For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Ahimsa and Mahatma Gandhi-XXIX

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-XXIX

I have come here to put my Ahimsa to test. I have no misgiving as to the effect of Ahimsa. But I am fully conscious that I may not know the whole technique and may not even be living up to what I do know. Therefore, I have submitted myself for examination here. Hence, if that examination demands my presence in Bihar I shall go. 1 If one of them is broken, all are broken. That being so, if in practice I resile in regard to brahmacharya to please Mrs. Grundy, I jettison not only brahmacharya but truth, ahimsa and all the rest. I do not allow myself any divergence between theory and practice in respect of the rest. If then I temporize in the matter of brahmacharya, would it not blunt the edge of my brahmacharya and vitiate my practice of truth? Ever since my coming to Noakhali, I have been asking myself the question, ‘What is it that is choking the action of my ahimsa? Why does not the spell work? May it not be because I have temporized in the matter of brahmacharya? 2

My sixty years’ experience has taught me nothing if not that. That is also the lesson of my three months of travail in Noakhali. I was groping in the dark but I said just what seemed to me to be the truth. Those who regarded me as their enemy could exploit it. But I had faith that sooner rather than later they would see their mistake. Be that as it may, my only strength lies in my ahimsa. The same applies to you also. If you grasp that, you will get over your fear and, undaunted by extraneous considerations, do justice. 3 Hindu religion prescribes great tapascharya for the realization of ahimsa. It is said that innumerable Hindus had shed their blood in the cause of ahimsa until the Himalayas became purified in their snowy whiteness by means of that sacrifice. The Hindus of today pay only lip service to ahimsa. You must demonstrate true ahimsa in this land of Ramachandra and King Janaka. True bravery consists in true ahimsa. At the moment you are guilty of committing very cowardly acts. People had adopted ahimsa in Champaran at my instance. I now feel that it was the ahimsa of the weak. The British, who were our adversaries, were a mighty power. That is why we seem to have adopted non-violence in facing them; but we neither could nor remain nonviolent in our dealings with one another. We should feel sorry that we resorted to violence in dealing with our brothers. The mothers and sisters of Muslims are like our own mothers and sisters. If we have behaved with them like devils, it is our duty to atone for that sin. Women have had a great hand in the growth of ahimsa. They can, if they choose, play a big role in Bihar. The events in Noakhali, Bihar and the Punjab are most unfortunate. If you have made up your mind to torture Gandhi, I cannot complain. In spite of my services to the country and to you, you have every right to say that Gandhi has cheated you and, but for him, you would have slaughtered all the Muslims — although you could not have done so. I would plead with you to pay attention to what I have to say. I do not wish anyone to be swayed by my personal influence; I want you to think calmly and act on my advice only if it appeals to your head and heart. 4

To me truth, ahimsa and brahmacharya are all ideals of equal importance. They all call for an equal measure of striving on our part and lapse in respect of any of them is to me a matter of equal concern. I maintain that my conduct in no way constitutes a departure from the true ideal of brahmacharya. As against it, brahmacharya which reduces itself to a system of prescriptive do’s and don’ts and which is in vogue amongst us today has a baneful effect upon society; it has lowered the ideal and robbed it of its true content. I deem it my highest duty to put these prescriptive conventions and taboos in their proper place and to release the ideal from the fetters that have been put upon it. 5 The assumption is serious. If it is sound, it casts a grave reflection upon the Provincial Governments. In any event, how I wish the Hindus were influenced by my teaching of ahimsa which is a force mightier than the force of arms however powerful. No teacher can be held responsible for a caricature of his teachings. Do we not know how geometrical propositions are caricatured by indifferent pupils? Are the teachers to be blamed? The utmost that can be said against me is that I am an incompetent teacher of ahimsa. If such be the case, let us pray that my successor will be much more competent and successful. The nationalists are not worth the proud name they bear, if they fear the Muslim League as you imagine. Can the nationalists exclude the followers of the League from the sphere of their action? I am not thinking of vote-catching devices. I am thinking of the Muslims as Indians, the same as others, needing their care and attention. If the leaders have ceased to believe in ahimsa, they should boldly and frankly say so and set about putting their house in order. For me there is no scope for any change. Ahimsa is no mere theory with me, it is a fact of life based on extensive experience. How can a man who had tasted apples and repeatedly found them sweet be induced to describe them as bitter? Those who say they are bitter have tasted not apples but something looking very much likes them. Ahimsa should not fear the secret or open hand of imperialists assuming for the sake of argument that it is working as suggested in the question. 6

Violence can be effectively met only by non-violence. This is an old established truth. The questioner does not really understand the working of non-violence. If he did, he would have known that the weapon of violence, even if it was the atom bomb, became useless when matched against true non-violence. That very few understand how to wield this mighty weapon is true. It requires a lot of understanding and strength of mind. It is unlike what is needed in military schools and colleges. What is requires is purity of the mind. The difficulty one experiences in meeting himsa with ahimsa arises from weakness of the mind. Moreover, let us not forget that Qaid-e- Azam Jinnah has, in his interview to the delegation from the Frontier Province, stated explicitly that is was not proper to resort to violence for attaining their rights, i.e., Pakistan. 7 I know that this is a transitional period and going through the pages of history we find that whenever there has been a revolution such inhuman things have happened. But I wanted to change history. For example we fought the battles of Satyagraha on the strength of ahimsa and truth for sixty years and achieved something which is beyond imagination. In the same way I want to put army men to good use and see how they can serve the country in a different way. But I want one thing and people want something different. What is to be done about that? Only His will truly prevails. It is no exaggeration if I say that science is being misused these days that it is being put to diabolical use. Nothing can stand up to it except ahimsa. I have no doubt about it. 8

In the end the learned friend has counseled me that if I cannot give up being stubborn and must persist in ahimsa I should at least not stand in the way of others. Shall I then become a hypocrite? Shall I deceive the world? The world then will only say that there is a so-called Mahatma in India who mouths sweet phrases about ahimsa while his co-workers indulge in killing. 9 In answering the question I have to confess my bankruptcy. However, ahimsa can never suffer bankruptcy. As I have explained the ahimsa which we have practised during the last earlier thirty years has been the ahimsa of the weak. Whether this view of mine is valid or not you will judge for yourselves. What has to be admitted is that in the changed conditions of today the ahimsa of the weak has no place. The truth is that India has not so far had an opportunity to practise the ahimsa of the brave. Nothing is gained by my repeating that no power in the world can stand before the ahimsa of the brave. For the truth of this can only be proved by repeatedly and extensively manifesting it in life. So far as I can I have endeavoured to manifest it in my life. But maybe I am not fully qualified, maybe I am a beggar. Why then should I ask you to follow me when I am not able to show results? The question is pertinent and my answer is simple. I ask no one to follow me. Each should go by the voice within. If you cannot hear the voice within you may do as you like. In any case you must on no account blindly follow anybody. I further request all those who wish to advise me that they should have patience with me and above all they should join me in the faith that to ameliorate the pains of this suffering world there is no way save that of ahimsa, however arduous it may be. Millions like me may not be able to practise this in life. For this they themselves will be to blame, not ahimsa. 10

But I do not think that the thirty years were wasted. It was good that under the severest oppression we remained non-violent. They used their arms against us. But we were not cowed down and the message of the Congress spread throughout the length and breadth of India. Only it did not penetrate the seven lakh villages of India because our ahimsa was the ahimsa of the impotent. No one at the time showed us how to make an atom bomb. Had we known how to make it we would have considered annihilating the English with it. But there having been no alternative my advice was accepted. But today people say that nobody now cares for me. Today Badshah Khan, who has been so brave, is not able to show bravery. For years he has been instructing the Pathans in ahimsa. But today he says he cannot declare allegiance to India. If he did that there would be carnage ten times as bad as in Bihar. What is he to do? Ahimsa is not a commodity which can be bought in the market. If we could display true ahimsa, the Frontier Province alone could save the whole of India. 11 The second question is: “What a silly old man you are that you cannot see how your ahimsa stinks. Your ahimsa can save neither the Hindus nor the Muslims. If we suffer you to live it is not for your ahimsa but in consideration of the services you have rendered to the country.” What stinks in my nostrils is not my ahimsa but the blood that is flowing everywhere around me. My ahimsa smells sweet to me. A man who drinks nectar every day does not find it so sweet as when he drinks it after having swallowed a draught of poison. Ahimsa did not always smell as sweet as it does now. For then the atmosphere was permeated with ahimsa. But today when violence is giving out so many stenches it is only my ahimsa which acts as an antidote. The letter also asks me why I am repeatedly meeting Mr. Jinnah. He is our enemy and we ought to keep away from him. The Baluchis similarly are our enemies and the Congress ought to have nothing to do with them. How can the Congress do so? Its mission is to serve all. I agree that Mr. Jinnah has done a disservice to the country in denouncing Hindus, especially savarna Hindus as his enemies. If a man acts wickedly one feels sorry but after all he is our brother. Hindus cannot go mad. Although Mr. Jinnah has got Pakistan it does not mean that we should cease to associate with him. There are many disputes which can be settled only if we meet together. 12

