After a one-year hiatus, Gujarat Vidyapith’s one of the most sought-after programme among international students—the International Course on Gandhian Non-violence: Theory and Application—is making a comeback this academic year, with slight modifications to align with the National Education Policy (NEP) and University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines.
Offered by the Faculty of Gandhian Studies, the four-month certificate course is all set to begin on October 2, commemorating Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, and conclude on January 30, the date of his martyrdom.
“We attempted to restructure the course last year in line with NEP guidelines, which require diploma programmes to be at least six months long. We even considered a hybrid model—two months online and four months offline—but time zone differences made implementation difficult,” said Professor Prem Anand Mishra, Dean of the Faculty of Gandhian Studies, has been quoted by a leading English Daily.
Originally launched in 2011, the course is free of charge. As of 2023, 94 students from 21 different countries had successfully completed it. With this year’s relaunch, the course will now be offered as a certificate programme instead of a diploma.
Delays in updating the course to comply with UGC norms contributed to its suspension last year, Vice-Chancellor Harshad Patel told the newspaper. Apart from the two-year pause during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2024 marked the first time the course was not held since its inception.
Following the pandemic, the programme hit a milestone in 2023 by enrolling 13 students from eight countries—including Russia, Mauritius, Spain, and Venezuela—the highest number of nations represented in a single batch so far.
“There’s growing global interest, especially in the West, in Gandhi’s philosophy and the practice of non-violence. Many people want structured training in this area directly from India. However, travel costs and unemployment have deterred some potential participants,” said Mishra was quoted saying
Details of the 2025 session will be published on the Gujarat Vidyapith website in the coming days.
Funded by the Gujarat Vidyapith Mandal, the course covers tuition and accommodation expenses, while students are responsible for their travel costs. Participants stay in the university’s international hostel in twin-sharing rooms, with access to a dedicated kitchen and cook to accommodate various dietary preferences.
The programme includes not just classroom learning, but also hands-on experiences. Students will visit key Gandhian institutions, such as the Gandhi Research Foundation in Jalgaon, Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya in Vedchi, and Lok Bharati Gramvidyapith Sanosara in Bhavnagar.
While the core curriculum remains largely consistent, the delivery is tailored based on the background and interests of the participants. “The course is designed to be flexible. For instance, in one year when most students had an activist orientation, we adjusted the content to focus more on activism,” Mishra was quoted.
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