For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Gambling and Mahatma Gandhi

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

Gambling and Mahatma Gandhi

Gambling on a large scale will not be possible. The soldier is ready to lay down his life for the sake of his commander. That is why the work of a soldier is considered more honourable than that of an ordinary worker. The soldier’s trade is really, not slaying, but being slain in defence of others. Anyone who enlists as a soldier holds his life at the service of the state. This is true also of the lawyer, the physician and the priest. That is why we look up to them with respect. A lawyer must do justice even at the cost of his life. The physician must treat his patients at the cost of inconvenience to himself. And the clergyman must instruct his congregation and direct it along the right path, regardless of consequences. 1 The Mountain View proposition is decidedly a speculation and an honourable man should never speculate, much less to avoid a loss. The dividing line (if any) between speculations and gambling is very thin indeed. It is a niggardly spirit that fears to lose. 2

He then shows how factories have risen on the corpses of men, women and children, how as the country has rapidly advanced in riches, it has gone down in morality. He shows this by dealing with insanitation, life-destroying trades, adulteration, bribery and gambling. He shows how, with the advance of wealth, justice has become immoral; deaths from alcoholism and suicide have increased. The average of premature births and congenital defects has increased, and prostitution has become an institution. Those responsible for the proper conduct of co-operative societies will see to it that the money advanced does not find its way into the toddy-sellers’ till or into the pockets of the keepers of gambling dens. I would excuse the rapacity of the Mahajan if it has succeeded in keeping the gambling die or toddy from the ryot’s home. In the cities the drink-evil is on the increase, tea-shops are multiplying, gambling is rampant. If we cannot remedy these evils, how can we attain swaraj? Swaraj means managing our own affairs. You can either waste your time and money by devoting both to drinking and gambling or you can use both usefully in educating yourselves and your children. I hope you will remember the few words I have spoken this evening and try to act according to what I have said. I thank you for giving me the opportunity of meeting you. May God bless you and yours and may you become citizens of India. 3

If some people, instead of spending a single paisa on milk for their children, squander money on gambling, how can they rise at all? With my head bared and my hand stretched I am begging from the rich in India. I tell them about my experiments and they help me. I intend to use this money for a good purpose and so I have agreed to accept this present. 4 I shall now say a few words about the condition in general of the mill-hands, of which they need to know a great deal. We cannot become rich by merely getting more wages; nor is becoming wealthy the all in all. Anasuyabai has not dedicated her life to you merely for the purpose of securing for you better wages. Her object in doing so is that you may get enough to make you happy, to make you truly religious, that you may observe the eternal laws of ethics, that you may give up bad habits such as drink, gambling, etc., that you may make good use of your earnings, that you may keep your houses clean and that you may educate your children. It is now time to examine the use we should make of the increasing wages and the hours saved. It would be like going out of the frying-pan into the fire to use the increase in wages in the grogshop and the hours saved in the gambling den. The money received, it is clear, should be devoted to education of our children, and the time saved to our education. In both these matters the mill-owners can render much assistance. The can open cheap restaurants for working men where they can get pure milk and wholesome refreshments. They can open reading-rooms and provide harmless amusements and games for them. Provided such healthy surroundings, the craving for drink and gambling will leave them. The unions also should attempt similar things. They will be better employed in devising means of improvement from within than in fighting the capitalists. 5

The most important reform, however, which people can bring about, is to see that drinking liquor is given up. If the people as a whole take up this work, they can get wine-shops closed. Not of course, by trying to persuade the owners of the shops. I think it impossible to win over the owners. But I do not think it should be difficult to persuade the wine addict of the evils of drinking and influence his mind. Tea weakens one’s digestion and wine destroys the soul. In the wake of drinking follow insanity, adultery, gambling, etc. 6 So the heart of the matter is giving up our sinful ways. If the people drink liquor, indulge in gambling, commit thefts, are guilty of adultery and envy one another, non-co-operation cannot go on, for the Government maintains its rule by taking advantage of those evil habits. 7 People given to drink and other vices should give up drink and other addictions and sins, stealing, gambling, etc. 8 The spiritual character of the movement is one of the most soul-stirring phenomena that India could pass through. I ask you to put a stop to gambling, the use of intoxicating drinks and drugs, and other kindred vices. Believe me that when we have done this there is no power on earth which can stand in our way. 9

