Dark, tranquil eyes. A small frail man, a thin face with large
protruding ears. His head covered with a little white cap, his body clothed in
coarse white cloth, barefooted. He lives on rice and fruit and drinks only
water. He sleeps on the floor—sleeps very little, and works incessantly. His
body does not seem to count at all. There is nothing striking about him, at
first, except his expression of "great patience and great love." W.
W. Pearson, who met him in South Africa in 1918, instinctively thought of St.
Francis of Assisi. There is an almost childlike simplicity about him.[1] His
manner is gentle and courteous even when dealing with adversaries,[2] and he is
of immaculate sincerity.[3] He is modest and unassuming, to the point of
sometimes seeming almost timid, hesitant, in making an assertion. Yet you feel
his indomitable spirit. He makes no compromises and never tries to hide a
mistake. Nor is he afraid to admit having been in the wrong. Diplomacy is
unknown to him; he shuns oratorical effect or, rather, never thinks about it;
and he shrinks unconsciously from the great popular demonstrations organized in
his honor. Literally "ill with the multitude that adores him,"[4] he
distrusts majorities and fears "mobocracy" and the unbridled passions
of the populace. He feels at ease only in a minority, and is happiest when, in
meditative solitude, he can listen to the "still small voice"
within.[5]
This is the man who has stirred three hundred million people to
revolt, who has shaken the foundations of the British Empire, and who has
introduced into human politics the strongest religious impetus of the last two
thousand years.
His real name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was born in a little
semi-independent state in the northwestern part of India, at Porbandar, the
"White City" on the sea of Oman, October 2, 1868. He comes of an
ardent and active race, which to this day has been split by civil strife; a
practical race, commercially keen, which established trade relations all the
way from Aden to Zanzibar. Gandhi's father and grandfather were both leaders of
the people and met with persecution because of their independent spirit. Both
were forced to flee for safety, their lives in peril. Gandhi's family was
well-to-do and belonged to a cultivated class of society, but it was not of
superior caste. His parents were followers of the Jaïn school of Hinduism,
which regards ahimsa,[6] the doctrine of non-injury to any form of life, as one
of its basic principles. This was the doctrine which Gandhi was to proclaim
victoriously throughout the world. The Jaïnists believe that the principle of
love, not intelligence, is the road which leads to God. The Mahatma's father
cared little for wealth and material values, and left scarcely any to his
family, having given almost everything away to charity. Gandhi's mother was a
very devout woman, a sort of Hindu St. Elisabeth, fasting, giving alms to the
poor, and nursing the sick. In Gandhi's family the Ramayana was read regularly.
His first teacher was a Brahman who taught him to memorize the texts of
Vishnu.[7] In later years Gandhi expressed regret at not being a better
Sanskrit scholar, and one of his grievances against English education in India
is that it makes the natives lose the treasures of their own language. Gandhi
became, however, a profound student of Hindu scriptures, although he read the
Vedas and the Upanishads in translation only.[8]
While still a boy he passed through a severe religious crisis. Shocked
at the idolatrous form sometimes assumed by Hinduism, he became, or imagined he
became, an atheist, and to prove that religion meant nothing to him he and some
friends went so far as to eat meat, a frightful sacrilege for a Hindu. And
Gandhi nearly perished with disgust and mortification.[9] He was engaged at the
age of eight and married at the age of twelve.[10] At nineteen he was sent to
England to complete his studies at the University of London and at the law
school. Before his leaving India, his mother made him take the three vows of
Jaïn, which prescribe abstention from wine, meat, and sexual intercourse.
He arrived in London in September, 1888, and after the first few
months of uncertainty and deception, during which, as he says, he "wasted
a lot of time and money trying to become an Englishman," he buckled down
to hard work and led a strictly regulated life. Some friends gave him a copy of
the Bible, but the time to understand it had not yet come. But it was during
his stay in London that he realized for the first time the beauty of the
Bhagavad Gitâ. He was carried away by it. It was the light the exiled Hindu had
been seeking, and it gave him back his faith. He realized that for him salvation
could lie only in Hinduism.[11]
He returned to India in 1891, a rather sad home-coming, for his mother
had just died, and the news of her death had been withheld from him. Soon
afterward he began practicing law at the Supreme Court of Bombay. He abandoned
this career a few years later, having come to look upon it as immoral. But even
while practicing law he used to make a point of reserving the right to abandon
a case if he had reason to believe it unjust.
At this stage of his career he met various people who stirred in him a
presentiment as to his future mission in life. He was influenced by two men in
particular. One of them was the "Uncrowned King of Bombay," the Parsi
Dadabhai, and the other Professor Gokhale. Gokhale was one of the leading
statesmen in India and one of the first to introduce educational reforms, while
Dadabhai, according to Gandhi, was the real founder of the Indian nationalist
movement. Both men combined the highest wisdom and learning with the utmost
simplicity and gentleness.[12] It was Dadabhai who, in trying to moderate
Gandhi's youthful ardor, gave him, in 1892, his first real lesson in ahimsa by
teaching him to apply heroic passivity—if two such words may be linked—to
public life by fighting evil, not by evil, but by love. A little later we will
discuss this magic word of ahimsa, the sublime message of India to the world.
