Gandhi's Vision and Values

India today faces the onslaught of multinational investment and globalization in every sector of its economy, more so in agriculture. Will the new economic policy relieve the hunger of or provide remunerative jobs to the millions living in rural India? In order to answer this question, author Vivek Pinto explores the basis for reconstructing a more harmonious, poverty-free, nonviolent, and self-reliant society based on the ethical and moral principles with which Mahatma Gandhi experimented. The analysis in Gandhi's Vision and Values is based primarily on a small polemic pamphlet, Hind Swaraj or "Indian Home Rule," which Gandhi wrote in 1909. The author addresses the context and text of Gandhi's religiously shaped views on agricultural development and the broad relation between his religious perspectives and agricultural issues. A Gandhian critique of how the planned system of agricultural development has failed to resolve the conditions of poverty is also presented. Finally, the author explores the possible relevance of some Gandhian experiments and current alternatives and provides concrete examples of ways in which social transformations on the path that Gandhi delineated can undeniably be successful. Filling an important gap in Gandhian studies, this book successfully explicates Gandhi's vision of a remarkable, constructive, and inward-looking program for reconstructing a truly independent, self-reliant, and spiritual nation.