What is required is a total destruction of the pest. Betting at races is a part of the gambling mania. If only the people will non-co-operate, the evil will die a natural death. Thousands who attend the race course do so merely for fun. They attend either to see horses run breathlessly, or because it is the fashion, but they, nevertheless, aid and abet the ruin of many a gambler. But betting is, I apprehend, more difficult to deal with than drinking. When vice becomes a fashion and even a virtue, it is a long process to deal with it. Betting is not only fashionable but is hardly regarded as a vice. Not so drinking. Fortunately, it is still the fashion to consider drinking a weakness, if not positively a vice. Every religion has denounced it with more or less vehemence. But betting has escaped such special attention. Let us hope, however, that the vigilant public will find a more innocent recreation than attending the race course, and thus show its disapproval of gambling at the race course. 10

As I have already said, unfortunately the races and gambling in connection therewith are fashionable. They do not excite the same feeling of shame that drinking does. Race-going, therefore, is more difficult to deal with than drinking. Satya’ knows the evils of race going in a special manner. I invite him to come out in the open and personally tackle the vice which is slowly but surely undermining the morals of society. 11 In but one night, the future of a man like Ramachandra changed; in but one day, Harishchandra gave up everything for the sake of truth and Yudhishthira lost his kingdom in gambling. One day can be of no little value in man’s or a nation’s life. What may not four days do then? If Gujarat wants swaraj the rule of dharma to be won through its efforts, it must score full marks in this first test. 12 If I have a son who is addicted, say, to gambling, and a gambling company imposes itself on me to tempt my boy, I have either violently to knock the company down or to post watches at its offices, in order, if possible, to shame my son into not going there. It is true that there are other gambling companies some distance from my place. Still, I take it, I would be held in the right in having posted a watch at the company’s door. I must make it difficult for my son to gamble. If the Reformer accepts the doctrine of State prohibition, it must accept the corollary of picketing, so long as the State is a tyranny being perpetrated in the face of public opinion. What, for instance, should the public do if the State were to build palaces in every street for women of ill fame, and issue to them licences to ply their trade? Will it not be its duty, unless it destroys these palaces inhabited by vice, to quarantine them and warn the public of the danger of falling an easy prey to the temptation forced on it? I recognize the necessity of using only men and women of character as pickets and of guarding against violence being offered to those who insist on drinking in the face of public opinion. Picketing is a duty a citizen must discharge when he is not helped by the State. What is a police patrol if it is not picketing against thieves? The police use the gun when the thief betrays an inclination to break into another’s house. A picket uses the pressure of shame, i.e., love, when he warns a weak brother against the dangers of the drink evil. The Reformer has attributed to picketing claims never put forth on its behalf. 13

This is a war between religion and irreligion. We are therefore expected to give up drink, gambling and incontinence. Untouchability is Satan’s device. We must give that up. Then there is swaraj even before the end of October. I look upon this arrest as God’s gift. Let us make the best use of it. 14 We do not regard everyone who has been sentenced by a court as a criminal; on the contrary, all who have had experience of courts know that many innocent persons are punished and the guilty often escape punishment. As a lawyer, too, I have come across many such instances. Going to a court is like playing a game of chopat. For some, the dice may turn up favorably, for others, unfavorably. There is no reason to believe that they alone are worthy men who are favoured by the dice. Every player of chopat will readily recall instances in which the player always got the wrong number up, and failed to get the right number despite his most anxious efforts. It was not because of lack of skill in gambling on their part that the Pandavas lost while Duryodhana won. Poor Yudhishthira spared no efforts.. The Pandavas, however, were destined to attain immortal fame, to prove afresh that dharma always involved suffering. They were, therefore, defeated. But the world reveres the defeated Pandavas. 15

