Mohandas Gandhi and the uses of Esperanto

Abstract

In the vast literature that deals with Mohandas Gandhi, very little attention has been paid to his opinions on questions of language. This essay studies Gandhi’s use of the international auxiliary language, Esperanto, as a negative example of a way to find a common language. Gandhi was willing and able to collaborate with Esperantists. And yet, Esperanto was repeatedly invoked by Gandhi in order to attack it as an utopian ideal irrelevant in Indian contexts. Gandhi’s arguments against Esperanto established the rejection of an internationalism of which he perceived Esperanto to be a part. His rejection of Esperanto as an artificially constructed language is integral to his failure to acknowledge Hindi’s artificial construction and imposition in South Indian contexts. The Gandhi-led All Indian Education Conference at Wardha (1937) is situated in this essay, therefore, within a wider context of linguistic parochialisms.