Gandhi, Hinduism, and Humanity

While Gandhi spoke frequently about humanity and humanitarianism, he was deeply suspicious of any attempt to serve or even speak in the name of the human race. In Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, his manifesto from 1909, he wrote, ‘I am so constructed that I can only serve my immediate neighbours (āspās vastā mānaso in the Gujarati text), but in my conceit I pretend to have discovered that I must with my body serve every individual in the Universe. In thus attempting the impossible, man (mānas jāt) comes in contact with different natures, different religions, and is utterly confounded’ (Gandhi 2008: 42). Gandhi considered the effort to address mankind as a whole fundamentally violent, and often described it as a sin. This was because man’s universality could only become manifest by destroying the social particularities that both obscured and made it possible.