Final Year Project

Project Title

Divinity of Desire: Exploring the Implications of Non-violence tied up with Desire through Gandhi and Ghalib

Description

Shehr e Ashob is a poetic genre written for the declining state of Delhi during the Mughal Empire. Many poets used grief and mourning for Delhi in Shehr e Ashob. The escalating sectarian violence in current Delhi sparks the deeper question of violence in a city where once Gandhi practiced the non-violence movement. Ghalib's sense of grief and Gandhi’s activism allow us to dive deeper into the idea of Non-violence in terms of desire. The paper argues that a non-violence movement does not imply passive ways to resist or soft ways to rebel rather it is an aggressive force of desire that has active non-violent means. It is an understanding of grief, equality, and dependency that is aptly found in Ghalib’s poetry and Gandhi’s political movement.