 34, 41–43 and generalist, 1–2 and Kelly’s four-fold ecological model, 221 and leadership, x, 157–166, 172, 296 and machines, x, 94–97, 116 means-end relationship, 178–180 and morality, 35 and nature, viii, 24, 36, 39, 40, 72, 151, 187, 210, 253, 264 relevance, 79, 277–282, 288, 289 and religion, vii, x, 71, 110, 117, 146, 207, 237–269, 312 religion of nonviolence, 247–249, 254 and religious conversion, 230, 242–243 and self-reliance, 32–34, 108, 206, 214, 229 and Socrates, 60, 61

329

spirituality, 241, 247–254 and technology, x, 2, 33, 39, 51, 67, 94, 97, 100, 116, 125–130, 281, 296, 297 and temperance, 31 truth, vi, viii, 61, 120, 130, 137, 151, 165, 222, 248, 259, 264, 279, 286, 290, 299 Gandhian engineering, 126–129 Gemstone Project, 305 Generalist, 1–2 Goa, 69, 70 Google, 119 Greenhouse effect, 5 Group cohesiveness, 154–158, 169 Group dynamics, 143, 153–167 Gurukul, 57 H Hedonomics, 117–124 Hierarchy of needs, 117 Holocene, 9 Humanist psychology of technology (HPT), 122 I Identity, 18, 37, 75, 102, 109, 151, 167, 175, 264, 279, 282, 289, 294, 302, 308 Identity without affiliation, 279, 282 Individual factors and Gandhi, 143–152 Industrial psychology, 140 Integrative negotiation, 181–185 Interdependence, 153–155, 183, 221, 227, 269 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ix, 5, 11, 23, 42 Intermediate technology, 33

330 

SUBJECT INDEX

J Job crafting, 144, 145, 147 Job orientation, 143 K Kelly’s fourfold ecological model, 221 Krishnamurthi, J., 292 Kulkarni, Sumitra, 32, 109, 110, 126 L Laissez-faire leadership, 160 Leadership, x, 1, 2, 81, 86, 139, 141, 143, 154, 156–166, 172, 209, 257, 278, 282, 296, 307 Leading by example, 162 Literacy, 66, 212 M Machines and the tragedy of the commons, 95–96 and unemployment, 96–97 Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace (MGIEP), 52, 53, 86, 87, 301 objectives, 53–55 Malana, 18, 19, 218–220 Meditative goals, 123 Medium of instruction, 59, 68–87 Member interdependence, 153–155 Milgram, v–vii, 290, 304 Minimalistic living, 206, 214 Modern education, 74–87 Moral disengagement, 280, 307 Moral engagement, 280, 312 Morality and means and ends, 258–259 and moral inclusion, 264–269 and moral reasoning, 262–264

and moral shaming, 260–262 and religion, x, 237–269 and self control, 259–260 Moral values, 54, 72, 73, 75, 76, 93, 126, 264, 282, 311 Music of the spinning wheel, 129–130 Mutual coercion, 14, 28 N Nai Talim genesis, 58–59 global level, 85–87 salient features, 62–87 schools, x, 60, 69, 80, 85, 116, 211, 213, 214, 223, 302; 21st century, 80–81 National Science Foundation, 2, 306 NBIC tetrahedron, 306, 307 Negative charisma, 165 Niranjana Kalarthi, 32, 81, 82, 312 Non-possession, viii, 29–30, 32, 111, 163, 178, 186, 210, 216 Nonviolence and education, 52, 70–72, 309 Noosphere, 10–12 Norm activation model, 21 O Oceanic circles, x, 202, 204 21st century, 204 Ohlange school motto, 58, 170 Onion model, 168 Operant conditioning, 106, 147 Organization, viii, 2, 14, 99, 112, 137–143, 145, 147, 149, 155, 157, 158, 160, 161, 166–175, 180, 181, 186, 200, 214, 228, 238, 267, 296, 297, 299, 300 systems approach, 142

  SUBJECT INDEX 

systems theory, 142 Organizational Behavior (OB) and Gandhi, x, xi, 137–187, 301 group factors, 153 individual factors, 143–152 organizational factors, 167–174 Organizational Citizenship Behavior, 166 Organizational culture, 167–172 Organizational factors and Gandhi, 167–174 Organizational governance, 178–180 Organizational psychology, 140–141, 143, 147, 148, 158, 186, 293, 308 nature, 141–143 Organizational structure, 138, 143 Organizational vision, 175–178 P Philosophy of education, 55–60 and Gandhi, 57–60 Phoenix Settlement, 28, 107, 119, 123, 146, 153, 154, 170, 203, 205–207, 221, 251, 296 Pitch fork experiment, 156 Plant communities, 195, 196, 198 Plato, 55, 56 Positive charisma, 165–166 Priming, 31, 263, 293, 308 Prisoner’s dilemma, 297 Problematic Internet Use (PIU), 125 Pro-environmental behavior, 19, 21–23, 29–30, 294 Pro-environmental behavior and nudging, 22–23 Pro-environmental behavior and priming, 29 Project Zero, 313 Psychology of religion, x, 110, 237–269, 308

