Gandhi’s Garden: Gandhianism in Contemporary Environmental Thought and Practice

My research focuses on applications of Mahatma Gandhi’s spiritual, moral, and political philosophy to the ecological and agricultural crises of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Graduate Global Research Grant has enabled me to observe the ways in which Gandhian principles are applied at Navdanya Biodiversity Farm (near Dehradun, India), an experimental organic farm founded by Vandana Shiva in the nineties and devoted to saving heritage varieties of seeds as a way of securing self-sovereignty. At Navdanya, I was able to acquire some of the organization’s foundational literature and attend two seminars led by Vandana Shiva herself. I was also able to meet some friends of a now-deceased environmental activist who was widely regarded as a Gandhian. From this, I hope to discern promises and limitations of environmentalisms that adopt Gandhi’s principles and methods. What can Gandhian ideas offer to a world caught in ever-expanding environmental crises?