For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi- VI

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

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

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi- VI

I am not a literalist. Therefore, I try to understand the spirit of the various scriptures of the world. I apply the test of Truth and Ahimsa laid down by these very scriptures for interpretation. I reject what is inconsistent with that test, and I appropriate all that is consistent with it. The story of a Sudra having been punished by Ramachandra for daring to learn the Vedas I reject as an interpolation. And in any event, I worship Rama, the perfect being of my conception, not a historical person, facts about whose life may vary with the progress of new historical discoveries and researches. Tulsidas had nothing to do with the Rama of history. Judged by historical test, his Ramayana would be fit for the scrap heap. As a spiritual experience, his book is almost unrivalled, at least for me. And then too, I do not swear by every word that is to be found in so many editions published as the Ramayana of Tulsidas. It is the spirit running through the book that holds me spell-bound. I cannot myself subscribe to the prohibition against Sudras learning the Vedas. Indeed, in my opinion, at the present moment, we are all predominantly Sudras so long as we are serfs. Knowledge cannot be the prerogative of any class or section.

But I can conceive the impossibility of people assimilating higher or subtler truths, unless they have undergone preliminary training, even as those who have not made preliminary preparations are quite unfit to breathe the rarefied atmosphere in high altitudes, or those who have no preliminary training in simple mathematics are unfit to understand or assimilate higher geometry or algebra. Lastly, I believe in certain healthy conventions. There is a convention surrounding the recitation of the Gayatri. The convention is that it should be recited only at stated times and after ablutions performed in the prescribed manner. As I believe in those conventions, and as I am not able always to conform to them, for years past I have followed the later Saints, and therefore have satisfied myself with the Dwadasha Mantra of the Bhagavata or the still simpler formula of Tulsidas and a few selections from the Gita and other works, and a few bhajans in Prakrit. These are my daily spiritual food my Gayatri. They give me all the peace and solace I need from day to day. 1

It should further be borne in mind that my errors have been errors of calculation and judging men, not in appreciating the true nature of truth and ahimsa or in their application. Indeed these errors and my prompt confessions have made me surer, if possible, of my insight into the implications of truth and ahimsa. For I am convinced that my action in suspending civil disobedience at Ahmadabad, Bombay and Bardoli has advanced the cause of India’s freedom and world’s peace. I am convinced that because of the suspensions we are nearer swaraj than we would have been without, and this I say in spite of despair being written in thick black letters on the horizon. Such being my deep conviction, I cannot help being confident of my present position as regards Swarajists and other matters. It is traceable to one source only, a lively understanding of the implications of truth and ahimsa. 2

It is not deliberately bad or wicked. It acts excellently under a high impulse. And thousands of young men, who, before they join any corps, must take the oath of allegiance and must on scores of occasions salute the Union Jack, will naturally want to give a good account of their loyalty and willingly shoot down their fellow men upon receiving from their superiors orders to fire. Whilst, therefore, even as an out-and-out believer in ahimsa, I can understand and appreciate military training for those who believe in the necessity of the use of arms on given occasions, I am unable to advocate the military training under the Government of the youth of the country so long as it remains utterly irresponsive to the needs of the people, and I should be against compulsory military training in every case and even under a national government. Those who do not wish to take military training should not be debarred from joining public universities. Physical culture stands on a different basis altogether. It can be and should be part of any sound educational scheme even as many other subjects are. 3

The answer to this is included in the answer given above. Nevertheless, it could be added that one who practises ahimsa does not necessarily refuse the use of vehicles for conveyance when absolutely necessary. There are many things which it is best to give up altogether. There are some which it would be enough to give up as far as possible. All God’s creations are related to one another. Every creature is the living image of some human desire or other. Just as, therefore, it is good to renounce desire, it is good to stop exploiting other living beings. Everyone should set his own limits. For instance, those who can make do with earth may not use soap, but they should also not be guilty of greater violence by criticizing others who do use soap. While walking on thorny or hot ground, one may freely use shoes to protect one’s feet, but one should walk barefoot when there is no need to wear shoes. 4