Gandhi's activity may be divided into two periods. From 1898 to 1914
its field was South Africa; from 1914 to 1922, India.
That Gandhi could carry on the South-African campaign for more than
twenty years without awakening any special comment in Europe is a proof of the
incredible short-sightedness of our political leaders, historians, thinkers,
and believers, for Gandhi's efforts constituted a soul's epopee, unequaled in
our times, not only because of the intensity and the constancy of the sacrifice
required, but because of the final triumph.
In 1890-91 some 150,000 Indian emigrants were settled in South Africa,
most of them having taken up abode in Natal. The white population resented
their presence, and the Government encouraged the xenophobia of the whites by a
series of oppressive measures designed to prevent the immigration of Asiatics
and to oblige those already settled in Africa to leave. Through systematic
persecution the life of the Indians in Africa was made intolerable; they were
burdened with overwhelming taxes and subjected to the most humiliating police
ordinances and outrages of all sorts, ranging from the looting and destruction
of shops and property to lynching, all under cover of "white"
civilization.
In 1893 Gandhi was called to Pretoria on an important case. He was not
familiar with the situation in South Africa, but from the very first he met
with illuminating experiences. Gandhi, a Hindu of high race, who had always
been received with the greatest courtesy in England and Europe, and who until
then had looked upon the whites as his natural friends, suddenly found himself
the butt of the vilest affronts. In Natal, and particularly in Dutch Transvaal,
he was thrown out of hotels and trains, insulted, beaten, and kicked. He would
have returned to India at once if he had not been bound by contract to remain a
year in South Africa. During these twelve months he learned the art of
self-control, but all the time he longed for his contract to expire, so that he
might return to India. But when at last he was about to leave, he learned that
the South-African Government was planning to pass a bill depriving the Indians
of the franchise. The Indians in Africa were helpless, unable to defend
themselves; they were completely unorganized and demoralized. They had no
leader, no one to guide them. Gandhi felt that it was his duty to defend them.
He realized it would be wrong to leave. The cause of the disinherited Indians
became his. He gave himself up to it, and remained in Africa.
Then began an epic struggle between spirit on one side and
governmental power and brute force on the other. Gandhi was a lawyer at the
time, and his first step was to prove the illegality of the Asiatic Exclusion
Act from the point of view of law, and he won his case despite the most
virulent opposition. In this connection he had huge petitions signed; he
organized the Indian Congress at Natal, and formed an association for Indian education.
A little later he founded a paper, "Indian Opinion," published in
English and three Indian languages. Finally, in order to work more
efficaciously for his compatriots in Africa, he decided to become one of them.
He had a lucrative clientele in Johannesburg (Gokhale says Gandhi was making at
that time about five or six thousand pounds a year). He gave it up to espouse
poverty, like St. Francis. He abandoned all ties in order to live the life of
the persecuted Indians, to share their trials. And he ennobled them thereby,
for he taught them the doctrine of non-resistance. In 1904 he founded at
Phoenix, near Durban, an agricultural colony along Tolstoian lines.[13] He
called upon his compatriots, gave them land, and made them take the solemn oath
of poverty. He took upon himself the humblest tasks.
For years the silent colony resisted the Government. It withdrew from
the cities, gradually paralyzing the industrial life of the country, carrying
on a sort of religious strike against which violence—all violence—was
powerless, just as the violence of imperial Rome was powerless against the
faith of the first Christians. Yet very few of these early Christians would
have carried the doctrine of love and forgiveness so far as to help their
persecutors when in danger, as Gandhi did. Whenever the South-African state was
in serious difficulties Gandhi suspended the non-participation of the Indian
population in public services and offered his assistance. In 1899, during the
Boer War, he organized an Indian Red Cross, which was twice cited for bravery
under fire. When the plague broke out in Johannesburg in 1904, Gandhi organized
a hospital. In 1908 the natives in Natal revolted. Gandhi organized and served
at the head of a corps of brancardiers, and the Government of Natal tendered
him public thanks.
But these disinterested services did not disarm the hatred of the
whites. Gandhi was frequently arrested and imprisoned,[14] and shortly after
official thanks had been proffered for his services during the war he was sentenced
to imprisonment and hard labor, after being beaten by the mob and left behind
as dead.[15] But no abuse, no persecution, could make Gandhi renounce his
ideal. On the contrary, his faith in it grew stronger for his trials. His only
reply to the violence meted out to him in South Africa was the famous little
book, "Hind Swaraj,"[16] published in 1908. This pamphlet on Indian
home rule is the gospel of heroic love.
For twenty years the struggle lasted, reaching its bitterest phase
from 1907 to 1914. Although the most intelligent and broad-minded Englishmen in
Africa were opposed to it, in 1906 the South-African Government hastily passed
a new Asiatic law. This led Gandhi to organize non-resistance on a large scale.