I am certainly against lotteries. They are a form of gambling. Where money required for education cannot be collected in a straightforward manner, there must be some weakness in the workers, and be it no more than inefficiency. Such persons are not qualified to undertake educational work. I would advise those who intend to subscribe to the lottery to save their money. They will deserve compliments if they hand over the amount to some trustworthy person, to be used for education or a similar purpose. Speculation in shares is also a kind of lottery. I hear that hundreds in Bombay have lost money through it. Is not this enough? 16 Gambling is wholly despicable. If relief work cannot be paid for without gambling, let millions die of starvation. Adharma can never lead to dharma. I would, therefore, ask everyone to refrain from gambling even for the relief of sufferers in Malabar. The money that is saved by abstaining from gambling may be given to me. This will kill two birds with one stone. You will protect yourself from a vice and the money that might have been wasted over the vice will be utilized for the sake of those who need it. How can a man think of gambling when he is concerned about a calamity? He will rather feed the hungry by starving himself. The questioner gives a vivid picture of gambling that is going on at Karamala town in Orpad Tahsil and says that even boys indulge in it. Occasionally there are altercations. The questioner also seeks a remedy for this evil. The remedy lies in cultivating local public opinion. Public opinion has a miraculous effect on vices. Just as burglars, etc., disappear when it dawns, similarly, when the sun of public opinion rises, vices disappear. If the majority of people at some place are gamblers and only a few are free from the vice, these should warn the townsfolk and if the vice still persists, they should migrate from the town. 17

An imperfect man is gambling with life and burning his fingers continuously. That is the reason why some of the best men of the world have ever chosen to live alone in the company of their Maker. I have neither the heart nor the courage to Part Company with Swami. He is a good man. He is brave; he is honest. He has no prejudices of race or religion. But he has something in him which makes him act offensively at times. I must ask you to forgive him for my sake. 18 We must give up drink and gambling and we must all, in due humility, worship God according to our own ways and early in the morning, after having washed our mouth, cleaned our teeth and having regained perfect possession of our faculties, we must announce the name of God and ask Him to help us to be and remain good. We must ask Him to help us to do our duty by our country. We must not think ill of anybody or think of injuring anybody. And if we can do these things, I can see my way clear to attain our freedom in an incredibly short time. If we are to do all these things, we must learn how to keep discipline. All the noise you make, whether it is about me or whether it is about any other servant of the nation, is of no use whatsoever. 19

I must ask you to eradicate those evils which have crept into your society. During my tour in Bengal, I came in contact with many untouchable brethren, from the United Provinces and Bihar. From them I came to know that they were addicted to the habits of drinking and gambling. It is true that nowadays other Hindus too, even Brahmins, are subject to these vices of drinking and gambling. But let us not imitate the evils in others. I therefore appeal to my Dom and other untouchable brothers and sisters that, for God’s sake, they should shun the evils in them. 20 I have known that in many parts of India labourers squander their money in gambling. It is a vicious habit and you should give it up. The morale amongst the labourers in some parts of India is also not all as it should be. If as labourers we want to become a recognized force in the Indian society and in the political world also, it is absolutely necessary for us to recognize the binding tie of marriage and all the obligations that that tie imposes upon us. I have congratulated you upon having this club for the advancement of khadi. But instead of there being a hundred members in that club every one of you should belong to it. Remember that khadi binds us to those who are much poorer than you. To throw away the foreign cloth or even your mill made cloth costs you nothing but the simple thought on behalf of the starving millions of people who are living in our villages. It has given me great pleasure to lay the foundation-stone which I have just laid over the place there. May God help you to do the things I have suggested to you? If you will but do these things, you will find that the majority of your difficulties will disappear without any further efforts. 21

