166109
TEACHINGS
MAHATMA GAN1HI
He look* into the future of h'n pnp\: *> t'sitly a
the mysteries of the human mine/*
he
TEACHINGS
OF
MAHATMA GANDHI
EDITED BY
JAG PARVESH CHANDER
WITH A FOREWORD BY
Dr. RAJENDRA PRASAD
EX-PRESIDENT, THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
THE INDIAN PRINTING WORKS
KACHERI ROAD LAHORE
Price Rs. /<?/-/-
By the same author,
ETHICS OF FASTING
TAGORE AND GANDHI ARGUE
GANDHI AGAINST FASCISM
THE UNSEEN POWER
GITA THE MOTHER
THE GOOD LIFE
THE CONGRESS CASE
THE PENSIVE MOOD (A Collection of Poems)
COPYRIGHTS RESERVED BY THE PUBLISHERS.
Printtd and Published ty Mr, Narain Das Kumar at the Indian Printing Works
Kaeheri Ryd, Lahore : Irt Edition, Sfpttmbir 1945.
• • • • • Foreword
CURING the last forty years or more of his most?
' busy and eventful life, Mahatma Gandhi has
spoken much, and written a great deal, on a large
variety of subjects of great interest and importance to
India and to the world at large. His writings and the
reports of his speeches are enshrined in the columns
of newspapers and particularly of the weeklies which
he has conducted. It is difficult to find out his views
on a particular subject without reference to old files
which are not easily available. Only some of his
writings have been published in book form, e. g., My
Experiments with Truth and Satyagraha in South Africa.
His articles in Toung India were published in 3 volumes
by Mr. S. Ganesan. His speeches have also been
collected and published by Mr, G. Natcsan But all
these publications are out of date as they were publish-
ed several years ago. Since then a great deal more
has been written
Gandhiji is a growing personality and he has
never allowed himself to be a slave of consistency.
His latest views on any subject are therefore $f
great importance to the oublic. Thev are not easih
6 FOREWORD
available in a handy form. Sjt. Jag Parvesh Chander
has attempted to collect together his writings under
appropriate headings in a chronological order in this
book. One can at a glance get at Gandhiji's views
on a particular subject and see the development of
his thoughts on that subject as disclosed in his own
words in his writings.
The book will prove of immense help to any seri-
ous student of Gandhian literature as a book of refer-
ence. That Gandhiji covers a vast variety of subjects
is apparent from the fact that the book contains more
than 340 headings under which his writings and
speeches are divided.
The compiler has devoted much time and
labour and I hope his labours will be appreciated by
the public.
RAJENDRA PRASAD
. . • * Introduction
>HEN man forsakes the sacred and ancient path
of Truth, and in the insolence of his
evanescent power desecrates all that is holy and of a
permanent value in the land, God the Merciful
and Jealous Custodian of Right sends His personal
messengers to reinstate in the human breast the
eternal and fundamental things that constitute the
greatness of Man. And these are the things that
differentiate him from the beast who only obeys the
law of the jungle. The Creator, through His inscrutable
ways, sees that man must remain a man and fulfil btfs
destined mission. The purpose that lies behind this
division between man and beast must be realized.
* ~_
; ^ These prophets, who are the pride of the age in
Which they are born, hold communion with their Master.
The divine message they interpret through their
intellect and translate it in the customary human langu-
age for the benefit of the world. They practise in their
own lives what they preach to others. They keep
aloft and burning the flame of Righteousness amidst
the "encircling gloom" of Greed, Selfishness and
Expediency.
The twentieth century in a way has been the
blackest chapter m the history of mankind. Violence
has been the guiding star of modern times. Exploi-
tatipii- is "the nftt &t ticl& 6f faith of the ruling powers,
Id thii1 a^e^of the's^-caUM freedom, a major portion
' population is! held in abjedt slavery-.
8 INTRODUCTION
God wanted man to be free and live on the
basis of perfect equality. But that was not to be.
The powers that were given to man for nobler purposes
were misused. Intelligence with which man was
blessed was wholly used in a way that negatived
the ambition of God. Realising the hideous sins
that man was committing, God sent Gandhiji to warn
the misguided ; reform the wrong-doer and lead the
miscreants to the right path.
To-day the world may not admit but Gandhiji is
indisputably the latest in the glorious and glittering
line of the prophets. His life is a heritage of all the
good that his predecessors said and did. The earlier
prophets were maligned as impostcrs ; their teachings
were reviled as the odd fancies of an obsessed mind.
They were persecuted, stoned and even crucified.
Such is the tragedy of life ! Such is the reward that
mankind offers to its guides, friends and well-wishers !
Gandhiji too has suffered much at the hands of his
cl foes."
But undaunted by physical tortures the prophets
preach the divine gospel ; unmindful of calumny they
work for the uplift of those who besmear the dew-like
purity of their lives ; unconcerned with the seeming
failure of their mission, they pursue their work with a
zeal that baffles the critic.
Posterity repents for the sins committed against
them and spontaneously enshrines their sublime teach*
ings in the imperishable Book of Life.
Look at the sufferings of Christ and look at the
popularity of the Bible ! When he was crucified, the
cross became a symbol of the fulfilment of the spirit of
INTRODUCTION 9
retribution. To-day the Cross is worn next to the
heart. It serves as a reminder of his gospel. The
Cross to the Christians is as dear as the heart itself.
Not a trumpet was beaten and not a bugle was blown
to honour his selfless service. But to-day millions of
bells toll from the belfry storeys in the praise of the
Great Teacher. No dirge was sung at his funeral
procession but to-day every Sunday the jubilant air
re-echoes melodiously the soft and soothing ntusic of
the hymns sung to invoke the mercy of Christ.
To me at least, Gandhiji is as big a prophet as
Christ was, or for that matter any other prophet. It
has been my cherished wish to condense his inspired
thoughts in a handy book. No other prophet has
written or spoken so much as Gandhiji has done. The
circumstances in which he is living have forced him
to do so. The complexity of modern life demanded
his tackling the intricate problems that face mankind.
For an ordinary busy man engrossed in his daily
routine work, it is physically impossible to acquaint
himself with Gandhiji's views on a particular subject.
First, even the Toung India and the Harijan files are not
available in the market, let alone the expense involved
in buying them. Secondly, even if one could borrow
from a friend, the difficulty of collecting his ideas on
any subject is overwhelming. So much so that one's
enthusiasm and energy needed for the research work
will vanish by the time.
Taking these facts under consideration I took
upon myself the task of classifying Gandhiji's writings
and speeches under different heads and arrange them
alphabetically. In this book the reader has just to
10 INTRODUCTION
look at the Contents and then turn over to the particular
pages and he has before him the choicest wisdotp of
Gandhiji.
I have taken utmost care to avoid repetition of
his views. The best and the most necessary quotations
and articles are given. Selection has been done with
devotion and pruning with diligence.
The book has a unique reference value and is in-
dispensable both to his admirers and critics.
I thank Mr. K. L. Chopra, B. A., one of the
Managers of the Bharat Insurance Co. Ltd., Lahore
for helping me in editing some of the portions of this
book. Though he is an insurance man primarily,
he has an acute sense of discrimination in choosing
and placing the right passage in its fight place.
JAG PARVESH GRANDER
CONTENTS
ABUSE
ACTION
ADAPTABILITY
ADORATION
ADULTERY
17
17
18
18
18
ADVERTISE M E N T S
IMMORAL ... 19
AGITATION ... 20
ANGER ... 20
ANARCHY ... 21
ANGLO-INDIANS ... 22
ANIMALS ... 23
ANIMAL SACRIFICES 25
ART ... 25
B
BEAUTY ... 30
BEGGARY ... 30
BHANGI ... 31
BIRTH AND DEATH ... 34
BIRTHS AND R E-
BIRTHS ... 34
BIRTH CONTROL ... 34
BLUNT NESS ... 39
BOYCOTT OF BRITISH
. GOODS ... 39
BRAHAMACHARYA ... 40
BRAVERY ... 52
BREAD-LABOUR ... 53
BRITISH EMPIRE ... 58
BRITISH GOVERN-
MENT ... 59
BRITISH POLITICAL
INSTITUTIONS ... 60
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA 61
'BUDDHISM ... 64
BUREAUCRACY ... 67
BUSSINESS ... 68
C
CALAMITY ...*69
CAPITAL AND
LABOUR ... 69
CASTE AND VARNA... 70
CAUSE ... 72
CEREMONIES ... 72
CHAOS VS. MISRULE 73
CHARACTER ... 74
^CHARKHA ... 77
CHIVALRY ... 84
CHILDREN ... 85
CHRISTIANITY ... 85
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 89
CIVILITY ... 92
CLASS WAR ... 92
CLEANLINESS ... 93
COERCION ... 95
COMMONSE\TSE ... 96
'COMMUNISM ... 96
COMMUNAL PACTS... 104
COMPLEXION ... 104
COMPROMISE ... 104
CONGRESS
CONSCIENCE
CONSISTENCY ... 116
CONSTITUENT
ASSEMBLY ... 117
CONS T R U C T I V E
PROGRAMME ... 121
CONTENTMENT ... 128
... 107
... 114
12
TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
CONVERSION ... 129
CONVICTIONS ... 130
COUNCILS ... 131
COURAGE ... 132
COURTESY ... 13,3
COW * .- 133
COWARDICE ... 136
CREED ... 137
CRITICISM ... 138
CROWD— INDIAN ... 139
CULTURE ... 139
CUNNING ... 140
CUSTOM ... 140
D
DARSHAN ... 140
DEATH ... 140
DEATH DUTIES ... 144
DEATH SENTENCE ... 145
DEBT ... 145
DECEPTION ... 145
DEFEAT ... 145
"DEMOCRACY ... 146
DHURNA ... 152
DIAGNOSIS ... 153
DIFFERENCES ... 153
DISEASE *... 153
DISCIPLINE ... 153
DIVIDE AND RULE... 155
DOUBT ... 156
DOWRY SYSTEM ... 156
DRINK EVIL ... 156
DUMB MILLIONS ... 161
DtfTY ... 161
EAST AND WEST ... 164
EATING ... 163
ECONOMICS ... 163
EDUCATION ... 177
EFFORT ... 187
EMBARRASSMENT ... 188
ENGLISHMEN ... 133
ERROR ... 190
EVIL ... 195
EXAGGERATION ... 195
EXERCISE ... 196
EXPEDIENCY ... 196
EXPERIMENTS ... 196
EXPLOITATION ... 196
F
FAITFI ... 197
FASTING ... 202
FATE ... 216
FAULTS ... 216
FEAR ... 217
FOREIGN CLOTH ... 217
FORGIVENESS ... 221
FOREIGN MEDIUM
OF INSTRUCTION 222
FRANKNESS ... 225
, FRAUD ... 225
FREEDOM ... 226
'FREEDOM OF INDIA 227
FREE TRADE ... 235
FRIENDSHIP ... 235
G
GAMBLING ... 238
GANDHISM ... 239
GANDHIJI LOOKS AT
HIMSELF ... 240
GENERALISATION ... 243
GENEROSITY ... 244
GITA ... 244
NGOD ... 264
^GOONDAISM ... 282
GOVERNMENT OF
INDIA ... 282
GRANTH SAHIB 283
CONTENTS
13
GREED
GURU
284
284
H
HABIT ... 286
HARTAL ... 286
HELP ... 286
HEPLESSNESS ... 287
HIMALAYAS ... 287
HINDUISM ... 287
HINDU-MUSLIM
UNITY ... 297
HINDUSTANI ... 302
HONOUR ... 303
HOPE ... 303
HUMAN NATURE ... 304
HUMULITY ... 305
HUMA N I T A R I A N-
ISM ... 308
HUMOUR ... 308
HUNGER STRIKE ... 309
IDEAL ... 310
IDLENESS ... 311
IDOL- WORSHIP ... 311
[MITATION ... 313
IMPRISONMENT ... 313
INDIA ... 315
INDIA N C I V I L
SERVICE ... 316
INDIAN CT V I L I Z A-
TION ... 317
INDIAN STATES ... 318
INDIVIDUAL FREE-
DOM ... 321
IN DUSTR 1 A L 1-
ZATION ... 321
INERTIA ... 325
INNER VOICE ... 325
INSTINCT ... 326
INTER-DEPEN D-
ENCE ... 326
INSURANCE ... 327
INTENTIONS ... 327
INTER-DINING ... 327
'ISLAM ... 329
INSTITUTIONS ... 332
I
JAILS ... 333
JESUS CHRIST ... 335
JEWELLERY ... 337
JOURNALISM ... 338
JURIES— TRIAL BY ... 338
JUSTICE ... 339
'KARMA— LAW OF ... 340
K1SAN SABHAS ... 342
'KHADDAR ... 343
LANGUAGE ... 345
LAW ... 347
LAWYLRS ... 347
LAW COURTS ... 348
LEADERS ... 349
LIBERTY ... 350
LIFE ... 351
LOVE ... 351
M
MAHATMASHIP ... 354
MAN ... 355
MANLINESS ... 358
MANNERS ... 359
MARRIAGE ... 359
14
TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
MASSES ... 367
MEANS_A.ND END ... 369
MEASURES BE F O R E
MEN ... 370
MEETINGS ... 371
MINORITY AND
MAJORITY ... 371
MOBS ... 373
MODERN CIVILIZA-
TION ... 374
MOKSHA ... 375
MONEY ... 378
MONEY GIFTS ... 379
MONOTONY ... 379
MORALITY ... 379
MORAL AUTHORITY 380
MOTIVE ... 380
MUNICIPALITIES ... 381
N
NATION ... 382
NATIONALISM VS. IN-
TERNATIONALISM ... 382
NATIONAL DRESS ... 383
NATIONAL FLAG ...383
NATIONAL SER-
VICE ... 384
NATURE ... 385
NOBILITY *... 385
NON-CO-OPERA-
TION ... 385
NON-VIOLENCE ... 404
O
OATH
OPPONENTS
OBSTINACY
OPTIMISM
ORGANISATION
PAKISTAN
423
425
426
426
427
429
PANIC ... 438
PASSIONS ... 438
PARTIES ... 439
PATIENCE ... 439
PATRIOTISM ... 440
'PEACE ... 441
PENANCE ... 422
PERFECTION ... 442
PERSEVERANCE ... 442
PETITION WRITING 442
PICKETING ... 443
PLAIN SPEAKING ... 444
POLICY ... 444
POLITICS ... 445
POLITICAL POWER... 446
POLITICS VS. RELI-
GION ... 446
POVERTY ... 447
.POWER ... 450
PRAYER ... 450
PREACHING ... 464
PRINCIPLE ... 464
PRIESTS ... 465
PROGRESS ... 465
PROMISE ... 467
PROPAGANDA ... 468
PROSTITUTION ... 468
PROVINCIALISM ... 470
PUBLIC FUND ... 470
PUBLI C I N S T I T U-
TIONS ... 471
PUBLIC OPINION ... 472
PUBLIC WORKERS ... 473
PUNCTUALITY ... 474
PUNISHMENT ... 474
PURITY ... 474
QUALITY VS. QUANTI-
TY ... 474
GONTEITTS
If)
R
RAMRAJ
SEASON
REBELLION
REFORMER
REGULARITY
475
476
476
477
477
— 77
RELIC ION AND REAS-
ON ... 484
RELIGIOUS NEUTRAL-
ITY ... 485
REPENTANCE ... 485
REPRESSION ... 485
RESOLUTIONS ... 486
RETREAT ... 486
REVENGE ... 4:6
RICHES ... 486
RIDICULE ... 487
RIGHT ... 487
SACRIFICE ... 488
SATIHOOD ... 491
SATYAGRAHA ... 492
SCHOOLS ... 503
SCIENCE ... 504
SCORTCHED EARTH
POLICY ... 505
SCRIPTURES ... 506
SECTION 124-A ... 506
SELF-CONFIDENCE ... 507
SELF-EVOLUTION ... 507
SELF-HELP AND
MUTUAL HELP ... 507
SELF-INTEREST ... 508
SELF-PURIFICATION 508
SELF-REALIZATION... 509
SELF-RESPECT ... 510
SEPARATE ELECTO-
RATES ... 510
SERVICE ... 511
SHRADAHA C E R E-
MONIES ... 511
SILENCE ... 511
SIN ... 517
SLAVERY ... 518
SMOKING ... 520
SOCIAL BOYCOTT ... 521
SOCIAL REFORM ... 522
SOCIAL WORK ... 523
SPEECHES ... 524
SPEED ... 524
SPIRITS ... 524
SPIRITUALISM ... 525
STATE ... 526
STRENGTH .., 528
STRIKES ... 528
1 STUDENTS ... 529
1 STUDENTS AND POLI-
TICS ... 530
SUBMISSION ... 532
SUFFERING ... 532
SUICIDE ... 533
SUSPICION ... 535
"SWADESHI ... 535
'SWARAJ ... 540
TAKLI
TEMPLES
TEMPTATION
THOUGHTS
TRUSTEESHIP
TRUTH
545
545
548
549
551
351
TUDSIDAS RAMAY—
ANA ... 562
U
UNEMPLOYMENT ... 565
UNITARY METHOD... 566
UNTOUCHABILITY... 566
1C
TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
V
VACCINATION
573
WICKEDNESS
WIDOWHOOD
598
599
VARNASHRAM A
WILL POWER
600
DHARMA
574
WISDOM
...
600
VEGETARIANISM ...
581
'WOMAN
. . .
601
VESTED INTEREST ...
583
WORK
. . .
610
VICE
584
WORKING COMMIT-
VILLAGES
584
TEE
610
VIOLENCE
585
WORRY
611
l^ij^XUE
587
WRONG
612
VOTERS
587
Y
VOWS
w
588
YAJNA OR SACRIFICE
612
WESTERN CIVILIZA
t
Z
TION
597
TO THE
ZAMINDARS
617
TEACHINGS
OF
MAHATMA GANDHI
Abuse
WE should meet abuse by forbearance. Human
nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice
of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon
weary of it and stop. — Toung India : Nov. 26, 1928.
<S> <$> <3>
SUPPOSING some one showers abuse on us, what shall
we do ? We will not ask him to be quiet, but will shut our
own ears. Supposing someone calls me names, shall I go
to his house and receive more abuse ? I wonder if you
know the statute of the three monkeys in Kobe. It represents
three monkeys with closed ears, closed mouth, and closed
eyes, eloquently teaching the world to hear no evil, to
speak no evil, and to see no evil. — Hanjan : March 2, 1940.
Action
ALL action in this world has some drawback
about it. It is man's duty and privilege to reduce it, and while
living in the midst of it, to remain untouched by it as much
as it is possible for him to do so. To take an extreme
instance, there can perhaps be no greater contradiction in
terms than a compassionate butcher. And yet it is possible
17
18 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
even for a butcher if he has any pity in him. In fact I
have actually known butchers with gentleness that one
would hardly expect from them. The celebrated episode
of Kaushik the butcher in the Mahabharata is an instance in
point. — Toung India : Aug. 1, 1929.
Adaptability
ADAPTABILITY is not imitation. It
means power of resistance and assimilation.
—Toung India : Oct. 7, 1926.
Adoration
BLIND adoration, in the age of action is
perfectly valueless, is often embarrassing and equally often
painful. — Toung India : June 12, 1924.
Adultery
WHERE there is a non-violent atmosphere,
where there is the constant teaching of ahimsa, woman will
not regard herself as dependent, weak or helpless. She is not
really helpless when she is really pure. Her purity makes her
conscious of her strength. I have always held that it is
physically impossible to violate a woman against her will.
The outrage takes place only when she gives way to fear or
does not realise her moral strength. If she cannot meet the
assailant's physical might, her purity will give her the
strength to die be/ore he succeeds in violating her. Take
the case of Sita. Physically she was a weakling before
Ravana, but her purity was more than a match even lor
his giant might. He tried to win her with all kinds of
allurements but could not carnally touch her without her
consent. On the other hand, if a woman depends on her
own physical strength or upon a weapon she possesses, she
is sure to be discomfited whenever her strength is exhausted.
—Harijan : Jan. 14, 1940.
<^ <^ ^
IT is my firm conviction that a fearless woman who
knows that her purity is her best shield can never be dis-
ADULTERY 19
honoured. However beastly the man, he will bow In shame
before the flame of her dazzling purity,
—Harijan: March 1, 1942.
<$><$> <$>
A WOMAN is worthy of condemnation only when
she is a willing party to her dishonour. In no case are
adultery and criminal assault synonymous terms.
—Harijan : March 1, 1942.
<$><$><$>
GOD will protect their honour. When, as if to mock
man, her natural protectors became helpless to prevent
Draupadi from being denuded of her last piece of cloth, the
power of her own virtue preserved her honour. And so
will it be to the end of time. Even the weakest physically
have been given the ability to protect their Ovvn honour.
Let it be man's privilege to protect woman, but let no
woman of India feel helpless in the absence of mm or in
the event of his failing to perform the sacred duty of pro*
tecting her. One who knows how to die need never fear
any harm to her or his honour.
—Young India : Dec. 15, 192 1.
<$> <$> <S>
A GII^L who rather than give her living body to a
would-be ravisher presents him with her corpse, confounds
him and dies a heroine's death. Hers is a stout heart in a
frail body. —Harijan : July 13, 1940
Advertisements-Immoral
I DO from the botom
of my heart detest these advertisements. I do hold that it is
wrong to conduct newspapers by the aid of these immoral
advertisements. I do believe that if advertisements should
be taken at all there should be a rigid censorship instituted
by newspaper proprietors and editors themselves and that
only healthy advertisements should be taken. The evil of
ioanaQral advertisements is overtaking even what are known
20 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
as the iftost respectable newspapers and magazines. That
evil has to be combated by refining the conscience of the
newspaper proprietors and editors. That refinement can
come not through the influence of an amateur
editor like myself but it will come when their own con-
science is roused to recognition of the growing evil or when
it is super-imposed upon them by a government represent-
ing the people and caring for the people's morals.
—Toung India : March 25, 1926.
Agitation
AGITATION means no more than
movement towards something. But just as all movement
does not mean progress, so does an agitation not mean
success. Undisciplined agitation which is a paraphrase of
violence of speech or deed, can only retard national growth
and bring about even unmerited retribution such as the
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Disciplined agitation is the
condition of national growth. — Young India : Dec. 31, 1919.
<3> <$> <3>
WELL-ORDERED, persistent agitation is the soul
of healthy progress. — Toung India: Oct. 20, 1927.
Anger
ANGER is sort of madness and the noblest
causes have been -damaged by advocates affected with
temporary lunacy. — Toung India : Sept. 27, 1919.
<s> <$> <s>
'CONQUER anger,' says Lord Buddha, 'by non-anger J
But what is that 'non-anger7 ? It is a positive quality and
means the supreme virtue of charity or love. You must be
roused of this supreme virtue which must express itself in
your going to the angry man, ascertaining from him the
cause of his anger^, Baking amends if you have given any
cause for offence and then bringing home to him the error of
his vay and convincing him that it is wrong to be provoked.
ANGER 21
This consciousness of the quality of the soul, and deliberate
exercise of it elevate not only the man but the surrounding
atmosphere. Of course only he who has that love will
exercise it. This love can certainly be cultivated by inces-
sant striving. — Young India : June 12, 1928.
<$><$> <$>
I DO sometimes become extremely angry with myself
but I also pray to be delivered from that devil and , G3d has
given me power to suppress my anger.
—Young India : Nov. 12, 1931.
<$> <S> <3>
(£. You have the reputation of never being angry. Is that true ?
A. It is not that I do not get angry. I do not give
vent to anger. I cultivate the quality of patience as anger-
lessness, and generally speaking succeed. But I only control
my anger when it comes. How I find it possible to control
it would be a useless question, for it is a habit that everyone
must cultivate and must succeed in forming by constant
practice. — Harijan: May 1, 1935.
<£> <S> <$>
I KNOW to banish anger altogether from one's breast
is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure,
personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace.
—Harijan : Nov. 19, 1938.
<$> <$> <$>
HE who trifles with truth cuts at the root of ahirnsa.
He who is angry is guilty of ahimsa.
—Young India : Oct. 21, 1926.
<s> <$> <$>
ANGER and intolerance are the twin enemies of
correct understanding, — Harijan : June 7, 1942.
Anarchy
THOUGH anarchy is every time better
than slavery it is a state which I would not only hive
2£ TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
no hand in consciously bringing into being but which I am
by nature unfitted to bring about.
—Young India : Aug. 27, 1925.
3> <$> <$>
Anglo-Indians
THOUGH you have got Indian.
blood of which you need be proud — you need not be
ashamed of that — I know when you receive a reminder
of it you are pained.
—Toting India : April 6, 1925.
IF you cast in your lot with the masses of India from
which you have sprung there is nothing but hope for you,
me and even for Government to whom you think you are
bound to be loyal.
You can become a bridge so that all Indians and all
Englishmen may cross to and fro without either feeling
injured or hurt or feeling any degree of inconvenience.
But if you want to aspire after the heights of Simla, wel
those heights are unattainable and therefore poverty must
be your lot, and also the lot of India. An important
community like the"* Anglo-Indians, brave, resourceful,
you are going to perdition simply because you would
not see the plain truth, but persist in an impossible attempt.
In this process you are cutting yourselves away from the
masses. Thus you have been ostracised by Indians and
Europeans both. I would therefore ask you to shed this
aping habit, to think for the masses, merge yourselves into
the masses so that they can be lifted and we can show to the
world a beautiful specimen of Indian humanity in which all
races can blend and mingle, each retaining its special
admirable characteristic, each keeping every bit of what
is best in it. That is your privilege, if you will exercise it.
—Young India : April 13, 1925.
ANIMALS 23
Animals
IF our sense of right and wrong had not
become blunt, we would recognise that animals had
rights, no less than men. This education of the heart is
the proper function of humanitarian leagues. I know that
the lower creation groans under the arrogant lordship of
man. He counts no cruelty too repulsive when he wants to
satisfy his appetite, whether lawful or unlawful.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi: April 13, 1915.
IF the beasts had intelligent speech at their com-
mand, they would state a case against man that would
stagger humanity. I can understand the shooting of wild
beasts which come to annoy us. But I have found no
cogent reasons advanced ior wasting treasures upon organ-
ising parties for satisfying man's thirst for blood.
—Young India : Jan. 13, 1920.
<$><$> <$>
I DO believe that all God's creatures have the right
to live as much as we have. Instead of prescribing the
killing of the so-called injurious fellow-creatures of ours as a
duty, if men of knowledge had devoted their gift to discover-
ing ways of dealing with them otherwise than by killing
them, we would be living in a world befitting our status as
men — animals endowed with reason and the power of
choojsing between good and evil, right and wrong, violence
and non-violence, truth and untruth. I prefer to be called a
coward or a fool or wrose, to denying for the sake of being
considered a wise man what I believe to be a fundamental
truth of life. Marvellous as the progress of physical sciences
undoubtedly is, it only humbles us and enables us to know
that we know hardly anything of the mysteries of Nature.
In the spiritual realm, we make little or no progress. The
physical has over-whelmed the spiritual in us. We hardly
like to own the latter's existence. And yet the question of
killing and non-killing, of man's relation to his human fellow-
24 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
creatures, belongs to the spiritual realm. Its proper solution
will surely revolutionize our thought, speech and action.
Both my intellect and heart refuse to believe that the so-
called noxious life has been created for destruction by man.
God is good and wise. A good and wise God cannot be so
bad and so unwise as to create to no purpose. It is more
conducive to reason to own our ignorance and assume fhat
every form of life has a useful purpose which we must
patiently strive to discover. 1 verily believe that man's
habit of killing man on the slightest pretext has darkened
his reason and he gives himself liberties with other life which
he would shudder to take if he really believed that God was
a God of Love and Mercy. Anyway though for fear of
death I may kill tigers, snakes, fleas, mosquitoes and the
like, I ever pray for illumination that will shed all fear of
death and thus refusing to take life know the better way for
" Taught bv the Power that pities me
I learn to pity them."
—Harijan : Jan. 9, 1937.
I AM not opposed to the progress of science as such
On the contrary the scientific spirit of the West commands
my admiration and if that admiration is qualified, it is
because the scientist of - the West takes no note of God's
lower creation. I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. I
detest the unpardonable slaughter of innocent life in the
name of science and humanity so-called, and all the
scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as
of no consequence. If the circulation of blood theory could
not have been discovered without vivisection, the human
kind could well have done without it. And I see the day
clearly drawing when the honest scientist of the West, will
put limitations upon the present methods of pursuing know-
ledge. Future measurements will take note not merely of
the human family but of all that lives and even as we are
slowly but surely discovering that it is an error to suppose
ANIMALS 25
that Hindus can thrive upon the degradation of a fifth of
themselves or that people of the West can rise or live upon
the exploitation and degradation of the eastern and
African nations, so shall we realise in the fullness of time,
that our dominion over the lower order of creation is not
for their slaughter, but for their benefit equally with ours.
For I am as certain that they are endowed with a soul as
that I am. —Young India : Dec. 17, 1925.
<$> <s> <s>
IT is an arrogant assumption to say that human
beings are lords and masters of the lower creation. On the
contrary, being endowed with greater things in life, they are
trustees of the lower animal kingdom.
— Young India : March 13, 1926.
Animal Sacrifices
I HAVE heard it argued that since
the stopping of animal sacrifices people have lost the warlike
spirit. There were animal sacrifices enough in Europe
before Christianity. Europe does not seem to have lost its
warlike spirit because of the stopping of degrading and
debasing animal sacrifices. I am no worshipper of warlike
spirit, but I know that warlike spirit is not to be cultivated
by the slaughter, in a terribly cruel manner, of helpless>
innocent, unresisting dumb fellow creatures.
—Young India : Nov. 21, 1929.
<$><$><$>
IT is defaming God to offer animal sacrifices in
temples. What God wants, if He can be said to want any*
thing, is the sacrifice made by a humble and contrite heart.
—Harijan : April 5, 1942*
Art
WHO can deny that much that passes for science and
art to-day destroys the soul instead of uplifting it and instead
of evoking the best in us panders to our basest passions ?
—Young India : Aug. 11, 1927.
26 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
FEW people who have devoted themselves to art are
known to have achieved unique blending of devotion to art
and pure and blameless life. We have somehow accustom-
ed overselves to the belief that art is independent of the
purity of private life. I can say with all the experience
at my command that nothing could be more untrue. As I
am nearing the end of my earthly life, I can say that purity
of life is the highest and truest art. The art of producing
good music from a cultivated voice can be achieved by
many, but the art of producing that music from the har-
mony of a pure life is achieved very rarely.
—Harijan : Feb. 19, 1938.
<$> <$> <£
' HOW is it,9 asked Ramchandran, 'that many intelli-
gent and eminent men, who love and admire you, hold
that you consciously or unconsciously have ruled out of the
scheme of national regeneration all considerations of Art ?'
* I am sorry/ replied Gandhiji, < that in this matter I have
been generally misunderstood. There are two aspects of
things, — the outward and the inward. It is purely a mat-
ter of emphasis with me. The outward has no meaning*
except in so far as it helps the inward. All true Art is thus
the expression of the souL The outward forms have value
only in so far as they are the expression of the inner spirit
of man.'
Ramachandran hesitatingly suggested : c The great
aitists themselves have declared, that Art is the translation
of the urge and unrest in the soul of the artist into words,
colours, shapes, etc. * Yes ', said Gandhiji, < Art of that
nature has the greatest possible appeal for me. But I know
that many call themselves as artists, and are recognised as
such, and yet in their works there is absolutely no trace of
soul's upward urge and uncest'
* Have you any instance in mind ?' ' Yes,' said
Gandhiji, c take Oscar Wilde. I can speak of him, as I
was in England at the time he was being much discussed
and talked about.9
ART 27
< I have been told,' put in Ramachandran, * that
Oscar Wilde was one of the greatest literary artists of
modern times.'
c Yes, that is just my trouble. Wilde saw the highest
Art simply in outward forms and therefore succeeded in
beautifying immorality. All true Art must help the soul
to realise its inner self. In my own case, I find that I can
do entirely without external lorms in my soul's realisation.
I can claim, therefore, that there is truly sufficient Art in
my life, though you might not see what you call works oi
Art about me. My room may have blank walls ; and I
may even dispense with the roof, so that I may gaze
out upon the starry heavens overhead that stretch in an
unending expanse of beauty. What conscious Art of man
can give me the panoramic scenes that open out before me,
when I look up to the sky above with all its shining stars ?
This, however, does not mean that I refuse to accept the
value of productions of Art, generally accepted as such,
but only that I personally feel how inadequate these are
compared with the eternal symbols of beauty in Nature.
These productions of man's Art have their value only so
far as they help the soul onward towards self-realisation.'
' But the artists claim to see and to find Truth through
outward beauty,5 said Ramchandran. ' Is it possible to see
and find Truth in that way ? '
* I would reverse the order,' Gandhiji immediately
answered, ' I see and find beauty in Truth or through
Truth. All Truths, not merely true ideas, but truthful
faces, truthful pictures, or songs, are highly beautifuL
People generally fail to see Beauty in Truth, the ordinary
man runs away from and becomes blind to the beauty
in it. Whenever men begin to see Beauty in Truth, then
true Art will arise.9
Ramachandran then asked, c But cannot Beauty be
eparated from Truth, and Truth from Beauty ?'
28 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
c I should want to know exactly what is Beauty ',
Gandhiji replied. ' If it is what people generally un-
derstand by that word, then they are wide apart. Is a
woman with fair features necessarily beautiful ? ' ' Yes ',
replied Ramachandran without thinking.
c Even ' asked Bapu, continuing his question, * if she
may be of an ugly character ? *
Ramachandran hesitated. Then he said, c But her
face in that case cannot be beautiful. It will always be the
index of the soul within. The true artist with the genius
of perception will produce the right expression.'
' But here you are begging the whole question,'
Gandhiji replied, ' You now admit that mere outward
form may not make a thing beautiful. To a true artist
only that face is beautiful which, quite apart from its
exterior, shines with the Truth within the soul. There
is then, as I have said, no Beauty apart from Truth. On
the other hand, Truth may manifest itself in forms
which may not be outwardly beautiful at all. Socrates,
we are told, was the most truthful man of his ^time and
yet his features are said to have been the ugliest in Greece.
To my mind he was beautiful, because all his life was
a striving after Truth, and you may remember that
his outward form did'not prevent Phidias from appreciat-
ing the beauty of Truth in him, though as an artist he
was accustomed to see Beauty in outward forms also !'
