The Quotidian Gandhi: Ethical Practice In R.K. Narayans Novels

This paper examines how Gandhian ethical principles manifest in the quotidian practices of protagonists across eight selected novels by R.K. Narayan (1935–1990). Rather than treating Gandhian thought as an abstract ideology, the study demonstrates that Narayan embeds it in everyday choices surrounding education, consumption, conflict, and spiritual seeking. The analysis reveals a spectrum of Gandhian engagement — from partial adoption to open contradiction — and argues that this complexity constitutes a sustained philosophical meditation on ethical existence in postcolonial India. The paper employs a qualitative, close-reading methodology informed by Gandhian philosophy, Indian intellectual traditions, and postcolonial theory.