Gambling is a vice which degrades the gambler and leads him to innumerable crimes. It must, therefore, be given up. You know that this part of the South is noted for the crime of murder. Hardly a week passes but sees a few cases of murder and it is well known that wherever there is drunkenness and gambling murder is the necessary consequence. We should really be ashamed of ourselves that there should be any men in society who hold life so cheaply that they would take it on the slightest provocation or the slightest pretext. If there are philanthropists in society in this place, as I have no doubt there are, I wish that they will study this crime, know exactly the causes and endeavour to remove this reproach from this fair district. 22

Everyone who spends a rupee on the race course or in a lottery ticket erects the pyramid of his hope on the foundation of the ruin of a multitude of such hopes of men and women having equal right with the few lucky (?) winners of prizes. It is difficult, however, to single out the lottery system for criticism, when the gambling spirit possesses even those who are ranked among the most respectable. The share-market is nothing but a feverish gamble. And yet who is free from that fever? Every man who finds himself rich in a day by manipulating the share-market knows that the sudden accession of wealth means desolation of many a widow’s home. Only the relatives of the widows who bought shares had, no doubt, almost the same kind of hope that the clever speculator of our imagination had. 23 Speculation clearly constitutes gambling and does not benefit the public at all. There is no doubt that it adversely affects business. Wealth gained through speculation is like wealth obtained by theft. Public opinion should be cultivated in order to prohibit speculation. This is a very ancient corrupt practice and has become widespread today. It will continue in one form or another so long as the human race does not give up greed. Young men will be unable to cope with all the evils in the world, but much can be achieved if they themselves become pure Public at all. There is no doubt that it adversely affects business. Wealth gained through speculation is like wealth obtained by theft. Public opinion should be cultivated in order to prohibit speculation. This is a very ancient corrupt practice and has become widespread today. It will continue in one form or another so long as the human race does not give up greed. Young men will be unable to cope with all the evils in the world, but much can be achieved if they themselves become pure. 24

The keeper of a gambling den or of a brothel has no vested interest. Nor has a corporation that gambles away the fortunes of a nation and reduces it to impotence. The Congress at Gaya therefore passed a comprehensive resolution repudiating certain debts. The last, whilst reaffirming the Gaya resolution, lay down that obligations or concessions pronounced to be unjust and unjustifiable by an independent tribunal shall not be recognized by the independence Government to come. No exception can, in my opinion, be possibly taken against such a reasonable proposition. To shirk the issue is to invite disaster. 25 Speculation means gambling. With the expectation that market prices will go up I buy 1,000 bales of cotton. I do not need any cotton; I do not even store it in any warehouse. Only a book transaction is made. Now I await a rise in price. I sell the cotton when it rises; this I consider gambling. The nation or, rather, the world has lost a great deal through such transactions. This was what I meant in my letter. Yes, I expect much more than this, but, at present, you will not be up to that. Without at all depending upon future market prices, to sell the commodities at a little more than the cost price is what I consider unsullied trade. Today it might be difficult to conduct such business, but ultimately, it might bear fruit. You might remember this is what I visualize for khadi. But I know this is a tall order. I shall be very happy and content if you brothers can give up speculation. However, do only what is intelligently acceptable and within your power. I would not at all wish that you should act upon the suggestion simply because it happens to be mine and that, too, send from jail. Faith should not have a place where reasoning is applicable. 26

The workers have not yet sufficiently realized their strength. They are not properly organized. If they do it they can rule India. But they must improve themselves before they are able to do it. They must clean themselves of the many vices that are a curse to them. They must give up drinking and gambling. 27 If anyone is afraid that playing cards may tempt the players to start gambling, he or she should certainly not play. It can never be one’s duty to play cards, and it may be too much if we forbid people to play. Those who can refrain from playing should not play. 28 The money spent in gambling, drink and lust is a double loss, for you lose your money and lose also your reputation and health. Whereas those who give even a pice for the service of humanity gain more than they give. Untouchability is a blot on Hinduism. It is a canker eating into its vitals. I see with my eyes and smell with my nose that the body of Hinduism is in the process of destruction. If you think with me, you should contribute your mite to this cause. Once we lose the spiritual power of Hinduism I do not know where we should be. A man without religion is like a ship without a rudder. The money, therefore, that you give is to my mind a token of your desire to save Hinduism from spiritual destruction. 29