331

Psychology of technology, x, 93–130 Psychotechnology, 140 R Reading, 29, 63, 66, 67, 76, 106, 107, 116, 119, 120, 130, 205, 241, 242, 247 and technology, 67 Religion and mental health, 249–250 and peace, 254 and the sacred, 246, 247, 250–254 Restorative change, 216, 217 Robber’s Cave experiments, 266, 293 Roy, S. Bunker, 309–310 S Sabarmati Ashram, 28, 203, 211–212, 223, 253 Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya, Bardoli, India, 81–85 Sarvodaya, 37, 63, 64, 171, 248 Satyagraha, 37, 81, 128, 146, 148, 150, 151, 158, 163, 170, 174, 182, 186, 207–210, 239, 244, 249, 256, 259, 283 Scarring, 103–106 Science and morality, 94 and values, 54 Scientific management, 110, 141 Self-actualization, 149, 161, 186, 245, 285, 287 Self-control, vii, viii, 125, 150, 175, 219, 247, 249, 259, 260, 279, 285, 307, 308 Self-efficacy, 102, 109, 114, 115, 152, 279, 280, 282, 307 Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), 137–139, 200, 228, 251

332 

SUBJECT INDEX

Self-reliance and the ecological movement, 32–34 Self-supporting education, 59, 67–68 Servant leadership, 163 SEWA, 137–139 Sevagram Ashram, 212–216 Shallow ecology, 41 Social brain, ix, 197 Social Identity Theory, 31 Socio-emotional development, x, 78, 301 Socio-moral competencies, 75 Socrates, 55, 57, 60, 61 Soul force, 25, 150, 179, 257 Specialist, 1–2, 105 Spinning wheel message, 109 and moral inclusion, 110–111 music, 109–111, 129–130 Spirituality and mental health, 249–250 and peace, 254 Stateville Correctional Center, 305 Structural violence, 172, 288 Succession, 223 Sumitra Kulkarni, 301 Superordinate goals, 154, 155, 266 Sustainable ecology, 34–37 Swadeshi, 37, 126, 170, 202–203 Swaraj, 25, 32, 125–130, 139, 170, 171, 201–203, 225, 229 Swarajya Ashram, 81, 85

Technology and unemployment, 97–106 Technology, consequences, 117, 124–125, 306 Temperance, 12–14, 27–29, 31 Temperance and mutual coercion, 14, 28 Temperance and pushing back, 13 Temperance and scaling down, 13, 28 Temperance building, 12–14, 27–29 Textile Labour Association (TLA), 137–139 Theory of planned behavior, 21 Theory of triadic influence (TTI), 77–81 Theory Z, 287 Tipping point, 6 Tolstoy Farm, 28, 58, 79, 154, 175, 203, 208–210, 216, 221, 223, 251, 279 Tragedy of the commons, ix, 3–4, 12, 13, 27, 39, 95–96 Transactional leadership, 160 Transcenders, 287 Transformational leadership, 158, 160, 172 Triadic reciprocity theory, 114, 115 Trusteeship, 175–178, 186, 187, 227, 254, 297 Truth and reconciliation committee, 298

T Tapas, v, viii, 25, 28 Tapasya, 247 Techno-fix, 3, 13 Technology and ‘flow,’ 129–130 Technology and swaraj, 125–130 Technology and the means-end relationship, 178–180

U Unemployment causes, 97, 98 compensation effects, 99–102 psychological effects of, 102–103 scars, 103–106 Universal education, 62–64 UNO, 34

  SUBJECT INDEX 

UNO Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 51, 52, 72 and Gandhi, 53 Unto this last, 37, 63, 107, 127, 171, 205, 218 Untouchability, 110, 170, 212, 216, 218, 254 Untouchables, 64, 110, 149, 226, 267, 294 User psychology, 122 V Value-belief-norm theory, 21–22 Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, 3, 37–41, 151, 171, 211, 248, 251, 279

333

Village republic, 26, 202–203, 220, 227–232 Village republic and Dunbar number, 203–204 Vows, 28–31, 151, 154, 171, 175, 178, 212, 248–249, 253, 299 W Water crisis, 16 Wisdom, v, 2, 11, 125–130, 166, 182, 250, 286–290, 292, 295, 301, 308, 311, 314 Writing, 9, 24, 26, 35, 40, 55, 57, 60, 63, 66, 67, 73, 76, 101, 107, 127, 129, 208, 209, 213, 230, 239, 242, 245, 279