Tolstoy, Hindu and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Tolstoy, Hindu and Mahatma Gandhi  

 

Count Tolstoy is a Russian nobleman. He has had his full share of life’s pleasures, and was once a valiant soldier. He has no equal among European writers. After much experience and study, he has come to the conclusion that the political policies generally followed in the world are quite wrong The chief reason for that, according to him, is that we are vengeful, a habit unworthy of us and contrary to the tenets of all religions. He believes that to return injury for injury does harm both to us and our enemy. According to him, we should not retaliate against anyone who may injure us, but reward him with love instead. He is uncompromising in his loyalty to the principle of returning well for evil. He does not mean by this that those who suffer must seek no redress. He believes rather that we invite suffering on ourselves through our own fault. An oppressor’s efforts will be in vain if we refuse to submit to his tyranny. Generally, no one will kick me for the mere fun of it. There must be some deeper reason for his doing so. He will kick me to bend me to his will if I have been opposing him.

If, in spite of the kicks, I refuse to carry out his orders, he will stop kicking me. It would make no difference to me whether he did so or not. What matters to me is the fact that his order is unjust. Slavery consists in submitting to an unjust order, not in suffering ourselves to be kicked. Real courage and humanity consist in not returning a kick for a kick. This is the core of Tolstoy’s teaching. The letter translated below was originally written in Russian. It was rendered into English by Tolstoy himself and sent to the editor of Free Hindustan in reply to a letter of his. This editor holds different views from Tolstoy’s and hence he did not publish the letter. It reached my hands and a friend asked me whether or not it should be published. I liked the letter. What I saw was a copy of the original letter I sent it to Tolstoy and sought his permission to publish it, asking him at the same time whether the letter was in fact written by him. His permission having been received, both the English version of the letter and a Gujarati translation are being published in Indian Opinion. To me Tolstoy’s letter is of great value. Anyone who has enjoyed the experience of the Transvaal struggle will perceive its value readily enough. A handful of Indian satyagrahis have pitted love or soul-force against the might of the Transvaal Government’s guns. That is the central principle of Tolstoy’s teaching, of the teaching of all religions. Khuda-Ishwar has endowed our soul with such strength that sheer brute force is of no avail against it. We have been employing that strength against the Transvaal Government not out of hatred or with a view to revenge, but merely in order to resist its unjust order. But those who have not known what a happy experience Satyagraha can be, who have been caught up in the toils of this huge sham of modern civilization, like moths flitting round a flame, will find no interest in Tolstoy’s letter all at once.

Such men should pause for a moment and reflect. Tolstoy gives a simple answer to those Indians who appear impatient to drive the whites out of India. We are [according to him] our own slaves, not of the British. This should be engraved in our minds. The whites cannot remain if we do not want them. If the idea is to drive them out with firearms, let every Indian consider what precious little profit Europe has found in these. Everyone would be happy to see India free. But there are as many views as men on how that can be brought about. Tolstoy points out a simple way to such men. Tolstoy has addressed this letter to a Hindu and that is why it cites thoughts from Hindu scriptures. Such thoughts, however, are to be found in the scriptures of every religion. They are such as will be acceptable to all, Hindus, Muslims and Parsis. Religious practices and dogmas may differ, but the principles of ethics must be the same in all religions. I therefore advise all readers to think [only] of ethics. No one should assume that I accept all the ideas of Tolstoy. I look upon him as one of my teachers.

But I certainly do not agree with all his ideas. The central principle of his teaching is entirely acceptable to me, and it is set out in the letter given below. In this letter, he has not spared the superstitions of any religion. That is, however, no reason why any proud follower of Hinduism or of any other religion should oppose his teaching. It should suffice for us that he accepts the fundamental principles of every religion when irreligion poses as religion, as it so often does, even true religion suffers. Tolstoy points this out repeatedly. We must pay the utmost attention to his thought whatever the religion we belong to. In translating the letter, I have endeavoured to use the simplest possible Gujarati. I have been mindful of the fact that readers of Indian Opinion prefer simple language. Moreover, I want Tolstoy’s letter to be read by thousands of Gujarati Indians, and difficult language may prove tedious reading to such large numbers. Though all this has been kept in mind, slightly difficult words may have been occasionally used when simpler ones were not available, for which I apologize to the readers. 1

The letter that is printed below is a translation prepared by one of Tolstoy’s translators of his letter written in Russian in reply to a letter from the Editor of the Free Hindustan. The letter, after having passed from hand to hand, at last came into my possession through a friend who asked me, as one much interested in Tolstoy’s writings, whether I thought it to be worth publishing. I at once replied in the affirmative and told him I should translate it myself into Gujarati and induce others to translate and publish it into various Indian vernaculars. The letter as received by me was a typewritten copy.

It was, therefore, referred to the author who confirmed it as his and kindly granted me permission to print it. To me, as a humble follower of that great teacher whom I have long looked upon as one of my guides, it is a matter of honour to be connected with the publication of his letter, such, especially, as the one which is now being given to the world. It is a mere statement of fact to say that every Indian, whether he owns up to it or not, has national aspirations. But there are as many opinions as there are Indian nationalists, as to the exact meaning of that aspiration and more especially as to the methods to be used to attain the end. One of the accepted and “time-honoured” methods to attain the end is that of violence. The assassination of Sir Curzon Wylie was an illustration in its worst and [most] detestable form of that method. Tolstoy’s life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for removing tyranny or securing reform by the method of non-resistance to evil.

He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in self-suffering. He admits of no exception to whittle down this great and divine law of Love. He applies it to all the problems that worry mankind. When a man like Tolstoy, one of the clearest thinkers in the western world, one of the greatest writers, one who, as a soldier, has known what violence is and what it can do, condemns Japan for having blindly followed the law of modern science, falsely so-called, and fears for that country “the greatest calamities”, it is for us to pause and consider whether, in our impatience of English rule, we do not want to replace one evil by another and a worse. India, which is the nursery of the great faiths of the world, will cease to be nationalist India, whatever else it may become, when it goes through the process of civilization in the shape of reproduction on that sacred soil of gun factories and hateful industrialism, which has reduced the people of Europe to a state of slavery and all but stifled among them the best instincts, which are the heritage of the human family. If we do not want the English in India, we must pay the price. Tolstoy indicates it. Do not resist evil, but also yourselves participate not in evil, in the violent deeds of the administration of the law courts, the collection of taxes and, what is more important, of the soldiers, and no one in the world will enslave you, passionately declares the sage of Yasnaya Pollyanna. Who can question the truth of what he says in the following:

A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising 200 millions. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes but rather weak and ill-looking, have enslaved 200 millions of vigorous, clever, strong, freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that not the English but the Indians have enslaved themselves? One need not accept all that Tolstoy says some of his facts are not accurately stated to realize the central truth of his indictment of the present system which is to understand and act upon the irresistible power of the soul over the body, of love, which is an attribute of the soul, over the brute or body force generated by the stirring up in us of evil passions. There is no doubt that there is nothing new in what Tolstoy preaches. But his presentation of the old truth is refreshingly forceful. His logic is unassailable. And, above all, he endeavours to practice what he preaches. He preaches to convince. He is sincere and in earnest. He commands attention.

 

 

 

References:

 

 

1. Indian Opinion, 25-12-1909
2. Indian Opinion, 25-12-1909