The
Poet of Asia, as Lord Hardinge called Dr. Tagore, is fast becoming, if he has
not already become, the poet of the world. Increasing prestige has brought to
him increasing responsibility. His greatest service to India must be his poetic
interpretation of India's message to the world. The poet is therefore sincerely
anxious that India should deliver no false or feeble message in her name. He is
naturally jealous of his country's reputation. He says he has striven hard to
find himself in tune with the present movement. He confesses that he is
baffled. He can find nothing for his lyre in the din and the bustle of
non-co-operation. In three forceful letters,1 he has
endeavoured to give expression to his misgivings, and he has come to the
conclusion that non-co-operation is not dignified enough for the India of his
vision, that is a doctrine of negation and despair. He fears that it is a
doctrine of separation, exclusiveness, narrowness and negation.
No Indian can feel anything but pride in the poet's exquisite
jealousy of India's honour. It is good that he should have sent to us his
misgivings in language at once beautiful and clear.
In all humility, I shall endeavour to answer the poet's doubts.
I may fail to convince him or the reader who may have been touched by his
eloquence, but I would like to assure him and India that non-co-operation in
conception is not any of the things he fears, and he need have no cause to be
ashamed of his country for having adopted non-co-operation. If, in actual
application, it appears in the end to have failed, it will be no more the fault
of the doctrine, than it would be of Truth, if those who claim to apply it in
practice do not appear to succeed. Non-co-operation may have come in advance of
its time. India and the world must then wait, but there is no choice for India
save between violence and non-co-operation.
Nor need the poet fear that non-co-operation is intended to
erect a Chinese wall between India and the West. On the contrary,
non-co-operation is intended to pave the way to real, honourable and voluntary
co-operation based on mutual respect and trust. The present struggle is being
waged against compulsory co-operation, against one-sided combination, against
the armed imposition of modern methods of exploitation masquerading under the
name of civilization.
Non-co-operation is a protest against an unwitting and unwilling
participation in evil.
The poet's concern is largely about the students. He is of
opinion that they should not have been called upon to give up Government
schools before they had other schools to go. Here I must differ from him. I
have never been able to make a fetish of literary training. My experience has
proved to my satisfaction that literary training by itself adds not an inch to
one's moral height and that character-building is independent of literary
training. I am firmly of opinion that the Government schools have unmanned us,
rendered us helpless and Godless. They have filled us with discontent, and
providing no remedy for the discontent, have made us despondent. They have made
us what we were intended to become - clerks and interpreters. A government
builds its prestige upon the apparently voluntary association of the governed.
And if it was wrong to co-operate with the Government in keeping us slaves, we
were bound to begin with those institutions in which our association appeared
to be most voluntary. The youth of a nation are its hope. I hold that, as soon
as we discovered that the system of government was wholly, or mainly evil, it
became sinful for us to associate our children with it.
It is no argument against the soundness of the proposition laid
down by me that the vast majority of the students went back after the first
flush of enthusiasm. Their recantation is proof rather of the extent of our
degradation than of the wrongness of the step. Experience has shown that the
establishment of national schools has not resulted in drawing many more
students. The strongest and the truest of them came out without any national
schools to fall back upon, and I am convinced that these first withdrawals are
rendering service of the highest order.
But the poet's protest against the calling out of the boys is
really a corollary to his objection to the very doctrine of non-co-operation.
He has a horror of everything negative. His whole soul seems to rebel against
the negative commandments of religion. I must give his objection in his own
inimitable language 'R. in support of the present movement has often said to me
that passion for rejection is a stronger power in the beginning than the
acceptance of an ideal. Though I know it to be a fact, I cannot take it as a
truth..Brahmavidya in India has for its object Mukti (emancipation), while
Buddhism has Nirvana (extinction). Mukti draws our attention to the positive
and Nirvana to the negative side of truth. Therefore, he emphasized the fact of
dukha (misery) which had to be avoided and the Brahmavidya emphasized the fact
of Ananda (joy) which had to be attained.' In these and kindred passage, the
reader will find the key to the poet's mentality. In my humble opinion,
rejection is as much an ideal as the acceptance of a thing. It is as necessary
to reject untruth as it is to accept truth. All religions teach that two
opposite forces act upon us and that the human endeavour consists in a series
of eternal rejections and acceptances. Non-co-operation with evil is as much a
duty as co-operation with good. I venture to suggest that the poet has done an
unconscious injustice to Buddhism in describing Nirvana as merely a negative
state. I make bold to say that Mukti (emancipation) is as much a negative state
as Nirvana. Emancipation from or extinction of the bondage of the flesh leads
to Ananda (eternal bliss). Let me close this part of my argument by drawing
attention to the fact that the final word of the Upanishads (Brahmavidya) is
Not. Neti2 was the best description the authors of the
Upanishads were able to find for Brahman.
Correspondents have written to me in pathetic language asking me
not to commit suicide in January, should Swaraj be not attained by then, and
should find myself outside the prison walls. I find that language but
inadequately express ones' thought, especially when the thought itself is
confused or incomplete. My writing in the Navajivan was, I fancied, clear
enough. But I observe that its translation has been misunderstood by many. The
original too has not escaped the tragedy that has overtaken the translation.
