For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi - XIII

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

Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi - XIII

The most distinctive and the largest contribution of Hinduism to India’s culture is the doctrine of ahimsa. It has given a definite bias to the history of the country for the last three thousand years and over and it has not ceased to be a living force in the lives of India’s millions even today. It is a growing doctrine; its message is still being delivered. Its teaching has so far permeated our people that an armed revolution has almost become an impossibility in India, not because, as some would have it, we as a race are physically weak, for it does not require much physical strength so much as a devilish will to press a trigger to shoot a person, but because the tradition of ahimsa has struck deep roots among the people. 1 A man who wishes to follow ahimsa day and night can never act otherwise; can never establish a friendship in any other way. Even today if a crisis like that of the Khilafat were to arise, I would stake my life over it, even today I would offer the same assistance to Muslims in their difficulty. You may say that there is a great awakening among the Muslims as a result of my activity, but is the awakening among the Hindus less? I am certainly not so vain as to believe that I have brought it about, I was only an instrument, but I do not feel the slightest remorse for my conduct. I learned to have friendship for the Muslims long long ago.

Even in South Africa I had Muslim friends and, though there had been occasions when I received abuse, I maintain today that I have served the world through such friendship. I do not believe I have done anything wrong in asking your service or money for the Muslims. Your dharma will endure if you practise it; the same is true of self-respect and freedom. There is cowardice in saying that we have suffered because of our dealings with anybody. There is no loss to us if we are cheated by anyone, but the day we cheat others, we should take it that we have suffered loss. Hence we should pray that, rather than that we cheat the world, the world should cheat us and, if we want to be cheated by the world, we should cultivate faith in it. Do you know how to put this into practice? In my dealings with others I should not exercise greater circumspection than I would in the case of my son. Just as I would take a receipt for money I give to my son, I would do the same in regard to others. .Having lent him some money; I shall not fear that I shall suffer loss. 2

Those who believe in the teaching of the Buddha as you do cannot afford to pass a single moment in idleness. The great Nature has intended us to earn our bread in the sweat of our brow. Everyone therefore who idles away a single minute becomes to that extent a burden upon his neighbours, and to do so is to commit a breach of the very first lesson of ahimsa. Ahimsa is nothing if not a well-balanced exquisite consideration for one’s neighbour, and an idle man is wanting in that elementary consideration...The remedy that I can commend to you for the deplorable state of things is the same as I have recommended to my countrymen in India. You have got enough weavers in this beautiful land. But they instead of working for the good of the nation are slaving away for a foreign capitalist because it is to foreign yarn that they are applying their skill and workmanship. If therefore you will avoid helplessness, if you will become self-contained and happy and not become semi-starved as we in India are, you will take my word and revert to the spinning-wheel while there is still time. 3

You have, as I conceive it, one of the greatest truths that the world can ever have uttered by one of the greatest teachers of mankind, viz., ahimsa. If there had been a perfectly silent and a quiet atmosphere I would gladly have spoken to you upon that quiet doctrine. As it is I can only ask you to study the doctrine and reduce it to practice in every act of your lives. It is infinitely greater than the gems and the diamonds people prize so much. It can become, if you will make wise use of it, your own saving and the saving of mankind. 4 I would therefore say a few words to you in explanation of what I understand by the message of ahimsa. To me it is one of the most active forces in the world. It is like the sun that rises upon us unfailingly from day to day. Only if we would but understand it, it is infinitely greater than a million suns put together. It radiates life and light and peace and happiness. Why do we not see that light, that life, that peace and that happiness in a land that professes the law of ahimsa? As I said in Mandalay only yesterday, it has appeared to me that the message of the Buddha, the Enlightened One, has only touched but the surface of the heart of Burma. I would like to apply one or two tests. Now I hold that where the law of ahimsa reins supreme, there should be no jealousy, no unworthy ambition, and no crime. I read your criminal statistics and I find that you are not behindhand in the race for crime. Murder on the slightest pretext seems to me to be fairly common in Burma. I will therefore appeal to the friends on my lift (the Phoongys) who are supposed to be the repositories of the faith you have inherited from the Buddha. Having travelled in Ceylon and now fairly long enough in Burma, I feel that we in India have perhaps more fully, though by no means as fully as possible, interpreted the message of the Buddha than you have done.

