Love and Mahatma Gandhi- VII

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

 

 

Love and Mahatma Gandhi- VII 

 

 

 

I ask all those who cherish love towards me to utilize it in furtherance of the union we all desire. I know that the task is difficult. But nothing is difficult if we have a living faith in God. Let us realize out own weakness and approach Him and He will surely help. It is weakness which breeds fear and fear breeds distrust let us both shed our fear, but I know that, even if one of us will cease to fear, we shall cease to quarrel. Nay, I say that your tenure of office will be judged solely by what you can do in the cause of union. I know that we love each other as brothers. I ask you, therefore, to share my anxiety and help me to go through the period of illness with a lighter heart. 1 I am convinced that it is the prerogative of man to rise superior to the eternal duel and to attain equanimity, and the only way we can do so is by practising to the fullest extent the truth force, otherwise described as love-force or soul-force. You will not expect me to argue out the point. I can only place before you my conviction based upon prolonged experience during which I cannot recall a single occasion when this force has not completely answered. No doubt it requires the cultivation of patience, humility and the like. 2 

I would love to do it. The external political activity is not of my seeking. I therefore cannot give it up of my will. If God desires that I should develop the Ashram by being in it, He will make my way clear. If it is a real organic growth, I know that it will continue to make progress whether I am in it our outside. After all, if any such institution has to depend merely upon one man’s existence on earth, it has to perish with him, but if it is to be of a permanent character, it must depend for its existence upon its own independence and internal vitality. Nor need we be impatient about their progress or success. It is sufficient if we do the best according to our lights and leave the rest to Him who disposes of everything. I think you have done well in not taking upon your shoulders the grave responsibility of taking young women in the Ashram so long as you have no woman worker who can stand on her own and who can become a wall of protection to such girls. I shall hope that your own wife will be such in time. 3

The great saint wrote his Ramayana in my opinion, to glorify Rama’s name. For me it has been a talisman. My nurse, whom I used to love as my mother, and in whose company much more of my time was passed in childhood than in my mother’s, used to tell me that if I thought of evil spirits at night and dreaded them, I could ward them off by repeating the name of Rama. Having faith in the nurse, I followed her prescription, and whenever at night vague fears seized hold of me, I used to recite the sacred name, and it answered the purpose. As I grew old, the faith weakened. My mentor, the nurse, was dead. I ceased to take the name of Rama, and my fears revived. In the jail I read the Ramayana with greater attention and still greater devotion than ever before, and whenever I felt lonely or felt the pride in me rising and telling me that I could do something for India, to give me due humility and to make me experience the presence of the Almighty, and thus to remove my loneliness, I used calmly to recite the name Rama with all the halo that Tulsidas has surrounded it with. I cannot put in words the indescribable peace that then came on me. As you know, Mr. Banker was torn away from me for some time. When he rejoined me, he related his own experiences to me. He used to experience all kinds of dreadful things after the cell-door was cruelly locked upon him. But he related to me graphically how the recitation of the name calmed him and gave him strength also to shed all those unbecoming fears. I, therefore, send you the much-tried prescription. Think, whenever you feel you are excited, of Rama and the peace giving nature of the recitation. Continue to recite the name slowly, forgetting everything, and considering yourself as one of the tiniest atoms in the mighty universe, and God willing the excitement will subside, and you will experience a blissful peace. The sages of old knew from experience what they were saying when they prescribed for troubled souls Ramanama, Dwadash Mantra and such other things. The more I think of them, the more true all those mantras appear to me today. I wish you could have faith enough to repeat Ramanama or such mantra which memory might have hallowed for you, and I know that you will soon be yourself again. 4

