Youth and Mahatma Gandhi - VIII

[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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Youth and Mahatma Gandhi - VIII 

 

 

 

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s arrest was what I was hourly expecting. It was impossible for the Government to ignore the young President and an ideal patriot. If I know the country, the response, if it was tenfold after the arrest of the other leaders, will be a hundredfold after this crowning act of the Government. This arrest should cost the Government its existence. Will the youth of the country realize this hope and now leave their schools and colleges and work solely for the attainment of independence? No doubt there will be an all-India hartal, though it has little meaning in these times of big action. 1 Your wire fills me with joy. I wonder what response the youth of Bombay will make to the imprisonment of the President of the Congress. I am hourly needed in Gujarat for consolidating the work but I will come when absolutely needed. 2

The President of the Congress has had his laurels cheap. For a telegram just received from Pandit Motilalji tells me that Pandit Jawaharlal has been sentenced to six months’ simple imprisonment. But even a day’s imprisonment of the nation’s first servant is an affront offered to the whole nation. Through this imprisonment the Government has told us to do our worst. And the worst we can do is to invite more suffering upon ourselves. This can only be done by our intensifying the campaign. Great as is the work being done by the youth of the country, I must confess that I am not satisfied with the response from the students. 3 I know your attitude. So long as Mahadev is outside, you will not take upon yourself the burden of making a final decision, and you are right in that. I had a long letter from Keshu. He seems to have been deeply hurt. He has bitterly complained against you, but his letter has had no effect on me. You should, however, take him into confidence and ask him to tell you all that he feels. I know that he is impulsive by nature. But he is a sincere youth and very eager to do service. He is, however, impatient to increase his knowledge and do original work. I may be wrong in my judgment about him. You should, however, call him and hear all that he has to say. 4 

As souls man and woman are equal. If a man does not recognize his spiritual nature but a woman does, the latter is the stronger of the two, as Sita was stronger than Ravana, and the other remains weaker, as was Ravana. Don’t believe, moreover, that this was possible only in the time of Rama. Even today there are countless Sitas in the world who require no man’s help and are yet safe against all danger. One such is Janakimaiya. You must have seen her. Whenever I went to Bombay, she came and saw me. She had not much intellectual capacity to speak of, but had boundless strength of spirit. She must have been good-looking in her youth. She embraced a hard path of service in the prime of her youth. I have known other Indian women like her, and also Englishwomen. They are examples of but a small measure of spiritual strength. A woman who has fully grown in soul deserves to be revered as the world’s mother. 5

You will have forgotten all about the fast and will be enjoying new youth. If you do not have that experience, I would not regard the fast as a complete success. I expect that you will describe the result of your fast in detail. Your experience should be a guide to others. You know, of course, how to return to normal diet gradually after the fast is over. You will feel very hungry immediately after a fast, but you should certainly not eat as much as the stomach demands. You should gradually increase the quantity of milk and curds, and eat nothing between the meals. You may of course eat juicy fruits. I hope you do not count expense in that regard. Your body should become completely healthy. I am not surprised to hear that you could work normally during the fast. I have observed many people doing so. And that is my own experience, too. Those who have been harbouring many diseases in their bodies feel stronger during a fast. At any rate there is a brighter light on their faces. 6 If Chi. Kusum is firm in her decision, I like it. Since in any case she will not marry before swaraj is won, why should she bind herself just now? The right thing would be to act upon her inclination at that time. Convey this view of mine to both Devchandbhai and Jamnalalji. Ascertain Kusum’s real wishes. She should not advance this as an excuse if in the depth of her heart the real reason is different. She is completely free to do what she wishes. I would tell this same thing to the two young men too; if they are ready to wait till we get swaraj, why should they wish to bind themselves or bind any girl now? A brave man or bhakta would not do that, and if Kusum is a brave girl and if she has decided to marry, she should marry a brave youth. I will write to Ghanshyamdas. 7 