4 But Bapuji,5 said Ramachandran eagerly, ' the most
beautiful things have often been created by men whose
own lives were not beautiful.'
' That ', said Gandhin, ' only means that Truth and
Untruth often co-exist ; good and evil are often iound
together. In an artist also not seldom the right perception
of things, and the wrong co-exist. Truly beautiful
creations come when right preception is at work. If these
moments are rare in life they are also rare in Art/
ART 29
All this set Ramachandran thinking hard. If only
truthful or good things can be beautiful, how can things
without a moral quality be beautiful ? ', he said, half to
himself and half aloud. Then he asked the question, ' Is
there truth, Bapuji, in things that are neither moral nor
immoral in themselves ? For instance, is there truth in a
sunset or a crescent moon that shines amid the stars at
night ? '
' Indeed ', replied Gandhiji, * these beauties are
truthful, inasmuch as they make me think of the Creator
at the back of them. How also could these be beautiful,
but for the Truth that is in the centre of creation ? When
I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon
my soul expands in worship of the Creator. I try to see
Him and His mercies in all these creations. But even the
sunsets and sunrises would be mere hindrances, if they did
not help me to think of Him. Anything which is a hind-
rance to the flight of the soul, is a delusion and a snare ;
even, like the body, which often does hinder you in the path
of salvation.'
6 I am grateful,' exclaimed Ramachandran, < to hear
your views on Art, and I understand and accept them.
Would it not be well for you to set them down for the
benefit of the younger generation in order to guide
them aright ? '
1 That ', replied Gandhiji with a smil'e, c I could
never dream of doing, for the simple reason that it would
be an impertinence on my part to hold forth on Art. I
am not an art student, though these are my fundamental
convictions. I do not speak or write about it, because I
am conscious of my own limitations. That consciousness
is my only strength. Whatever I might have been able tc
do in my life has proceeded more than anything else out oi
he realisation of my own limitations. My functions are
different from the artist's, and I should not go out of my
way to assume his position.'
30 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
• So, Bapuji, Truth is the main thing/ said Rama-
chandran, resuming the previous day's conversation,
4 Beauty and Truth are not separate aspects of the same
thing.'
' Truth ', repeated Gandhiji with greater emphasis, is
the first thing to be sought for, and Beauty and Goodness
will then be added unto you. Jesus was, to my mind, a
supreme artist, because he saw and expressed Truth ; and
so was Muhammad, the Koran being the most perfert
composition in all Arabic literature, — at any rate, that
is what scholars say. It is because both of them strove
first for Truth, that the grace of expression naturally
came in ; and yet neither Jesus nor Muhammad wrote
on Art. That is the Truth and Beauty I crave for, live for
and would die for.' —Young India : Nov. 13, 1924.
<S> <*> <3>
TRUE art takes note not merely of form but also
of what lies behind. There is an art that kills and an art
that gives life. True art must be evidence of happiness,
contentment and purity of its authors.
—Young India : Aug. 11, 1921.
B
Beauty
TRUE beauty consists in purity of heart.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 38,
Beggary
MY friendship for them must be a sorry
affair if I could be satisfied with a large part of humanity
being reduced to beggary. Little do my friends know that
my friendship for the paupers of India has made me hard
hearted enough to contemplate their utter starvation with
equanimity in preference to their utter reduction to beggary.
My Ahimsn would not tolerate the id^a of giving a free mea[
to a healthy person who had not worked for it in some
BEGGARY 31
honest way, and if I had the power I would stop every
Sadavrat where free meals are given. It has degraded the
nation and it has encouraged laziness, idleness, hypocrisy
and even crime. Such misplaced charity adds nothing to
the wealth of the country, whether material or spiritual, and
gives a false sense of meritoriousness to the donor. How
nice and wise it would be if the donor were to open institu-
tions where they would give meals under healthy, clean
surroundings to men and women who would work for them,
I personally think that the spinning wheel or any of the
processes that cotton has to go through will be an ideal
occupation. But if they will not have that, they may
choose any other work, only the rule should be, 'No labour,
no meal.' — Toung India : Aug. 13, 1925,
<S> <$> <$>
THE grinding poverty and starvation with which oui
country is afflicted is such that it drives more and more men
€very year into the ranks of the beggars, whose desperate
struggle for bread renders them insensible to all feelings of
decency and self-respect. And our philanthropists, instead
of providing work for them and insisting on their working foi
bread, give them alms. — My Experiments with Truth : Page 530
Bhangi
THE ideal bhangi of my conception would
be a Brahmin par-excellence, possibly even excel him.
It is possible to envisage-the existence of a bhangi without a
Brahmin. But without the former the latter could not be,
It is the bhangi who enables society to live. A bhangi does
ior society what a mother does for her baby. A mother
washes her baby of the dirt and insures his health. Even
so the bhangi protects and safeguards the health of that
entire community by maintaining sanitation for it. The
Brahmin's duty is to look after the sanitation of the soul,
the bhangi's that of the body of society. But there is a
difference in practice ; the Brahmin generally does not live
up to his duty, the bhangi does willy-nilly no doubt. Socict)
32 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
is sustained by several services. The bhangi constitutes the
foundation of all services.
And yet our woe begone Indian society has branded
the bhangi as a social pariah, set him down at the bottom
of the scale, held him fit only to receive kicks and abuse, a
creature who must subsist on the leavings of the caste-people
and dwell on the dung-heap. He is without a iriend, his
very name has become a term of reproach. This is shocking.
It is perhaps useless to seek the why and wherefore of it*
I certainly am unaware of the origin of the inhuman con-
duct, but I know this much that by looking down upon the
bhangi we — Hindus, Mussalmans, Christians and all — have
deserved the contempt of the whole world. Our villages
have to-day become seats of dirt and insanitation and the
villagers come to an early and untimely death. If only we
had given due recognition to the status of the bhangi as
equal to that of a Brahmin as in fact and justice he deserves,
our villages to-day no less than their inhabitants would have
looked a picture of cleanliness and order. We would have
to large extent been free from the ravages of a host of
diseases which directly spring from our uncleanliness and
lack of sanitary habits.
I, therefore, make hold to state without any manner
of hesitation of dqubt that not till the invidious distinction
between the Brahmin and the bhangi is removed, will our
society enjoy health, prosperity and peace, and be happy.
What qualities should such an honoured servant of
society exemplify in his person ? In my opinion an ideal
bhangi should have a thorough knowlegde of the principles on
sanitation. He should know how a right kind of latrine
is constructed, and the correct way of cleaning it. He
should know how to overcome and destroy the odour of
excreta and the various disinfectants to render them
innocuous. He should likewise know the process of con-
verting night-soil and urine into manure.
BHANGI 33
But that is not all. My ideal bhangi would know the
quality of night-soil and urine. He would keep a close
watch on these and give a timely warning to the individual
concerned. Thus, he will give a timely notic^e of the results
of his examination of the excreta. That presuppposes a
scientific knowledge of the requirements of his profession.
He would likewise be an authority on the subject of disposal
of night-soil in small villages as well as big cities and his
advice and guidance in the matter would be sought for
and freely given to society. It goes without saying that he
would have the usual learning necessary for reaching the
standard here laid down for his profession. Such ideal
bhangi while deriving his livelihood from his occupation,
would approach it only as a sacred duty. In other words he
would not dream of amassing wealth out of it. He would
consider himself responsible for the proper removal and
disposal of all the dirt and night-soil within the area which
he serves and regard the maintenance of healthy and sanitary
condition within the same as the summum bonum of his
existence. —Hanjan : Nov. 28, 1936.
THE bhangi has been the most despised of the Harijans
because his work has been regarded as the most degrading.
But we forget that our mothers did that very work whilst
we were babies innocent of all cleanliness. If that work
was ignoble the bhangVs would be ignoble but if it was
noble the bhangi's work is also noble. But our mothers
cleaned our filth because we were their babies, because they
could not do otherwise, because they were wrapped up in
us and adored their ownselves in us. Their work was
thus selfish. The volunteer bhangVs work is unselfish and
so nobler than that of mothers. And if I revere my mother
and therefore the whole of womankind, is it not clear that
I should adore the volunteer bhangi even more ?
^Harijan : Feb. 19, 1933-
34 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Birth and Death
BIRTH and death are not two different states, but
they are different aspects of the same state. There is as
little reason to deplore the one as there is to be pleased
over the other.
—Young India : Nov. 20, 1924.
Births and Rebirths
I AM a believer in previous births and rebirths. All
our relationships are the result of the sanskars we carry
From our previous births. God's laws are inscrutable and
are the subject of endless search. No one will fathom them.
—Harijan : Aug. 18, 1940.
Birth Control
THERE can be no two opinions about the necessity
of birth control. But the only method handed down from
ages past is self-control or Brahmacharya. It is an infallible
sovereign remedy doing good to those who practise it.
And medical men will earn the gratitude of mankind, if
instead of devising artificial means of bith control they
will find out the means of self-control The union is
meant not for pleasure but for bringirg forth progeny.
And union is a crime when the desire for progeny is
absent.
Artificial methods are like putting a premium upon
vice. They make man and woman reckless. And res-
dectability that is being given to the methods must hasten
the dissolution of the restraints that public opinion puts
upon one. Adoption of artificial methods must result in
imbecility and nervous prostration. The remedy will be
found to be worse than the disease. It is wrong and
immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's
acts. It is good for a person who over-eats to have an
ache and a fast. It is bad for him to indulge his appetite
and then escape the consequence by taking tonics or
other medicine. It is still worse for a person to indulge
BIRTH CONTROL 35
in his animal passions and escape the consequences of his
acts. Nature is relentless and will have full revenge for
any such violation of her laws. Moral results can only
be produced by moral restraints. All other restraints
defeat the very purpose for which they are intended.
The reasoning underlying the use of artificial methods is
that indulgence is a necessity of life. Nothing can be more
fallacious. Let those who are eager to see the births regulated
explore the lawful means devised by the ancients and
try to find out how they can be revived. An enormous
amount of spade-work lies in front of them. Early marri-
ages are a fruitful source of adding to the population-
The present mode of life has also a great deal to do
with the evil of unchecked procreation. If these causes
are investigated and dealt with, society will be morally
elevated. If they are ignored by impatient zealots and
if artificial methods become the order of the day, nothing
but moral degradation can be the result. A society that
has already become enervated through a variety of causes
will become still further enervated by the adoption of
artificial methods. Those men, therefore, who are light-
heartedly advocating artificial methods cannot do better
than study the subject afresh, stay their injurious activity
and popularise Brahmacharya both for the married and the
unmarried. That is the only noble and straight method*
of birth control.
— Young India : March 12. 1924
<$> <$> <$>
I AM afraid that advocates of birth control take it for
granted that indulgence in animal passion is a necessity ol
life and in itself a desirable thing. The solicitude shown foi
the fair sex is most pathetic. In my opinion it is an insuli
to the fair sex to put up her case in support of birtt
control by artificial methods. As it is, man has sufficiently
degraded -her for his lust, and artificial methods
36 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
no matter how well-meaning the advocates may be, will
still further degrade her. I know that there are modem
women who advocate these methods. But I have little
doubt that the vast majority of women will reject them
as inconsistent with their dignity. If man means well by
her, let him exercise control over himself. It is not she
who tempts. In reality man being the aggressor is the
real culprit and the tempter.
—Toung India : April 2, 1925*
^> <$> <^
'YOU seem to regard a beautiful function as some-
thing objectionable. Two animals are nearest to the divine
when they are going to create new life. There is some-
thing very beautiful in the act,' said the Swami.
'Here again you are labouring under a confusion/
said Gandhiji. 'The creation of a new life is nearest the
divine, I agree. All I want is that one should approach
that act in a divine way. That is to say, man and woman
must come together with no other desire than that of
creating a new life. But if they come together merely ta
have a fond embrace, they are nearest the devil Man
unfortunately forgets that he is nearest the divine, han-
kers after the brute instinct in himself and becomes less&
than the brute/
'But why must you cast aspersion on the brute?'
*I do not. The brute fulfills the law of his own nature.
The lion in his majesty is a noble creature and he has a
perfect right to eat me up, but I have none to develop paws«
and pounce upon yon. Then I lower myself and become
worse than the brute.7
—Harijan : Sept. 7, 1935.
<£ <£> <$>
BIRTH CONTROL to me is a dismal abyss. It amounts
to playing with unknown forces. Assuming that birth control
by artificial aids is justifiable under certain conditions, it
BIRTH CONTROL 37
seems to be utterly impracticable of application among the
millions. It seems to me to be easier to induce them
to practise seh-control than control by contraceptives. This
little globe of ours is not a toy of yesterday. It has
not suffered from the weight of over-population through
its age of countless millions. How can it be that the
truth has suddenly dawned up on some people that it is in
danger of perishing of shortage of food unless birth-rate
is checked through the use of contraceptives.
—Harijan : Sept. 14, 1935.
<s> <$> <$>
Once the idea that the only and grand function of
the sexual organ is generation, possesses man and woman,
union for any other purpose they will hold as criminal
waste of the vital fluid and consequent excitement caused
to man and woman as an equally criminal waste of
precious energy. It is now easy to understand why the
scientists of old have put such great value upon the vital
fluid and why they have insisted upon its strong trans-
mutation into the highest form of energy for the benefit
of society. They boldly declare that one who has acquired
a perfect control over his or her sexual energy strengthens
the whole being, physical, mental and spiritual and attains
powers unattainable by any other means.
—Harijan : Dec. 12, 1935.
THE greatest harm, however, done by the propaganda
lies in its rejection of the old ideal and substitution in its
place of one which, if carried out, must spell the moral and
physical extinction of the race. The horror with which
ancient literature has regarded the fruitless use of the vital
fluid was not a superstition born of ignorance. What shall
we say of a husbandman who will sow the finest seed in his
possession on stony ground or of that owner of a field who
will receive in his field rich with fine soil good seed under
38 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
conditions that will make it impossible for it to grow ? God
has blessed man with seed that has the highest potency and
woman with a field richer than the richest earth to be
found anywhere on this globe. Surely it is criminal folly
for man to allow his most precious possession to run to
waste. He must guard it with a care greater than he will
bestow upon the richest pearls in his possession. And so is
a woman guilty of criminal folly who will receive the seed
in her life-producing field with the deliberate intention of
letting it run to waste. Both he and she will be judged
guilty of misuse of the talents given to them and they will
be dispossessed of what they have been given. Sex urge is
a fine and noble thing. There is nothing to be ashamed of
in it. But it is meant only for the act of creation. Any
other use of it is a sin against God and humanity. Contra-
ceptives of a kind there were before and there will be here-
after, but the use of them was formerly regarded as sinful.
It was reserved for our generation to glorify vice by calling
it virtue. The greatest disservice protagonists of contracep-
tives are rendering to the youth of India is to fill their
ininds with what appears to me to be wrong ideology. Let
the young men and women of India who hold her destiny
in their hands beware of this false god and guard the
treasure with which God has blessed them and use it, if they
wish, for the only purpose for which it is intended.
—Harijan: March 28, 1936.
THE protagonists of contraceptives have almost set up
self-indulgence as their ideal. Self-indulgence obviously can
never be an ideal. There can be no limit to the practice
of an ideal. But unlimited self-indulgence, as everybody
would admit, can only result in certain destruction of the
individual or the race concerned. Hence self-control alone
can be our ideal, and it has been so regarded from the
earliest times.
—Harijan : Nov. 12, 1936.
BRAHMACHARYA 41
reaching that state in this very body. I have gained control
over the body. I can be master of myself during my wak-
ing hours. I have fairly succeeded in learning to control
my tongue. But I have yet to cover many stages in the
control of my thoughts. They do not come and go at my
bidding. My mind is thus constantly in a state of insurrec-
tion against itself.
In my waking moments, however, I can stop my
thoughts, irom colliding with one another. I may say that
in the waking state the mind is secure against the approach
of evil thoughts. But in the hours of sleep, control over the
thoughts is much less. When asleep, the mind would be
swayed by all sorts of thoughts, by unexpected dreams, and
by desire for things done and enjoyed by the flesh before.
Such thoughts or dreams when unclean are followed by the
usual consequences. Whilst such experiences are possible a
person cannot be said to be free from all passion. The
deviation is, however, diminishing, but has not yet ceased.
If I had complete mastery over my thoughts I should not
have suffered from the diseases of pleurisy, dysentery and
appendicitis that I did during the last ten years. I believe
that a healthy soul should inhabit a healthy body. To the
extent, therefore, that the soul grows into health and free*
dom from passion, to that extent the body also grows into
that state. This does not mean that a healthy body should
be necessarily strong in flesh. A brave soul often inhabits a
lean body. After a certain stage the flesh diminishes in a
proportion to the growth of the soul. A perfectly healthy body
may be verv fleshless. A muscular body is often heir to many
an ill. Even if it is apparently free from disease, it is not im*
mune from infections, contagions and the like. A perfectly
healthy body, on the contrary, is proof against all these.
Incorruptible blood has the inherent virtue of resisting all
infections.
Such an equipoise is indeed difficult of attainment*
40 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
LET me not be misunderstood. The Congress has a
perfect right to boycott British goods, if it so wishes. But
as the most representative assembly in India, it has no right
to expose itself to ridicule by using threats which it cannot
carry into effect.
— Young India : Jan. 5, 1928.
Brahmacharya
[The following is Mahadev DesaVs translation of an article I wrote
on this delicate subject in Nayajivan of 25th May 1924. I gladly publish
it in Toung India as I have before me many letters Jrom the other parts of
India on the same subject. The stray thoughts collected together in the
article might be of some help to those who are earnestly striving for a pure
life. My inquireres have been all Hindus and naturally the article is add"
ressed to them. The last paragraph is the msot important and operative
part. The names Allah or God carry with them the same potency. The
idea is to realise the presence of God in us. All sins are committed in
secrecy. The moment we realise that God witnesses even our thoughts we
shall be free. M.K.G.]
A FRIEND asks: 'What is Brahmacharaya ? Is it possible
to practise it to perfection ? If possible, do you do so.'
The full and proper meaning of Brahmacharya is search
of Brahman. Brahman pervades every being and can there-
fore be searched by diving into and realising the inner self-
The realiation is impossible without complete control of
the senses. Brahmacharaya thus means control in thought
word and action, of all the senses at all times and in all
places.
A man or a woman completely practising Brahmacharya
is absolutely free from passion. Such a one therefore lives
nigh unto God, is Godlike.
I have no doubt that it is possible to practise such
Brahmacharaya in thought, word and action to the fullest
extent. I am sorry to say that I have not yet reached that
perfect state of Brahmacharaya, though I am every moment of
my life striving to reach it. I have not given up hope of
BRAHMACHARYA 41
reaching that state in this very body. I have gained control
over the body. I can be master of myself during my wak-
ing hours. I have fairly succeeded in learning to control
my tongue. But I have yet to cover many stages in the
control of my thoughts. They do not come and go at my
bidding. My mind is thus constantly in a state of insurrec-
tion against itself.
In my waking moments, however, I can stop my
thoughts, irom colliding with one another. I may say that
in the waking state the mind is secure against the approach
of evil thoughts. But in the hours of sleep, control over the
thoughts is much less. When asleep, the mind would be
swayed by all sorts of thoughts, by unexpected dreams, and
by desire for things done and enjoyed by the flesh before.
Such thoughts or dreams when unclean are followed by the
usual consequences. Whilst such experiences are possible a
person cannot be said to be free from all passion. The
deviation is, however, diminishing, but has not yet ceased.
If I had complete mastery over my thoughts I should not
have suffered from the diseases of pleurisy, dysentery and
appendicitis that I did during the last ten years. I believe
that a healthy soul should inhabit a healthy body. To the
extent, therefore, that the soul grows into health and free-
dom from passion, to that extent the body also grows into
that state. This does not mean that a healthy body should
be necessarily strong in flesh. A brave soul often inhabits a
lean body. After a certain stage the flesh diminishes in a
proportion to the growth of the soul. A perfectly healthy body
may be verv fleshless. A muscular body is often heir to many
an ill. Even if it is apparently free from disease, it is not im-
mune from infections, contagions and the like. A perfectly
healthy body, on the contrary, is proof against all these.
Incorruptible blood has the inherent virtue of resisting all
infections.
Such an equipoise is indeed difficult of attainment.
42 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Otherwise I should have reached it, because my soul is
witness to the fact that I would spare no pains to attain to-
this perfect state. I^o outward obstacle can stand between
me and that state. But it is not easy for all, at least for me,
to efface past sanskaras. But the delay has not in the least
dismayed me. For I have a mental picture of that perfect
state. I have even dim glimpses of it. The progress achieved;
fills me with hope, rather than despair. But even if I depart
from this body before the hope is fulfilled, I would not think
that I had failed. For I believe in rebirth as much as I
believe in the existence of my present body. I therefore
know that even a little effort is not wasted.
I have said so much about myself for the simple reason
that my correspondents and others like them may have
patience and self-confidence. The soul is one in all. Its-
possibilities are therefore the same for every one. With
some, it has manifested itself, with others it has yet to do so.
Patient striving would carry everyone through and to the
same experience.
I have therefore discussed Brahmacharya in its wider
meaning. The ordinary accepted sense of Brahmacharya
is the control in thought, word and action of animal passion.
And it is quite proper thus to restrict its meaning. It has
been thought to be^very difficult to practise this Brahma-
charya. This control of the carnal desire has been so very
difficult, has become nearly impossible, because equal stress
has not been laid on the control of the palate. It is also the
experience of our physicians that a body enfeebled by disease
is always a favourite abode of carnal desire, and Brahma-
charya by an enfeebled race is difficult to practise
naturally.
I have talked above of a lean but healthy body. Let
no one understand me to have deprecated physical culture*
I have talked of Brahmacharya in its perfect aspect in my
very crude language. It is likely therefore to be misunder-
BRAHMACHARYA 43
stood. But one who would practise complete control of all
the senses must need welcome the waning of the flesh. With
the extinction of attachment to the flesh, comes the extinc-
tion of the desire to have muscular strength.
But the body of the true Brahmachari is bound to be
exceptionally fresh and .wiry. This Brahmacharya is some-
thing unearthly. He who is not swayed by carnal desire
even in his sleep is worthy of all adoration. The control of
every other sense shall be 'added unto' him.
—Young India : June 5, 1924r
<3> <S> <3>
I PLACE before the readers a few simple rules which
are based on the experience not only of myself, but of many
of my associates :
(1) Boys and girls should be brought up simply ancf
naturally in the full belief that they are and can remain
innocent.
(2) All should abstain from heating and stimulating
foods, condiments such as chillies, fatty, and concentrated
food such as fritters, sweets and fried substances.
(3) Husband and wife should occupy separate rooms
and avoid privacy.
(4) Both body and mind should be constantly and
healthily occupied.
(5) Early to bed and early to rise should be strictly
observed.
(6) All unclean literature should be avoided. The
antidote for unclean thoughts is clean thoughts.
(7) Theatres, cinemas, etc., which tend to stimulate
passion should be shunned.
(8) Nocturnal dreams need not cause any anxiety.
A cold bath every time fcr a fairly strong person is the
** TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
finest preventive in such cases. It is wrong to say that an
occasional indulgence is a safeguard against involuntary
dreams.
(9) Above all, one must not consider continence even
as between husband and wife to be so difficult as to be
practically impossible. On the contrary, self-restraint must
be considered to be the ordinary and natural practice of
life.
(10) A heartfelt prayer every day for purity makes
one progressively pure.
—Young India: Oct. 13, 1920.
I AM being inundated with letters on Brahmacharya
and rtieans to its attainment. Let me repeat in different
language what I have already said or written on previous
occasions. Brahmacharya is not mere mechanical celibacy, it
means complete control over all the senses and freedom
>rom lust in thought, word and deed. As such it is the
royal road to self-realisation or attainment of Brahman.
The ideal Brahmachari has not to struggle with sensual
desire or desire for procreation ; .. never troubles him at
all. The whole world will be to him one vast family, he
will centre all his ambition in relieving the misery of
mankind and the desire for procreation will be to him as
gall and wormwood. He who has realised the misery of
mankind in all its magnitude will never be stirred by passion.
He will instinctively know the fountain of strength in him,
and he will ever persevere to keep it undefined. His
humble strength will command respect of the world, and he
will wield an influence greater than that of the sceptred
monarch.
But I am told that this is an impossible ideal, that
I dp not take count of the natural attraction between man
and woman. I refuse to believe that the sensual affinity
BRAHMACHARYA 45
referred to here can be at all regarded as natural; in that case
the deluge would soon be over us. The natural affinity
between man and woman is the attraction between brother
and sister, mother and son or father and daughter. It is that
natural attraction that sustains the world. I should find
it impossible to live, much less carry on my work, if I did
not regard the whole of womankind as sisters, daughters or
mothers. If I looked at them with lustful eyes, it would be
the surest way to perdition.
Procreation is a natural phenomenon indeed, but
within specific limits. A transgression of those limits
imperils womankind, emasculates the race, induces
disease, puts a premium on vice, and makes the world
ungodly. A man in the grip of the sensual desire is a
man without moorings. If such a one were to guide
society, to flood it with his writings and men were to*
be swayed by them, where would society be ? And yet
we have the very thing happening to-day. Supposing
a moth whirling round a light were to record the
moments of its fleeting joy and we were to imitate it
regarding it as an exemplar, where would we be ? No, I
must declare with all the power I can command that
sensual attraction even between husband and wife is
unnatural. Marriage is meant to cleanse the hearts of
i he couple of sordid passions and take them nearer to
God. Lustless love between husband and wife is not
impossible. Man is not a brute. He has risen to a
higher state after countless births in brute creation.
He is born to stand, not to walk on all fours or crawl.
Bestiality is as far removed from manhood as matter
from spirit.
In conclusion I shall summarise the means to its
attainment.
The first step is the realisation of its necessity.
The next is gradual control of the senses. A Brahmachari
4£ TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
must needs control his palate. He must eat to live, and
not lor enjoyment. He must see only clean things and
close his eyes before anything unclean. It is thus a sign of
polite breeding to walk with one's eyes towards the ground
and not wandering about from object to object. A
Brahmachari will likewise hear to nothing obscene or unclean,
smell no strong, stimulating things. The smell of clean
earth is far sweeter than the fragrance of artificial scents
and essences. Let the aspirant to Brahmacharya also keep his
hands and feet engaged in all the waking hours in health-
ful activity. Let him also fast occasionally.
The third step is to have clean companions — clean
friends and clean books.
The last and not the least is prayer. Let him repeat
Ramanama with all his heart regularly every day, and ask
for divine grace.
None of these things are difficult for an average
man or woman. They are simplicity itself. But their very
simplicity is embarrassing. Where there is a will, the
way is simple enough ; men have not the will for it and
hence vainly grope. The fact that the world rests on the
observance, more or less, ^Brahmacharya or restraint means
that it is necessary and practicable,
—Young India : April 29, 1926.
<$><$><$>
WHEN your passions threaten to get the better of you
go down on your knees and cry out to God for help,
Ramanama is an infallible help.
—Young India : Jan. 23, 1927.
<s> <s> <$>
^ LET every aspirant after a pure life take from me that
an impure thought is often as powerful in undermining the
body as an impure act. Control over thought is a long
BRAHMACHARYA 47
painful and laborious process. But I am convinced that no
time, no labour and no pain is too much for the glorious
result to be reached. The purity of thought is possible only
with a faith in God bordering on definite experience.
—Young India : Aug. 25, 1927.
<$><$><$>
THE third among our observations is Brahmacharya. As a
matter of fact all observances arise from Truth, and are
there to subserve Truth. The man, who is wedded to Truth
and worships Truth alone, proves unfaithful to her, if he
applies his talents to anything else. How then can he
minister to the senses ? A man, whose activities are wholly
consecrated to the realisation cf Truth, which requires utter
selflessness, can have no time for the selfish purpose of
rearing children and running of a household. We have not
had a single example of any one realising Truth though self-
indulgence.
Again, if we look at it from the standpoint of Ahimsa
(Non-violence) we find that the fulfilment of Ahimsa is
impossible without purity. Ahimsa means Universal Love,
If a man gives his love to one woman, or a woman to one
man, what is there left for all the world besides ? It simply
means : c We two first, and the devil take all the rest of
them.' As a faithful wife must be prepared to sacrifice her
all for the sake of her husband, and a faithful husband for
the sake of his wife, it is clear that such persons cannot rise
to the height of Universal Love, or look upon all mankind
as kith and kin. For they have created a boundary wall
round their love. The larger their family, the farther are
they from Universal Love. Hence one who would obey the
law of Ahimsa cannot marry, not to speak of gratification
outside the martial bond.
Then what about people who are already married ?
Would they never be able to realise Truth? Can they never
offer up their all at the altar of humanity ? There is a way
48 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
out for them. They can behave as if they were not married*
Those who have enjoyed this happy condition will be able
to bear me out. Many have to my knowledge successfully
tried the experiment. If the married couple can think of
each other as brother or sister, they are freed for universal
service. The very thought that all the women in the world
are one's sisters, mothers or daughters would at once ennoble
a man and snap all his chains. The husband and wife do-
not loose anything here, but only add to their resources and
even to their family. Their love becomes free from the
impurity of lust and so grows stronger. With the disappear-
ance of this impurity, they can serve each other better, and
the occasions for quarrel between them become fewer.
There is more room for quarrels, where the love is selfish
and bounded.
When once we have grasped these fundamental ideas,
a consideration of the physical benefits of chastity becomes a
matter of secondary importance. How foolish it is intention-
ally to dissipate vital energy in sensual enjoyment ? It is a
grave misuse to fritter away for physical gratification that
which is given to man and woman for the full development
of their bodily and mental powers. Such misuse is the root
cause of many a disease.
Brahmicharya is to be observed in thought, word and
deed. This applies to all observances. We are told in the
Gita and our experience corroborates the remark, that the
foolish man, who appears to control his body, but is nursing
evil thoughts in his mind, makes a vain effort. It is harmful
to suppress the body if the mind is at the same time allowed
to go astray. Where the mind wanders, the body must
follow sooner or later. It is necessary at this stage to
appreciate one distinction. It is one thing to allow the mind
to harbour impure thoughts. It is a different thing altoge-
ther if it strays among them in spite of ourselves. Victory'
will be ours in the end, if we non-co-operate with the mind
BRAHMACHARYA 49
in this evil process. We experience every moment of our
life that while the body is subject to our control, the mind is
not. Hence the body must be immediately taken in hand,
and then we must put forth a constant endeavour to bring
the mind under control. We can do nothing rn^re, nothing
less. If we give way to the mind, the body and the mind
will pull different ways, and we shall be false to ourselves.
Body and mind may be said to go together, so long; as we
continue to resist the approach of every evil thought.
The observance of Brahmacharyu has been believed to be
very difficult, almost impossible. Trying to fiad a reason
for this belief, we see that the term Brahmaiharya has been
understood in a narrow sense. Mere control of animal
passion has been thought to be tantamount to observing
tirahmacharya. I feel that this conception is incomplete
and wrong. Brakmachzyi is the control of all the organs of
sense. He who attempts to control only one organ, and
allows all the others free play, is bound to find his effort
futile. To hear suggestive stories with the ears, to see
suggestive sights with the eyes, to taste stimulating food with
the tongue, to touch exciting things with the hands, and
then at the same time to try to control the only remaining
organ is like putting one's hands in a fire, and then trying
to escape burns. He, therefore, who is resolved to control
the one must be likewise determined to control the rest. I
have always felt that harm has freen done by the narrow
definition of Brahmacharya. If we practise simultaneous self-
control in all directions, the attempt is scientific and easy of
success. Perhaps the palate is the chief sinner. Hence we
have assigned to its control a separate place among the
observances.
Let us remember the root meaning of Brahmackarya.
Brahmicharya means charya or course of conduct adapted to the
search of Brahman or Truth. From this etymological meaning
arises the special meaning, viz. control of all the senses. We
50 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
must forget the incomplete definition which restricts itself to
the sexual aspect only.
— Toung India : Sept, 3, 1931.
<$><$> <S>
AN innocent youth is a priceless possession not to be
squandered away for the sake of a momentary excitement,
miscalled pleasure.
—Harijan : Sept. 21, 1935.
<$><$><$>
IF the mind hankered after satisfaction of the flesh and
the body resisted, there must be tremendous waste of vital
energy leaving the body thoroughly exhausted.
But self-restraint never accrues to the faint-hearted. It is
the beautiful fruit of watchfulness and ccaselness effort in the
form of prayer and fasting. The prayer is not vain repetition
nor fasting mere starvation of the body. Prayer has to come
from the heart which knows God by faith, and fasting is
abstinence from evil or injurious thought, activity or food.
Stai vation of the body when the mind thinks of a multiplicity
of dishes is worse than useless.
— Harijan : April 10, 1937.
<3> <$> <S>
CONTROL over the organ of generation is impossible
without proper control-over all the senses. 1 hey are all
inter-dependent. Mind on the lower plane is included in the
senses. Without control over the mind mere physical con-
trol, even if it can be attained for a time, is of little or no
use.
—Harijan : June 13, 1936.
<*><$><$>
MY darkest hour was when I was in Bombay, a few
months ago. It was the hour of my temptation. Whilst I
was asleep I suddenly felt as though I wanted to see a
woman* Well a man who had tried to rise superior to
BRAHMACHARYA 51
the sex-instinct for nearly 40 years was bound to be intensely
pained when he had this frightful experience. I ultimately
conquered the feeling, but I was face to face with the
blackest moment of my life and if I had succumbed to it,
it would have meant my absolute undoing. I was stirred
to the depths because strength and peace come from a
life of continence. Many Christian friends are zealous of
the peace I possess. It comes from God who has blessed
with the strength to battle against temptation.
—Harijan : Dec, 26, 1936-
<£> <S> <$>
RESTRAINT never ruins one's health. What ruins
one's health is not restraint but outward suppression. A
really self-restrained person grows eveiy day from strength
to strength and from peace to more peace. The very first
step in self-restraint is the restraint of thoughts.
—Harijan : Oct. 28, 1937.
THERE should be a clear line between the life of a
Biakmachari and one who is not. The resemblance that there
is between the two is only apparent. The distinction
ought to be clear as daylight. Both use their eyesight, but
whereas the Brahwachari uses it to see the glories of God, the
other uses it to see the frivolity around him. Both use
their e *rs, but whereas the one hears nothing but praises of
God, the other feasts his ears upon ribaldry. Both often
keep late hours, but whereas one devotes them to prayer,
the other fritters them away in wild and wasteful mirth.