In September, 1906, a huge demonstration took place at Johannesburg,
and the assembled Indians solemnly took the oath of passive resistance. The
Chinese in Africa joined the Hindus; and Asiatics of all races, religions, and
castes, rich and poor alike, brought the same enthusiasm and abnegation to the
cause. The Asiatics were thrown into prison by the thousand, and as the jails
were not large enough, they were hurled into the mine-pits. But it was as if the
prisons fascinated these people whom General Smuts, their persecutor, called
"conscientious objectors." Three times Gandhi was thrown into
jail,[17] while others died as martyrs. The movement grew. In 1918 it spread
from the Transvaal to Natal. Huge strikes and monster meetings, masses of
Hindus marching across Transvaal, alarmed and excited public opinion in Africa
and Asia. All India was stirred to indignation, and the viceroy, Lord Hardinge,
driven by public opinion, finally lodged a protest against the Government of
South Africa.
The indomitable tenacity and the magic of the "Great Soul"
operated and won out: force had to bow down before heroic gentleness.[18] The
man most bitterly opposed to the Indians, General Smuts, who in 1909 had said
he would never erase from the statutes a measure prejudicial to the Indians,
confessed, five years later, in 1914, that he was glad to do away with it.[19]
An imperial commission backed Gandhi up on almost every point. In 1914 an act
abolished the three-pound poll-tax, while Natal was opened to all Indians
desirous of settling there as free workers. After twenty years of sacrifice
non-resistance was triumphant.
When Gandhi returned to India he had the prestige of a leader.
Since the beginning of the century the movement for Indian
independence had been steadily gaining ground, Thirty years before, a few
broadminded Englishmen, among whom were A. O. Hume and Sir William Wedderburn,
had organized a National Indian Congress. Victorian Liberals, they had given
the Congress a loyalist stamp and had tried to consolidate India's claims with
the demands of England's sovereignty. In the meantime, however, Japan's victory
over Russia had awakened the pride of Asiatic peoples, and Indian patriots
resented Lord Curzon's provocative attitude. An extremist party was formed in
the heart of the Congress, and its more aggressive nationalism corresponded to
a general sentiment throughout the country. Until the war of 1914, however, the
old constitutional part remained under the leadership of G. K. Gokhale, who was
a great Indian patriot, although he believed in loyalty to England.
Although the Indian Congress, reflecting general sentiment, was in
favor of home rule, or Swaraj, the various members disagreed as to the form
this home rule should take. Some members believed in cooperation with England;
others wanted to drive the English out of India. Some advocated the dominion
system, as in Canada, while others asserted that India should aspire to become
an independent nation like Japan. Gandhi proposed a solution. It was religious
rather than political, but at bottom it was more radical than any of the
others. The principles are to be found in his "Hind Swaraj." But as
this solution was based on conditions in South Africa, Gandhi realized it would
have to be modified to suit conditions in India. He also realized that while
his stay in South Africa had made him unfamiliar with conditions in India, it
had proved what an irresistible weapon ahimsa, non-violence, could be. And he
determined, therefore, to study conditions in India in order to adapt the
weapon of ahimsa to them.[20]
At this time Gandhi felt no antagonism for England. On the contrary,
when the war broke out in 1914, he went to London to organize an Indian
ambulance corps. As he explained in a letter written in 1921, he honestly
believed himself a citizen of the empire. He refers to his attitude again and
again, as in his letter addressed to "Every Englishman in India,"
published in 1920. No Englishman, he says, served the Government more
faithfully than he during twenty-nine years of public life. He risked his life
four times for England, and until 1919 he sincerely believed in cooperating
with the Government. But now he can do so no longer.
Gandhi was not the only one to experience this change of feeling. In
1914 all India had been carried away by the hypocritical idealism of the
so-called "war for justice." In asking for India's support the
English Government had held out the most brilliant hopes. The granting of home
rule, which the people longed for, was said to depend on India's attitude in
the war. In August, 1917, the clever Indian secretary, E. S. Montagu, promised
India a government responsible to the people. A consultation took place, and in
July, 1918, the viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, and Mr. Montagu signed an official
report recommending constitutional reform in India. The Allied armies were in a
most precarious position in the early days of 1918. On April 2 Lloyd George had
sent an appeal to the people of India, while the war conference, sitting at
Delhi in the end of the same month, had hinted that the hour of India's
independence was near. And India had replied as one man while Gandhi promised
England his loyal backing. India contributed 985,000 men and made tremendous sacrifices.
And she waited confidently for the promised reward.
The awakening was terrible. Danger was over in the end of 1918, and
gone was the memory of services rendered. After the signing of the armistice
the Government saw no reason for feigning any longer. Instead of granting the
promised liberties, it suspended whatever freedom already existed. The Rowlatt
bills, proposed at the Imperial Legislative Council at Delhi, expressed an
insulting distrust of the country which had given so many proofs of its
loyalty. These bills aimed to establish definitively the provisions of the
Defense Act imposed on India dining the war, and made secret police services,
censorship, and all the tyrannical annoyances of a real state of siege into a
permanent reality. There was one burst of indignation all over India. The
revolt began.[21] Gandhi led it.
Hitherto Gandhi had been interested in social reforms only, devoting
himself particularly to the conditions of agricultural workers. At Kaira, in
the Gujarat, and at Champaran, in Behar, he had almost unnoticeably and with
success tried out the formidable weapon which he was soon to use in national
struggles. This weapon was the will of active passionate non-resistance. We
will study it later under the name of Satyagraha, which Gandhi has given it.