I hope that her husband has nothing of the spirit of the Sindhi youth who are reported to be cruelly exacting in their demands upon the parents of their wives. You will be naturally anxious to come to me. But I hope you will restrain yourself as you are wanted there. So long as you are wanted, you must not think of coming to me. If I am able to settle down anywhere for a time, Vidya may come and be under observation for her health and complete her Hindi besides imbibing what there might be from the surrounding atmosphere. 8 I have always entertained high hopes of Bengal and have had no cause for disappointment but I know that Bengal has the capacity to do much more if only youth of Bengal uniformly turn to non-violence not merely as a policy but even as the creed and I have never despaired of Bengal doing this notwithstanding warning of some Bengal friends to contrary. 9 Today you may not accept that position of mine but my early upbringing, my childhood and youth, has been to strive for Hindu- Muslim unity. No one may dismiss it today as merely a craze of my old age. My heart is confident that God will grant me that position to speak for the whole of India one day, and even if I die striving for it; I shall achieve peace of mind. 10 

Bhagat Singh and his companions have been executed and have become martyrs. Their death seems to have been a personal loss to many. I join in the tributes paid to the memory of these young men. And yet I must warn the Youth of the country against following their Government of India and the local Government attached the greatest importance and that local Governments were alive to the necessity of giving such relief as the circumstances required.” example. We should not utilize our energy, our spirit of sacrifice, our labours and our indomitable courage in the way they have utilized theirs. This country must not be liberated through bloodshed. 11 I agree that the Government has given sufficient cause for provocation, but I want the impatient youth in the name of God, in the name of our dear Motherland, to throw themselves heart and soul in the non-violent struggle. I ask them to trust my unbroken experience of forty years of the practice of non-violence. 12 

I do not agree with Dr. Kitchlew that when we are away attending the Round Table Conference, the work that remains to be done should be done by the youth. Who else can picket like the women who picketed the foreign-cloth shops and the liquor shops? They shall abide by the rules of picketing that we have lain down and do the work of picketing. Men like Jamshed Mehta, who is known here by the name of Bhagat had to complain strongly bitterly against us. Let all read his article, and avoid the mistakes that he has pointed out and do picketing according to the rules laid down. Khadi work should be taken up in order to complete the boycott of foreign cloth. All this work is not only for the youth to do but for all. 13 The foregoing has been sent me by “The Youth of India” with a duly signed covering letter. I have removed certain unnecessary passages and made some alterations without changing the substance of the charge. There is truth in the statement that there are charges and countercharges about breach of the Settlement by the parties concerned. But I am able to assure the public that so far the difficulties have been removed. The Central Government is anxious to implement the Settlement as I know the Congress is. And so long as that condition persists, there is no danger of a breakdown. Beyond this the public will not expect me to go, whilst the very delicate instrument is being worked and kept in tune. 14

Therefore had I found myself impelled to interest myself in any of the Bengali youths and had fancied myself in possession of influence which I could exercise in their behalf, I should have with equal zest plunged myself into their case. I regard myself as incapable of having any provincial bias. Bengal is as dear to me as the Punjab. And I owe a special debt to Bengal for the inspiration it gave me in my youth. It is true that Deshbandhu and I differed as to the emphasis in the matter of Gopinath Saha resolution. 15 I should therefore be sorry to discover that there was any secret propaganda against me in Bengal. I have many precious co-workers in Bengal. I want the number to grow. I know the value of the cooperation of the youth of Bengal. I need it for their sakes, for the sake of the country they love so well, but sometimes, alas, blindly. They must not by their unwarranted prejudice deny themselves the service of a true friend. If I have any influence over the youth of the country, it is a treasure I want to use for gaining the freedom of the motherland. I am therefore glad that my correspondent has given me the opportunity of stating my position. But whether I retain my hold on the youth of Bengal or any other province or I do not, I must proclaim my creed from the house-top. Freedom of India’s starving millions is attainable only through Truth and Ahimsa. 16

I am intentionally sending Gaur Gopal there. He is a youth of a very straightforward nature. You must have come to know that he belongs to a zamindar family. Make him as comfortable as you can and assign to him any work you think proper. See that he acquires proficiency in Hindi and learns to card and spin well. I should like him to complete the whole course in weaving. Arrange his work in such a way that he gets some time for reading.  17 To recite the wrongs of the Government at the time of condemning political murders is to confuse the issue, and to mislead the hot-blooded youth. We must tell them in the clearest possible language that they must cease to murder, no matter how great may be the provocation. 18  I have always been a hero-worshipper of Malaviyaji Maharaj and how can such a worshipper express his homage? Whatever words he may write would seem inadequate to him. My first sight of him was through a photograph in 1890. It appeared in the journal India brought out in England by Mr. Dig by. Believe me, the same image is before my eyes even today as in his dress so in his thoughts, continuity has been preserved and this is based on his charm and devotion. Who today can match Malaviyaji’s patriotism which has had an uninterrupted flow from his youth down to this day? The Banaras Hindu University is his life-breath and he in turn is the life of the Banaras Hindu University. May this hero among men live long for our sake. 19 

