If it is contended that birth control is necessary for the nation because of over-population, I dispute the proposition. It has never been proved. In my opinion by a proper land system, better agriculture and a supplementary industry, this country is capable of supporting twice as many people as there are in it to-day.
What, then, is Brahmacharya? It means that men and women should
refrain from carnal knowledge of each other. That is to say, they should not
touch each other with a carnal thought, they should not think of it even in
their dreams. Their mutual glances should be free from all suggestion of
carnality. The hidden strength that God has given us should be conserved by
rigid self-discipline, and transmitted into energy and power - not merely of body,
but also of mind and soul.
But what is the spectacle that we actually see around us? Men and
women, old and young, without exception, are caught in the meshes of
sensuality. Blinded for the most part by lust, they lose all sense of right and
wrong. I have myself seen even boys and girls behaving as if they were mad
under its fatal influence. I too have behaved likewise under similar
influences, and it could not well be otherwise. For the sake of a momentary
pleasure, we sacrifice in an instant all the stock of vital energy that we have
laboriously accumulated. The infatuation over, we find ourselves in a miserable
condition. The next morning we feel hopelessly weak and tired, and the mind
refuses to do its work. Then in order to remedy the mischief, we consume large
quantities of milk, bhasmas, yakutis and what not. We take all sorts of
'nervine tonics' and place ourselves at the doctor's mercy for repairing the
waste, and for recovering the capacity for enjoyment. So the days pass and
years, until at length old age comes upon us, and find us utterly emasculated
in body and in mind.
But the law of Nature is just the reverse of this. The older we
grow the keener should our intellect be; the longer we live the greater should
be our capacity to communicate the benefit of our accumulated experience to our
fellow men. And such is indeed the case with those who have been true
Brahmacharies. They know no fear of death, and they do not forget God even in
the hour of death; nor do they indulge in vain desires. They die with a smile
on their lips, and boldly face the day of judgment. They are true men and
women; and of them alone can it be said that they have conserved their health.
We hardly realize the fact that incontinence is the root cause of
most vanity, anger, fear and jealousy in the world. If our mind is not under
our control, if we behave once or oftener every day more foolishly than even
little children, what sins may we not commit consciously or unconsciously? How
can we pause to think of the consequences of our actions, however vile or
sinful they may be?
But you may ask, 'Who has ever seen a true Brahmachari in this
sense? If all men should turn Brahmacharis, would not humanity be extinct and
the whole world go to rack and ruin? We will leave aside the religious aspect
of this question and discuss it simply from the secular point of view. To my
mind, these questions only betray our timidity and worse. We have not the
strength of will to observe Brahmacharya, and therefore set about finding
pretexts for evading our duty. The race of true Brahmacharis is by no means
extinct; but if they were commonly to be met with, of what value would
Brahmacharya be? Thousands of hardy labourers have to go and dig deep into the
bowels of the earth in search for diamonds, and at length they get perhaps
merely a handful of them out of heaps and heaps of rock. How much greater,
then, should be the labour involved in the discovery of the infinitely more
precious diamond of a Brahmachari? If the observance of Brahmacharya should mean
the end of the world, that is none of our business. Are we God that we should
be so anxious about its future? He who crated it will surely see to its
preservation. We need not trouble to inquire whether other people practice
Brahmacharya or not. When we enter a trade or profession, do we ever pause to
consider what the fate of the world would be if all men were to do likewise?
The true Brahmachari will, in the long run, discover for himself answer to such
questions.
But how can men engrossed in the cares of the material world put
these ideas into practice? What about those who are married? What shall they do
who have children? And what shall be done by those people who cannot control
themselves? We have already seen what is the highest state for us to attain. We
should keep this ideal constantly before us, and try to approach it to the
utmost of our capacity. When little children are taught to write the letters of
the alphabet, we show them the perfect shapes of the letters, and they try to
reproduce them as best they can. In the same way, if we steadily work up to the
ideal of Brahmacharya we may ultimately succeed in realizing it. What if we
have married already? The law of Nature is that Brahmacharya may be broken only
when the husband and wife feel a desire for progeny. Those, who, remembering
this law, violate Brahmacharya once in four or five years, will not become
slaves to lust, nor lose much of their stock of vital energy. But, alas! How
rare are those men and women who yield to the sexual craving merely for the
sake of offspring! The vast majority turn to sexual enjoyment merely to satisfy
their carnal passion, with the result that children are born to them quite
against their will. In the madness of sexual passion, they give no thought to
the consequences of their acts. In this respect, men are even more to blame
than women. The man is blinded so much by his lust that he never cares to
remember that his wife is weak and unable to bear or rear up a child. In the
West, indeed, people have transgressed all bounds. They indulge in sexual
pleasures and devise measures in order to evade the responsibilities of
parent-hood. Many books have been written on this subject and a regular trade
is being carried on in contraceptives. We are as yet free from this sin, but we
do not shrink from imposing heavy burden of maternity on our women, and we are
not concerned even to find that our children are weak, impotent and imbecile.
