Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India

The book is a study of the re-interpretation and relevance of the Bhagavad Gita in modern India. It argues that in the context of nationalism in the nineteenth-twentieth centuries, the intellectuals and ideologues in India turned to the Bhagavad Gita to rethink politics. Historians here discuss the approach of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Bhimrao Ambedkar and others towards the Gita, giving it a new meaning distinctly modern and oriented tot eh future and one different from its classical antecedents. They detail the views of the leaders on questions relating to violence and non-violence, war, sacrifice, justice, fraternity and political community. They point out how the text acquired an international celebrity status and has become a key text for self-reflection of modernity.