Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi- VIII

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

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

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi- VIII

 

 

 

The Bardoli decision, I still hold, was not wrong. It was, on the contrary, an act of purest ahimsa and of invaluable service to the country. I feel just as clear about my opinion regarding the present question. I hold that the opinion is perfectly in accord with my conception of ahimsa. The critics, whether friendly or hostile, should bear with me. Some of the hostile critics have transgressed the limits of decorum. They have made no attempt to understand my position. It seems they cannot for a moment tolerate my opinion. Now they must be one of two things. They are either my teachers or they regard me as one. In the latter case, they should be courteous and patient and should have faith in me and ponder over what I write. In the former case, they should be indulgent to me and try to reason with me as lovingly and patiently as they can. I teach the children under my care not by being angry with them, but I teach them, if at all, by loving them, by allowing for their ignorance, and by playing with them. I expect the same love, the same consideration and the same sportsmanlike spirit from my angry teachers.

 

I have given my opinion with regard to the dogs with the best of motives and as a matter of duty. If I am mistaken, let the critics who would teach me reason with me patiently and logically. Angry and irrelevant argument will not convince me. A gentleman called on me the other evening at a late hour. He knew that my time was completely occupied. He engaged me in a discussion, used hard and bitter language and poured vials of wrath on me. I answered his questions in good humour and politely. He has published the interview in a leaflet which he is selling. It is before me. It has crossed the limits of truth, obviously of decorum. He had neither obtained my permission to publish the interview nor showed it to me before publication. Does he seek to teach me in this manner? He who trifles with truth cuts at the root of ahimsa. He who is angry is guilty of himsa. How can such a man teach me ahimsa? Even so the hostile critics are doing me a service. They teach me to examine myself. They afford me an opportunity to see if I am free from the reaction of anger. And when I go to the root of their anger, I find nothing but love. They have attributed to me ahimsa as they understand it. Now they find me acting in a contrary manner and are angry with me.

They once regarded me as a mahatma; they were glad that my influence on the people was according to their liking. Now I am an alpatma (a little soul) in their opinion; my influence on the people they now regard as unwholesome and they are pained by the discovery; and as they cannot control themselves, they turn the feeling of pain into one of anger. I do not mind this outburst of anger, as I appreciate the motive behind it. I must try to reason with them patiently, and if they would help me in my attempt, I request them to calm their anger. I am a votary of truth and seeker after it. If I am convinced that I am mistaken I shall admit my mistake (as I always love to do), and shall promptly mend it. It is the word of the scriptures that the mistakes of a votary of truth never harm anybody. That is the glorious secret of truth. Just a word to friendly critics: I have preserved your letters. I usually reply to my correspondents individually. But the number of letters I have received this time and have been still getting is so large and they are so inordinately long that I cannot possibly reply to them individually. I cannot, I fear, make time even to acknowledge them. Some of the correspondents ask me to publish their letters in Navajivan. I hope they will not press the request.

I shall try to answer all the arguments that are relevant as well as I can, and hope that that will satisfy them. I bespeak the indulgence of the reader for this necessary preface. I shall now take up some of the letters before me. A friend says: You ask us not to feed stray dogs. But we do not invite them. They simply come. How can they be turned back? It will be time enough when there is a plethora of them. But is there any doubt that feeding dogs cultivates the impulse of compassion and turning them away hardens our hearts? We are all sinners. Why should we not practise what little kindness we can? It is from this false feeling of compassion that we encourage himsa in the name of ahimsa. But as ignorance is no excuse before man-made law, even so is it no excuse before the divine Law. But let us analyze the argument. We cast a morsel at the beggar come to our door, and feel that we have earned some merit, but we really thereby add to the numbers of beggars, aggravate the evil of beggary, encourage idleness and consequently promote irreligion. This does not mean that we should starve the really deserving beggars. It is the duty of society to support the blind and the infirm, but everyone may not take the task upon himself. The head of the society, i.e., the Mahajan or the State where it is well organized, should undertake the task, and the philanthropically inclined should subscribe funds to such an institution. If the Mahajan is pure-minded and wise, it will carefully investigate the condition of beggars and protect the deserving ones.

