For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi – XIV

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 – XIV

The duty of ahimsa arose from the imperfections of man. Ahimsa means forgiveness, which in turn means generosity. We should try to be generous to the guilty. This is very necessary in the management of institutions. Where there is generosity there will be patience. 1 To the sceptics who feel honest doubts in connection with the Ramayana, I would suggest that they should not accept anybody’s interpretations mechanically. They should leave out such portions about which they feel doubtful. Nothing contrary to truth and ahimsa need be condoned. It would be sheer perversity to argue that because in our opinion Rama practised deception, we too may do likewise. The proper thing to do would be to believe that Rama was incapable of practising deception. As the Gita says, “There is nothing in the world that is entirely free from fault.” Let us, therefore, like the fabled swan that rejects the water and takes only the cream, learn to treasure only the good and reject the evil in everything. Nothing and no one is perfect but God. 2 The author of the Gita saw with his divine eyes that the results of truth and ahimsa are always good, but he also saw that man is not able to see them when he wishes. And very often he is also not able to decide what is good and what is bad. The author therefore showed him the path of non-attachment. After you come to a decision and inform me, I shall be ready to write to Jamnalalji and Manilal. No question of yours now remains unanswered. If you still feel confused and think it necessary to see me alone or with Haribhau, consult the dates of my tour programme and come to any place convenient to you. 3

If all make of ahimsa a policy, and I remain the only votary of it as a creed, we can make very little progress. Let us therefore ask ourselves once again, and make sure, that we will in no circumstances harbour untruth and violence for the attainment of swaraj. Then everything will be well. 4 The responsibility devolving on me is the greatest I have ever undertaken. It was irresistible. But all will be well, if it is ahimsa that is guiding me. For the seer who knew what he gave to the world has said, ‘Hate dissolves in the presence of ahimsa.’ The true rendering of the word in English is love or charity. 5 Such a universal force necessarily makes no distinction between kinsmen and strangers, young and old, man and woman, friend and foe. The force to be so applied can never be physical. There is in it no room for violence. The only force of universal application can, therefore, be that of ahimsa or love. In other words it is soul force. Therefore a civil resister will never insult his opponent, and therefore also not take part in many of the newly coined cries which are contrary to the spirit of ahimsa. 6

Kavi Rajchandra was born in a place called Vavania in Kathiawar. I came in touch with him in 1891, the day of my return from London, at Dr. P. J. Mehta’s residence in Bombay. Kavi, as I used to call him, was nearly related to Dr. Mehta. He was introduced to me as a shatavadhani, i.e., one who can remember a hundred things at a time. Kavi was quite young at the time, not much older than I was then, i.e., 21 years. He had, however, given up all public exhibitions of his powers and was given to purely religious pursuits. I was much struck by his simplicity and independence of judgment. He was free from all touch of blind orthodoxy. What struck me perhaps more was his combining business with religion in practice. A student of the philosophy of religion, he tried to practise what he believed. Himself a Jain, his toleration of the other creeds was remarkable. He had a chance of going to England for studies, but he would not go. He would not learn English. His schooling was quite elementary. But he was a genius. He knew Sanskrit, Magadhi and, I believe, Pali. He was a voracious reader of religious literature and had acquired through Gujarati sources knowledge, enough for his purpose, of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. Such was the man who captivated my heart in religious matters as no other man has till now. I have said elsewhere that in moulding my inner life Tolstoy and Ruskin vied with Kavi. But Kavi’s influence was undoubtedly deeper if only because I had come in closest personal touch with him. His judgment appealed to my moral sense in the vast majority of cases. The bedrock of his faith was unquestionably ahimsa. His ahimsa was not of the crude type we witness today among its so-called votaries who confine their attention merely to the saving of aged cattle and insect life. His ahimsa, if it included the tiniest insect, also covered the whole of humanity. 7

We have to consider our dharma. We want to face the might of a rakshasi empire, and this cannot be done either by looking upon it with contempt or by shouting loudly; it can only be done through the path of non-violence. Ahimsa may appear to be blind and crippled or clad in rags, but when God-given strength is added to it, the opponent loses his strength before it, he becomes paralyzed. We have to work with such a power, and this cannot be done with lights. I have hurt my companions by dispensing with these lights. They felt that without these the people would become restless. However, in my opinion, there was no need for such fears. The message that I am conveying to you at the moment does not appear to you to be a harsh one. Lights could not have brought about this result. 8

Assimilation of true ahimsa is a slow and sometimes painful process. And very few realize that there is such a thing as mental himsa and that it needs to be eradicated. It is to me a great joy that you saw the thing at once. I do not mind the other letters you have written. I should be glad if you will make another promise to yourself, viz., never to write for the Press for the time being. 9 The way of ahimsa by itself is such that it can produce riches out of dust. The Government’s is the way of violence. It mixes earth with salt, while we produce salt out of earth. The Government destroys, we create. It has guns and cannon, we have no such arms. It has huge factories; we have nothing of the kind. Our factory is in our cottage, and our machinery is the takli. For you it is a matter of faith that swaraj hangs by a thread of yarn. It was you who took the pledge to carry out in six months the constructive programme for swaraj. Keep that pledge and justify my faith in you. If you do so, Bardoli can win swaraj for India. 10

The very old people are also joining this fight. Kashi’s revered mother is eager to join it. Just now, the fight has taken a purely religious form. Even the most eminent persons having faith in ahimsa have joined it and are in jail. Would not both of you, on an occasion like this, make the fullest sacrifice and thereby uphold the principle of ahimsa? If you do so, the place which Tulsidas has had in our family would have been fully justified. 11 One who understands the meaning of ahimsa must realize the importance of the takli and the charkha. It becomes clearer each day that they are visible manifestations of ahimsa. 12

The commencement of this discourse is both comic and painful. We two had a discussion on how to economize in the use of cloth-lined envelopes and save the same envelopes for use again and again. The question was whether to paste a blank sheet on the whole side of the envelope or paste only slips over portions where something was written. This was a futile discussion. We wasted on it 15 minutes of beautiful time after prayers, demonstrating our foolishness thereby. In doing this we violated truth and ahimsa and displayed lack of discrimination. Truth was violated, because the discussion was not inspired by an ardent desire for its search. Ahimsa was shamed, because I, who ought to give every moment of my time to discover the sufferings of the people and in thinking about the ways of ending them, wasted 15 priceless minutes in a futile discussion. We displayed lack of discrimination, because if we had thought about the utility of the discussion, it would not have lasted even a minute. After we had stolen 15 minutes from people’s time, we realized our foolishness and thanked God for opening our eyes. The path of Truth is as narrow as it is straight. Even so is that of ahimsa. It is like balancing oneself on the edge of a sword. By concentration an acrobat can walk on a rope. But the concentration required treading the path of Truth and ahimsa is far greater.

The slightest inattention brings one tumbling to the ground. One can realize Truth and ahimsa only by ceaseless striving. But it is impossible for us to realize perfect truth so long as we are imprisoned in this mortal frame. We can only visualize it in our imagination. We cannot, through the instrumentality of this ephemeral body, see face to face truth which is eternal. That is why in the last resort we must depend on faith. It appears that the impossibility of full realization of truth in this mortal body led some ancient seeker after truth to the appreciation of ahimsa. The question which confronted him was: “Shall I bear with those who create difficulties for me, or shall I destroy them?” The seeker realized that he who went on destroying others did not make headway but simply stayed where he was, while the man who suffered those who created difficulties marched ahead and at times even took the others with him. The first act of destruction taught him that the truth which was the object of his quest was not outside himself but within. Hence the more he took to violence, the more he receded from truth. For in fighting the imagined enemy without, he neglected the enemy within. We punish thieves because we think they harass us. They may leave us alone; but they will only transfer their attentions to another victim.

This other victim, however, is also a human being, ourselves in a different form, and so we are caught in a vicious circle. The trouble from thieves continues to increase, as they think it is their business to steal. In the end we see that it is better to tolerate the thieves than to punish them. The forbearance may even bring them to their senses. By tolerating them we realize that thieves are not different from ourselves, they are our brethren, our friends, and may not be punished. But whilst we may bear with the thieves, we may not endure the infliction. That would only induce cowardice. So we realize a further duty. Since we regard the thieves as our kith and kin, they must be made to realize the kinship. And so we must take pains to devise ways and means of winning them over. This is the path of ahimsa. It may entail continuous suffering and the cultivating of end-less patience.

Given these two conditions, the thief is bound in the end to turn away from his evil ways and we shall get a clearer vision of truth. Thus step by step we learn how to make friends with the entire world; we realize the greatness of God, of Truth. Our peace of mind increases in spite of suffering; we become braver and more enterprising; we understand more clearly the difference between what is everlasting and what is not; we learn how to distinguish between what is our duty and what is not. Our pride melts away and we become humble. Our worldly attachments diminish and likewise the evil within us diminishes from day to day. Ahimsa is not the crude thing it has been made to appear. Not to hurt any living thing is no doubt a part of ahimsa. But it is its least expression. The principle of ahimsa is hurt by every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by wishing ill of anybody. It is also violated by our holding on to what the world needs. But the world needs even what we eat day by day. In the place where we stand there are millions of micro-organisms to whom the place belongs and who are hurt by our presence there. What should we do then? Should we commit suicide? Even that is no solution, if we believe, as we do, that so long as the spirit is attached to the flesh, on every destruction of the body it weaves for itself another. The body will cease to be only when we give up all attachment to it. This freedom from all attachment is the realization of God as Truth. Such realization cannot be attained in a hurry. Realizing that this body does not belong to us, that it is a trust handed over to our charge, we should make the right use of it and progress towards our goal. I wished to write something which would be easy for all to understand, but I find that I have written a difficult discourse. However, no one who has thought even a little about ahimsa should find any difficulty in understanding what I have written. It is perhaps clear from the foregoing that without ahimsa it is not possible to seek and find Truth.

Ahimsa and Truth are so intertwined that it is practically impossible to disentangle and separate them. They are like the two sides of a coin, or rather of a smooth unstamped metallic disc. Who can say which the obverse is and which is the reverse? Nevertheless, ahimsa is the means and Truth is the end. Means to be means must always be within our reach, and so ahimsa becomes our supreme duty and Truth becomes God for us. If we take care of the means, we are bound to reach the end sooner or later. If we resolve to do this, we shall have won the battle. Whatever difficulties we encounter, whatever apparent reverses we sustain, we should not lose faith but should ever repeat one mantra: “Truth exists, it alone exists. It is the only God and there is but one way of realizing it; there is but one means and that is ahimsa. I will never give it up. May the God that is Truth, in whose name I have taken this pledge, give me the strength to keep it. 13

If we look at it from the standpoint of ahimsa, we find that the fulfillment of ahimsa is impossible without perfect brahmacharya. Ahimsa means universal love. If a man gives his love to one woman, or a woman to one man, what is there left for the entire world besides? It simply means, “we two first, and the devil take all the rest of them.” As a faithful wife must be prepared to sacrifice her all for the sake of her husband, and a faithful husband for the sake of his wife, it is clear that such persons cannot rise to the height of universal love, or look upon all mankind as kith and kin For they have created a boundary wall or one has been created round their love. The larger their family, the farther are they from universal love. We see this in the whole world. Hence one who would obey the law of ahimsa cannot marry, not to speak of gratification outside the marital bond. If we look at it from the standpoint of ahimsa, we find that the fulfillment of ahimsa is impossible without perfect brahmacharya. Ahimsa means universal love. If a man gives his love to one woman, or a woman to one man, what is there left for the entire world besides? It simply means, “we two first, and the devil take all the rest of them.” As a faithful wife must be prepared to sacrifice her all for the sake of her husband, and a faithful husband for the sake of his wife, it is clear that such persons cannot rise to the height of universal love, or look upon all mankind as kith and kin For they have created a boundary wall or one has been created round their love. The larger their family, the farther are they from universal love. We see this in the whole world. Hence one who would obey the law of ahimsa cannot marry, not to speak of gratification outside the marital bond. 14

Try to understand what I have been saying about the takli. I do not propose the takli as a substitute for the spinning-wheel but the takli can enter a field where the spinning-wheel cannot. The whole plan of spinning depends upon the number of people who take it up. If merely a handful of us had occupied this vast country, spinning would have had no place here. If a small number of people occupy a large area, that small number has to be violent by nature. Of what use is the takli or the spinning-wheel to them as a symbol of ahimsa? 15 Ahimsa may be deduced from Truth, or may be paired with Truth. Truth and ahimsa is one and the same thing. I am partial to Truth, however. In the final analysis there can only be a single reality. The highest Truth stands by itself. Truth is the end, ahimsa is the means thereto. We know what ahimsa or non-violence is, although we find it difficult to follow the law of love. But as for Truth, we know only a fraction of it. Perfect knowledge of Truth is difficult of attainment for man even like the perfect practice of non-violence. 16

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