Psychology and 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

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Psychology and Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

All the same this is mobocracy. You are at the mercy of the mob. So long as there is sympathy between you and the mob, everything goes well. Immediately that cord is broken, there is horror. An Ahmadabad episode now and then gives you the mob psychology. 1 Swaraj does not lie that way. India does not want Bolshevism. The people are too peaceful to stand anarchy. They will bow the knee to anyone who restores so-called order. Let us recognize the Indian psychology. We need not stop to inquire whether such hankering after peace is a virtue or a vice. The average Mussulman of India is quite different from the average Mussulman of the other parts of the world. His Indian associations have made him more docile than his co-religionists outside India. He will not stand tangible insecurity of life and property for any length of time. The Hindu is proverbially, almost contemptibly mild. The Parsi and the Christian love peace more than strife. Indeed we have almost made religion subservient to peace. This Mentality is at once our weakness and our strength. 2

The fact is that in the study of psychology we have so far scratched only the surface. Vaids, hakims and doctors have merely busied themselves with the body, and have not analyzed the mind at all; being themselves men troubled by desires, they have spent their time finding out remedies merely by observing the changes in the body. 3 However, students of psychology say that both the phases of the mind arise out of the same cause. Excessive love can assume a fierce face. If I torture my wife, it hurts me more. If I caused pain to any Englishman with whom I was working day and night in South Africa, I suffered greater pain during the process. If Englishmen have been hurt by my present activities, my sorrow is the greater. 4

I want you to take up that attitude mentally, because I believe that thoughts are infinitely more powerful than deeds. Deeds are indifferent caricatures of our thoughts, and a student of psychology has no difficulty in analyzing the deeds and tracing them to their sources, and finding out how noble and mainly a man is and often times how equally degraded he is. 5 This resolution is really without its crown, but we are today suffering from what is known in psychology as inferiority complex. We have King Charles’ head dangling before our eyes every five minutes. You know the celebrated Mr. Dick who could not possibly think of anything without imagining the head of King Charles. This brand of inferiority is marked on our foreheads, on our breasts. It is always dangling before us and worrying us to death. That we see in every-thing and there is the apprehension lest we might weaken ourselves. Now we are strengthening ourselves. It was, as some papers put it, an ultimatum. But it was a performance of courtesy. I expected those who are the trustees of the honour of the British nation to understand the implications of this resolution, I want them to understand the yearnings of the nation, and therefore I perform this delicate task, the delicate courtesy, of transmitting this resolution to them to do what they like with it. I understand what all these proceedings mean. 6

We may ultimately have to leave some of them out, but we may not regard anybody as irreclaimable. We should try to understand the psychology of the evil-doer. He is very often victim of his circumstances. By patience and sympathy, we shall be able to win over at least some of them to the side of justice. Moreover, we should not forget that even evil is sustained through the co-operation, either willing or forced, of good. Truth alone is self-sustained. In the last resort we can curb power of the evil-doers to do mischief by withdrawing all co-operations from them and completely isolating them. 7 There are the two alternatives before you, both of them perfectly legitimate. You have to make your choice. You should know best the psychology of your people. It may be such that the fight can be best conducted through agitation to remove the Dewan. Personally, when I weigh the pros and cons of the matter, I feel like saying you should swallow the bitter cup and concentrate on getting the reins of power into your hands. 8 

Knowing the history and psychology of the Congress, how can they take the risk of relying on such an uncertain thing as our co-operation? If I were the Viceroy, I too would be afraid to do that. But there is no risk in giving what I ask. Where is the harm even if India as a whole does not volunteer to help the war effort with men and money? 9 It does involve a lot of statistics as also knowledge of economics, psychology, particularly of the Indian mind, and also of ethics. A mere statistical solution will not do, nor will a mere economic solution, because we cannot ignore our most fundamental and vital principles. We do not want to spread khadi through coercion. We want to do our work by changing people’s sense of values and habits. Hence our researches should proceed from all angles. 10 

I have known humanity. I have studied something of psychology though I have not read many books on it. Such a man knows exactly what it is. That something in me which never deceives me tells me now: ‘You have to stand against the whole world although you may have to stand alone. You have to stare the world in the face although the world may look at you with bloodshot eyes. Do not fear. Trust that little thing which resides in the heart.’ It says, ‘Forsake friends, wife, and all; but testify to that for which you have lived, and for which you have to die. 11 Cloth stands second to food as necessity. If every village begins to produce its own cloth, its strength will greatly be enhanced. But to achieve that we do not want to close down the textile factories by legislation. We want to achieve our purpose by revolutionizing the psychology of the people. By decentralization we want to produce cloth wherever cotton is grown. 12

Let the reader remember that it is a science which deals with the psychology of forty crores of people in the machine age. Thus considered, it is a tremendous problem, though at the same time fascinating and interesting. The very defeat, if defeat it is to be, will itself be no defeat. Let it be understood that it is not an attempt to go back to the dark ages when the charkha was the symbol of the slavery of the masses. Surely it will be a triumph of human understanding, i. e., of the soul of India, when India makes an effort through the charkha to break her bonds asunder. The freeman eats the same bread as the slave. The one eats the bread of freedom, the other of slavery. 13

Though many psychologists have recommended a study of psychology, I am sorry I have not been able, for want of time, to study the subject. Mr. Gregg’s letter does not mend matters for me. It does not fill me with any impelling enthusiasm for undertaking the study. Mr. Gregg gives an explanation which mystifies the mind instead of clearing it. “Hope for the future” I have never lost and never will, because it is embedded in my undying faith in non-violence. What has, however, clearly happened in my case is the discovery that in all probability there is a vital defect in my technique of the working of non-violence. There was no real appreciation of non-violence in the thirty years’ struggle against British Raj. Therefore, the peace the masses maintained during that struggle of a generation with exemplary patience had not come from within. The pent-up fury found an outlet when British Raj was gone. It naturally vented itself in communal violence which was never fully absent and which was kept under suppression by the British bayonet. This explanation seems to me to be all-sufficing and convincing. In it there is no room for failure of any hope. Failure of my technique of non-violence causes no loss of faith in non-violence itself. On the contrary, that faith is, if possible, strengthened by the discovery of a possible flaw in the technique. 14

Because the Constitution moulds is depends on the psychology of the people. People may not do the things they believe, but then it should be our duty to see that through our neglect our case does not go by default. 15 There is one section in the country today in our midst which holds that the Hindus and Muslims cannot coexist, that either the Muslims should get out of Hindustan or they should live here as the vassals of the Hindus. And similarly, in Pakistan, only the Muslims should remain. It is a poisonous doctrine and in it lays the root of Pakistan. Pakistan has come into being; their dream has vanished but the virus has remained. I have pledged myself to resist this doctrine and to do or die in the attempt. But to correct the wrong psychology of the people is the function of Nayee Talim. 16

 

References:

 

1. Young India, 8-9-1920
2. Young India, 24-11-1921
3. Navajivan, 29-6-1924
4. Navajivan, 7-9-1924
5. The Hindu, 16-3-1925
6. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 29-12-1928
7. A Pilgrimage for Peace, pp. 71
8. Harijan, 28-1-1939
9. Harijan Sevak, 12-10-1940
10. Khadi Jagat, August 1941
11. Speech at A.I.C.C. Meeting, August 8, 1942
12. The Bombay Chronicle, 7-12-1944
13. Harijan, 21-7-1946
14. Harijan, 23-11-1947.  
15. Dilhiman Gandhiji—II, pp. 80
16. Mahatma, Vol. VIII, pp. 227