Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was not a political philosopher in the conventional sense of the term. He never professed, propounded or even pretended to have practiced any new philosophy as such. His experiments and practices are inspirations in the true sense. His practices become ideal and philosophy for others. This paper examines the nature of political thoughts and ideas of Gandhi and its relevance today. Gandhi was an epitome of humanism. Gandhi’s political ideas are basically influenced by his own idea of religion, ethics and morality. Efforts are made to discuss specially, his greatest understanding and practice of politics and the idea of state, democracy, decentralization, freedom of speech, liberty, equality, rights and duties, social justice and popular sovereignty. He was an anarchist, who believed in stateless and party less societies, enlightened anarchy and decentralized decisionmaking process. To him politics was not an obnoxious fighting or crave for power. Politics, is rather, a religious politics, the moral means and the ethical norms through which life of the people could be and should be organized. He looked for legitimacy of authority not in law or constitution, not in legislature, not in executive, not in judiciary but in the conscience of the individual himself or herself. He pleaded for non-violent state, non-violent decentralized democracy in which governance will start from below. All his ideas are individual-centric, individual is the starting point, individual is the end and the entire thought process revolves around the individual. In a country like India, with great diversity, concept of secularism was a fundamental feature of the non-violent state. The relevance of Gandhi’s political values and ideas are much needed today especially, in the present age of violence and intolerance.

Politics, State, Democracy, Decentralization, Popular Sovereignty