What Gandhi Would Think of Modernity

The modern-industrial model made Gandhi squirm. In reference to this notion of modernity, he meant the new way of living which “emerged from the Enlightenment and…from the Industrial revolution (Parel, “Introduction,” Hind Swaraj, xvii). This new way of life was one in which humans exploited their environment for the purpose of social advancement and economic prosperity. In Gandhi’s fruitful description of this “civilization” in Hind Swaraj, he paints a picture of the world in which men are greedy and dependent on machinery to the point where they are “enslaved by temptation” and their dependency on “luxury” (Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, p.35-37). This would get to a point where “men will not need the use of their hand and feet” (Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, p.35-37). Overall, Gandhi finds that civilization is “no inducement to morality” and that the people in Europe who had already fallen prey to its perils lack “strength or courage” and “can hardly be happy in solitude” (Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, p.35-37). Nearly a century later, Gandhi is not off-base. We can sit in the comfort of our homes and have every single one of our needs met with the mere lift of a finger. We can have food delivered to our door when we are hungry, and the entire world is at our fingertips with the use of the internet.

Gandhi’s criticism of modernity is not to be confused, however, with an outright criticism of all kinds of technology. In reference to the Singer sewing machine, Gandhi wrote “any machinery which does not deprive masses of men of the opportunity to labour, but which helps the individual and adds to his efficiency, and a man can handle at will without being its slave” (Iyer, “Proper Use of Machinery,” Essential Writings p.401). In the case of the sewing machine, humans maintain control over the machine; they do not relinquish their minds. The same can be said about the bicycle. In general, Gandhi felt that not all inventions are the same. He “would prize every invention of science made for the benefit of all,” but he obviously would not “care for the asphyxiating gasses capable of killing masses of men at a time” and has “no consideration for machinery which is meant either to enrich few at the expense of many, or without cause to displace the useful labour of many” (Iyer, “Proper Use of Machinery,” Essential Writings p.402). Gandhi does not object to inventions which provide great benefit to humans, as long as these inventions do not go beyond the reach of human mastery to the point of no return. When humans relinquish control to inventions to the detriment of themselves and other humans, it crosses a line. From this we can extrapolate that Gandhi probably would not object to the use of the Covid-19 vaccine because its use does not deprive humans of their morality or sense of being in the world and would make strides to stop the health crisis we are currently experiencing.

That said, Gandhi would take issue with the modern-day healthcare system. Not only would Gandhi argue that healthcare should not be institutionalized, Gandhi would argue that the doctor is a third party between oneself and their body. In his section of his autobiography titled “Experiments in Earth and Water Treatment” Gandhi reflects on his own experiments with the use of medicine. During his time in Johannesberg he was “troubled with constipation and frequent headaches” and while he took “occasional laxatives” and had a “well-regulated diet” he still “could hardly call [himself] healthy” (Gandhi, Autobiography, p.142). During his time in England when he realized “he was eating more than [he] needed,” and stopped eating breakfast, his headaches subsided (Gandhi, Autobiography, p.142). On the other hand, he noticed that “Englishmen ate too often and too much” and “that their doctors bills were heavy” because of this. This brought him to the conclusion that “999 cases out of a thousand can be brought round by means of a well-regulated diet, water and earth treatment and similar household remedies” (Gandhi, Autobiography, p.142). Our bodies rebel against our abuse of them and signal to us to stop this abuse when we feel ill. Doctors get in the way of the natural signal. Their prescription of pills makes this worse because patients develop a dependency on medicine instead of healing in the first place. Ultimately, the disruption of this natural signal leads to a disconnect between the mind and the body. The institutionalization of healthcare over the past century has sanctioned this disconnect further. We have strewn far from the intimacy and care that Gandhi felt believed were the foundation of caregiving.

Similarly, Gandhi felt that the British education system created an undeveloped heart. In Gandhi’s view, modern education devalues life experience. Gandhi writes: “the ordinary meaning of education is a knowledge of letters. To teach boys reading, writing, and arithmetic is called primary education”. On the other hand, “a peasant [who] earns his bread honestly…has ordinary knowledge of the world” (Hind Swaraj, 101). While modern education teaches children arbitrary skills, it does not provide children with the innate wisdom and sense of morality that one gets from experiencing the world. This system “thrives on a number of disjunctions that are absolutely fatal to the development of a person’s moral faculty and thus to the conception of the person as a whole entity” (Lal, “The Undeveloped Heart,” p.3). Children educated in the modern system become desensitized to the value of the land on which they were raised and the very soil from which they get their food. They do not care for their neighbors or even begin to understand the role they play in the community in which they live. The modern education system does not regard compassion as an essential part of the human experience. To combat this, Gandhi recommends a return to “handicraft” (Lal, “The Undeveloped Heart,” p.3). Gandhi hoped that this would re-establish the connection of the mind to the body and the body to space. In Gandhi’s view, a life of modernity—living without respect for one’s body and one’s surroundings—is a form of violence.