People ask me if the rule of the sword and the bullet that prevails today is not the result of my teaching of truth and nonviolence for thirty-two years. But does this then mean that for thirty-two years I have prevailed through lies and hypocrisy? Does it mean that the millions of people who imbibed the lesson of ahimsa from me have after thirty-two years suddenly become liars and murderers? I have admitted that our ahimsa was the ahimsa of the weak. But in reality weakness and ahimsa cannot go together. It should therefore be described not as ahimsa but as passive resistance. But the ahimsa I advocated was not the ahimsa of the weak while passive resistance is only for the weak. Then passive resistance is a preparation for active and armed resistance. As a result the violence the people had been harbouring in their hearts has now suddenly erupted. 13 The reader will observe that behind the foregoing requirements lies one thing and that is ahimsa, otherwise known as universal compassion. If that supreme thing is realized, everything else becomes easy. Where there is ahimsa, there is infinite patience, inner calm, discrimination, self-sacrifice and true knowledge. Cow-protection is not an easy thing. Much money is wasted in its name. Nevertheless, in the absence of ahimsa the Hindus have become destroyers instead of saviours of the cow. It is even more difficult than the removel of foreign rule from India. 14

It is a correct statement that has been attributed to me. Ahimsa is always infallible. When, therefore, it appears to have failed, the failure is due to the inaptitude of the votary. I have never felt that my ahimsa has failed in Noakhali, nor can it be said that it has succeeded. It is on its trial. And when I talk of my ahimsa I do not think of it as limited to myself. It must include all my co-workers in Noakhali. Success or failure would, therefore, be attributable to the aggregate of the activities of my co-workers and me. What I have said about Noakhali applies to Calcutta. It is too early to state that the application of ahimsa to the communal problem in this great city has succeeded beyond doubt. As I have already remarked, it is wrong to contend that the establishment of friendliness between the two communities was a miracle. Circumstances were ready and Shaheed Saheb and I appeared on the scene to take the credit for what has happened. Anyway, it is premature to predicate anything about the application. The first thing naturally is that we, the two partners, have one mind and are believers in ahimsa That being assured, I would say that if we know the science and its application, it is bound to succeed. 15

The day before yesterday I got your letter regarding language. I am pained to know that you saw violence in my article. Those who wish to take the worst out of the best will certainly find it. In short, am I not aware that the present holocaust is a result of my teaching of ahimsa? I have also analyzed the whole thing. The defects that you see regarding my language have their root in the same. We are bound to err if we try to separate the two. I have come to this conclusion that either ahimsa is not meant for society, as some of our leaders feel, or, if it is, there is some defect in my way of teaching it. I am quite sure that the first defect is not there. There is a possibility of the second one. If there is some defect in [my teaching of ahimsa] I am trying hard to discover it but have not as yet found it. It is because of this that I am striving here. There may be, as you say, some very painful results from it. I hope I shall not be alive to see them. 16

As long as I was in South Africa I did not know that my birthday was important. When I came here the nuisance started. But I was lucky as the spinning-wheel was associated with it and that is how Rentia Baras came to be celebrated. These days the spinning-wheel is getting out of date. It is an emblem of ahimsa though nowadays it is very difficult to have even a glimpse of ahimsa anywhere. That is why I wonder why we should celebrate Rentia Jayanti. But it is in man’s nature to go on trying. So I let people do so. I hope the Gujaratis wherever they are will work for ahimsa. 17 The law of ahimsa is that one does not hit back at the assailant, faces the attack in a spirit of love and dies in the process. When one dies facing the assailant’s attack in a spirit of love, a change of heart takes place in him. It is not always easy to say if the love was true or when the change of heart on the part of the assailant comes about. But while practising ahimsa, it is enough to keep in mind the law of ahimsa and the way it works. 18

I have been explaining of late that neither in Kathiawar nor in other parts of India have people real faith in non-violence or khadi. It is true that I had deceived myself into believing that people were wedded to non-violence with khadi as its symbol. As a matter of fact, in the name of non-violence people manifested only the outward peaceableness of the impotent. They never even attempted to drive violence from their hearts. He who runs can see for himself the verification of this fact. It had become patent to everyone, when I went to Rajkot in connection with the Rajkot imbroglio, that there was no Rama in Rajkot and, therefore, Kathiawar. Hence it is hardly correct to say that their faith is only now beginning to wane. It is equally improper to question now the efficacy of nonviolence in matters political. What was the people’s fight against the foreign power, if it was not a political matter? Indeed, the disgraceful fight between brother and brother that we are wit messing today is much less political. Today, irreligion is stalking the country in the name of religion. Even the outward peace that we were able to observe in the fight against the foreign power is conspicuous by its absence today. The third error consists in the distinction the correspondent makes between Congressmen and Gandhian. The distinction is baseless. If there is any Gandhian, it must be I. I am not so arrogant as to make any such claim. A Gandhian means a worshipper of Gandhi. Only God has worshippers. I have never claimed to be God. How then can I have worshippers? Moreover, how can it be said that those who call themselves Gandhian are not Congressmen?

There are innumerable servants of the Congress although they are not four anna members registered in the Congress register. The reader should know that I myself belong to that category. Hence the distinction made is false. I have repeatedly said that I have neither any part nor any say in many things that are going on in the country today. It is no secret that the Congress willingly said good-bye to non-violence when it accepted power. Again I believe that the method of rationing of food and clothing is highly injurious to the country. If I had my way, I would not buy a grain of food-stuff from outside India. It is my firm belief that even today there is enough food in the country. It has been hidden because of the rationing. Again, if people followed me, there would be no deadly quarrel between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. It is clear that my writ does not run any longer. Mine is a voice in the wilderness. As for khadi, it has some kind of a place, if we separate it from ahimsa. But it does not have the pride of place it would have had as a symbol of ahimsa. Those who are in the political field wear khadi as a matter of convention. Today we see the triumph not of khadi but of mill-cloth, for we have assumed that but for the manufactures from our mills, millions would have to go naked. Can there be a greater delusion than this? We grow enough cotton in the country. We have any number of handlooms and spinning-wheels. India is not unused to the art of hand-spinning and hand-weaving, but somehow or other the fear has seized us that the millions will not take to hand-spinning and weaving hand-spun yarn for their own needs. A haunted man sees fear even when there is no cause for it. And many more die of fright than of the actual disease. 19

I fear, like many experts, General Cariappa has gone beyond his depth and has been unwittingly betrayed into a serious misconception of ahimsa, of who’s working in the nature of things, he can only have a very superficial knowledge. By reason of lifelong practice of ahimsa, I claim to be an expert in it, though very imperfect. Speaking in absolute terms, the more I practise it the clearer I see how far I am from the full expression of ahimsa in my life. It is his ignorance of this, the greatest duty of man in the world, which makes him say that in this age non-violence has little scope in the face of violence, whereas I make bold to say that in this age of the atom bomb, unadulterated non-violence is the only force that can confound all the tricks put together of violence. It would have become the General, unaided as he can only now be, by his British teachers of military science and practice not to have gone out of his depth. Generals greater than General Cariappa have been wise and humble enough frankly to make the admission that they can have no right to speak of the possibilities of the force of ahimsa. We are witnessing the tragic insolvency of military science and practice in its own home. Should a bankrupt, who has been by the gamble in the share-market, sing the praise of that particular form of gambling? 20

Training in ahimsa is not to be had like training in the use of weapons in military training colleges and institutions. It requires purity of heart and soul-force. The difficulty we find in pitting non-violence against violence only shows our inner weakness. A short time ago, even Mr. Jinnah had clearly stated that in political disputes violence must be eschewed. If Mr. Jinnah meant what he said then the violence that today engulfs us can be brought to an end in no time. And if Pakistan does not stop violence, the violent killings can still be stopped if Hindus in the Union have faith in non-violence. A votary of non-violence will not allow the slightest hint of violence to enter his heart. How then can his conduct be violent? 21

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