In Search of Revival from the Pandemic : Relevance of the Gandhian Perspective with Special Reference to India

COVID-19 has disrupted every possible human activity across the world. What began as a health crisis has soon turned into a devastating disrupter for trade and commerce wiping away millions of jobs due to varying degrees of lockdowns, making the trade -off between saving lives and saving livelihoods starker with time. As governments struggle to balance between lockdowns and unlocking in their various versions, the second and more ferocious wave has hit us leaving no doubt that COVID-19 could be a milestone in at least the recent history of human civilisation. It has significantly transformed our consumption patterns, the pace of production, the channels of merchandise and the ways of living in general. This onslaught of circumstances calls for an alternative way of managing human affairs and revisiting Gandhi and his thoughts might provide some valuable insights into how we might want to turn the page. This paper attempts to relate the present crisis to the Gandhian way of thinking to arrive at some concrete take-homes. As a man of the masses, Gandhi worked out solutions by first letting them germinate in the ground. And this would be usually preceded by deep introspection and meditative ruminations by Gandhi himself. All his calls for the peoples’ movements towards nation building and seeking political independence were first tested by him on the core values of truth, non-violence and non-covetousness, which he held very dearly. An attempt is being made here to retain that spirit of holding people at large as change-makers, of course without losing sight of the role of the government as a policy maker and provider of relief during the stressful times. The paper explores into why this may be the right time to tweak the way we perceive economics giving it a Gandhian bend. If the SDGs represent the collective dream of the humanity, a sincere relook towards Gandhian thought becomes an imperative