Abstract

Drawing on the Indian writer Arundhati Roy, M. K. Gandhi is often criticized today as an alleged racist and defender of the caste system. This debate obscures the radicality of Gandhi’s concept of civil disobedience. It is used as an attempt to delegitimize Gandhi as a possible reference for contemporary statements and struggles against wars, neocolonial exploitation and the destruction of the biosphere. The first part of this text is dedicated to refute these accusations and to restore the legitimacy of Gandhi as a reference for emancipative social movements and an inspiration to learn from his mass campaigns. The second part describes in detail Gandhi’s concept of a »revolutionary civil disobedience«. It is shown that this concept is based on an anarchist and anti-capitalist vision of a free society. That is why Gandhi’s radicality differs from a reformist interpretation of civil disobedience.