Anthony J. Parel is a towering figure in the world of Gandhi studies, living alongside so many others like Joan Bondurant, Dennis Dalton, Bhiku Parekh, Judith Brown, and Raghavan Iyer, and so it is appropriate that he has recently written a book asserting that Gandhi is a political philosopher in his own right, if an unconventional one. As Parel notes, most scholars have focused on Gandhi the anticolonial leader, or inventor of satyagraha, or pioneer of nonviolence. Instead, Pax Gandhiana attempts to persuade its readers that one thing was more important than those others: “that one thing is the social and political transformation of India brought about by the positive interactions between the political, economic, ethical, aesthetic, and spiritual ends of life” (p. viii).

Divided into eight related essays, this book is a work of comparative political theory in its own right as it makes the case for Gandhi’s status as a political philosopher by comparison to, and in conversation with, Socrates, Plato, Tolstoy, Tagore, Thoreau, the Gita, and the Ramayana, among others. In contrast with Western philosophy, which seeks to separate what Parel usefully refers to as the “the canonical ends of life—ethics (dharma), economic prosperity and democratic politics (artha), forms of pleasure (kama), and the pursuit of spiritual transcendence (moksha),” Gandhi’s political theory concerns their unification or confluence (p. vii). Indeed, Parel insists that these purusharthas, or the Indian theory of the four ends of life, are the best framework for studying his political philosophy. Thus, to the extent that Gandhi’s thought concerned the confluence of these four ends of life, he should be thought of as both a political philosopher and as positing an actual political philosophy in his own right. In other words, the author argues that we should read Gandhi’s life and work as contributing to the formulation of a philosophy framed by these purusharthas. To view his life and work through any other lens would be a disservice.

Much of this excellent book deals with Gandhi’s view of the state and the function of nonviolence in a nonviolent state. Controversial for some who may disagree, Parel insists that Gandhi posited a coercive state informed and guided by nonviolence. In this sense, the peaceful political order, what Parel refers to as “Pax Gandhiana,” is no fantasy; it is the pragmatic response by the “Newton of nonviolence” to a violent world governed by Weberian states. There is something almost relieving about the author’s account of Gandhi as a political philosopher (he does not trouble himself overly with the predominant views of Gandhi as either a politician or a saint, for example), focusing mostly on primary sources (Gandhi’s collected works alone comprise more than a hundred volumes) to show that Gandhi did indeed advocate for and see the necessity of a coercive state. Given that Parel not only is well known for his work on Gandhi but is also a scholar of Machiavelli, it makes sense that he would highlight Gandhi’s pragmatic statements of the necessity of violence. But what does it mean for Gandhi the political theorist, pioneer of nonviolence, and inventor of satyagraha that he might view violence as necessary? (Parel points out that Gandhi saw the justness of a war against the Nazis and later advocated that independent India should use military force to defend itself against Pakistani incursions into Kashmir, for example.)

Parel frames the writings and the debates between India’s independence leaders in the context of Samuel Huntington’s contested notion of a “clash of civilizations,” arguing that “civilizations are belligerent when they are tied to political and military power.” Alternatively, “peace among civilizations is possible when they are free of such ties” (p. 137). Parel shows that even though Gandhi ultimately considered violence inevitable, insofar as humans live in bodies and therefore must kill to survive, he frames this in the context of “self-defense.” Thus, the author’s Gandhi is less an advocate of a puritanical or binary “violence or nonviolence” but, rather, views nonviolence and violence on a spectrum. The point is to reduce the amount of violence in the world. Gandhi’s state, by extension, is one that uses coercive force to defend itself from external threats and to protect the rights of the citizens who live within it: “Gandhi is a pacifist only within the limits of maintaining internal order and external security with the aid of a minimal state” (p. 163). An expansionist state is not a nonviolent state, but a nonviolent state may, in fact, employ violence. One is reminded of Martin Luther King Jr., who advocated the use of the National Guard in the service of integration of schools as the “intelligent use of police force.” While this makes intuitive and even logical sense, its sophistication may be lost on those who prefer a simplistic binary understanding of “violence or nonviolence.”

The four ends of life, by this account, cannot be supported without a coercive state. A life worth living is one where politics, ethics, pleasure, and transcendence work together. When these ends are out of balance, we see all of the evils of history manifest: war, colonialism, profits over people, racism, sexism, and so on. Given the difficulty of realizing Pax Gandhiana, it is appropriate that Parel includes an entire chapter dedicated to Gandhi’s conception of art. Without training in and appreciation for art, it is likely that the subtleties necessary to weave such a delicate balance would not be possible. Gandhi’s definition of art is similar to Tolstoy’s, as “striving towards the good” (p. 160). This simple statement goes a long way to describe how we achieve nearly all social and political goals, through struggle. In essence, achieving the four ends of life requires art since doing so is not a feat of engineering but a process requiring constant effort.

Much has been justifiably made of Gandhi’s particular idiosyncrasies, most notably his quick temper, his obsession with purification (both moral and physical), and his views on sex. (On these and others, see Joseph Alter’s Gandhi’s Body: Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism (2000) and Manfred B. Steger’s Gandhi’s Dilemma: Nonviolent Principles and Nationalist Power (2000).) However, Parel seems to draw from an almost intuitive reading of Gandhi’s published works, arguing, for instance, that the later Gandhi should be taken more seriously than the earlier Gandhi where one contradicts the other. He justifies this view by employing Gandhi’s own thoughts on the very subject (p. 134). However, in some instances, it is not clear enough that the author’s conclusions are justified. While it is correct, for example, that Gandhi advocated for the use of a coercive state to protect individual human rights and defend against foreign invaders, it is not clear that he squared this view with his insistence that nonviolence would solve all problems. Gandhi may have held two opposing views. I, for one, agree that this tension is inherently productive and that wrestling with it will help to produce a more nonviolent world, a Pax Gandhiana.