Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi- IV

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi- IV

 

 

Q. In your article “Unity v. Justice” you say that, if you give more than his due to your brother, you neither bribe him nor do you do an injustice. You say: “I can disarm suspicion only by being generous. Justice without generosity is done at the expense of the very cause for which it is sought to be done.” I submit that justice and generosity cannot go hand in hand. As Dryden has rightly observed, “Justice is blind, it knows nobody.” Besides, you can be generous to the weak, meek and the humble, not to one who in the arrogance of his strength seeks to coerce you into submission. To give more than his due to such a person is not generosity but cowardly surrender. Though Hindus are numerically stronger, their majority, as you yourself have pointed out, is only fictitious and actually they are the weaker party. Besides, if generosity is to be shown to the Muslims, the only organization that is competent to offer it is the Hindu Mahasabha. What right has a third party to be generous to one of the two parties to a dispute at the other party’s expense?

A. In my article referred to by you I have dealt with general principles, not with particular minorities. Even as justice to be justice has to be generous, generosity in order to justify itself has got to be strictly just. Therefore it should not be at the expense of any single interest. Hence there cannot be any question of sacrificing some minority or minorities, for the benefit of any minority. You are right again in contending that generosity has to be shown to the weak and the humble, and not to the bully. Nevertheless I would say, on behalf of the bully, that even he is entitled to justice, for immediately you brush aside the bully and be unjust to him you justify his bullying. Thus the only safe not to put it higher rule of conduct is to do generous justice, irrespective of the character of the minority. I am quite sure that where there is strictest justice the question of a majority and minority would not arise. The bully is a portent and is an answer to some existing circumstance, as, for instance, cowardice. It is often forgotten that cowardice can be unjust. The fact is that cowards have no sense of justice. They yield only to threat, or actual use of force. I do not know that there is any question of choice between a coward and a bully. The one is as bad as the other, with this difference that the bully always follows the coward in point of time. In a previous issue I have admitted that the proper organization to enter into settlements is the Hindu Mahasabha, so far as Hindus are concerned or any such organization. The Congress endeavours to represent all communities.

 It is not by design, but by the accident of Hindus being politically more conscious than the others, that the Congress contains a majority of Hindus. As history proves the Congress is a joint creation of Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Hindus, led by Englishmen, be it said to the credit of the latter. And the Congress, in spite of all that may be said to the contrary, retains that character. At the present moment a Muslim divine is the unquestioned leader of the Congress and for the second time becomes its President. The constant endeavour of Congressmen has been to have as many members as possible drawn from the various communities, and therefore the Congress has entered into pacts for the purpose of securing national solidarity. It cannot, therefore, divest itself of that function, and therefore, although I have made the admission that the Hindu Mahasabha or a similar Hindu organization can properly have communal settlements; the Congress cannot and must not plead incapacity for entering into political pacts so long as it commands general confidence.  

 

Reference:

Harijan, 24-2-1940