An Appraisal of Romain Rolland’s views on Gandhi and Gandhism

Abstract

The present paper aims to analyse Romain Rolland’s views on Gandhi and Gandhism. The work chosen here is Romain Rolland's book on Gandhi titled as "Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One With the Universal Being". This book is an impassioned defence of Gandhi and Gandhism at a time when they were being derided as out-played in the West. The appraisal and assessment of Gandhi's ideals of truth and non-violence and of the strategy of passive-resistance against the mighty British empire is of particular interest as it comes from a brilliant mind of the materialist-oriented West. Romain Rolland is the one who goes beyond the binaries and presents his views on Gandhi without the imperialistic gaze. Even though he had immersed himself in India, we still get an outsider's view of the inside, of the cross-cultural understanding. In the paper, the researcher will attempt to cite a place for Romain Rolland's defence of Gandhism.