One great reason for the misunderstanding lies in my being
considered almost a perfect man. Friends who know my partiality for the
Bhagavad-Gita have thrown relevant verses at me, and shown how my threat to
commit suicide contradicts the teachings which I am attempting to live. All
these mentors of mine seem to forget that I am but a seeker after Truth. I
claim to have found the way to it. I claim to be making a ceaseless effort to
find it. But I admit that I have not yet found it. To find Truth completely is
to realize oneself and one's destiny, i.e. to become perfect. I am painfully
conscious of my imperfections, and therein lies all the strength I possess,
because it is a rare thing for a man to know his own limitations.
If I was a perfect man, I own I should not feel the miseries of
my neighbours as I do. As a perfect man, I should take note of them, prescribe
a remedy and compel adoption by the force of unchallengeable Truth in me. But
as yet, I only see as through a glass darkly and, therefore, have to carry
conviction by slow and labourious processes, and then too, not always with
success. That being so, I would be less than human if, with all my knowledge of
avoidable misery pervading the land and of the sight of mere skeletons under
the very shadow of the Lord of the Universe, I did not feel with and for all
the suffering but dumb millions of India. The hope of a steady decline in that
misery sustains me; but suppose that, with all my sensitiveness to sufferings,
to pleasure and pain, cold and heat, and with all my endeavour to carry the
healing message of the spinning wheel to the heart, I have reached only the ear
and never pierced the heart, suppose further that at the end of the year I find
that the people are as sceptical as they are to-day about the present
possibility of attainment of Swaraj by means of the peaceful revolution of the
wheel. Suppose further, that I find that the excitement during the past twelve
months and more has been only an excitement and stimulation, but no settled
belief in the programme, and lastly suppose that the message of peace has not
penetrated the hearts of Englishmen, should I not doubt my tapasya and feel my
unworthiness for leading the struggle? As a true man, what should I do? Should
I not kneel down in all humility before my Maker, and ask Him to take away this
useless body and make me a fitter instrument of service?
Swaraj does consist in the change of government and its real
control by the people, but that would be merely the form. The substance that I
am hankering after is a definite acceptance of the means and, therefore, a real
change of heart on the part of the people. I am certain that it does not
require ages for Hindus to discard the error of untouchability, for Hindus and
Mussulmans to shed enmity and accept heart friendship as an eternal factor of
national life, for all to adopt the charkha as the only universal means of
attaining India's economic salvation and finally for all to believe that
India's freedom lies only through non-violence, and no other method. Definite,
intelligent and free adoption by the nation of this programme, I hold, as the
attainment of the substance. The symbol, the transfer of power, is sure to
follow, even as the seed truly laid must develop into a tree.
The reader will thus perceive that, what I accidentally stated
to friends for the first time in Poona and then repeated to others, was but a
confession of my imperfections and an expression of my feeling of unworthiness
for the great cause which, for the time being, I seem to be leading. I have
enunciated no doctrine of despair. On the contrary, I have never felt so
sanguine, as I do at the time of writing, that we shall gain the substance
during this year. I have stated at the same time as practical idealist that I
should no more feel worthy to lead a cause which I might feel myself diffident
of handling. The doctrine of laboring without attachment means as much a
relentless pursuit of truth as a retracing after discovery of error and a
renunciation of leadership without a pang after discovery of unworthiness. I
have put shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself in the Eternal and
become merely a lump of clay in the potter's divine hands, so that my service
may become more certain, because uninterrupted by the baser self in me.
Politics and Religion
The politician in me has never dominated a single decision of
mine, and if I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics
encircle us to-day like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no
matter how much one tries. I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake, as I
have been doing with more or less success consciously since 1894,
unconsciously, as I have now discovered, ever since reaching years of
discretion. Quite selfishly, as I wish to live in peace in the midst of a
bellowing storm howling round me, I have been experimenting with myself and my
friends by introducing religion into politics. Let me explain what I mean by
religion. It is not the Hindu religion which I certainly prize above all other
religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one's very
nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever
purifies. It is the permanent element in human nature which counts no cost too
great in order to find full expression and which leaves the soul utterly
restless until it has found itself, known its Maker and appreciated the true
correspondence between the Maker and itself.3
What was the larger 'symbiosis' that Buddha and Christ preached?
Buddha fearlessly carried the war into the enemy's camp and brought down on its
knees an arrogant priesthood. Christ drove out the money-changers from the
temple of Jerusalem and drew down curses from Heaven upon the hypocrites and
the pharisees. Both were for intensely direct action. But even as Buddha and Christ
chastised, they showed unmistakable gentleness and love behind every act of
theirs. They would not raise a finger against their enemies, but would gladly
surrender themselves rather than the truth for which they lived. Buddha would
have died resisting the priesthood, if the majesty of his love had not proved
to be equal to the task of bending the priesthood. Christ died on the cross
with a crown of thorns on his head defying the might of a whole empire. And if
I raise resistances of a non-violent character, I simply and humbly follow in
the footsteps of the great teachers.
