Gandhian Inversion of Modern Political Perception

Abstract

The core of Gandhi's theory of politics is to show that the citizen is the true political subject and not the state. In other words, in Gandhi's mind the citizen was always above the state. As such, the political subject's decision on sovereignty becomes, for Gandhi, the true subject of political sovereignty. As a result, the Gandhian moment of politics is an effort to de-theologise and de-secularise the concept of modern politics as presented by the omnipotent sovereign of Thomas Hobbes. His ideas on ethics in politics lead Gandhi to criticise Hobbesian political authority and to disobey the state and its laws beyond the principle of fear. Gandhi's political practice is based on the taming of this fear.