PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Political Ideologies
Explicate the ideological components of Gandhism
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
€Q Note that Gandhism is not a systematic doctrine (Humayun Kabir: a practical idealist) yet forms a coherent ethical-political whole. €R1 Anchor the answer in its foundations — Satya and Ahimsa — from which every component flows.
Body flow
Ethical base — inseparability of means & ends (truth as goal, non- violence as means) → Satyagraha — active soul-force; "hate the sin, not the sinner" Dashrath Singh, Gandhism: A Quest for New Civilization — Sarvodaya, Swaraj, Ahimsa, Swadeshi → Swaraj — self-rule with self-restraint → Sarvodaya — from Ruskin's Unto This Last: progress of all → economic core — Trusteeship & Swadeshi → critique of modern civilisation — Tolstoy, Thoreau, Ruskin → Ram Rajya — decentralised moral self-rule, not theocracy
Counter-view
Often read as unsystematic and anti-modern — resting on moral conversion and a rejection of industrial civilisation rather than on institutional power.
Conclusion routes
& Gandhism is a comprehensive ideology where ethics, economics and politics are inseparable. (2 Its enduring claim is a moral alternative to the coercive modern state.
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
