Family Quarrel and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Family Quarrel and Mahatma Gandhi

 

I can understand that the condition of many men must be as pitiable as this gentleman’s. The relation between a man and his wife is so delicate that a stranger’s intervention can do little good. Satyagraha signifies pure love. When love between husband and wife becomes wholly pure, it reaches its perfection. There is no place in it then for sensual pleasures or for any touch of selfishness. That is why the poets have conceived and expressed the longing of the individual self for the Supreme Self in terms of conjugal love. Such pure love is rarely to be found anywhere. Desire for marriage springs from attachment, from intense attachment. When that attachment has developed into an unselfish bond and one has no desire for physical contact does not even think of it when one atman completely merges itself in another, we then see that one gets a glimpse of the love of the Supreme Atman. This is a rather crude way of expressing the idea. The love I want the reader to conceive is completely free from desire. I have not become so free myself as to be able to describe it aright and I know, therefore, that I cannot command the language which can describe it.

But a pure reader will be able to imagine for himself what that language ought to be. Since I believe in the possibility of such love between husband and wife, what can Satyagraha not do? The Satyagraha I mean is not what is nowadays known by that name. Parvati resorted to Satyagraha against Shankar by doing penance for thousands of years. Rama did not do what Bharata wished and so the latter retired to Nandi gram. Rama was in the right and so was Bharata. Either kept his pledge. Bharata took away Rama’s wooden sandals and, worshipping them, attained to the perfection of yoga. Rama’s tapascharya did not exclude external happiness; Bharata’s was unparalleled. For Rama it was possible to forget Bharata, but Bharata had Rama’s name on his lips continually. God, therefore, made himself the servant of his servant. This is an example of purest Satyagraha. Truly speaking, neither won, or, if anyone can at all be said to have won, it was Bharata. Tulsidas said that, if Bharata had not been born, Rama’s name would not have been invested with the holiness it possesses, and in that way presented to us the supreme truth of love. If my correspondent would forget for a while the physical aspect of love and cultivate the spiritual feeling which lies behind the love of husband and wife I know that it cannot be cultivated by conscious effort, that it reveals itself, if at all, spontaneously I can say with confidence that his wife will burn her foreign clothes that very day. Let no one ask why I advise such a big effort for a trivial thing or say that I have no sense of proportion. Small events bring about changes in our life which deliberately planned occasions or so-called important events do not.

I can quote from my experience no end of examples of Satyagraha between husband and wife, but they, too, I know, may be misused. I think the present atmosphere is poisonous. In view of this, I would not commit the sin of confusing the judgment of this correspondent, who has put to me a frank question, by citing my experiences. I have, therefore, merely explained the highest state. I leave it to him to choose a suitable remedy conforming to it for meeting his difficulty. The position of women is delicate. Whatever one does about them smacks of the use of force. Life in Hindu society is hard, and that is why it has remained comparatively pure. I think a husband has the right to exercise only such influence as he can through pure love. If one of them at any rate overcomes carnal desire altogether, the task will become easy. It is my firm opinion that mainly, if not wholly, the man himself is responsible for the defects which he sees in woman. It is he who teaches her love of finery, who decks her out in what is regarded as attractive apparel. Then the woman gets used to these things and, later, if she is not able to follow her husband the moment he chances to change his way of life, the fault lies with him, not with her. Hence the man will have to have patience. If India is to win swaraj by peaceful means, women will have to contribute their full share in the effort. Swaraj will certainly stay far off as long as women hanker after foreign cloth or mill made cloth or silk.

 

Reference:

Navajivan, 18-5-1924