For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Love and Mahatma Gandhi- XI

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

Love and Mahatma Gandhi- XI

All these are questions which involve discrimination and love. A thing may be proper on one occasion and improper in another. Man is a living being and not an inanimate object like a machine. Hence, among human beings and in the acts of every one of them, there is variation, novelty, apparent contradiction, etc. However, under the divine guidance of truth and love a discriminating observer could but perceive identity in difference, harmony amidst discord and unity in diversity. Love without tolerance is not worth the name. I acquire the right to plead courteously with a Muslim not to slaughter the sacred cow by tolerating such slaughter to begin with. I acquired the right to bring up courteously the subject of prohibition at the Thakore Saheb’s gathering by suffering drinks being served there. Would the Thakore Saheb prevent me from bringing up this subject even if I did not attend his party? Someone may ask this question. The answer is that Thakore Saheb would listen to me because he is polite, but while listening to me he would hardly pay any attention to the subject. However, if I talk of prohibition in spite of having attended his reception, he would give careful consideration to what I say and would not let my tolerance go in vain. Understanding, love and rivalry are necessarily involved in our compulsory use of khadi. The burden of making it compulsory lies on the teacher, not on the children. The former will not order them like a policeman, but use whatever skill he has in order to win over the hearts of the children. We are not talking of making them wear khadi on the very first day but of making they wear it after four years [since the establishment of national schools]. The word “compulsory” or “obligatory” governs the action of the teacher. It draws the latter's attention to his obligation. Hence the question does not even arise whether the method of being patient is more or less conducive to the original purpose. Patience is, or at any rate should be, the quality of a teacher. 1

A gentleman asks what a husband should do if his wife does not assist him in practising the dharma of self-control. My experience tells me that one does not require the consent of the other partner in practising self-control. It is enjoyment that requires consent. Renunciation is everyone’s prerogative. In these matters, however, a great deal of discrimination is required. Self-control should be genuine. The man should carefully observe his own feelings. He can persuade the wife to accept his idea through gentleness and pure love. It is possible that the wife is not as enlightened as the husband. If so, it is his dharma to share his knowledge with her. There is no difficulty in practising self-control where there is such wisdom in family relationships. It is my experience that the woman is the first to practise self-control. It is the husband who prevents her from doing so. Hence this question appears irrelevant to me; nevertheless, I have answered it with some hesitation because I feel that it required being answered. It is the husband who prevents her from doing so. Hence this question appears irrelevant to me; nevertheless, I have answered it with some hesitation because I feel that it required to be answered. 2

I am a servant of Mussalmans, Christians, Parsis and Jews as I am of Hindus. And a servant is in need of love, not prestige. That is assured to me so long as I remained a faithful servant. And I would ask the Maulana to transfer his anxiety to the prestige of Islam. And I shall share his burden. In my opinion he has unconsciously diminished that prestige by his defence of an indefensible practice. No amount of casuistry can defend the penalty of stoning to death in any event or that of death, whether by stoning or otherwise, for apostasy. 3 I urge the advocates of artificial methods to consider the consequences. Any large use of the methods is likely to result in the dissolution of the marriage bond and in free love. If a man may indulge in animal passion for the sake of it, what is he to do whilst he is, say, away from his home for any length of time, or when he is engaged as a soldier in a protracted war, or when he is widowed, or when his wife is too ill to permit him the indulgence without injury to her health notwithstanding the use of artificial methods? 4

What are you waiting for? Has the love for the Durbar Saheb which you once professed before me evaporated? You complain that the Kothis let loose their cattle into your fields. Did the Durbar forbid you to defend yourselves and your fields? Even the British Government gives you the right to drive out poachers and beat off cattle from your fields. Why have you become so helpless? Why did you break all your promises? 5 I do not regard the revolutionaries of India to be less sacrificing, less noble or less lovers of their country than the rest. But I respectfully contend that their sacrifice, nobility and love are not only a waste of effort, but being ignorant and misguided, do and have done more harm to the country than any other activity. 6

It is not easy to explain the difference between violence and non-violence. But this can be said in a general way, that what counts is the spirit in which the person concerned acts. Arsenic given out of love may have the effect of amrita on some and benefit them, but, given in hatred, it will act as poison and cause death. Lord Buddha left his innocent queen, and so attained his soul’s salvation and helped that of the world. His action was a perfect expression of love. The action of the gambler who leaves his sleeping wife and goes out to play springs from violence and ignorance. Between these two instances fall all those given by you. 7 But what I would love to see is that the crowds I expect to see in Bengal will be all clad in khaddar. Not that a single person who is not so clad should be turned out. Those who do not believe in khaddar may come in their foreign or mill-spun and mill made cloth by all means. But the vast majority who I understand believe in khaddar should at least practise what they believe. Let them demonstrate their belief in their own persons. Lastly, I hope that all parties will attend these meetings. I would love to see people belonging to all the different schools and different races not excluding English-men. May I also add that it will be better if the local organizers will arrange more for personal and private (not secret) chats than for huge gatherings for speech-making? That spectacular part may be necessary, but it should occupy the least time. I would naturally meet the students. Ladies’ meetings are a feature everywhere and I would now like a meeting of untouchables too in every place. And if, as in these parts of India, there are separate quarters for them in Bengal, I should like to visit them. In a word, let the tour be a business tour and the mission one of peace and goodwill. 8

I may warn that there are limits to my capacity for undertakings. There are certain limits which are obvious. For instance though I can collect funds for my purposes, and though I know that the love of my countrymen for me is deep enough to find me money for any good undertaking that I take up, I want you to know that I cannot go about from place to place asking for money for the present task. I have neither the time nor the energy for it. Then there is the honest, careful and efficient disposal of the funds. I obviously cannot look to or supervise every detail, and the cow won’t impale you on her horns for mismanagement or similar blunders. We have, therefore, to do the work in fear of God and with the full consciousness of the sacredness of the task. 9

I am glad you are turning the wheel. Its silent revolution will bring you peace and bring the freedom you love much nearer than you imagine. Do not mind your fickle friends who have deserted you leaving behind a legacy of “bug-ridden bed born” slivers. If I were you, I would record these slivers. You may not know carding. If you do not, you must go to the nearest man who knows it and learn the beautiful art of carding. He is an indifferent spinner who knows not how to card. You need not be afraid that the method of non-violence is a slow long-drawn-out process. It is the swiftest the world has seen, for it is the surest. You will see that it will overtake the revolutionaries whom you imagine I have misjudged. To point out errors is not to misjudge. I am devoting so much space to them because I want their exhaustless energy to be directed in the right channel. 10

Superstition in every form is idolatry, that is, idol-worship which deserves to be condemned. Those who believe in any tradition as sacred are idol-worshippers of this kind, and in respect of them I am an idol-breaker. No one can convince me, with the help of quotations from Shastras, that untruth is truth, cruelty is kindness and hatred is love. In that sense I am an idol-breaker. I am an idol-breaker because no one can, by quoting ambiguous or interpolated stanzas or by holding out threats, persuade me to shun or slight the Antyajas or to regard them as untouchables. I can see the wrong even of my parents as wrong and, therefore, despite my great love for my country, I can see and publicly expose its evils, and hence, I am an idol-breaker. But generally I feel a very high and quite spontaneous veneration for the Vedas and other holy books; I can see God even in a piece of stone and, therefore, I instinctively bow my head before statues of saints; for this reason I regard myself as an idol-worshipper. Thus, it is the emotions in the heart which are good or bad rather than outward actions. Every action is to be judged by the emotion of the person acting. Touching one’s mother with an impure emotion will send the son to hell, but touching the same mother with a pure emotion will take him to heaven. A wound inflicted with a knife through hatred will take the victim’s life; a cut made with the same knife through love will save life. A cat’s teeth which protect her kittens are fatal to a mouse. 11

You may not be convinced with our reasons. You may say: “Our heart is satisfied that you are on the right track. We subscribe to your advice so long as we hold you to be our ideal.” That is the way for you. That is the way I would like you to treat those whom you love. You [are] like sepoys and soldiers; it is not for you to reason why after you have chosen your leader if you have not made your choice and are called upon to make your choice, exercise your reason to its utmost scan the would be candidate to leadership from top to toe. But after having made your choice and after having garlanded, like Sita, your chosen person, never flinch and, like Sita, go through the fire with him and all will be well with you. 12

Is it easy to escape the consequence of the atman dwelling in a physical body? Do others in the world act as Das did? People in the world would welcome a palace if they can have it, whereas this man gave away one. All honour to him! The tears in my eyes spring from love. The shock I felt was also the result of love. But is there no selfishness in this? If I had no bond at all with Deshbandhu, if I had not known him reigning like a king in this building, I would have felt no shock. I have seen many palaces whose owners departed from this world itself, leaving palaces behind them, but I shed no tears when entering them. These tears, therefore, spring from selfishness too. 13 Do I ask you to do spinning for the whole of the day? Do I ask you to take it up as a substantive occupation? Where, then, is the breach of the principle of division of labour? Do you have a division of labour in eating and drinking? Just as every one of us must eat and drink and clothe himself, even so, every one of us must spin himself. And it is a waste, you say? Fellow-feeling for your countrymen, you say, you have in an abundant measure? And what is that fellow-feeling without the milk of human kindness? Do you feel anything like the love that a cow feels for her calf or a mother for her baby? The cow’s udders and the mother’s breast overflow with milk at the sight of their young ones. Do your hearts overflow with love at the sight of your famished countrymen? By spinning, my friends, you demonstrate your love for them. You spin and you make them shake off their idleness. A friend goes and beautifully sings before a crowd and affects their hearts. Is it a waste of effort? It would be, of course, if he vainly howls Vande Mataram before them but spinning means more. It has a purpose and it means added production. The purpose is that it serves as a bond with the masses. And the mechanical effort has something as its result, whilst there is absolutely nothing like it which all alike can do without much effort and skill, nothing which can be done by millions by the best of us as by the mediocre. And the students should all do it particularly because they are the salt of the earth. Their life is yet to begin, they can imbibe new ideas as no one else can, and they have long years of service before them. 14