Both feed the inner man, but the one only to keep the
temple of God in good repair, while the other gorges him-
self and makes the sacred vessel a stinking gutter. Thus
both live as the poles apart, and the distance between them
will grow and not diminish with the passage of time.
—My Experiments With Truth : Page 259.
52 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Bravery
THE brave meet death with a smile on their lips, but
they are circumspect all the same.
—Toung India : Oct. 13, 1921.
Bravery is not a quality of the body, it is of the soul.. I
have seen cowards encased in tough muscle, and rare
courage in the frailest body. I have seen big bulky and
muscular Zulus bowing before an English lad and turning
tail if they saw a loaded revolver pointed at them. I
have seen Emily Hobhouse with a paralytic body
exhibiting courage of the highest order. She was the one
noble woman who kept up the drooping spirits of brave
Boer generals and equally brave Boer women. The
weakest of us physically must be taught the art of facing
dangers and giving a good account of ourselves.
—Toung India : Oct. 17, 1925.
STRENGTH of numbers is the delight of the timid.
The valiant of spirit glory in fighting alone.
And the valour* of the spirit cannot be achieved
without Sacrifice, Determination, Faith and Humility.
—Toung India : June 17, 1926.
<S> <$> <3>
A WARRIOR loves to die, not on a sick-bed, but on
the battle-field.
—Young India : Dec. 30, 1926.
I DO not want any cowardice in our midst. The
heroism of ahimsa cannot be developed from cowardice.
BREAD-LABOUR 53
Bravery is essential to both himsa and ahimsa. In fact
it is even more essential in the latter for ahimsa is nothing
if it is not the acme of bravery.
—Toting India : Jan. 30, 1929*
<$> <£ <$>
A BRAVE man always gives credit to the other party
for its bona fides t
— Young India : Mar. 19, 1931
<s> <$> <s>
THERE is no bravery greater than a resolute refusal to
bend the knee to an earthly power, no matter how great
and without bitterness of spirit and in the fulness of
faith that the spirit alone lives, nothing else does.
—Harijan : Oct. 15, 1938.
<$><*><$>
Bread-Labour
"WHAT is your view on what Tolstoy calls * Bread-
labour ?' Do you really earn your living by your bodily
labour ?"
Strictly speaking bread-labour is not a word of
Tolstoy's coining. He took it from another Russian
writer Bbndarif, and it means that everyone is expected
to perform sufficient body-labour in order to entitle him
to it. It is not therefore necessary to earn one's living
by bread-labour, taking the word in its broader
sense. But everyone must perform some useful body-labour.
For me at the present moment spinning is the
only body-labour I give. It is a mere symbol. I do not
give enough body-labour. That is also one of the reasons
why I consider myself as living upon charity. But I also
54 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
believe that such men will have to be found in every
nation who will give themselves body, soul and mind to
it and for their sustenance throw themselves on the
mercy of their fellow men, that is, on God.
—Toung India : Nov. 5, 1925,
<$><$><$>
THERE seems to be some confusion about the principle
of bread-labour. It is never opposed to social service.
Intelligent bread-labour is any day ihe highest form of
social service. For what can be better than that a man
should by his personal labour add to the useful wealth of
the country ? ' Being ' is ' doing. '
The adjective c intelligent ' has been prefixed to
1 labour ' in order to show that labour to be social
service must have that definite purpose behind it.
Otherwise every labourer can be said to render social
service. He does in a way, but what is meant here is
something much more than that. A person who labours
for the general good of all serves society and is worthy
of his hire. Therefore, such bread-labour is not different
from social service. What the vast mass of mankind
does for self or at best for family, a social servant does
for general good.
— Harijan : June 1, 1935.
<$> <$> <$>
Brahma created His people with the duty of sacrifice
laid upon them and said, ' By this do you flourish. Let it
be the fulfiller of all your desire.7../ He who eats without
performing this sacrifice eats stolen bread/ — thus says
the Gita. * Earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow/
says the Bible. Sacrifices may be of many kinds. One
of them may well be bread-labour. If all laboured for
their bread and no more, then there would be enough
food and enough leisure for all. Then there would be no
cry of over-population, no disease, and no such misery as
BREAD-LABOUR 55
we see around. Such labour will be the highest form of
sacrifice. Men will no doubt do many other things
either through their bodies or through their minds, but
all this will be labour of love, for the common good.
There will be then no rich and no poor, none high and
none low, no touchable and no untouchable.
This may be an unattainable ideal. But we need
not, therefore, cease to strive for it. Even if without
fulfilling the whole law of sacrifice, that is, the law of
our being, we performed physical labour enough for our
daily bread, we should go a long way towards the ideal.
If we did so, our wants would be minimised, our food
would be simple. We should then eat to live, not live to
eat. Let anyone who doubts the accuracy of this proposi-
tion try to sweat for his bread, he will derive the greatest
relish from the productions of his labour, improve his health
and discover that many things he took were superfluities.
May not men earn their bread by intellectual labour ?
No. The needs of the body must be supplied by the body.
< Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's/ perhaps app-
]ies here well.
Mere mental, that is, intellectual labour is for the soul
and is its own satisfaction. It should never demand pay-
ment. In the ideal state, doctors, lawyers and the like will
work solely for the benefit of society, not for self. Obedi-
ence to the law of bread-labour will bring about a silent
revolution in the structure of society. Man's triumph will
consist in substituting the strugle for existence by the
struggle for mutual service. Thela*v of the brute will be
replaced by the law of man.
Return to the villages means a definite voluntary re-
cognition flf the duty of bread-labour and all it connotes.
But says the critic, * Millions of India's childern are to-day
living in the villages and yet they are living a life of semi-
56 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
starvation.' This, alas, is but too true. Fortunately we
know that theirs is not voluntary obedience. They would
perhaps shirk body-labour if they could, and even rush to
the nearest city if they could be accommodated in it. Com-
pulsory obedience to a master is a state of slavery, willing
obedience to one's father is the glory of somhip. Similarly
compulsory obedience to the law of bread-labour breeds
poverty, disease and discontent. It is a state of slavery.
Willing obedience to it must bring contentment and health.
And it is health which is real wealth, not pieces of silver and
gold. The Village Industries Association is an experiment
in willing bread-labour.
—Harijan : June 29, 1935
SOME of the simplest things that Gandhiji has been
saying and writing seem to puzzle and perplex people v\ho
ask him to explain what he could possibly have meant.
One of these is Gandhiji's insistence on bread-labour. It is
the simplest of propositions to understand that if everyone
earned his bread by the sv\eat of his brow there would be na
exploitation and no over work. But the puzzle to some
is that most people do not do so. The lawyer who earns his
thousands a month and guineas an hour does no body-
labour nor do many other professional people of his kind.
But sa)s Gandhiji to the puzzled one : c Why worry about
those who do not do body-labour? I have never imagined that
every man on earth will earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow, lut I have simply enunciated the golden rule. Are
jcu prepared to do it ? If you are, you need not be jealous
of the man \\ho is not prepared to do it or cannot do it. I
may not be able to earn what fruit and milk I eat, by mere
body-labour, but that means that I am to be pitied, the rule
is not affected. Only a few people can observe Brahmachaiya
but should they, therefore, be jealous of the millions w ho
BREAD-LABOUR 57
canno t? The latter may be pitied, rather than be
envied.' M. D,
—Harijan : Aug. 3, 1935,
<$> <$> <S>
THE law, that to live man must work, first came home
to me upon reading Tolstoy's writing on bread-labour. But
even before that I had begun to pay homage to it after
reading Ruskin's Unto This Last. The divine law, that man
must earn his bread by labouring with his own hands, was
fiist stressed by a Russian writer named T. N. Bondarif.
Tolstoy advertised it, and gave it wider publicity. In my
view, the same principle has been set forth in the third
chapter of the Gila, where we are told, that he who eats
without offering sacrifice eats stolen food. Sacrifice here
can only mean bread-labour.
Reason too leads us to an identical conclusion. How
can a man, who does not do body-labour, have the right to
eat ? ' In the sueat of thy brow shall thou eat thy bread/
says the Bible. A millionaire cannot carry on for long, and
will scon get tired of his life, if he rolls in his bed all day
long, and is even helped to his food. He therefore induces
hunger by exercise, and help himself to the food he eats.
If every one, whether rich and poor, has thus to take
exercise in some shape or form, why should it not assume the
form of productive, i.e. bread labour? No one asks the
cultivator to take breathing exercise or to work his muscles.
And more than nine tenths of humanity lives by tilling the
soil. How much happier, healthier and more peaceful
would the world become, if the remaining tenth followed the
example of the over — whelming majority, at least to the
extent of labouring enough for their food ! And many hard-
ships, connected with agriculture, would be easily redressed,
if such people took a hand in it. Again invidious distinctions
of rank would be abolished, when every one without ex-
ception acknowledged the obligation of bread-labour. It is
58 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
common to all the varnas. There is a world-wide conflict
between capital and labour, and the poor envy the rich.
If all worked for their bread, distinctions of rank would be
obliterated; the rich would still be there, but they would
deem themselves only trustees of their property, and would
use it mainly in the public interest.
Bread-labour is a veritable blessing to one who would
observe Non-violence, worship Truth, and make the obser-
vance of brahmacharya a natural act. This labour can truly
be related to agriculture alone. Bat at present at any rate,
everybody is not in a position to take to it. A person can
therefore spin or weave, or take up carpentry or smithery,
instead of tilling the soil, always regarding agriculture how-
ever to be the ideal. Every one must be his own scavenger.
Evacuation is as necessary as eating, and the best thing
would be for every one to dispose of his own waste. If this
is impossible, each family should see to its own scavenging.
I have felt for years, that there must be something radically
wrong, where scavenging has been made the concern of a
separate class in society. We have no historical record of
the man, who first assigned the lowest status to this essential
sanitary service. Whoever he was, he by no means did us a
good. We should from our very childhood, have the idea
impressed upon our minds that we are all scavengers, and
the easiest way of doing so is, for every one who has realised
this, to commence bread-labour as a scavenger. Scavenging,
thus intelligently taken up, will help one to a true apprecia-
tion of the equality of man.
— From Tervada Mandir : Page 50.
British Empire
NO empire intoxicated with red wine of power and
plunder of weaker races has yet lived long in this world, and
this British Empire, which is based upon organised exploita-
ti on of physically weaker races of the earth and upon a
BRITISH GOVERNMENT 59
continuous exhibition of brute force, cannot live if there is a
just God ruling the universe.
— Young India : Feb. 23, 1922.
WHEREVER you turn in India you encounter pitfalls.
To me every institution — be it the most philanthropic — run
by and in the name of the Empire in India has an unmistak-
able taint about it. That we run to and 1m* niDst or some
of them is no test of their goodness. It is a test of our
helplessness, short-sightedness or selfishness. We have not
the courage to sacrifice much in order to save ourselves
from criminal participation in sustaining an Empire which is
based on fraud and force, and whose chief, if not one aim is
to perpetuate the pDlicy of ever-growing exploitation of the
so-called weaker races of the earth.
—Young India : Dec. 13, 1928.
British Government
THE British Government is never and nowhere entirely
or even chiefly laid on force. It does make an honest
attempt to secure the good-will of the governed. But it does
not hesitate to adopt unscrupulous means to compel the
consent of the governed.
„ It has not gone beyond the c Honesty is the best policy *
id?a. It therefore bribes you into consenting to its will by
awarding titles, medals and ribbDns, b/ giving you employ-
ment, by its superior financial ability to open for its
employees avenues for enriching themselves and finally when
these fail, it resorts to force.
—Young India : June 30, 1920.
60 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I MUST dare say that the Mogul and the Marathai
Governments were better than the Biitish, in that the nation
as a whole was not so emasculate or so impoverished as it is
to-day. We were not the Pariahas of the Mogul or the
Maratha Empire. We are the Pariahas of the British
Empire.
—Toung India : June 22, 192U
WHAT severer condemnation can be pronounced upon
the British Government than that, for the commercial greed
of the British nation, it has emasculated a whole people ?
—Toung India : Nov. 17, 1920.
IT is not so much British guns that are responsible for
our subjection as our voluntary co-operation.
India : Feb. 9, 1921.
British Political Institutions
I QUESTION this claim to exclusive political sense that
the English arrogate to themselves. It is one of the greatest
superstitions of the age and the surprise to me is that even
the most level-headed among the English sometimes succumb
to it. There is much in British political institutions that I
admire. But I am no fetish worshipper. I do not believe
that they are the paragon of perfection or that they must be
adopted by India at any price. The English have not been
able to make a perfect success of them even in their own
country, much less to demonstrate that they are the best
model for the whole world to adopt. There are Englishmen
who admit that the Mother of Parliaments has not fulfilled
all the expectations that were entertained of her.
— Young India : Mar. 28, 1929.
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA 61
WHAT is excellent in British political institutions is there
for the whole world to see and copy* The British need not
come all the way to India as rulers to teach us political
wisdom. Whatever is worth adopting for India must come
to her through the process of assimilation, not forcible
superimposition. For instance, the Chinese possess the
cunning of the hand in painting which is all their own. It is
there for the whole world to admire and imitate. You would
not expect the Chinese to come and take possession of Eng-
}and to teach to her the Chinese fine arts !
— Young India : Mar. 28, 1929
British Rule in India
I LONG for freedom from the English yoke. I would pay
anv price for it. I would accept chaos in exchange for it.
For the English peace is the peace of the grave. Anything
would be better than this living death of a whole people.
This satantic rule has well nigh ruined this fair land materi-
ally, morally and spiritually.
—Toung India ; Jan. 12, 1928.
<$><$> <$>
IT is clear that the riches derived from the tillers of the
soil are not a voluntary contribution or a contribution com-
pelled for their benefit. The villagers are not affected by
the Pax Britannica so-called ; for they were untouched even
by the invasions of Timur or Nadirshah. They will remain
untouched by anarchy if it comes. But in order that this
enormous contribution may be exacted without resistance,
violence has been organised by the British Government on a
scale unknown, before and manipulated in so insidious a
manner as not to be easily seen or felt as such. British rule
has appeared to me to be a perfect personification of violence.
There are snakes that by their very appearance paralyse
their victims. They do not need to make any further de-
monstration of their power. Even so, I am sorry to have to
62 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
say, has the British power worked upon us in India. Fright-
fulness is not a word of Indian coinage. It was coined by a
British judge in order to bring vividly to light the meaning oi
Jalianwala Massacre. And we are promised a multiple, if we
dare lift up our heads and say, c We will have no more of
this loot that has bled India dry.'
Let us, too, understand how organised violence works
and is on that account far more haimful than sporadic,
thoughtless, sudden outburst. Ordered violence hides itself
often behind camouflage and hypocrisy as we see them work-
ing through the declarations of good intentions, commissions,
conferences and the like, or even through measures conceived
as tending to the public benefit but in reality to the benefit
of the wrongdoer. Greed and deceit are often the offspring
as they are equally often the parents of violence. Naked
violence repels like the naked skeleton shorn of flesh, blood
and the velvety skin. It cannot last long. But it persists
fairly long when it wears the mask of peace and progress
so-called.
Such awe-inspiring violence concealed under a ' golden
lid ' begets the violence of the weak which in its turn works
secretly and sometimes openly.
—Young India : Feb. 6, 1930.
ENGLAND will never make any advance so as to satisfy
India's aspriations till she is forced to it. British rule is no
philanthropic job, it is a terribly earnest business proposition
worked out from day to day with deadly precision. The
coating of a benevolence that is periodically given to it
merely prolongs the agony.
—Young India : Feb. 28, 1929.
MY personal faith is absolutely clear. I cannot inten-
tionally hurt anything that lives, much less fellow human
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA 63
beings, even though they may do the greatest wrong to me
and mine. Whilst, therefore, I hold the British rule to be a
curse, I do not intend harm to a single Englishman or to
any legitimate interest he may have in India.
I must not be misunderstood. Though I hold the British
rule in India to be a curse, I do not, therefore, consider
Englishmen, in general to be worse than any other people
on earth. I have the privilege of claiming many Englishmen
as dearest friends. Indeed, much that I have learnt of the
evil of British rule is due to the writings of frank and cour-
ageous Englishmen who have not hesitated to tell the un-
palatable truth about that rule.
And why do I regard the British rule as a curse ?
It has impoverished the dumb millions by a system of
progessive exploitation and by a ruinously expensive military
and civil administration which the country can never
afford.
It has reduced us politically to serfdom. It has sapped
the foundations of our culture. And, by the policy of ciuel
disarmament, it has degraded us spiritually. Lacking the
inward strength, we have been reduced, by all but universal
disarmament, to state bordering on cowardly helplessness.
—Young India : Mar, 12, 1930,
ALIEN rule is like a foreign matter in an organic body.
Remove the poison and the body will at once start recupe-
rating. We do not want the freedom of India, if it is to be
bought at the sacrifice of the lives of others — if it is to be
bought by spilling the blood of the rulers. But if any
sacrifice can be made by the nation, by ourselves, to win
that freedom, then you will find that we will not hesitate to
64 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
give a Ganges mil of blood to HDW in India in order to
vindicate ths freedom tint ha* b*ea so long delayed.
(From a speech to the Independent Labour Party , London.}
— Toung India : Oct. 15, 1930.
Q, Don't you think there is fear of the different
communities violently quarrelling among themselves when
the British withdraw from India ?
A. I have compared the British rule to a wedge and
no sooner the wedge is removed than the divided parts will
unite. But even if we continue to fight I should think it a
godsend. A man who broods on evil is as bad as a man
who does evil, if he is no worse, and so if we are prevented
from running at one another's throats simply became of the
superimposed force of alien rule, the sooner that force is re-
moved the better. We should fight harder for a time but
we should unite better ultimately.
—Young India : Oct. 22, 1931 .
Buddhism
YOU do not know, perhaps, that one of my sons, the
eldest boy, accused me of being a follower of Buddha,
and some of my Hindu countrymen also do not hesitate
to accuse me of speaking Buddhistic teachings under
the guise of Sanatana Hinduism. I sympathise with
my son's accusations and the accusations of my Hindu
friends. And sometimes I feel even proud of bein^
accused of being a follower of Buddha, and I have
no hesitation in declaring in the presence of this audience
that I owe a great deal to the inspiration that I have
derived from the life of the Enlightened One.
It is my deliberate opinion that the essential part
of the teachings of Budddha now forms an integral
part of Hinduism. It is impossible for Hindu India to-day
BUDDHISM 65
to retrace her steps and go behind the great reformation
that Gautama effected in Hinduism. By his immense
sacrifice, by his great renunciation and by the immaculate
purity of his life, he left an indelible impress upon Hinduism,
and Hinduism owes an internal debt of gratitude to that
great Teacher. And if you will also forgive me for
saying so and if you will also give me the permiss-
ion to say so, I would venture to tell you that what
Hinduism did not assimilate of what passes as Buddhism
to-day was not an essential part of Buddha's life and his
teachings.
It is my fixed opinion that Buddhism or rather the
teaching of Buddha found its full fruition in India, and it
could not be otherwise, for Gautama was himself a Hindu oi
Hindus. He was saturated with the best that was in
Hinduism, and he gave life to some of the teachings that were
buried in the Vcdas and which were overgrown with weeds,
His great Hindu spirit cut in its way through the forest of
words, meaningless words, which had overlaid the golden
truth that was in the Vedas. He made some of the words
in the Vtdas yield a meaning to which the men of his
generation were utter strangers, and he found in India the
most congenial soil. And wherever Buddha went, he was
followed by and surrounded not by non-Hindus but Hindus,
those who were themselves saturated with the Vtdic laws.
But Buddha's teaching like his heart was all-expanding and
all-embracing and so it has survived his own body and swept
across the face of the earth. And at the risk of being
called a follower of Buddha I claim this achievement as a
triumph of Hinduism. Buddha never rejected Hinduism,
but he broadened its base. He give it a new life and new
interpretation. But here comes the point where I shall
need your forgiveness and your generosity, and I want to
submit to you that the teaching of Buddha was not
assimilated in its fullness whether it was in Ceylon, or in
Burma, or in China or in Tibet.
66 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
You and those who call themselves Buddhists out-
side India have no doubt taken in a very large measure
the teaching of Buddha, but when I examine your life and
when I cross-question the friends from Ceylon, Burma,
China or Tibet, I feel confounded to find so many inconsis-
tencies between what I have come to understand as the
central fact of Buddha's life and your own practice, and if I
am not tiring you out, I would like hurriedly to run through
three prominent points that just now occurred to me. The
first is the belief in an all-prevading Providence called God.
I have heard it contended times without number and I have
read in books also claiming to express the spirit of Buddhism
that Buddha did not believe in God. In my humble
opinion such a belief contradicts the very central fact of
Buddha's teaching. In my humble opinion the confusion
has arisen over his rejection and just rejection of all the base
things that passed in his generation under the name of God.
He undoubtedly rejected the notion that a being called
God was actuated by malice, could repent of His actions,
and like the kings of the earth could possibly be open to
temptations and bribes and could possibly have favourites.
His whole soul rose in mighty indignation against the belief
that a being called God required for His satisfaction the
living blood of animals in order that He might be pleased —
animals who were His own creation. He, therefore, rein-
stated God in the right place and dethroned the usurper
who for the time being seemed to occupy that White Throne.
He emphasised and re-declared the eternal and unalterable
existence of the moral government of this universe. He
unhestitatingly said that the Law was God Himself.
God's laws are eternal and unalterable and not separate
from God Himself. It is an indispensable condition of His
very perfection. And hence the great confusion that
Buddha disbelieved in God and simply believed in the moral
law, and because of this confusion about God Himself, arose
the confusion about the proper understanding of the great
word Nirvana. Nirvana is undoubtedly not utter extinctiuo.
BUDDHISM 67
So far as I have been able to understand the central fact of
Buddha's life, Nirvana is utter extinction of all that is base
in us, all that is corrupt and corruptible in us. Nirvana is not
like the black, dead peace of the grave but the living peace,
the living happiness of a soul which is conscious of itself, and
conscious of having found its own abode in the heart of the
Eternal.
The third point is the low estimation which the idea of
sanctity of all life came to be held in its travels outside India.
Great as Buddha's contribution to humanity was in resorting
God to His eternal place, in my humble opinion greatei
still was his contribution to humanity in his exacting regard
for all life, be it ever so low. I am aware that his own
India did not rise to the height thit he would fain have
seen India occupy. But the teaching of Buddha, when it
became Buddhism and travelled outside, came to mean that
the sacredness of animal life had not the sense that it hud
with an ordinary man. I am not aware of the exact
practice and bslief of Ceylonese Buddhism in this matter,
but I am aware what shape it has taken in Burma and
China. In Burma especially the Burmese Buddhists will not
kill a single animal, but do not mind others killing the
animals for them and dishing the carcases for them for their
food. Now, if there was any teacher in the world who
insisted upon the inexorable law of cause and effect it was
inevitably Gautama, and yet my friends, the Buddhists
outside India, would, if they could, avoid the effects of their
own acts.
—Toung India : JVov. 24, 1927.
Bureaucracy
IT is contrary to my nature to believe in the depravity
of human feelings. But there is so much evidence about
me of the depravity of the bureaucratic mind that it will
stop at anything to gain its end.
—Toung India : Oct. 20, 1921 .
68 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Business
COMMERCIAL bodies can never be democratic.
—Toung India : Oct. 1, 1925
IT is wrong to think that business is incompatible with
ethics. I know that it is perfectly possible to carry one's
business profitably and yet honestly and truthfully. The
plea that business and ethics never agree is advanced only
by those who are actuated by nothing higher than narrow
self-interest. He who will serve his own ends will do so
by all kinds of questionable means, but he who will earn
to serve the community will never sacrifice truth or honesty.
You must bear in mind that you have the right to earn
as much as you like but not the right to spend
as much as you like. Anything that remains after
the needs of a decent living are satisfied belongs to
the community.
— Harijan ; May 4, 193\
<$><*><$>
I DO not hold dishonest practices in business
to be warranted or excusable. The principle of uncondi-
tional honesty is as binding in this as in any other field
of life, and it is up to a business man never to compromise
his principle no matter what it may cost him. In the
end, of course, honesty pays, though that can hardly be a
consideration for observing it. One has a perfect right to
fix and regulate the scale of prices that he shall charge
from a particular set of customers, but it must be done
according to a clear fixed principle and not out of mere
opportunism or immoral expediency. There should be
in it no room for fraud, sharp practice or finesse, to
bamboozle the simple, unsuspecting customer.
—Harijan : Mar. 13, 1937-
CALAMITY 69
c
Calamity
BY nature I am so framed that every calamity moves
me irrespective of the people whom it may overtake.
-Harljan:S ept. 22, 1910.
Capital & Labour
IN the struggle between capital and labour, it miy be
generally said that more often than not the capitalists are in
the wrong box. But when labour comes fully to realise its
strength, I know it can become more tyrannical than capital.
The millowners will have to work on the ternfs dictated
by labour, if the latter could command intelligence of the
former. It is clear, however, that labour will never attain
to that intelligence. If it does, labour will cease to be
labour and become itself the master. The capitalists do not
fight on the strength of money alone. They do possess
intelligence and tact.
Swaraj as conceived by me does not mean the end
of king-ship. Nor does it mean the end of capital. Accumu-
lated capital means ruling power. I am for the establishment
of right relations between capital and labour, etc. I do not
wish for the supremacy of the one over the other. I do not
think there is any natural antagonism between them. The
rich and the poor will always be with us. But their mutual
relations will be subject to constant change. France is a
republic, but there are all classes of men in France.
—Young India : Jan. 8, 1925.
<s> <s> <s>
I HAVE always said that my ideal is that capital and
labour should supplement and help each other. They
should be a great family living in unity and harmopy,
capital not only looking to the material welfare of the labour-
ers but their moral welfare also, — capitalists being trustees
for the welfare of the labouring classes under them.
India : Aug. 20, 1928.
70 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
TRUE social economics will teach us that the working
man, the clerk and the employer are parts of the same indi-
visible organism. None is smaller or greater than the other.
Their interests should be not conflicting but identical and
interdependent.
— Toting India : May 3, 1928
^ ^ 3>
ALL capitalists, according to some, are born ogres. But
there need be no such inherent antipathy between the two.
It is an erroneous notion. If the capitalists are apt to be
proud of their wealth, the working men are apt to be pioud
of their numerical strength. We are liable to belayed
and intoxicated by the same passion as the capitalists, rnd it
must be our prayer that both may be free from that passion.
— Tourtg India : Mar. 26, 193 1 .
<$> <3> <$>
NO dcubt capital is lifeless, but not capitalists, who are
amenable to conversion.
—Harijan : May 8, 1937.
Caste and Varna
' IN your Hinduism do you basically include the caste
system ?'
4 I do not. Hinduism does not believe in caste. I would
obliterate it at once. -But I believe in varnadharma which is the
law of life. I believe that some people are born to teach and
some to defend and some to engage in trade and agriculture
and some to do manual labour, so much so that these occu-
pations become hereditary. The law of varna is nothing but
the law of conservation of energy. Why should my son not
be a scavenger if I am one ?'
'' Indeed ? Do you go so far ?'
* 1 do, because I hold a scavenger's profession in no way
inferior to a clergyman's/
CASTE AND VARNA 7i
c I grant that, but should Lincoln have been a wood-
chopper rather than President of the U.S.A.?'
* But why should not a wood-chopper be a President of
the United States ? Gladstone used to chop wood.'
' But he did not accept it as his calling.5
' He would not have been worse off if he had done so.
What I mean is, one born a scavenger must earn his liveli-
hood by being a scavenger, and then do whatever else he
likes. For a scavenger is as worthy of his hire as a lawyer or
your Piesident. That, according tome, is Hinduism. There
is no better communism on earth, and I have illustrated it
with one verse from the Upanishads which means : God
pervades all — animate and inanimate. Therefore renounce
all and dedicate it to God and then live. The right of living
is thus derived from renunciation. It does not say, 'When
all do their part of the work I too will do it.5 It says, c Don5t
bother about others, do your job first and leave the rest to
HIM.' Vainadharma acts even as the law of gravitation. 1
cannot cancel it or its working by trying to jump higher
and higher day by day till gravitation ceases to work. That
effort will be vain. So is the effort to jump over one another.
The law of varna is the antithesis of competition which kills.7
(Conversation between Gandhiji and an American clergyman)
—Harijan : Mar. G, 1937
<$><$><$>
AS for caste, I have frequently said that I do not believe
in caste in the modern sense. It is an excrescence and a
handicap on progress. Nor, do I believe in inequalities
between human beings. We are all absolutely equal. But
equality is of souls and not bodies. Hence, it is a mental
state. We need to think of, and to assert, equality because
we see great inequalities in the physical world. We have
to realise equality in the midst of this apparent external
inequality. Assumption of superiority by any person over
any other is a sin against God and man. Thus caste, in so
ar as it connotes distinctions in status, is an evil.
72 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I do, however, believe in varna which is based on here-
ditary occupations. Varnas are four to mark four universal
occupations, — imparting knowledge, defending the defence-
less carrying on agriculture and commerce, and performing
service through physical labour. These occupations are
common to all mankind, but Hinduism having recognised
them as the law of our being, has made use of it in regulating
social relations and conduct. Gravitation affects us all,
whether one knows its existence or not. But scientists who
knew the law have made it yield results that have startled
the world. Even so, has Hinduism startled the world by its
discovery and application of the law of varna. When Hindus
were seized with inertia, abuse of varna resulted in innumer-
able castes, with unnecessary and harmful restrictions as to
intermarriage and inter-dining. The varna has nothing to
do with these restrictions. People of different varnas may
inter-marry and inter-dine. These restrictions may be neces-
sary in the interest of chastity andhygiene. Bat a Brahmin
who marries a Shudra girl, or vice vers-i, commits no offence
against the law of varna. — Toung India : Jan. 4, 1931.
Cause
NO cause can survive internal difficulties if they are
indefinitely multiplied. Yet there can be no surrender in the
matter of principles for the avoidance of splits. You cannot
promote a cause when you are undermining it by surren-
dering its vital parft. — Toung India : Nov. 24, 1920.
<$><$> <3>
A CAUSE has the best of success, when it is examined
and followed on its own merits. Measures must always in a
progressive society be held superior to men who are after all
imperfect instruments working for their fulfilment.
— Toung India : July 13, 1921.
Ceremonies
I do not believe in ceremonies except to the extent that
they awaken in us a sense of duty.
—Toung India : June 12, 1928.
CHAOS vs MISRULE 73
Chaos vs Misrule
CHAOS means no rule, no order. Rule or order can
come, does come, out of no rule or no order, but never
directly out of misrule or disorder masquerading under
the sacred name of rule or order.
If I were compelled to choose between this rule and
violence I would give my vote for the latter though I will
not, I could not, assist a fight based on violence. It would
be a matter for me of Hobson's choice. The seeming
quiescence of to-day is a dangerous form of violence kept
under suppression by greater violence or rather readiness
for it. Is it not better than those, who, out of a cowardly
fear of death or dispossession, whilst harbouring violence
refrain from it, should do it and win freedom from bondage or
die gloriously in the attempt to vindicate their birthright ?
My own position and belief are clear and unequivocal.
I neither want the existing rule nor chaos. I want true
order established without having to go through the travail
of chaos. I want this disorder to be destroyed by non-
violence, i. e., I want to convert the evil-doers. My life
is dedicated to that task. And what I have written in
the previous paragraphs directly flows from my knowledge
of the working of non-violence which is the greatest force
known to mankind. My belief in its efficacy is unshakeable
so is my belief unshakeable in the power of India
to gain her freedom through non-violent means
and no other. But this power of hers cannot be evoked
by suppressing truth or facts, however ugly they may for
the moment appear to be. God forbid that India should
have to engage in a sanguinary duel before she learns the
lesson of non-violence in its fulness. But if that intermediate
stage, often found to be necessary, is to be her lot, it will
have to be faced as a stage inevitable in her march towards
freedom and certainly preferable to the existing order
which is only so-called, but which is like a whited sepul .
74 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
chre hiding undiluted violence underneath.
—Toung India : Mar. 1, 1928.-
<3> <$> <£
WE are so very much fear-stricken that a severance
of the British connection means to us violence and chaos.
Well, I want to make myself clear once more. Votary as I
am of non-violence, if I was given a choice between being
a helpless witness to chaos and perpetual slavery, I should
unhesitatingly say that I would far rather be witness
to chaos in India, I would far rather be witness to
chaos in India, I would far rather be witness to Hindus
and Musalmans doing one another to death than that T
should daily witness our gilded slavery. To my mind golden
shackles are far worse than iron ones, for one easily feels
the irksome and galling nature of the latter and is prone to
forget the former. If, therefore, India must be in chains,
I \vculd they were of iron rather than of gold or other
precious metals.
— tcung India : Jan. 16, 1920,
Character
THE foundation of Satyagraha as of nation building
is undoubtedly self-purification, self-dedication, selllessness.
Let each one ask oneself, 'How then can I purify myself in
terms of the nation1 ? Rectitude of private character is
surely the beginning of the structure. If my private character
is foul, I am like 'a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.'
If then I am not right inside, I must this very instant purge
myself and be a fit vessel for dedication. Government
cannot help me or interfere with me here. I must be the sole
author of my making or undoing.
— Toung India : April 7, 1927.
<3> <3> <$>
NO religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy
the test of reason will survive the coming reconstruction
of society in which the values will have changed and
CHARACTER 75
character not possession of wealth, title or birth will be
the test of merit. —Harijan : Mar. 8, 1942.
THOUGH the external may have its usey constituted as
I am, I have all my life thought of growth from within.
External appliances are perfectly useless if there is no internal
reaction. When a body is perfect within, it becomes imper-
vious to external adverse influences and is independent of
external help. Moreover when the internal organs are
sound they automatically attract external help. Hence the
•proverb God helps those who help themselves. If therefore
we would all work to bring about internal perfection we
need not take up any other activity at all. Sept. 4, 1924,
— Toung India :
<$><$><$>
AS a splendid palace deserted by its inmates looks like
a ruin, so does a man without character, all his material
belongings notwithstanding.