Until 1919, however, Gandhi did not participate actively in the Indian
nationalist movement. Having been united in 1916 by Mrs. Annie Besant, the most
advanced elements soon outdistanced her and rallied under the leadership of the
great Hindu, Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a man of extraordinary energy,
uniting, as in a triple sheaf of iron, a great mind, a strong will, and a high
character. His intelligence was perhaps even keener than Gandhi's, or, rather,
it was more solidly nourished on old Asiatic culture. He was an erudite, a
mathematician, who had sacrificed all personal ambitions to serve his country.
Like Gandhi, he sought no personal recognition and longed only for the triumph
of his ideal in order to be able to retire from the political field and go back
to his scientific work. As long as he lived he was the undisputed leader of
India. Who can say what would have happened if he had not met with an untimely
death in 1920? If Tilak had lived, Gandhi, who revered Tilak's genius, while
differing radically from him in regard to methods and policies, would no doubt
have remained religious leader of the movement. How magnificently the people of
India could have marched on under such a double leadership! They would have
been irresistible, for Tilak was a master of action, just as Gandhi is a master
of spiritual power. But fate decided otherwise. It is, perhaps, to be
regretted, not only for Tilak's sake, but for India's and even for Gandhi's.
The rôle of minority leader, of leader of the moral élite, would have been more
in accordance with Gandhi's inmost desires and nature. He would have been happy
to let Tilak rule the majority, for Gandhi never had any faith in majorities.
But Tilak had. Tilak, a born mathematician and master of action, believed in
numbers. He was democratic instinctively. He was resolutely a politician, who
left religious considerations aside. He claimed that politics were not for
sadhus (saints, pious men). This austere scientist would have sacrificed truth
to patriotism. And this scrupulously honest and upright man, whose personal
life was one of spotless purity, did not hesitate to say that in politics
everything is justified. It might be said that Tilak's conception of politics
and that of the dictators of Moscow have something in common. Not so with
Gandhi's ideal.[22] Tilak's and Gandhi's discussions brought out their
different points of view. Between men as sincere as they there is bound to be
irreconcilable opposition, since their methods are based on their convictions,
which are in fundamental opposition. Each man respected and revered the other.
But Gandhi felt that if it came to the point he would always set truth first
before liberty and even before his country, whereas Tilak set his country above
everything. Gandhi feels that no matter how great his love for his country may
be, his faith in his ideal, in religion as expressed in Truth, is greater
still.
As he says on August 11,1920:
I am wedded to India because I believe absolutely that she has a mission
for the world ... My religion has no geographical limits. I have a living faith
in it which will transcend even my love for India herself.[23]
These noble words give the key to the struggle which we now will
describe. They prove that the Apostle of India is the Apostle of the World, and
that he is one of us. The battle the Mahatma began fighting four years ago is
our battle.[24]
It should be noted that when Gandhi stepped into the political field
as leader of the opposition to the Rowlatt bills, he was moved only by a desire
to spare the country from violence.[25] The revolt was bound to come; he knew
there was no possibility of avoiding it. The point, therefore, was to turn it
into non-violent channels.
To understand Gandhi's activity, it should be realized that his
doctrine is like a huge edifice composed of two different floors or grades.
Below is the solid groundwork, the basic foundation of religion. On this vast
and unshakable foundation is based the political and social campaign. It is not
the ideal continuation of the invisible foundation, but it is the best
structure possible under present conditions. It is adapted to conditions.
In other words, Gandhi is religious by nature, and his doctrine is
essentially religious. He is a political leader by necessity, because other
leaders disappear, and the force of circumstances obliges him to pilot the ship
through the storm and give practical political expression to his doctrine.
These developments are interesting, but the essential part of the edifice is
the crypt, which is deep and well built and meant to uphold a very different
cathedral from the structure rapidly rising above it. The crypt alone is
durable. The rest is temporary and only designed to serve during the transition
years, until the plans for a cathedral worthy of the groundwork can be worked
out. An understanding of the principles on which the vast subterranean crypt is
based is essential, therefore, for here Gandhi's thought finds its real
expression. It is into the depths of this crypt that he descends every day to
seek inspiration and strength to carry on the work above.
Gandhi believes in the religion of his people, in Hinduism. But he is
not a scholar, attached to the punctilious interpretation of texts, nor is he a
blind believer accepting unquestioningly all the traditions of his religion.
His religion must satisfy his reason and correspond to the dictates of his
conscience.
I would not make a fetish of religion and condone evil in its sacred
name.[26]
My belief in the Hindu scripture does not require me to accept every
word and every verse as divinely inspired. I decline to be bound by any
interpretation however learned it may be if it is repugnant to reason or moral
sense.[27]
Nor does he look upon Hinduism as the only religion, and this is a
very important point.
I do not believe in the exclusive divinity of the Vedas. I believe the
Bible, the Koran and the Zend-Avesta to be as divinely inspired as the
Vedas.... Hinduism is not a missionary religion. In it there is room for the
worship of all the prophets in the world ... Hinduism tells every one to
worship God according to his own faith or Dharma and so it lives in peace with
all religions.[28]
He sees the errors and vices that have crept into religion through the
centuries, and he brands them, but he adds:
I can no more describe my feeling for Hinduism than for my own wife.