We are, in this respect far worse than even the lower animals; for
in their case the male and the female are brought together solely with the
object of breeding from them. Man and woman should regard it sacred duty to
keep apart from the moment of conception up to the time when the child is
weaned. But we go on with our fatal merry-making blissfully forgetful of that
sacred obligation. This almost incurable disease enfeebles our mind and leads
us to an early grave, after making us drag a miserable existence for a short
while. Married people should understand the true function of marriage, and should
not violate Brahmacharya except with a view to progeny.
But this is so difficult under our present conditions of life. Our
diet, our ways of life, our common talk, and our environments are all equally
calculated to rouse animal passions; and sensuality is like a poison eating
into our vitals. Some people may doubt the possibility of our being able to
free ourselves from this bondage. This book is written not for those who go
about with such doubting of heart, but only for those who are really in earnest,
and who have courage to take active steps for self-improvement. Those who are
quite content with their present abject condition will find this tedious even
to read; but I hope it will be some service to those who have realized and are
disgusted with their own miserable plight.
From all that has been said it follows that those who are still
unmarried should try to remain so; but if they cannot help marrying, they
should defer it as long as possible. Young men, for instance, should take a vow
to remain unmarried till the age of twenty-five or thirty. We cannot consider
here all the advantages other than physical which they will reap and which are
as it were added unto the rest.
My request to those parents who read this chapter is that they
should not tie a millstone round the necks of their children by marrying them
young. They should look to the welfare of the rising generation, and not merely
seek to pamper their own vanity. They should cast aside all silly notions of
family pride or respectability, and cease to indulge in such heartless
practices. Let them rather, if they are true well-wishers of their children,
look to their physical, mental and normal improvement. What greater disservice
can they do to their progeny than compel them to enter upon married life, with
all its tremendous responsibilities and cares, while they are mere children?
Then again the true laws of health demand that the man who loses
his wife, as well as the woman that loses her husband, should remain single
ever after. There is a difference of opinion among medical men as to whether
young men and women need ever let their vital energy escape, some answering the
question in the affirmative, others in negative. But while doctors thus
disagree we must not give way to over-indulge from an idea that we are
supported by medical authority. I can affirm, without the slightest hesitation,
from my own experience as well as that of others, that sexual enjoyment is not
only not necessary for, but is positively injurious to health. All the strength
of body and mind that has taken long to acquire is lost all at once by a single
dissipation of the vital energy. It takes a long time to regain this lost
vitality, and even then there is no saying that it can be thoroughly recovered.
A broken mirror may be mended and made to do its work, but it can never be
anything but a broken mirror.
As has already been pointed out, the preservation of our vitality
is impossible without pure air, pure water, pure and wholesome food, as well as
pure thoughts. So vital indeed is the relation between health and morals that
we can never be perfectly healthy unless we lead a clean life. The earnest man,
who, forgetting the errors of the past, begins to live a life of purity, will
be able to reap the fruit of it straightaway. Those who practice true
Brahmacharya even for a short period will see how their body and mind improve
steadily in strength and power, and they will not at any cost be willing to
part with this treasure. I myself have been guilty of lapses even after having
fully understood the value of Brahmacharya, and have of course paid dearly for
it. I am filled with shame and remorse when I think of the terrible contrast
between my condition before and after these lapses. But from the errors of the
past I have now learnt to preserve this treasure intact, and I fully hope, with
God's grace to continue to preserve it in the future; for I have, in my own
person, experienced the inestimable benefits of Brahmacharya. I was married
early, and had become the father of children as a mere youth. When at length, I
awoke to the reality of my situation, I found that I was steeped in ignorance
about the fundamental laws of our being. I shall consider myself amply rewarded
for writing this chapter if at least a single reader takes a warning from my
failings and experiences, and profits thereby. Many people have told - and I
also believe it - that I am full of energy and enthusiasm, and that I am by no
means weak in mind; some even accuse me of strength bordering on obstinacy.