I could see my way of successfully delivering the message of ahimsa to those who knew how to die, not to those who were afraid of death. I told the audience further, that those like me who deliberately did not want to fight and were powerless to effect a settlement might follow the example of those Mussalmans who, during the time of the first four Caliphs, sought the refuge of the cave when brothers began to fight one against the other. The mountain cave in these days was a practical impossibility but they could retire to the cave which each of us carried within him. But such could be only those who had mutual regard for one another’s religion and customs. 5

As a Hindu he could not cherish feelings of enmity in his heart against anybody. Even if he had an enemy, he could win him through love. The Hindus could advance and serve the cause of their religion best on the path of ahimsa. Let the Hindus work for the regeneration of their religion, but in their hearts there must be no ill-will against their Mussalman brethren. Some thought that he was preaching cowardice in the name of ahimsa. That was entirely false. He hated nothing more than cowardice. The Hindus of Bettiah had also misunderstood him. He would like to see them die fighting for the honour of their mothers and daughters, but flying in fear on such occasions was sheer cowardice, and nothing could be more disgraceful. Ahimsa and not cowardice was preferable to violence. True ahimsa required real bravery. 6

By enlisting men for ambulance work in South Africa and in England, and recruits for field service in India, I helped not the cause of war, but I helped the institution called the British Empire in whose ultimate beneficial character I then believed. My repugnance to war was as strong then as it is today; and I could not then have and would not have shouldered a rifle. But one’s life is not a single straight line; it is a bundle of duties very often conflicting. And one is called upon continually to make one’s choice between one duty and another. As a citizen not then, and not even now, a reformer leading an agitation against the institution of war, I had to advise and lead men who believed in war but who, from cowardice or from base motives, or from anger against the British Government, refrained from enlisting. I did not hesitate to advise them that, so long as they believed in war and professed loyalty to the British constitution, they were in duty bound to support it by enlistment. Though I do not believe in the use of arms, and though it is contrary to the religion of ahimsa which I profess, I should not hesitate to join an agitation for repeal of the debasing Arms Act which I have considered amongst the blackest crimes of the British Government against India.

I do not believe in retaliation, but I did not hesitate to tell the villagers near Bettiah four years ago that they who knew nothing of ahimsa were guilty of cowardice in failing to defend the honour of their womenfolk and their property by force of arms. And I have not hesitated as the correspondent should know only recently to tell the Hindus that, if they do not believe in out-and-out ahimsa and cannot practise it, they would be guilty of a crime against their religion and humanity if they failed to defend by force of arms the honour of their women against any kidnapper who chooses to take away their women. And all this advice and my previous practice I hold to be not only consistent with my profession of the religion of ahimsa out and out, but a direct result of it. To state that noble doctrine is simple enough; to know it and to practise it in the midst of a world full of strife, turmoil and passions is a task whose difficulty I realize more and more day by day. And yet the conviction, too, that without it life is not worth living is growing daily deeper. 7

The Hindu-Muslim tension and want the Hindus to resort to force of arms? On a close examination, it will be discovered that in a vast majority of cases, resort to arms is not only not necessary but harmful. What is wanted is the art of suffering. I hold that it is not ahimsa that has made of us cowards but the loss of it. Surely it is not ahimsa that makes us wish ill to people that oppose us but our utter ignorance of it. Those who do not take up arms refrain not because they are deterred by any notion of ahimsa but because they are afraid to die. I have often wished that those who have no scruples about arms will dare to take them up. Then shall we be free of the burden of so-called ahimsaists who being afraid of injury seek to cover their cowardice under the name of ahimsa and corrupt the greatest truth of life. The same may be said of Soham. It is a scientific truth which we believe in our treatment of the untouchables. The charges recited in the last paragraph cannot be sustained. What is true of Hindus is also largely true of the other sects. Human nature works in the same manner in the same circumstances. Is a Mussalman never tolerant? I see hundreds in my peregrinations who are as tolerant as Hindus. I have seen Christians, too, seldom but frequently tolerant. The writer will also find upon observation that those who are intolerant towards other sects are no less intolerant among themselves. 8