She moves me as no other woman in the world can. Not that she has no faults; I
dare say, she has many more than I see myself. But the feeling of an
indissoluble bond is there. Even so I feel about Hinduism with all its faults
and limitations. Nothing elates me so much as the music of the Gitâ or the
Ramayana by Tulasidas, the only two books in Hinduism I may be said to know. I
know that vice is going on to-day in all the great Hindu shrines but I love
them in spite of their failings. I am a reformer through and through. But my
zeal never takes me to the rejection of any of the essential things of
Hinduism.[29]
What are the essential things in which Gandhi believes? In an article
written October 6,1921, Gandhi defines his conception of Hinduism:
1. He believes, he says, in the "Vedas, the Upanishads, the
Puranas and all that goes by the name of Hindu scriptures." He believes,
therefore, in Avataras and rebirth.
2. He believes in the Varnashrama Dharma[30] or the "Discipline
of the Castes," in a sense which he considers "strictly Vedic,"
but which may not correspond to the present "popular and crude
sense."
3. He believes in the "protection of the cow in a much larger
sense than the popular."
4. He does not "disbelieve in idol worship."
Every Occidental who reads Gandhi's "Credo" and stops at
these lines is apt to feel that they reveal a mentality so different from ours
and so far removed in time and space as to make comparison with our ideals
impossible, owing to the lack of a common measure. But if he will read on, he
will find, a few lines below, the following words, which express a doctrine
more familiar to us:
I believe implicitly in the Hindu aphorism that no one truly knows the
Shastras who has not attained perfection in Innocence [Ahimsa], Truth [Satya],
and Self-Control [Brahma-Charya] and who has not renounced all acquisition or
possession of wealth.
Here the words of the Hindu join those of the Gospel. And Gandhi was
aware of their similarity. To an English clergyman who asked him in 1920 which
books had influenced him most, Gandhi replied, "The New
Testament."[31]
The last words of Gandhi's "Ethical Religion" are a
quotation from the New Testament,[32] and he claims that the revelation of
passive resistance came to him after reading the Sermon on the Mount in
1893.[33] When the clergyman asked him, in surprise, if he had not found the
same message in Hindu scriptures, Gandhi replied that while he has found
inspiration and guidance in the Bhagavad Gitâ, which he reveres and admires,
the secret of passive resistance was made clear to him through the New
Testament. A great joy welled up in him, he says, when the revelation came to
him, and again when the Gitâ confirmed this revelation.[34] Gandhi also says
that Tolstoi's ideal, that the kingdom of God is within us, helped him mold his
own faith into a real doctrine.[35]
It should not be forgotten that this Asiatic believer has translated
Ruskin[36] and Plato[37] and quotes Thoreau, admires Mazzini, reads Edward
Carpenter, and that he is, in short, familiar with the best that Europe and
America have produced.
There is no reason why a Westerner should not understand Gandhi's
doctrine as well as Gandhi understands those of our great men, provided the
Westerner will take the trouble to study Gandhi a little deeply. It is true
that the mere words of Gandhi's creed may surprise him, and that two
paragraphs, in fact, if read superficially, may seem so different from our
mentality as to form an almost insurmountable barrier between the religious
ideals of Asia and Europe. One of these paragraphs refers to cow-protection and
the other to the caste system. As for Gandhi's reference to idol-worship, it
requires no special study. Gandhi explains his attitude when he says that he
has no veneration for idols but believes idol-worship to be part of human
nature. He considers it inherent to the frailty of the human mind, because we
all "hanker after symbolism" and must needs materialize our faith in
order really to understand it. When Gandhi says he does not disbelieve in
idol-worship, he means no more than what we countenance in all our ritualistic
churches of the West.
"Cow-protection," says Gandhi, is the central fact of
Hinduism. He looks upon it as one of the "most wonderful phenomena of
human evolution." Why? Because the cow, to him, is taken as the symbol of
the entire "sub-human world." Cow-protection means that man concludes
a pact of alliance with his dumb brethren; it signifies fraternity between man
and beast. According to Gandhi's beautiful expression, by learning to respect,
revere, an animal, man is "taken beyond his species and is enjoined to
realize his identity with all that lives."
If the cow was selected in preference to other creatures it was
because in India the cow was the best companion, the giver of plenty. Not only
did she give the milk but she made agriculture possible. And Gandhi sees in
"this gentle animal" a "poem of pity."