Nevertheless there is still bodily and mental ill-health as a legacy of the
past. And yet when compared with my friends, I may call myself healthy and
strong. If even after twenty years of sensual enjoyment, I have been able to
reach this state, how much better off should I have been if I had kept myself
pure during those twenty years as well? It is my full conviction, that if only
I had lived a life of unbroken Brahmacharya all through, my energy and
enthusiasm would have been thousandfold greater and I should have been able to
devote them all to the furtherance of my country's cause as my own. If an
imperfect Brahmachari like myself can reap such benefit, how much more
wonderful must be the gain in power - physical, mental, as well as moral - that
unbroken Brahmacharya can bring to us.
When so strict is the law of Brahmacharya what shall we say of
those guilty of the unpardonable sin of illegitimate sexual enjoyment? The evil
arising from adultery and prostitution is a vital question of religion and
morality and cannot be fully dealt with in a treatise on health. Here we are
only concerned to point out how thousands who are guilty of these sins are
afflicted by venereal diseases. God is merciful in this that the punishment
swiftly overtakes sinners. Their short span of life is spent in abject bondage
to quacks in a futile quest after a remedy for their ills. If adultery and
prostitution disappeared, at least half the present number of doctors would
find their occupation gone. So inextricably indeed has venereal disease caught
mankind in its clutches that thoughtful medical men have been forced to admit,
that so long as adultery and prostitution continue, there is no hope for the
human race, all the discoveries of curative medicine notwithstanding. The
medicines for these disease are so poisonous that although they may appear to
have done some good for the time being, they give rise to other and still more
terrible diseases which are transmitted from generation to generation.
No one need therefore despair. My Mahatmaship is worthless. It is
due to my outward activities, due to my politics which is the least part of me
and is therefore evanescent. What is of abiding worth is my insistence on
truth, non-violence and Brahmacharya, which is the real part of me. That
permanent part of me, however, small, is not to be despised. It is my all. I
prize even the failures and disillusionments which are but steps towards
success.
(Extract from Self-restraint v. self-indulgence by M. K. Gandhi,
Navajivan).
Hindu-Muslim Unity
I am one of those who do not consider caste to be a harmful
institution. In its origin, caste was a wholesome custom and promoted national
well-being. In my opinion, the idea that inter-dining or intermarrying is
necessary for national growth, is a superstition borrowed from the West. Eating
is a process just as vital as the other sanitary necessities of life. And if
mankind had not, much to its harm, made of eating a fetish and indulgence, we
would have performed the operation of eating in private even as one performs
the other necessary functions of life in private. Indeed the highest culture in
Hinduism regards eating in that light and there are thousands of Hindus still
living who will not eat their food in the presence of anybody. I can recall the
names of several cultured men and women who ate their food in entire privacy
but who never had any ill will against anybody and who lived on the friendliest
terms with all.
Intermarriage is a still more difficult question. If brothers and
sisters can live on the friendlest footing without ever thinking of marrying
each other, I can see no difficulty in my daughter regarding every Mohammedan
as a brother and vice versa. I hold strong views on religion and on marriage.
The greater restraint we exercise with regard to our appetites whether about
eating or marrying, the better we become from a religious standpoint. I should
despair of ever cultivating amicable relations with the world, if I had to
recognize the right or the propriety of any young man offering his hand in
marriage to my daughter or to regard it as necessary for me to dine with
anybody and everybody. I claim that I am living on terms of friendliness with
the whole world. I have never quarrelled with a single Mohammedan or Christian,
but for years I have taken nothing but fruits in Mohammedan or Christian
households. I would most certainly decline to eat cooked food from the same
plate with my son or to drink water of a cup which his lips have touched and
which has not been washed. But the restraint or the exclusiveness exercised in
these matters by me has never affected the closest companionship with the
Mohammedan or the Christian friends or my sons.
But interdining and intermarriage have never been a bar to
disunion, quarrels and worse. The Pandavas and the Kauravas flew at one
another's throats without compunction although they inter-dined and
intermarried. The bitterness between the English and the Germans has not yet
died out.
The fact is that intermarriage and interdining are not necessary
factors in friendship and unity though they are often emblems thereof. But
insistence on either the one or the other can easily become and is to-day a bar
to Hindu-Mohammedan Unity. If we make ourselves believe that Hindus and
Mohammedans cannot be one unless they interdine or intermarry, we would be
creating an artificial barrier between us which it might be almost impossible
to remove. And it would be seriously interfere with the growing unity between
Hindus and Mohammedans if, for example, Mohammedan youths consider it lawful to
court Hindu girls. The Hindu parents will not, even if they suspected any such
thing, freely admit Mohammedans to their homes as they have begun to do now. In
my opinion, it is necessary for Hindu and Mohammedan young men to recognize this
limitation.
