For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Love and Mahatma Gandhi- VI

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

Love and Mahatma Gandhi- VI

It is not without hesitation that I share this letter with the reader. Although written impersonally, it is so personal. But I hope there is no pride in me. I feel I recognize fully my weakness. But my faith in God and His strength and love is unshakable. I am like clay in the Potter’s hands. And so in the language of the Gita, the compliments are laid at His feet. The blessings such as these, I confess, are strength-giving. But my reason for publishing this letter is to encourage every true non-co-operator in the non-violent path he is pursuing, and to wean the false ones from their error. This is a terribly true struggle. It is not based on hate though men of hate are in it. It is a struggle which is based on love, pure and undefiled.

Maulana Hasrat Mohani is one of our most courageous men. He is strong and unbending. He is frank to a fault. In his insensate hatred of the English Government and possibly even of Englishmen in general, he has seen nothing wrong in anything that the Moplahs have done. Everything is fair in love and war with the Maulana. He has made up his mind that the Moplahs have fought for their religion. And that fact (in his estimation) practically absolves the Moplahs from all blame. That is no doubt a travesty of religion and morality. But to do irreligion for the sake of religion is the religious creed of Maulana Hasrat Mohani. I know it has no warrant in Islam. I have talked to several learned Mussulmans. They do not defend Hasrat Mohani’s attitude. It is more necessary for a husband to draw closer to his wife when she is about to fall. Then is the time for a double outpouring of love. Even so is it more necessary for a Hindu to love the Moplahs and the Mussulman more, when the latter is likely to injure him or has already injured him. Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking. It must be an indissoluble tie. And I hold that what I have put before the country in the foregoing lines is Simple selfish idea. Does a Hindu love his religion and country more than himself? If he does, it follows that he must not quarrel with an ignorant Mussulman who neither knows country nor religion. The process is like that of the world-famed woman who professed to give up her child to her rival instead of dividing it with the latter a performance that would have suited the latter admirably. Even so is it more necessary for a Hindu to love the Moplahs and the Mussulman more, when the latter is likely to injure him or has already injured him. Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking. It must be an indissoluble tie. And I hold that what I have put before the country in the foregoing lines is simple selfish idea. Does a Hindu love his religion and country more than himself? If he does, it follows that he must not quarrel with an ignorant Mussulman who neither knows country nor religion. The process is like that of the world-famed woman who professed to give up her child to her rival instead of dividing it with the latter a performance that would have suited the latter admirably. 1

But, then, hatred must be eliminated from our struggle. This has its source in love, not hatred or anger. We wish to turn even enemies into friends. I am sure that if we work without hatred, even stony hearts will be melted by our capacity to suffer. The cause of the delay lies in our own deficiencies. If we continue to suffer with a calm mind, we shall gain complete victory in a very short time. Thus, from whatever point of view we consider our position, we shall see that we have to work in a spirit of non-violence and love. As things are, however, on the one hand we wish to go to jail and, on the other, seek to intimidate courts by our shouting. I still receive complaints that at some places, when a non-co-operator’s case is being heard, people fill the court-room to capacity. No wonder, then, if courts change their venue and sit in jail. 2

It is for the first time they are handling their cultured countrymen with a high purpose. We must not expect a sudden change in the police. Patience and gentleness will convert them into decent men with fellow-feeling. For me swaraj commenced when the best of us found themselves inside prison walls Ever since it has been a steady accession of strength and a steady reformation. The latter is not to begin after a settlement but it will be the result of real and ever growing reformation. Shall we not blame ourselves, too, for the police brutality? Have we not too long neglected them, too long feared them, thought ill of them and considered them to be past redemption? If we were to retain the same attitude of mind, we shall find so many groups to be beyond hope, that we shall have only ourselves left as paragons of perfection and patterns of virtue. In other words, there would be no swaraj at the end of such exclusive assumption of virtue. Let us, therefore, take a portion of the blame ourselves for the vices of the police and the weakness of our general surroundings. But our patience will be justified only if we exchange for love of ease and comfort, love of pain and suffering. In spite of the gruesome news served out to us from day to day, we can afford to be happy if we have done our little best in the cause. We must after all leave the result in the hands of God. 3

I should love to see such an alliance but that will come in its own time. It is my humble opinion that we are not getting sufficiently advanced in the direction to form a useful alliance. I do not believe in paper alliances. They will come naturally when we are ready. 4 But we have only a handful of persons who are wholly devoted to swadeshi, who love spinning and are proficient in it. According to me, therefore, the first duty of the “Active” volunteer is to acquire complete proficiency in spinning and, after doing so, devote all his spare time to this work. 5

All fasting and all penance must as far as possible be secret. But my fasting is both a penance and a punishment, and a punishment has to be public. It is penance for me and punishment for those whom I try to serve, for whom I love to live and would equally love to die. They have unintentionally sinned against the laws of the Congress though they were sympathizers if not actually connected with it. Probably they hacked the constables their countrymen and fellow beings with my name on their lips. The only way love punishes is by suffering. I cannot even wish them to be arrested. But I would let them know that I would suffer for their breach of the Congress creed. I would advise those who feel guilty and repentant to hand themselves voluntarily to the Government for punishment and make a clean confession. I hope that the workers in the Gorakhpur district will leave no stone unturned to find out the evil-doers and urge them to deliver themselves into custody. But whether the murderers accept my advice or not, I would like them to know that they have seriously interfered with swaraj operations, that in being the cause of the postponement of the movement in Bardoli, they have injured the very cause they probably intended to serve. 6

The modern motto is hideous exclusiveness based upon violence. Equality and Fraternity are mere lip-phrases and mutual intercourse is not based on mutual love but is on mutual repulsion and consequent preparedness to do violence. It is, however, too early yet to talk of “Gandhi-ism”. India has to stand the test and vindicate the supremacy of non-violence over violence before the ideal can be approximated. 7 I consider the sacrifice of foreign cloth trade slight for the simple reason that the merchants can find a respectable living if they turn their attention to organizing the khaddar manufacture and the khaddar trade and thus render even peaceful picketing wholly unnecessary. If they would only co-operate I would love to divert the energy of the best men and women in the country from picketing foreign cloth shops to becoming expert spinners, weavers, and carders and manufacturers of khaddar as fast as they can. 8

I am positive that neither in the Koran nor in the Mahabharata there is any sanction for and approval of the triumph of violence. Though there is repulsion enough in Nature, she lives by attraction. Mutual love enables Nature to persist. Man does not live by destruction. Self-love compels regard for others. Nations cohere because there is mutual regard among the individuals composing them. Some day we must extend the national law to the universe, even as we have extended the family law to form nations a larger family. God has ordained that India should be such a nation. For so far as reason can perceive, India cannot become free by armed rebellion for generations. India can become free by refraining from national violence. India has now become tired of rule based upon violence. That to me is the message of the plains. The people of the plains do not know what it is to put up an organized armed fight. And they must become free, for they want freedom. They have realized that power seized by violence will only result in their greater grinding. 9

I would love to contemplate the dreamland of non-violence in preference to the practicable reality of violence. I have burnt my boats, but that has nothing to do with any of my co-workers. The majority of them have come into the movement as a purely political movement. They do not share my religious beliefs, and I do not seek to thrust them upon them. 10 Even a policy adopted for practical reasons should be faithfully adhered to as long at least as the need for it remains. A policy adopted out of expediency, while it is being followed, should be followed whole-heartedly. Any person who promises to devote himself to work for five days should do so completely on those five days. He may love idleness, but he cannot say, after promising to work, that he has no faith in work and, therefore, will not work even on those five days. We would all say that, if he does not believe in working even for five days, he should certainly stay out of a team of people who are ready to work. 11

When a person claims to be non-violent, he is expected not to be angry with one who has injured him. He will not wish him harm; he will wish him well; he will not swear at him; he will not cause him any physical hurt. He will put up with all the injury to which he is subjected by the wrongdoer. Thus non-violence is complete innocence. Complete non-violence is complete absence of ill will against all that lives. It therefore embraces even sub-human life not excluding noxious insects or beasts. They have not been created to feed our destructive propensities. If we only knew the mind of the Creator, we should find their proper place in His creation. Non-violence is therefore, in its active form, goodwill towards all life. It is pure Love. I read it in the Hindu scriptures, in the Bible, in the Koran. Therefore, though I realize more than ever how far I am from that goal, for me the Law of complete Love is the law of my being. Each time I fail, my effort shall be all the more determined for my failure. But I am not preaching this final law through the Congress or the Khilafat organization.