But there is nothing idolatrous about Gandhi's cow-worship, and no one
condemns more harshly than he the fetishism of many so-called believers, who
observe the letter of "cow-worship" without exercising a spirit of
compassion "for the dumb creatures of God." Whoever understands the
spirit of compassion and fellow-feeling that Gandhi would have men feel for
their dumb brethren,—and who would have understood this better than the
poverello Assisi?—is not surprised that Gandhi lays such stress on
cow-protection in his creed. From this point of view he is quite justified in
saying that cow-protection is the "gift of Hinduism to the world." To
the precept of the gospel, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," Gandhi
adds, "And every living being is thy neighbor."[38]
Gandhi's belief in the caste system is almost more difficult for a
European or Western mind to understand—it seems more foreign, almost, than the
idea of the fellowship of all living beings. I should perhaps say
"European or Western mind of to-day," for while we still believe in a
certain equality, Heaven knows how we will feel in the future, when we become
thoroughly imbued with the consequences of the evolution, democratic in name
only, which we are undergoing! I do not imagine that at our present stage of
development my explanation of Gandhi's views will make them seem acceptable as
regards the caste system; nor am I anxious to have them seem so. But I would
like to make it clear that Gandhi's conception of the caste system is different
from what we usually mean by that term, since he does not base it on pride or
vain notions of social superiority, but on duties.
I am inclined to think [he says] that the law of heredity is an
eternal law, and that any attempt to alter it must lead to utter confusion ...
Varnashrama or the caste system, is inherent in human nature. Hinduism has
simply reduced it to a science.
Gandhi believes in four classes or castes. The Brahmans, the
intellectual and spiritual class; the the military and governmental class; the
Vaishyas, the commercial, industrial class; and the Shudras, manual workers and
laborers. This classification does not imply any superiority or inferiority. It
simply stands for different vocations. "These classes define duties, they
confer no privileges."[39]
It is against the genius of Hinduism to arrogate to oneself a higher
status or assign others to a lower. All are born to serve God's creation, the
Brahman with his knowledge, the Kshatriya with his power of protection, the
Vaishya with his commercial ability, the Shudra with his bodily labor.
This does not mean that a Brahman is absolved from bodily labor but it
does mean that he is predominantly a man of knowledge and fittest by training
and heredity to impart it to others. There is nothing again to prevent a Shudra
from acquiring all the knowledge he wishes. Only he will best serve with his
body and need not envy others their special qualities for service. A Brahman
who claims superiority by right of knowledge falls and has no knowledge.
Varnashrama is self-restraint and conservation of economy and energy....
Gandhi's caste system is based, therefore, on "abnegation and not
on privileges." It should not be forgotten, moreover, that according to
Hinduism reincarnation reestablishes a general equilibrium, as in the course of
successive existences a Brahman becomes a Shudra, and vice versa.
The caste system, which deals with different classes of equal rank,
bears no relation whatsoever to the attitude of Hindus to the
"untouchables," or pariahs. We will study later on Gandhi's
passionate appeals for the pariahs. His campaign in favor of the
"suppressed classes" is one of the most appealing phases of his
apostleship. Gandhi regards the pariah system as a blot on Hinduism; it is a
vile deformation of the real doctrine, and he suffers intolerably by it.
I would rather be torn to pieces than disown my brothers of the
suppressed classes.... I do not want to be reborn, but if I have to be reborn,
I should be "untouchable" so that I may share their sorrows,
sufferings and the affronts leveled at them in order that I may endeavor to
free them from their miserable condition.
And he adopts a little "untouchable" girl and speaks with
emotion of this charming little imp of seven who rules the household with her
gay prattle.
I have said enough to show Gandhi's great evangelical heart beating
under his Hindu creed. Gandhi is a Tolstoi in a more gentle, appeased, and, if
I dared, I would say, in a more Christian sense, for Tolstoi is not so much a
Christian by nature as by force of will.
The resemblance between the two men is greatest, or perhaps Tolstoi's
influence has been strongest, in their condemnation of European and Occidental
civilization.
Ever since Rousseau our Western civilization has been attacked by the
freest and broadest minds of Europe. When Asia began to wake to a realization
of her own power and revolt against Western oppression, she had only to peer
into Europe's own files to compile formidable records of the iniquity of her
so-called civilized invaders. Gandhi did not fail to do so, and in his
"Hind Swaraj" he cites a list of books, many of which were written by
Englishmen, condemning European civilization. But the document to which there
can be no rejoinder is that which Europe herself has traced in the lifeblood of
races oppressed and despoiled in the name of lying principles and, above all,
in the brazen revelation of Europe's lies, greed, and ferocity as unfolded
during the last war, called the "War for Civilization." And in it
Europe sank to such depths that in her insanity she even invited the peoples of
Asia and Africa to contemplate her nudity. They saw her and judged her.
The last war has shown as nothing else has the Satanic[40] nature of
the civilization that dominates Europe to-day. Every canon of public morality
has been broken by the victors in the name of virtue. No lie has been
considered too foul to be uttered. The motive behind every crime is not
religious or spiritual but grossly material... Europe to-day is only nominally
Christian. In reality it is worshipping Mammon.[41]
You will find sentiments such as these expressed again and again,
during the last five years, both in India and Japan. Leaders too prudent to
voice them openly show by their attitude that such is their inmost conviction.
This is not the least disastrous result of the Pyrrhic victory of 1918.
Gandhi, however, had seen the real face of Western civilization long
before 1914. It had revealed itself to him unmasked during his twenty years'
campaign in South Africa, and in 1908, in his "Hind Swaraj," he calls
modern civilization the "great vice."