Lastly, the writer of the paragraph quarrels with my 'grouping
unities' and would have me to take up 'the larger mission of uniting the
world'. I once told him under a common roof that I was probably more
cosmopolitan than he. I abide by that expression. Unless I group unities, I
shall never be able to unite the whole world. Tolstoy once said that, if we
would but let off the blacks of our neighbours, the world would be quite all right
without any further help from us. And if we can only serve our immediate
neighbours by ceasing to prey upon them, the circle of unities thus grouped in
the right fashion will ever grow in circumference till at last it is
conterminous with that of the whole world. More than that it is not given to
any man to try or achieve. Yatthaa pinde thatthaa brahmande is as true to-day
as ages ago when it was first uttered by an unknown Rishi.
Advice to Satyahrahis in an Industrial Strike
I do not propose to examine the duty of the capitalist. If the
labourer alone were to understand his rights and responsibilities and confine
himself to the purest means, both must gain. But two things are needful - both
the demands and the means adopted to enforce them must be just and clear. It is
an unlawful demand which seeks merely to take advantage of the capitalists'
position. But it is an altogether lawful demand when the labourer asks for
enough wages to enable him to maintain himself and to educate his children
decently. To seek justice without resorting to violence and by an appeal to the
good sense of the capitalist by arbitration is lawful means.
In order to achieve the end, you must have Unions. A beginning
has already been made. I trust that the mill-hands in every department will
form their unions and every one should scrupulously observe the rules that may
be formed for them. You will then approach the mill-owners through your unions,
and if the decisions of the former do not satisfy you, you will appeal to
arbitration. It is a matter of satisfaction that both parties have accepted the
principle of arbitration. I hope that that principle will be fully developed
and that strikes will for ever become an impossibility. I know that strikes are
an inherent right of the working men for the purpose of securing justice, but
they must be considered a crime immediately the capitalists accept the
principle of arbitration. Ways are improving and there is every possibility of
a continuous improvement. But there is equal need for reducing hours of labour.
The mill-hands seem to be working twelve hours or more.
The mill-owners tell me that the mill-hands are lazy, they do
not give full time to their work and they are inattentive. I for one cannot
expect attention and application from those who are called upon to work twelve
hours per day. But I would certainly hope that when the hours are reduced to
ten the labourers will put in better and almost the same amount of work as in
twelve hours. Reduction in hours of labour has brought about happy results in
England. When mill-hands learn to identify themselves with the interest of the
mill-owners, they will rise and with them will rise the industries of our
country. I would therefore urge the mill-owners to reduce the hours of labour
to ten and urge the mill-hands to give as much work in ten, as they have been
doing in twelve.
It is now time to examine the use we should make of the
increasing wages and the hours saved. It would be like going into the
frying-pan out of the fire to use the increase in wages in the grog-shop and
the hours saved from the gambling den. The money received, it is clear, should
be devoted to education of our children, and the time saved to our education.
In both these matters the mill-owners can render much assistance. They can open
cheap restaurants for the working men where they can get pure milk and
wholesome refreshments. They can open reading-rooms and provide harmless
amusements and games for them. Provided such healthy surroundings, the cravings
for drink and gambling will leave them. The unions also should attempt similar
things. They will be better employed in devising means of improvement from
within than in fighting the capitalists.
It is a sign of national degradation when little children are
removed from schools and are employed in earning wages. No nation worthy of the
name can possibly afford so to misuse her children. At least up to the age of
sixteen they must be kept in schools. Similarly women also must be gradually
weaned from mill labour. If man and woman are partners in life and
complementary each of the other, they become good householders only by dividing
their labour, and a wise mother finds her time fully occupied in looking after
her household and children. But where both husband and wife have to labour for
mere maintenance, the nation must become degraded. It is like a bankrupt living
on his capital.
And just as it is necessary for the labourers to develop their
minds by receiving education and to educate their children, so it is necessary
to develop the moral faculty in them. Development of the moral faculty means
that of the religious sense. The world does not quarrel with those who have a
true faith in God and who understand the true nature of religion. And if it
does, such men turn away the wrath of their adversaries by their gentleness.
Religion here does not mean merely offering one's namaz or going to the temple.
But it means knowledge of one's self and knowledge of God, and just as a person
does not become a weaver unless he knows the art of weaving so does he fail to
know himself unless he complies with certain rules. Chief amongst these are three
that are of universal observance. The first is observance of Truth. He who does
not know what it is to speak the truth is like a false coin, valueless. The
second is not to injure others. He who injures others, is jealous of others, is
not fit to live in the world. For the world is at war with him, and he has to
live in perpetual fear of the world. We all are bound by the tie of love. There
is in everything a centripetal force without which nothing could have existed.
Scientists tell us that without the presence of the cohesive force amongst the
atoms that comprise this globe of ours, it would crumble to pieces and we would
cease to exist, and even as there is cohesive force in blind matter, so much
must there be in all things animate and the name for that cohesive force among
animate beings is Love. We notice it between father and son, between brother
and sister, friend and friend. But we have to learn to use that force among all
that lives, and in the use of it consists our knowledge of God. Where there is
love there is life; hatred leads to destruction.
