Tolstoi and Gandhi: Passive Resistance and the Kingdom of God

Abstract

This paper aims to focus on an aspect which had not been sufficiently studied in our country so far: the influence of Leo Tolstoy and his work The Kingdom of God Is within You on M. K. Gandhi, especially as regards everything related to the abolition of war and the resources of passive resistance and non-violence as a means to achieve a more just and peaceful world. The paper analyses how Gandhi’s reading of this work came to overlap his knowledge of certain works (Bahagavad-Gītā and the New Testament, particularly the Sermon on the Mount, along with others by contemporary authors). The future Mahatma extracted a great part of the ideological foundations based on ahiۨsā or non-violence and syncretism from this works, and this would lead him to satyāgraha or ‘insistence on the truth’ – an ideology he started to develop in his South African years, transcending merely political issues to impact many other aspects of the human condition. Further noteworthy influences that can be highlighted are the ideas that John Ruskin outlined in his book Unto This Last and those of Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience. Contributing with new bibliographical information, the study also goes into the epistolary relationship between Tolstoy and Gandhi in depth, without forgetting the inspiration that the Russian author exerted on the creation of the ashrams founded by Gandhi.