Gandhian Thought and Political Morality: A Study of G. Shankara Pillai’s Sabarmati Dooreyaanu

This study analyzes G. Sankara Pillai's play Sabarmati Dooreyaanu through the interrelationship of history, memory, Gandhian politics, social relations, and power. Rather than merely glorifying Gandhian ideals, the play problematizes the gap between the values of truth, non-violence, social equality, and human brotherhood associated with the freedom struggle and the realities of post-independence Indian society. The symbolism of “Sabarmati” and its being “far away” forms the central metaphor of the play. The Sabarmati–Noakhali duality represents conflicts between ideal and reality, non-violence and violence, and human brotherhood and social hatred. History is presented not as a closed sequence of past events but as a living memory that interrogates the present. Gandhi's presence becomes a moral criterion through which the deficiencies of contemporary society are measured.Through a close reading, the paper examines the workings of caste, class, ownership, power, and residual feudal values within family relationships. The play's aesthetic strength lies in representing larger political history through intimate human relationships and everyday conversations. Character language, forms of address, power relations, Venu's blindness, and the ancestral portrait function as dramatic symbols that reveal the complexity of social history. While engaging with certain features of Brechtian political drama and encouraging critical reflection rather than passive emotional identification, the play transcends any single political theory. It explores the interconnectedness of personal life, social structure, and national history. The paper concludes that the declaration “Sabarmati is far away” is not an end to hope, but a call for collective self-criticism and moral introspection.

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