— Satyagraha in South Africa : P. 356*
3> <S> <$>
ALL our learning or recitation of the Vedas^ correct
knowledge of Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and what not, will avail
us nothing, if they do not enable us to cultivate absolute
purity of heart. The end of all knowledge must be building
up of character. —Toung India : Sept. 8, 1927
your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and
Wordsworth would be in vain, if at the same time you do-
not build your character, and attain mastery over your
thoughts and actions. When you have attained self-mastery
and learnt to control your passions, you will not utter notes
of despair. You cannot give your hearts and profess poverty
of action. To give one's heart is to give all. You must,
to start with, have hearts to give. And this you can do iC
you will cultivate them,
India : I < ]
76 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
BUT character cannot be built with mortar and stone,
It cannot be built by other hands than your own. The
Principal and the Professors cannot give you character from
the pages of books. Character building comes from their
very lives, and, really speaking, it must come from within
yourselves.
— Gandhiji in Ceylon : P. 85-
<$> 3> <S>
PURITY consists first of all in possessing a pure heart
but what there is in the heart really comes out also and
is shown in outward acts and outward behaviour. And a
boy who wants to keep his mouth pure, will never utter
a bad word. Of course, that is quite clear. But he neither
will put anything into his mouth that will cloud his intellect,
cloud his mind, and damage his friends also.
—Gandhiji in Ceylon : P. 95.
<3> <$> <3>
A CHIVALROUS boy would always keep his mind
pure, hu eyes strai^ut, and his haads unp>Ilutei. You do
not need to go to any school to learn these fundamental
maxims of life, and if you will have this triple character
with you, you will build on a solid foundation.
—Gandhiji in Cylon : P. 105.
<3> & <3>
A MAN of character will make himself worthy of any
position he is given.
—Young India : Sep. 9, 1920.
<£ <3> <$>
THERE are no two opinions about the fact that
intellect rather than riches will lead. It might equally be
admitted by the correspondent that the heart rather than
the intellect will eventully lead. Character, not brains, will
count at the crucial moment.
—Young India : Sep. 19, 1921.
CHARACTER 77
PURITY of character and salavation depend on purity
of heart.
— Toung India : Mar. 15, 1921.
<s> <s> <s>
PUT all your knowledge, learning and scholarship in
one scale and truth and purity in the other and the latter
will by far outweigh the other. The miasma of moral
impurity has to-day spread among our schoolgoing children
and like a hidden epidemic is working havoc among them.
I therefore appeal to you, boys and girls, to keep your minds
and bodies pure. All your scholarship, all your study of the
scriptures will be in vain if you fail to translate their
teachings into your daily life. I know that some of the
teachers too do not lead pure and clean lives. To them 1
say that even if they impart all the knowledge in the world
to their students but inculcate not truth and purity among
them, they will have betrayed them and instead oi
raising them set them on the downward road tn
perdition. Knowledge without character is a power
for evil only, as seen in the instances of so many 'talented
thieves' and 'gentlemen rascals7 in the world.
—Toung India : Feb. 21, 1929,
<$><$> <£>
CHARACTER alone will have effect on the masses,
Masses will not argue. They will simply want to know who
are the .men who go to them. If those men have credentials,
the masses will listen to them; if they have no credentials,
the masses will not listen.
— Toung India : Dec. 29, 1933,
Charkha
I PRESENT you with the SPINNING WHEEL
and suggest to you that on it depends India's economic
salvation. It is no sacrifice to learn a beautiful art and to
be able to clothe the naked at the same time.
—Toung India* Jan. 19, 1920,
78 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
WITHOUT a cottage industry the Indian peasant
is doomed. He cannot maintain himself from the
produce of the land. He needs a supplementary
industry. Spinning is the easiest, the cheapest and the best.
The Queens of Europe before Europe was caught in
Satan's trap, spun yarn and considered it a noble calling.
The very words, spinster and wife, prove the ancient dig-
nity of the art of spinning and weaving. 'When Adam
delved and Eve span, who was then a gentleman, also
reminds one of the same fact. Not on the clatter of arms
depends the revival of her prdsperty and true independence.
It depends mo^t largely upon reintroduction, in every
home of the music of the spinning wheel. It gives
-sweeter music and is more profitable than the execrable
harmonium, coucertina, and the accordion.
I know that there arc friends who laugh at this attempt to
revive this great art. They rernined me that, in these days of
mills, sewing-machines or typewriters, only a lunatic can
Jiope to succeed in reviving the rusticated spinning wheel.
These friends forget that the needle has not yet given
place to the sewing machine nor has the hand lost its cunn-
ing in spite of the typewriter. There is not the slightest
reason why the spinning wheel may not co-exist with
the spinning mill even as the domestic kitchen co-exists
with the hotels. Indeed typewriters and sewing machines
may go, but the needle and the reed pen will survive.
The mills may suffer destruction. The spinning wheel is a
national necessity. I would ask sceptics to go to the many
ipoor homes where the spinning wheel is again supplement-
ing their slender resources and ask the inmates whether
the spinning wheel has not brought joy to their homes.
—Toung India : Aug. 18, 1920.
<S> <$> <3>
AGRICUTURE and hand-spinning are two lungs of
the national body. They must be protected against con-
sumption at afly.cosL
—Toung India .'July 13. 1921-.
CHARKHA 79
NO one has ever said that spinning can be a means
of livelihood except to the very poor. It is intended to
restore spinning to its ancient position as a universal
industry auxiliary to agriculture and resorted to by
agriculturists during those months of the year when
agricultural operations are suspended as a matter of
course and cultivators have otherwise little to do. For
the present all people alike are invited to devote their
leisnre to spinning with a view to bringing about a
complete boycott of foreign cloth in course of the present
year. No one asks an able-bodied labourer who can
earn twelve annas a day to give up his work in order
to take to spinning. However, people are so poor in
many parts of the country that a daily wage of even
three annas a day would be a veritable boon to them
and enable them to tide over bad seasons. The spinning
wheel is capable of being applied as a complete insurance
against famines and droughts. Three annas again is only
a most Cautious and conservative estimate.
— Toung India : Aug. 4, 1921
<3> <$> <S>
Restoration of charkha automatically solves that
difficult problem of enforced emigration. Land alone can-
not support the poor peasantry of India even if there,
was no assessment to be paid.
—Toung India : Aug. 25, 1921.
<$><$><$>
ATTACKS on hand-spinning notwithstanding, I cling
to the belief that Swaraj is unattainable without the
beautiful art becoming universal in India. The reasoning
applied to the proposition is incredibly simple. India
cannot live unless her homes become self-supporting. They
cannot become so unless they have a supplementary
80 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
occupation. It will, therefore, not avail if all our cloth
was icainufacturcd in our mills. If hand-spinning became
universal, eveiy home would get a share of the crores and
without any complicated machineiy. And India is able
to manufacture all her o\vn cloth. It is understood that,
when spinning becomes universal, the millions of weavers
and lacs of carders will revert to their original occupation.
This is the economic aspect of hand-spinning.
It will save our women fiom fcrced violation of
their purity. It will, as it must, do away with begging
as a means of livelihood. It will umove our enfoiced
idleness. It will steady the mind. And I verily believe
that, when millions take to it as a sacrament, it will
turn our faces Godward.
This is the moral aspect of spinning.
And when it has become universal and traffic in
foreign cloth has become a thing of the past, it is the
surest sign that India is earnest, sober, and believes in the
non-violent and religious character of her struggle.
At present, outsiders do not believe in our ability to
boycott foreign cloth and to manufacture enough for our
requirements by hand-spining and hand-weaving.
But when it becomes an established fact, India's opinion
too will become an irresistible force, and if necessary, she
can then, but not till then resort to Civil Disobedience in
order to bend a recalcitrant Government to its will.
This is the political aspect.
—Tourg India ; Sep. 22, 192 1.
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IN my loneliness, it is my only infallible friend and
comforter. May it be so to the reader.
—Toung India : Sep. 4, 1924,
CHARKHA 81
THE winter of despair can only be turned into the
sunshine of hope for the millions only through the life-
giving wheel — the charkha.
—Young India : Aug. 27, 1925.
<3> <$> <$>
ITS message is one of simplicity, service of man-
kind, living so as not to hurt others, creating an indissoluble
bond between the rich and the poor, capital and labour
the prince and the peasant.
—Young India : Sep. 17, 1925.
<$><$><$>
THE greatest of my activities is the charkha. I hold
it to be the best part of my service — social, political and
spiritual. For it includes these branches of service. My
invitation to all to spin if only for half an hour daily for
the sake of the starving millions of this land makes the
movement at once both political and spiritual.
He who spins before the poor inviting them to do
likewise serves God as no one else does.
—Young India : Sep 24, 1925.
<$><$><*>
IT is the one thing that can bring a ray of sunshine
into the dark and dilapidated dungeon of the half-starved
peasantry.
—Young India : Mar. 11, 1926.
<$> <3> <:>
FOR me nothing in the political world is more
important than the spinning-wheel. I can recall many
occasions when I have postponed other matters to make
room for a discussion on the spinning wheel as the central
part of our economics or politics.
—Young India : April 19, 1926.
<3> <$> <S>
I think of the poor of India every time that I draw
a thread on the wheel. The poor of India to-day have
lost faith in God, more so in the middle classes or the rich.
For a person suffering from the pangs of hunger, and
82 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
desiring nothing but to fill his belly, his belly is his God.
To him anyone who gives him bread is his master. Through
him he may even see God. To give alms to such persons,
who are sound in all their limbs, is to debase oneself
and them. What they need is some kind of occupation,
and the occupation that will give employment to millions
can only be hand-spinning. But I can instil my faith in
the potency of hand-spinning in the minds of the toilers
of India not by making speeches but only by spinning
myself. Therefore, I have described my spinning as a
penance or sacrament. And, since I believe that where
there is pure and active love for the poor there is God
also, I see God in every thread that I draw on the spinning-
wheel.
—Young India : Mar. 20, 1926.
<s> <s> <$>
I MAY repeat that I would to-day discard the spin-
ning-wheel if someone shows a better and more universal
political programme than hand-spinning. But up to this
time I have been shown none. I am anxious to know
if there is any.
— Young India : Feb. 17, 1927.
<3> <$><$>
DO you know" the daily income per head of our
country ? Our economists say that it is one anna and six
pies, though even that is misleading. If someone were to
work out the average depth of a river as four feet from the
fact that the river was six feet deep in certain places and
two feet in others, and proceeded to ford it, would he not
be drowned ? That is how statistics mislead. The average
income is worked out from the figures of the income of the
poor man as also of the Viceroy and the millionaires.
The actual income will therefore be hardly three pice per
head. Now, if I supplement that income by even three
pice with the help of the charkha, am I not right in calling
the charkha my Cow of Plenty ? Some people attribute
CHARKHA 83
superhuman powers to me, some say I have an extraordinary
character. God alone knows what I am. It is also possible
to disagree about the efficacy of satyagraha, but I do not
think there is any reason for disagreement on these obvious
facts about the charkha. If someone convinces me to-day
that there is no poverty in India that there are few in India
who starve for want of even a few pice a day, I shall
own myself to have been mistaken and shall destroy the
spinning-wheel.
—Toting India : Feb. 17, 1927.
<£ <& <^
LITTLE is it realised even by the best workers that the
message of the wheel means a complete revolution in trie
national life. Its successful delivery means a solidly-knit,
well-organised, well-disciplined, self-restrained, self-con-
tained, self-respecting, industrious and prosperous nation,
no member of which, willing and ready to work, ever need
starve.
Regular spinning for half an hour daily is no strain
and it should be a joy to be able to renew from day to day
through the wheel a vital contact with the millions of
paupers.
—Toung India : Aug. 8, 1929.
^ ^ ^
THERE is a world of difference between spinning for
sacrifice ani spinning lor recreation. I would advise you
to observe a religious silence while spinning. It would
give you spiritual peace and if you make it a point always
to spin at a particular fixed hour, it will automatically
regulate your other appointments too ani hslp you to a
well-ordered life.
IT is the symbol of the natioi's prosperity and
therefore freedom. It is a symbol not of commercial war
but of commercial peace. It bears not a message of illwill
towards the nations of the earth but of good-will and seL-
84 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
help. It will not need the protection of a navy threatening
world's peace and exploiting its resources, but it needs the
religious determination of millions to spin their yarn in their
own homes as to-day they cook their food in their own
homes, I may deserve the curses of posterity for many
mistakes of omission and commission, but I am confident of
earning its blessings for suggesting a revival of the charkha.
I stake my all on it. For every revolution of the wheel
spins peace, good-will and love. And with all that, inasmuch
as the loss oi it brought about India's slavery, its voluntary
revival with all its implications must mean India's freedom.
—Young India : Dec. 8, 1921.
<S> <S> <£
I SEE a vital connection between the charkha and non-
violence. Even as certain minimum qualifications are
indispensable in a soldier in arms, so are certain other and
even opposite qualifications indispensable in a non-violent
soldiei , i t., a sotyogrchi. One of these latter is adequate skill
in tpimnrg and its anterior processes. A salyagrahi
occupies himself in productive \\ork. There is no easier
and better productive work for millions than spinning.
What is more, it has been an integral part of the non-
violent programme since its commencement. Civilisation
based on non-violence must be different from that organised
for vicler.ee. Let net Congressmen trifle with this funda-
mental fact. 1 repeat what I have said a thousand times
that, if millions spun for Swarcj and in the spirit of non-
\ielcnce, there \vill probably be no necessity for civil dis-
obedience. It will be a constructive effoit such as the
world has not witnessed before, it is the surest methcd of
converting the enemy.
—Harijan : Dec. 2, 1939.
Chivalry
I SHOULD never think of reaping Swaraj out of British
defeat. It would be anything but chivalry. Mine is, there*
CHRISTIANITY 8S
fore, not misplaced. Chivalry is a vital part of akiinn.
Ahimsa without it is lame, it cannot work.
—Harijan : July 28, 19 to.
Children
CHILDREN inherit the qualities of the parents, no less
than their physical features. Environment does play an
important part, but the original capital on which a child
starts in life is inherited from its ancestors. I have also seen
children successfully surmounting the efforts of an evil inheri-
tance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute
of the soul.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 381.
Christianity
INDIA of the near future stands for perfect toleration
of all religions. Her spiritual heritage is simple living
and high-thinking. I consider Western Christianity in
its practical working a negation of Christ's Christianity.
I cannot conceive Jesus, if he was living in the flesh in
our midst, approving of modern Christian organisations,
public worship or modern ministry. If Indian Christians
will simply cling to the Sermon on the Mount, which
was delivered not merely to the peaceful disciples but
a groaning world, they would not go wrong, and they would
find that no religion is false, and that if all live according to
their lights and in the fear of God, they would not need
to worry about organisations, forms of worship and
ministry. The Pharisees had all that, but Jesus would
have none of it, for they were using their office as
a cloak for hypocrisy and worse. Co-operation with forces
of Good and Non-co-operation with forces of Evil
are the two things we need for a good and pure life,
whether it is called Hindu, Muslim or Christian.
The message of Jesus, as I understand it, is contained
in his Sermon on the Mount unadulterated and taken
86 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
as a \\hole, and even in connection with the Sermon
on the Mount, my own humble interpretation of the
message is in many respects different from the orthodox.
The message, to my mind, has suffered distortion in the
West. It may be presumptuous for me to say so, but
as a devotee of truth, I should not hesitate to say what
I feel. I know that the world is rot waiting to knowT
my opinion on Christianity.
— Tcvfig India : Mar. 23, 1926.
DR. CRAKE, an American clergyman, wanted to
understand Gandhiji's attitude towards Christianity, as he
had heard divers representations made about it, and he also
wanted a simple statement regarding Gandhiji's attitude
to religion in general.
'I shall certainly give you my reaction to Chris"
tianity,' said Gandhiji. Even \\hen I was 18, I came
in touch with good Christians in London. Before that
I had come in touch with what I used then to call 'beef
and beer-bottle Christianity,' for these were regarded as
the indispensable criteria of a man becoming a Chris-
tian, with also a third thing, namely adoption of a
European style of dress. Those Christians were parodying
St. Paul's teaching— 'Call thou nothing unclean.' I went
to London, therefore, with that prejudice against Chris-
tianity. I came across good Christians there who placed
the Bible in my hands. Then I met numerous Chiistians
in South Africa, and I have since grown to this belief
that Christianity is as good and as true a religion as
my own. For a time I struggled with the question,
'Which was the true religion out of those I knew ?' But
ultimately I came to the deliberate conviction that there
was no such thing as only one true religion and every
other false. There is no religion that is absolutely perfect.
All are equally imperfect or irore or less perfect, hence the
CHRISTIANITY 87
conclusion that Christianity is as good and true as my own
religion. But so also about Islam or Zoroastrianism or
Judaism.
I therefore do not take as literally true the text that Jesus
is the only begotten Son of God. God cannot be the
exculsive Father and I cannot ascribe exclusive divinity
to Jesus. He is as divine as Krishna of Rama or
Mahomed or Zoroaster. Similarly I do not regard every
word of the Bible as the inspired word of God even as I do
not regard every word of the Vedas or the Koran as inspired.
The SUM TOTAL of each of these books is certainly inspired
but I miss that inspiration in many of the things taken
individually. The Bible is as much a book of religion
with me as the Gita and the Koran.
[With this he pointed to the two or three editions
of the Koran with also a copy of the Bible lying on
bamboo-shelf in front of him. He had read numerous
commentaries on the Bible, but had not read many com-
mentaries on the Koran, and that is why there was
more than one edition now in front of him.]
'Therefore,9 said he, CI am not interested in weaning
you from Christianity and making you a Hindu, and I
would not relish your designs upon me, if you had any,
to convert me to Chritianity ! I would also dispute your
claim that Christianity is the ONLY true religion. It
is also a true religion, a noble religion, and along with
other religions it has contributed to raise the moral height
of mankind. But it has yet to make a greater contribution.
After all, what are 2,000 years in the life of a religion?
Just now Christianity comes to yearning mankind in a
tainted form. Fancy Bishops supporting slaughter in the
name of Christianity!'
'But,* asked Dr. Crane, 'when you say that all religions
are true, what do you do when there are conflicting
counsels ?'
88 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
'I have no difficulty,' said Gandhiji, 'in hitting upon
the truth, because I go by certain fundamental maxims.
Truth is superior to everything and I reject what conflicts
with it. Similarly that which is in conflict with
non-violence should be rejected. And on matters
which can be reasoned out, that which conflicts with
Reason must also be rejected.*
'In matters which can be reasoned out ?*
'Yes, there are subjects where Reason cannot take us
far and we have to accept things on faith. Faith then
does not contradict Reason but transcends it. Faith is a
kind of sixth sense which works in cases which
are without the purview of Reason, Well, then,
given these three criteria, I can have no difficulty in
examining all claims made on behalf of a religion. Thus
to believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God
is to me against Reason, for God can't marry and beget
children. The word 'son' there can only be used in a
figurative sense. In that sense everyone who stands in the
position of Jesus is a begotten son of God. If a man is
spiritually miles ahead of us we may say that he is in a
special sense the son of God, though we are all children
of God. We repudiate the relationship in our lives, whereas
his life is a witness to that relationship/
'Then you will recognize degrees of divinity. Would
you not say that Jesu£ was the most divine ?'
'No, for the simple reason that we have no data.
Historically we have more data about Mahomed than
anyone else because he was more recent in time. For
Jesus there is less data and still less for Buddha, Rama and
Krishna; and when we know so little about them, is it
not preposterous to say that one of them was more
divine than another ? In fact even if there were a great
deal of data available, no judge should shoulder the
burden of sifting all the evidence, if only for this reason
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 89
that it requires a highly spiritual person to guage the degree
of divinity of the subjects he examines. To say that
Jesus was 99 per cent divine, and Mahomed 50 per cent,
and Krishna 10 per cent, is to arrogate to oneself a function
which really does not belong to man/
— Harijan : Mar. 6, 1937.
Civil Disobedience
I HAVE found that it is our first duty to render
voluntary obedience to law, but whilst doing that duty
I have also seen that when law fosters untruth it be-
comes a duty to disobey it. How may this be done ?
We can do so by never swerving from truth and suffering
the consequences of our disobedience. That is Civil Dis-
obedience. No rules can tell us how this disobedience
may be done and by whom, when and where, nor can
they tell us which laws foster untruth. It is only ex-
perience that can guide us, and it requires time and
knowledge of facts.
—Young India : Sep. 13, 1919.
<$> <s> <$>
IN Civil Disobedience, the resister sufters the con-
sequences of disobedience. This was what Daniel did
when he disobeyed the law of the Medes and Persians.
That is what John Bunyan did and that is what the
ryots have done in India from times immemorial. It is
the law of our being. Violence is the law of the beast
in us. t Self-suffering, i. £., civil resistance, is the law of
the man in us. It is rarely that the occasion for civil
resistance arises in a well-ordered state. But when it does
it becomes a duty that cannot be shirked by one* who
counts his honour, i.e.> conscience, above everything.
—Young India : Oct. 21, 1921.
<J> <$> <$>
THOUGHTLESS disobedience means disruption of
society.
— Young India : Oct. 19, 1921.
90 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
CIVIL disobedience is not a slate of lawlessness and
licence, but presupposes a law-abiding spirit combined with
self-restraint. —T(ung bdia :Nov. 17, 1921.
<$> <s> <3>
SUBMISSION to the state law is the price a citizen
pays for his personal liberty. Submission, therefore, to a
state wholly or largely unjust is an immoral barter for
liberty. A citizen who thus realises the evil nature of
a state is not satisfied to live rn its sufferance, and
therefore appears to the others who do not share his
belief to be a nuisance to a scciety whilst he is en-
deavouring to compel the state, without commiting a
moral breach to arrest him. Thus, considered, civil re-
sistance is a most poweiful expression of a souFs anguish and
an eloquent protest against the continuance of an evil state.
Is not this the histoiy of all reform ? Have not reformers,
much to the disgust of their fellows, discarded even
innocent symbols associated with an evil practice ?
— Tcung India : Nov. 10, 1921.
<3> <S> <S>
DISOBEDIENCE to be civil has to be absolutely non-
violent, the underlying principle being the winning over
of the opponent by suffering, i. et, love.
—Toung India : Nov. 3, 1 92 1 .
<s> <s> <s>
PURE Civil Disobedience must not be carried beyond
the point of breaking the unmoral laws of the country.
Breach of the laws- to be civil assumes the strictest and
willing obedience to the gaol discipline, because disobedience
of a particular rule assumes a willing acceptance of the
sanction provided fcr its breach. And immediately a
person quarrels both with the rule and the sanction for
its breach, he ceases to be civil and lends himself to the
precipitation of chaos and anarchy. A civil lesister is,
if one may be permitted such a claim for him, a philanthro-
pist and a friend of the state. An anarchist is an enemy
of the state and is, therefore, a misanthrope.
— Toung India : Dec. 15, 1921«
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 91
CIVIL Disobedience is a preparation for mute suffering.
Its effect is marvellous though unperceived and gentle.
— Young India : Dec. 22, 1921.
<$> <S> <3>
TO expect me to give up the preaching of Civil
Disobedience is to ask me to give up preaching peace,
which would be tantamount to ask me to commit suicide.
— Young India : Dec. 29, 1921.
<s> <s> <s>
CIVIL Disobedience has to be civil in more senses than
one. There can be no bravado, no impetuousness about it.
It has to be an crdeied, \\ell-thought-out, humble offering.
— Young India : July 10, 1924.
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CIVIL Disobedience means capacity for unlimited
suffering, without the intoxicating excitement to killing.
—Young India : Nov. 27, 1924.
<3> <S> <S>
PREPARATION for Civil Disobedience means
discipline, self-restraint, a non-violent but resisting spirit,
cohesion and above all scrupulous and willing obedience
to the known laws of God and such laws of man as*
are in furtherance of God's laws,
— Young India : Dec. 26 ^ 1924,
<$><$> <$>.
CIVIL resistance to wrong is not a new doctrine
or practice with me. It is a life-long belief and a life-
long practice. To prepare the country for civil resistance
is to prepare it for non-violence. To prepare the country
for non-violence is to organise it for constructive work,
which to me is synonymous with the spinning-wheel.
— Young India : Aug. 6, 1925.
& Q> &
CIVIL Disobedience asks for and needs not a single
farthing for its support. It needs and asks for stout
hearts with a faith that will not flinch from any danger
and will shine the brightest in the face of severest trial.
Civil Disobedience is a terrifying synonym for suffering^
92 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
But it is better often to understand the terrible nature
of a thing if people will truly appreciate its benignant
counterpart. Disobedience is a right that belongs to every
human being and it becomes a sacred duty when it
springs from civility or, which is the same thing, love.
—Tomg India : April 1, 1926.
<S> 3> <S>
ALL Civil Disobedience is a part or branch of
Satyagraha but all Satyagraha is not Civil Disobedience.
—Young India : July 14, 1927.
Civility
EXPERIENCE has taught me that civility is the
most difficult part of Satyagraha. Civility does not here
mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated
for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to
do the opponent good. These should show themselves
in every act of a Satyagrahi.
—My Experiments with Truth : P. 536.
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INCIVILITY should be answered not by incivility
3ut by a dignified and calm endurance of all suffering
n the name of God.
—Toung India : May 8, 1980.
Class War
I CAN, most decidedly, avoid class war if only the
people will follow the non-violent method. By the non-
violent method we seek not to destroy the capitalist, we
seek to destroy capitalism. We invite the capitalist to
regard himself as a trustee for those on whom he depends
for the making, the retention and the increase of his capital.
Nor need the worker wait for his conversion. If capital
is power, so is work. Either power can be used destructively
or creatively. Either is dependent on the other. Immediately
the worker realises his strength, he is in a position to become
CLASS WAR 93
a co-sharer with the capitalist instead of remaining his slave.
If he aims at becoming the sole owner, he will most likely
be killing the hen that lays the golden eggs. Inequalities
in intelligence and even opportunity will last till the end of
time. A man living on the banks of a river has any day
more opportunity of growing crops than one living in an
arid desert. But if inequalities stare us in the face the essen-
tial equality too is not to be missed. Every man has an
equal right to the necessaries of life even as birds and beasts
have. And since every right carries with it a corresponding
duty and the corresponding remedy for resisting any attack
upon it, it is merely a matter of finding out the correspon-
ding duties and remedies to vindicate the elementary
fundamental equality. The corresponding duty is to labour
with my limbs and the corresponding remedy is to non-co-
operate with him who deprives me of the fruit of
my labour. And if I would recognise the fundamental
equality, as I must, of the capitalist and the labourer, I must
not aim at his destruction. I must strive for his conversion.
My non-co-operation with him will open his eyes to the
wrong he may be doing. Nor need I be afraid of someone
else taking my place when I have non-co-operated. For I
expect to influence my co-worker so as not to help the wrong-
doing of his employer. This kind of education of the mass
of workers is no doubt a slow process, but, as it is also the
surest, it is necessarily the quickest. It can be easily demon-
strated .that destruction of the capitalist must mean destruc-
tion in the end of the worker and as no human being is so
bad as to be beyond redemption, no human being is
so perfect as to warrant his destroying him whom he wrong-
ly considers to be wholly evil.
-7«Toung India : Mar. 26, 1931.
Cleanliness
IT is a superstition to consider that vast sums of money
are required for effecting sanitary reform. We must modify
western methods of sanitation to suit our requirements.
And as my patriotism is inclusive and admits of no enemity
94 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
or ill-will, I do not hesitate, in spite of my horror of western
materialism, to take from the West what is beneficial for me.
— Young India : Dec. 26, 1924-
INDEED sanitary work must be regarded as the founda-
tion of all volunteer training.
— Toung India : Jan. 1, 1925.
<S> <e> <3>
Q. DON'T you have anything like antipathy for filth
and dirt ?
A* I have no antipathy against dirty people, but I
have a horror of dirt. I should not eat out of a dirty plate
nor touch a dirty spoon or kerchief. But I believe in remov-
ing dirt to its proper place, where it ceases to be dirt.
—Harijan: May 11, 1939.
DURING my wanderings nothing has been so painful to
•me as to observe our insanitation throughout the length and
breadth of the land. I do not believe in the use of force for
carrying out reforms, but when I think of the time that must
elapse before the ingrained habits of millions of people can
be changed, I almost reconcile myself to compulsion in this
the most important matter of insanitation. Several diseases
can be directly traced to insanitation. Hookworm for ins-
tance is such a direct result. Not a single human being who
observes the elementary principles of sanitation need suffer
from hookworm. The disease is not even due to poverty.
The only reason is gross igno^nce of the first principles of
sanitation.
( Cleanliness is next to godliness.' We can no more
jain God's blessings with an unclean body than with an
andean mind. A clean body cannot reside in an unclean
3ity.
COERCION 95
Let us not put off everything till Swaraj is attained
and thus put off Swaraj itself. Swaraj can be had only by
brave and clean people. Whilst the Government has to
answer for a lot, I know that the British officers are not
responsible for our insanitation. Indeed if we gave them
free scope in this matter, they would improve our habits at
the point of the sword. They do not do so because it does
not pay. But they would gladly welcome and encourage any
effort towards improved sanitation. In this matter Europe
has much to teach us. We quote with pride a few texts
from Manu or if we are Musatmans from the Outran. We
do not carry even these into practice. Europeans have
deduced an elaborate code of sanitation from the principles
laid down in these books. Let us learn these from them
and adapt them to our needs aid habits. How I would
love to see not ornamental but useful sanitary associations
whose members will deem it a privilege to take up the
broom, the shovel and the bucket. Here is great national
work for school-boys, school girls and collegiates all over
India.
—Young India : Nov. 19, 1925,
Coercion
WE may not use compulsion even in the matter of
doing a good thing. Any compulsion will ruin the cause.
—Young India: April 17, 1930.
THERE can be no coercion in Suuiraj. A non-co-opera-
tor or his associate who uses coercion has no apology what-
soever for his criminality.
—Toting India : Nov. 24, 1921.
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CONVERSION is our motto, not coercion. Coercion
is an offspring of violence. Conversion is a fruit of non-
violence and love.
—Young India : Mar. 26, 1931
96 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Commonsense
COMMONSENSE is the realised sense of proportion.
—Young India : July 4, 1929.
Communism
INDIA does not want Bolshevism. The people are too
peaceful to stand anarchy. They will bow the knee to any
one who restores so-called orde r.
— Toung India ; Nov. 24, 1921.
3> <$> <J>
I AM yet ignorant of what exactly Bolshevism is. I
have not been able to study it. I do not know whether it
is for the good of Russia in the long run. But I do know
that in so far as it is based on violence and denial of God, it
repels me. I do not believe in short-violent cuts to success.
Those Bolshevik friends who are bestowing their attention
on me should realise that however much I may sympathise
with and admire worthy motives, I am an uncompromising
opponent cf violent methods even to serve the noblest of
causes. There is therefore really no meeting ground between
the school of violence and myself. Bui my creed of non-
violence not only does not preclude me but compels me even
to associate with anarchists and all those who believe in
voilence. But that association is always with the sole object
of weaning them from what appears to me to be their error.
For experience convinces me that permanent good can never
be the outcome of untruth and voilence. Even if my belief
is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating
delusion.
— Toung India : Dec. 11, 1924
<£ <$><$>
Q. WHAT is your opinion about the social economics
of Bolshevism and how far do you think they are fit to be
copied by our country ?
A. I must confess that I have not yet been able fully
to understand the meaning of Bolshevism. All that I know
COMMUNISM 97
is that it aims at the abolition of the institution of private
property. This is only an application of the ethical ideal
of non-possession in the realm of economics and if the people
adopted this ideal of their own accord or could be made to
accept it by means of peaceful persuasion there would be
nothing like it. But from what I know of Bolshevism it not
only does not preclude the use of force but freely sanctions it
for the expropriation of private property and maintaining
the collective state ownership of the same. And if that is
so I have no hesitation in saying that the Bolshevik regime
in its present form cannot last for long. For it is my firm
conviction that nothing enduring can be built on violence.
But be that as it may there is no questioning the fact that
the Bolshevik ideal has behind it the purest sacrifice of
countless men and women who have given up their all for its
sake, and an ideal that is sanctified by the sacrifices of such
master spirits as Lenin cannot go in vain : the noble example
of their renunciation will be emblazoned for ever and
quicken and purify the ideal as time passes.
—Young India : May. 1, 1920.
Q. WHAT in your opinion ought to be the basis of
India's future economic constitution ? What place will such
institutions as savings banks, insurance companies, etc.,
have in it ?
A. According to me the economic constitution of
India, and for the matter of that, the world should be such
that no one under it should suffer from want of food and
clothing. In other words everybody should be able to
get sufficient work to enable him to make two ends meet.
And this ideal can be universally realised only if the means
of production of elementary necessaries of life remain in
the control of the masses. These should be freely available
to all as God's air and water are or ought to be ; they
should not be made a vehicle of traffic for the exploitation
98 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Mothers. Their monopolization by any country, nation or
group of persons would be unjust. The neglect of this
simple principle is the cause of the destitution that we
witness to-day not only in this unhappy land but other
parts of the world too. It is this evil that the Khadi move-
ment is calculated to remedy. Savings banks and insurance
companies will be there even when the economic reforms
suggested to me have been effected but their nature will
have undergone a complete transformation. Savings banks
to-day in India though a useful institution do not serve the
very poorest. As for our insurance companies they are
of no use whatsoever to the poor. What part they can play
in an ideal scheme of reconstruction such as I have
postulated is more than I can say. The function of savings
banks ought to be to enable the poorest to husband their
hard-earned savings and to subserve the interest of the
country generally. Though I have lost faith in most
Government institutions, as I have said before, savings
banks are good so far as they go but unfortunately to-day
their services are available only to the urban section of the
community and so long as our gold reserves are located
Outside India they can hardly be regarded as trustworthy
institutions. In the event of a war all these banks may
become not only utterly useless but even a curse to the
people inasmuch as jhe Government will not scruple to
employ the funds held by these banks against the depositors
themselves* No Government institution can be depended
upon to remain loyal to the interest of the people in
emergency, if they are not controlled by and not run in the
interests of the people. So long therefore as this primary
condition is absent banks are in the last resort additional
links to keep the people in chains. They may be regarded
as an unavoidable evil and therefore to be suffered to exist
but it is well to understand where we are in respect even of
such harmless-looking institutions.
—Toung India : Nov. 15, 1928.
COMMUNISM 95
I HAD made the working man's cause my own long
before any of the young communists here were born. I
spent the best part of my tims in South Africa working
for them, I used to live with them, and shared their joys and
sorrows. You must therefore understand why I claim to
speak for labour. I expect at least courtesy from you if
nothing else. I invite you to come to me and discuss thing?
with me as frankly as you can.