I hold it to be utterly impossible for Hindus and Mohammedans to
intermarry and yet retain intact each other's religion. And the true beauty of
Hindu-Mohammedan Unity lies in each remaining true to his own religion and yet
being true to each other. For, we are thinking of Hindus and Mohammedans even
of the most orthodox type being unable to regard one another as natural enemies
as they have done hitherto.
What then does the Hindu-Mohammedan Unity consist in and how can
it be best promoted? The answer is simple. It consists in our having a common
purpose, a common goal and common sorrows. It is best promoted by co-operating
to reach the common goal, by sharing one another's sorrows and by mutual
toleration. A common goal we have. We wish this great country of ours to be
greater and self-governing. We have enough sorrows to share. And to-day seeing
that the Mohammedans are deeply touched on the question of Khilafat and their
case is just nothing can be so powerful for winning Mohammedan friendship for
the Hindu as to give his whole-hearted support to the Mohammedan claim. No
amount of drinking out of the same cup or dining out of the same bowl can bind
the two as this help in the Khilafat question.
And mutual toleration is a necessity for all time and for all
races. We cannot live in peace if the Hindu will not tolerate the Mohammedan
form of worship of God and his manners and customs or if the Mohammedans will
be impatient of Hindu idolatory or cow-worship. It is not necessary for
toleration that I must approve of what I tolerate. I heartily dislike drinking,
meat-eating and smoking, but I tolerate all these in Hindus, Mohammedans and
Christians even as I expect them to tolerate my abstinence from all these
although they may dislike it. All the quarrels between the Hindus and the
Mohammedans have arisen from each wanting to force the other to his view.1
Monoculture in Education
English is to-day studied because of its commercial and so-called
political value. Our boys think, and rightly in the present circumstances, that
without English they cannot get Government service. Girls are taught English as
a passport to marriage. I know several instances of women wanting to learn
English to that they may be able to talk Englishmen in English. I know husbands
who are sorry that their wives cannot talk to them and their friends in
English. I know families in which English is being made the mother tongue.
Hundreds of youths believe that without a knowledge of English freedom for
India is practically impossible. The canker has so eaten into society that, in
many cases, the only meaning of Education is a knowledge of English. All these
are for me signs of our slavery and degradation. It is unbearable to me that
the vernaculars should be crushed and starved as they have been. I cannot
tolerate the idea of parents writing to their children, or husbands writing
their wives, not in their own vernaculars, but in English. I hope I am as great
a believer in free air as the great poet. I do not want my house to be walled
in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the
lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be
blown off my feet by any.2
The Untouchables
The devil succeeds only by receiving help from his fellows. He
always takes advantage of the weakest spots in our natures in order to gain
mastery over us. Even so does the Government retain its control over us through
our weaknesses or vices. And if we would render ourselves proof against its
machinations, we must remove our weaknesses. It is for that reason that I have
called non-co-operation a process of purification. As soon as that process is
completed, this Government must fall to pieces for want of the necessary
environment, just as mosquitoes cease to haunt a place whose cesspools are
filled up and dried.
Has not a just Nemesis overtaken us for the crime of
untouchability? Have we not reaped as we have sown? Have we not practiced
Dyerism and O'Dwayerism on our own kith and kin? We have segregated the pariah
and we are in turn segregated in the British Colonies. We deny him the use of
public wells; we throw the leavings of our plates at him. His very shadow
pollutes us. Indeed there is no charge that the pariah cannot fling in our
faces and which we do not fling in the faces of Englishmen.
How is this blot on Hinduism to be removed? 'Do unto others as you
would that others should do unto you.' I have often told English officials
that, if they are friends and servants of India, they should come down from
their pedestal, cease to be patrons, demonstrate by their loving deeds what
they are in every respect our friends, and believe us to be equals in the same
sense they believe fellow Englishmen to be their equals. After the experiences
of the Punjab and the Khilafat, I have gone a step further and asked them to
repent and to change their hearts. Even so it is necessary for us Hindus to repent
of the wrong we have done, to alter our behaviour towards those whom we have
'suppressed' by a system as devilish as we believe the English system of the
government of India to be. We must not throw a few miserable schools at them:
we must not adopt the air of superiority towards them. We must treat them as
our blood brothers as they are in fact. We must return to them the inheritance
of which we have robbed them. And this must not be the act of a few
English-knowing reformers merely, but it must be a conscious voluntary effort
on the part of masses. We may not wait till eternity for this much belated
reformation. We must aim at bringing it about within this year of grace,
probation, preparation, and tapasya. It is a reform not to follow Swaraj but to
precede it.
Untouchability is not a sanction of religion, it is a device of
Satan. The Devil has always quoted scriptures. But scriptures cannot transcend
Reason and Truth. They are intended to purify Reason and illuminate Truth. I am
not going to burn a spotless horse, because the Vedas are reported to have
advised, tolerated, or sanctioned the sacrifice. For me the Vedas are divine
and unwritten. 'The letter killeth.' It is the spirit that giveth the light.
