Atlas / Organisations / Gandhian Nationalism

Gandhian Nationalism

Satyagraha · 1915–1948 · India · Anti-colonial · Movement · coding confidence medium

−02ECcollective
+02CUtraditional
−07AUpluralist
−09SClocal
−04IDuniversal
−02CHlawful

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Independence through mass non-violent non-cooperation; moral self-rule prior to political self-rule.

Economic model

Village self-sufficiency, hand production, trusteeship rather than expropriation of wealth.

Organisation of powers

Decentralised village republics; deep suspicion of the industrial centralised state.

Reading note

Radical in ends and method, deeply decentralist, and economically closer to distributism than to socialism.

Check a claim about Gandhian Nationalism. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored −02

Coded −2: village self-sufficiency and trusteeship rather than expropriation.

  • Programme textHind Swaraj (1909) rejects industrial civilisation itself, not only British rule.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored +02

Coded +2: reformist on untouchability and traditional on caste and gender.

  • ScholarshipCampaigned against untouchability while defending varna, which Ambedkar attacked him for.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −07

Coded −7: deep suspicion of the centralised industrial state.

  • Programme textHind Swaraj describes parliament as a sterile woman and a prostitute.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −09

At the local end: the village republic as the unit of self-rule.

  • Programme textProposed oceanic circles of villages rather than a pyramid of authority.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −04

Coded −4: communal unity as a constitutive commitment, and a fast against partition violence.

  • Documented act or statuteFasted in Calcutta and Delhi in 1947–48 to stop communal killing, and was murdered for it.

CH · Method and tempo · scored −02

Coded −2: mass non-cooperation, called off when it turned violent.

  • Documented act or statuteSuspended the non-cooperation movement in 1922 after the Chauri Chaura killings.

Where it came from, and what came after

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

India

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Gandhian Nationalism. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/gandhi/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.