In a time when everything and everyone is being excessively classified as \u201cleft\u201d or \u201cright,\u201d if we pause to ask whether Mahatma Gandhi was a leftist or a rightist, we begin to see how flawed such classifications are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to certain Western \u201cwoke\u201d arguments, those who support religion, believe in God, and speak of preserving ancient traditions are right-wing. Yet Muslims are not considered right-wing; only \u201ctraditionalists\u201d among non-Muslims are\u2014meaning Christians and Jews are labeled right-wing if they stand by their traditions in the western world. According to India\u2019s so-called \u201crationalists,\u201d none of these groups are right-wing in India; only Hindus are. This unspoken yet widely accepted definition operates in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we define matters this way, must we call Gandhi a right-winger? Gandhi did not abandon religion. He wrote many times, \u201cI am a proud Sanatani.\u201d He argued that politics must contain religion. Even when he used the English word \u201creligion,\u201d what he had in mind was not sectarian faith but the Indian concept of dharma<\/em>. He said: \u201cFor me, there is no politics without religion. But mine is not the religion of superstition, hatred, and violence; it is the religion of universal tolerance. Politics devoid of such morality must be shunned.\u201d He also said, \u201cPolitics without religion is absolute dirt, ever to be shunned,\u201d and further, \u201cTherefore, in politics also we have to establish the Kingdom of Heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By today\u2019s woke standards, anyone who speaks of religion, God, faith, tradition, culture, civilization, morality, or virtue is right-wing. Even in Gandhi\u2019s time, there were \u201crationalists\u201d who branded him right-wing. Today, for political reasons, they hesitate to say so openly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gandhi disliked such classifications. He clearly stated: \u201cI do not divide life into watertight compartments. Human thought cannot be compartmentalized. The life of an individual, like the life of a nation, is an indivisible whole.\u201d Yet the obsession with labeling did not stop. In later decades, when it became clear that Gandhi could not easily be placed as left or right, a new label\u2014\u201ccenter\u201d or \u201cmiddle path\u201d (centrism) \u2014was created for him. Even for someone who rejected labels, the labeling impulse of the left insists that some tag must be attached!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today we forget that there can be many independent positions that are neither left, right, nor center. Where would we place Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose? What label would we give Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel? Some of their ideas resemble those of present-day leftists; some align with so-called right-wing views; some appear centrist; others fit none of these categories. The same applies to A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Even in the thought of Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, one can see strands similar to what today\u2019s leftist \u201crationalists\u201d advocate. In fact, Savarkar himself vigorously initiated movements against religious superstition in India\u2014ideas that present-day \u201crationalists\u201d now reinterpret in their own way and promote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What does this show? Human beings and human thought cannot be poured into a fixed mold and declared to be only that. Labels may make sense only for those who confine themselves within a particular \u201cism\u201d and cannot think beyond it. Otherwise, such classifications and declarations are meaningless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once one binds oneself to a specific doctrine, one inevitably becomes tied to its intellectual boundaries. The limitations of the original ideologues become our own limitations. One ends up defending those ideologues as eternally supreme and infallible. Personal, collective, and national intellectual freedom disappears. The openness to recognize good elements across different schools of thought vanishes. Nations that embraced rigid doctrines\u2014Marxism, Maoism, religious dogmatism\u2014lost their intellectual freedom and creative vitality. They became prisoners of their own frameworks. New creativity and fresh perspectives failed to emerge. Instead, they fell into the illusion that \u201call solutions already exist in our foundational doctrine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, \u201cleft\u201d and \u201cright\u201d labels have themselves become instruments of constant political branding\u2014a kind of class struggle. Although there is more space for free discussion than ever before, this opportunity has become a double-edged sword. While it enables intellectual freedom, it also intensifies ideological conflict. Differences of opinion are damaging social relationships. Previously, there may have been more one-sided brainwashing; now there is constant friction between competing ideologies. The throwing around of \u201cleft\u201d and \u201cright\u201d labels has reached a peak. On social networking platforms, people who once simply wished each other happy birthdays now plunge into political debates. Many digital platforms deliberately push the world toward greater conflict. Public dialogue is important\u2014but wisdom about where, why, and how much it is needed is even more important. Political disagreements are even breaking marriages. Social media algorithms intentionally shape people\u2019s minds in particular ways. Artificial intelligence algorithms are designed accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among political labels, \u201cleftist\u201d is more readily embraced. Early European left thinkers called themselves that. Over time, as the term gained negative connotations, they preferred alternatives. Between the 1950s and 1970s, many called themselves \u201cprogressives.\u201d Later, \u201cliberal\u201d became fashionable\u2014especially in post-Enlightenment Europe. Marxists and left ideologues began using \u201cliberal,\u201d \u201cleft-liberal,\u201d and \u201cNeo-liberal\u201d to describe various ideological streams, while older thought was termed \u201cclassical liberalism.\u201d These were self-chosen ornaments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until the late 1930s, Indian political analysis rarely used labels such as \u201cleftist,\u201d \u201crightist,\u201d \u201cbourgeois,\u201d or \u201cproletariat.\u201d \u201cNationalism\u201d was the common positive term. After 1935, with the rise of leaders influenced by Lenin, these labels were imported. Before that, positive terms like \u201cnational\u201d were prevalent. Negative labels entered political vocabulary later\u2014\u201cextremists\u201d versus \u201cmoderates\u201d during the freedom struggle. Some even borrowed the British term \u201cterrorists\u201d for revolutionary leaders. The label \u201cright-wing\u201d was used as a negative tag for those who rejected leftist views or upheld civilization and Dharma-based thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While leftists have identified themselves as \u201cleft-liberal,\u201d there are hardly examples in Indian history of thinkers proudly calling themselves \u201cright-wing.\u201d The term \u201crightist\u201d originated in Europe, largely as a critical label. Dictionaries define \u201cright-wing\u201d as someone who supports the political or economic right\u2014often capitalism or market economy. By that definition, over 95% of today\u2019s countries would be \u201cright-wing.\u201d Even dictionaries provide little clarity on what exactly constitutes the \u201cpolitical right.\u201d There is no single shared belief that defines it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality, left\u2013right divisions are devices meant to permanently divide people through rigid classifications. Such thinking has no real place in the Indian civilizational ethos. The spirit of genuine Indian intellectual freedom does not resonate with such narrow labels and rigid compartments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (C) G. ANIL KUMAR<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gandhi disliked such classifications. He clearly stated: \u201cI do not divide life into watertight compartments. Human thought cannot be compartmentalized. The life of an individual, like the life of a nation, is an indivisible whole.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"narrow-width-container","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,10,11,12,13],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-indian-history","tag-leftists","tag-mahatma-gandhi","tag-political-labels","tag-wokeism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}