Reading Gandhi today in countries like Iran helps these to problematize the issue of nonviolence in their respective civil societies. As such the Gandhian critique of tradition and modernity offers a theoretical terrain for a nonviolent approach to politics in Muslim societies. In other words, in order to develop an Islamic approach to nonviolence that is dialogical and pluralistic, one needs to move beyond western models of peace building and conflict resolution by building upon the Gandhian idea of spiritualization of politics.
It is interesting to examine up to what point Gandhi and his principle of “spiritualization of politics” as discussed in Hind Swaraj can help steer Iranian public space away from a state-dominated as well as other forms of politicized Islam, while contributing to a genuine ethical civism.
Gandhi’s critique of theological- political as a non- shared sovereignty, lead to his desire for a dialogical ethics of a nonviolent way of life that would value the other religion while also allowing for spiritual self-transformation. Gandhi’s ventures in the political realm were directed to the same goal of liberative transformation of the public self as related to the spiritual self. Gandhi firmly believed that life was an indivisible whole, and, therefore, actions and beliefs, whether they were political or spiritual, were interrelated.
There is already an evident similarity between the civil disobedience movement in today’s Iran and successful nonviolent movements led by Gandhi in South Africa and in India. What is most important in Iran is that the massive outpouring of anti- fundamentalist sentiments in Iran is so far doubtlessly nonviolent and peaceful.
Chief among the slogans of the demonstrators has been the condemnation of violence. Iranian society is in the midst of an epoch-making renaissance in its political culture and discourse. This transformation in political values, norms, symbols, and everyday codes of behavior is most evident in the peaceful and nonviolent action of all those who have been protesting against theocratic rule and pure exercise of power without ethics in Iran.
There is common agreement among the demonstrators and civil activists that the main contradiction in contemporary Iran is the one between authoritarian violence and democratic nonviolence. Though this nonviolent paradigm is still in the making, it can nonetheless be characterized as a Gandhian Moment in Iran.
This is due to the fact that the protest movement in Iran is nonviolent and civil in its methods of creating social change while also seeking an ethical dimension to Iranian politics. This judgment implies that Iranian civil society is ready to make a distinction between two kinds of approach: searching for truth and solidarity versus lying and using violence.
The Gandhian Moment in Iran exemplifies the other possibility of politics as living responsibly and putting ethics ahead of power relations. Basically, the Iranian public discourse has changed by drinking deeply from the well of nonviolence.
Today young Iranians couch their conversations about politics in a moral vocabulary. For every mention of rights, they would mention responsibility. Iranians need not read Hind Swaraj to live responsibly, but reading Hind Swaraj can only help.
Regardless of how things ultimately turn out in Iran, the protests against religious authoritarianism provided us yet another example of the Gandhian moment of democratizing modernity.
Basically what the recent Iranian example shows us is that if we are that if we are in an era where politics can be defined as essentially a site for higher responsibilities and concern for others, we must recognize that the Gandhian Moment of politics, as exemplified in the Iranian reading, is not merely “the other possibility” for our world, but “the possibility realized in the first instance”.
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