Sarvodaya of Mahatma Gandhi, realistic utopia

grantor: University of TorontoThe thrust of this thesis is to examine, explain and assess Gandhi's sarvodaya as a certain kind of utopian project, i.e., to propose sarvodaya as a realistic and realizable utopia in the India of today and in the world at large. In examining the concepts of sarvodaya and utopia, and in establishing the links between the two, the study contributes to scholarship on the subject in several ways: (a) by exploring the dialectic, dynamic, imaginative and creative content in sarvodaya; (b) by making explicit the eschatological dimension--hope, teleology and future-orientedness--of sarvodaya dynamics; (c) by suggesting a new sarvodaya economic vision that is in the process of being realized; (d) by giving examples of realistic experimentation with ashram-village dialectic; (e) by taking sarvodaya as a model for theologizing in India; (f) by indicating sarvodaya's ecological implications as an "ultimate response". Chapter One studies sarvodaya of Gandhi from a historical perspective, namely as an ongoing vision and movement in the process of realization. Chapter Two analyzes sarvodaya as an utopian model for stimulating and guiding socio-historical change. The various aspects of people-oriented economy examined in Chapter Three show that sarvodaya economy based on "small is possible" and "small is beautiful" is a possible economic alternative in India and a model that is relevant even for the West. Chapter Four, on Gandhi's experiments with village-ashram as the locus of his liberative praxis, examines ashram in relation to village as a Gandhian model, an experiment in realization of sarvodaya. Chapter Five considers sarvodaya as continuation of Gandhi's legacy mainly by Vidoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan after Gandhi's death. Sarvodaya's affinities with Indian theology of liberation and sarvodaya's ecological implications are discussed in Chapter Six. As an ongoing utopian dialectic, sarvodaya is being realized and yet remains to be realized.Ph.D