Southern Crossings: Gandhians and the Global Peace Movement, 1950s–60s

In late December 1960, hundreds of peace activists from some twenty-five countries convened in Gandhigram, an ashram just outside Dindigul in the south of India. Gandhigram had been established by prominent Gandhian activists in 1947, a few short months after Indian Independence. As the years progressed, the ashram grew into a center of local community building and education, but was also a nodal point in the networks of the Sarvodaya Movement, participating in movements to strengthen popular self-organisation across the country. The larger Sarvodaya movement had attracted much international attention, especially from pacifist groups. The peace conference that opened in Gandhigram in 1960, therefore, was organized under the auspices of the War Resisters’ International (WRI). It was a stage for Gandhian activists to publicize their methods with an international audience, but also functioned as a way for the WRI to become a more globally representative institution, incorporating a broader understanding of pacifism into their own work. In the wake of the conference, the Gandhian activists who had participated in the conference helped to build a network spanning the Afro-Asian world, with the intention of using their methods in service of non-violent movements for decolonization. This paper investigates the “Southern Crossings” of these Gandhian activists.