Mahatma Gandhi Talk with C. Rajgopalachari

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

Mahatma Gandhi Talk with C. Rajgopalachari

 

Mahatma Gandhi discussed on some burning topic with his associate C. Rajagopalachari on May 4, 1933. That talk is here.

GANDHIJI: Even jurisprudence admits the right of self-destruction. You will ask me whether Ramatirtha, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda did this sort of tapasya, whether the suicide of Ramatirtha deliberate or resulting from a trance produced any results, whether Jesus mounting the cross left any impact.

C. R. But Hinduism does not sanction suicide.

G. I don’t know. But Mahadev was telling me that there is a practice of drowning oneself in the Ganga.

C. R. That is to purify oneself with the water of the Ganga. I do admit that if you are the cause of all these sins you may commit suicide. Logically it would be your victory, but then you do not seek such a victory, do you?

G. I want to atone for the sins. Moral ends require moral means. Cardinal Manning was kept on three biscuits and water. It is easier to undertake twenty-one days’ fast than to die the kind of slow death as Cardinal Manning is said to have died.

A moral reform can be brought about only through tapascharya and self-purification. We should learn from the experience of scientists who have gone through this. My mother and I were born in families where such fasts were an everyday affair. They were a part of their experience. It is probable that my father did not approve of the severe fasts my mother used to undertake but she showed no ill-effects from the fasting and they made us respect her all the more.

C. R. This is only an instance of association of ideas. Can you defend your case by saying that just because your mother fasted you also must? If someone pierces himself with a needle, how will that convince people that it is sinful to regard a person as an untouchable?

G. Then supposing I fast only for a few days? Supposing I don’t die at the end of the fast?

C. R. The two things are not related at all. You seem to believe that there is a secret connection between self-mortification and people’s convictions. Buddha was the first to raise his voice against such self-mortification.

G. In a true fast the mind and the soul co-operate with the body. Buddha was against purely physical fasting.

C. R. Will you have the strength to think clearly after ten days?

G. On former occasions I did have it. Thoughts become purer during a pure fast even though there may not be any outward sign of that. A co-worker undertook a fast for fifty-five days; still his thoughts have not become pure because his mind was not pure. The very first day he started discussing with me what he would do after the fast. Even now his mind is not steady. He wrote me a letter in which he described the impurity of his mind. But to a man who has his mind fixed on God or on some noble act things that were obscure at first gradually become clearer and clearer.

C. R. This can be true only to a certain extent.

G. In saying this you tread on dangerous ground. You must accept the conclusion of a scientist. One who is pure, who adheres to truth and wants to cling to it is as much a scientist as a physicists.

C. R. But this is an unnatural situation.

G. It may be unnatural for animals, not for human beings. If you wish to see the unseeable you have to become unseeable.

C. R. Do you wish to see the unseeable?

G. Yes, because I want to serve the Harijans in the best way possible. If untouchability is to be eradicated we must touch the hearts of 160 million people.

C. R. There is a superstition of touching wood to save oneself from ghosts and spirits and God is brought into it. But there must be a limit to such beliefs in the occult.

G. I am not ashamed of the occult element. You seem to say that it is harmful to believe in the occult.

C. R. Yes, if it results in death.

G. You want to have the cake and eat it, too. For the sake of argument I shall grant that fasts which end in death are wrong. Your argument implies that mortification of the flesh can never do well.

C. R. It may sometimes.

G. From the medical point of view?

C. R. No. Even from the spiritual point of view.

G. Then you have lost. If that is the case it should be left to the person who wishes to undertake a fast. I did not undertake this fast of my own free will. I was commanded.

C. R.  All right. Can friends advise on this?

G. Certainly.

C. R. If there is an eighty per cent chance of death resulting from this, it is a gamble. You will say that it is a good gamble. I feel that you have been brooding over the same thing in jail and so you have lost your sense of proportion. You have a great fondness for conducting experiments. You are now experimenting with death and you are misguided in it. Can you show me even one person who approves of your step?

G. Duncan, Andrews.

C. R. What could be the value of their opinion? My opinion has greater weight. Andrews does not even know how to lock a room and he is talking about locking up one’s life. And how can you claim fully to know God’s law? I tell you, you should be more cautious. It is possible to get inspiration from God sometimes but not always.

G. Then you accept the possibility of inspiration from God? If you accept this you have lost your case.

C. R. But the inspiration may be wrong in this instance. It is rashness to close one’s mind to reason. Sometimes God appears in the form of rashness, sometimes of the wicked, sometimes of the fish and sometimes of a tortoise. I just want you to realize that sometimes even you can be wrong. In this case I want you to realize that.

G. But how can I accept my mistake unless the result shows it? I have decided to undertake the fast in spite of myself. Mahadev will tell you from my letters how my mind has been working.

C. R. You are deliberately suppressing your thoughts.

G. If I accept your argument I should stop working altogether.

C. R. But there can be no such inspiration which is against reason.

G. It may not be against my reason.

There is only one aim, that of purification. My own purification is as well as my co-workers’. Other effects will also flow from it. I see that impurity can exist in my presence. That means there is impurity in me.

I have not attained complete freedom from unwanted thoughts. Suppose the things I consider impure are proved to be pure, I must still undertake the fast. There are impurities and I feel I am responsible for them. Moreover, it is a mistake to regard this as a political issue. The main thing is that this movement should be conducted in a purely religious spirit. Religion is concerned with the inner self. It is a matter of the heart, of faith and of eternal verities. The body has no lasting value. God says that everything that has name and form shall perish. Even the sun is not eternal. Science also proves this. But our activities are concerned with material things. My fast is for a wholly spiritual purpose. How can I stand in argument with those who are intellectually much superior to me? But when it comes to what the heart says, I am able to hold my own against them because it does not require any knowledge of Sanskrit. It is a blessing that God dwells in the hearts of the poor and my fast is for heart-searching. There certainly is a tradition of undertaking fasts for rains and other material things. You must respect my convictions. You are telling me to dismiss them summarily. You may strive with me, argue with me. It is possible that I am mistaken but you are telling me

to accept the possibility as a certainty. I should be a liar if I undertake the fast with the certainty that it would end in my death. As long as you cannot convince me, by quoting my own statements, that I am mistaken you should not undermine my faith. Nobody can attain to certitude like God’s. But after all, am I not myself the captain of my ship? 1

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