It is contrary to experience to say, as the correspondent says, that emotional youth will act on the spur of the moment irrespective of the atmosphere surrounding them. There is no doubt about their reckless bearing, but I refuse to believe that they are so devoid of pride as to be wholly indifferent to praise or blame. I am quite certain that if they knew that their acts would be universally condemned, they would never throw away their precious lives. I have no doubt therefore in my mind that it is the duty of everyone who realizes the immense wrong done to the cause by such deeds to condemn them unequivocally. It is altogether misleading to hold the Acting Governor responsible either for the Sholapur Martial Law or the acts done under it. It is the system that is at fault. The Congress therefore having realized the central fact is trying to assassinate the system, and not the helpless administrators. Even if an angel was put to administer the system based upon the exploitation of a vast country like India by a powerful corporation, that angel would plead helplessness, and on due occasions do exactly what the Acting Governor did. The ten-headed Ravana was no human monster, but it was the system personified in Ravana, who had new heads popping up as soon as the old ones were cut off. It was only when Rama’s attention was drawn to the root from which the heads sprang up, that he was able effectively to deal with Ravana. 20  

I am appearing before you like a prisoner at the bar, but my jailors are friends. There must be no barrier between us, no harbouring of any grievance on either side. From youth upwards I have enjoyed the friendliest relations with missionaries throughout the world, and in South Africa I came into close touch with some of the finest of Christian missionaries. I attended your churches most regularly and also private prayer meetings and the views I express now are the views I expressed then. 21 I can give many instances from modern history, and later researches have shown as mere fables many things which at one time were supposed to be gospel truths. It was therefore the duty of institutions like the Commonwealth League to acquire true knowledge about India with reference to the past as well as the present. There is also, I see, a conspiracy of silence with reference to the events happening in India. Barbarities, or, I may say, atrocities have been committed in Chittagong. Chittagong is a most important port and town in Bengal. It has a large population and there were, as there are today, large commercial interests. An officer was assassinated by a Bengali youth of about 16 years. By way of reprisal, shops were looted and atrocities were committed which aroused even men like the Poet Tagore to indignation. 22

Wanting that freedom for the masses, I know that this terrorism can do no good whatsoever whilst on the one hand Congress will fight British authority and its terrorism, legalized, so also will Congress fight terrorism, illegal, on the part of the youth. Between these two what I feel is that there was this course of co-operation opened up for the British nation and for me by Lord Irwin. He had built this bridge, and I thought I was going to have a safe passage. I had a safe passage, I have come here, and I have come here to tender my cooperation. But I must confess to you that, apart even from what Mr. Lees-Smith has said, and from what has been said on this side by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and by Mr. Sastri and the other speakers, the limited responsibility at the Centre which they have in view would not satisfy me. 23 

You have asked me why I consider that God is Truth. In my early childhood or youth, I was taught to repeat what in Hindu scriptures is one thousand names of God. Among the several little things one of the religious teachers my family had was a little pamphlet which contained these thousand names of God. But these thousand names of God were by no means an exhaustive list. We believe and I think it is the truth—that God has as many names as there are creatures and, therefore, we also say that God is nameless and since God has many forms we also consider him formless, and since he speaks to me through many tongues we consider him to be speechless and so on. And so when I came to study Islam, I found that Islam too had many names, but I had not come to recognize God for my personal satisfaction as Truth. I would say for those who say God is love, God is love. But deep down in me I say God may be love, but God is Truth. If it is possible for the human tongue to give the fullest description of God, for myself I have come to the conclusion that God is Truth. But two years ago I went a step further and said Truth is God. You will see the fine distinction between the two statements: God is Truth and Truth is God. And that conclusion I came to after a continuous, relentless search after Truth which began so many years ago. I found that the nearest approach to Truth is through love. But I found also that love has many meanings, in the English language at least, and human love in the sense of passion becomes a degrading thing also. I found too that love in the sense of ahimsa and non-violence has only a limited number of votaries in the world. And as I made progress in my search, I made no dispute with “God is love”. It is very difficult to understand “God is love” (because of a variety of meanings of love) but I never found a double meaning in connection with Truth and not even atheists have denied the necessity or power of Truth. Not only so. In their passion for discovering Truth, they have not hesitated even to deny the very existence of God from their own point of view rightly. And it was because of their reasoning that I saw that I was not going to say “God is Truth”, but “Truth is God”. Therefore I recall the name of Charles Bradlaugh a great Englishman who lived 50 years ago. He delighted to call himself an atheist But knowing as I do something of his life. I never considered him an atheist. I would call him a god-fearing man although he would reject the claim, and I know his face would redden.