He that shall love his own life shall lose it. He that shall lose his own life shall find it. Sacrifice of the lives of others cannot be justified on grounds of necessity, for it is impossible to prove necessity. We may not be judges ourselves. The sole judges must be those whose lives we would take. One good reason for non-violence is our fallible judgment. The inquisitors implicitly believed in the righteousness of their deeds, but we now know that they were wholly wrong. 15 If the destructive one had the upper hand, all the sacred ties love between parents and child, brother and sister, master and disciple, rulers and the ruled, would be snapped. Ahimsa is like the sun whose worship, as the symbol of God, our rishis immortalized in the Gayatri. As the sun “keeps watch over man’s mortality”, going his eternal rounds and dispelling darkness and sin and gloom, even so does ahimsa. Ahimsa inspires you with love than which you cannot think of a better excitement. And that is why my faith in the wheel, which is a symbol of peace and love, is increasing as I grow older. And that is why I do not think I am committing an impropriety in spinning whilst I am talking to you. As I am turning the wheel, I am saying to myself: “Why does God give me my daily bread, whilst He starves multitudes of men? Let Him starve me also, or enable me to do something to remove their starvation.” And as I turn it, I am practising ahimsa and truth which are the obverse and reverse of the same coin. Ahimsa is my God, and Truth is my God. When I look for Ahimsa, Truth says, ‘Find it out through me.’ When I look for Truth, Ahimsa says, ‘Find it out through me.’ So the rhapsody easily became one on charkha and ahimsa instead of that on ahimsa alone. 16

If girls are bolder with me than boys it is because the former respond more quickly to my call. But I shall make no distinction and therefore send love to both and you also, on condition that you get well quickly. 17 There is, of course, one easy remedy. The educated classes should, in a spirit of humble service, go into villages and study the condition of the people. In doing so, many will fall ill and many will die. We shall find the remedy when we have learnt to bear all this. It is only then that the people will understand and adopt the remedy that has been found. I certainly believe it will be difficult, if not impossible, to convince people with arguments addressed to their reason. The people will understand only through their heart, and they alone can speak through their hearts who have won the people’s confidence through service, love and sacrifice. 18 Nor does a man profess his religion to oblige others. He professes a religion because he cannot do otherwise. A faithful husband loves his wife as he would love no other woman. Even her faithlessness would not wean him from his faith. The bond is more than blood-relationship. So is the religious bond if it is worth anything. It is a matter of the heart. An untouchable who lives his Hinduism in the face of persecution at the hands of those Hindus who arrogate to themselves a superior status is a better Hindu than the self-styled superior Hindu who, by the very act of claiming superiority, denies his Hinduism. Therefore, those who threaten to renounce Hinduism are, in my opinion, betraying their faith. Real love of the country should be a far greater incentive to application than the desire to gain a pass certificate. There is as much romance about solving a difficult geometrical problem or working an arithmetical sum requiring long additions and multiplication as there is about spinning. And if the Bengali boy does not plead want of romance about his examinations, he has less reason to plead it about spinning, which is as necessary for national as an examination is for individual sustenance. 19

It is dangerous, this association with fallen sisters, especially for young men. All that you need do is to entrust the work to your women, guiding them from a distance. The volunteers in their address asked me to tell them how they could push on their work. They are all under the vow of ahimsa, and as ahimsa is love, I can show them where they can concentrate all their energies with love as their weapon. 20 I wish that no one should draw wrong conclusions from my reply. I should be very happy to get a band of workers dedicated to poverty; I know that the coming of swaraj would be very much hastened if we had such a band of workers. Individual workers should always bear this in mind. But at the same time, we should also remember our weaknesses and shortcomings. The path we follow is the path of love. We may be strict with ourselves, but should be correspondingly liberal in our attitude to others. That is the way of non-violence.

Our sacrifice should never make us proud. We should not be critical of the lesser sacrifices of others. It happens sometimes that a man carrying a load of five maunds may yet be a miser about his strength while a man carrying one maund draws upon all the strength he has. Between the two, the honest worker is the one who carries one maund. Hence, instead of sitting in judgment over others, we should examine our own record, use all our strength to force sacrifices from ourselves and, banishing uncharitable thoughts, accept with love whatever sacrifices others make. 21 Non-violence is love. It works silently, almost secretly. Hence the saying: the right hand knoweth not what the left is giving. Love has no play as between friends and relatives. These love one another from selfishness, not from enlightenment. It has play only as between opponents so called. It demands, therefore, the highest charity and all the chivalry one is capable of showing towards those who oppose or persecute one.

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