Self-restraint and Self-indulgence
The third rule is that we have to conquer our passions. It is
called Brahmacharya in Sanskrit. I do not use it here merely in its accepted
narrow sense. He is not a Brahmachari, who, although he may be a celibate or
may be living a chaste life as a married man, otherwise gives himself up to a
variety of indulgences. He alone is capable of knowing himself who brings under
complete subjection all his passions. He who exercises self-restraint in its
widest sense is also a Brahmachari - a man of faith, a true Hindu or a true
Mohammedan.
It is a breach of Brahmacharya to hear questionable language or
obscene songs. It is licentiousness of the tongue to utter foul abuse, instead
of reciting the name of God, and so with the other senses. He alone can be
considered the true man who having subjected his passions become perfectly
self-restrained. We are like a rider who cannot keep his horse under control
and is quickly brought down. But one who, drawing in the reins keeps the animal
under subjection, stands a fair chance of reaching his destination. Even so
does a man who can control his passions make for the goal. He alone is fit for
swarajya. He alone is a seeker after truth. He alone becomes capable of knowing
God. It is my earnest wish that you will not reject these remarks as if they
were copybook maxims. I ask you to believe that we shall never go forward until
we have learnt the value of observing these truths. What I have told you is a
fragment of my own experiences. My service of you is due simply to my love for
you and I partake of your sorrows, because I hope thereby to justify myself
before my Maker. What though your wages were quadrupled and you had to work
only a quarter of the time you are doing now, if notwithstanding, you did not
know the value of true speech, if Rakshasa in you injured others and gave the
reins to your passions. We must have more wages, we must have less work,
because we want clean houses, clean bodies, clean minds and clean soul, and we
strive for better wages and less work in the belief that both are essential for
this fourfold cleanliness. But if that be not the object to be achieved, it
would be a sin to attempt to get better wages and reduce the hours of labour.
A Letter to the Viceroy, inaugurating the Non-co-operation
Movement
It is not without a pang that I return the Kaisar-i-Hind gold
medal granted to me by your predecessor for my humanitarian work in South
Africa, the Zulu War medal granted in South Africa for my services as officer
in charge of the Indian Volunteer Ambulance Corps in 1906 and the Boer War
medal for my services as assistant superintendent of the Indian Volunteer
Stretcher-bearer Corps during the Boer War of 1899-1902. I venture to return
these medals in pursuance of the scheme of non-co-operation inaugurated to-day
in connection with the Khilafat movement. Valuable as these honours have been
to me, I cannot wear them with an easy conscience so long as my Mussulman
countrymen have to labour under a wrong done to their religious sentiment.
Events that have happened during the past month have confirmed me in the
opinion that the Imperial Government have acted in the Khilafat matter in an
unscrupulous, immoral and unjust manner and have been moving from wrong to
wrong I order to defend their immorality. I can retain neither respect nor
affection for such a government.
The attitude of the Imperial and Your Excellency's Governments
on the Punjab question has given me additional cause for grave dissatisfaction.
I had the honour, as Your Excellency is aware, as one of the congress
commissioners, to investigate the causes of the disorders in the Punjab during
the April of 1919. And it is my deliberate conviction that Sir Michael O'Dwyer
was totally unfit to hold the office of Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab and that
his policy was primarily responsible for infuriating the mob at Amritsar. No
doubt the mob excesses were unpardonable; incendiarism, murder of five innocent
Englishmen and the cowardly assault on Miss Sherwood were most deplorable and
uncalled for. But the punitive measures taken by General Dyer, Colonel Frank
Johnson, Colonel O'Brien, Mr. Bosworth Smith, Rai Shri Ram Sud, Mr. Mallik Khan
and other officers were out of all proportion to the crime of the people and
amounted to wanton cruelty and inhumanity almost unparalleled in modern times.
Your Excellency's light-hearted treatment of the official crime,
your exoneration of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, Mr. Montagu's dispatch and above all
the shameful ignorance of the Punjab events and callous disregard of the
feelings of Indians betrayed by the House of Lords, have filled me with the
gravest misgivings regarding the future of the Empire, have estranged me
completely from the present Government and have disabled me from tendering, as
I have hitherto whole-heartedly tendered, my loyal co-operation.
In my humble opinion the ordinary method of agitating by way of
petitions, deputations and the like is no remedy for moving to repentance a
government so hopelessly indifferent to the welfare of its charge as the
Government of India has proved to be. In Europeans countries, condonation of
such grievous wrongs as the Khilafat and the Punjab would have resulted in a
bloody revolution by the people. They would have resisted at all cost national
emasculation such as the said wrongs imply. But half of India is too weak to
offer violent resistance and the other half is unwilling to do so. I have
therefore ventured to suggest the remedy of non-co-operation which enables
those who wish, to dissociate themselves from the Government and which, if it
is unattended by violence and undertaken in an ordered manner, must compel it
to retrace its steps and undo the wrongs committed. But while I shall pursue
the policy of non-co-operation in so far as I can carry the people with me, I
shall not lose hope that you will yet see your way to do justice. I therefore
respectfully ask Your Excellency to summon a conference of the recognized
leaders of the people and in consultation with them find a way that would
placate the Mussulmans and do reparation to the unhappy Punjab.
An Appeal to his Followers
No country has ever risen without being purified through the
fire of suffering. Mother suffers so that her child may live. The condition of
wheat-growing is that the seed grain should perish. Life comes out of death.
Will India rise out of her slavery without fulfilling this eternal law of
purification through suffering?
If my advisers are right, evidently India will realize her
destiny without travail. For their chief concern is that the events of April
1919 should not be repeated. They fear non-co-operation, because it would
involve the sufferings of many. If Hampden had argued thus, he would not have
withheld payment of ship-money, nor would Wat Tyler have raised the standard of
revolt. English and French histories are replete with instances of men
continuing their pursuit of the right, irrespective of the amount of suffering
involved. The actors did not stop to think whether ignorant people would not
have involuntarily to suffer. Why should we expect to write our history
differently? It is possible for us, if we would, to learn from the mistakes of
our predecessors to do better, but it is impossible to do away with the law of
suffering which is the one indispensable condition of our being. The way to do
better is to avoid, if we can, violence from our side and thus quicken the rate
of progress and to introduce greater purity in the methods of suffering. We
can, if we will, refrain, in our impatience, from bending the wrong-doer to our
will by physical force as Sinn Feiners are doing to-day, or from coercing our
neighbors to follow our methods, as was done last year by some of us in
bringing about hartal. Progress is to be measured by the amount of suffering undergone
by the sufferer. The purer the suffering, the greater is the progress. Hence
did the sacrifice of Jesus suffice to free a sorrowing world? In his onward
march, he did not count the cost of suffering, entailed upon his neighbors,
whether they underwent it voluntarily or otherwise. Thus did the sufferings of
Harishchandra suffice to re-establish the kingdom of truth. He must have known
that his subjects would suffer involuntarily by his abdication. He did not
mind, because he could not do otherwise than follow truth.
I have already stated that I do not deplore the massacre of
Jallinwala Bagh so much as I deplore the murders of Englishmen and destruction
of property by ourselves. The frightfulness at Amritsar drew away public
attention from greater, though slower, frightfulness at Lahore where attempt
was made to emasculate the inhabitants by slow processes many more times, till
they teach us to take up suffering voluntarily and to find joy in it. I am
convinced that the Lahorians never deserved the cruel insults that they were
subjected to; they never hurt a single Englishman; they never destroyed any
property. But a willful ruler was determined to crush the spirit of a people
just trying to throw off his chafing yoke. And if I am told that all this was
due to my preaching satyagraha, my answer is that I would preach satyahraha all
the more forcibly for that, so long as I have breath left in me, and tell the
people that next time they would answer O'Dwyerean insolence, not by opening
shops by reason of threats of forcible sales, but by allowing the tyrant to do
his worst and let him sell their all but their unconquerable souls. Sages of
old mortified the flesh, so that the spirit within might be set free, so that
their trained bodies might be proof against any injury that might be inflicted
on them by tyrants seeking to impose their will on them. And if India wishes to
revise her ancient wisdom and to avoid the errors of Europe, if India wishes to
see the Kingdom of God established on earth, instead of that of Satan which has
enveloped Europe, then I would urge her sons and daughters not to be deceived
by fine phrases, the terrible subtleties that hedge us in, the fears of
suffering that India may have to undergo, but to see what is happening to-day
in Europe, and from it understand that we must go through the suffering even as
Europe has gone through, but not the process of making others suffer. Germany
wanted to dominate Europe and the Allies wanted to do likewise by crushing
Germany. Europe is no better for Germany's fall. The Allies have proved
themselves to just as deceitful, cruel, greedy and selfish as Germany was or
would have been. Germany would have avoided the sanctimonious humbug that one
sees associated with the many dealings of the Allies.
The miscalculation that I deplored last year was not in
connection with the sufferings imposed upon the people, but about the mistakes
made by them and violence done by them, owing to their not having sufficiently
understood the message of satyagraha. What, then is the meaning of
non-co-operation in terms of the Law of suffering? We must voluntarily put up
with the losses and inconvenience that arise from having to withdraw our
support from a government that is ruling against our will. Possession of power
and riches is a crime under an unjust government, poverty in that case is a
virtue, says Thoreau. It may be that, in the transition state, we may make
mistakes; there may be avoidable suffering. These things are preferable to
national emasculation.
We must refuse to wait for the wrong to be righted till the
wrong-doer has been roused to a sense of his iniquity. We must not, for fear of
ourselves or others having to suffer, remain participators in it. But we must
combat the wrong by ceasing to assist the wrong-doer directly or indirectly.
If a father does an injustice, it is the duty of his children to
leave the parental roof. If the headmaster of a school conducts his institution
on an immoral basis, the pupils must leave the school. If the chairman of
corporation is corrupt, the members thereof must wash their hands clean of his
corruption by withdrawing from it; even so, if a government does a grave
injustice, the subject must withdraw co-operation wholly or partially,
sufficiently to wean the ruler from his wickedness. In each of the cases
conceived by me, there is an element of suffering whether mental or physical.