I would say: No Mr. Bradlaugh, you are a truth-fearing man, not a god-fearing man, and I would disarm his criticisms by saying “Truth is God” as I have disarmed criticisms of many a young man. Add to this the great difficulty that millions have taken the name of God and have committed nameless atrocities in the name of God. Not those scientists do not very often commit cruelties in the name of Truth. I know today in the name of Truth and science inhuman cruelties are perpetrated on animals when men perform vivisection. To me it is a denial of God whether you recognize Him as Truth or by any other name. So I know that there are these difficulties in one’s way no matter how you describe God. But human mind is a limited thing, and you have to labour under limitation when you think of a being or entity that is beyond the power of man to grasp. But we have another thing in Hindu philosophy viz., God alone is and nothing else exists. Now the same truth you find emphasized and exemplified in the Kalama of Islam. There you find it clearly stated a Mussalman has to recite it at all his prayers that God alone is and nothing else is and that is the same about Truth. And the name that Sanskrit has for Truth literally means that which is—Sat. For these and several other reasons that I can give you I have come to the conclusion that the definition. “Truth is God” gives me the greatest satisfaction. And when you want to find Truth is God, the only inevitable means is love, non-violence—and since I believe that ultimately means and ends are convertible terms I should not hesitate to say that God is love. 24

The Indian youth may not be capable of heroic self-sacrifice, but it is coming under the influence of non-resistance. 25 I may say that I expect to reach my God through truth and non-violence. I know that the American youth are with India in her struggle for Independence. 26 It is nonsense for you to talk of old age so long as you outrun young men in the race for service and in the midst of anxious times fill rooms with your laughter and inspire youth with hope when they are on the brink of despair. 27

Boys and girls should be married only after they have grown up. The partners should choose each other with the consent of their parents. Hence there is no unnatural restriction in such a method. If anybody asks my opinion, I would say that marriage between persons following different faiths was a risky experiment. If both husband and wife believe in their respective religions and actively follow them in their lives, difficulties are likely to arise between them. Thus I think that the Bhatia girl’s marriage is a risky step, but I do not regard it as irreligious. I would not oppose it if their love is pure, if the Bhatia girl can follow her religion and the Muslim youth his and if their ideas about food are the same. But I do not advocate marriages between persons of different faiths as I advocate inter-caste marriages because I desire the disappearance of sub-castes. I would not agitate against such marriages either. This is an issue on which every man and woman should think and decide for him or herself. There cannot be a uniform law for all. 28

 

References:

 

1. The Bombay Chronicle, 16-4-1930
2. The Bombay Chronicle, 16-4-1930
3. Young India, 17-4-1930
4. Letter to Narandas Gandhi, November 4, 1930
5. Letter to Gangabehn Vaidya, November 14, 1930
6. Letter to Premabehn Kantak, November 30, 1930
7. Letter to Narandas Gandhi, December 3, 1930
8. Letter to Anand T. Hingorani, February 5 1931
9. Message to Bengal, February 10, 1931
10. The Hindustan Times, 25-2-1931
11. Gujarati, 29-3-1931
12. Young India, 2-4-1931
13. Hindi Navajivan, 6-4-1931
14. Young India, 4-6-1931
15. Young India, 11-6-1931
16. Young India, 11-6-1931
17. Letter to Narandas Gandhi, June 22, 1931
18. The Bombay Chronicle, 7-8-1931
19. Tribute To  Madan Mohan Malaviya, September 7, 1931
20. Young India, 24-9-1931
21. Speech at Conference of Missionary Societies in Great Britain, October 8, 1931
22. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 4-11-1931
23. Proceedings of Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, Vol. 1, p. 453
24. Speech at Meeting in Lausanne, December 8, 1931 
25. Discussion with Romain Rolland, December 9, 1931
26. Letter to Morris Osofskey, December 19, 1931
27. Mahadevbhaini Diary, Vol. I, pp. 170 
28. Mahadevbhaini Diary, Vol. I, p. 171