Is This Humanity-II – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Is This Humanity-II – Mahatma Gandhi  

 

When I wrote the article on this subject I knew that I was adding one more to my already heavy burden of troubles. But it could not be helped. Angry letters are now pouring in. At an hour when after a hard day’s work I was about to retire to bed, three friends invaded me, infringed the religion of ahimsa in the name of humanity, and engaged me in a discussion on it. They had come in the name of humanity. How could I refuse to see them? So I met them. One of them, I saw, betrayed anger, bitterness and arrogance. He did not seem to me to have come with a view to getting his doubts solved. He had come rather to correct me. Everyone has a right to do so, but whoever undertakes such a mission must know my position. This friend had taken no trouble to understand my position. But he was not to blame for it. This impatience which is but a symptom of violence is to be found everywhere. The violence in this case was painful to me as it was betrayed by an advocate of non-violence. He claimed to be a Jain.

I have made a fair study of Jainism. This visitor’s ahimsa was a distortion of the reality as I have known it in Jainism. But the Jains have no monopoly of ahimsa. It is not the exclusive peculiarity of any religion. Every religion is based on ahimsa; its application is different in different religions. I do not think that the Jains of today practice ahimsa in any better way than others. I can say this because of my acquaintance with Jains, which is so old that many take me to be a Jain. Mahavir was an incarnation of compassion, of ahimsa. How I wish his votaries were votaries also of his ahimsa! Protection of little creatures is indeed an essential part of ahimsa, but it does not exhaust itself with it. Ahimsa begins with it besides protection may not always mean mere refraining from killing. Torture or participation, direct or indirect, in the unnecessary multiplication of those that must die is himsa the multiplication of dogs is unnecessary. A roving dog without an owner is a danger to society and a swarm of them is a menace to its very existence. If we want to keep dogs in towns or villages in a decent manner, no dog should be suffered to wander. There should be no stray dogs even as we have no stray cattle. Humanitarian societies should find a religious solution of such questions. But can we take individual charge of these roving dogs? And if we cannot, can we have a pinjarapoles for them? If both these things are impossible, there seems to me to be no alternative except to kill them. Connivance or putting up with the status quo is no ahimsa; there is no thought or discrimination in it. Dogs will be killed whenever they are a menace to society.

I regard this as unavoidable in the life of a householder. To wait until they get rabid is not to be merciful to them. We can imagine what the dogs wish if a meeting would could be called of them, from what we would wish under the same circumstances. We will not choose to live anyhow. That many of us do so is no credit to us. A meeting of wise men will never resolve that men may treat one another as they treat rabid or stray dogs. What shall we expect of them if there were to be some beings loosing it over us as we do over dogs? Would we not rather prefer to be killed than to be treated as dogs? We offend against dogs as a class by suffering them to stray and live on crumbs or savings from our plates that we throw at them and we injure our neighbours also by doing so. I admit that there is the duty of suffering dogs to live even at the cost of one’s life. But that religion is not for the householder who desires to live, who procreates, and who would protect society. The householder can but practice the middle path of taking care of a few dogs. Our domestics of today are the wild animals of yesterday. The buffalo is a domestic only in India. It is a sin to domesticate wild animals inasmuch as man does so for his selfish purposes. That he has domesticated the cow and the buffalo is not out of mercy for them, it is for his own use. He, therefore, does not allow a cow or a buffalo to stray. The same duty is incumbent regarding dogs.

I am, therefore, strongly of opinion that, if we would practice the religion of humanity, we should have a law making it obligatory on those who would have dogs to keep them under guard, and not allow them to stray, and making all the stray dogs liable to be destroyed after a certain date. If the Mahajan has really any mercy for the dogs, it should take possession of all the stray dogs and distribute them to those who want to keep them. It seems to me to be impossible to protect dogs as we can protect the cows. But there is a regular science of dog-keeping which the people in the West have formulated and perfected. We should learn it from them and devise measures for the solution of our own problem. The work cannot be done without patience, wisdom and perseverance So much about dogs. But with ahimsa in its comprehensive aspect I propose to deal on another occasion.

 

Reference:

Young India, 28-10-1926