Without such suffering it is not possible to attain freedom.4
I still believe that man not having been given the power of
creation does not possess the right of destroying the meanest creature that
lives. The prerogative of destruction belongs solely to the creator of all that
lives. I accept the interpretation of ahimsa, namely, that it is not merely a
negative state of harmlessness but it is a positive state of love, of doing
good even to the evil-doer. But it does not mean helping the evil-doer to
continue the wrong or tolerating it by passive acquiescence. On the contrary,
love, the active state of ahimsa, requires you to resist the wrong-doer by
dissociating yourself from him even though it may offend him or injure him
physically. Thus if my son lives a life of shame, I may not help him to do so
by continuing to support him; on the contrary, my love for him requires me to
withdraw all support from him although it may mean even his death. And the same
love imposes on me the obligation of welcoming him to my bosom when he repents.
But I may not by physical force compel my son to become good. That, in my
opinion, is the moral of the story of the Prodigal Son.
Non-co-operation is not a passive state, it is an intensely
active state - more active than physical resistance or violence. Passive
resistance is a misnomer. Non-co-operation in the sense used by me must be
non-violent and therefore neither punitive nor vindictive nor based on malice,
ill-will or hatred. It follows therefore that it would be sin for me to serve
General Dyer and co-operate with him to shoot innocent men. But it would be an
exercise of forgiveness or love for me to nurse him back to life, if he was suffering
from a physical malady. I would co-operate a thousand times with this
Government to wean it from its career of crime, but I will not for a single
moment co-operate with it to continue that career. And I would be guilty of
wrong-doing if I retained a title from it or 'a service under it or supported
its law courts or schools'. Better for me a beggar's bowl than the richest
possession from hands stained with the blood of the innocents of Jallianwala.
Better by far a warrant of imprisonment than honeyed words from those who have
wantonly wounded the religious sentiment of my seventy million brothers.
I do not believe that the Gita teaches violence for doing good.
It is pre-eminently a description of the duel that goes on in our own hearts.
The divine author has used a historical incident for inculcating the lesson of
doing one's duty even at the peril of one's life. It inculcates performance of
duty irrespective of the consequences, for, we mortals, limited by our physical
frames, are incapable of controlling actions save our own. The Gita
distinguishes between the powers of light and darkness and demonstrates their
incompatibility.
Jesus, in my humble opinion, was a prince among politicians. He
did render unto Caesar that which was Caesar's. He gave the devil his due. He
ever shunned him and is reported never once to have yielded to his
incantations. The politics of his time consisted in securing the welfare of the
people by teaching them not to be seduced by the trinkets of the priests and
Pharisees. The latter then controlled and moulded the life of the people.
To-day the system of government is so devised as to affect every department of
our life. It threatens our very existence. If therefore we want to conserve the
welfare of the nation, we must religiously interest ourselves in the doings of
the governors and exert a moral influence on them by insisting on their obeying
the law of morality. General Dyer did produce a 'moral effect' by an act of
butchery. Those who are engaged in forwarding the movement of non-co-operation,
hope to produce a moral effect by a process of self-denial, self-sacrifice and
self-purification.5
The Swadeshi Movement
After much thinking, I have arrived at a definition of Swadeshi
that perhaps best illustrates my meaning. Swadeshi is that spirit in us which
restricts us to the use and service of our immediate surroundings to the
exclusion of the more remote. Thus, as for religion, in order to satisfy the
requirements of the definition, I must restrict myself to my ancestral
religion. That is the use of my immediate religious surrounding. If I find it
defective, I should serve it by purging it of its defects. In the domain of
politics I should make use of the indigenous institutions and serve them by
curing them of their proved defects. In that economics I should use only things
that are produced by my immediate neighbours and serve those industries by
making them efficient and complete where they might be found wanting. It is
suggested that such Swadeshi, if reduced to practice, will lead to the
millennium. And as we do not abandon our pursuits after the millennium, because
we do not expect quite to reach it within our times, so may we not abandon
Swadeshi, even though it may not be fully attained for generations to come.
