Gandhiji and International Politics

About The Book

Gandhiji was a nationalist first and stood for the political and social rights of the Indians, first in South Africa and then in India. Later he strove for the political and social rights of the Indians in Canada and in different colonies etc. But his nationalism was not of a parochial type. He was an internationalist and in his own words : “It is impossible for one to be an internationalist without being a nationalist. Internationalism is possible only when nationalism becomes a fact, i.e. when peoples belonging to different countries have organized themselves and are able to act as one man. It is not nationalism that is evil, it is the narrowness, selfishness, exclusiveness which is the bane of modern nations, which is an evil. Each wants to profit at the expense of, and rise on the ruin of the other.” Again and again Gandhiji had emphasized that he was fighting for India’s independence not for India and the Indians alone but for the whole world. A dependent and emasculated India tied to the heels of British Imperialism was a peril to the world—that was Gandhiji’s view. [From Editor’s Foreword]