Relevance of Gandhi in Contemporary Times

Reading Gandhi: Perspectives in the 21st Century as the acknowledgement page states is an outcome of a one-day conference held in the Department of English at Lucknow University in 2019. Structurally divided into an introduction and fourteen chapters, the anthology captures several interesting and less considered aspects of Gandhi’s life written by scholars drawn from diverse regions. The book is designed to present Gandhi’s thoughts navigating from his politics to principles and code of life. It helps us understand the Mahatma’s legacy and his philosophy which has always been a topic of discussion, especially in the contemporary world. The book’s specified audiences are the scholars of postcolonial literature, gender and cultural studies but I feel the reach of the book is more widespread and will definitely appeal to any general reader interested in being acquainted with Gandhi and his thoughts.

This book explores the applicability of Gandhi and Gandhism in an all-pervading materialistic, consumeristic and polarized twenty-first century. The significance of Gandhi in the modern agnostic world, the secret of his success, his sense of justice, human rights, conflict, and peace building, along with his alternative method of nonviolent resistance or Satyagraha are the questions the work raises as focal issues.