Let us briefly examine the three branches of Swadeshi as
sketched above. Hinduism has become a conservative religion and therefore a
mighty force, because of the Swadeshi spirit underlying it. It is the most
tolerant because it is non-proselytizing, and it is as capable of expansion
to-day as it has been found to be in the past. It has succeeded, not in driving
out, as I think it has been erroneously held, but in absorbing Buddhism. By
reason of the Swadeshi spirit, a Hindu refuses to change his religion, not
necessarily because he considers it to be the best, but because he knows that
he can complement it by introducing reforms. And what I have said about
Hinduism is, I suppose, true to other great faiths of the world, only it is
held that it is specially so in the case of Hinduism. But here comes the point
I am labouring to reach. If there is any substance in what I have said, will
not the great missionary bodies of India, to whom we owe a deep debt of
gratitude for what they have done and are doing, do still better and serve the
spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytizing, while continuing
their philanthropic work? I hope you will not consider this to be an
impertinence on my part. I make the suggestion in all sincerity and with due
humility. Moreover I have some claim upon your attention. I have endeavoured to
study the Bible. I consider it as part of my scriptures. The spirit of the
Sermon on the Mount competes almost on equal terms with the Bhagavad Gita for
the domination of my heart. I yield to no Christian in the strength of devotion
with which I sing 'Lead kindly Light' and several other inspired hymns of a
similar nature. I have come under the influence of noted Christian missionaries
belonging to different denominations, and I enjoy to this day the privilege of
friendship with some of them. You will perhaps, therefore, allow that I have
offered the above suggestion not as a biased Hindu, but as a humble and
impartial student of religion with great leanings towards Christianity. May it
not be that the 'Go ye unto all the world' message has been somewhat narrowly
interpreted and the spirit of it missed? It will not be denied, I speak from
experience, that many of the conversions are only so-called. In some cases the
appeal has gone not to the heart but to the stomach. And in every case a
conversion leaves a sore behind it which, I venture to think, is avoidable.
Quoting again from experience, a new birth, a change of heart, is perfectly
possible in every one of the great faiths. I know I am now treading upon thin
ice. But I do not apologize, in closing this part of my subject, for saying
that the frightful outrage that is just going on in Europe, perhaps shows that
the message of Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Peace, has been little understood
in Europe and that light upon it may have to be thrown from the East.
I have sought your help in religious matters, which it is yours
to give in a special sense. But I make bold to seek it even in political
matters. I do not believe that religion has nothing to do with politics. The
latter divorced from religion is like a corpse only fit to be buried. As a
matter of fact, in your own silent manner you influence politics not a little.
And I feel that if the attempt to separate politics from religion had not been
made as it is even now made, they would not have degenerated as they often
appear to have done. No one considers that the political life of the country is
in a happy state. Following out the Swadeshi spirit, I observe the indigenous
institutions and the village panchayat hold me. India is really a republican
country, and it is because it is that that it has, survived every shock
hitherto delivered. Princes and potentates whether they were Indian born or
foreigners have hardly touched the vast masses except for collecting revenue.
The latter in their turn seem to have rendered unto Caesar what was Caesar's,
and for the rest have done much as they have liked. The vast organization of
caste answered not only the religious wants of the community, but it answered
to its political needs. The villagers managed their internal affairs through
the caste system, and through it they dealt with any oppression from the ruling
power or powers. It is not possible to deny of a nation that was capable of
producing the caste system its wonderful power of organization. One had but to
attend the great Kumbha Mela at Hardwar last year to know how skilful that
organization must have been, which without any seeming effort was able
effectively to cater for more than a million pilgrims. Yet it is the fashion to
say that we lack organizing ability. This is true, I fear, to a certain extent,
of those who have been nurtured in the new traditions. We have laboured under a
terrible handicap owing to an almost fatal departure from the Swadeshi spirit.
We, the educated classes have received our education through a foreign tongue.
We have therefore not reacted upon the masses. We want to represent the masses,
but we fail. They recognize us not much more than they recognize the English
officers. Their hearts are an open book to neither. Their aspirations are not
ours. Hence there is a break. And you witness, not in reality, failure to
organize but want of correspondence between the representatives and
represented. If during the last fifty years had we been educated through the
vernaculars, our elders and our servants and our neighbours would have partaken
of our knowledge; the discoveries of a Bose or a Ray would have been household
treasures as are the Ramayan and Mahabharat. As it is, so far as the masses are
concerned, those great discoveries might as well have been made by foreigners.
Had instruction in all the branches of learning been given through the
vernaculars, I make bold to say that they would have been enriched wonderfully.
The question of village sanitation, etc., would have been solved long ago. The
village panchayats would be now a living force in a special way, and India
would almost be enjoying self-government suited to its requirements and would
have been spared the humiliating spectacle of organized assassination on its
sacred soil. It is not too late to mend. And you can help if you will, as no
other body or bodies can.