You claim to be Communists, but you do not seem to
live the life of communism. I may tell you that I am
trying my best to live up to the ideal of communism in the
best sense of the term. And communism does not, 1 fancy,
exclude courtesy. I am amongst you to-day, within a
few minutes I will leave you. But if you want to carry
the country with you, you ought to be able to react on it by
reasoning with it. You cannot do so by coercion. You
may deal destruction to bring the country round to your
view. But how many will you destroy ? Not tens of millions.
You may kill a few thousands if you had millions with your
But to-day you are no more than a handful. I ask you to
convert the Congress if you can and to take charge df it,
But you cannot do so by bidding goodbye to the elementary
rules of courtesy. And there is no reason why you should
be lacking in ordinary courtesy, when it is open to you to
give the fullest vent to your views, when India is tolerant
enough to listen patiently to anyone who can talk coherent-
ly.
The truce has done no harm to the labourers. I claim
that none of my activities has ever harmed the workers, nor
can ever harm them. If the Congress sends its representative
to the Conference, they will press for no Swaraj other than
the Swaraj for workers and peasants. Long before the
Communist Party came into existence the Congress had
decided that that Swaraj would have no meaning which was
not the 'Swaraj for workers and peasants. Perhaps none of you
workers here gets less than a monthly wage of Rs. 20 but
100 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I am woi ling for winning Swaraj not only for you but foi
those (oiling and unemployed millions who do not get even
a square meal a day and have to scratch along with a
piece of stale roti and a pinch of salt. But I do not want
to deceive you ; I must warn you that I do not bear any
ill to the capitalists. I can think of doing them no harm.
But I want, by means of suffering, to awaken them to their
sense of duty. I want to melt their hearts and get them
to render justice to their less fortunate brethren. They are
human beings, and my appeal to them will not go in vain.
The histoiy of Japan reveals many an instance of ^ self-
sacrificing capitalists. During the last Satyagraha, quite a
number of capitalists went in for considerable sacrifice,
went to jail and suffered. Do you want to estrange them ?
Don't >ou want them to work with you for the common
end?
— Young India : Mar. 26, 1931.
Q. HOW to dispossess people of ill-gotten gains— which
is what the Socialists are out to do ?
A. Who is to judge what gains or riches are ill-gotten
or well-gotten ? God alone can judge, or a competent
authority appointed both by the 'haves' and the 'have notsr
can judge. Not anyone and everyone. But if you say
that ALL property and possession is theft, all must give up
property and wealth. Have we given it up? Let US make
a beginning expecting the rest to follow. For those who
are convinced that their own possessions aie ill-gotten,
thc-je is of course no other alternative but to give them up.
— Harijan : Ang. 1, 1936,
Q. IS not the Congress veering round to com-
nuimsm ?
COMMUNISM 101
A. Has it ? I do not see it. But if it does, and if it
is not the Russian model, I do not mind it. For what
does communism mean in the last analysis ? It means a
classless society — an ideal that is worth striving for. Only
I part company with it when force is called to aid for
achieving it. We are all born equal, but we have all these
centuries resisted the Will of Gad. The idea of inequality,
of 'high and low' is an evil, but I do not believe in eradicat-
ing evil from the human breast at the point of the bayonet.
The human breast does not lend itself to that means.
—Harijan: Mar. 13, 1937.
<$><$><$>
VIOLENCE is no monopoly of any one party. I know
Congressmen who are neither socialists nor communists but
who are frankly devotees of the cult of violence. Contrari-
wise, I know socialists and communists who will not hurt a
fly but who believe in the universal ownership of instruments
of production. I rank myself as one among them.
—Harijan : Dec. 10, 1938,
ALL your literature that I have studied clearly says that
there is no independence without resort to force. I know
that there is a b3dy of communists that is slovvly veering
round -to non-violence. I would like you to make your
position absolutely plain and abDve bDard. I have it from
some of the literature that passes under the name of
communist literature that secrecy, camouflage and the like
are enjoined as necessary for the accomplishment of the
communist and especially as communism has to engage in
an unequal battle against capitalism which has organised
violence at its beck and call.
—Harijan : Dec. 10, 1938.
102 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I MAY say that communists have not made mucl
headway yet in India, and I somehow feel that the character
of our people will not easily lend itself to communist me
thods.
—Harijan : April 13, 1940
WHAT do you think of communism ? Do you think
it would be good for India ?'
' Communism of the Russian type, that is com-
munism which is imposed on a people, would be repugnant
to India. I believe in non-violent communism/ answered
Gandhiji.
* But communism in Russia is against private property.
Do you want private property ?'
' If .communism came without any violence, it would
be welcome. For then no property would be held by any
body except on behalf of the people and for the people. A
millionaire may have his millions, but he will hold them for
the people. The state could take charge of them whenever
they would need them for the common cause.'
c Is there any difference of opinion between you and
Jawaharlal in respect of Socialism ?'
* There is, but it is a difference in emphasis. He
perhaps puts an emphasis on the result, whereas I put on
the means. Perhaps, according to him, I am putting an
ovei-empbasis on non-violence, whereas he, though he
believes in non-violence, would want to have Socialism by
other means, if it was impossible to have it by non-violence.
Of course my emphasis on non-violence becomes one of
principle. Even if I was assured that we could have
independence by means of violence, I should refuse to have
it. It won't be real independence.'
* But do you think the English will leave India to
you ard go back peacefully as a result of your non-violent
agitation ?'
' I do think so.'
COMMUNISM 103
' What is the basis of your belief?'
* I have my faith in God and His Justice.'
The friend seemed to be deeply impressed. He took
the words down and said : c You are more Christian than
we so-called Christians. I will write these words down in
block letters.'
* You must/ said Gandhiji, ' otherwise God would not
be the God of Love but the God of violence.' (M. D.)
—HarijaniFeb. 13, 1937
<$><$><$>
I HAVE claimed that I was a socialist long before
those I know in India had avowed their creed. But my
socialism was natural to me and not adopted from any
books. It came out of my unshakable belief in non-
violence. No man could be actively non-violent and not
rise against social injustice, no matter where it occurred.
Unfortunately Western socialists have, so far as I know,
believed in the necessity of violence for enforcing socia-
listic doctrines.
I have always held that social justice, even unto the
least and the lowliest, is impossible of attainment by force.
I have further believed that it is possible by proper
training of the lowliest by non-violent means to secure
redress of the wrongs suffered by them. That means
is non-violent non-co-operation. At times non-co-operation
becomes as much a duty as co-operation. No one
is bound to co-operate in one's own undoing or slavery.
Freedom received through the effort of others, however
benevolent, cannot be retained when such effort is with-
drawn. In other words, such freedom is not real freedom.
But the lowliest can feel its glow as soon as they learn
the art of attaining it through non-violent non-co-
operation.
—Harijan : April 20, 1940.
104 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
ALL Communists are not bad, as all Congressmen
are not angels. I have, therefore, no prejudice against
Communists, as such.
Their philosophy, as they have declared it to me, I
cannot subscribe to.
—Harian : Jan. 26, 1941.
Commnunal Pacts
FREEDOM will not come through parliamentary
effort. Therefore communal pacts, while they are good
if they can be had, are valueless unless they are backed
by the union of hearts, without which there can be no peace
in the land.
— Harijanijan. 25, 42.
Complexion
IT is a law of nature that the skin of races
near the equator should be black And if we believe
that there must be beauty in everything fashioned by
nature, we would not only steer clear of all narrow
and one-sided conceptions of beauty, but we in
India would be free from the improper sense of shame
and dislike which we^ feel for our own complexion if it
is anything but fair.
— Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 19.
Compromise
A SATYAGRAHI never misses, can never miss a chance
of compromise on honourable terms, it being always assumed
that in the event of failure he is ever ready to offer
battle. He needs no previous preparation, his cards are
always on the table. Suspension or continuation of battle
is one and the same thing to him. He fights or refrains
to gain precisely the same end. He dare not always
COMPROMISE 105
distrust his opponents. On the contrary he must grasp
the hand of friendship whenever there is the slightest
protest.
—Young India : April 16, 1931 •
<$> <$> <^
BUT all my life through, the very insistence
on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty
of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was
an essential part of Satyagraha. It has often meant
endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of
friends. But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a
blossom.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 134.
HUMAN life is a series of compromise, and it is
not always easy to achieve in practice what one has
found to be true in theory. Take this very simple case.
The principle is that all life is one and we have to treat
the sinner and saint alike, as the Glti says we have to
look with an equal eye on a learned Pandit and a dog
and a dog-eater. But here I am. Though I have not
killed the snake, I know I have been instrumental in
killing it. I know that I should not have done so.
I know, besides, that snakes are kshztrapals (guardians of
the field), and therefore too, I should not have helped in
killing it. But as you see I have not been able to
avoid it. But it is no use my thinking that I CANNOT
avoid it. I do not give up the principle which is true
for all time that all life is one, and I pray to God that
He may rid me of the fear of snakes and enable me to
achieve the non-violence necessary to handle snakes as we
handle other domestics. Take another instance,
again a very simple one. I know that as a villager and
as one who has made it his business to promote village
crafts, I must use a village-made razor, but you see that
106 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I am using a foreign one. (Gandhiji was actually having
a shave when these teachers arrived). I might have
got a village-made razor, if I had written to friends to
procure one for me. But I thought I must help the
village barber, no matter what kind of razor he used.
I therefore decided to cultivate him, and put up with
his dirty clothes and uncouth instruments. But on one
thing I could not possibly compromise. He said he
would not shave Harijans on the same terms as he was
prepared to shave me, and I had to do without his
services. Now you find me having a shave with a
foreign razor, though it is open to me to procure a
village-made one. Here there is obviously an indefensi-
ble compromise. And yet there is an explanation.
I have been sticking on to a set of shaving tackle given
me by a loving sister, whose gift I could not resist, and
whose feelings I could not hurt by rejecting the foreign
razor and insisting on having a village-made one. But
there it is, compromise is there. I do not commend
it for imitation. We must be prepared to displease the
dearest ones for the sake of principle.
There are eternal principles which admit of no
compromise, and one must be prepared to lay down one's
life in the practice of them. Supposing someone came
and asked you to give up your religion and to embrace
another at the point of the sword, would you do it ?
Supposing someone were to compel you to drink wine
or eat beef, cr tell a lie, would you not rather lay down
your life than yield to the ccercion ? No. A principle is
a principle, and in no case can it be watered down
because of our incapacity to live it in practice. We have
to strive to achieve it, and the striving should be conscious,
deliberate and hard.
I am not in the habit of losing co-workers. I go
a long way with them in winning their afiection and
retaining it. But there does come a limit beyond which
CONGRESS 107
my compromise doesfnot and cannot and should not go. No
compromise is worth the name which endangers chances
of success.
—Harijan : Nov. 18, 1939.
<s> <s> <s>
COMPROMISE is a part and parcel of my naiure.
I will go to the Viceroy fifty times, if I feel like it.
I \\ent to Lord Reading whilst Non-co-operation was going
on. I would not only go to the Viceroy when invited
but I would even seek opportunities to ge to him, if
necessary. You must know that, if I do so, I do it in
order to strengthen our cause and not weaken it. It
happened so with General Smuts. At the last moment
I telephoned to him. He put the receiver down in anger
but 1 thrust myself on him. As a result he relented
and I \\as in a stronger position. To-day we are friends*
I cculd not have fcught the Dutch and the English with-
out lc\e in my heart for them, and withcut a readiness for
ccmpicmise. But my ccmprcmises will never be at the
cost of the cause or of the country.
—Harijan : Mar. 3, 1940.
<s> <s> <s>
ALL compromise is based on give and take, but
there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any
ccmpicmise on fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all
give and no take.
—Harijan : Mar. 30, 1940.
<S> <3> <$>
MY life is made up of compromises, but they have
teen ccirpicmises that have brcught me nearer the goal.
—Harijan : May 4, 1940.
Congress
WE wculd have been nowhere if there had been
no Ccngress to agitate for the rights of people.
—Toting India : Dec. 31, 191S.
108 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I DO not consider the Congress as a party oragnisation,
even as the British Parliament, though it contains all parties,
and has one party or the other dominating it, from time to
time, is not a party organisation.
—Young India : April 28, 1920.
<$><$><$>
A TRUE Congressman is a true servant. He ever gives,
ever wants service. He is easily satisfied so long as his
own comfort is concerned. He is always content to take
a back seat. He is never communal or provincial.
His country is his paramount consideration. He is
brave to a fault because he has shed all earthly ambition,
fear of Death itself. And he is generous because he is
brave, forgiving because he is humble and conscious of
his own failings and limitations.
If such Congressmen are rare, Swaraj is far off and
we must revise our creed. The fact that we have not
got Suoaraj as yet is proof presumptive that we have not
as many true Congressmen as we want.
—Toung India : Nov. 19, 1925.
<$><$><$>
THE Congress is no preserve of any single individual.
It is a democratic body with, in my opinion, the widest
intelligent franchise the world has ever seen. For it
gives statutory recognition to the dignity of Iab3ur. I
wish it was the sole test. It accommodates all shades of
opinion save violence and untruth.
—Toung India : June 25, 1925*
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THE Congress does not prescribe to anybody his
religion. It is a sensitive barometer from time to time
registering the variation in the temperament of palitically-
minded India. No Congressman is bound to act con-
trary to his political religion.
—Toung India : Oct. 8, 1925.
CONGRESS 109
IT is a gross superstition to believe that one can-
not serve effectively without the Congress prestige at one's
back" —Toimg India : July 17, 1924,
THE Congress is the power-house from which all the
power for all the work is to be derived. If the power-
house is rotten, the whole national work must be necessarily
so.
— Toung India: Jan. 10, 1929.
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WE are a nation passing through the valley of
humiliation, So long as we have not secured our freedom
we have not the least excuse at the annual stock-taking
season for amusements, riotous or subdued. It is a week
of serious business, introspection and heart searching, it
is a week for evolving national policies and framing pro-
grammes for giving battle to a power perhaps the strongest
and the most vicious the world has ever seen. I submit
that it is impossible to do clear thinking or to evolve pro-
grammes political, social, economic, and educational in
the midst of distraction, noise, rush and a lavish display of
boisterous amusements fit enough for a children's pantomime,
entirely out of place as an appendage to a deliberative
assembly intent on preparing .for a grim life and death
India : Jan. 10, 1929.
<$> <s> <s>
NO man, however great, be he even a Mahatma, is
indispensable for a nation conscious of itself and bent upon
freedom. Even as the whole is always greater than its
part, the Congress which claims to represent the nation is
always greater than its greatest part. To be a living
organisation it must survive its most distinguished members.
—Toung India : Oct. 3, 1929;
110 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE Congress is the only truly national political
organisation in the country. It is the oldest of its kiii. It
has had the services of the most distinguished sorn and
daughters of the nation. It is admittedly the ni33t pDwerfu!
organisation in the land. It ought not to be difficult \or
such a body to expand itself and find its flag flying in every
village.
—Young India : Oct. 10, 1929.
<$> <*> <$>
THE Congress is not an organisation to enunciate
theories, but to anticipate national wants and wishes, and
forge practical sanctions for their fulfilment.
—Young India : Jan. 9, 1930.
THE Congress is essentially and pre-eminently a Kisan
•organisation. It also endeavours to represent the %amindars
and the propertied classes, but only to the extent that he
interests of the Kisans are not prejudiced thereby. The
Congress is nothing if it does not represent the Kisans.
—Young India : Aug. 13, 1931.
<$><$> <3>
IT is not right to. say that the Congress is a Hindu
organisation. What is the» Congress to do if Muslisms
would not care to go into it ? The Congress is based on
adult franchise, and any adult Hindu or Musalrnan can
join the Congress. No community is excluded. Ask the
Muslim friends who are members of the Congress, and they
will tell you that they have not come to grief by having
joined the Congress. I ask you therefore not to suspect that
the Congress is a Hindu organisation. I ask every one of
you to join the Congress and to take charge of it. But one
cannot take charge of it by force. It can be done only by
willing service. Ever since the Congress was started, those
who have served it have had charge of it. And yet the
CONGRESS 111
Congress does not belong only to them, does not stand only
for them, it belongs to and stands for all. It is the Swaraj
Government in embryo. Its prestige is ever so much
superior to that of the British Government, and the Congress
President is greater than the Viceroy. Only monied people
and men in high places know the Viceroy. One needs a
motor-car to reach the Viceregal House. But the poorest
man knows the Congress President (at present Sardar
Vallabhai) and can walk up to him. The Sardar has
dedicated himself to the service of the country, and he who
serves the poor is great in the eyes of God. If you want to
be in power under Swaraj, I invite you to assume the reins
of the Congress now by joining it in large numbers. It is
the most powerful organisation in the country, join it. We
will welcome you.
—Toung India : April 16, 1931.
<S> <S> 3>
THE Congress is composed of ordinary mortals. They
share the virtues and vices of the nation which they seek to
represent. But after all is said and done, it will not be
denied that it is the oldest political organisation in the
country, it is the most representative ; it has drawn to
itself the best talent in the country, it has the highest
amount of sacrifice to its credit. Above all it is the one
organisation that has offered the greatest resistance to
foreign rule and exploitation.
—Harijan: June 18, 1938
<s> <s> <s>
LET us understand the functions of the Congress. Foi
internal growth and administration, it is as good a democratic
organisation as any to be found in the world. But this
democratic organisation has been brought into being tc
fight the greatest Imperialist Power living. For this external
work, therefore, it has to be likened to an army. As sue!
at ceases to be democratic. The central authority possessei
112 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
plenary powers enabling it to impose and enforce discipline
en the various units \\oikirg urder it. Provincial organ-
isaticrs and Fiovincial Parliairentaiy Boards are subject to
the central authority.
It has been suggested that, whilst my thesis holds good
\vhenthereisactivewarintheshapeofthe civil resistance
going on, it cannot whilst the latter remains under
suspension. But suspension of civil disobedience does not
mean suspension of war. The latter can only end when
India has a constitution of her own making. Till then the
Congress must be in the nature of an army. Democratic
Britain has set up an ingenious system in India which, when
you look at it in its nakedness, is nothing but a highly
organised efficient military control. It is not less so under
the present Goveiment of India Act. The Ministers are
mere puppets so far asf the real control is concerned. The
collectors and the police who c sir ' them to-day, may at
a mere command from the Governors, their real masters,
unseat the Ministers, arrest them and put them in a lock-up.
Hence it is that I have suggested that the Congress has
entered upon office not to work the Act in the manner
expected by the framers, but in a manner so as to hasten
the day of substituting it by a genuine Act of India's own
coining.
Therefore the "Congress conceived as a fighting
machine, has to centralize control and guide every depart-
ment, and every Congressman, however highly placed, and
expects unquestioned obedience. The fight cannot be
fought on any other terms.
They say this is Fascism, pure and simple. But they
forget that Fascism is the naked sword. Under it Dr. Khare
should lose his head. The Congress is the very antithesis
of Fascism, because it is based on non-violence pure and
undefiled. Its sanctions are all moral. Its authority
is not derived from the control of panoplied blackshirts.
CONGRESS 113
Under the Congress regime Dr. Khare can remain the
hero of Nagpur, and the students and citizens of Nagpur,
and for that matter other places, may execrate me or/and
the Working Committee without a hair of the demonstrators'
heads being touched so long as they remain non-violent.
That is the glory and strength of the Congress— not its
weakness. Its authority is derived from that non-violent
attitude. It is the only purely non-violent political
organization of importance, to my knowledge, throughout
the world. And let it continue to be the boast of the
Congress that it can command the willing and hearty
obedience from its followers, even veterans like Dr. Khare,
so long as they choose to belong to it.
—Harijan : Aug. 6, 1938,
THE Congress endeavours to represent all communi-
ties. It is not by design, but by the accident of Hindus
being politically more conscious than the others, that the
Congress contains a majority of Hindus. As history
proves the Congress is a joint creation of Muslims,
Christians, Parsis, Hindus, led by Englishmen, be it said
to the credit of the latter. And the Congress, in spite
of all that may be said to the contrary, retains that
character. At the present moment a Muslim divine is
the unquestioned leader of the Congress and for the
second time becomes its President. The constant endea-
vour of Congressmen has been to have as many members
as possible drawn from the various communities, and
therefore the Congress has entered into pacts for the
purpose of securing national solidarity. It cannot, there-
fore, divest itself of that function, and therefore, although
I have made the admission that the Hindu Mahasabha
or a similar Hindu organisation can properly have
communal settlements, the Congress cannot and must not
plead incapacity for entering into political pacts so long
as it commands general confidence.
: Feb. 24. 1940.
114 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE Congress claims to be the custodian of all
interests even of English interests, in so far as they would
regard India as their home and not claim any interests
in conflict with those of the dum millions.
—Young India : Oct. 15, 193U
Conscience.
THERE are times when you have to obey a call
which is the highest of all, i. e., the voice of conscience
even though such obedience may cost many a bitter
tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family,
from the state to which you may belong from all that
you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience
is the law of our being.
—Young India : Mar. 18, 1919.
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IN matters of conscience, the law of majority has no
place.
—Young India : Aug. 4, 1920.
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THERE is a higher court than courts of Justice and
that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other
courts.
—Young India : Dec. 15, 192L
^S ^^ ^N
THE human voice can never reach the distance that
is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still
voice within.
— Young India: Mar. 2, 1922.
A CORRESPONDENT says in effect, "Do you know
what you have done by continually harping on conscience.
I find youngsters and grown-up people talking utter
CONSCIENCE 115
nonsense under cover of conscience. What is more*
youngsters have become impudent and grown-up people.
unscrupulous ; can you not prevent this mischief? If you*
cannot, please withdraw the word from use and stop the
drivel that is being said in the name of that sacred
but much abused word. Pray tell us who has a conscience ?
Do all have it ? Do cats have a conscience when they
hunt to death poor mice ?"
I must confess that the charge is not without
substance. But he has presented only the dark side.
Every virtue has been known to be abused by the wicked.
But we do not on that account do away with virtue.
We can but erect safe-guards against abuse. When people
cease to think for themselves and have everything regulated
for them, it becomes necessary at times to assert the
right of individuals to act in defiance of public opinion
or law which is another name for public opinion. When
individuals so act, they claim to have acted in obedience
to the conscience.
I entirely agree with the correspondent that youngsters
as a rule must not pretend to have conscience. It is a
quality or state acquired by laborious training. Wilfulness
is not conscience. A child has no conscience. The
correspondent's cat does not go for the mouse in obedience
to the call of conscience. It does so in obedience to
its nature. Conscience is the ripe fruit of strictest discipline.
Irresponsible youngsters therefore who have never obeyed
anything or anybody save their animal instinct have no
conscience, nor therefore have all grown-up people. The
savages for instance have to all intents and purposes no
conscience. Conscience can reside only in a delicately
tuned breast. There is no such thing therefore as mass
conscience as distinguished from the conscience of individuals.
It is safe therefore to say that when a man makes everything
a matter of conscience, he is a stranger to it. It is a truthful
saying that Conscience makes cowards of us all.' A con-
scientious man hesitates to assert himself, he is always
1 16 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
humble, never boisterous, always compromising, always
ready to listen, ever willing, even anxious, to admit
mistakes.
The correspondent is needlessly agitated. What does
it matter that fifty thousand people say they act or
refrain for conscience's sake ? The world has no difficulty
in distinguishing between conscience and an arrogant or
ignorant assumption of it. Such men would have acted in
similar circumstances exactly as they would under cover of
conscience. The introduction of conscience into our
public life is welcome even if it has taught a few of us
to stand up for human dignity and rights in the face of
the heaviest odds. These acts will live for ever, whereas those
done under shams are like soap-bubbles enjoying a momen-
tary existence,
—iToung India : Aug. 21, 1924.
I DO not want any patronage, as I do not give any.
I am a lover of my own liberty and so I would do nothing
to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own con-
science, which is God.
—Tovng India : Jan. 6, 1927.
^ ^ ^
WHAT must count with a public servant is the
approbation of his own conscience. He must be like
a rudderless vessel who, leaving the infallible solace of
his own conscience, ever seeks to please and gam the
approbation of public. Service must be its own and
sole reward.
Consistency
CONSTANT development is the law of life, and a man
who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear
consistent drives himself into a false position.
India : Sep. 21, 1928.
CONSISTENCY 117
THERE is a consistency that is wise and a consistency
that is foolish. A man who in order to be consistent
would go bare-bodied in the hot sun of India and
sunless Norway in mid-winter would be considered a
fool and would lose his life in the bargain.
—Young India : April 4, 1929.
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CHANGE is a condition of progress. An honest man
cannot afford to observe mechanical consistency when
the mind revolts against anything as an error.
— Young India : Dec. 19, 1929,
<3> <$> 3>
I MUST admit my many inconsistencies. But since
I am called 'Mahatma', I might well endorse Emerson's
saying that, 'foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
minds.' There is, I fancy a method in my inconsistencies.
In my opinion there is a consistency running through
seeming inconsistencies, as in nature there is a unity
running through the seeming diversity.
—Young India : Feb. 13, 1930.
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MY so-called inconsistencies arc no inconsistencies
to those who understand, be it only intellectually, the
implications of non-violence.
— Young India : April 24, 1931
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I MAKE no hobgoblin of consistency. If I am
true to myself fom moment to moment, I do not mind all the
inconsistencies that may be flung in my face.
—Harijan :Nov. 9, 193*.
Constituent Assembly
PANDIT Jawaharlal Nehru has compelled me to
tudy, among other things, the implications of a Constituent
118 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Assembly. When he first introduced it in the Congress
resolutions, I reconciled myself to it because of my belief in
his superior knowledge of the technicalities of democracy.
But I was not free from scepticism. Hard facts have,
however, made me a convert and, for that reason perhaps,
more enthusiastic than Jawaharal himself. For I seem to see
in it a remedy, which Jawaharlal may not, for our commu-
nal and other distempers, besides being a vehicle for
mass political and other education.
The more criticism I see of the scheme, the more
enamoured I become of it. It will be the surest index
to the popular feeling. It will bring out the best and
the worst in us. Illiteracy does not worry me. I would
plump for unadulterated adult franchise for both men
and women, i. e., I would put them all on the register
of voters. It is open to them not to exercise it if they
do not wish to. I would give separate vote to the
Muslims ; but, without giving separate vote, I would, though
reluctantly, give reservation, if required, to every real
minority according to its numerical strength.
Thus the Constituent Assembly provides the easiest
method of arriving at a just solution of the communal
problem. Today we are unable to say with mathematical
precision who represents whom. Though the Congress
is admittedly the oldest representative organisation on
the widest scale, it is open to political and semi-political
organisations to question, as they do question, its over-
whelmingly representative character. The Muslim League
is undoubtedly the largest organisation representing
Muslims, but several Muslim bodies — by no means all
insignificant — deny its claim to represent them. But the
Constituent Assembly will represent all communities in
their exact proportion. Except it there is no other way
of doing full justice to rival claims. Without it there can
be no finality to communal and other claims.
Again the Constituent Assembly alone can produce
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY 119
a constitution indigenous to the country and truly and
fully representing the will of the people. Undoubtedly such
a constitution will not be ideal, but it will be real,
however imperfect it may be in the estimation of the
theorists or legal luminaries. Self-government to be self-
government has merely to reflect the will of the people
who are to govern themselves. If they are not prepared
for it, they will make a hash of it. I can conceive
the possibility of a people fitting themselves for right
government through a series of wrong experiments, but
I cannot conceive a people governing themselves rightly
through a government imposed from without, even as
the fabled jackdaw could not walk like a peacock with
feathers borrowed from his elegant companion. A diseased
person has a prospect of getting \\ell by personal effort.
He cannot borrow health from others.
The risks of the experiment are admitted. There is
likely to be impersonation. Unscrupulous persons will
mislead the illiterate masses into voting for wrong men
and women. These risks have to be run, if we are to
evolve something true and big. The Constituent Assembly,
if it comes into being — as I hope it will — as a result
of an honourable settlement between us and the British
people, the combined wit of the best men of the two
nations will produce an Assembly that will reflect fairly,
truly the best mind of India. Therefore the success of
the experiment at the present stage of India's history
depends upon the intention of the British statesmen to
part with power without engaging India in a deadly
unorganised rebellion. For I know that India has become
impatient. I am painfully conscious of the fact that
India is not yet ready for non-violent civil disobedience
on a mass scale. If, therefore, I cannot persuade
the Congress to await the time when non-violent action
is possible, I have no desire to live to see a dog-fight
between the two communities. I know for certain that
if I cannot discover a method of non-violent action or
120 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
inaction to the satisfaction of *he Congress and there is no
communal adjustment, nothing on earth can prevent an
outbreak of violence resulting for the time being in
anarchy and red ruin. I hold that it is the duty of alj
communities ard Englishmen to prevent such a catastrophe ^
The only way out is a Constituent Assembly, I
have given my own opinion on it, but I am not tied
down to the details. When I was nearly through with
this article, I got the following wire from Syed Abdulla
Brelvi : "Cosiderable misapprehensions among minorities
(about) Constituent Assembly. Strongly urge clarification
details, franchise, composition, methods arriving decision."
I think I have said sufficient in the foregoing to answer
Syed Saheb's question. By minorities he has Muslims
principally in mind as represented by the Muslim League.
If once the proposition that all communities desire a
charter of independence framed by a Constituent Assembly
and that they will not be satisfied with anything else,
is accepted, the settling of details surely becomes easy. Any
other method must lead to an imposed constitution mostly
undemocratic. It would mean an indefinite prolongation
of imperialistic rule sustained by the help of those who
will not accept the fully democratic method of a Constituent
Assembly.
The principal hindrance is undoubtedly the British
Government. If they can summon a Round Table
Conference as they propose to do after the war, they
can surely summon a Constituent Assembly subject to
'safeguards to the satisfaction of minorities. The expression
satisfaction of minorities' may be regarded as vague.
It can be defined beforehand by agreement. The
question thus resolves itself into whether the British
Government desire to part with power and open a new
chapter in their own history. I have already shown that
the question of the Princes is a red herring across the
path. European interests are absolutely safe so long as
CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAMME 121
they are not in conflict with the interests of India*-
I think this expression finds place in * the Irwin-Gandhi
Pact.
Look at the question from any standpoint you like,
it will be found that the way to democratic Swaraj
lies only through a properly constituted Assembly, call
it by whatever name you like. All resources must, there-
fore, be exhausted to reach the Constituent Assembly
before direct action is thought 01. A stage may be
reached when direct action may become the necessary
prelude to the Constituent Assembly. That stage is not yet.
—Harijan : Nov. 25, 1 939.
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I BELIEVE personally that it is the most satisfactory
method of procedure ; but do not forget that I preserve
an open mind on the matter. If some people hold
that there are other forms of procedure which are more
representative, I am willing to be convinced. Today I
say that the assembly should be elected on adult franchise,
but here again my mind is open to alternative proposals
provided these proposals have the backing <ff representative
men.
—Harijan : May 18, 1940.
Constructive Programme
NATURE abhors a vacum. Therefore, construction
must keep* pace with destruction. Even if all the titled
friends gave up their titles, and if schools, courts and
Councils were entirely deserted, and being thus embarrassed
the Government abdicated in our favour, and if we had no
constructive work to our credit, we could not conduct Swaraj.
We should be entirely helpless. I often wonder whether it is
sufficiently realised that our movement is not one for mere
change of personnel but for change of the system and the
methods.
— Young India : May 8, 1924,
122 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
WHAT unfortunately I notice throughout my wander-
ings is that many Congressmen do not care so much
for constructive work as for excitement and work that
will bring them into prominence without costing them
such labour, if any at all This mentality has to be
changed, before we can have a steady supply of workers.
Everywhere I am surrounded by healthy-looking intelligent
volunteers who spare no pains to make me comfortable
and who under the impulse of service do not mind
working day and night. If they could but be induced
to transfer this devotion to a person who really does not
need all that volume of service and who is more often
than not embarrassed by such attention, to the cause which
he represents, the problem is solved.
—Young India : May 16, 1929.
<£ <$> <S>
I KNOW that many have refused to see any connection
between the constructive programme and civil disobedience.
But for one who believes in non-violence it does not need
hard thinking t^ realise the essential connection between the
constructive programme and civil disobedience for Swaraj.
I want the reader to mark the qualification. Constructive
programme is not essential for local civil disobedience for
specific relief as in the case of Bardoli. Tangible common
grievance restricted to a" particular locality is enough. But for
such an indefinable thing as Swaraj people must have pre-
vious training in doing things of All-India interest. Such
work must throw together the people and their leaders whom
they would trust implicitly. Trust begotten in the pursuit
of continuous constructive work becomes a tremendous asset
at the critical moment. Constructive work therefore is for
a non-violent army what drilling, etc. is for an army
designed for bloody warfare. Individual civil disobedience
among an unprepared people and by leaders not known
to or trusted by them is of no avail, and mass civil
disobedience is an impossiblity. The more therefore the
CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAMME 123
progress of the constructive programme, the greater is there
the chance for civil disobedience. Granted a perefectly
non-violent atmosphere and a fulfilled constructive pro-
gramme I would undertake to lead a mass civil disobedience
struggle to a successful issue in the space of a few months.
—Young India : June 9, 1930*
<$> <S> <3>
Q. WHAT is the relation between constructive work
and Ahimsa ? Why are they so intimately connected ?
A. Well, I think it is obvious enough that Hindu-Mus-
lim unity, prohibition and abolition of untouchability, — are
impossible without non-violence. Remains only the spinning
wheel. How does it become the symbol of non-violence ?
As I have already explained, the essential thing is
the spirit in which you regard it, the attributes you invest it
with. It is no quinine pill which has certain inherent proper-
ties in it, apart from what you think about it. The spinning
wheel has no such inherent property. Take the Gayatri mantra.
It cannot have the same effect on non-Hindus as it has
on me, nor can the Kalema have the same reaction on me
as it has on the Muslims. Even so the spinning wheel
in itself has nothing which can teach ahimsa or bring
Swaraj. But you have to think it with those attributes
and it is transformed. Its obvious value is the service of
the poor, but that does not necessarily mean that it should
be a symbol of non-violence or an indispensable condition
for Swaraj. But we since 1920 connected the wheel with
Swaraj and non-violence.
Then there is the programme of self-purification with
which the spinning wheel is again intimately connected.
Coarse homespun signifies simplicity of life and therefore
purity.
