Importance of Vows – 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

E-mail- [e-mail];

[e-mail]

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

 

 

Importance of Vows – Mahatma Gandhi   

 

If we resolve to do a thing, and are ready even to sacrifice our lives in the process? We are said to have taken a vow. It is essential for every person to train himself to keep such vows; one can strengthen one’s power of will by doing so and fit oneself for greater tasks. One may take easy and simple vows to start with and follow them with more difficult ones. It seems the Negroes of the Congo have taken such a [simple] vow. For the past three years, the whites have been trying hard to get the Negroes over there to extract rubber, but they answer that their forefathers had pledged themselves not to do so. They are, therefore, unable to go against their plighted word. We shall find several examples in history of men undergoing great suffering for the sake of a pledge. To embrace Satyagraha amounts to taking a great vow. Having taken it, one must die rather than forsake it. Such is the profound import of Satyagraha, and it is for this reason that Satyagraha may be said to know no defeat.

 

Reference:

Indian Opinion, 8-10-1913