When this does not happen, i.e., when relief is indiscriminate, scoundrels disguised as beggars get the benefit of it and the poverty of the land increases. If it is thus a sin on the part of an individual to undertake feeding beggars, it is no less a sin for him to feed stray dogs. It is a false sense of compassion. It is an insult to the starving dog to throw a crumb at him. Roving dogs do not indicate the civilization or compassion of the society; they betray on the contrary, the ignorance and lethargy of its members. The lower animals are our brethren. I include among them the lion and the tiger. We do not know how to live with these carnivorous beasts and poisonous reptiles because of our ignorance. When man knows himself better, he will learn to befriend even these. Today he does not even know how to befriend a man of a different religion or from a foreign country. The dog is a faithful companion. There are numerous instances of the faithfulness of dogs and horses. But that means that we should keep them and treat them with respect as we do our companions and not allow them to roam about. By aggravating the evil of stray dogs we shall not be acquitting ourselves of our duty to them. But if we regard the existence of stray dogs as a shame to us and, therefore, refuse to feed them, we shall be doing the dogs as a class a real service and make them happy. What, then, can a humane man do for stray dogs? He should set apart a portion of his income and send it on to a society for the protection of those animals if there be one. If such a society is impossible and I know it is very difficult even if it is not impossible he should try to own one or more dogs. If he cannot do so, he should give up worrying about the question of dogs and direct his humanity towards the service of other animals. “But you are asking us to destroy them?” is the question angrily or lovingly asked by others. Now, I have not suggested the extirpation of dogs as an absolute duty. I have suggested the killing of some dogs as a “duty in distress” and under certain circumstances. When the State does not care for stray dogs, nor does the Mahajan, and when one is not prepared to take care of them oneself, then, and if one regards them as a danger to society, one should kill them and relieve them from a lingering death. This is a bitter dose, I agree. But it is my innermost conviction that true love and compassion consist in taking it.

The dogs in India are today in as bad a plight as the decrepit animals and men in the land. It is my firm conviction that this sorry plight is due to our misconception of ahimsa, is due to our want of ahimsa. Practice of ahimsa cannot have as its result impotence, impoverishment and famine. If this is a sacred land we should not see impoverishment stalking it. From this state of things some rash and impatient souls have drawn the conclusion that ahimsa is irreligion. But I know that it is not ahimsa that is wrong, it is its votaries that are wrong. Ahimsa is the religion of a Kshatriya. Mahavira was a Kshatriya, Buddha was a Kshatriya, Rama and Krishna were Kshatriyas and all of them were votaries of ahimsa. We want to propagate ahimsa in their name. But today ahimsa has become the monopoly of timid Vaishyas and that is why it has been besmirched. Ahimsa is the extreme limit of forgiveness. But forgiveness is the quality of the brave. Ahimsa is impossible without fearlessness. Cows we cannot protect, dogs we kick about and belabour with sticks, their ribs are seen sticking out, and yet we are not ashamed of ourselves and raise a hue and cry when a stray dog is killed.

Which of the two is better those five thousand dogs should wander about in semi-starvation living on dirt and excreta and drag on a miserable existence, or that fifty should die and keep the rest in a decent condition? It is admittedly sinful always to be spurning and kicking the dogs. But it is possible that the man who kills the dogs that he cannot bear to see tortured thus may be doing a meritorious act. Merely taking life is not always himsa; one may even say that there is sometimes more himsa in not taking life. We must examine this position in another article. 1 

 

 

From the point of view of ahimsa it is the plain duty of everyone to kill such a man. There is, indeed, one exception if it can be so called. The yogi who can subdue the fury of this dangerous man may not kill him. But we are not here dealing with beings who have almost reached perfection; we are considering the duty of the society, of the ordinary erring human beings. There may be a difference of opinion as regards the appositeness of my illustrations. But if they are inadequate, others can be easily imagined. What they are meant to show is that refraining from taking life can in no circumstances be an absolute duty. The fact is that ahimsa does not simply mean non-killing. Himsa means causing pain to or killing any life out of anger or from a selfish purpose, or with the intention of injuring it. Refraining from so doing is ahimsa. The physician who prescribes bitter medicine causes you pain but does no himsa. If he fails to prescribe bitter medicine when it is necessary to do so, he fails in his duty of ahimsa. The surgeon who, from fear of causing pain to his patient, hesitates to amputate a rotten limb is guilty of himsa. He who refrains from killing a murderer who is about to kill his ward (when he cannot prevent him otherwise)earns no merit, but commits a sin, he practises no ahimsa but himsa out of a fatuous sense of ahimsa. Let us now examine the root of ahimsa.