We have it in our Shastras that whenever things go wrong, good people and sages go in for tapasya otherwise known as austerities. Gautama himself, when he saw oppression, injustice and death around him, and when he saw darkness in front of him, at the back of him and on each side of him, went out in the wilderness and remained there fasting and praying in search of light. And if such penance was necessary for him who was infinitely greater than all of us put together, how much more necessary is it for us, no matter whether we are dressed in yellow or not? My friends, if you will become torch-bearers lighting the path of a weary world towards the goal of ahimsa, there is no other way out of it, save that of self-purification and penance. So many priests are sitting here today. If some of them will take upon themselves the work of interpreting the message of the Buddha, they will revolutionize life. You will not be guided by rigid traditions, but will search your hearts and your scriptures and tear the hidden meaning lying behind the written word and vivify your surroundings. 5

The intention of the writer is excellent, but I think his study and experience of ahimsa is slight. There is as much difference between ahimsa and compassion as there is between gold and the shape given to it, between a root and the tree which sprouts from it. Where there is no compassion, there is no ahimsa. The test of ahimsa is compassion. The concrete form of ahimsa is compassion. Hence it is said there is as much ahimsa as there is compassion. If I refrain from beating up a man who comes to attack me, it may or may not be ahimsa. If I refrain from hitting him out of fear, it is not ahimsa. If I abstain from hitting him out of compassion and with full knowledge, it is ahimsa. That which is opposed to pure economics cannot be ahimsa. Pure artha is that which includes the supreme artha. Ahimsa is never a losing transaction. The subtraction of one side of ahimsa from the other yields zero, that is to say, the two sides are equal. He who eats to live, lives to serve and earns just enough for his food and clothing, is though acting, free from action, and non-violent though committing violence. Ahimsa without action is impossibility. Action does not merely mean activity of hands and feet. The mind performs greater activity than even hands and feet. Every thought is an action. There can be no ahimsa in the absence of thought. The dharma of ahimsa has been conceived only for an embodied being like man. When a person who may eat anything limits, out of compassion, the things he will eat, he observes to that extent the dharma of ahimsa. On the other hand, when an orthodox person does not eat meat, etc., he does a good thing but we cannot say that he necessarily has ahimsa in him. Where there is ahimsa, there ought to be conscious compassion. If the dharma of ahimsa is really good, insistence on following it in every way in our daily life is not a mistake, but a duty. There should be no clash between worldly actions and dharma. Action which is opposed to dharma deserves to be eschewed. It is himsa and delusion and ignorance to say that ahimsa cannot be practised at all times, in all places and fully and so to set it aside. True endeavour consists in seeing that one’s daily conduct follows ahimsa. This requires real endeavour. Acting thus a man will ultimately gain the supreme state because he will become fit fully to observe ahimsa. For other men perfect ahimsa will only remain in the form of a seed. There is violence at the root in the very act of living and hence arose the negative word ahimsa indicating of the dharma to be observed by embodied beings. 6

The present-day society which violates ahimsa in the name of ahimsa does not hesitate to perpetrate cruelties of such kind; it constantly slaughters the cow that is woman. Under the guise of protecting the purity of women, it places all sorts of restrictions on them and, tortured by oppression, they, like others, secretly commit crimes. No one can be kept pure by force. It is desirable that, instead of men and women committing sin in private, they should humbly acknowledge their weaknesses, remarry and thus save themselves from ignominy. But who would help a woman? Men have cleared a way for themselves. As an atonement for their crime in imposing oppressive laws on women, men as a class should help women. It is useless to expect this of elders whose ideas have already become fixed. It is possible for youths, acting within certain limits, to help women. Ultimately, it is women who will bring about the emancipation of women. There are not many such women in India yet. When the youths rush to help women in a big way, there will be awaking among them; and from their ranks will raise heroines dedicated to service. 7

Thinking along these lines, I have felt that in trying to enforce in one’s life the central teaching of the Gita, one is bound to follow truth and ahimsa. When there is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or himsa. Take any instance of untruth or violence, and it will be found that at its back was the desire to attain the cherished end. But it may be freely admitted that the Gita was not written to establish ahimsa. It was an accepted and primary duty even before the Gita age. The Gita had to deliver the message of renunciation of fruit. This is clearly brought out as early as the second chapter. But if the Gita believed in ahimsa or its was included in desirelessness, why did the author take a warlike illustration? When the Gita was written, although people believed in ahimsa, wars were not only taboo, but nobody observed the contradiction between them and ahimsa. In assessing the implications of renunciation of fruit, we are not required to probe the mind of the author of the Gita as to his limitations of ahimsa and the like. Because a poet puts a particular truth before the world, it does not necessarily follow that he has known or worked out all its great consequences, or that having done so, he is able always to express them fully. In this perhaps lies the greatness of the poem and the poet. A poet’s meaning is limitless. Like man, the meaning of great writings suffers evolution. On examining the history of languages, we notice that the meaning of important words has changed or expanded. This is true of the Gita. The author has himself extended the meanings of some of the current words. We are able to discover this even on a superficial examination. 3 It is possible that, in the age prior to that of the Gita, offering of animals in sacrifice was permissible. But there is not a trace of it in the sacrifice in the Gita sense. In the Gita continuous concentration on God is the king of sacrifices. The third chapter seems to show that sacrifice chiefly means body-labour for service. The third and the fourth chapters read together will give us other meanings for sacrifice, but never animal-sacrifice. Similarly has the meaning of the word sannyasa undergone, in the Gita, a transformation? The sannyasa of the Gita will not tolerate complete cessation of all activity. The sannyasa of the Gita is all work and yet no work. Thus the author of the Gita, by extending meanings of words, has taught us to imitate him. Let it be granted that according to the letter of the Gita it is possible to say that warfare is consistent with renunciation of fruit. But after 40 years’ unremitting endeavour fully to enforce the teaching of the Gita in my own life, I have, in all humility, felt that perfect renunciation is impossible without perfect observance of ahimsa in every shape and form. 8

I assert that I am a true follower of ahimsa. But it needs an explanation of this word to clear my position. It becomes still more necessary when I add and affirm that many who call them the worshippers of this holy word have no sense of its spirit. Ahimsa, as I understand it, is not to give pain to anybody in mind or body by one’s though, talk or action. However, to be a follower of this principle does not stop here. A follower of ahimsa has to change all those conditions under which himsa is practised or becomes possible. I call it worst kind of himsa, opposite of ahimsa, when a man tolerates or aids himsa of others. Many people in India today deliver some very fine sermons on the beauties of ahimsa; however they do little to destroy the himsa of the British. I say all such persons are abettors and aids to all that crime which the British commit in India against the weak, the hungry and the helpless. Of course, no one can deny that our great leader Gandhiji has a very sincere desire to serve the Indian nation. However, I am afraid that his methods alone, unsupported by some more energetic active programme, cannot bring relief to the people. I highly appreciate and strongly endorse the khadi movement of Gandhiji. It may or may not appreciably better the economic condition of the masses because there are today so many modern factors at work in our society; but in any case, the idea from the psychological standpoint is certainly admirable. It directs the human thought to a simple life and awakens in the people a certain sense of unity. I must, however, add that we need much more. We have to destroy in the true spirit of ahimsa all that British organization which is himsa personified. Let the nation as a whole strive to that end. At the earliest possible moment let us put an end to the British brutality in India, in fact, in the whole world. Let everyone perform his duty according to his natural endowments. In the true spirit of ahimsa, I cannot force my will on others. Let everyone find out for himself what one must do. I can only point out the eternal truth that the Creator certainly wants the good of all his creatures…all the men and women…in our common human race. If any man or group acts selfishly and oppresses others he surely misuses his gifts and acts against the wishes of the Creator. I can only say: Let everyone try his or her best to destroy all himsa. 9

I would now like to digress a little. The readers should understand that ahimsa does not end with consideration of what should or should not be eaten. But the ahimsa which has been described as the supreme dharma is much more than this. Ahimsa is the noblest feeling of the heart. So long as our relations with others are not pure and so long as we consider anyone our enemy, we cannot be said to have touched even the fringe of ahimsa. A man who observes ahimsa scrupulously in eating and drinking, but is unscrupulous in business, does not hesitate to cheat and selfishly cause unhappiness to others, cannot be said to be observing ahimsa. But a man who, though a non-vegetarian, and not so particular about what he eats, is compassionate and has dedicated himself to helping others, must be considered a saint who knows the dharma of ahimsa and follows it whole-heartedly. Straying from this central point we have forgotten our dharma. That is why I wish we would see the great himsa that the ever-growing distrust between us involves and prove our manliness in removing it. How should we behave with the English, with the Muslims or other communities? The search for an answer to this question provides the real field for ahimsa. 10 Only by living a saintly life can one obtain peace. This is the way to fulfillment in this world and the next. A saintly life is that in which we practise truth, ahimsa and restraint. Enjoyment of pleasures can never be one's dharma. Dharma has its source in renunciation only. 11

References: