Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi- III

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi- III

 

 

Q. I have followed with interest the controversy that has grown round your article in Harijan “The Fourfold Ruin”. Whatever one may say about the arguments used on either side in this controversy, one thing I am in a position to assert without fear of contradiction, from my experience as a judicial officer of the present system of our law. Courts and the institution of lawyers are mainly responsible for the moral and spiritual degradation of our village peasantry in particular and the public in general. Even ‘respectable’ people, whom one has learnt to regard as the soul of honour in their ordinary everyday life, will tell barefaced lies for a trifle in a law court and think nothing of it. The canker is eating into the vitals of our village life. Would you suggest as to what a person in my position, (viz., a judge), who has to record evidence and give judicial decisions, can do to check this evil?

A. What you say is too true. The atmosphere round law courts is debasing as any visitor passing through them can see. I hold radical views about the administration of justice. But mine, I know, is a voice in the wilderness. Vested interests will not allow radical reform unless India comes in to her own through truthful and non-violent means. If that glorious event happens, the administration of law and medicine will be as cheap and healthy as it is today dear and unhealthy. The heroic advice will be for you to descend from the bench, embrace poverty and serve the poor. The prosaic will be for you to do the best you can in the very difficult circumstances in which you find yourself, reduce life to its simplest terms and devote your savings for the service of the poor.

 Q. I am a university student. Yesterday evening some of us went to a cinema show. During the performance two of us went outside leaving our handkerchiefs behind on our seats. On our return we found that two British soldiers had taken possession of these seats unceremoniously in spite of the clearest warning and entreaty by our friends. When requested to vacate the seats they not only refused but showed an inclination to fight. They browbeat the cinema manager who, being Indian was easily cowed down. In the end the garrison officer was called and they vacated their seats. If he had not appeared, there would have been only two alternatives before us, either to resort to violence and maintain our self-respect, or to allow ourselves to be browbeaten and quietly occupy some other seats. The latter would have been too humiliating. How would you apply the principle of non-violence under such circumstances?

 A. I must admit the difficulty of solving the riddle. Two ways occur to me of dealing with the situation non-violently First, firmly to stand the ground till the seats are vacated; secondly, deliberately so to stand as to obstruct the view of the usurpers. In each case you run the risk of being beaten by the usurpers. I am not satisfied with my answers. But they meet the special circumstances in which we are placed. The ideal answer no doubt is not to bother about the usurpation of the personal right but to reason with the usurpers and, if they do not listen, to report such cases to the authorities concerned and, in case of failure, take them to the highest tribunal. This is the constitutional method which is not taboo in a non-violent conception of society. Not to take the law into one’s own hands is essentially a non-violent method. But the ideal has no relation to reality in this country because the index of expectation of justice for Indians in cases where white men and especially white soldiers are concerned is almost zero. Hence it is necessary to resort to something like what I have suggested. But I know that when we have real non-violence in us a non-violent way out is bound, without effort, to occur to us when we find ourselves in a difficult situation.

Q. Although a college student I am a four-anna member of the Congress. You say I may not take any active part in the coming struggle whilst I am studying. What part do you expect the student world to take in the freedom movement?

A. There is a confusion of thought in the question. The fight is going on now and it will continue till the nation has come to her birthright. Civil disobedience is one of the many methods of fighting. So far as I can judge today, I have no intention of calling out students. Millions will not take part in civil disobedience, but millions will help in a variety of ways. 1. Students can, by learning the art of voluntary discipline, fit themselves for leadership in the various branches of the nation’s work. 2. They can aim not at finding lucrative careers but at becoming national servants after completing their studies. 3. They can set apart for the national coffers a certain sum from their allowances. 4. They can promote inter-communal, inter-provincial and inter-caste harmony among themselves and fraternize with Harijans by abolishing the least trace of untouchability from their lives. 5. They can spin regularly and use certified khadi to the exclusion of all other cloth as well as hawk khadi. 6. They can set apart a certain time every week, if not every day, for service in a village or villages nearest to their institutions and, during the vacation, devote a certain time daily for national service. The time may of course come when it may be necessary to call out the students as I did before. Though the contingency is remote, it will never come, if I have any say in the matter, unless the students have qualified themselves previously in the manner above described.  

Reference;

Harijan, 17-2-1940