And the spirit of the Vedas is purity, truth, innocence, chastity, simplicity,
forgiveness, godliness, and all that makes a man or woman noble and brave.
There is neither nobility nor bravery in treating the great and uncomplaining
scavengers of the nation as worse than dogs to be despised and spat upon. Would
that God gave us the strength and the wisdom to become voluntary scavengers of
the nation as the 'suppressed' classes are forced to be There are Augean
stables enough and to spare for us to clean.3
How am I to plead with those who regard any contact with the
members of the suppressed community as entailing defilement and of which they
cannot be cleansed without necessary ablutions, and who thus regard omission to
perform the ablutions a sin? I can only place before them my innermost
convictions.
I regard untouchability as the greatest blot on Hinduism. This
idea was not brought home to me by my bitter experiences during the South
African struggle. It is not due to the fact that I was once an agnostic. It is
equally wrong to think, as some people do, that I have taken my views from my
study of Christian religious literature. These views date as far back as the
time when I was neither enamoured of, nor was acquainted with, the Bible or the
followers of the Bible.
I was hardly yet twelve when this idea had dawned on me. A
scavenger named Uka, an untouchable, used to attend our house for cleaning
latrines. Often I would ask my mother why it was wrong to touch him, why I was
forbidden to touch him. If I accidentally touched Uka, I was asked to perform
the ablutions, and though I naturally obeyed, it was not without smilingly
protesting that untouchability was not sanctioned by religion, that it was
impossible that it should be so. I was a very dutiful and obedient child and so
far as it was consistent with respect for parents, I often had tussles with
them on this matter. I told my mother that she was entirely wrong in
considering physical contact with Uka as sinful.
While at school I would often happen to touch the 'untouchables',
and as I never would conceal the fact from my parents, my mother would tell me
that the shortest cut to purification after the unholy touch was to cancel the
touch by touching any Mussulman passing by. And simply out of reverence and
regard for my mother I often did so, but never did so believing it to be a
religious obligation. After some time we shifted to Porebander, where I made my
first acquaintance with Sanskrit. I was not yet put to an English school, and
my brother and I were placed in charge of a Brahman, who taught us Ramruksha
and Vishnu Punjar. The tests 'jale Vishnuh', 'sthake Vishnuh' (there is the
Lord (present) in water, there is the Lord (present) in earth) have never gone
out of my memory. A motherly old dame used to live close by. Now it happened
that I was very timid then, and would conjure up ghosts and goblins whenever
the lights went out, and it was dark. The old mother, to disabuse me of fears,
suggested that I should mutter the Ramraksha texts whenever I was afraid, and
all evil spirits would fly away. This I did and, as I thought, with good
effect. I could never believe then that there was any text in the Ramraksha
pointing to the contact of the 'untouchables' as a sin. I did not understand
its meaning then, or understood it very imperfectly. But I was confident that
Ramraksha, which could destroy all fears of ghosts, could not be countenancing
any such thing as fear of contact with the 'untouchables'.
The Ramayana used to be regularly read in our family. A Brahmin
called Ladha Maharaj used to read it. He was stricken with leprosy, and he was
confident that a regular reading of the Ramayana would cure him of leprosy,
and, indeed, he was cured of it. 'How can the Ramayana', I thought to myself,
'in which one who is regarded nowadays as an untouchable took Rama across the
Ganges in his boat, countenance the idea of any human beings being untouchable
on the ground that they were polluted souls? The fact that we addressed God ad
the 'purifier of the polluted' and by similar appellations, shows that it is a
sin to regard anyone born in Hinduism as polluted or untouchable - that it is
satanic to do so. I have hence been never tired of repeating that it is a great
sin. I do not pretend that this thing had crystallized as a conviction in me at
the age of twelve, but I do say that I did then regard untouchability as a sin.
I narrate this story for the information of the Vaishnavas and Orthodox Hindus.
I have always claimed to be a Sanatani Hindu. It is not that I am
quite innocent of the scriptures. I am not a profound scholar of Sanskrit. I
have read the Vedas and the Upanishads only in translations. Naturally
therefore, mine is not a scholarly study of them. My knowledge of them is in no
way profound, but I have studied them as I should do as a Hindu and I claim to
have grasped their true spirit. By the time I had reached the age of 21, I had
studied other religions also.
There was a time when I was wavering between Hinduism and
Christianity. When I recovered my balance of mind, I felt that to me salvation
was possible only through the Hindu religion and my faith in Hinduism grew
deeper and more enlightened.