Civilization, says Gandhi, is civilization in name only. In reality it
corresponds to what ancient Hinduism called the dark ages. It has set material
well-being up as the only goal of life. It scorns spiritual values. It maddens
Europeans, leads them to worship money only, and prevents them from finding
peace or cultivating the best within them. Civilization in the Western sense
means hell for the weak and for the working classes. It saps the vitality of
the race. But this Satanic civilization will destroy itself. Western
civilization is India's real enemy, much more than the English, who,
individually, are not bad, hut simply suffer from their civilization. Gandhi
criticizes those of his compatriots who would want to drive out the English, to
develop India themselves, and civilize her according to European standards.
This, he says, would be like having the nature of a tiger without the tiger.
India's aim should be to repudiate Western civilization.
In his arraignment of Western civilization Gandhi scores three
categories of men particularly: magistrates, doctors, and teachers.
Gandhi's objection to teachers is quite comprehensible, since they
have brought the Hindus up to scorn or neglect their own language and to disown
their real aspirations; in fact, the teachers in India have inflicted a sort of
national degradation on the schoolchildren in their charge. Besides, Western
teachers appeal to the mind only; they neglect the education of the heart and
of the character. Finally, they depreciate bodily labor, and to spread a purely
literary education in a country where eighty per cent of the population is
agricultural and ten per cent industrial is positively criminal.
The profession of magistrate is immoral. In India the courts are an instrument
of British domination; they encourage dissensions among Indians, and in a
general way they foster and increase misunderstanding and animosity. They stand
for a fattening, lucrative exploitation of the worst instincts.
As for the medical profession, Gandhi admits he was attracted to it at
first, but he soon realized it was not honorable. For Western medical science
is concerned with giving relief to suffering bodies only. It does not strive to
do away with the cause of suffering and disease, which, as a rule, is nothing
but vice. In fact, Western medical science may almost be said to encourage vice
by making it possible for a man to satisfy his passions and appetites at the
least possible risk. It contributes, therefore, to demoralize people; it
weakens their will-power by helping them to cure themselves with "black
magic" prescriptions instead of forcing them to strengthen their character
by disciplinary rules for body and soul.[42] In opposition to the false medical
science of the West, which Gandhi has often criticized unfairly, he places
preventive medical science. He has written a little pamphlet on the subject
entitled "A Guide to Health," which is the fruit of twenty years'
experience. It is a moral as well as a therapeutic treatise, for, according to
Gandhi, "disease is the result of our thoughts as much as of our
acts." He considers it a relatively simple matter to establish certain
rules that will prevent disease. For all disease springs from the same origin,
i. e., from neglect of the natural laws of health. The body is God's
dwelling-place. It must be kept pure. There is truth in Gandhi's point of view,
but he refuses a little too obstinately to recognize the efficacy of remedies
that have really proved to be useful. His moral precepts are also extremely
rigid.[43]
--- By ROMAIN HOLLAND
Read the Complete Book Online
Notes and References
[1]As C. F. Andrews says, "He laughs like a child and
adores children."
[2]"Few can resist the charm of his personality. His
bitterest enemies become courteous when confronted with his beautiful courtesy."
(Joseph J. Doke.)
[3]"Every departure from truth, no matter how trifling,
is intolerable to him." (C. F. Andrews.)
[4]"He is not a passionate orator; his manner is calm
and serene and he appeals particularly to the intelligence. But his serenity
places the subject he discusses in the clearest light. The inflexions of his
voice are not varied but they are intensely sincere. He never makes any
gestures with his arms, in fact he rarely even moves a finger. But his luminous
words, expressed in terse, concise sentences, carry conviction. He never
abandons a subject before he feels that he has made it perfectly clear."
(Joseph J. Doke.)
[5]"Young India," March 2, 1922. The dates cited
in the motes of this volume refer to the date of publication of Gandhi’s
articles in "Young India."
[6]A, privative, himsa, to do evil. Hence, ahimsa, principle
of not harming any form of life, nonviolence. It is one of Hinduism's most
ancient precepts, proclaimed by Mahavira, the founder of Jaïnism, by Buddha, as
well as by the disciples of Vishnu.
[7]He attended the elementary school of Porbandar till the
age of seven and then the public school of Rajkot till ten. After that he went
to the high school of Katyavar until, at the age of seventeen, he entered the
University of Ahmedabad.
[8]He described his childhood in a speech at the Pariah
Conference, April 13, 1921.
[9]Long afterward he told Joseph Doke of the anguish he had
suffered after eating meat. He was unable to sleep; he felt like a murderer.
[10]He is not in favor of child marriages, however, and made
a campaign against them, on the ground that they weaken the race. In
exceptional cases, however, he says that such unions, sealed before the
individual's character is molded, may build up between husband and wife an
exceptionally beautiful relationship of sympathy and harmony. Gandhi's own wife
is an admirable example of this. Mrs. Gandhi shared all her husband's trials
and adversities with unfailing steadfastness of purpose and indomitable
courage.
[11]Speech of April 13, 1921.
[12]These two men, precursors, have suffered from the
ingratitude and forgetfulness of younger generations. Their political ideal
having been surpassed, their efforts in paving the way have been deprecated.
