Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.: Defying Liberals, but Deifying Liberalism
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.: Defying Liberals, but Deifying Liberalism
Gandhi and King were true liberals. They questioned the contemporary interpretation of liberalism which, they thought, was articulated in a distorted form to defend racism and colonialism exploitation in the US and India respectively. In their political battle against such an ideological deviation, they simply applied the fundamental tenets of liberalism which remained their main plank. An attempt was made in the chapter to address ‘the distortions’ in contemporary articulation of certain major and also critical liberal values shaping the socio-political responses towards specific groups of people. Both Gandhi and King never came to terms with segregation which was contrary to the fundamental tenets of liberalism. Hence they believed that the difference among human beings were created and sustained artificially by reference to a deviant conceptualization of liberalism.
Keywords: Social Justice, illiberalism, political reconciliation, American Dilemma, racial prejudices, colonial negativism
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