And now for the last division of Swadeshi. Much of the deep
poverty of the masses is due to the ruinous departure from Swadeshi in the
economic and industrial life. If not an article of commerce had been brought
from outside India, she would be to-day a land flowing with milk and honey. But
that was not to be. We were greedy and so was England. The connection between
England and India was based clearly upon an error. But she (England) does not
remain in India in error. It is her declared policy that India is to be held in
trust for her people. If this be true, Lancashire must stand aside. And if the
Swadeshi doctrine is a sound doctrine, Lancashire can stand aside without hurt,
though it may sustain a shock for the time being. I think of Swadeshi not as a
boycott movement undertaken by way of revenge. I conceive it as a religious
principle to be followed by all. I am no economist, but I have read some
treatises which show that England could easily become a self-sustained country,
growing all the produce she needs. This may be an utterly ridiculous
proposition, and perhaps the best proof that it cannot be true is that England
is one of the largest importers in the world. But India cannot live for Lancashire
or any other country before she is able to live for herself. And she can live
for herself only if she produces and is helped to produce everything for her
requirements, within her own borders. She need not be, she ought not to be
drawn into the vortex of mad and ruinous competition which breeds fratricide,
jealousy and many other evils. But who is to stop her great millionaires from
entering on to the world competition? Certainly not legislation. Force of
public opinion, proper education, however, can do a great deal in the desired
direction. The handloom industry is in a dying condition. I took special care
during my wanderings last year to see as many weavers as possible, and my heart
ached to find how much they had lost, how families had retired from this once
flourishing and honourable occupation. If we follow the Swadeshi doctrine, it
would be your duty and mine to find out neighbours who can supply our wants and
to teach them to supply them where they do not know how to proceed, assuming
that there are neighbours who are in want of healthy occupation. Then every
village of India will almost be a self-supporting and self-contained unit,
exchanging only such necessary commodities with other villages where they are
not locally producible. This may all sound nonsensical. Well, India is a
country of nonsense. It is nonsensical to parch one's throat with thirst when a
kindly Mohammedan is ready to offer pure water to drink. And yet thousands of
Hindus would rather die of thirst than drink water from a Mohammedan household.
These nonsensical men can also, once they are convinced that their religion
demands that they should wear garments manufactured in India only and eat food
only grown in India, decline to wear any other clothing or eat any other food.
Lord Curzon set the fashion of tea-drinking. And that pernicious drug now bids
fair to overwhelm the nation. It has already undermined the digestive apparatus
of hundreds of thousands of men and women and constitutes an additional tax
upon their slender purses. Lord Hardinge can set the fashion for Swadeshi, and
almost the whole of India will forswear foreign goods. There is a verse in the
Bhagavadgita which, freely rendered, means masses follow the classes. It is
easy to undo the evil of the thinking portion if the community were to take the
Swadeshi vow, even though it may for a time cause considerable inconvenience. I
hate legislative interference in any department of life. At best, it is the
lesser evil. But I would tolerate, welcome, indeed plead for a stiff protective
duty upon foreign goods. Natal, a British Colony, protected its sugar by taking
the sugar that came from another British colony, Mauritius. England has sinned
against India by forcing free trade upon her. It may have been food for her,
but it has been poison for this country.
It has often been urged that India cannot adopt Swadeshi in the
economic life at any rate. Those who advance this objection do not look upon
Swadeshi as a rule of life. With them it is a mere patriotic effort, not to be
made if it involved any self-denial. Swadeshi, as defined here, is a religious
discipline to be undergone in utter disregarded of the physical discomfort it
may cause to individuals. Under its spell the deprivation of a pin or a needle,
because these are not manufactured in India, need cause no terror. A Swadeshi
will learn to do without hundreds of things which to-day he considers
necessary. Moreover, those who dismiss Swadeshi from their minds by arguing the
impossible forget that Swadeshi after all is a goal to be reached by steady
effort. And we would be making for the goal, even if we confined Swadeshi to a
given set of articles; allowing ourselves as a temporary measure to use such
things as might not be procurable in the country.
There now remains for me to consider one more objection that has
been raised against Swadeshi. The objectors consider it to be a most selfish
doctrine without any warrant in the civilized code of morality. With them, to
practice Swadeshi is to revert to barbarism. I cannot enter into a detailed
analysis of the proposition. But I would urge the Swadeshi is the only doctrine
consistent with the law of humility and love. It is arrogance to think of
launching out to serve the whole of India, when I am hardly able to serve even
my own family. It were better to concentrate my effort upon the family, and
consider that through them I was serving the whole nation, and if you will, the
whole humanity. This is humility and it is love. The motive will determine the
quality of the act. I may serve my family, regardless of the sufferings I may
cause to others, as if for instance, I may accept an employment which enables
me to extort the money from people; I enrich myself thereby and then satisfy
many unlawful demands of the family. Here I am neither serving the family nor
the state. Or I may recognize that God has given me hands and feet only to work
with for my sustenance and for that of those who may be dependent upon me. I
would then at once simplify my life and that of those whom I can directly
reach. In this instance I would have served the family without causing injury
to anyone else. Supposing that everyone followed this mode of life, we should
have at once an ideal state. All will not reach that state at the same time.
But those of us who, realizing its truth, enforce it in practice will clearly
anticipate and accelerate the coming of that happy day. Under this plan of
life, in seeming to serve India to the exclusion of every other country, I do
not harm any other country. My patriotism is both exclusive and inclusive. It
is exclusive in the sense that in all humility I confine my attention to the
land of my birth. But it is inclusive in the sense that my service is not of a
competitive or antagonistic nature. Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas. It is
not merely a legal maxim, but it is a grand doctrine of life. It is the way to
a proper practice of ahimsa or love. It is for you, the custodians of a great
faith, to set the fashion and show by your preaching, sanctified by practice,
that patriotism based on hatred 'killeth', and that patriotism based on love
'giveth life'.
- Omitted for
this selection.
- Meaning 'Not
This'
- Extract from
Young India, Vol. II by M. K. Gandhi (Navajivan Publishing House).
- Young India,
Vol. II
- Idem
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