was Reluctant to
you
think R. Gandhi
communicate? Justify?
Answers
Answer:
Introduction
This article sets out to analyze Gandhi's communication both in his personal relations and in his collective actions. The outcome of a contribution made during a conference in Delhi in 2011, it is, to our knowledge, the only example among the countless works on Gandhi to deal exclusively with communication. In Gandhi's communicational approach, we find a great sense of empathy. More broadly speaking, the interactional approach of co-constructing meaning seems to lie at the heart of his methodology, enabling him, on the one hand, to succeed in convincing his interlocutors and, on the other, to impart a highly symbolic dimension to his collective actions.
Gandhi, the communicator
In India and the world over, Gandhi is known as the father of the Indian nation and the man who gave us the concept of nonviolence, put into practice as early as 1921 with the notion of ahimsa. There is ample material on the life and work of Gandhi seen from a political, historical or sociological perspective; indeed, many works at the Gandhi Peace Foundation Library in Delhi is devoted to the subject.
On the other hand, a rarely studied aspect is that of Gandhi, the strategist and communicator, capable of embodying both a people and a cause. His statement: "My life is my message" sums it up aptly; it is this aspect that we propose to study here.
The methodology developed for this purpose is threefold: review of existing literature, mainly Gandhi's biographies, as well as the archives of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, Delhi, visit to his residence in Delhi and participation in the seminar Rethinking Gandhi: A Communication Perspective, organized by the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, Jamia Millia University, Delhi in March 2011. What emerges from this research is that apart from studies on Gandhi as a journalist and editor, there is hardly any analysis of his approach to communication, in particular his interpersonal communication. The present anthropological work attempts to fill in these gaps. In order to define Gandhi's communication in his interpersonal relations, and more generally, his symbolic and collective actions, we would also do well to dwell on the possible influences of the Hindu philosophical system.
In this perspective, we will study the actions and behavior of Gandhi, focusing on certain aspects of his individual communication which display an affinity with what the information and communication sciences call inter-personal skills, namely mode of expression, real communication, non-verbal communication, presence and charisma. The present work compares Gandhi's actions with two models relevant to the analysis of his interpersonal communication. Similarly, some symbolic and collective actions have been discussed to throw light on the linkage between individual communication and collective acts. Finally, the links between the