Academic V. Practical – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Academic V. Practical – Mahatma Gandhi  

 

Very often you give replies to your critics which are quite correct in the academic sense; they give a sort of temporary satisfaction to the mind but in actual practice leave the riddle as unsolved as ever. Take for instance your saying, “Only a coward fights on the strength of numbers.” It is all right in the abstract. It does for the time being bring one a sort of mental reassurance, but of what avail is it in actual practice? You preach your gospel of soul-force to all and sundry. But do you think that there is any chance of your utopian advice being seriously taken by those who have not faith even in the spinning-wheel and khadi? Won’t your preaching be, like pouring water over a duck’s neck, utterly futile?” I certainly hope that my advice about soul-force is not altogether wasted though it might seem unavailing for the time being. As an English proverb says, “Constant dropping will wear away a stone.”And it is my faith that what seems utopian to the correspondent today will be regarded as practical tomorrow.

History is replete with such instances. If the word ‘soul-force’ appears a meaningless term to our students today, it only shows to what an abject plight we are reduced. For is it not most tragic that things of the spirit, eternal verities, should be regarded as utopian by our youth, and transitory makeshifts alone appeal to them as practical? We have an ocular demonstration of the futility of mere numbers before us every day. What stronger proof of the proposition can be needed than that a nation of three hundred million Indians is today being ruled by less than one lakh Englishmen? The very sight of a lion puts to flight a thousand sheep. The reason is plain. The sheep are aware of their weakness, the lion of its strength. And the consciousness of strength in the latter over-powers the numerical strength of the former. By analogy may we not deduce that ‘soul force’ may not after all be a mere chimera or figment of imagination but a substantial reality? I do not wish to disparage the strength of numbers. It has its use but only when it is backed by the latent spirit force. Millions of ants can kill an elephant by together attacking it in a vulnerable place. Their sense of solidarity, consciousness of oneness of spirit in spite of the diversity of bodies, in other words, their spirit force, makes the ants irresistible. Even so that moment we develop a sense of mass unity like the ants, we too shall become irresistible and shall free ourselves from our chains.

It is my firm faith that the students of our national schools, a mere handful though they may be, if they are inspired by a real spirit of sacrifice and service and a living faith in their ideals, will stand the country in far greater stead than all the students in Government educational institutions put together. That quality is more than quantity is sound theory because it is true in practice. Indeed I hold that what cannot be proved in practice cannot be sound in theory. When Galileo declared that the earth was round like a ball and turned on its axis, he was ridiculed as a visionary and a dreamer and was greeted with abuse. But today we know that Galileo was right, and it was his opponents, who believed the earth to be stationary and flat like a dish, that were living in the cloudland of their ignorance. Modern education tends to turn our eyes away from the spirit. The possibilities of the spirit force therefore do no appeal to us, and our eyes are consequently riveted on the evanescent, transitory, material force. Surely this is the very limit of dull unimaginativeness. But I live in hope and patience. I have an unshakable faith in the correctness of my proposition, a faith that is based on me and my companions’ experience. And every student, if only he has got the faculty of patient, dispassionate research, can experimentally prove this for himself:

1. That mere numbers are useless.

2. That all force other than soul-force is transitory and vain.

It goes without saying, that if the above propositions are correct, it should be the constant endeavour of every student to arm him with this matchless weapon of spirit force by dint of self-discipline and self-purification.

 

Reference:

Young India, 6-10-1929