IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/indeco/v53y2016i2p249-270.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Gandhian answer to the threat of communism? Sarvodaya and postcolonial nationalism in India

Author

Listed:
  • Taylor C. Sherman

    (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Abstract

It is an axiom of early postcolonial Indian history that Nehru and his statist conception of nationalism and of economic development dominated the political and economic life of India. As such, scholars have assumed, Gandhian ideas, especially radically non-statist answers to the problems of development, lost influence in this period. This article explores Gandhian economic thinking, in the form of the Bhoodan Movement and three of the thinkers on sarvodaya economics in the 1950s: Vinoba Bhave, K.G. Mashruwala and J.C. Kumarappa. It goes on to demonstrate the complex relationship that these men and their ideas had with Nehru and various levels of the Indian state. It argues that the non-statist ideas remained important in the development of the postcolonial Indian nationalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Taylor C. Sherman, 2016. "A Gandhian answer to the threat of communism? Sarvodaya and postcolonial nationalism in India," The Indian Economic & Social History Review, , vol. 53(2), pages 249-270, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:indeco:v:53:y:2016:i:2:p:249-270
    DOI: 10.1177/0019464616634875
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019464616634875
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0019464616634875?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:indeco:v:53:y:2016:i:2:p:249-270. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.