Without the spinning wheel, without Hindu-Muslim
unityfand without the abolition of untouchability there can
be no civil disobedience. Civil disobedience pre-supposes
124 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it
civil disobedience would be a cruel joke,
— Harijan:]uly 13, 1939.
IT is any day superior to civil disobedience. Civil
disobedience without the backing of constructive effort
is neither civil nor non-violent. Those who do con-
structive work merely for the sake of civil disobedience
look at things topsyturvy.
—Harijan : April 6, 1940.
A CORRESPONDENT writes :
"What are the qualities that you intend to inculcate
in people by laying stress on the constructive programme ?
What are the qualifications necessary for a constructive
worker in order to make his work effective ?"
The constructive programme is a big undertaking
including a number of items : (1) Hindu-Muslim or
communal unity; (2) Removal of untouchability; (3) Prohibi-
tion; (4) Khadi; (5) Other village industries; (6) Village
sanitation ; (7) New or basic education; (8) Adult educa-
tion ; (9) Uplift of women; (10) Education in hygiene
and health; (11) Propagation of Rashtrabhasha; (12) Culti-
vating love of one's awn language; (13) Working, for
economic equality. This list can be supplemented if
necessary, but it is so comprehensive that I think it can be
proved to include items appearing to have been
omitted.
The reader will see that it is the want of all
these things that is responsible for our bondage. He
will also see that the constructive programme of the Congress
is not supposed to include all the items. That is
understood to include only four items, or rather six, now
that the Congress has created the All India V|Jlage
Industries Association and the Basic Education Board.
CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRA MME 1 25
But we have to go further forward, we have to stabilise and
perfect ahimsa, and so have to make the constructive pro-
gramme as comprehensive as possible. There should be no
room for doubt that, if we can win Swaraj purely through
non-violence, we can also retain it through the same means.
In the fulfilment of the constructive programme lies the non-
violent attainment of Swaraj.
The items I have mentioned are not in order of
importance. I have put them down just as they came to
my pen. Generally I talk of khadi only nowadays,
because millions of people can take their share in this
work, and progress can be arithmetically measured.
Communal unity and the removal of untouchability
cannot be thus assessed. Once they become part of
•daily life, nothing need be done by us as individuals.
Let us now glance at the various items. Without
Hindu-Muslim, i.e. communal unity we shall always
remain crippled. And how can a crippled India win
Swaraj ? Communal unity means unity between Hindus,
Sikhs, Mussalmans, Christians, Parsis, Jews. All these go
to make Hindutsan. He who neglects any of these com-
munities does not know constructive work.
As long as the curse of untouchability pollutes the
mind of the Hindu, so long is he himself an untouchable
in the eyes of the world, and an untouchable cannot
win nonrviolent Swaraj. 'The removal of untouchability
means treating the so-called untouchables as one's own
kith and kin. He who does treat them so must be free
from the sense of high and low, in fact free from all
wrong class-sense. He will regard the whole world as
one family. Under non-violent Swaraj it will be impossible
to conceive of any country as an enemy country.
Pure Swaraj is impossible of attainment by people
who have been of or who are slaves of intoxicating
drinks and drugs. It must never be forgotten that a man
126 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
in the grip of intoxicants is generally bereft of the moral
sense.
Everyone now may be said to believe that without
khadi there is no just and immediate solution of the problem
of the starvation of our millions. I need not therefore dilate
upon it. I would only add that in the resuscitation of
khadi lies the resuscitation cf the ruined village artisans.
Khadi requisites (wheels, looms, etc.) have to be made by
the village carpenter and blacksmith. For unless these
requisites are made in the village it cannot be self-contained
and prosperous.
The revival of khadi presupposes the revival of all
other village industries. Because we have not laid proper
stress on this, khadi-wearers see nothing wrong in using
other articles which are foreign or mill-made. Such people
may be said to have failed to grasp the inner meaning
of khadi. They forget that by establishing the Village
Industries Association the Congress has placed all other
village industries on the same level as khadi. As the
solar system will be dark without the sun, even so will
the sun be lustreless without the heavenly bodies. All
things in the universe are interdependent. The salvation
of India is impossible without the salvation of villages.
If rural reconstruction were not to include rural
sanitation, our villages would remain the muck-heaps that
they are today. Village sanitation is a vital part of village
life and is as difficult as it is important. It needs a heroic
effort to eradicate age-long insanitation. The village worker
who is ignorant of the science of village sanitation, who
is not a successful scavenger, cannot fit himself for village
service.
It seems to be generally admitted that without the
new or basic education the education of millions of children
in India is well-nigh impossible. The village worker hast
therefore, to master it and become a basic education teacher
himself.
CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAMME 127
Adult education will follow in the wake of basic education
as a matter of course. Where this new education has taken
root, the children themselves become their parents' teachers.
Be that as it may, the village worker has to undertake
adult education also.
Woman is described as man's better half. As long
as she has not the same rights in law as man, as long
as the birth of a girl does not receive the same welcome
as that of a boy, so long we should know that India is
suffering from partial paralysis. Suppression of woman is
a denial of ahimsa. Every village worker will, thereiore,
regard every woman as his mother, sister or daughter as
the case may be, and look upon her with respect. Only
such a worker will command the confidence of the village
people.
It is impossible for an unhealthy people to win Swaraj.
Therefore we should no longer be guilty of the neglect
of the health of our people. Every village worker must
have a knowledge of the general principles of health.
Without a common language no nation can come into
being. Instead of worrying himself with the controversy
about Hindi-Hindustani and Urdu, the village worker will
acquire a knowledge of the rashtrabhasha, which should be
such as can be understood by both Hindus and Muslims.
Our infactuation for English has made us unfaithful
to provincial languages. If only as penance for this un-
faithfulness the village worker should cultivate in the
villagers a love of their own speech. He will have equal
regard for all the other languages of India, and will learn
the language of the part where he may be working^
and thus be able to inspire the villagers there with a regard
for their own speech.
The whole of this programme will, however, be a
structure on sand if it is not built on the solid foundation
of economic equality. Economic equality must never be
128 TEACHINGS OF M AH ATM A GANDHI
supposed to mean possession of an equal amount of wordly
goods by everyone. It does mean, however, that everyone will
have a proper house to live in, sufficient and balanced
food to eat, and sufficient khadi with which to cover him-
self. It also means that the cruel inequality that obtains to-
day will be removed ^by purely non-violent means. This
question, however, requires to be separately dealt with.
—Harijan : Aug. 18, 1940-
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BELIEVE me that Swaraj will be delayed in proportion
to our failure and half-heartedness in carrying out the
different items of the constructive programme. It is im-
possible to attain Swaraj non-violently unless there is self-
purification. — Harijan : July 28, 1940
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IF we wish to achieve Swaraj through truth and non-
violence, gradual but steady building up from the bottom
upwards by constructive effort is the only way. This
rules out the deliberate creation of an anarchical state for
the overthrow of the established order in the hope of throw-
ing up from within a dictator who would rule with a rod
of iron and produce order out of disorder.
— Harijan: Jan. 18, 1942.
Contentment
MAN falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plain living
and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his
daily wants. History gives ample proof of this. Man's
happiness really lies in contentment.
He who is discontented, however, much he possesses
becomes a slave to his desires. All the sages have declared
from the housetops that the man can be his own worst
enemy as well as his best friend. To be free or to be a
slave lies in his own hands.
—Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
CONVERSION 129
onverson
I WOULD not only not try tq^ convert but would not
even secretly pray that anyone should embrace my faith. My
prayer would always be that Imam Saheb should be a better
Mussalman, or become the best he can. Hinduism with
its message of Ahimsa is to me the most glorious religion in
the world, as my wife to me is the most beautiful woman
in the world, but others may feel the same about their
own religion. Cases of real honest conversion are quite
possible. If some people for their inward satisfaction and
growth change their religion let them do so.
—Young India : June 27, 1927
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I HOLD that proselytising under the cloak of humanita-
rian work is, to say, the least, unhealthy. It is most certainly
resented by the people here. Religion after all is a deeply
personal matter. It touches the heart. Why should I
change my religion because a doctor who professes
Christianity as his religion has cured me of some disease or
why should the doctor expect or suggest such a change
whilst I am under his influence ? Is not medical relief its
own reward and satisfaction ? Or why should I whilst I
am in a missionary educational institution have Christian
teaching thrust upon me ? In my opinion these practices
are not uplifting and give rise to suspicion if not even secret
hostility*. The methods of conversion must be like Caesar's
wife above suspicion. Faith is not imparted like secular
subjects. It is given through the language of the heart.
If a man has a living faith in him, it spreads its aroma like
the rose its scent. Because of its invisibility, the extent of
its influence is far wider than that of the visible beauty of
the colour of the petals.
I am, then, not against conversion. But I am against
the modern methods vof it. Conversion nowadays has
become a matter of business, like any other. I remember
130 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
having read a missionary report saying how much it cost per
head to convert and then presenting a budget for "the next
harvest."
Yes, I do maintain that India's great faiths are all
sufficing for her. Apart from Christianity and Judaism,
Hinduism and its offshoots, Islam and Zoroastrianism are
living faiths. No one faith is perfect. All faiths are equally
dear to their respective votaries. What is wanted therefore
is living friendly contact among the followers of the great
religions of the world and not a clash among them in the
fruitless attempt on the part of each community to show the
superiority of its faith over the rest. Through such friendly
contact, it will be possible for us all to rid our respective
faiths of short-comings and excresceness.
It follows from what I have said above that India is in
no need of conversion of the kind I have in mind. Con-
version in the self-purification, self-realisation is the crying
need of the times. That however is not what is ever meant
by proselytising. To those who would convert India, might
it not be said, "Physician heal thyself?"
— Young India : April 23, 1931.
SURELY conversion is a matter between man and his
Maker who alone knows His creatures' hearts. And con-
version without a clean heart is, in my opinion, a denial of
God and religion. Conversion without clearfiness of heart
can only be a matter for sorrow, not joy, to a godly person.
—Harijan : Dec. 9, 1936^
CONVERSION without conviction is a mere change
and not conversion which is a revolution in one's life.
—Harijan : Mar. 29, 1942.
Convictions
ONE needs to be slow to form convictions, but once
COUNCILS 131
brmed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.
—Young India : Oct. 7, 1926.
Councils
LET us not mistake reformed councils, more law courts
and even governorships for real freedom or power. They
are but subtler methods of emasculation.
—Young India : Sept. 22, 1920.
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I KNOW for certain that it is not legal subtleties,
discussions on academic justice or resolutions of Councils
and Assemblies that will give us what we want.
Councils are no factories for making stout hearts. And
freedom is miasma without stout hearts to defend it.
—Young India : Dec. 15, 1921.
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TO enter the Councils is to submit to the vote of the
majority, i.e., to co-operate. If then we want to stop the
machinery of Government, as we want to, until we get
justice in the Khilafat and the Punjab matters, we must put
our whole weight against the Government and refuse to
accept the vote of the majority in the Councils, because it will
neither represent the wish of the country nor our own which
is more to the point on a matter of principle. A minister
who refuses to serve is better than one who serves under
protest. Service under protest shows that the situation is
not intolerable.
—Young India : July 14, 1920.
THE legislatures, central and provincial, are like other
institutions powerful and tempting devices for draining India
of whatever she has still left.
—Young India : April 10, 1930.
132 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE legislatures are but a pawn in the game of
exploitation. Ostrich-like we hide our heads in the sand
and refuse to see what is plain as a pikestaff to the onlooker.
—Young India : May 1, 1930.
^N ^S ^^
I DO not deny that legislatures are a great temptation,
almost like liquor booths. They hold out opportunities
to self-seekers and job-hunters. But no congressman, can
go with that sordid object.
—Harijan : May 1, 1937-
THE boycott of the legislatures, let me tell you, is not
an eternal principle like that of truth or non-violence. My
opposition to them has considerably lessened, but that does
not mean that I am going back on my former position.
The question is purely one of strategy, and I can only
say what is most needed at a particular moment.
Am I the non-co-operator I was in 1920? Yes,
I am the same non-co-operator. But it is forgotten that
I was a co-operator too in the sense that I non-co-operated
for co-operation, and even then I said that if I could carry
the country forward by co-operation I should co-operate.
I have now advised going to the legislatures not to offer
co-operation but to demand co-operation.
—Harijan : May 1, 1937.
I HAVE always held that parliamentary programme
at all times is the least part of a nation's activity. The
most important and permanent work is done outside.
—Harijan : Jan. 25, 1942.
Courage
COURAGE has never been known to be matter of
muscle, it is a matter of the heart. The toughest muscle
COURTESY 133
has been known to tremble before an imaginary fear. It
was the heart that set the muscle a trembling.
— Young India : July 16, 1031.
Courtesy
WHEN restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the
latter becomes irresistible.
— Young India : Jan 19, 1922.
COURTESY should not be mistaken for flattery nor
impudence for fearlessness.
— Young India : June 12, 1924.
^s ^^ ^^
INTOLERANCE, discourtesy, harshness are not only
against Congress discipline and code of honour, they are
taboo in all good sojiety and are surely contrary to the
spirit of democracy.
—Harijan : Aug. 14, 1937.
Cow
IT must be an article of faith for every Hindu, that
the cow can only be saved by Mussalman friendship. Let
us recognise frankly, that complete protection of the cow
depends purely upon Mussalman good-will. It is as im-
possible to bend the Mussalmans to our will, as it would
be for them to bend us to theirs. We are evolving the
doctrine df equal and free partnership. We are fighting
Dyerism — the doctrine of frightfultfess.
Cow protection is the dearest possession of Hindu
heart. It is the one concrete belief common to all
Hindus. No one who does not believe in cow protection,
can possibly be a Hindu. It is a noble belief. Cow
protection means brotherhood between man and beast
It is a noble sentiment that must grow by patient toil
and tapasya. It cannot be imposed upon any one. To
134 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
carry cow protection at the point of the sword, is a con-
tradiction in terms. Rishis of old are said to have per-
formed penance for the sake of the cow. Let us follow
in the foot-steps of the Rishis, and ourselves do a penance,
so that we may be pure enough to protect the cow and
all that the doctrine means and implies.
—Young India \ Mar. 16, 1920.
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FOR me the cow is the purest type of sub-human life.
She pleads before us on behalf of the whole of sub-human
species for justice to it at the hands of man, the first among
all that lives. She seems to speak to us through her eyes
(let the reader look at them with my faith), "you are not
appointed over us to kill us and eat our flesh or other-
wise ill-treat us, but to be our friend and guardian.'*
—Young India : June 26, 1924.
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WHEN I see a cow, I do not see an animal to be
eaten. It is for me a poem of pity. I worship it and I
shall defend its worship against the whole world.
—Young India : Aug. 28, 1924-
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COW protection includes, the protection and service oi
both man and bird and beast. It presupposes a thorough
eschewal of violence. A Hindu, if he is true Hindu, may
not raise his hand against a Mussalman or an Englishman
to protect the cow.
—Young India : May 7, 1925.
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AN untouchable may cry and raise a protest, a Hindu
or Mussalman may raise a protest and even break heads
to settle a grievance. But the cow is entirely at our
mercy. She consents to be led to slaughter, and to be
COW 135
embarked for Australia and gives her progeny to carry
whatever burden we want it to carry, in sun or rain.
— Young India : May 7, 1925.
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THE cow means not merely the animal, the giver
of milk and innumerable other things to India, but it
means also the helpless, the downtrodden and the
poor.
— Young Indi :July 7, 1927
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HINDUISM believes in the oneness not of merely all
human life but in the oneness of all that lives. Its
worship of the cow is, in my opinion, its unique contribution
to the evolution of humanitarianism. It is a practical applica-
tion of the belief in the oneness and, therefore, sacredness of
all life. The great belief in transmigration is a direct
consequence of that belief.
—Young India : Oct. 20, 1927.
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THE poverty of the cow is reflected in the poverty
of the people.
— Young India : Oct. 24, 1929
ISLAM in India cannot make a better gift to the Hindus
than this voluntary self-denial. And I know enough of
Islam to be able to assert that Islam does not compel cow-
slaughter and it does compel its followers to spare and
respect to the full the feelings of their neighbours whenever
it is humanly possible.
—Young India ; Jan. 5, 1928.
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THE cow is an object of worship and veneration
to millions in India. I count myself among them,
—Harijan : Mar. 13, 1937.
136 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Q. SHOULD the Mussalmans have the freedom to
kill cows ?
A. As a Hindu, a confirmed vegetarian, and a wor-
shipper of the cow whom I regard with the same veneration
as I regard my mother (alas no more on this earth) I main-
tain that Muslims should have full freedom to slaughter cows,
if they wish, subject of course to hygienic restrictions and in
a manner not to wound the susceptibilities of their Hindu
neighbours. Fullest recognition of freedom to the Muslims
to slaughter cows is indispensable for communal harmony,
and is the only way of saving the cow. In 1921 thousands
of cows were saved by the sole and willing efiorts of Muslims
themselves. In spite of the black clouds hanging over our
heads, I refuse to give up the hope that they will disperse
and that we shall have communal peace in this unhappy
land. If I am asked for proof, I must answer that my hope
is based on faith and faith demands no proof.
—Harijan : April 27, 1940.
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MOTHER cow is in many ways better than the
mother who gave us birth. Our mother gives us milk
for a couple of years and then expects us to serve her
when we grow up. Mother cow expects from us nothing
but grass and grain. Our mother often falls ill and
expects service from us. Mother cow rarely falls ill.
Hers is an unbroken record of service which does not end
with her death. Our mother when she dies means expenses
of burial or cremation. Mother cow is as useful dead as
when she is alive. We can make use of every part of her bones
of her body — her flesh, her intestines, her horns and her
skin. Well I say this not to disparage the mother
(vho gives us birth, but in order to show you the substantial
reasons for my worshipping the cow.
—Hatijan : Sept. 15, 1940.
Cowardice
COWARDS can never be moral.
—Young India : June 22, 1921.
CREEDS 137
BULLIES are always to be found where there are
cowards.
Cowardice is perhaps the greatest vice from which
we suffer and is also possibly the greatest violence,
certainly far greater than bloodshed and the
like that generally go under the name of violence.
For it comes from want of faith in God and ignorance
of His attributes. But I am sorry that I have not the
ability to give the knowledge and the advice that the
correspondent would have me to give on how to dispel cow-
ardice and other vices. But I can give my own testimony and
say that a heartfelt prayer is undoubtedly the most potent in-
strument that man possesses for overcoming cowardice and
all other bad old habits. Prayer is an impossibility without
a living faith in the presence of God within.
—Young India : Dec. 20, 1928.
NON-VIOLENCE and cowardice go ill together. I
can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward.
Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not
cowardice. But true non-violence is an impossibility
without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness.
—Harijan : July 15, 1939.
Creeds
ARE creeds such simple things like the clothes which a
man can change at will and put on at will ? Creeds are such
for which people live for ages and ages.
— Toung India : July 21, 1921.
WHEN anything assumes the strength of a creed it
becomes self-sustained and derives the needed support from*
within.
— Young India : ]*r\. 19, 1928.
138 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
CRITICISM of public man is a welcome sign of
public awakening. It keeps workers on the alert.
— Young India : May 9, 1921.
ALL criticism is not intolerance.
—Young India : Feb. 12, 1925.
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HEALTHY well-informed, balanced criticism is the
azone of public life. A most democratic Minister is likely
to go wrong without ceaseless watch from the public.
—Harijan : Nov. 13, 1925.
3> 3> <§>
THROUGHOUT my life I have gained more from my
critic friends than from my admirers, especially when the
criticism was made in courteous and friendly language.
— Young India : Oct. 27, 1927.
^^ ^S ^>
I CAN profit by criticism never by praise.
—Young India : April 25, 1929.
IT is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we
may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are,
•especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are
not angry with our critics but will take in good heart what-
ever they might have to say.
—Harijan : Mar. 6, 1937.
Criticism
DO not judge others. Be your own judge and you
will be truly happy. If you will try to judge others, you
are likely to burn your fingers.
—Harijan : July 28, 1940.
CULTURE 139
Crowd Indian
AN Indian crowd is the most managable and docile in
the world. But it needs previous preparation. But when
we have not had it, it is the wisest thing not to bring
together crowds.
—Toung India: Oct. 27, 1920.
Culture
CULTURE of the mind must be subservient to the
heart.
— Gandhiji in Ceylon : Page 146.
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NO culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.
There is no such thing as pure Aryan culture in existence
today in India. Whether the Aryans were indigenous to
India or were unwelcome intruders, does not interest me
much. What does interest me is the fact that my remote
ancestors blended with one another with the utmost freedom
and we of the present generation are a result of that blend.
Whether we are doing any good to the country of our birth
and the tiny globe which sustains us or whether we are a
burden, the future alone can show.
—Harijan : May 9, 1936.
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CULTURE without labour, or culture which is not the
fruit of labour, would be * Vomitoria ' as a Roman Catholic
writer says. The Romans made indulgence a habit, and
were ruined. Man cannot develop his mind by simply
writing and reading or making speeches all day long.
—Harijan : Aug. 1, 1936,
A NATION'S culture resides in the hearts and in the
soul of its people.
—Harijan : Jan. 28, 1939
140 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Cunning
I BELIEVE that cunning is not only morally wrong but
also politically inexpedient, and have therefore always
discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
— Satyagraha in South Afriea : Page 318.
Custom
WE must gladly give up custom that is against reason,
justice, and religion of the heart. We must not ignorantly
cling to bad custom and part with it when we must, like a
miser parting with his ill-gotten hoard out of pressure and
expedience. —Young India : Feb. 9, 1921.
D
Darshan
LOVE that is satisfied with touching the feet of its
hero and making noise at him is likely to be comepara-
siticaL Such love ceases to be a virtue and after a time
becomes a positive indulgence and therefore a vice.
— Toung India : Oct. 20, 1920.
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I HAVE a horror of touching- the-feet devotion. It
is wholly unnecessary as a mark of affection, it may
easily be degrading. It interferes with free and easy
movement, and I have been hurt by the nails of the
devotees cutting into the flesh. The performance has
often taken more than fifteen minutes to pass through
a crowd to a platform only a few yards from the
farthest end.
— Toting India : Sept. 5, 1929.
Death
FEAR of death makes us devoid both of valour
and religion. For want of valour is want of religious
faith.
— Young India : April 11, 1919.
DEATH 141
WHY should we be upset when children or young
men or old men die ? Not a moment passes when some
one is not born or is not dead in this world. We should feel
the stupidity of rejoicing in a birth and lamenting a death.
Those who believe in the soul— and what Hindu,
Musalman or Parsi is there who does not ? — know that
the soul never dies. The souls of the living as well
as of the dead are all one. The eternal processes of
creation and destruction are going on ceaselessly. There
is nothing in it for which we might give ourselves up
to joy or sorrow. Even if we extend the idea of re-
lationship only to our countrymen and take all the births
in the country as taking place in our own family, how
many births shall we celebrate ? If we weep for all the
deaths in our country, the tears in our eyes would never
dry. This train of thought should help us to get rid
of all fear of death.
India, they say, is a nation of philosophers; and we
have not been unwilling to appropriate the compliment.
Still, hardly any other nation becomes so helpless in the
face of death as we da. And in India again, no other
community perhaps betrays so much of this helplessness as
the Hindus. A single birth is enough for us to beside
ourselves with ludicrous joyfulness. A death makes us
indulge in orgies of loud lamentation which condemn the
neighbourhood to sleeplessness for the night. If we wish
to attain Swaraj^ and if having attained it, wish to make
it something to be proud of, we must perfectly renounce
this unseemly fright. — Young India : Oct. 13, 1921.
DEATH, which is an eternal verity, is revolution,
as birth and after is slow and steady evolution. Death
is as necessary for man's growth as life itself.
— Young India : Feb. 2, 1922.
LIFE persists in the face of death.
— Young India : Oct. 23, 1924.
142 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
DEATH is at any time blessed but it is twice blessed
for a warrior who dies for his cause, i. e. truth. Death
is no fiend, he is the truest of friends. He delivers us
from agony. He helps us against ourselves. He ever
gives us new chances, new hopes. He is like sleep a s\\eet
restorer. Yet it is customary to mourn when a friend
dies. The custom has no operation when the death is that
of a martyr. —Young India : Dec. 20, 1926.
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WHAT a comforting thought it is to think of death,
whenever it comes, as a wise plan in the economy of
nature ? If we could realise this law of our being and
be prepared for death as a welcome friend and deliverer
we should cease to engage in the frantic struggle for life.
We shall cease to want to live at the cost of other
lives and in contempt of all considerations of humanity.
Such realization is impossible without a due conception
of the definite and grave limitations of the body and
an abiding faith in God and His unchangeable Law
of Karma. —Young India : May 12, 1927.
3> <S> <S>
AS Hindus we ought to be the least affected by the
thought of death, since from the very cradle we are
brought up on the doctrines of the spirit and the
transitoriness of the body. — Young India : Oct. 18, 1928.
OUR scriptures tell us, that childhood, old age
and death are incidents only to this perishable body of
ours and that man's spirit is eternal and immortal. That
being so, why should we fear death ? And where there
is no fear of death there can be no sorrow over it
either. —Young India : Dec. 13, 1928.
^> <$» <$>
I WANT you all to shed the fear of death, so that
when the history of freedom comes to be written, the
DEATH 143
names of the boys and girls of national schools and
colleges may be mentioned therein as those who died
not doing violence but in resisting it, no matter by whom
committed. The strength to kill is not essential for self-
defence; one ought to have the strength to die. When
a man is fully ready to die he will not even desire
to offer violence. Indeed I may put it down as a
self-evident proposition that the desire to kill is in inverse
proportion to the desire to die. And history is replete
with instances of men who by dying with courage and
compassion on their lips converted the hearts of their violent
opponents. — Tcung India : Jan. 23, 1930.
+ + +
I T is as clear to me as daylight that life and death
are but phases of the same thing, the reverse and obverse
of the same coin. In fact tribulation and death seem to
me to present a phase far richer than happiness or life.
What is life worth without trials and tribulation, which
are the salt of life. The history of mankind would have
been a blank sheet without these individuals. What is
Ramayana but a record of the trials, privations and
penances of Rama and Sita. The life of Rama, after
the recovery of Sita, full of happiness as it was, does,
not occupy even a hundredth part of the epic. I want
you all to treasure death and suffering more than life
and to appreciate their cleansing and purifying
character. — Tcung India : Mar. 12, 1930.
+ + +
I AM fatalist enough to believe that no one can put
off the hour of death when it has struck. Not the greatest
medical assistance available has saved kings and emperors,
from the Jaws of Death. — Harijan : Sept. 19, 1936..
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IT is foolish to think that by fleeing one can
trick the dread god of death. Let us treat him as a
beneficient angel rather than as a dread god. We must.
144 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
face and welcome him whenever he comes.
— HarijaniJulyG, 1940.
•+• + +
LET us not die before the inevitable hour comes as it
must come to every one of us, war or no war.
—Harijan : July 6, 1940.
-f- •+- -+-
FOR many years I have accorded intellectual assent
to the proposition that death is only a %ig change in
life and nothing more, and should be welcome when-
ever it arrives. I have deliberately made a supreme
attempt to cast out from my heart all fear whatsoever
including the fear of death. Still I remember occasions
in my life when I have not rejoiced at the thought of
approaching death as one might rejoice at the prospect
of the meeting a long lost friend. Thus man often
remains weak notwithstanding all his efforts to be strong,
and knowledge which stops at the head and does not
penetrate into the heart is of but little use in the critical
times of living experience. Then again the stength of
the spirit within mostly evaporates when a person gets
and accepts support from outside. A Satyagrahi must be
always on his guard against such temptations.
— Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 286.
Death Duties
IN this of all countries in the world possession of
inordinate wealth by individuals should be held as a
crime against Indian humanity. Therefore the maximum
limit of taxtion of riches beyond a certain margin can never
be reached. In England, I understand, they have already
gone as far as 70 per cent, of the earnings beyond a prescribed
figure. There is no reason why India should not go to a much
higher figure. Why should there not be death duties ?
Those sons of millionaires who are of age and yet in-
herit their parents' wealth, are losers for the very in-
heritance. The nation thus becomes a double loser. For
DEFEAT 145
the inheritance should rightly belong to the nation. And
the nation loses again in that the full faculties of the heirs are
not drawn out, being crushed under the load of riches.
—Harijan : July 31, 1937.
Death Sentence
I DO regard death sentence as contrary to ahitnsa.
Only He takes life who gives it. All punishment is
repugnant to ahimsa. Under a State governed according
to the principles of ahimw, therefore, a murderer would
be sent to a penitentiary and there given every chance
of reforming himself. All crime is a kind of disease
and should be treated as such.
—Harijan : Mar. 19, 1937.
Debt
HE who repays a debt deserves no praise. In fact
if he fails to do so, he may be liable to prosecu-
tion.
—Harijon: May 21, 1938.
Deception
ULTIMATELY a deceivpr only deceives himself.
— My Experiments With Truth : Page 430.
Defeat
HEROES are made in the hour of defeat.
Success is, therefore, well described as a series of
glorious defeats.
—Young India ;Jan. 15, 1925.
me.
DEFE AT cannot dishearten me. It can only chasten
—Tcunghdia : July 3, 1924.
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IT is the spirit that defies defeat.
— Youne India : Sent. 27. 1928
146 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE word 'defeat' is not to be found in my dictionary,
and everyone who is selected as a recruit in my army
may be sure that there is no defeat for a Satyagrahi.
—Harijan : Mar. 30, 1940.
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A SOLDIER cannot plead difficulties in defence of his
defeat. —Harijan : Nov. 10, 1939,
Democracy
IN some respects, popular terrorism is more antagonistic
to the growth of the democratic spirit than the Govern-
mental. For the lattejr strengthens the spirit of democracy
whereas the former kills it. Dyerism has evoked a
yearning after freedom as nothing else has. But internal
dyersim representing as is will, terrorism by a majority
will establish an aligarchy such as stifle the spirit of
all free discussion and conduct.
— Young India : Feb. 23, 1921.
^s ^> ^s
INTOLERANCE is itself a form of violence and an
obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.
—Toung India : Sept. 29, 192L
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WHAT Non-co-operation is fighting among other
things is the spirit of patronage. We must have the
liberty to do evil before we learn to do good. Even liberty
must not be forced upon us. The democratic spirit
demands that a most autocratic minister must yield to
a people's will or resign office. —Toung India : Oct. 25, 1921
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THE highest form of freedom carries with it the
greatest measure of discipline and humility. Freedom that
comes from discipline and humility cannot be denied,,
unbridled licence is a sign of vulgarity injurious alike
to self and one's neighbours. —Toung India : June 3, 1926.
DEMOCRACY 147
ANY secrecy hinders the real spirit of democracy.
—Young India : Sept. 16, 1926.
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THE spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to
be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of the
heart.
—Young India : Mar. 16, 1927.
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THERE is no human institution but has its dangers.
The greater the institution the greater the chances of abuse.
Democracy is a great institution and therefore it is liable to
be greatly abused. The remedy therefore is not avoidance
of democracy but reduction of possibility of abuse to a mini-
mum.
—Harijan : May 7, 1931.
<^ <s> <^
A POPULAR state can never act in advance of
public opinion. If it goes against it, it will be destroyed.
Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the first thing in
the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious
will, land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed.
—Harijan : July 20, 1931 .
^^ ^S ^S
A NATION that runs its affairs smoothly and
effectively without much state interference is truly demo-
cratic. Where such . a condition is absent, the form of
Government is democratic in name.
—Harijan : Jan. 11, 1936.
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IN theory, a leader of democracy holds himself at the
beck and call of the public. It is but right that he should
do so. But he dare not do so at the sacrifice of the duty
imposed upon him by the public.
—Harijan : Oct. 9, 1937
148 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
DEMOCRACY of the west is, in my opinion, only
so-called. It has germs in it, certainly, of the true type. But
it can only come when all violence is eschewed and mal-
practices disappear. The two go hand in hand. Indeed
malpractice is a species of violence. If India is to evolve the
true type, there should be no compromise with violence or un-
truth. Ten million men and women on the Congress register
with violence and untruth in their breasts would not
evolve real democracy or bring Swaraj. But I can
conceive the possibility of ten thousand Congressmen and
women who are cent per cent, true, and free from having
to carry the burden of innumerable doubtful companions
bringing Swaraj. — Harijan : Sept. 3, 1938.
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DEMOCRACY must in essence, therefore, mean the art
and science of mobilising the entire physical, economic
and spiritual resources of all the various sections of
the people in the service of the common good of all.
Service of the family has been the motive behind
all our activities hitherto. We must now learn to broaden
our outlook so as to include in our ambit the service
of the people as a whole.
We are familiar with several conceptions of village
work. Hitherto it has mostly meant propaganda in the
villages to inculcate upon the village masses a sense of
their rights. Sometimes it has also meant conducting
welfare activity among them to ameliorate their material
condition. But the village work that I have now come to
place before you consists in educating the villager in his
duties.
Rights accrue automatically to him who duly per-
forms his duties. In fact the right to perform one's
duties is the only right that is worth living for and
dying for. It covers all legitimate rights. All the
rest is grab under one guise or another and contains
in it seeds of himsa.
DEMOCRACY 149
The Swaraj of my conception will come only when
all of us are firmly persuaded that our Swaraj has got
to be won, worked and maintained through truth and
ahimsa alone. True democracy or the Swaraj of the
masses can never come through untruthful and violent
means, for the simple reason that the natural corollary
to their use would be to remove all opposition through
the suppression or extermination of the antagonists.
That does not make for individual freedom. Individual
freedom can have the fullest play only under a regirne
of unadulterated ahimsa.
We cannot afford to have discord in our midst if we are
to educate the people. We must all speak with one voice.
If we want to weld the various sections into one people and
that is the sine qua non of democracy, we may not, in rendering
service, make any distinction between those who took part in
our struggle and those who did not.
—Harijan : May 27, 1939.
<£ <$> <S>
A BORN democrat is a born disciplinarian. Demo-
cracy comes naturally to him who is habituated normally
to yield willing obedience to all laws, human or divine.
I claim to be a democrat both by instinct and training.
Let those who are ambitious to serve democracy qualify
themselves by satisfying first the acid test of demo-
cracy. Moreover, a democrat must be utterly selfless.
He must think and dream not in terms of self or party
but only of democracy. Only then does he acquire the
right of civil disobedience. I do not want anybody
to give up his convictions or to suppress himself. I do
not believe that a healthy and honest difference of opinion
will injure our cause. But opportunism, camouflage or
patched up compromises certainly will. If you must
dissent, you should take care that your opinions voice your
innermost convictions and are not intended merely as a
convenient party cry.
