2 - Demythicizing "Nationalist Gandhi”: The Unknown Gujarati Roots of Gandhi's Political Thought

        More often than not, Gandhi is remembered as one of the most prominent “nationalist” leaders who successfully led the Indian Independence movement by mobilizing people coming from all parts of the subcontinent. However, recent works have unraveled that Gandhi’s highly idealistic vision of “non-violent home-rule (ahiṃsak svarāj)” was hardly understood by both peasants and his contemporary nationalist leaders during the movement. These arguments may propose the following fundamental question about Gandhi: was Gandhi’s idea really “nationalistic”?
        This paper aims to deconstruct the wide-spread discourse of “nationalist Gandhi” by delving into the lesser-known regional roots of Gandhi’s political thought. Namely, in this paper, I will argue that the core portion of Gandhi’s political thought was derived from “sub-nationalist” ideas of Gujarati intellectuals during the late 19^th century.
        Specifically, I will first explore Gandhi’s concept of “body politic” (an idea to connect Gandhi’s private concerns on sexual desires and his public concerns on political Independence), which triggered most considerable controversies among his contemporary nationalists, was indeed inherited by Gandhi from virtually unknown Gujarati intellectuals such as Manilāl Nabhubhāī Dvivedī and Manḥsukrām Sūryarām Tripāthī. Second, I will analyze how the philosophy behind Gandhi’s experiments with brahmacarya (sexual celibacy) was related to the concept of “social reform (sāmājik sudhāro)” promoted by these Gujarati intellectuals. Third, I will demonstrate how Gandhi’s concept of body politic was concealed and misrepresented by his official publisher and his secretaries who endeavored to maintain the “nationalist” image of “Mahatma” Gandhi.