Relevance of Gandhian economic thought: an appraisal

Gandhi was the great philosopher of India who had played major role in the national movement that defeated the British colonialism in India. He engaged in non cooperation, non violence and peaceful struggle against British rule. However, he was not economist but he has given economic vision, if implemented, it would have relieved India from many socio-economic problems. He mostly emphasised on the small scale industries and also adopted the principle of Swadeshi. It evades economic dependence on external market forces that could make the village community weak. He encouraged cottage and village industries to improve the economic condition of the country. By the encouragement of Mahatma Gandhi small scale trading of pure Indian products started and gradually small scale business changed into industries. New large scale and foreign industries with intensive mechanization are coming with ongoing process of globalization which is mainly responsible for many socio-economic problems. Therefore, the main focus of this paper is analysing the present economic scenario from the Gandhian economic perspective.