150 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Today our democracy is choked by our internecine
strife. We are torn by dissensions — dissensions between
Hindus and Mussalmans, Brahmins, and non-Brahmins,
Congressmen and non-Congressmen. It is no easy
task to evolve democracy out of this mobocracy. Let us
not make confusion worse confounded by further introducing
into it the virus of sectionalism and party spirit.
I value individual freedom but you must not forget
that man is essentially a social being. He has risen
to this present status by learning to adjust his
individualism to the requirements of social progress.
Unrestricted individualism is the law of the beast of the
jungle. We have learnt to strike the mean between
individual freedom and social restraint. Willing submission
to social restraint for the sake of the well-being of the
whole society, enriches both the individual and the society of
which one is a member.
—Harijan: May 27, 1939.
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Q. WHY do you say, "Democracy can only be saved
through non-violence ? " (The questioner was an American
friend).
A. Because democracy, so long as it is sustained by
violence, cannot provide- for, or protect the weak. My
notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should
have the same opportunity as the strongest. That can
never happen except through non-violence. No country
in the world today shows any but patronising regard for
the -weak. The weakest, you say, go to the wall. Take
your own case. Your land is owned by a few capitalist
owners. The same is true of South Africa. These large
holdings cannot be sustained except by violence, veiled
if not open. Western democracy, as it functions today,
is diluted Nazism or Fascism. At best it is merely a
cloak to hide the Nazi and the Fascist tendencies of
imperialism. Why is there the war today, if it is not
DEMOCRACY 151
for the satisfaction of the desire to share the spoils ? It
was not through democratic methods that Britain bagged
India. What is the meaning of South African democracy ?
Its very constitution has been drawn to protect the white
man against the coloured man, the natural occupant.
Your own history is perhaps blacker still, in spite of what
the Northern States did for the abolition of slavery. The
way you have treated negro presents a discreditable
record. And it is to save such democracies that the war is
being fought ! There is something very hypocritical about it.
I am thinking just now in terms of non-violence and trying
to expose violence in its nakedness.
India is trying to evolve true democracy, i. e. with-
out violence. Our weapons are those of Satyagraha
expressed though the Charkha, the village industries, primary
education through handicrafts, removal of untouchability,
communal harmony, prohibition, and non-violent organisa-
tion of labour as in Ahmedabad. These mean mass effort
and mass education. We have big agencies for conducting
these activities. They are purely voluntary, and their only
sanction is service of the lowliest.
This is the permanent part of the non-violent effort.
From this effort is created the capacity to offer non- violent
non-co-operation and civil disobedience which may culminate
in mass refusal to pay rent and taxes. As you know,
we have tried non-co-operation and civil disobedience on
a fairly large scale and fairly successfully. The experiment
has in it promise of a brilliant future. As yet our
resistance has been that of the weak. The aim is to
develop the resistance of the strong. Your wars will
never ensure safety for democracy. India's experiment
can and will, if the people come up to the mark or,
to put it another way, if God gives me the necessary
wisdom and strength to bring the experiment to fruition.
-Hanjan : May 18, 1940.
152 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
DEMOCRACY is not a state in which people act like
sheep. Under democracy individual liberty of opinion and
action is jealously guarded, — Harijan : May 7, 1942.
^& ^x ^x
IF we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we
cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of
faith in one's cause. — Harijan : May 24, 1942.
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EVOLUTION of democracy is not possible if we
are not prepared to hear the other side. We shut the
doors of reason when we refuse to listen to our opponents
or having listened make fun of them. If intolerance
becomes a habit, we run the risk of missing the truth.
Whilst with the limits that nature has put upon our
understanding, we must act fearlessly according to the
light vouchsafed to us, we must always keep an open
mind and be ever ready to find that what we believed
to be truth was, after all untruth. This openness of
mind strengthens the truth in us and removes the dross
from it if there is any. — Harijan : May 31, 1942.
Dhurna
WE must refrain from sitting Dhurna, we must refrain
from crying 'shame, shame* to anybody, we must not use
any coercion to persuade opr people to adopt our way. We
must guarantee to them the same freedom we claim for
ourselves. — Toung India : Feb. 9, 1921.
<s> <$><$>
I CALL it 'barbarity1, for it is a crude way xor using
coercion. It is also cowardly because one who sits Dhurna
knows that he is not going to be trampled over. It is
difficult to call the practice violent, but it is certainly worse.
If we fight our opponent, we at least enable him to return
the blow. But when we challenge him to walk over us,
knowing that he will not, we place him in a most awkward
and humiliating position. — Toung India : Feb. 2, 1922.
DISCIPLINE 153
Diagnosis
A TRUE diagnosis is three-fourth's the remedy.
— Harijan : June 24, 1939,
Difference
HONEST differences are often a healthy sign of
progress.
Young India : July 17, 1920.
Disease
A PATIENT can ill afford to conceal his disease. If
he does so he becomes his own enemy.
—Young India : Feb. 2, 1928.
Discipline
DISCIPLINE knows no rank. A king who knows its
value submits to his page in matters where he appoints him
as the sole judge. — Young India : Dec, 4, 1925.
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THERE is no deliverance and no hope without sacrifice3
discipline and self-control. Mere sacrifice without discipline
will be unavailing. — Toung India : Jan. 9, 1926,
<S> <§> <3>
A TRUE soldier does not argue, as he inarches, how
success is going to be ultimately achieved. But he is con-
fident that if he only plays his humble part well, somehow
or other the battle will be won. It is in that spirit that
every one of us should act. It is not given to us to know
the future. . But it is given to everyone of us to know ho\\
to do our own part well. Let us then do that which we
know is possible for us if we only will.
— Young India : May 17, 1927
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THERE will have to be rigid and iron discipline before
we achieve anything great and enduring, and that discipline
will not come by mere academic argument and appeal tc
reason and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school o:
adversity. —Young India : June 24, 1928
154 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
LET it not be said that we are a people incapable of
maintaining discipline. Indiscipline will mean disaster, and
make one like me who is pinning to see Swaraj in his life-
time perish in sorrow and grief.
—Toting India : Mar. 12, 1931.
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WE cannot learn discipline by compulsion.
—Toung India : Dec. 20, 1931.
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DISCIPLINE is to disorder what bulwarks and
embankments are to storms and floods.
—Toung India : May 14, 1931.
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NO reliance can be placed upon an organization which
is not able to exercise effective control over its members.
Imagine an army whose soldiers, under the false belief that
they are advancing the common cause, adopt measures in
defiance of those taken by the headquarters. Such action
may well spell defeat.
—Harijan : Oct. 21, 1939.
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IN the coming struggle, if it must come, no half-hearted
loyalty will answer the purpose. Imagine a general march-
ing to battle with doubting, ill-prepared soldiers. He will
surely march to defeat. I will not consciously make any
such fatal experiment. This is not meant to frighten Con-
gressmen. If they have the will, they will not find any
instructions difficult to follow. Correspondents tell me that
though they have no faith in me or the Charkha, they ply the
latter for the sake of discipline. I do not understand this
language. Can a general fight on the strength of soldiers
who, he knows, have no faith in him ? The plain meaning
of this language is that the correspondents believe in mass
action but do not believe in the connection I see between it
and the Gharkha etc., if the action is to be non-violent. They
DIVIDE AND RULE 155
believe in my hold on the masses, but they do not believe
in the things which I believe have given me that, hold.
They merely want to exploit me and will grudgingly pay the
price which my ignorance or obstinacy (according to them)
demands. I do not call this discipline. True discipline
gives enthusiastic obedience to instructions even though
they do not satisfy reason. A volunteer exercises his reason
when he chooses his general, but after having made the
choice, he does not waste his time and energy in scanning
every instruction and testing it on the envil of his reason
before following it. He is "not to reason why.*'
—Harijan : Mar. :<, 1940,
Divide and Rule
IN the first place they (differences) are grossly exag-
gerated in transmission to the West. In the second place,
they are hardened during foreign control, Imperial rule
means divide et impera. They must therefore melt with the
withdrawal of the frigid foreign rule and the introduction
of the warmth giving sunshine of real freedom.
—Toung India : July 2,1931.
<S> <t> 3>
AFTER all the discovery that India is governed by
the 'divide arid rule' policy was made in the tirst instance
not by an Indian but if I am not mistaken, by an English-
man. It -was either the late Allen Ocatvius Hume or
George Yule who taught us that the empire was based upon
a policy of divide and rule. Nor need we be surprised at or
resent it. Imperial Rome did no otherwise. British did no
otherwise with Boers. By a system of favouritism it sought to
divide the Boer ranks. The Government of India is based
upon distrust. Distrust involves favouritism and favouritism
must breed division. There are frank Englishmen enough
who have owned this fact.
—Young India : Aug. 12, 1926.
156 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
WE will continue to be divided so long as the wedge of
foreign rule remains there, and sinks deeper and deeper.
That is the way of the wedge. But take out the wedge and
split parts will instantly cojne together and unite.
—Young India : Nov. 5, 1931.
1 HAVE no doubt that if British rule which divides us
by favouring one or the other as it suits the Britishers were
withdrawn to-day, Hindus and Muslims would forget their
quarrels and live like brothers which they are. But suppos-
ing the worst happened and we have a civil war, it would
last for a few days or months and we would settle down to
business. —Young India : Nov. 19, 1931.
Doubt
DOUBT is invariably the result of want or weakness of
faith.
— My Experiments With Truth : Page 558.
Dowry System
THE parents should so educate their daughters that
they would refuse to marry a young man who wanted a
price for marrying and would rather remain spinsters than
be party to the degrading terms. The only honourable
terms in .marriage are mutual love and mutual consent.
—Young India : Jan. 15, 1927.
Drink Evil
YOU will not be deceived by the specious argument that
India must not be made sober by compulsion, and that
those who wish to drink must have facilities provided for
them. The State does not cater for the vices of its people.
We do not regulate and license houses of ill-fame. We do
not provide facilities for thieves to indulge their propensity
for thieving. I hold drink to be more damnable than
thieving and perhaps even prostitution. Is it not often the
parent of both ? —Young India : Feb. 23, 1922.
DRINK EVIL 157
WHAT about the education of the children ? may be
the question asked. I venture to suggest to you that it is a
matter of deep humiliation for the country to find its
children educated from the drink revenue. We shall
deserve the curse of posterity, if we do not wisely decide to
stop the drink evil, even though we 'may have to sacrifice
the education of our children. But we need not. I know
many of you have laughed at the idea of making education
self-supporting by introducing spinning in our schools and
colleges. I assure you that it "solves the problem of educa-
tion as nothing else can. The country cannot bear fresh
taxation. Even the existing taxation is unbearable. Not
only must we do away with the opium and the drink revenue
but the other revenue has also to be very considerably
reduced, if the ever-growing poverty of the masses is to be
combated in the near future ,
—Young India : Jan. 12, 1925.
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DRUGS and drink are the two arms of the devil with
which he strikes his helpless slaves into stupefaction and
intoxication. — Young India : April 12, 1926.
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IN India there can be no reason for any referendum
because drink and drug habit are universally recognised as a
vice. Drink is not a fashion in India as it is in the West.
To talk therefore of a referendum in India is to trifle with
the problem.
—Young India : April 22, 1926.
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THERE is as much flaw in the argument that it is an
interference with the right of the people as there would be
in the argument that the laws prohibiting theft interfere
with the right of thieving. A thief steals all earthly possess-
ions a drunkard steals his own and his neighbour's honour.
—Young India : Jan. 6, 1927.
158 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
INDIA is the most promising country in the world for
carrying out total prohibition for the simple reason that
addiction to drink is not considered respectable or fashion-
able and is confined only to a certain class of people.
—Young India : June 23, 1927.
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I HAVE not hesitated to give my opinion, that it was
a wicked thing for the Imperial Government to have
transferred this the most immoral source of revenue to the
provinces and to have thus made this tainted revenue the
one source for defraying the cost of the education of Indian
youth. —Young India : Sept. 8, 1927.
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I VENTURE to submit that prosecutions are the
smallest and the destructive part of prohibition. I suggest
that there is a larger and constructive side to prohibition.
People drink because of the conditions to which they are
reduced. It is the factory labourers and others that drink.
They are forlorn, uncared for, and they take to drink.
They are no more vicious by nature than teetotallers are
saints by nature. The majority of people are controlled by
their enviornment. — Young India : Sept. 8, 1927.
<3> <$><$>,
WHATEVER may be true of countries with cold climates
I am sure that in a climate like ours there is no need for
drink whatsoever. Nothing but ruin stares a nation in the
face that is a prey to the drink habit. History records that
empires have been destroyed through that habit. We have
it in India that the great community to which Shri Krishna
belonged was ruined by that habit. The monstrous evil was
undoubtedly one of the contributory factors in the fall of
Rome. If therefore you will live decently >ou will shun
this evil whilst there is yet time.
—Young India : April 1 1, 1929.
DRINK EVIL 159
I HOLD drinking spirituous liquors in India, to be more
criminal than the petty thefts which I see starving men and
women committing and for which they are prosecuted and
punished. I do tolerate very unwillingly it is true and
helplessly because of want of full realisation of the law of
love a moderate system of penal code. And so long as I do,
I must advocate the summary punishment of those who
manufacture the fiery liquid and those even who will persist
in drinking it notwithstanding repeated warnings. I do not
hesitate forcibly to prevent my children from rushing into
fire or deep waters. Rushing to red water is far more
dangerous than rushing to raging furnace or flooded stream*
The latter destroys only the body, the former destroys both
body and soul. — Young India : Aug. 8, 1929.
IT is a revenue which must be sacrificed and whilst it
lasts, it should be held as sacrosanct and be wholly dedica-
ted to the purpose of eradicating the drink evil. But today
it is being utilised for educating our children with the result
that a tremendous barrier has been put against this necessary
temperance legislation. People are made to think that they
will not be able to educate their children if this revenue
stops. If things go on unchecked like this a whole nation
might have to perish. If the evil spreads, it may be too
late to undertake legislation,
—Young India : April 1 1 , 1929,
WHEN Satan comes disguised as a champion of liberty,
civilization, culture and the like, he makes himself almost
irresistible. —Young India : July 11, 1929,
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RUSHING to red water is far more dangerous thar
rushing to raging furnace or flooded stream. The latter
destroys only the body, the former destroys both body and
soul. —Young Mia : Aug. 8, 1929,
160 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE drink curse has desolated many a labourer's home,
There is no halfway house between drunkeness and prohibi-
tion. Well-to-do men may pretend to be moderate. But
there is no such thing as moderation possible among
labourers. —Young India : Oct. 31, 1929.
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DRINK and drugs sap the moral well-doing of those
who are given to this habit. Foreign cloth undermines the
economic foundations of the nation and throws millions oat of
employment. The distress in each case is felt in the home
and therefore by the women. Only those women who have
drunkards as their husbands know what havoc the drink
devil works in homes that once were orderly and peace giving.
—Young India: April 10, 1930.
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ALCOHOL excites the nerves and narcotics deaden the
sense of right and wrong. — Young India : July 25, 1931.
<$><$><$>
WHY are you so uncharitable to those who drink ?
asked an English student.
A Because I am charitable to those who suffer from the
effect of the curse.
— Young India : Nov. 12, 1931
*& <& ^^
IF I was appointed^dictator for one hour for all India,
the first thing I would do would be to close without com-
pensation all the liquor shops, destroy all the toddy
palms such as I know them in Gujrat, compel factory owners
to produce humane conditions for their workmen and open
refreshment and recreation rooms where these workmen
would get innocent drinks and equally innocent amusements.
I would close down the factories if the owners pleaded want
of funds. Being a teetotaller, I would retain my sobriety in
spite of the possession of one hour's dictatorship and there-
fore arrange for, the examination of my European friends
and diseased persons who may be in medical need of brandy
DUTY 161
and the like at State expense by medical experts and where
necessary they would receive certificates which would
entitle them to obtain the prescribed quantity of the fiery
waters from certified chemists. The rule will apply mutatis
mutandis to intoxicating drugs.
For the loss of revenue from drinks, I would straight-
way cut down the military expenditure and expect the
Commander-in-Chief to accommodate himself to the new
condition in the best way he can. The workmen left idle
by the closing of factories, I would remove to model farms
to be immediately opened as far as possible in the neighbour-
hood of the factories unless I was advised during that brief
hour that the State would profitably run the factories under
the required conditions and therefore take over from the
owners. — Young India : June 25, 1931.
<3> <$><$>
PURE Swaraj is impossible of attainment by people who
have been or who are slaves of intoxicating drinks and drugs.
It must never be forgotten that a man in the grip of intoxi-
cants is generally bereft of the moral sense.
—Harijan : Aug. 18, 1940.
Dumb Millions
ALL the 24 hours of the day I am with them. They
are my first care and last, because I recognise no God except
the God that is to be found in the hearts of the dumb
millions. They do not recognise His presence ; I do. And
[ worship the God that is Truth or Truth which is God
through the service of these millions
—Harijan: Mar. 11, 1939.
Duty
EVERY mistake of the Government helps. Every
xeglect of duty on our part hinders.
—Young India : Mar, 2, 1922.
162 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
DUTY will be merit when debt becomes a donation,
—Young India : Mar. 18, 1926.
IF we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to
seek. If leaving duties unperformed we run after rights,
they will escape us like a Will O' The Wisp. The more we
pursue them the farther will they fly. The same teaching
has been embodied by Krishna in the immortal words :
Action alone is thine. Leave thou the fruits severely alone.
Action is duty ; fruit is the right.
— Young India : Dec. 25, 1927.
PERFORMANCE of one's duty should be independent
of public opinion. I have all along held that one is bound
to act according to what to one appears to be right even
though it may appear wrong to others. And experience has
shown that that is the only correct course, I admit that
there is always a possibility of one's mistaking right for
wrong and lice versa but often one learns to recognise wrong
only through unconscious error. On the other hand if a
man fails to follow the light within for fear of public opinion
or any other similar reason he would never be able to know
right from wrong and in the end lose all sense of distinction
between the two. That is why the poet has sung :
The pathway of love is the ordeal of fire,
The shrinkers turn away from ir.
The pathway of ahim$a> that is of love one has often to
tread all alone. —Young India : Oct 4, 1928.
<$><$><$>
A MAN can give up a right, but he may not give up a
duty without being guilty of a grave dei diction. Unpopu-
larity and censure are often the lot of a man who wants to
speak and practise the truth. I hold it to be the bounden
duty of a Satyagrahi openly and freely to express his opinions
DUTY 163
which he holds to be correct and of benefit to the public
even at the risk of incurring popular displeasure and worse.
So long as I believe my views on ahimsa to be correct, it
would be a sin of omission on my part not to give expression
to them. —Young India : Oct. 18, 1928.
<S> <S> <3>
A SOLDIER never worries as to what shall happen to
his work after him, but thinks only of the immediate duty
in front of him. —Young India : Sept. 26, 1929.
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OUR people have not yet acquired the habit of doing
their duty without persistent reminders even as we need the
loud call of the temple bell to remind us that there is Gad
watching over us and summoning us to prayer.
—Young India : Feb. 21, 1929
^^ ^N ^o
EVERY duty performed confers upon one certain
rights. Whilst the exercise of every right carries with it
certain corresponding obligations. And so the never ending
cycle of duty and right goes ceaselessly on.
— Young India : Aug. 22, 1929.
3> 3> <3>
DUTY well done undoubtedly carries rights with it,
but a man who discharges his obligations with an eye upoii
privileges generally discharges them indifferently and often
fails to attain the rights he might have expected,, or when he
succeeds in gaining them they turn out to be burdens.
—Young India : Oct. 10, 1929.
<& <$> <$>
RIGHTS accrue automatically to him who duly per-
forms his duties. In fact the right to perform one's duties
is the only right that is worth living for and dying for. It
covers all legitimate rights. All the rest is grab under one
guise or another and contains in it seeds of himsa.
—Young India : Dec. 27, 1930.
164 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
E
East and West
[The following is an extract from a letter addressed by
Gandhiji to a friend in India in 1909. ]
(1) There is no impassable barrier between East and
West.
(2) There is no such thing as Western or European
civilization, but there is a modern civilization which is
purely material.
(3) The people of Europe, before they were touched
by modern civilization, had much in common wiih the
people of the East ; anyhow the people of India, and even
today Europeans who are not touched by modern civiliza-
tion, are far better able to mix with Indians than the
offspring of that civilization.
(4) It is not the British people who are ruling India,
but it is modem civilization, through its railways, telegraph,
telephone and almost every invention which has been
claimed to be a triumph of civilization
(5) Bombay, Calcutta and the other chief cities of
India are the real plague spots.
(6) If British rule were replaced to-morrow by Indian
rule based on modern methods, India would be no better,
except that she would be able then to retain some of the
money that is drained away to England ; but then India
would only become a second or fifth nation of Europe or
America.
(7) East and West can only really meet when the
West has thrown overboard modern civilization, almost
in its entirety. They can also seemingly meet when East
has also adopted modern civilization, but that meetign
would be an armed truce, even as it is between, sa'A
Germany and England both of which nations are living in
the Hall of Death in order to avoid being devoured the one
by the other.
EAST AND WEST 165
(8) It is simply impertinence for any man or any body
of men to begin or to contemplate reform of the whole world.
To attempt to do so by means of highly artificial and speedy
locomotion, is to attempt the impossible.
(9) Increase of material comforts, it may be generally
laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to
moral growth.
(10) Medical science is the concentrated essence of
black magic. Quackery is infinitely preferable to what
passes for high medical skill.
(11) Hospitals are the instruments that the Devil has
been using for his own purpose, in order to keep his hold on
his kingdom. They perpetuate vice, misery and degradation
and real slavery. I was entirely off the track when I con-
sidered that I should receive a medical training. It would
be sinful for me in any way whatsoever to take part in the
abominations that go on in the hospitals. If there were
no hospitals for venereal diseases, or even for consumptives
we should have less consumption, and less sexual vice
amongst us.
(12) India's salvation consists in unlearning what
she has learnt during the past fifty years. The railways,
telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors, and such like have
all to go, and the so-called upper classes have to learn to
live consciously and religiously and deliberately the
simple peasant life, knowing it to be a life giving true
happiness.
(13) India should wear no machine-made clothing
whether it comes out of European mills or Indian mills.
(14) England can help India to do this and then she
will have justified her hold on India. There seems to be
many in England today who think likewise.
(15) There was true wisdom in the sages of old
having so regulated society as to limit the material condition
of the people : the rude plough of perhaps five thousand
166 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
years ago is the plough of the husbandman today.
Therein lies salvation. People live long under such con-
ditions in comparative peace much greater than Europe
has enjoyed after having taken up modern activity, and I
feel that every enlightened man, certainly every Englishman,
may, if he chooses, learn this truth and act according
to it.
It is the true spirit of passive resistance that has
brought me to the above almost definite conclusions. As
a passive resister, I am unconcerned whether such a gigantic
reformation, shall I call it, can be brought about among
people who find their satisfaction from the present mad
rush. If I realize the truth of it, I should rejoice in
following it, and therefore I could not wait until the whole
body of people had commenced. All of us who think like-
wise have to take the necessary step, and the rest, if we are
in the right, must follow. The theory is there : our
practice will have to approach it as much as possible.
Living in the midst of the rush, we may not be able to
shake ourselves free from all taint. Everytime I get into
a railway car or use a motor-bus, I know that I am doing
violence to my sense of what is right. I do not fear the
logical result on that basis. The visiting of England is bad,
and any communication between South Africa and India
by means of ocean-grey-hounds is also bad and so on.
You and I can, and may olitgrow these things in our present
bodies, but the chief thing is to put our theory right. You
will be seeing there all sorts and conditions of men. I,
therefore, feel that I should no longer withhold from you
what I call the progressive step I have taken mentally. If
you agree with me, then it will be your duty to tell the
revolutionaries and every body else that the freedom they
want, or they think they want, is not to be obtained by
killing people or doing violence, but by setting themselves
right and by becoming and remaining truly Indian. Then
the British rulers will be servants and not masters. They
EAST AND WEST 167
will be trustees, and not tyrants, and they will live in
perfect peace with the whole of the inhabitants of India.
The future, therefore, lies not with the British race, but
with the Indians themselves, and if they have sufficient
self-abnegation and abstemiousness, they can make them-
selves free this very moment, and when we have arrived
in India at the simplicity which is still ours largely and
Which was ours entirely until a few years ago, it will still
be possible for the best Indians and the best Europeans
to see one another throughout the length and breadth of
India and act as the leaven. When there was no rapid
locomotion, teachers and preachers went on foot, from one
end of the country to the other, braving all dangers, not
for recruiting their health (though all that followed from
their tramps), but for the sake of humanity. Then were
Benares and other places of pilgrimage the holy cities,
whereas to-day they are an abomination.
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"I do not hold for one moment," Gandhiji exclaim-
ed, "that East and West cannot combine. I think the day
is coming when East must meet West, or West meet East,
but I think the social evolution of the West to-day lies in
one channel, and that of the Indian in another channel.
The Indians have no wish to-day to encroach on the social
institutions of the Europeans in South Africa. (Cheers)
Most Indians are natural traders. There are bound to be
trade jealousies and those various things that come from
competition. I have never been able to find a solution of
this most difficult problem, which will require the broad-
mindedness and spirit of justice of the Government of
South Africa to hold the balance between conflicting
interests.
— (Fromafarewel speech at Durban) : July 18, 1914.
I WOULD heartily welcome the Union of East and
West provided it is not based on brute-force.
—Young India : Oct. 1, 1931.
168 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Eating
ONE should eat not in order to please the palate, but
just to keep the body going. When each organ of sense
subserves the body and through the body the soul, its
special relish disappears, and then alone does it begin to
function in the way nature intended it to do.
— My Experiments With Truth : Page 393.
Economics
TRUE economics never militates against the highest
ethical standard, just as all true ethics to be worth its
name must at the same time be also good economics.
An economics that inculcates Mammon worship, and enables
the strong to amass wealth at the expense of the weak,
is a false and dismal science. It spells death. True
economics, on the other hand, stands for social justice,
it promotes the good of all equally including the weakest,
and is indispensable for decent life.
—Harijan : Oct. 9, 1937.
<$><$><$>
EVEN though I am a layman, I make bold to say
that the so-called laws laid down in books on economics
are not immutable like the laws of Medes and Persians,
nor are they universal. The economics of England are
different from those of Germany. Germany enriched herself
by bounty-fed beet sugar. England enriched herself by exploi-
ting foreign markets. What was possible for a compact area
is not possible for an area 1,900 miles long and 1,500
miles broad. The economics of a nation are determined by
its climatic, geological and temperamental conditions. The
Indian conditions are different from the English in all
these essentials. What is meat for England is in many
cases poison for India. Beef tea in the English climate
may be good, it is poison lor the hot climate of religious
India. Fiery whisky in the north of the British Isles
may be a necessity, it renders an Indian unfit for work
ECONOMICS
or society. Fur coats in Scotland are indispensable, they
will be an intolerable burden in India. Free trade for
a country which has become industrial, whose population
can and does live in cities, whose people do not mind
preying upon other nations and therefore sustain the biggest
navy to protect their unnatural commerce, may be econo-
mically sound (though, as the reader perceives, I question
its morality). Free trade for India has proved her curse
and held her in bondage.
— Young India: Dec. 9, 1921.
<£ <8> <3>
I MUST confess that I do not draw a sharp or
any distinction between economics and ethics. Economics
that hurt the moral well-being of an individual or a
nation are immoral and therefore sinful. Thus the econo-
mics that permit one country to prey upon another are
immoral. It is sinful to buy and use articles made by
sweated labour. It is sinful to eat American wheat and
let my neighbour the grain dealer starve for want of
custom.
—Young India : Oct. 13, 1921.
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APPLICATION of the laws of economics must vary
with varying conditions.
— Young India : July 2, 1931.
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INDEED, economics that ruins one's health is false, .
because money without health has no value. Only that
economy is true which enables one to conserve one's
health. The whole of the initial programme of village re-
construction is, therefore, aimed at true economy, because it
is aimed at promoting the health and vigour of the villagers.
—Harijan : Mar. 1, 1935.
^s <& ^^
IMITATION of English economics will spell our
ruin. — Young India : June 21, 1919.
170 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
DOES economic progress clash with real progress ? By
economic progress, I take it, we mean material advance-
ment without limit and by real progress we mean
moral progress, which again is the same thing as progress
of the permanent element in us. The subject may
therefore be stated thus : Does not moral progress increase,
in the same proportion as material progress ? . know
that this is a wider proposition than the one before us.
But I venture to think that we always mean the large one
even when we lay down the smaller. For we know
enough of science to realize that there is no such thing
as perfect rest or repose in this visible universe of ours.
If, therefore, material progress does not clash with moral
progress, it must necessarily advance the latter. Nor can
we be satisfied with the clumsy way in which some-
times those who cannot defend the large proposition put
their case. They seem to be obsessed with the concrete
case of thirty millions of India, stated by the late Sir
William Wilson Hunter to be living on one meal a day.
They say that, before we can think or talk of their moral
welfare, we must satisfy their daily wants With these
they say, material progress spells moral progress. And then
is taken a sudden jump; what is true of thirty millions is true
of the universe. They forget that hard cases make bad law.
I need hardly say to you how ludicrously absurd this
deduction would be. "No one has ever suggested that
grinding pauperism can lead to anything else than
moral degradation. Every human being has a right to live
and therefore to find the wherewithal to feed himself
and where necessary to clothe and house himself. But
for this very simple performance we need no assistance
from economists or their laws.
'Take no thought for the morrow1 is an injunction
which finds an echo in almost all the religious scriptures
of the world. In well-ordered society the securing of
one's livelihood should be and is found to be the easiest
ECONOMICS 171
thing in the world. Indeed, the test of orderliness in a
country is not the number of millionaires it owns, but the
absence of starvation among its masses. The only state-
ment that has to be examined is, whether it can be laid
down as a law of universal application that material
advancement means moral progress.
Now let us take a few illustrations. Rome suffered
moral fall when it attained high material affluence.
So did Egypt and so perhaps most countries of which
we have any historical record. The descendants and
kinsmen of the royal and divine Krishana too fell when they
were rolling in riches. We do not deny to the Rockefellers
and the Carnegies possession of an ordinary measure of mora-
lity but we gladly judge them indulgently. I mean that we
do not even expect them to satisfy the highest standard of
morality. With them material gain has not necessarily
meant moral gain. In South Africa, where I had the
privilege of associating with thousands of our country-
men on most intimate terms, I observed almost invariably
that the greater the possession of riches, the greater
was their moral turpitude. Our rich men, to say the least,
did not advance the moral struggle of passive resistance
as did the poor. The rich men's sense of self-respect
was not so much injured as that of the poorest. If
I were not afraid of treading on dangerous ground, I
would even come nearer home and show how that
possession of riches has been a hindrance to real growth.
I venture to think that the scriptures of the world are far
safer and sounder treatises on laws of economics than
many of the modern text-books. The question we are
asking ourselves this evening is not a new one. It was
addressed of Jesus two thousand years ago. St. Mark
has vividly described the scene. Jesus is in his solemn
mood. He is earnest. He talks of eternity.
He knows the world about him. He is himself the
greatest economist of his time. He succeeded in econo-
mising time and space — he transcended them. It is to
172 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
him at his best that one comes running, kneels down,
and asks; Good Master, what shall I do that I may
inherit eternal life. And Jesus said unto him : 'Why
callest thou me good. There is none good but one, i.e 9
God. Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit
adultery, Dd not kill, Do not steal. Do not bear false
witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.'
And he answered and said unto him : * Master, all
these have I observed from my youth/ Then Jesus
beholding him loved him and said unto him ; 'One thing
thou lackest. Go thy way, sell whatever thou hast and
give to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven —
come, take up the cross and follow me.' And he
was sad at that saying and went away grieved — for he
had great possession. And Jesus looked round about and
said unto his disciple : 'How hardly shall they, that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God/ And the disciples
were astonished at his words. But Jesus ans were th again
and said unto them, 'Children, how hard is it for them
that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God !' Here you
have an eternal rule of life stated in the noblest words
the English language is capable of producing. But the
disciples nodded unbelief as we do even to this day.
To him they said as- we say to-day : 'But look how the
law fails in practice. If we sell all and have nothing,
we shall have nothing to eat. We must have money
or we cannot even be reasonably moral.' So they
state their case thus : — And they were astonished out
of measure, saying among themselves : 'Who then can
be saved.5 And Jesus looking upon them said : 'With
men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all
things are possible.' Then Peter began to say unto him :
'Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.1 And Jesus an-
swered and said : 'Verily I say unto you there is no man
that has left house or brethren or sisters, or fathei
ECONOMICS 173
or mother, or wife or children or lands for my sake and
Gospel's but he shall receive one hundredfold, now in
this time houses and brethren and sisters and mothers
and children and land, and in the world to come,
eternal life. But many that are first shall be last
and the last, first.' You have here the result or reward,
if you prefer the term, of following the law. I have not
taken the trouble of copying similar passages from the
other non-Hindu scriptures and I will not insult you by
quoting, in support of the law stated by Jesus, passages
from the writings and sayings of our own sages, passages
even stronger, if possible, than the Biblical extracts I
have drawn your attention to. ^ Perhaps the strongest of
all the testimonies in favour of the affirmative answer to
the question before us are the lives of the greatest teachers
of the world. Jesus, Mahomed, Buddha, Nanak, Kabir,
Chaitanya, Shankara, Dayanand, Ramakarishna were men
who exercised an immense influence over, and moulded
the character of, thousands of men. The world is the
richer for their having lived in it. And they were all
men who deliberately embraced poverty as their lot.
I should not have laboured my point as I have
done, if I did not believe that, in so far as we have made
the modern materialistic craze our goal, so far are we
going down hill in the path of progress. I hold that
economic progress in the sense I have put it is antagonistic
to real progress. Hence the ancient ideal has been the
limitation of activities promoting wealth. This does not
put an end to all material ambition. We should still
have, as we have always had, in our midst people
who make the pursuit of wealth their aim in life. But
we have always recognised that it is a fall from the ideal.