I know my own limitations only too well. I know that any such attempt is foredoomed to failure. To expect a whole mass of men and women to obey that law all at once is not to know its working. But I do preach from the Congress platform the deductions of the law. What the Congress and the Khilafat organizations have accepted is but a fragment of the implications of that law. Given true workers, the limited measure of its application can be realized in respect of vast masses of people within a short time. But the little measure of it to be true must satisfy the same test as the whole. A drop of water must yield to the analyst the same results as a wakeful. The nature of my non-violence towards my brother cannot be different from that of my non-violence to the universe. When I extend the love for my brother to the whole universe, it must still satisfy the same test. The political non-violence of the non-co-operator does not stand this test in the vast majority of cases hence the prolongation of the struggle. Let no one blame the unbending English nature. The hardest “fiber” must melt in the fire of love. I cannot be dislodged from the position because I know it. When British or other nature does not respond, the fire is not strong enough, if it is there at all. 12

Whatever the guilt of the crowd at Chauri Chaura, the police outrages reported by numerous correspondents are wholly unjustified. The remedy with the people is to love the police in spite of their atrocities and to wean them from their error. There should therefore be no hartals, no noisy demonstrations, and no processions. I would regard the observance of perfect peace on my arrest as a mark of high honour paid to me by my countrymen. What I would love to see, however, is the constructive work of the Congress going on with clockwork regularity and the speed of the Punjab Express. I would love to see people who have hitherto kept back, voluntarily discarding all their foreign cloth and making a bonfire of it. Let them fulfil the whole of the constructive programme framed at Bardoli, and they will not only release me and other prisoners, but they will also inaugurate swaraj and secure redress of the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs. Let them remember the four pillars of swaraj: non-violence, Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-Parsi-Christian-Jew unity, total removal of untouchability and manufacture of hand-spun and hand-woven khaddar completely displacing foreign cloth. 13

If we earnestly start working on the various items in the non-cooperation programme and make progress in them all, we shall automatically learn the lesson of peace, for they include three important constructive activities khadi, removal of untouchability and the unity of all communities. Can anyone even dream that Hindus and Muslims can be truly united until they have fully realized the importance of peace? If the two can maintain peaceful relations so that they may help each other, they together can, with love, win over the unsocial elements and other mischief-makers. Those who believe that this cannot be done cannot possibly believe in true friendship between Hindus and Muslims. If these two major communities are not bound to each other by ties of mutual regard, I venture a prophecy and say that one day they will fight it out to their heart’s content. If the pride of both is humbled after this, the two together will be able to overcome the third party; if, on the other hand, one of the two is defeated in fighting, it will be doomed to slavery. This way of looking at the matter will furnish us the key to an understanding of all our problems. 14

As I proceed in my quest for Truth, it grows upon me that Truth comprehends everything. I often feel that ahimsa is in Truth, not vice versa. What is perceived by a pure heart at a particular moment is Truth to it for that moment. By clinging to it, one can attain pure Truth. And I do not imagine that this will lead us into any moral dilemma. But often enough, it is difficult to decide what ahimsa is. Even the use of disinfectants is himsa. Still we have to live a life of ahimsa in the midst of a world full of himsa, and we can do so only if we cling to Truth. That is why I can derive ahimsa from truth. Out of Truth emerge love and tenderness. A votary of Truth, one who would scrupulously cling to Truth, must be utterly humble. His humility should increase with his observance of Truth. I see the truth of this every moment of my life. I have now a more vivid sense of Truth and of my own littleness than I had a year ago. 15

It is my opinion that whatever peace you get is because of your self-imposed binding. You can be sure about this. As long as you do not think of marriage, you stand absolved from your past sins. This atonement of yours keeps you pure. You can stand up as a man before the world. The day you marry you will lose your lustre. Take it from me that there is no happiness in marriage. To the extent Ba is my friend, I derive happiness from her, no doubt. But I derive the same happiness from all of you and from the many men and women who love and serve me. I derive more happiness from the man or woman who understands me. If, at this moment, I get enamored of Ba and indulge in sexual gratification, I would fall the very instant. My work would go to the dogs and I would lose in a twinkling all that power which would enable one to achieve swaraj. My relation with Ba today is that of brother and sister, and the fame I have is due to it. 16 Yes, we never kill them at our Ashram. It is a high stage in the development of the soul to feel a love for all humanity, but it is a higher stage still to have a heart of love for every living thing. I confess that I have not reached this stage. I still feel afraid when I actually see these creatures come near me. If we have no fear at all, I do not think they will harm us. 17

My unbiased examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad. My experience of political cases in India leads one to the conclusion that in nine out of every ten cases the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of hundred, justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the Courts of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion, the administration of the law is thus prostituted consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter. 18

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