I am an advaitist and yet I can support dvaitism (dualism). The world is changing every moment, and is therefore unreal, it has no permanent existence. But though it is constantly changing, it has something about it which persists and it is therefore to that extent real. I have therefore no objection to calling it real and unreal, and thus being called an anekantavadi or a syadvadi. But my syadvada is not the syadvada of the learned, it is peculiarly my own. I cannot engage in a debate with them. It has been my experience that I am always true from my point of view, and am often wrong from the point of view of my honest critics. I know that we are both right from our respective points of view. And this knowledge saves me from attributing motives to my opponents or critics. The seven blind men who gave seven different descriptions of the elephant were all right from their respective points of view, and wrong from the point of view of one another, and right and wrong from the point of view of the man who knew the elephant. I very much like this doctrine of the manyness of reality. It is this doctrine that has taught me to judge a Mussalman from his own standpoint and a Christian from his. Formerly I used to resent the ignorance of my opponents. Today I can love them because I am gifted with the eye to see myself as others see me and vice versa. I want to take the whole world in the embrace of my love. My anekantavada is the result of the twin doctrine of Satya and Ahimsa. 9

I too have seen many a lizard going for cockroaches and have watched cockroaches going for lasser forms but I have not felt called upon to prevent the operation of the law of the larger living on the smaller. I do not claim to penetrate into the awful mystery but from watching these very operations, I learn that the law of the beast is not the law of the Man; that Man has by painful striving to surmount and survive the animal in him and from the tragedy of the himsa which is being acted around him he has to learn the supreme lesson of ahimsa for himself. Man must, therefore, if he is to realize his dignity and his own mission cease to take part in the destruction and refuse to prey upon his weaker fellow creatures. He can only keep that as an ideal for himself and endeavour day after day to reach it. Complete success is possible only when he has attained moksha. 10

Degradation lies in not touching the “untouchable”. What though a man drinks, kills cows and eats carrion? He is no doubt an evil-doer, though no greater than the one who commits secret and more deadly sins. But he is not to be treated as an untouchable even as society does not treat the secret sinner as one. Sinners are not to be despised, but pitied and helped to rid themselves of their sinfulness. The existence of untouchability among Hindus is a denial of the doctrine of ahimsa on which we pride ourselves. We are responsible for the evils among the “untouchables”, of which the writer complains. What have we done to wean them from their ways? Do we not spend a fortune to reform members of our own families? Are the untouchables not members of the great Hindu family? Indeed, Hinduism teaches us to regard the whole of humanity as one indivisible and undivided family and holds each one of us responsible for the misdeeds of all. But if it is not possible to act up to the grand doctrine for its vastness, let us at least understand the unity of the “untouchables” with us since we regard them as Hindus. 11

This is a difficult question. But from the point of ahimsa, there can be only one reply and that is that one who inflicts pain on small creatures for a selfish purpose also becomes low himself. Man is a mixture of humility and greatness. His greatness lies in his ability to be humble. If he does not have the capacity to be humble, he cannot be considered to be great. Then there will be no scope whatever for rising high. Therefore it is said that one who does not harm other creatures for achieving his own ends and is ready to suffer pain for the sake of all living beings is alone fit to attain the vision of the self. 12 The path of ahimsa, I know, is thorny. At every step the thorns prick and sometimes bleed one. 13