But even then I believed that untouchability was no part of
Hinduism; and that, if it was, such Hinduism was not for me.
I believe that caste has saved Hinduism from disintegration.
But like every other institution, it has suffered from
excrescences. I consider the four divisions alone to be fundamental, natural,
and essential. The innumerable sub-castes are sometimes a convenience, often a
hindrance. The sooner there is fusion the better. The silent destruction and
reconstruction to sub-castes have ever gone on and are bound to continue.
Social pressure and public opinion can be trusted to deal with the problem. But
I am certainly against any attempt at destroying the fundamental divisions. The
caste system is not based on inequality, there is no question of inferiority,
and so far as there is any such question arising, as in Madras, Maharashtra, or
elsewhere, the tendency should undoubtedly be checked. But there appears to be
no valid reason for ending the system because of its abuse. It lends itself
easily to reformation. The spirit of democracy, which is fast spreading
throughout India and the rest of the world, will, without a shadow of doubt,
purge the institution of the idea of predominance and subordination.
The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted
by abolition of forms. It requires change of the heart. If caste is a bar to
the spread of the spirit, the existence of five religions in India - Hinduism,
Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism - is equally a bar. The spirit
of democracy requires the inculcation of the spirit of brotherhood, and I can
find no difficulty in considering a Christian ===or a Mohammedan to be my
brother in absolutely the same sense as a blood brother, and Hinduism that is
responsible for the doctrine of the caste is also responsible for the
inculcation of the essential brotherhood, not merely of man but even of all that
lives.
One of my correspondents suggests that we should abolish the caste
but adopt the class system of Europe - meaning thereby I suppose that the idea
of heredity in caste should be rejected. I am inclined to think that the law of
heredity is an eternal law and any attempt to alter that law must lead, as it
has before led, to utter confusion. I can see very great use in considering a
Brahmin to be always a Brahmin throughout his life. If he does not behave
himself like a Brahmin, he will naturally cease to command the respect that is
due to the real Brahmin. It is easy to imagine the innumerable difficulties if
one were to set up a court of punishments and rewards, degradation and
promotion. If Hindu believe, as they must believe in reincarnation, transmigration,
they must know that nature will, without any possibility of mistake, adjust the
balance by degrading a Brahmin, if he misbehaves himself, by reincarnating him
in a lower division, and translating one who lives the life of a Brahmin in his
present incarnation to Brahmin-hood in his next.4
Hinduism
In dealing with the problem of untouchability, I have asserted my
claim to being a Sanatani Hindu with greater emphasis than hitherto, and yet
there are things which are commonly done in the name of Hinduism, which I
disregard. I have no desire to be called Sanatani Hindu or any other, if I am
not such. And I have certainly no desire to steal in a reform or an abuse under
cover of a great faith.
It is therefore necessary for me once for all distinctly to give
my meaning of Sanatana Hinduism. The word Sanatana is used in its natural
sense.
I call myself a Sanatani Hindu, because,
(1) I believe in the Vedas, the Upnishads, the Puranas and all
that goes by the name of Hindu scriptures, and therefore in avatars and rebirth.
(2) I believe in the Varnashrama dharma in a sense in my opinion
strictly Vedic, but not in its present popular and crude sense.
(3) I believe in the protection of the cow in its much larger
sense than the popular.
(4) I do not disbelieve in idol-worship.
The reader will note that I have purposely refrained from using
the word divine origin in reference to the Vedas or any other scriptures. For I
do not believe in the exclusive divinity of the Vedas. I believe the Bible, the
Koran, and the Zend Avesta to be as much divinely inspired as the Vedas. My
belief in the Hindu scriptures does not require me to accept every word and
every verse as divinely inspired. Nor do I claim to have any first-hand
knowledge of these wonderful books. But I do claim to know and feel the truths
of the essential teaching of the scriptures. I decline to be bound by any
interpretation, however learned it may be, if it is repugnant to reason or
moral sense. I do most emphatically repudiate the claim (if they advance any
such) of the present Shankaracharyas and Shastris to give a correct
interpretation of the Hindu scriptures. On the contrary, I believe that our
present knowledge of these books is in a most chaotic state. I believe
implicity in the Hindu aphorism, that no one truly knows the Shastras who has
not attained perfection in Innocence (Ahimsa), Truth (Satya) and Self-Control
(Brahmacharya) and who has not renounced all acquisition or possession of
wealth. I believe in the institution of Gurus, but in this age millions must go
without a Guru, because it is a rare thing to find a combination of perfect
purity and perfect learning. But one need not despair of ever knowing the truth
of one's religion, because the fundamentals of Hinduism as of every great
religion are unchangeable, and easily understood. Every Hindu believes in God
and His Oneness, in rebirth and salvation. But that which distinguishes
Hinduism from every other religion is its cow protection, more than its
Varnarshrama.