Lastly, those who are given to carrion-eating or beef-eating should give these up and if labour is to come to its own, you must give up the wretched habits of drink and gambling. I know that these two vices have degraded labour and desolated many homes among labourers. I therefore hope that you will give up the evil habits of drink and gambling. May God give you the strength to shed the evil of untouchability, drink and gambling? 30 A friend has been persistently asking me to draw public attention to the species of gambling prevalent in Bombay among the so-called high class people. Whilst I have been heart and soul with the friend in deploring the evil, I have not had the courage to write about it. I felt that whatever I said would be a waste of effort, as I had no hope of following up my writing by some organized constructive effort to combat the evil. Whilst I was thus debating as to writing on the evil, I had to go to Borsad in answer to the Sardar’s summons. There in Borsad the Sardar and his volunteers poured into my ears harrowing tales of the havoc that gambling was working in the villages of Gujarat. It is spreading like grass fire of a windy night. Everybody is in a hurry to be rich without working. ‘Somebody will have made the correct guess as to the ruling price for the day of some commodity, Why not I?’ argues the gambler and rushes to his ruin. Peace is being destroyed in the once happy homes of Gujarat. There is no doubt that whatever one calls it, this gambling is as old as Adam, and that though the form and the name may have changed, the substance has not changed at all. The law must be against this gambling. But it is of no avail if public opinion is not behind it. It is therefore necessary for workers to bestir themselves as they did during the plague or as they have done for the earthquake relief. They must not be satisfied till the evil is rooted out. In a way it is worse than the plague or the quake. For it destroys the soul within. A person without the soul is a burden upon the earth. No doubt war against gambling is not as simple as war against plague or earthquake distress. In the latter there is more or less co-operation from the sufferers. In the former the sufferers invite and hug their sufferings. To wean the gambler from his voice is like weaning the drunkard from the drink habit. This war against gambling is therefore an uphill task. But it must be tackled, if the evil is not dealt with in time. It is bad enough in Bombay. Its inroad upon the villages is a danger signal which no lover of the country can dare ignore. 31

If the canker is eating into the vitals of the simple village folk of Gujarat, it is invading titled men, barristers, doctors, merchants and even teachers who are expected to guard national morals. Even the police are said not to be free from the vice. Women, children of tender age and blind beggars are not free from the vice. Some newspapers thrive on advertising the evil. It goes on unchecked in spite of the effort of some reformers. May not growing poverty and consequent unemployment be the cause of the evil? I do not think so. No doubt unemployment favours the spread. But the causes are much deeper. The very fact that the vice has affected all classes must make us cautious and lead us to make deeper investigations into the causes. 32 Gambling involves deception and the money obtained through it is tainted. Hence we should not gamble. 33

In the provinces where the Congress has a majority, all kinds of hopes have been raised. Some are legitimate and will, no doubt, be fulfilled. Some others cannot be. Thus the people who indulge in gambling, which unfortunately is ever on the increase in the Bombay Presidency, think that gambling will be legalized and surreptitious dens that cover Bombay will be no longer required. I am not quite sure that even if gambling is legalized on a universal scale, as it is already in a restricted manner, there will be no illegal dens. Thus it has been suggested that the Turf Club, which has the monopoly of gambling on the racecourse, should be allowed to open an additional entrance to make it easier for poor people to gamble. The bait offered is larger revenue. A similar suggestion has been made for the regulation and licensing of brothels. The argument advanced, as in all such cases, is that the vice will continue whether it is legalized or not and, therefore, it is better to legalize it and make it safe for those who visit the brothels. Let me hope that the Ministers will not fall into this trap. The proper method of dealing with brothels is for the women to carry on a double propaganda, (a) amongst women who sell their honour for a livelihood and (b) amongst men whom they must shame into behaving better towards their sisters whom they ignorantly or insolently call the weaker sex. I remember years and years ago in the early nineties when the brave Salvation Army people, at the risk of their own lives, used to carry on picketing at the corners of notorious streets of Bombay which were filled with houses of ill fame.

