For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi- XXII

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- XXII

My definition of brahmacharya still stands. According to it, a man who is affected by passion even mentally has fallen from brahmacharya. One who is not free from passion even in thought can never be considered a perfect brahmachari. I do not consider myself an ideal brahmachari since I have not reached that ideal. Though I am far away from this ideal I think I have progressed from what I was when I started. Freedom from passion in thought cannot be achieved until one gets a vision of the Supreme. When one achieves complete control over one’s thoughts, ‘man’ and ‘woman’ include each other. I believe in the possibility of such a brahmachari although I have not come across one. I still continue my strenuous efforts to become such a brahmachari. So long as such brahmacharya is not attained, man cannot realize the full potentialities of ahimsa. 1

Non-violence is not a cloistered virtue, confined only to the rishi and the cave-dweller. It is capable of being practised by the millions, not with full knowledge of its implications, but because it is the law of our species. It distinguishes man from the brute. But man has not shed the brute in him. He has to strive to do so. This striving applies to the practice of non-violence, not to the belief in it. I cannot strive to believe in a principle; I either believe in it or I do not. And if I believe in it, I must bravely strive to practise it. Ahimsa is an attribute of the brave. Cowardice and ahimsa do not go together any more than water and fire. It is that ahimsa that every member of the Gandhi Seva Sangh has to make a conscious effort to develop in him. 2

True faith is that which stands unshaken against the whole world, such faith alone counts. How can one’s ahimsa endure without such faith? It would be a different matter if you were to say that you had no ahimsa in you. But if it were so what could you do about it? And in that case why feel despondent? You have then to watch and see what happens. If I have true ahimsa in me, it will shine out in any one of you at the right moment. But if I don’t have it, how will it show itself in you all? It is, therefore, I who am being tested. That should make you dance with joy. 3 You mentioned your nature. In all these matters ahimsa or pure love is the only way. If we start with recognizing the temperament of our patient, or colleague or opponent, much friction can be avoided. 4

Hinduism has become a synonym for weakness and Islam for physical strength. Hindus, although they have been taught to believe in ahimsa, have not shown en masse the strength of ahimsa, have never shown its superiority, when matched against physical strength. I have maintained that superiority over physical strength, however overwhelming, is the core of ahimsa, and I have further maintained that this non-violence can be exercised as well by individuals as by groups of them, yea, even by millions together. The experiment is still in the making. Sufficient evidence has accumulated during the past twenty years to show that the experiment is worth making. Nothing can possibly be lost by continuing it, provided of course that the nonviolence is of the standard brand. 5

Thus writes Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia: Does the Independence Pledge necessitate belief in a social order for free India which will be based exclusively on the charkha and the present constructive programme? I personally feel that it does not. The pledge is inclusive of the charkha and village crafts, but it is not exclusive of other industries and economic activities. Among these industries may be mentioned those of electricity, ship-building, machine-making and the like. The question of emphasis still remains. The pledge decides it only to the extent that belief in the charkha and village crafts as an integral part of the future social order is essential and cannot be superseded by other belief. Does the pledge immediately necessitate abandonment of every other action except such as is based on the present constructive programme? I personally feel that it does not. Agitation against land rents, taxes, interest and other economic obstructions to the advance of our people appears to be permissible. It is not, for instance, impossible that you should yourself decide upon a no-rent and no-tax campaign when you choose to start Satyagraha.

Whether you actually do so or not is not so important from the viewpoint of the pledge as the fact that you may do it. At any rate, agitation on economic lines is today permissible. These two questions arise in so far as the negative aspect of the pledge is concerned. A third question arises in regard to its positive aspect. It is undoubtedly necessary that anyone who takes the pledge must be ready to express his positive faith in the principle of decentralized economy. The actual forms of this faith may, however, be decided by the march of history. Only in regard to the charkha it should be possible for anyone who takes the pledge to believe that the complete decentralization of the textile industry is possible and that it should be attempted. I have not at all referred to irregularities of conduct due to indolence and similar causes; that happens in regard to all pledges and faiths. Only the wish must be there to remove these irregularities. I do not know if this interpretation of the pledge is correct and can meet with your approval. I do not also know if my socialist comrades will approve of it. It might perhaps be worthwhile for the country to know soon your opinion. Perhaps it is already too late for the Independence Day.

I need hardly repeat, what I have said often, that the legal and authoritative interpretation of the pledge can only come from the Working Committee. My interpretation has as much authority as my questioners choose to give it. On the whole I can say that I have no difficulty in accepting Dr. Lohia’s interpretation whatever the ultimate outcome of the Congress effort, the discussion that is going on over the pledge provides healthy political education for the public and crystallizes the opinions that rule the various schools of thought in the country. Though I am in general agreement with Dr. Lohia, it will be well for me to give the interpretation in my own language. The pledge is not exhaustive. It represents the limit to which I could carry the Working Committee with me. If I can convert the country to my point of view, the social order of the future will be based predominantly on the charkha and all it implies. It will include everything that promotes the well-being of the villagers.

It will not exclude the industries mentioned by my correspondent so long as they do not smother the villages and village life. I do visualize electricity, ship-building, ironworks, machine-making and the like existing side by side with village handicrafts. But the order of dependence will be reversed. Hitherto the industrialization has been so planned as to destroy the villages and village crafts. In the State of the future it will subserve the villages and their crafts. I do not share the socialist belief that centralization of the necessaries of life will conduce to the common welfare when the centralized industries are planned and owned by the State. The socialistic conception of the West was born in an environment reeking with violence. The motive lying behind the Western type and the Eastern is the same the greatest welfare of the whole society and the abolition of the hideous inequalities resulting in the existence of millions of have-nots and a handful of haves. I believe that this end can be achieved only when non-violence is accepted by the best mind of the world as the basis on which a just social order is to be constructed.

I hold that the coming into power of the proletariat through violence is bound to fail in the end. What is gained by violence must be lost before superior violence. India is within an ace of achieving the end, if only Congressmen will be true to their creed of non-violence and live up to it. The working of the constructive programme is the test. Those who play upon the passions of the masses injure them and the country’s because. That they have noble motives is irrelevant. Why will not Congressmen work out the programme fully and faithfully? It will be time to consider other programmes when we have come into our own. But like the fabled men who quarreled over the division of the buffalo before it was bought, we argue and quarrel over our different programmes before swaraj has come. Decency requires that when a programme is approved by the majority all should carry it out faithfully.

Most decidedly, the pledge does not necessitate the abandonment of the other items that have hitherto adorned the Congress programme and are adverted to by Dr. Lohia. Agitation against every form of injustice is the breath of political life. My contention is that, divorced from the constructive programme, it is bound to have the tinge of violence. Let me illustrate my point. My experiments in ahimsa have taught me that non-violence in practice means common labour with the body. A Russian philosopher, Bondaref, has called it bread labour. It means closest co-operation. The first satyagrahis of South Africa laboured for the common good and the common purse and felt free like birds. They included Hindus, Muslims (Shias and Sunnis), Christians (Protestants and Roman Catholics), Parsis, and Jews. They included the English and the Germans. By profession they were lawyers and architects, engineers, electricians, printers and traders. Practice of truth and non-violence melted religious differences, and we learnt to see beauty in each religion. I do not remember a single religious quarrel in the two colonies I founded in South Africa. The common labour consisted of printing, carpentry, shoe-making, gardening, house-building, and the like. Labour was no drudgery, it was a joy. The evenings were devoted to literary pursuits. These men, women and boys were the vanguard of the Satyagraha army.

I could not wish for braver or more loyal comrades. In India the South African experience was continued and, I trust, improved upon. Labour in Ahmadabad is by common consent the best organized in India. If it continues to work along the lines on which it began, it will ultimately own the mills in common with the present holders. If that is not the natural outcome, its non-violence will be found to contain flaws The peasants of Bardoli who gave Vallabhbhai the title of ‘Sardar’ and won their battle and of Borsad and Kheda who did likewise, have for years been working the constructive programme. They have not deteriorated as satyagrahis by working it. I am quite certain that Ahmadabad labour and the peasantry of Bardoli and Kheda will give as good an account of themselves as any other in India if there is civil resistance. Thirty-four years of continuous experience and experimenting in truth and non-violence have convinced me that non-violence cannot be sustained unless it is linked to conscious body-labour and finds expression in our daily contact with our neighbours. This is the constructive programme. It is not an end; it is an indispensable means and therefore is almost convertible with the end. The power of nonviolent resistance can only come from honest working of the constructive programme. 6

Sardar Prithvi Singh has eschewed violence and taken to ahimsa; but he says it is a new experience for him. He is making efforts like Bhagirath to pass the test. The future alone can reveal what the outcome will be. A field for his experiments had to be chosen. During his underground days he worked to spread physical culture activities. Exercise may be either for violence or for non-violence. Ahimsa cannot grow to its full stature in an emaciated body. A vigorous body is essential for the expression of pure ahimsa. Up to a point the same kind of exercise can be useful for both types of body but finally a distinction has to be made. It is Sardar Prithvi Singh’s job to explain how to do it. He proposes to start with Gujarat. I wish him success in his efforts. 7

I am a university student. Yesterday evening some of us went to a cinema show. During the performance two of us went outside leaving our handkerchiefs behind on our seats. On our return we found that two British soldiers had taken possession of these seats unceremoniously in spite of the clearest warning and entreaty by our friends. When requested to vacate the seats they not only refused but showed an inclination to fight. They browbeat the cinema manager who, being Indian, was easily cowed down. In the end the garrison officer was called and they vacated their seats. If he had not appeared, there would have been only two alternatives before us, either to resort to violence and maintain our self-respect, or to allow ourselves to be browbeaten and quietly occupy some other seats.

The latter would have been too humiliating. How would you apply the principle of non-violence under such circumstances? A. I must admit the difficulty of solving the riddle. Two ways occur to me of dealing with the situation non-violently First, firmly to stand the ground till the seats are vacated; secondly, deliberately so to stand as to obstruct the view of the usurpers. In each case you run the risk of being beaten by the usurpers. I am not satisfied with my answers. But they meet the special circumstances in which we are placed. The ideal answer no doubt is not to bother about the usurpation of the personal right but to reason with the usurpers and, if they do not listen, to report such cases to the authorities concerned and, in case of failure, take them to the highest tribunal. This is the constitutional method which is not taboo in a non-violent conception of society. Not to take the law into one’s own hands is essentially a non-violent method.

But the ideal has no relation to reality in this country because the index of expectation of justice for Indians in cases where white men and especially white soldiers are concerned is almost zero. Hence it is necessary to resort to something like what I have suggested. But I know that when we have real non-violence in us a non-violent way out is bound, without effort, to occur to us when we find ourselves in a difficult situation. 8 My contribution to the great problem lies in my presenting for acceptance truth and ahimsa in every walk of life, whether for individuals or nations. I have hugged the hope that in this woman will be the unquestioned leader and, having thus found her place in human evolution, will shed her inferiority complex. If she is able to do this successfully, she must resolutely refuse to believe in the modern teaching that everything is determined and regulated by the sex impulse. I fear I have put the proposition rather clumsily. But I hope my meaning is clear. I do not know that the millions of men who are taking an active part in the war are obsessed by the sex specter. Nor are the peasants working together in their fields worried or dominated by it. This is not to say or suggest that they are free from the instinct implanted in man and woman.

But it most certainly does not dominate their lives as it seems to dominate the lives of those who are saturated with the modern sex literature. Neither man nor woman has time for such things when he or she is faced with the hard fact of living life in its grim reality. I have suggested in these columns that woman is the incarnation of ahimsa. Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering. Who but woman, the mother of man, shows this capacity in the largest measure? She shows it as she carries the infant and feeds it during nine months and derives joy in the suffering involved. What can beat the suffering caused by the pangs of labour? But she forgets them in the joy of creation. Who again suffers daily so that her babe may wax from day to day? Let her transfer that love to the whole of humanity, let her forget she ever was or can be the object of man’s lust. And she will occupy her proud position by the side of man as his mother, maker and silent leader. It is given to her to teach the art of peace to the warring world thirsting for that nectar. She can become the leader in Satyagraha which does not require the learning that books give but does require the stout heart that comes from suffering and faith. 9

If our ahimsa is not of the brave but of the weak, and if it will bend before violence or if it will be put to shame or prove ineffective in the presence of violence, then Gandhism deserves to be destroyed. It is bound to be destroyed. We fought the British, but there we used ahimsa as the weapon of the weak. Now we want to make it the weapon of the strong. Ahimsa can be used, within limits, as a weapon by the weak; but only within those limits. But it can never be a weapon of the coward, the timid. If a coward wields the weapon of ahimsa, it will recoil on him. We have to find out whether the plying of charkha gives us the power of ahimsa. When you spin from two to four during the session, do you link your spinning with ahimsa? Does it enhance your power of ahimsa every day? Some may spin six hundred yards in two hours and some others may do so in one hour. This fact, too, has its own value. But the most important issue is whether the spinning has added to our power of ahimsa. Has it widened our vision of ahimsa? If our charkha does not constantly add to our power of ahimsa, nor widen our vision of it, then I would say, ‘Down with Gandhism’. Those who are shouting slogans for the destruction of Gandhism are doing so in anger, in a fit of madness. But I am saying this deliberately. This is being said by a man who can discriminate, whose intellect is not blurred and who has successfully practised law. I testify that if we do not concentrate on spinning while linking it with ahimsa then Gandhism most certainly deserves to be destroyed, because then it would have lost all its power. 10

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