Gandhian Approach to Development and Social Work

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Prof. K.D. Gangrade (b. 1926), Vice-Chairman of Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, New Delhi, has been a former Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, and Head, Department of Social Work, University of Delhi. He has also taught at the University of Manchester, UK and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He has served the United Nations as well in various capacities. Prof. Gangrade has 12 books to his credit. He is recipient of Samaj Gaurav (1988) from the Bhartiya Sangthan, Rashtra Ratna (1998) from Viswa Jagriti Mission, and Radha Raman Award (2000) for outstanding contribution to education.

Mahatma Gandhi said I want to write many "new things" but they must all be written on the Indian slate I would gladly borrow from the west when I can return the amount with decent interest" (Gandhi MK 1924, Young India, June 26, p 209) This basic philosophy has neither been followed by the Indian educationists nor by the professional Social Work Educators.

An important Social Work Educator, from the Philippines had once said that although Indians were very proud of their nationalism what they taught in their courses of Social Work was just stinking American material Recently, an eminent American Social Work Educator of the same hue had found that the Schools of Social Work in India were very conservative in their approach and subservient to the establishment The Deans in the USA had in 1982 issued a stern warning to the Reagan administration for its education policy Can our Deans, Directors or Heads of Department of Social Work do that?

While Indian Schools (Department or Institutes) serve unabashedly American and western material, they make only a peripheral grafting of the thought of the great social reformers and activists of the Indian nation. The graft naturally becomes very artificial. It indeed hangs loose from the rest of the material and can be treated merely as a ritual that could well be discarded as something alien to the hard-core of the syllabi one teaches The materials are in no way related to the profession per se, much less to its method.

Most of the Indian teachers dismiss Gandhi as totally irrelevant to the teaching and practice of social work as an Australian educator found them to do so Gandhi was a great Social Activist but our social Work practitioners do not find any material of relevance in Gandhi that would enrich the methods of the profession Whereas Gandhi was quoted exhaustively by Post Aliniky, to draw sanctions for his theory and methods his dismissal seems to be ironical Is it akin to the exile of Mars from Germany.

The profession shows great deal of impertinence and immaturity when we find that it has refused to draw from Gandhi on methods of individual and groups help as well as social action to build its own infrastructure of thrones or methods. The situation looks equally dismal when we find that social workers of stable societies fail to compile materials for building infrastructure of theories from the society itself which though impoverished in goods, so rich in relationship of therapeutic value.

The situation becomes worse confounded when we find that we are trying in vain, to cling to types of professionalism and dogmas borrowed from the USA, which interesting enough the thinking elite of the West have now given up. The latter's emphasis is on development social action, nonviolence, conflictology and development of social networks as a universal agency, that might replace the outmoded bunch of classical institutions provides pointers to the direction of dynamic experiment in the midst of which the Western civilization finds itself today On development Gandhi said: "I will give you a talisman Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him Will he gain any thing by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts.

**Contents and Sample Pages**