Gandhi, however, always realized their contribution to the cause and remained
true to them, particularly to Gokhale, for whom he felt a deep and almost religious
affection. He frequently speaks of Gokhale and Dadabhai as men whom Young India
should venerate. (See "Hind Swaraj, Letter to the Parsecs, Young
India," March 23, 1921, and the Confession of Faith, July 13, 1921.)
[13]A long letter from Tolstoi to Gandhi is published in the
"Golden Number" of "Indian Opinion." It was written
September 7, 1910, shortly before Tolstoi's death. Tolstoi had read
"Indian Opinion," and he was gratified to hear of the Indian
non-resisters. He praised their campaign and says that non-resistance is the
law of love, an aspiration to form part of the communion of human souls. It is
the law of Christ and of all the spiritual leaders of the world.
My friend Paul Biroukoff found several other letters from
Tolstoi to Gandhi in the Tolstoi archives at Moscow. He is planning to publish
them in a volume entitled "Tolstoi and the Orient," adding them to
several other letters written by Tolstoi to various great men of the East.
[14]Gandhi himself tells in his quiet humorous way of his experiences
in prison in a curious article printed in the volume, "Speeches and
Writings of M. K. Gandhi," Natesan, Madras, pp. 152-178.
[15]In 1907 Gandhi was the victim of the violence of his own
compatriots, for his moderation was eyed with suspicion by certain Indians,
while, the Government, on the other hand, did all in its power to compromise
him. Gandhi, therefore, suffered from the violence of the oppressed as well as
of the oppressors.
[16]I will dwell on "Hind Swaraj" a little more at
length, later on.
[17]Joseph J. Doke, interesting because of his interviews
with Gandhi, tells in the last chapter of his book how, in 1908, Gandhi was led
to the fort of Johannesburg in prison garb and thrown into a cell with Chinese
common-law criminals of the worst sort.
[18]Two high-minded Englishmen, C. F. Andrews and W. W.
Pearson, seconded Gandhi's efforts by all means within their power.
[19]Gandhi refers to this in an article dated May 12, 1920.
[20]Shortly before he died, Gokhale, Gandhi's beloved
master, had suggested that Gandhi make a trip through India and study
conditions at first hand, before going into politics. And Gandhi had promised
not to take an active part in the political life of India for a year.
[21]The Satyagraha movement may be said to have begun
February 28, 1919.
[22]Gandhi explained his attitude toward Bolshevism on
November 24, 1921.
[23]August 11, 1920: Gandhi protests against the doctrine of
the sword.
[24]"Humanity is one. There are different races, but
the higher a race the greater its duties." ("Ethical Religion")
[25]November 5, 1919.
[26]October 27, 1920.
[27]October 6, 1921.
[28]All religions are like different roads leading to the
same goal. ("Hind Swaraj.") "All religions are founded on the
same moral laws. My ethical religion is made up of laws which bind men all over
the world." ("Ethical Religion.")
[29]October 6, 1921.
[30]Etymologically, varna, color, class or caste; ashrama,
place of discipline; dharma, religion. Society, in other words, stands for
"discipline of the castes."
[31]February 25, 1920. In a second line Gandhi adds,
"Ruskin and Tolstoi."
[32]"Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and
all these things shall be added unto you."
[33]"Young India," February 25, 1920.
[34]He says to Joseph J. Doke in 1908 that God has been
incarnate throughout the ages, in different forms, because, as explained in the
Gitâ, Krishna says: "When religion falls into decadence and unbelief
prevails, I manifest myself. For the protection of all that is good, and the
destruction of all that is evil, for the establishment of Dharma, I must be
born and reborn, for ever and ever." Christianism is part of Gandhi's
theology. Christ is a radiant revelation of God. But not the only revelation.
He is not seated on the throne alone.
[35]The "Hind Swaraj" contains a list of about
sixty of Tolstoi's works which Gandhi recommends to his followers, among them,
"The Kingdom of God Is within You, What Is Art?" and "What Shall
We Do?" He tells Joseph Doke that Tolstoi influenced him deeply, but that
he does not agree with Tolstoi's political ideals. To a question asked him in
1921 as to his feeling for and opinion of Count Tolstoi, Gandhi replies (in
"Young India" of October 25, 1921), "My relation to him was that
of a devoted admirer who owes him much in life."
[36]He was particularly fond of Ruskin's "Crown of Wild
Olives."
[37]"Apologia and Death of Socrates," translated
by Gandhi, was one of the books confiscated by the Indian Government in 1919.
[38]In regard to cow-worship see "Young India,"
March 16, June 8, June 29, August 4, 1920, and May 18, October 6, 1921. In
regard to castes see articles December 8, 1920, and October 6, 1921.
[39]This is in accordance with the Upanishads, for when the
primitive classes hardened into proud castes, in the course of centuries, these
Hindu scriptures express protest and disapproval.
[40]A term often used by Gandhi. "Untouchability is an
invention of Satan." (June 19, 1921.)
[41]September 8, 1920.
[42]It should not be forgotten that one of Gandhi's main
arguments against the medical science of Europe is its use of vivisection,
which he brands as "man's blackest crime."
[43]Particularly in regard to sexual relations. Gandhi's doctrine
resembles that of St. Paul in its rigorism.