There is no reason why some such thing should not be organized on a large scale. As for gambling on the racecourse, it is, so far as I am aware, an importation, like many other importations, from the West, and if I had my way I would withdraw the protection of the law that gambling on the racecourse enjoys even to the extent it does. The Congress programme being one of self-purification, as is stated in so many words in the resolution of 1920; the Congress can have nothing to do with income derived from any vice. The Ministers will, therefore, use the authority that they have obtained for educating public opinion in the right direction and for stopping gambling in high quarters. It is useless to hope that the unwary public will not copy the bad manners of the so-called high-placed people. I have heard it argued that horse-racing is necessary for breeding good horses. There may be truth in this. Is it not possible to have horse-racing without gambling, or is gambling also an aid to the good breeding of horses? 34

Gambling had not disappeared from the people’s hearts. It was kept down not by the tone set by society, but by the penalty of the law. The heart continued to gamble. Japan is of course to blame and must be blamed for what it has done or is doing. But then Japan is just now like the wolf whose business it is to make short work of the sheep. Blaming the wolf would not help the sheep much. The sheep must learn not to fall into the clutches of the wolf. 35 None as disastrous as this and this breeds the rest. But I am for the abolition of gambling too. This evil, however, ruins the victim body and soul. The same thing would happen if you were to overeat! You are talking of the 60,000 mill-hands in Ahmadabad. Why not listen to the appeal of 50,000 Parsis of Bombay? Drunkenness is unknown amongst us. Let us assume that for a moment. It proves that you are temperate. Well, then why will you not carry temperateness a little further and co-operate in this the greatest of all moral reforms in India? And remember there is ample provision for those who need drink for their health or religious rites. I suggest your working along these lines but not seeking to ruin the reform. 36

I see no comparison between gambling and wine. I have taken donations from many wine merchants also from prostitutes. Whose money should I reject and whose should I accept? Yes, I had refused Rs. 12,000 from Gohar Jan because of the condition that I should go and listen to her music. But Alibhai went and collected the money. Tell me what we can do now. Strange are the ways of dharma. 37 Although, in my opinion gambling at races is not as great an evil as drinking of alcohol, one ought not really to draw comparisons. Less bad does not make gambling a good thing. I do not know all the intricacies of horse racing. All I can say is that if it is within the competence of the present Government to put an end to the evil; it should certainly do so. 38 Gandhiji referred to two letters he had received today in which the auctions he had been holding had been referred to as gambling and black-marketing. It was man’s duty to keep his speech correct but these friends had not weighed their words before writing. Gambling and black-marketing were indulged in for personal ends. Men even died for their selfish ends and stooped to anything to make money. The money spent at the auctions here was given for the Harijan cause. The articles bought were not for use but to be kept as souvenirs for the children to remember what their parents did to remove untouchability. Of course anyone could misrepresent a pure act as an impure one. Such base misrepresentation could not be helped. 39

I hear many of those who were well-to-do in the past are idling away their time in playing cards and even gambling. Some are reported to be buying property or resorting to other methods of making money. I call it criminal behaviour. If I was given the rare opportunity of making common cause with poor refugees, I would share with them my talents and such riches and I had brought with me. All of you should make a co-operative effort so that wherever you go ultimately you lead a better and corporate life as a result of the life lived in Hardwar. Hardwar is considered to be a holy place. I do not think it is holy but you can make it so by your behaviour. 40 Today we are engaged in fighting among ourselves; but we can fight only when we have time to fight. But when we are occupied in work and all of us become workers, we will have no time left for quarrels and fights. We have got provision for food and clothing. Let us give up the habits of drinking and gambling. If we proceeded thus step by step in the right direction we would have no shortcomings left in us. We would on our own feel that we do not want to fight. There would be no question of anyone being a Hindu or a Muslim. If anyone created trouble we would face it bravely. We would fight with him if we wanted to. But why should we die today under unnatural circumstances? 41

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