A Comparative Study Of Sun Yat-sen And Gandhi Nationalist Ideology

Nationalism originated in the West, while it could be divided into two branches: the Western Nationalism and Non‐Western Nationalism. This article chooses the Nationalism Thought of Sun Yat‐sen and Gandhi as the theme of this study, Firstly, the article analyses the different generating logic between Western nationalism and Oriental nationalism, and then the relationship among nation, nationalism and nation‐state, which is the theoretical background of Sun Yat‐sen and Gandhi’s Nationalism theory.Sun Yat‐sen and Gandhi were imitators of Western nationalism, they accepted the principles of Western nationalism and imitated the early nation‐states in Europe and imagined their mother countries as a western‐style national community. On one hand, they learned Western nationalism as a weapon to resist Western and to gain national independence. On the other hand, they were doing a self‐expression resisting to Western nationalism. Sun and Gandhi both differentiated the traditional civilization between Western civilization, and made changes to the principles of nationalism: they successfully integrated the moral concern and collective standard into nationalism.Sun Yat‐sen and Gandhi are both nationalist leaders of the20th century in Asia, however, their nationalism has a very different view of history, the nation‐state and the manners of nationalist way of struggle. Sun Yat‐sen accepted the narrative structure of Enlightenment history which based on the distinctions between the West and the East as well as between the enlightened and unenlightened; while Gandhi denied the superiority of Western civilization over Indian civilization, as a result, the Enlightenment view of history based on the distinctions between rationality and irrationality, the enlightened and unenlightened could not occupy the mainstream of Gandhi thought, thanks to which, Gandhi successfully got rid of the hegemony of Enlightenment view of history in modern world history, and this is, to some degree, a transcendence of the Enlightenment view of history. Sun Yat‐sen devoted all he had to pursue the establishment of a modern nation‐state, while Gandhi dreamed of restoring the autonomy in ancient Indian traditional village community. Sun Yat‐sen took the path of violent revolution because of the seriousness and complexity of the national struggle. While Gandhi, who believed in the truth and non‐violence, adhered to the non‐violent way throughout the national liberation struggle.Sun Yat‐sen and Gandhi’s nationalist thought hold lessons for today’s countries which are nationalizing and nationalized also: In what principle should we finish national construction? How to correctly understand nationalism and guide the nationalism to a benign development? Even shall we reflect on the defects of nationalist narrative structure?...