Varnashrama is, in my opinion, inherent in human nature, and
Hinduism has simply reduced it to a science. It does attach to birth. A man
cannot change his varna by choice. Not to abide by one's varna is to disregard
the law of heredity. The division, however, into innumerable castes is an
unwarranted liberty taken with the doctrine. The four divisions are
all-sufficing.
I do not believe that interdining or even intermarriage
necessarily deprives a man of his status that his birth has given him. The four
divisions define a man's calling, they do not restrict or regulate social
intercourse. The divisions define duties, they confer no privileges. It is, I
hold, against the genius of Hinduism to arrogate to oneself a higher status or
assign to another a lower. All are born to serve God's creation, a Brahman with
his knowledge, a Kshatriya with his power of protection, a Vaishya with his
commercial ability and a Shudra with bodily labour. This, however, does not
mean that a Brahman for instance is absolved from bodily labour, or the duty of
protecting himself and others. His birth makes a Brahman predominantly a man of
knowledge, the fittest by heredity and training to impart it to others. There
is nothing, again, to prevent the Shudra from acquiring all the knowledge he
wishes. Only, he will best serve with his body and need not envy others their
special qualities for service. But a Brahman who claims superiority by right of
knowledge falls and has no knowledge. And so with the others who pride
themselves upon their special qualities. Varnashrama is self-restraint and
conservation and economy of energy.
Though therefore Varnashrama is not affected by interdining or
intermarriage, Hinduism does most emphatically discourage interdining and
intermarriage between divisions. Hinduism reached the highest limit of self-restraint.
It is undoubtedly a religion of renunciation of the flesh, so that the spirit
may be set free. It is no part of a Hindu's duty to dine with his son. And by
restricting his choice of a bride to a particular group, he exercises rare
self-restraint. Hinduism does not regard a married state as by any means
essential for salvation. Marriage is a 'fall' even as birth is a 'fall'.
Salvation is freedom from birth and hence death also. Prohibition against
intermarriage and interdining is essential for a rapid evolution of the soul.
But this self-denial is no test of varna. A Brahman may remain a Brahman,
though he may dine with his Shudra brother, if he has not left off his duty of
service by knowledge. It follows from what I have said above, that restraint in
matters of marriage and dining is not based upon notions of superiority. A
Hindu who refuses to dine with another from a sense of superiority
misrepresents his Dharma.
Unfortunately to-day, Hinduism seems to consist merely in eating
and not eating. Once I horrified a pious Hindu by taking toast at a Mussulman's
house. I saw that he was pained to see me pouring milk into a cup handed by a
Mussulman friend, but his anguish knew no bounds when he saw me taking toast at
the Mussulman's hands. Hinduism is in danger of losing its substance, if it
resolves itself into a matter of elaborate rules as to what and with whom to
eat. Abstemiousness from intoxicating drinks and drugs, and from all kinds of
foods, especially meat, is undoubtedly a great aid to the evolution of the
spirit, but it is by no means an end in itself. Many a man eating meat and with
everybody, but living in the fear of God, is nearer his freedom than a man
religiously abstaining from meat and many other things, but blaspheming God in
every one of his acts.
The central fact of Hinduism however is cow protection. Cow
protection to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in human evolution. It
takes the human being beyond his species. The cow to me means the entire
sub-human world. Man through the cow is enjoined to realize his identity with
all that lives. Why the cow was selected for apotheosis is obvious to me. The
cow was in India the best companion. She was the giver of plenty. Not only did
she give milk, but she also made agriculture possible. The cow is a poem of
pity. One reads pity in the gentle animal. She is the mother to millions of
Indian mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb
creation of God. The ancient seer, whoever he was, began with the cow. The appeal
of the lower order of creation is all the more forcible because it is
speechless. Cow protection is the gift of Hinduism to the world. And Hinduism
will live so long as there are Hindus to protect the cow.
The way to protect is to die for her. It is a denial of Hinduism
and Ahimsa to kill a human being to protect a cow. Hindus are enjoined to
protect the cow by their tapasya, by self-purification, by self-sacrifice. The
present-day cow protection has degenerated into a perpetual feud with the
Mussulmans, whereas cow protection means conquering the Mussulmans by our love.
