Need More Mahatmas

CL Rajam :

We stand today at a crossroads. Our institutions strain under pressure. Ethical standards in public life erode. Economic imbalances deepen. In this moment, the voice of Mahatma Gandhi calls to us still—not as distant history, but as urgent necessity. Truth. Non-violence. Simplicity. Selfless service. Moral leadership. These are not slogans. They are the framework Gandhi left us to confront the failures that undermine our governance and tear at our social fabric. Look at corruption. 

Transparency International’s Corruption Perce- ptions Index for 2025 ranks India ninety-first out of one hundred eighty-two countries, with a score of just thirty-nine. Below the global average. This is not abstract. It reflects bureaucratic opacity, weak enforcement, and the quiet influence of politics over decisions that should serve the people. Gandhi saw corruption as a moral disease. He said it would diminish only when people understood that the nation does not exist for them—they exist for the nation. He demanded high moral codes and active opposition from those free of such practices. Indifference, he warned, is itself criminal. 

Today, when irregularities appear across levels of administration, his insistence on personal integrity as the foundation of public life challenges every leader who chooses expediency over principle.Economic inequality sharpens the same crisis. According to the World Inequality Report of 2026, the top ten percent of earners capture about fifty-eight percent of national income. The bottom fifty percent receive only around fifteen percent. Wealth concentration is even sharper: the top ten percent hold roughly sixty-five percent of total wealth; the top one percent alone control about forty percent. A handful of large family conglomerates dominate revenues and markets across sectors.Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship answers this directly. Those who hold wealth must act as stewards for society, not absolute owners. 

His call to “live simply so that others may simply live” confronts the concentration of power that leaves millions with limited opportunity. We cannot claim progress while so many remain shut out.Electoral practices reveal further distance from Gandhian ideals. The Election Commission has repeatedly warned against blurring welfare with inducements—enrolling voters for post-election schemes under the guise of surveys, practices that risk becoming bribery under the law. Cash transfers and free distributions timed around polls have become common. Voters are tempted to trade ballots for immediate benefits.Gandhi named this clearly in his seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work. 

True service, he insisted, comes from genuine commitment—not show, not fear of public opinion, not inducement. Leadership means guiding through moral example, not force or freebies.His broader vision of decentralized power challenges the concentration of authority in few hands. He advocated village self-reliance and viewed centralized state power with caution. True swaraj, he believed, begins with individual and community responsibility.

When institutions face perceptions of compromise, his method of satyagraha—firm adherence to truth through non-violent means—offers citizens and leaders a path to demand accountability without deepening division.“Happiness,” he said, “is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” That standard exposes the gap between our professed values and our practiced politics.The rarity of honesty, simplicity, and genuine service that many observe today finds its counter in Gandhi’s life. 

He reduced himself to zero in pursuit of truth. He taught that an error does not become truth by repetition. Non-violence was both his first and last article of faith—extending beyond physical restraint to purity of means in every sphere.“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Transformative change begins with individual transformation.These principles still carry practical force. Fighting corruption requires legal tools and a cultural shift toward the vigilance Gandhi demanded.

Reducing inequality requires policies rooted in trusteeship and simplicity. Restoring electoral integrity requires voters and parties to reject transactional politics. Strengthening institutions requires spreading power more widely through participatory approaches.Gandhi never claimed perfection. He called himself a humble seeker after truth. His relevance lies exactly there—in that humility joined to uncompromising standards.We do not need nostalgia. 

We need courage. Courage to apply truth, non-violence, service, and self-restraint to the realities before us. In a nation carrying the weight of its democratic experiment under ethical strain, economic imbalance, and power asymmetry, Gandhi’s ethic remains our most demanding and most necessary guide. The question is not whether we wait for another Mahatma. The question is whether we will become the citizens and leaders his values require.