It is uttermost selflessness. Selflessness means complete freedom from a regard for one’s body. When some sage observed man killing numberless creatures, big and small, out of a regard for his own body, he was shocked at his ignorance. He pitied him for thus forgetting the deathless soul, encased within the perishable body, and for thinking of the ephemeral physical pleasure in preference to the eternal bliss of the spirit. He there from deduced the duty of complete self-effacement. He saw that if man desired to realize himself, i.e., truth, he could do so only by being completely detached from the body, i e., by making all other beings feel safe from him. That is the way of ahimsa. A realization of this truth shows that the sin of himsa consists not in merely taking life, but in taking life for the sake of one’s perishable body. All destruction therefore involved in the process of eating, drinking, etc., is selfish and, therefore, himsa. But man regards it to be unavoidable and puts up with it. But the destruction of bodies of tortured creatures being for their own peace cannot be regarded as himsa, or the unavoidable destruction caused for the purpose of protecting one’s wards cannot be regarded as himsa. This line of reasoning is liable to be most mischievously used used but that is not because the reasoning is faulty, but because of the inherent frailty of man to catch at whatever pretexts he can get to deceive himself to satisfy his selfishness or egoism. But that danger may not excuse one from defining the true nature of ahimsa. Thus, we arrive at the following result from the foregoing:

1. It is impossible to sustain one’s body without the destruction of other bodies to some extent.

2. All have to destroy some life

(a) For sustaining their own bodies;

(b) For protecting those under their care; or

(c) Sometimes for the sake of those whose life is taken.

3. (a) and (b) in (2) mean himsa to a greater or less extent. (c) means no himsa, and is therefore ahimsa. Himsa in (a) and (b) is unavoidable.

4. A progressive ahimsaists will, therefore, commit the himsa contained in (a) and (b) as little as possible, only when it is unavoidable, and after full and mature deliberation and having exhausted all remedies to avoid it. The destruction of dogs that I have suggested came under (4) and can, therefore, be resorted to only when it is unavoidable, when there is no other remedy and after mature deliberation. But I have not the slightest doubt that refraining from that destruction when it is unavoidable is worse than destruction. And, therefore, although there can be no absolute duty to kill dogs, etc., it becomes a necessary duty for certain people at certain times and under certain circumstances. I shall now try to take up one by one some of the questions that have been asked me. Some correspondents demand personal replies, and in case I fail to do so threaten to publish their views. It is impossible for me to reach every individual correspondent by a personal reply. Those that are necessary I shall deal with here. I have no right, nor desire, to stop people from carrying on the controversy in other papers. I may remind the correspondents, however, that threats and impatience have no place in a sober and religious discussion. A correspondent asks: How did you hit upon the religion of destroying dogs at the old age of 57? If it had occurred to you earlier than this, why were you silent so long? Man proclaims a truth only when he sees it and when it is necessary, no matter even if it be in his old age.

I have long recognized the duty of killing such animals within the limits lay down above, and have acted up to it on occasions. In India the villagers have long recognized the duty of destroying intruding dogs. They keep dogs that scare away intruders and kill them if they do not escape with their lives these watch-dogs are purposely maintained with a view to protecting the village from other dogs, etc., as also from thieves and robbers whom they attack fearlessly. The dogs have become a nuisance only in cities, and the best remedy is to have a law against stray dogs. That will involve the least destruction of dogs and ensure the protection of citizens. Another correspondent asks: Do you expect to convince people by logical argument in a matter like that of ahimsa? The rebuke contained in this is not without some substance. But I wanted to convince no one. Being a student and practiser of ahimsa, I have had to give expression to my views when the occasion demanded it. I have an opinion based on experience that logic and reasoning have some place, no doubt very small, in a religious discussion. 2

My definition of religion for the individual and for society is the same. The ideal must always be the same, but the practice I have conceived to be different in the case of the individual and the society. Truly speaking, practice differs in case of every individual. I do not know of two men having the same extent of the practice of ahimsa, though their definition of ahimsa is the same. The extent of practice in case of society is the average of the different capacities of its members. Thus, for instance, where a section of the society is milkarian and the other fruitarain, the practice for the society extends to the use of milk and fruit. 3

 

References:

 

1. Young India, 4-11-1926
2. Young India, 4-11-1926 
3. Young India, 11-11-1926