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Reflections on Gandhi
"Reflections on Gandhi" is an essay by George Orwell, first published in 1949, which responds to Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. The essay, which appeared in the American magazine Partisan Review, discusses the autobiography and offers both praise and criticism to Gandhi, focusing in particular on the effectiveness of Gandhian nonviolence and the tension between Gandhi's spiritual worldview and his political activities. One of a number of essays written by Orwell and published between Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), "Reflections on Gandhi" was the last of Orwell's essays to be published in his lifetime and was not republished until after his death.
George Orwell was born in Motihari, Bihar, in 1903, and lived there for a year. As a young man he worked for the Indian Imperial Police in the province of Burma, then part of British India, from 1922 until 1927. Later he worked for the BBC's Indian Section, writing and producing reviews and commentaries on news for broadcast in India and Southeast Asia from 1941 to 1943. At the BBC, Orwell worked with Balraj Sahni, who had previously lived with Mahatma Gandhi at his ashram in Sevagram.
Gandhi's The Story of My Experiments with Truth was first published in serial form in Navajivan from 1925, then translated into English and published as a book in 1927. The book describes Gandhi's childhood, his time spent in London and South Africa, and life in India until the 1920s, with a focus on the author's moral and religious development. The 1948 American edition, published by Public Affairs Press, was the first edition of the full text to be published outside India.
In August 1948, William Phillips invited Orwell to review The Story of My Experiments with Truth for Partisan Review. Orwell was a regular contributor to Partisan Review, which had been established in 1934 as an organ of the Communist Party USA but later became an anti-Communist publication. His contributions between 1941 and 1946 included a number of "London Letters" discussing the Second World War, as well as pieces on politics more broadly and the London literary milieu. Orwell had become well known in the United States after the publication of Animal Farm in 1946.
Orwell had previously written about Gandhi in a number of letters and book reviews, and in his "As I Please" column in Tribune in 1944. In his review of Beverley Nichols' Verdict on India, Orwell defended Gandhi from Nichols' attacks, though in a 1948 letter to Julian Symons he acknowledge he harboured "dark suspicions about Gandhi".
Orwell quickly accepted Phillips' invitation, writing the essay in late 1948 while revising Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the review was published in January 1949. "Reflections on Gandhi" was one of a number of essays by Orwell published in the years between the publication of Animal Farm in 1945 and Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949; others include "Notes on Nationalism", "Politics and the English Language", "Why I Write", "The Prevention of Literature" and "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad". "Reflections on Gandhi" was Orwell's last published essay.
In "Reflections", Orwell draws on points he had previously made in a review of Louis Fischer's Gandhi and Stalin (1947), on the question of Gandhi's perspective on the Holocaust and the possible efficacy of Gandhian tactics in a society like that of the Soviet Union. While the essay draws on themes from his earlier writing on Gandhi, in "Reflections" he also offers a more developed perspective on Gandhi and responds to the problems posed by the post-war world. Descriptions of Gandhi as a saintlike figure, which Orwell addresses in the essay, had been advanced by British and American clergymen including John Haynes Holmes and literary figures including the French author Romain Rolland.
Gita V. Pai suggests that Orwell took the title of "Reflections on Gandhi" from Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence (1908), which Pai suggests may also have influenced Nineteen Eighty-Four; Pai also suggests that Orwell may have seen connections between Gandhi's use of political symbolism and imagery, and Sorel's argument for the necessity of symbolism and mythology in politics. Alex Woloch, meanwhile, suggests the title—and similar titles, including "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad", "Second Thoughts on James Burnham" and Notes on Nationalism—indicates the importance of the process of thinking, or reflecting, in Orwell's work, and serves "to divide the focus between process and object, means and end".
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Reflections on Gandhi
"Reflections on Gandhi" is an essay by George Orwell, first published in 1949, which responds to Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth. The essay, which appeared in the American magazine Partisan Review, discusses the autobiography and offers both praise and criticism to Gandhi, focusing in particular on the effectiveness of Gandhian nonviolence and the tension between Gandhi's spiritual worldview and his political activities. One of a number of essays written by Orwell and published between Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), "Reflections on Gandhi" was the last of Orwell's essays to be published in his lifetime and was not republished until after his death.
George Orwell was born in Motihari, Bihar, in 1903, and lived there for a year. As a young man he worked for the Indian Imperial Police in the province of Burma, then part of British India, from 1922 until 1927. Later he worked for the BBC's Indian Section, writing and producing reviews and commentaries on news for broadcast in India and Southeast Asia from 1941 to 1943. At the BBC, Orwell worked with Balraj Sahni, who had previously lived with Mahatma Gandhi at his ashram in Sevagram.
Gandhi's The Story of My Experiments with Truth was first published in serial form in Navajivan from 1925, then translated into English and published as a book in 1927. The book describes Gandhi's childhood, his time spent in London and South Africa, and life in India until the 1920s, with a focus on the author's moral and religious development. The 1948 American edition, published by Public Affairs Press, was the first edition of the full text to be published outside India.
In August 1948, William Phillips invited Orwell to review The Story of My Experiments with Truth for Partisan Review. Orwell was a regular contributor to Partisan Review, which had been established in 1934 as an organ of the Communist Party USA but later became an anti-Communist publication. His contributions between 1941 and 1946 included a number of "London Letters" discussing the Second World War, as well as pieces on politics more broadly and the London literary milieu. Orwell had become well known in the United States after the publication of Animal Farm in 1946.
Orwell had previously written about Gandhi in a number of letters and book reviews, and in his "As I Please" column in Tribune in 1944. In his review of Beverley Nichols' Verdict on India, Orwell defended Gandhi from Nichols' attacks, though in a 1948 letter to Julian Symons he acknowledge he harboured "dark suspicions about Gandhi".
Orwell quickly accepted Phillips' invitation, writing the essay in late 1948 while revising Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the review was published in January 1949. "Reflections on Gandhi" was one of a number of essays by Orwell published in the years between the publication of Animal Farm in 1945 and Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949; others include "Notes on Nationalism", "Politics and the English Language", "Why I Write", "The Prevention of Literature" and "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad". "Reflections on Gandhi" was Orwell's last published essay.
In "Reflections", Orwell draws on points he had previously made in a review of Louis Fischer's Gandhi and Stalin (1947), on the question of Gandhi's perspective on the Holocaust and the possible efficacy of Gandhian tactics in a society like that of the Soviet Union. While the essay draws on themes from his earlier writing on Gandhi, in "Reflections" he also offers a more developed perspective on Gandhi and responds to the problems posed by the post-war world. Descriptions of Gandhi as a saintlike figure, which Orwell addresses in the essay, had been advanced by British and American clergymen including John Haynes Holmes and literary figures including the French author Romain Rolland.
Gita V. Pai suggests that Orwell took the title of "Reflections on Gandhi" from Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence (1908), which Pai suggests may also have influenced Nineteen Eighty-Four; Pai also suggests that Orwell may have seen connections between Gandhi's use of political symbolism and imagery, and Sorel's argument for the necessity of symbolism and mythology in politics. Alex Woloch, meanwhile, suggests the title—and similar titles, including "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad", "Second Thoughts on James Burnham" and Notes on Nationalism—indicates the importance of the process of thinking, or reflecting, in Orwell's work, and serves "to divide the focus between process and object, means and end".
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