Conclusions 179This "truth and nonviolence" is nothing but the "passion for the service
of the suppressed classes," the children of God. This Gandhian under-
standing of religion acknowledges the interrelatedness of all people and
things in the universe, shuns the extreme individualism that characterized
the ancient search for God by advocating service to humanity, views a
human person as an integral reality, and hence dismisses the traditional
separation of secular and religious realms and broadens the place and
notions of worship (such as spinning wheel, communal amity, removal
of untouchability, and so forth). Gandhi never built temples, went on pil-
grimages, or offered gifts to such places.^24 The moral power he derived
from his commitment to Truth and involvement with the people's prob-
lems activated "the small inner voice," and that voice led him in every-
thing he did. How can religion and politics, or anything human for that
matter, be separate?
Integrating the religious values and traditions of the peoples of the
subcontinent, Gandhi built an integral socio-economic-political program
that rejected untouchability, oppression of women, and poverty; retracted
centralization and control; and repudiated the state as a soulless machine.
It is little wonder that the Sangh Parivar does not take Gandhian under-
standing of religion or his overall dream seriously. The Indian elites and
intelligentsia are also prostrated by their mindless admiration for West-
ern Europe, North America, and fast-disappearing communist citadels
because the Gandhian holistic approach to the Indian problem is much
harder and requires inner dialogue and social responsibility on their
part.
The anarchist, nonstatist, and culturally plural religiosity Gandhi devel-
oped would not surrender the civil society to religious bigots but insisted
on the role of practical morality. As Balraj Puri asserts, "A better knowl-
edge of the realities of the Indian heritage where religion and politics were
neither mixed nor divorced but related in an autonomous manner should
help the country to outgrow the obsession with the Eurocentric concept of
nationalism that cannot ensure either the national unity or its material and
spiritual growth."^25
In the final analysis, there is no homogenous Hindu community in
India, and the Indian civil society is politically shrewd and resilient. That
an Indian respects some of the social myths does not automatically mean
the faith can be converted into ideology or activism. This heterogeneity
and ambiguity is the inherent strength of the Hindu communities, and it
could and should be exploited by the non-Hindu communities to establish
and foster transboundary transactions. The majority-minority, Hindu-
non-Hindu, and other such binary divisions of the Indian society are not
only simplistic but practically impossible, as every community (religious,
linguistic, or caste) can be a majority at the local level but a minority at the
national level. Nonetheless, this is no justification not to do anything, but
an invitation to go back to work: