Mahatma Gadndhi's ethics of fasting

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Jail was like for Mahatma Gandhi. He had read a lot of books in jail. He wrote his maximum books in jail. He wrote maximum articles for his periodicals. He had done maximum experience on diet in the jail. He made many experiments on the fasts also. Then he found its ethicks. So I think, there are great contributions of jail to make him Mahatma. He wrote that my cell was situated in a triangular block containing eleven tells. They were also part of the separate division, but the block was separated from the other separate blocks by a high massive wall. The base of the triangle lay alongside the road leading to the other separate blocks. Hence, I was able to watch and see the prisoners that passed to and fro. In fact, there was constant traffic along the road. Communication with the prisoners was therefore easy. Sometime after the flogging incident, we were removed to the European yard. The cells were better ventilated and roomier. There was a pleasant garden in front. But we were more secluded and cut off from all contact with the prisoners whom we used to see whilst we were in the ‘separate’. I did not mind it. On the contrary, the greater seclusion gave me more time for contemplation and study. And the ‘wireless’ remained intact. It was impossible to prevent it so long as it was necessary for a single other prisoner or official to see us. In spite of effort to the contrary, someone of them would drop a remark resulting in our knowing the happenings in the jail. So one fine morning we heard that several Mulshi Peta prisoners were flogged for short task and that, as a protest against the punishment, many other Mulshi Peta prisoners had commenced a hunger strike. Two of these were well known to me. One was Devi and the other Dastane. Mr. Dev had worked with me in Champaran, and had proved one of the most conscientious, sober and honest among the co-workers whom I had the privilege of having in Champaran. Mr. Dastane of Bhusaval is known to everybody. The reader may therefore imagine my pain when I heard that Dev was among the party flogged and that he was also one of the hunger strikers. Messrs Indulal Yagnik and Manzar Ali Sokta were at this time my fellow-prisoners. They were agitated equally with me. Their first thought was to declare a sympathetic hunger-strike. We discussed the propriety of such a strike and came to the conclusion that it would be wrong to do so. We were neither morally nor in any other way responsible for the floggings or the subsequent hunger-strike. As satyagrahis we were to be prepared for and to suffer cheerfully the rigours of jail life and even injustices including flogging. Such hunger-strike, therefore, with a view to preventing future punishment would be a species of violence done to the jail officials. Moreover, we had no right to sit in judgment upon the action of the authorities. That would be an end to all prison discipline. And even if we wished to judge the authorities, we had not and could not get sufficient data to warrant an impartial judgment. If the fast was to be out of sympathy with the hunger-strikers, we had no data to enable us to judge whether their action was justified or not. Any one of these grounds was sufficient to show that the proposed fast would be wholly premature. But I suggested to my friends that I should try to find out the true facts through the Superintendent, and endeavour as before to get into touch with the hunger-strikers. I felt that we as human beings could not possibly remain uninterested in such matters although we were prisoners and that under certain circumstances even a prisoner was entitled to claim a hearing in the matter of general jail administration when it was likely to result in the perpetration of gross injustice bordering on inhumanity. So we all decided that I should approach the authorities in the matter. The letter of 29th June, 1923 will give the reader further details about the matter. There was a great deal of correspondence and negotiation which, being of a confidential nature; I do not wish to publish. I can however say that the Government recognized that I had

No desire to interfere with the prison administration and that my proposal to be permitted to see the two leaders among the hunger- strikers was dictated by purely humanitarian motives. They, therefore,

Permitted me to see Messrs Dastane and Dev in the presence of the Superintendent and Mr. Griffiths, the Inspector-General of Police. It was to me a rare pleasure and a matter of pride to see these two

friends walking unaided and with a steady step after full thirteen days’ unbroken fast. They were as cheerful as they were brave. I could see that they were terribly reduced in body, but their spirit had waxed strong in exact proportion to the reduction of the body. As I hugged them and greeted them with the question, “Are you nearly dead?” they rang out, “Certainly not,” and Dastane added, “We are able to prolong the fast indefinitely, if need be, for we are in the right.” “But if you are in the wrong?” I asked. “We shall then like men admit our mistake and abandon the fast,” was the reply. By their brightness they made me forget that they were suffering from pangs of hunger. I wish I had leisure to reproduce the whole of the ethical discourse we held. Their ground for fasting was that the punishment inflicted by the Superintendent was unjust and that, therefore, unless the Superintendent

