GANDHIAN CONCEPT OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE: A CRITICAL (PHILOSOPHICAL) APPRAISAL

 
ABSTRACT
Social and political Philosophy has been saddled with the problem of the relationship between the individual and the state. This research focuses on the Gandhian concept of the individual and the state using the method of analysis. Gandhi is of the view that the individual is of supreme value. He is a free moral agent that must subsume himself to working for social progress. The survival of the community, society or state is contingent on effective freedom of the individual. Gandhi idealized a nonviolent democracy and non violent socialism well rooted on individual freedom, justice and egalitarianism. He had an anarchist idea of a society where coercion will be supplanted by concord and the laws of state would become increasingly unnecessary due to the reciprocity of trust and obligation in the relationship between men.