A Mussulman friend sent me some time ago a book detailing the inhumanities
practiced by us on the cow and her progeny; how we bleed her to take the last
drop of milk from her, how we starve her emaciation, how we ill-treat the
calves, how we deprive them of their portion of milk, how cruelly we treat the
oxen, how we castrate them, how we beat them, how we overload them. If they had
speech, they would bear witness to our crimes against them which would stagger
the world. By every act of cruelty to our cattle, we disown God and Hinduism. I
do not know that the condition of the cattle in any other part of the world is
so bad as in unhappy India. We may not blame the Englishmen for this. We may
not plead poverty in our defence. Criminal negligence is the only cause of the
miserable condition of our cattle. Our Panjarapoles, though they are an answer
to our instinct mercy, are a clumsy demonstration of its execution. Instead of
being model dairy farms and great profitable national institutions, they are
merely depots for receiving decrepit cattle.
Hindus will be judged not by their tilaks, not by the correct
chanting of mantras, not by their pilgrimages, not by their most punctilious
observance of caste rules but by their ability to protect the cow. Whilst
professing the religion of cow protection, we have enslaved the cow and her
progeny, and have become slaves ourselves.
It will now be understood why I consider myself a Sanatani Hindu.
I yield to none in my regard for the cow. I have made the Khilafat cause my
own, because I see that through its preservation full protection can be secured
for the cow. I do not ask my Mussulman friends to save the cow in consideration
of my service. My prayer ascends daily to God Almighty, that my service of a
cause I hold to be just may appear so pleasing to Him, that he may change the
hearts of the Mussulmans, and fill them with pity for their Hindu neighbours
and make them save the animal the latter hold dear as life itself.
I can no more describe my feeling for Hinduism than for my own
wife. She moves me as no other woman in the world can. Not that she has no
faults; I daresay, she has many more than I see myself. But the feeling of an
indissoluble bond is there. Even so I feel for and about Hinduism with all its
faults and limitations.
Nothing elates me so much as the music of the Gita or the Ramayana
by Tulsidas, the only two books in Hinduism I may be said to know. When I
fancied I was taking my last breath, the Gita was my solace. I know the vice
that is going on to-day in all the great Hindu shrines, but I love them in
spite of their unspeakable failings. There is an interest which I take in them
and which I take in other. I am a reformer through and through. But my zeal
never takes me to the rejection of any of the essential things of Hinduism. I
have said I do not disbelieve in idol worship. An idol does not excite any
feeling of veneration in me. But I think that idol worship is part of human
nature. We hanker after symbolism. Why should one be more composed in a church
than elsewhere? Images are an aid to worship. No Hindu considers an image to be
God. I do not consider idol worship a sin.
It is clear from the foregoing that Hinduism is not an exclusive
religion. In it there is room for the worship of all the prophets of the world.
It is not a missionary religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It has no
doubt absorbed many tribes in its fold, but this absorption has been of an
evolutionary, imperceptible character. Hinduism tells every one to worship God
according to his own faith or Dharma, and so it lives at peace with all the
religions.
That being my conception of Hinduism, I have never been able to
reconcile myself to untouchability. I have always regarded it as an
excrescence. It is true that it has been handed down to us from generations,
but so are many evil practices even to this day. I should be ashamed to think
that dedication of girls to virtual prostitution was a part of Hinduism. Yet it
is practiced by Hindus in many parts of India. I consider it positive
irreligion to sacrifice goats to Kali and do not consider it a part of
Hinduism. Hinduism is a growth of ages. The very name, Hinduism, was given to
the religion of the people of Hindustan by foreigners. There was no doubt at
one time sacrifice of animals offered in the name of religion. But it is not
religion, much less is it Hindu religion. And so also, it seems to me that when
cow protection became an article of faith our ancestors, those who persisted in
eating beef were excommunicated. The civil strife must have been fierce. Social
boycott was applied not only to the recalcitrants, but their sins were visited
upon their children also. The practice which had probably its origin in good
intentions hardened into usage, and even verses crept into our sacred books
given the practice a permanence wholly undeserved and still less justified.
Whether my theory is correct or not, untouchability is repugnant to reason and
to the instinct of mercy, pity or love. A religion that establishes the worship
of the cow cannot possibly countenance or warrant a cruel and inhuman boycott
of human beings. And I should be content to be torn to pieces rather than
disown the suppressed classes. Hindus will certainly never deserve freedom, not
get it if they allow their noble religion to be disgraced by the retention of
the taint of untouchabilty. And as I love Hinduism dearer than life itself, the
taint has become for me an intolerable burden. Let us not deny God by denying
to a fifth of our race the right of association on an equal footing.5
- Young India, Vol. III
- Young India, Vol. III
- Young India, Vol. III
- Young India, Vol. III, by M. K. Gandhi
- Young India, Vol. III