I appreciate the confidence you have given me. After all it is these domestic troubles which enrich one’s life, for, they enable us to realize the vanity of worldly pomp, worldly riches and worldly happiness and enable us also to realize the true beauty of ahimsa, otherwise, love of the purest type. 14 No word seems to be more abused today than the word ‘natural’. For instance, a correspondent writes, “As eating and drinking are natural to man, even so is anger.” Another seems to argue: “The sexual function is as natural as the other functions of the body. Were it not so, God would not have endowed it to man. If it was not our duty to curse the wicked and to bless the good, why should we have been endowed with the faculty of cursing and blessing? May it not be our duty to develop all our faculties to perfection? And thus himsa would appear to be as much one’s dharma as ahimsa. In short virtue and vice are figments of our imagination. Your ahimsa is a sign of weakness, inasmuch as it expresses only one side of our nature. Rather than regard it as the highest religion, why should we not regard it as the highest irreligion? Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah was originally Ahimsa Paramo Adharmahthe negative prefix a (not) having somehow dropped out, or been rubbed out by some enemy of mankind. For on many occasions, ahimsa can be demonstrated to be the highest irreligion.” This is not one man’s argument; I have boiled down and put together the arguments of many. The theory about the negative an in ahimsa being dropped was propounded by an old barrister friend, and he did so in all seriousness. Indeed if we were to put man in the same category as the brute, many things could be proved to come under the description ‘natural’. But if they belong to two different species, not everything that is natural to the brute is natural to man. “Progress is man’s distinction, men alone, not beasts.” Man has discrimination and reason. Man does not live by bread alone, as the brute does. He uses his reason to worship God and to know Him, and regards the attainment of that knowledge as the summum bonum of life. The desire to worship God is inconceivable in the brute, while man can voluntarily worship even Satan. It must therefore be, and is, man’s nature to know and find God. When he worships Satan, he acts contrary to his nature. Of course, I will not carry conviction to one who makes no distinction between man and the brute. To him virtue and vice are convertible terms. While to the man whose end and aim is realization of God, even the functions of eating and drinking can be natural only within certain limits. For having knowledge of God as his end, he will not eat or drink for the sake of enjoyment but solely for sustaining the body. Restraint and renunciation will therefore always be his watchwords even in respect of these functions. 15

The world is full of himsa and nature does appear to be ‘red in tooth and claw’. But if we bear in mind that man is higher than the brute, then is man superior to that Nature. If man has a divine mission to fulfil, a mission that becomes him, it is that of ahimsa. Standing as he does in the midst of himsa, he can retire into the innermost depths of his heart and declare to the world around him that his mission in this world of himsa is ahimsa, and only to the extent that he practises it does he adorn his kind. Man’s nature then is not himsa, but ahimsa, for he can speak from experience, his innermost conviction, that he is not the body but atman, and that he may use the body only with a view to expressing the atman, only with a view to self-realization. And from that experience he evolves the ethics of subduing desire, anger, ignorance, malice and other passions, puts forth his best effort to achieve the end and finally attains complete success Only when his efforts reach that consummation can be said to have fulfilled himself, to have acted according to his nature. Conquest of one’s passions therefore is not superhuman, but human, and observance of ahimsa is heroism of the highest type, with no room therein for cowardice or weakness. 16

We have built our Vidyalaya on the foundation of self-purification. Non-violent non-co-operation is one aspect of it. The ‘non’ means renunciation of violence and all that stands for it, i.e., all Government control. But so long as we do not co-operate with our ‘untouchable’ brethren, so long as there is no heart-unity between men of different faiths, so long as we do not co-operate with the millions of our countrymen by according to the spinning-wheel and khaddar the sacred place they deserve, the negative prefix is entirely nugatory. That non-co-operation will not be based on ahimsa, but himsa, i.e., hatred. 17

One who has a perfect understanding of ahimsa, who has gained spiritual knowledge, and is filled to the brim with compassion, can certainly shed the turbulent body by forsaking food, drink, and so on while chanting the name of Rama. You have done a very good thing indeed in giving away five fields for the welfare of cattle. 18 Who is truth and ahimsa incarnate and who will therefore fear none and be feared by none. Everyone gets the guru he deserves and strives for. The difficulty of finding the guru I want is thus obvious. But it does not worry me; for it follows from what I have said that I must try to perfect myself before I meet the guru in the flesh. Till then I must contemplate him in the spirit. My success lies in my continuous, humble, truthful striving. I know the path. It is straight and narrow. It is like the edge of a sword. I rejoice to walk on it. I weep when I slip. God’s word is: ‘He who strives never perishes.’ I have implicit faith in that promise. Though therefore from my weakness I fail a thousand times, I will not lose faith but hope that I shall see the Light when the flesh has been brought under perfect subjection as some day it must. I wonder if the kind correspondents will now understand my position and cease to worry about me but join me in the search, unless they are satisfied that they have found Him. 19

References: