For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi-XVIII

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-XVIII

My ahimsa does rule out the use of all force otherwise than moral. But it is one thing to say that physical force has been or is today being used in the world for the settlement of national issues; quite another thing to say that it should continue so to be used. We cannot afford to blindly imitate the West. In the West, if they do certain things they have antidotes for them too; we have not. Take the instance of birth-control. It may seem to work well there, but if we took to the practice of birth-control as it is being advocated in the West, in ten years there will be a race of eunuchs in India. Similarly, if we take to violence after the West we shall soon be bankrupt as the West is fast becoming. Only the other day, I was having a talk with a European friend. He was appalled at the prospect of wholesale exploitation of the coloured races of the world by the highly industrialized nations of the West with which civilization is today confronted. The principle of non-violence is today passing through a period of probation. The forces of the spirit are engaged in life and death grapples with brute force. Let us in this crisis not shrink from the test. 1

There are, besides, numerous texts in our Smritis which contradict one another, and hence we cannot blindly accept every text as gospel truth. We have to prove them on the touchstone of truth and non-violence. There are things, for instance, in Manusmriti which no author believing in ahimsa could ever have written and which run counter to the precepts in the same great work, precepts which would do credit to the spiritual genius of any race or clime. I must expunge those texts as apocryphal, as we do in the case of many verses of doubtful authenticity which have crept into a much more recent work like, for instance, Tulsidas’s Ramayana. For me, the text of Manu defining sanatana dharma eternal religion is all-sufficing. 2 My ahimsa is on its mettle. But I do not want to act. I am passive till God wants me to act; not my will but His shall be done. 3

The principle of ahimsa is founded on the assumption that every human being is capable of reform. Since I cannot give up this faith, some difference of opinion between you and me will always remain. 4 While the wound of Talaja is still fresh, here is another. Everywhere it is the same. The law says that Harijan Hindus enjoy equal civil rights with caste Hindus. Even the officials are ready to help. But the fanatic Hindus seem to care little for the law or order of the officers. How to overcome such utter ignorance? Ahimsa seems defeated and love seems to dry up. But I find the pen quoting the lines: “As long as the elephant relied on his own strength, it availed him not” and “Rama is the strength of the weak” and they comfort me. Ahimsa is true ahimsa only if it keeps shining even in the midst of darkness all around. The remedy for himsa is ahimsa, for hatred love and for untruth truth, as the remedy for cold is sunshine. 5

Who am I to secure swaraj for the country through ahimsa? If I have real ahimsa in me it cannot but prove infectious. I have little faith in myself, but my faith in ahimsa is unshakable. The world has recognized it as a great principle, but it has rarely been acted upon. I daily get a fresh experience of its sweetness, for to me it is the only wish-fulfilling tree. No other way is possible for me, for I have found no other means of attaining Satyanarayana and life without the prospect of attaining Him has no meaning for me. Hence the path of ahimsa, whether difficult or easy, is the only one that I can follow. If violence breaks out after my death, you may conclude that my ahimsa was very imperfect or was not real at all—but not that the principle of ahimsa was wrong. Or it may also be that we shall have to cross the river of blood in which the wicked suffer for their sins before we reach the goal of ahimsa. Ahimsa came into politics in the 1920s. But didn’t the Chauri Chaura and other outrages occur after that, and hasn’t the Government gone to extreme lengths of repression? I am sure, however, that despite all this violence, ahimsa has had a profound effect on people. But it has been no more than a drop in the ocean. My experiment continues and is ever growing in its scope. May your faith never waver! 6

The Gita was written not to establish ahimsa, but to show a groping world a way of acting truly in every conceivable circumstance. But nevertheless you can gather that the Gita leads you infallibly to ahimsa. Remember that Arjuna was not striving to follow ahimsa, but he was struggling to get out of the duty in front of him because of his partiality which he had suddenly developed for his kinsmen. The question before him was not whether to kill or not to kill, but whether to kill one’s kinsmen or not to kill them. 7 We have no right to judge anyone a sinner as we are all full of imperfections. We have no reason or means to judge whether those we regard as greater sinners than ourselves are truly so. A person stealing a mere pice can be a greater sinner than a person indulging in sexual immorality. Possibly the thief committed a deliberate theft while the licentious person put up great but unsuccessful resistance against the temptation. Who can know of his good efforts? God alone knows the secrets of the human heart. Thus we must not make comparative reckoning of others’ sins but only increase the spirit of forgiveness. This is one of the aims of the doctrine of ahimsa. 8

Sometimes l may appear to others to do so, but it is contrary to my nature to act hastily; and at the present moment I am doubly circumspect, for the simple reason that my own ahimsa is on trial. It is not enough for me to protest my innocence. If I have it in me, it must be self-luminous even as the sun. I suppose even the blind, though they do not see the sun, feel the dawn when it is coming. The noon-day heat, of course, they cannot help feeling. And when a man is filled with love, it must be like the noon-day sun. I may fail to express such ahimsa during this lifetime. I shall proclaim that failure from the housetops rather than alter by a hair’s breadth the standard I have set before me. Just at the present moment, therefore, I can say that any action hastening Civil Resistance is highly improbable. But if it does come, I have no doubt that you will say that it was inevitable. 9

Then, were you right in disregarding excommunication? Mind, I am not examining the position from the legal standpoint. It is the moral that concerns me. From the ahimsa standpoint, you should have respected the order of excommunication. There is too much violence in the air. Your object was and is to convert the high priest and if not him, at least the fellow Borahs. This you could have done without forcing the entry into the mosque. Your motive is triumph of truth, not assertion of rights. I wonder if what I have said appeals to your reason. 10 You had a good discussion with Nariman. It is true that most people follow ahimsa only as a policy. But there are a few at least like you who strive their utmost to follow it as a dharma. Ultimately it is such ahimsa that will work. There will be an army even after the country has become free. I don’t feel that my ahimsa is sufficiently strong to convince the people that there will be no necessity for an army. If the army remains, military training also will remain. But this is only speculation. It is not inconceivable that, if we really and truly win freedom through ahimsa, we may not need an army afterwards. There is no limit to the power of ahimsa, as there is none to that of the votary of ahimsa. The latter does nothing of his own will. All his actions are prompted by God. That being so, how can he say in advance what God will prompt him to do at a future time? There is thus no question of compromise in this matter. It is only a question of recognizing the limit of one’s strength. My killing a snake through fear is no compromise but merely an exhibition of my lack of strength. One might say that God has given me only so much strength and no more or that I have not purified myself sufficiently have not adequate tapascharya to make myself fit for greater strength. A compromise, on the other hand, is a deliberate and voluntary act. 11

When perfect ahimsa has grown in you your path will be quite clear before you. Just now I personally feel that it would be better for you to devote your time to your studies and finish them. 12 Teaching of lathi exercises, etc., is certainly likely to weaken the desire to cling to ahimsa. Wouldn’t they be taught as training in self-defence? But I don’t feel inclined to make a rule forbidding those who wish to teach them to do so. 13 For you and me the proposed union can be tolerated only if it becomes a pattern for others to copy. It must therefore be developed in the spirit of service. Development along this line must mean greater simplicity, greater self-abnegation, greater advance towards truth and ahimsa, uttermost brahmacharya in thought and word and deed. The contemplation of the girl must mean to Kanti exclusion of every other woman from his thought for the gratification of his sexual impulse. 14

Do you know the meaning of your statement that my words leave you dumbfounded? It means that you feel yourself miles away from me. Is it your fault or mine that you could not recognize the love behind my harsh words? As a votary of ahimsa, I should believe it to be mine, but as a father I would say it was yours. How strange it is that I should have to weigh my words and restrain my language when speaking to you lest you feel offended? 15 Nevertheless there is that difference between a belief in ahimsa and a belief in himsa which there is between north and south, life and death. One who hooks his fortunes to ahimsa, the law of love, daily lessens the circle of destruction and to that extent promotes life and love; he who swears by himsa, the law of hate, daily widens the circle of destruction and to that extent promotes death and hate. Though, before the people of Borsad, I endorsed the destruction of rats and fleas, my own kith and kin, I preached to them without adulteration the grand doctrine of the eternal Law of love of all life. Though I may fail to carry it out to the full in this life, my faith in it shall abide. Every failure brings me nearer the realization. 16

To take an example, ahimsa is good but what should I do if I cannot rid myself of the fear of snakes? When I have already killed it in my mind, but only shrink from putting the thought into action, dharma indicates that I kill it in accordance with my nature. The resolve not to kill it serves no purpose. The same holds true in the instance of brahmacharya and the householder’s estate. Observance of lifelong continence is undoubtedly worthy but those unable to control their passion should enter the holy state of matrimony as brahmacharya in such instances would be a mere mockery of it. There is no contradiction here, only a matter of two distinct dharmas. 17 There is an eternal struggle going on in us between the powers of light and powers of darkness, those of truth and of untruth, between God and the Devil. We have to carry on the struggle as best as we May, but we have always to be conscious of our limitations. Arjuna was on the point of forgetting his limitations and Lord Krishna prevented him from doing so. Ahimsa is the law of life, but if I have not shed the fear of serpents what am I to do? My mind has already killed the serpent, only the flesh is weak. Your duty says: ‘Kill it. Give up the vain attempt of refraining from killing it.’ The same is the case about brahmacharya and grihasthashrama. Lifelong brahmacharya is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but he who cannot control his passions, whose mind and sense lust after the flesh, must enter grihasthashrama and a pure householder’s life. For him the attempt at lifelong brahmacharya is vain. He will not give up his faith in the ideal, but he will approach it by gradual practice in self-restraint. 18

If you are still not satisfied, ask me again, the question you have put is an important one, and if you have fully grasped the meaning of ahimsa my answer should satisfy you as a perfect one. 19 Apparently it is so. But really it is easier to be good than to be evil. Of course poets have said that descent to hell is easy, but I do not think so. Nor do I think there are more bad people in the world than good. In that case God himself would be evil and not an embodiment of ahimsa or love which He is. Ahimsa means avoiding injury to anything on earth, in thought, word and deed. 20

I do not like the argument that the atatayi may be killed. Who should be regarded as an atatayi? For the present I do believe that murderers and other criminals will have to be imprisoned. But I do not remember even having said that that is ahimsa. I certainly do not believe that it is. I have said that in the existing circumstances such action may be unavoidable. This only means that my ahimsa is still far from perfect and that, therefore, I have not yet been able to discover a remedy for this kind of violence. Truth lies in recognizing a fall from an ideal as what it is. If we win power by any means other than ahimsa, the swaraj will most certainly not be the swaraj of the poor. They will profit only in proportion to the degree of ahimsa we observe in winning swaraj. Perfect ahimsa neither you nor I nor anybody else can claim. But one who believes in ahimsa will become more and more non-violent day by day and in consequence his field of service will keep ever expanding. The field of service of the votary of violence will become narrower day by day and will ultimately become restricted to him. 21

This time I chanced to notice the secret hatred K. N. bears towards the rich. He too realized that his heart has yet to digest it. What you write is quite correct. His stay in Bengal should prove beneficial. Gradually he will acquire mastery over everything. Meanwhile the other Ashram inmates too will have been tested. Only those can be defined as Ashram inmates who have no financial or any other kind of obligations towards parents and other relatives, whose wants comprise only food and clothing and who are ever alert in the observance of ahimsa and the other eleven vows. 22 The very spirit of ahimsa is a matter of the heart only; it touches the intellect in a much lesser degree. Hearts can be reached soon enough by disinterested service. Therefore our present duty consists of service among those making the goat-offering to the goddesses and we shall as the occasion arises remove their superstition. Keep in mind that the scene witnessed by you among the uneducated can be seen among the educated, too, in Calcutta and that on a vast scale. 23

There are many objections against approving of compulsory sterilization of people suffering from leprosy. The practice is likely to lead to numerous evils. It is also not right to assume any disease to be incurable. It seems safer to me to propagate the method of self-control and be content with whatever results can be achieved in that way. I sense cowardice at every step. A spinner who was a coward would cut apart tangled yarn. A good spinner, on the other hand, would undo the tangle with patience and skill and keep the thread whole. A follower of ahimsa would adopt some such method with persons suffering from supposedly incurable diseases. 24 Eating of animal food as a matter of habit is not inconsistent with the observance of ahimsa, even as eating milk and vegetable which have also life is not inconsistent with the practice of ahimsa. I have elsewhere argued that practice of absolute ahimsa by embodied life is an utter impossibility. 25

We have all to march from untruth to truth, from darkness to light .Truth is at the very root of all our aims and vows and the plant of truth will not grow and fructify if you do not water its roots with ahimsa. But for you the truth lies in cultivating true rural-mindedness. 26 It is not one form, it is the only form. I do not of course confine the words ‘direct action’ to their technical meaning. But without a direct active expression of it, non-violence to my mind is meaningless. It is the greatest and the activist force in the world. One cannot be passively non-violent. In fact ‘on-violence’ is a term I had to coin in order to bring out the root meaning of ahimsa. In spite of the negative particle ‘none’, it is no negative force. Superficially we are surrounded in life by strife and bloodshed, life living upon life. But some great seer, who ages ago penetrated the centre of truth, said: It is not through strife and violence, but through non-violence that man can fulfil his destiny and his duty to his fellow creatures. It is a force which is more positive than electricity and more powerful than even ether. At the centre of non-violence is a force which is self-acting. Ahimsa means ‘love’ in the Pauline sense, and yet something more than the ‘love’ defined by St. Paul, although I know St. Paul’s beautiful definition is good enough for all practical purposes. Ahimsa includes the whole creation, and not only human. Besides, love in the English language has other connotations too, and so I was compelled to use the negative word. But it does not, as I have told you, express a negative force, but a force superior to all the forces put together. One person who can express ahimsa in life exercises a force superior to all the forces of brutality. If he cannot, you must take it that he is not a true representative of ahimsa. Supposing I cannot produce a single instance in life of a man who truly converted his adversary, I would then say that is because no one had yet been found to express ahimsa in its fullness. 27

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