Admitted his mistake and apologized, they must go on with the fast. I pleaded that this was not a correct attitude. Whilst I was discussing the moral basis of their action, the Superintendent voluntarily and out of his usual good nature intervened and said, “I tell you, if I felt that I had done wrong, I should surely apologize. I know that I do make mistakes. We all do. I may have erred even in this case, but I am not conscious of it.” I continued my pleading. I told my friends that it was improper to expect an apology from the Superintendent unless he could be convinced that he was wrong. Their fast could carry no conviction to him of the wrongness of the punishment. Such conviction

Could be brought about only by reasoning. And, in any case, as satyagrahis who were out for suffering, how could they fast against injustices whether done to them or their co-prisoners? My friends appreciated the force of my argument and Major Jones’s generous statement did the rest. They agreed to break the fast and to persuade the others to do likewise. I asked for the Major’s permission to give them a portion of my milk which he readily granted. They accepted the milk but said they would first take their bath and then take the milk in the company of the other hunger-strikers. The Major ordered milk and fruit diet for the strikers during the period of recuperation. A hearty handshake between us all terminated the meeting. For the moment the officials were not officials and we were not prisoners. We were all friends engaged in solving a knotty problem and glad that it

was solved. Thus ended this eventful hunger-strike. The Major admitted that this was the cleanest hunger strike he had witnessed. He had taken extraordinary pre-cautions to see that no food was passed to the prisoners surreptitiously and he was satisfied that none was passed. Had he known the stuff of which these strikers were made, he need not have taken any precautions at all. One permanent result of the incident was that the Government passed orders that, except in cases of the gravest provocation and insult offered to the officials, flogging should not be administered without the previous sanction of the superior authority. The precaution was undoubtedly necessary. Whilst, in some matters, widest discretion must be given to the Superintendents of Jails, in matters such as

punishments which cannot be recalled, the wisest of Superintendents must be subject to salutary checks. There can be no doubt that the hunger-strike of Messrs Dastane and Dev and the other satyagrahis produced startling results of a beneficial character. For the motive, though mistaken, was excellent and the action itself purely innocent. But though the result attained was good, the fast must be condemned. The good result was not a direct result of the fast but of repentance and admission of mistaken motive and consequent abandonment of the fast. Fasting by a satyagrahi can only be justified when it is a shame to eat and live.

Thus, still confining my attention to a prisoner’s conduct, it would be a shame to eat and live if I was deprived of religious liberty or degraded as a human being, as when food is thrown at me instead of

being given to me in a courteous manner. It should be unnecessary to say that religious objection should be really so and discourtesy should be such as would be felt by an ordinary prisoner. The caution is necessary because a religious necessity is often pretended merely in order to embarrass, and discourtesy is often felt where none is meant. I may not insist on keeping or bringing the Bhagavad Gita for the purpose of stealing in prohibited correspondence. I may not resent as discourtesy the ordinary search which every prisoner must undergo. In satyagraha there is no room for shams. But I would have been bound to fast, say, if the Government had not given me the opportunity of seeing the hunger strikers merely with a view to understand their view-point and dissuade them from their error, if I found them to be erring. I could not afford to eat to live, when I knew that it was possible to prevent starvation if my keepers recognized the ordinary rules of humanity. “But,” say some friends, “why should you draw these fine distinctions? Why should we not embarrass the jail officials as we embarrass officials outside? Why should we co-operate as you co-operated with the jail authorities? Why should we not non-violently resist them? Why should we obey any regulations at all, save for our own convenience? Have we not a perfect right, is it not our duty, to paralyse the prison administration? If we make the officials’ position uncomfortable without using any violence, the Government will find it difficult to arrest a large number and will thus be obliged to sue for

peace.” This argument has been seriously advanced. I must therefore devote the next chapter to its consideration. I if someone wants to do peace in the world. He must use the ethics of fasting. I think he will get success.