Mahatma Gandhi’s Talk an Australian Journalist

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

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

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 Mahatma Gandhi’s Talk an Australian Journalist

 

What I cannot understand is man hating brother man and thirsting for his blood. I can see no justification for the war that is going on and fast enveloping the earth. It is based on hate and vengeance and will leave a crop of hate and vengeance behind. The waste of human life and material that might be useful otherwise for the world is appalling and sickening. Why should your country and mine have to be involved in this war? You are a fine resourceful people. Rather than that you should build up your country and make it useful to the rest of the world. Why should you be asked to sacrifice your manhood? And what is more painful is that it is all to no purpose. I do not know why all this fighting is going on, for whose benefit, with what great end in view.

JOURNALIST: I doubt if anyone knows.

GANDHIJI: There is this thing. Perhaps God wills peace to come as a lesson of this carnage.

JOURNALIST: Could you possibly say something about what is going on at present?

GANDHIJI: For that, you must go to the men in office. I can say nothing.

JOURNALIST:  But, Sir, you are with them.

GANDHIJI: And, yet, it will surprise you when I tell you that those things do not interest me. I relinquished my membership of the Congress eight years ago. I go to the Congress, attend meetings of the Working Committee, and even advise in a detached way when my advice is sought. You will be surprised to hear that I have never listened to a radio, nor have I ever been to a cinema.

JOURNALIST:  Do you think these things are bad?

GANDHIJI:  I will not say so. I may say that cinema films are often bad. About the radio I do not know. I can certainly say this that I do not care to have news from all quarters of the globe within the space of half an hour. It leaves one little time to think. And why must one have news from all quarters of the globe every half an hour or so? I should be content to react to my nearest surroundings and happenings therein.

JOURNALIST: But the youth whispered some question about the Working Committee.

GANDHIJI: I do not mind telling you that there are differences between me and the Working Committee. The whole nation is not with me on the non-violence question. If the nation as a whole was absolutely peaceful, I am sure we should not be in the war, I am sure we should not have this foreign domination here. The alien rulers should not be dictating to us. We should have people here from foreign lands on terms of friendship, and we should gladly make use of their talents at our will. But I am not worrying over the nation not being with me. When I have failed to convert my nearest associates, the members of the Working Committee, I have no business to be impatient with my people. It must be my fault. It means that there is not sufficient non-violence in me to enable me to carry everyone with me. But my faith in non-violence is undimmed and unshaken. In fact it is growing every day.  

 

Reference:

 

Harijan, 3-5-1942