Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XXVII

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XXVII

 

 Q. Why can’t you see that whilst there is possession it must be defended against all odds? Therefore your insistence that violence should be eschewed in all circumstances is utterly unworkable and absurd. I think non-violence is possible only for select individuals.

A. This question has been answered often enough in some form or other in these columns as also in those of Young India. But it is an evergreen. I must answer it as often as it is put, especially when it comes from an earnest seeker as this one does. I claim that even now; though the social structure is not based on a conscious acceptance of non-violence, all the world over mankind lives and men retain their possessions on the sufferance of one another if they had not done so, only the fewest and the most ferocious would have survived. But such is not the case. Families are bound together by ties of love, and so are groups in the so-called civilized society called nations. Only they do not recognize the supremacy of the law of non-violence. It follows, therefore, that they have not investigated its vast possibilities. Hitherto out of sheer inertia, shall I say, we have taken it for granted that complete non-violence is possible only for the few who take the vow of non-possession and the allied abstinences. Whilst it is true that the votaries alone can carry on research work and declare from time to time the new possibilities of the great eternal law governing man, if it is the law, it must hold good for all. The many failures we see are not of the law but of the followers, many of whom do not even know that they are under that law willy-nilly. When a mother dies for her child she unknowingly obeys the law. I have been pleading for the past fifty years for a conscious acceptance of the law and its zealous practice even in the face of failures. Fifty years’ work has shown marvellous results and strengthened my faith. I do claim that by constant practice we shall come to a state of things when lawful possession will command universal and voluntary respect. No doubt such possession will not be tainted. It will not be an insolent demonstration of the inequalities that surround us everywhere. Nor need the problem of unjust and unlawful possessions appal the votary of non-violence. He has at his disposal the non-violent weapon of Satyagraha and non-cooperation which hitherto has been found to be a complete substitute of violence whenever it has been applied honestly in sufficient measure. I have never claimed to present the complete science of nonviolence. It does not lend itself to such treatment. So far as I know no single physical science does, not even the very precise science of mathematics. I am but a seeker, and I have fellow-seekers like the questioner whom I invite to accompany me in the very difficult but equally fascinating search.

Q. Please clarify the position of the Congress vis-a-vis Praja Mandal Committees in States. Who should be responsible for political policies there?

A. Praja Mandals are independent bodies having no official connection with the Congress. They may or may not take their inspiration from the Congress policies. Such being the case I should advise them not to irritate State authority by an unnecessary identification with the Congress.

Q. While you have advised women in cities to go into the villages in order to escape from the danger of assaults, do you not think that some of us, at any rate, should be brave enough to face the risk? After all women cannot become brave or self- reliant, if they are always to be kept out of harm’s way. Will not one death bravely faced help the woman’s cause? There is danger today of our girls being put back into purdah, as it were by their parents.

A. Of course, those who are wanted in the cities must remain at all cost and face the worst. Nothing should be done in bravado. When they go to the villages there will be no purdah. It will be all work and no freedom from danger anywhere on this godforsaken little ball which two teams are kicking for all they are worth. The days of the purdah are gone for good.

 

Reference:

 

Harijan, 22-2-1942; Harijan, 8-3-1942