Moreover, seeing me is not likely to be of any benefit to you. It is an indication of your love for me, but it is an exaggerated indication. The love itself is a great force, and I should have you apply that force not to seeing me, but to the service of the people. 5 I would love to have you, Begum Saheba and the whole of your suite, but the accommodation in this big bungalow is now limited. I could easily take care of you, that is to say, you will be left to take care of yourself and make yourself as comfortable as it is possible in a place that has been turned into a hospital. I am lying in the midst of patients. Maganlal’s daughter Radha and Vallabhbhai’s daughter Manibai are both here and they are much weaker than I am myself. Prabhudas though not bed-ridden is also an invalid, and I have invited mad Majli too to come here and how I would love to nurse the Big Brother also. But that can only be after convalescence. Let there be no mistake about the motive in having all these patients here. You may know that I am a better nurse than a politician, if I am one at all, and what is more, I felt ashamed to be occupying a big bungalow like this all alone when there were patients, some of whom, brought up under me from infancy, requiring far greater care, attention and change than I did. 6

Though, therefore, A Mussalman or a Christian or a Hindu may despise me and hate me, I want to love him and serve him even as I would love my wife or son though they hate me. So my patriotism is for me a stage in my journey to the land of eternal freedom and peace. Thus it will be seen that for me there are no politics devoid of religion. They subserve religion. Politics bereft of religion are a death-trap because they kill the soul. 7 You need not apologize for its length. It is all very interesting and shows the deep interest you are taking in the Ashram and Nature Cure. My difficulty is to digest milk made out of nuts. I tried it during my convalescence after that violent attack of dysentery. I should love to give it a re-trial, but I do not want just now to make any risky experiment in dietetics. 8

In my humble opinion, the most important task before us today is to repair the breach in Hindu-Muslim unity which has occurred at many places. Till there is genuine love uniting the followers of the different faiths, we should not hope for swaraj or prosperity. I am fully convinced that, without such love, all our efforts will be in vain. I am eager to give my views about how the breach may be repaired, but I request readers to have patience in this matter also. I must discuss this problem, too, with the leaders. 9 Mr. Weatherly has laid down a universal proposition that “non-co-operation is a way of violence”. A moment’s thought would have shown the falsity of the proposition. I am non-co-operate when I refuse to sell liquor in a liquor-shop, or help a murderer in his plans. My non-co- operation, I hold, is not only a way of violence, but may be an act of love, if love is the motive that has prompted my refusal. The fact is that all non-co-operations are not violent and non-violent non-cooperation can never be an act of violence. It may not be always an act of love for love is an active quality which cannot always be inferred from the act itself. A surgeon may perform a most successful operation and yet he may have no love for his patient. Mr. Weatherly’s illustration is most unhappy and incomplete for the purpose of examination. If the milk drivers of New York have a grievance against its Municipality for criminal mismanagement of its trust and if, in order to bend it, they decided to cut off the milk supply of the babies of New York, they would be guilty of a crime against humanity. But suppose that the milk drivers were underpaid by their employers, that they were consequently starving, they would be justified, if they have tried every other available and proper method of securing better wages, in refusing to drive the milk carts even though their action resulted in the death of the babies of New York. Their refusal will certainly not be an act of violence, though it will not be an act of love.

They were not philanthropists. They were driving milk carts for the sake of their maintenance. It was no part of their duty as employees under every circumstance to supply milk to babies. There is no violence when there is no infraction of duty. Suppose further that the milk drivers in question knew that their employers supplied cheap but adulterated milk and another dairy company supplied better but dearer milk and they felt for the welfare of the babies of New York, their refusal to drive the milk carts will be an act of love, even though some short-sighted mother of New York might be deprived of the adulterated milk and may not have bought better but dearer milk from the more honest dairy company whose existence has been assumed for the purpose of our argument. 10 

Thus, it is clear that non-co-operation is not violence when the refusal of the restraint is a right and a duty, even though by reason of its performance some people may have to suffer. It will be an act of love when non-co-operation is resorted to solely for the good of the wrongdoer. Indian non-co-operation is a right and a duty, but cannot be regarded as an act of love because it has been undertaken by a weak people in self-defence. 11 Now he can hear his inner voice. He asks the God within him: “Though insulted, do I yet love my