It is a beautiful thing to know that the wealthiest among us
have often felt that to have remained voluntarily poor
would have been a higher state for them. That you can-
not serve God and Mammon is an economic truth of the
174 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
highest value. We have to make our choice. Western
nations are to-day groaning under the heal of the monster
god of materialism. Their moral growth has become
stunted. They measure their progress in £. s. d. American
wealth has become the standard. She is the envy of the
other nations. I have heard many of our countrymen say
that we will gain American wealth but avoid its methods.
I venture to suggest that such an attempt, if it were made,
is foredoomed to failure. We cannot be 'wise,' temperate
and furious' in a moment. I would have our leaders teach
us to be morally supreme in the world. This land of ours
was once, we are told, the abode of the gods. It is not
possible to conceive gods inhabiting a land which is made
hideous by the smoke and the din of mill chimneys and fac-
tories and whose roadways are traversed by rushing engines,
dragging numerous cars crowded with men who know not
for the most part what they are after, who are often
absent-minded, and whose tempers do not improve by
being uncomfortably packed like sardines in boxes and finding
themselves in the midst of utter strangers, who would oust
them if they could and whom they would, in their turn, oust
similarly. I refer to these things because they are held to
be symbolical of material progress. But they add not an
atom to our happiness. This is what Wallace, the great
scientist, has said as his Deliberate judgment:—
In the earliest records which have come down to us from the past, we
find ample indications that general ethical considerations and conceptions,
the accepted standard of morality, and the conduct resulting from these,
were in no degree inferior to those which prevail to-day.
In a series of chapters he then proceeds to examine the
position of the English nation under the advance in wealth
it has made. He says : 'This rapid growth of wealth and
increase of our power over Nature put too great a strain
upon our crude civilisation, on our superficial Christianity,
and it was accompanied by various forms of social immora-
lity almost as amazing and unprecedented.' He then
shows how factories have risen on the corpses of men,
ECONOMICS
women and children, how, as the country has rapidly
advanced in riches, it has gone down in morality. He
shows this by dealing with insanitation, life destroying
trades, adulteration, bribery and gambling. He shows how
with the advance of wealth, justice has become immoral,
deaths from alcoholism and suicide have increased, the
average of premature births, and congenital defects has
increased and prostitution has become an institution. He
concludes his examination by these pregnant remarks : —
The proceedings of the diverse courts show other aspects of the result
of wealth and leisure, while a friend who had been a good deal in London
society assured me that, both in country houses and in London, various
kinds of orgies were occasionally to be met with, which would hardly have
been surpassed in the period of the most dissolute emperors. Of war, too,
I need say nothing. It has always been mor^or less chronic since the rise of
the Roman Empire ; but there is now undoubtedly a disinclination for war
among all civilized peoples. Yet the vast burden of armaments taken
together with the most pious declaration in favour of peace, must be held to
show an almost total absence of morality as a guiding principle among the
governing classes.
Under the British aegis we have learnt much, but it is
my firm belief that there is little to gain from Britain in
intrinsic morality, that if we are not careful, we shall
introduce all the vices that she has been a prey to owing to
the disease of materialism, We can profit by that connec-
tion only if we keep our civilization, and our morals straight
i.e., if, instead of boas ting of the glorious past, we express
the ancient moral glory in our own lives and let our lives
bear witness to our boast. Then we shall benefit her and
ourselves. If we copy her because she provides us with
rulers, both they and we shall suffer degradation. We need
not be afraid of ideals or of reducing them to practice even
to the uttermost. Ours will only then be a truly spiritual
nation when we shall show more truth than gold, greater
fearlessness than pomp of power and wealth, greater charity
than love to self. If we will but clean our houses, our
palaces and temples of the attributes of wealth and show in
them the attributes of morality, we can offer battle to any
combinations of hostile forces without having to carry the
176 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
burden of a heavy militia. Let us seek first the Kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and the irrevocable promise is
that everything will be added unto us. These are real
economics. May you and I treasure them and enforce
them in our daily life.
[A lecture delivered by Gandhiji at a meeting of the Muir
Central College Economics Society Allahabad, on Dec. 22, 1916. |
/^TN %% 7*N
WHAT is economically wrong cannot be religiously
right. In other words, if a religion cuts at the very
Fundamentals of economics it is noi a true religion but
only a delusion. My critic on the other hand believes
that this view is opposed to the teachings of our ancient
scriptures. I, at least, am not aware of a single text in
apposition to this view nor do I know of any religious
institution that is being maintained in any part of the
world today in antagonism to the elementary principles
of economics. As for nature, any one who has eyes can
see, that it always observes the principle that I have
stated. For instance, if it has implanted in its creation
the instinct for food it also produces enough food to
satisfy that instinct from day to day. But it does not
produce a jot more. That is nature's way. But man,
blinded by his selfish greed, grabs and consumes more
than his requirements in defiance of nature's principle,
in defiance of the elementary and immutable moralities
of non-stealing and non-possession of other's property and
thus brings down no end of misery upon himself and
his fellow-creatures. To turn to another illustration, our
Shastras have enjoined that the Brahman should give
knowledge as charity without expecting any material
reward for it for himself. But they have at the same time
conferred upon him the privilege of asking for and receiving
alms and have laid upon the other sections of the community
the duty of giving alms, thus uniting religion and economics
in a common bond of harmony. The reader will be able to
find further instances of this kind for himself. The religious
EDUCATION 177
principle requires that the debit and credit sides of one's
balance sheet should be perfectly square. That is also
the truest economics and therefore true religion. Whenever
there is any discrepancy between these two it spells
bad economics and makes for unrighteousness. That is
why the illustrious author of the Gita has defined yoga
as balance or "evenness." But the majority of mankind do
not understand this use of economics to subserve religion;
they want it only for amassing "profits" for themselves.
Humanitarian economics, on the other hand, for which I
stand, rules out "profits" altogether. But it rules out "deficit"
no less for the simple reason that it is utterly impossible
to safe-guard a religious institution by following a policy
of dead loss. —Young India : Nov. 3, 1927.
<$><$><$>
VILLAGE economics is different from industrial
economics. Human economics is not the same as that
of exploitation or mere dead matter.
—Young India : June 11, 1931.
Education
PURITY of personal life is the one indispensable con-
dition for building up a sound education.
—Young India : Sept. 8, 1927
^ ^ ^
LITERARY training by itself is not of much account.
Remember that unlettered persons have found no difficulty
in ruling over large states. President Kruger could hardly
sign his own name.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 213.
^ 3> <$>
LITERARY education is of no value, if it is not able
to build up a sound character.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 214.
178 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
WE have lost much of our self-respect, on account of
being too much Europeanised. We think and speak in
English. Thereby, we impoverish our vernaculars, and
estrange the feelings of the masses. A knowledge of English
is not essential to the service of our Motherland.
— Speeches and Waitings of Mahatma Gandhi : page 1 10.
I HAVE always felt that the true text book for the
pupil is his teacher*
— My Expmmtnts With Truth : Page 412.
CHILDREN take in much more and with less labour
through their ears than through their eyes.
— My Expmmtnts With Truth : Page 412.
IT is possible for a teacher situated miles away to
affect the spirit of the pupils by his way of living. It
would be idle for me, if I were a liar, to teach boys to tell
the truth. A cowardly teacher would never succeed in
making his boys valiant, and a stranger to self-restraint
could never teach his pupils the value of self-restraint. I
saw, therefore, that I must be an eternal object-lesson to the
boys and girls Jiving with me. They thus became my
teachers, and I learnt I must be good and live straight, if
only for their sake. I may say that the increasing discip-
line and restraint I imposed on myself at Tolstoy Farm was
mostly due to those wards of mine.
— My Experiments With Truth : Page 414.
^s ^s ^s
IT has always been my conviction that Indian parents
who train their children to think and talk in English from
their infancy betray their children and their country. They
deprive them of the spiritual and social heritage of the
nation, and render them to that extent unfit for the service
of the country.
—My Experiments With Truth : Page 414.
EDUCATION 179
I HAVE heard it said that after all it is English-
educated India which is leading and which is doing all the
thing for the nation. It would be monstrous if it were
otherwise. The only education we receive is English
education. Surely we must show something for it. But
suppose that we had been receiving during the past fifty
years education through our vernaculars, what should we
have to-day ? We should have to-day a free India, we
should have our educated men, not as if they were foreigners
in their own land but speaking to the heart of the nation ;
they would be working amongst the poorest of the poor, and
whatever they would have gained during the past 50 years
would be a heritage for the nation. Today even our wives
are not the sharers in our best thought. Look at
Professor Bose and Professor Ray and their brilliant
re-searches. Is it not a shame that their researches are not
the common property of the masses ?
—Young India : Feb. 4, 1920.
^N ^x ^N
ENGLISH is a language of international commerce, it is
the language of diplomacy, and it contains many a rich
literary treasure, it gives us an introduction to Western
thought and culture. For a few of us, therefore, a know-
ledge of English is necessary. They can carry on the
departments of national commerce and international
diplomacy, and for giving to the nation the best of Western
literature, thought and science. That would be .the
legitimate use of English. Whereas today English has
usurped the dearest place in our hearts and dethroned our
mother-tongues. It is an unnatural place due to our un-
equal relations with Englishmen. The highest development
of the Indian mind must be possible without a knowledge
of English. It is doing violence to the manhood and
specially the womanhood of India to encourage our boys
and girls to think that an entry into the best society is
impossible without a knowledge of English. It is too
180 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
humiliating a thought to be bearable. To get rid of the
infactuation for English is one of the essentials of Swaraj.
—Toung India : July 12, 1920.
^^ ^^ ^^
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 Govern-
ment 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. —Toung India : June 1, 1921.
<S> ^ <£
SO many strange things have been said about my views
on national education, that it would perhaps not be out of
place to formulate them before the public.
In my opinion the existing system of education is
defective, apart from its association with an utterly unjust
Government, in three most important matters :
(1) It is based upon foreign culture to the almost entire
exclusion of indigenous culture.
(2) It ignores the culture of the heart and the hand
and confines itself simply to the head.
(3) Real education is impossible through -a foreign
medium.
Let us examine the three defects. Almost from the
commencement, the text books deal, not with things the
boys and the girls have always to deal with in their
homes, but things to which they are perfect strangers.
It is not through the text-books, that a lad learns what
is right and what is wrong in the home life. He is
never taught to have any pride in his surroundings. The
EDUCATION 181
higher he goes, the farther he is removed from his home,
so that at the end of his education he becomes estranged
from his surroundings. He feels no poetry about the home
life. The village scenes are all a sealed book to him. His
own civilization is presented to him as imbecile^ barbarous,
superstitious and useless for all practical purposes. His
education is calculated to wean him from his traditional
culture. And if the mass of educated youths are not
entirely denationalised, it is because the ancient culture is
too deeply embedded in them to be altogether uprooted
even by an education adverse to its growth. If I had my
way, I would certainly destroy the majority of the present
text-books and cause to be written text-books which have
a bearing on and correspondence with the home life, so
that a boy as he learns may react upon his immediate
surroundings.
Secondly, whatever may be true of other countries, in
India at any rate where more than eighty per cent, of the
population is agricultural and another 10 percent, in-
dustrial, it is a crime to make education merely literary and
to unfit boys and girls for manual work in after life. In-
deed I hold that, as the larger part of our time is devoted
to labour for earning our bread, our children must from
their infancy be taught the dignity of such labour. Our
children should not be so taught as to despise labour.
There is no reason why a peasant's son, after having gone
to a school, should become useless, as he does become, as
agricultural labourer. It is a sad thing that our schoolboys
look upon manual labour with disfavour, if not contempt*
Moreover, in India, if we expect, as we must, every boy
and girl of school-going age to attend public schools, we
have not the means to finance education in accordance with
the existing style, nor are millions of parents able to pay
the fees that are at present imposed. Education to be
universal must therefore be free. I fancy that, even under
an ideal system of government, we shall not be able to
182 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
devote two thousand million rupees which we should
require for finding education for all the children of school-
going age. It follows, therefore, that our children must be
made to pay in labour partly or wholly for all the educa-
tion they receive. Such universal labour to be profitable
can only be (to my thinking) hand-spinning and hand-
weaving. But for the purposes of my proposition, it is
immaterial whether we have spinning or any other form
of labour, so long as it can be turned to account. Only,
it will be found upon examination, that on a practical,
profitable and extensive scale, there is no occupation other
than the processes connected with cloth-production which
can be introduced in our cchools throughout India.
The introduction of manual training will serve a
double purpose in a poor country like ours. It will pay
for the education of our children and ' teach them an
occupation on which they can fall back in after-life, if they
choose, for earning a living. Such a system must
make our children self-reliant. Nothing will demoralise
the nation so much as that we should learn to despise
labour.
One word only as to the education of the heart. I
do not believe that this can be imparted through books.
It can only be done through the living touch of the
teacher. And, who are the teachers in the primary and
even secondary schools ? Are they men and women of
faith and character ? Have they themselves received the
training of the heart ? Are they even expected to take care
of the permanent elements in the boys and girls placed
under their charge ? Is not the method of engaging
teachers for lower schools an effective bar against character?
Do the teachers get even a living wage ? And we know
that the teachers of primary schools are not selected for
their patriotism. They only come who cannot find any
other employment.
EDUCATION 183
Finally, the medium of instruction. My views on this
point are too well known to need re-stating. The foreign
medium has caused brain-fag, put an undue strain upon
the nerves of our children, made them crammers and imi-
tators, unfitted them for original work and thought, and
disabled them for filtrating their learning to the family
or the masses. The foreign medium has made our
children practically foreigners in their own land. It is the
greatest tragedy of the existing system. The foreign
medium has prevented the growth of our vernaculars. If
I had the powers of a despot, I would today stop the
tuition of our boys and girls through a foreign medium,
and require all the teachers and professors on pain of
dismissal to introduce the change forthwith. I would not
wait for the preparation of text-books. They will follow
the change. It is an evil that needs a summary remedy.
My uncompromising opposition to the foreign medium
has resulted in an unwarranted charge being levelled
against me of being hostile to foreign culture or the
learning of the English language. No reader of Young
India could have missed the statement often made by
me in these pages, that I regard English as the language
of international commerce and diplomacy, and therefore
consider its knowledge on the part of some of us as essential.
As it contains some of the richest treasures of thought and
literature, I would certainly encourage its careful study
among those who have linguistic talents and expect them
to translate those treasures for the nation in its vernaculars.
Nothing can be farther from my thought than that we
should become exclusive or erect barriers. But I do
respectfully contend that an appreciation of other cultures
can fitly follow, never precede, an appreciation and assimi-
lation of our own. It is my firm opinion that no culture
has treasurers so rich as ours has. We have not known it,
we have been made even to deprecate its study and
depreciate its value. We have almost ceased to live it. An
184 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
academic grasp without practice behind it is like an
embalmed corpse, perhaps lovely to look , at but nothing
to inspire or ennoble. My religion forbids me to belittle
or disregard other cultures, as it insists under pain of civil
suicide upon imbibing and living my own.
— Toung India: Sept. 1, 1921.
^^ ^^ ^^
NATIONAL education to be truly national ' must
reflect the national condition for the time being.
—Toung India: Mar. 12, 1925.
THE greatest drawback of the present system of
education is that it does not bear the stamp of reality,
that the children do not react to the varying wants of
the country. True education must correspond to the
surrounding circumstances or it is not a healthy growth.
—Young India : Mar. 12, 1925.
. <£ 3> <§>
IT^ is an education which, if it has given us a few self-
sacrificing patriots, has also produced many more men who
have been willing accomplices with the Government in
holding India in bondage. — Toung India : Dec. 23, 1926.
3> <$> <$>
THE correspondent seems to think that I decry the
use of even learning English, which I have never done.
That the English speaking Indians have rendered immense
service to the country nobody can deny, but unfortunately
it is equally undeniable that further progress is being
blocked by us English-speaking Indians refusing to learn
the language of the masses and to work amongst them in
accordance with methods best suited to them.
—Toung India: Feb. 17, 1927.
^ ^ <$>
WHAT is literary training worth of if it cramp and con-
fine us at a critical moment in national life ? Knowledge
and literary training are no recompense for emasculation.
—Toung India : June 21, 1928.
EDUCATION 185
AMONG the many evils of foreign rule this blighting
imposition of a foreign medium upon the youth of the
country will be counted by history as one of the greatest.
It has sapped the energy of the nation, it has shortened the
lives of the pupils. It has estranged them from the masses,
it has made education unnecessarily expensive. If this
process is still persisted in, it bids fair to rob the nation of
its soul. The sooner, therefore, educated India shakes
itself free from the hypnotic spell of the foreign medium,
the better it would be for them and the people.
—Young India : July 5, 1928.
<$><$> ^>
EVERY time that I am obliged to speak in the English
language before an audience of my countrymen, I feel
humiliated and ashamed. — Young India : Jan. 13, 1927,
<$><$>«>
EDUCATION should be so revolutionized as to answer
the wants of the poorest villager instead of answering those
of an imperial exploiter.
—Hanjan : Aug. 21, 1937.
<s> <s> <$>
I MUST not be understood to decry English or its
noble literature. The columns of Hat if an are sufficient
evidence of my love of English. But the nobility of its
literature cannot avail the Indian nation any more than the
temperate climate of the scenery of England can avail her,
India has to flourish in her own climate, and scenery, and
her own literature, even though all the three may bt
inferior to the English climate, scenery and literature. We
and our children must build on our own heritage. If we
borrow another, we impoverish our own. We can nevei
grow on foreign victuals. I want the nation to have the
treasures contained in that language, and for that mattei
the other languages of the world, through its owr
vernaculars. — Hanjan : Dec. G* 1936,
186 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I HOLD that true education of the intellect can only
come through a proper exercise and training of the bodily
organs, e.g., hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose etc. In other
words an intelligent use of the bodily organs in a child
provides the best and quickest way of developing his
intellect. But unless the development of the mind and
body goes hand in hand with a corresponding awakening
of the soul, the former alone would prove to be a poor lop-
sided affair. By spiritual training I mean education of the
heart. A proper and all-round development of the mind,
therefore, can take place only when it proceeds pari passu
with the education of the physical and spiritual faculties of
the child. They constitute an indivisible whole. According
to this theory, therefore it would be a gross fallacy to
suppose that they can be developed piecemeal or indepen-
dently of one another.
—Harijan : April 17, 1937.
<$><$><$>
MAN is neither mere intellect, nor the gross animal
body, nor the heart or soul alone. A proper and har-
monious combination of all the three is required for the
making of the whole man and constitutes the true economics
of education. — Harijan : Dec. 19, 1938.
^ <£ 3>
THE craze for ever-changing text-books is hardly a
healthy sign from the educational stand-point. If text-
books are treated as a vehicle for education, the living word
of the teacher has very little value. A teacher who teaches
from text books does not impart originality to his pupils.
He himself becomes a slave of text books and has no oppor-
tunity or occasion to be original. It therefore seems that
the less text books there are the better it is for the teacher
and his pupils. Text books seem to have become an
article of commerce. Authors and publishers who make
writing and publishing a means of making money are
interested in a frequent change of text books. In many
cases teachers and examiners are themselves authors of
EFFORT 187
text books. It is naturally to their interest to have their
books sold. The selection board is again naturally com-
posed of such people. And so the vicious circle becojnes
complete. And it becomes very difficult for parents to find
money for new books every year. It is a pathetic sight to
see boys and girls going to school loaded with books which
they are ill able to carry. The whole system requires to be
thoroughly examined. The commercial spirit needs to be
entirely eliminated and the question approached solely in
the interest of the scholars. It will then probably be found
that 75 per cent, of the text books will have to be consigned
to the scrap-heap. If I had my way, I would have books
largely as aids to teachers rather than for the scholars.
Such text books as are found to be absolutely necessary for
the scholars should circulate among them for a number of
years so that the cost can be easily borne, by middle class
families. The first step in this direction is perhaps for the
State to own and organise the printing and publishing of
text books. This will act as an automatic check on their
unnecessary multiplication.
—Harijan : Sept. 9, 1939.
^^ ^^ ^^
LITERARY training does not always mean expansion
of the intellect. Primarily it is a matter of memorising. A
letter is imprinted on the brain in the same way as any other
picture. But literary training is more than mere reading.
—Harijan : April 5, 1942.
Effort
I KNOW that there is a school of philosophy which
teaches complete inaction and futility of all effort. I have
not been able to appreciate that teaching, unless, in order
to secure verbal agreement, I were to put my own inter-
pretation on it. In my humble opinion, effort is necessary
for one's own gfowth. It has to bs irrespective of results.
Ramdnami or some equivalent is necessary, not for the sake
188 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of repetition, but for the sake of purification, as an aid to
effort, for direct guidance from above. It is, therefore,
never a substitute for effort. It is meant for intensifying
and guiding it in proper channel.
* — Young India : Oct. 21, 1926.
^s ^k ^s
IT is for us to make the effort. The result is always
in God's hands. —Young India : Mar. 12, 1931.
<$><$><$>
PROVIDENCE has its appointed hour for everything.
We cannot command results; we can only strive.
—Harijan : May 6, 1939.
<$><$><$>
GLORY lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not
in reaching it. — Harijan : April 5, 1942.
Embarrassment
IT is contrary to my creed to embarrass Governments
or. anybody else. This does not however mean that certain
acts of mine may not result in embarrasment. But I should
not hold myself responsible for having caused embarrassment
when I resist the wrong of a wrong-doer by refusing assis-
tance in his wrong-doing.
—Young India : April 28, 1920.
Englishmen
AS the elephant is powerless to think in the terms of
the ant, in spite of the best intentions in the world, even so
is the Englishman powerless to think in the terms of, or
legislate for the Indian.
— My Experiments With Truth : Page 301.
<$> <$> <$>
ENGLISHMEN have an amazing capacity for self-
deception. — Young India : Dec. 20, 1920.
<$><£><$>
THE average Englishman is haughty, he does not
understand us, he considers himself to be a superior being.
He thinks that he is born to rule us. He relies upon his
ENGLISHMEN 189
forts or his gun to protect himself. He despises us. He ,
wants to compel co-operation, i. £., slavery. Even him we
have to conquer, not by bending the knee, but remaining
aloof from him, but at the same time not hating him nor
hurting him. It is cowardly to molest him. If we simply
refuse to regard ourselves as his slaves and pay homage to
him, we have done our duty. A mouse can only shun the
cat. He cannot treat with her till she has filled the points
of her claws and teeth. At the same time, we must show
every attention to those few Englishmen who are trying to
cure themselves and fellow Englishmen of the disease of
race superiority. — Young India : July 12, 1921.
<*> <$> <$>
Q. WHAT is your own real attitude towards the
English and your hope about England ?
A. My attitude towards the English is one of utter
friendliness and respect, I claim to be their friend, because
it is contrary to my nature to distrust a single human being
or to believe that any nation on earth is incapable of re-
demption. I have respect for Englishmen, because I
recognise their bravery, their spirit of sacrific for what they
believe to be good for themselves, their cohesion and their
powers of vast organisation. My hope about them is that
they will at no distant date retrace their steps, revise their
policy of exploitation of undisciplined and ill-organised
races and give tangible proof that India is an equal friend
and partner in the British Commonwealth to come.
Whether such an event will ever come to pass will largely
depend upon our own conduct. That is to say, I have
hope of England because I have hope of India. We will
not for ever remain disorganised and imitative. Beneath
the present disorganisation, demoralisation and lack of
initiative I can discover organisation, moral strength and
initiative forming themselves. A time is coming when
England will be glad of India's friendship and India will
disdain to reject the proferred hand because it has once
despoiled her, I know that I havfe nothing to offer in proof
190 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of my hope. It is based on an immutable faith. And it is
a poor faith that is based on proof commonly called.
— Young India : Mar. 29, 1925.
<$><$><$>
THERE is no room for Englishmen as masters. There
is room for them if they will remain as friends and helpers.
—Young India: Feb. 11, 1926.
MY enemity is not against them, it is against their rule.
I seem to be born to be an instrument to compass the end
of that rule. But if a hair of an English head was touched
I should feel the same grief as I should over such a mishap
to my brother. I say to them as a friend, 'Why will you
not understand that your rule is ruining this country ? It
has got to be destroyed even though you may pound us to
powder or drown us/ — Toung India : April 3,
ENGLISHMEN are sportsmen. They have ample
sense of humour. They can hit hard and take a beating
also in good grace. — Harijan : Aug. 6, 1938.
Error
WHENEVER I see an erring man, I say to myself I
have also erred; when I see a lustful man I say to myself, so
was I once; and in this way I feel kinship with every one in
the world and feel that I cannot be happy without the
humblest of us being happy.
— Tcung India : June 7, 1920
<s> <$> <s>
AN error does not become truth by reason of multiplied
propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody
see it. — Young India : Dec. 17, 1921.
ERROR 191
EVEN as wisdom often comes from the mouths of
babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people.
The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason
and experience, no matter from whom it comes.
—Young India : Dec. 25, 192L
TO err is human and it must be held to be equally
human to forgive if we, though being fallible, would like
rather to be forgiven than punished and reminded of our
misdeeds. — Young India : Nov. 18, 1920.
THE only virtue I want to claim is Truth and Non-
violence. I lay no claim to superhuman powers. I want
none. I wear the same corruptible flesh that the weakest
of my fellow beings wears, and am therefore as liable to err
as any. My services have many limitations, but God has
up to now blessed them in spite of the imperfections.
—Young India : Feb. 16, 1922.
CONFESSION of error is like a broom that sweeps
away dirt and leaves the surface cleaner than before.
—Young India : Feb. 16, 1922.
NEVER has man reached his destination by persistence
in deviation from the straight path.
— Young India : Feb. 16, 1922.
<§><$><$>
ERROR can claim no exemption even if it can be
supported by the scriptures of the world.
—Young India : Feb. 26, 1925.
A MAN of truth must ever be confident, if he has
also equal need to be diffident. His devotion to truth
192 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
demands the fullest confidence. His consciousness of the
fallibility of human nature must make him humble and
therefore ever ready to retrace his steps immediately he
discovers his error. It makes no difference to his confidence
that he has previously made Himalayan blunders. His
confession and penance make him, if anything, stronger
ior future action. Discovery of errors makes the votary of
truth more cautious of believing things and forming con-
clusions, but once he has made up his mind, his confidence
must remain unshaken. His errors may result in men's
reb'ance upon his judgments being shaken, but he must
not doubt the truth of his position once he has come to a
conclusion. It should further be borne in mind that my
errors have been errors of calculation and judging men,
not in appreciating the true nature of truth and ahimsa
or in their application. Indeed these errors and my
prompt confessions have made me surer, if possible, of my
insight into the implications of truth and ahimsa. For I
am convinced that my action in suspending Civil Disobedi-
ence at Ahmadabad, Bombay and Bardoli has advanced
the cause of India's freedom and world's peace. I am
convinced that because of the suspensions we are nearer
Swaraj than we would have been without, and this I say
in spite of despair being written in thick black letters on
the horizon. — Toung India : Sept, 10, 1925.
I CLAIM to be a simple individual liable to err like
any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have
humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my
steps. — Toung India : May 6, 1926.
TO err is human ; it is noble after discovery to correct
the error and determine never to repeat it.
—Harijan : April 13, 1935
ERROR 193
TO err, eVen, grievously is human. But it is human
only if there is a determination to mend the error and not
to repeat it. The error will be forgotten if the promise is
fully redeemed. —Harijan : Feb. 6, 1937.
I CLAIM to have no infallible guidance or inspiration
So far as my experience goes, the claim to infallibility on
the part of a human being would be untenable, seeing that
inspiration too can come only to one who is free from
the action of pairs of opposites, and it will be difficult to
judge on a given occasion whether the claim to freedom
from pairs of opposites is justified. The claim to in-
fallibility would thus always be a most dangerous claim to
make. This however does not leave us without any guidance
whatsoever. The sum-total of the experience of the sages
of the world is available to us and would be for all time
to come. — Young India : Jan. 24, 1931.
<$><$><$>
WHEN Non-co-operation was in full swing, and when
during the course of the struggle I confessed to an error
of judgment, a friend innocently wrote to me : 4Eveo if
it was an error, you ought not to have confessed it. People
ought to be encouraged to believe that there is at least one
man who is infallible. You used to be looked upon as such.
Your confession will now dishearten them.5 This made me
smile and also made me sad. I smiled at the correspondent's
simpleness. But the very thought of encouraging people
to believe a fallible man to be infallible was more than I
could bear.
A knowledge of one as he is can always do good to
the people, never any harm. I firmly believe that my
prompt confession of my errors have been all to the good
for them. For me at any rate they have been a blessing.
— Harijan: July 17, 1937
194 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
IT is easier not to do a thing at all than to cease doing
it, even as it is easier for a life abstainer to remain
teetotaller than for a drunkard or even a temperate man to
abstain. To remain erect is infinitely easier than to rise
from a fall. —Harijan : Dec. 1, 1938.
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ALL sins are committed in secrecy. The moment we
realise that God witnesses even our thoughts we shall be
free. —Hanjan : Jan. 17, 1939.
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I BELIEVE that if in spite of the best of intentions
one is led into committing mistakes, they do not really
result in harm to the world or for the matter of that any
individual. God always haves the world from the con-
sequences of unintended errors of men who live in fear of
Him. — T^ung *hdia : Jan. 3, 1939.
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IT is my firm belief that not one of my known errors
was wilful. Indeed what may appear to be an obvious
error to oue may appear to another as pure wisdom.
— Young India : Jan. 3, 1939.
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THERE is no defeat in the confession of one's eiror.
The confession itself is a victory -Hanjan : May 27, 1939.
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IT is best to own the error. It is sure to add to GUI
strength. Error ceases to be error when it is corrected.
Young India : Mar. 2, 1940.
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Q,. IS not the realisation of one's error and the resolve
never to repeat it a penance in itself? Is any further
penance necessary ?
A. Realisation of an error, which amounts to a fixed
resolve never to repeat it, is enough penance. One casts
EVIL 195
away his evil habits as a snake casts off his skin, and thus
purifies himself. Such self-purification is itself complete
penance But he who gets into the habit of committing
errors cannot easily shed it. For all such, penance in its
accepted sense, if undertaken with discrimination, is likely
to be a great help. —Harijan : Sept. 15, 1940.
I AM always ready to correct my mistakes. A full and
candid admission of one's mistake should make one proof
against its repetition. A full realization of one's mistake is
also the highest form of expiation. —Harijan : April 6, 1940.
^ ^ 3>
I HAVE always held that it is only when one sees one's
own mistakes with a convex lens, and does just the reverse
in the case of others, that one is able to arrive at a just
relative estimate of the two.
— My Experiments Wiik Truth : Page 575.
Evil
A MAN who broods on evil is as bad as a man who
does evil, if he is no worse. —Toung India : Jan. 1, 1921.
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IT is easier for the average man to run away from evil
than 10 remain in it and still remain unaffected by it. Many
men can shun grog-shops and remain teetotallers, but not
many can remain in these pestilential places and avoid the
contagion. . —Young India : Aug. 6, 1925.
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FOR me the fight is never with individuals it is ever
with their manners and their measures.
—Young India : Dec. 31, 1931.
Exaggeration
A CAUSE can only lose by exaggeration.
— Young India : July 21, 1921-
196 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Exercise
NO matter what amount of work one has, one should
always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one's
meals. It is my humble opinion that, far from taking away
from one's capacity for work, it adds to it.
—My Experiments With Truth : Page 287.
Expediency
I HAVE a horror of the word 'expediency' because of
its bad odour. As a rule, expediency is often opposed to
morality and does not exclude the use of violence.
—Young India : Dec. 12, 1921-
Experiments
He who would go in for novel experiments must begin
with himself. That leads to a quicker discovery of truth,
and God always protects the honest experimenter.
—My Experiments With Truth : Page 376-
Exploitation
EXPLOITATION of the poor can be extinguished not
by affecting the destruction of a few millionaires, but by
removing the ignorance of the poor and teaching them to
non- co-operate with their exploiters That will convert
the exploiters also. I have even suggested that ultimately
it will lead to both being equal partners. Capital as such
is not evil ; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in <ome
form or other will always be needed.
8 1940.
FAITH 197
Faith
I DO not claim to know definitely that all con-
scious thought and action on my part is directed by the
Spirit. But on an examination of the greatest steps that
I have taken in my life, as also of those that may be
regarded as the least. I think it will not be improper
to say that all of them were directed by the Spirit.
I have not seen Him, neither have I known Him-
I have made the world's faith in God my own, and as my
faith is ineffaceable. I regard that faith as amounting
to experience. However, as it may be said that to
describe faith as experience is to temper with truth,
it may perhaps be more correct to say that I have no
word for characterizing my belief in God.
—My Experiments With Truth : Page 341.
INDEED one's faith in one's plans and methods is truly
tested when the horizon before one is the blackest.
—Young India : April 3, 1924.
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FAITH knows no disappointment.
—Young India : July 24, 1924.
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THERE is no cause for despondency for a man who has
faith and resolution. — Young India : Aug. 14, 1924.
IT is poor faith that needs fair wheather for standing
firm. That alone is true faith that stands the foulest
weather. — Young India : Nov. 20, 1924.
IT is a poor faith that is based on proof commonly
called. — Young India : Jan. 29, 1925.
198 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
ONE'S faith has got to be bright and intelligent
before it can enkindle faith in others.
— Young India : Oct. 22, 1925.
BLIND enthusiasm and blind faith can lead to no
lasting good. —Young India : Oct. 22, 1925.
IT is faith that steers us through stormy seas, faith
that moves mountains and faith that jumps across the
ocean. That faith is nothing but a living, wide-awake
consciousness of God within. He who has achieved that
failh wants nothing. * — Young India : Sept. 24, 1925.
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THE more I live the more I realise how much I
owe to faith and prayer which is one and the same
thing for me. And I am quoting an experience not limited
to a few hours, or days or weeks, but extending over
an unbroken period of nearly 40 years. I have had
my share of disappointments, uttermost darkness, counsels
of despair, counsels of caution, subtlest assaults of pride; but
I am able to say that my faith — and I know that it is still little
enough by no means as great as I want it to be, — has ulti-
mately conquered every one of these difficulties up to now.
If we have faith in us, if we have a prayerful heart, we
may not tempt God, may not make terms with him. We
must reduce ourselves to a cipher.
— Young India : Dec. 22, 1928.
WANT of faith is the father of an innumerable
brood of doubts. f —Young India : Feb. 21, 1929,
FAITH 199
FAITH cannot be given by anybody. It has to
come from within. — Young India : April 17, 1930.
THAT faith is of litt'e value which can flourish
only in fair whether. Faith in order to be of any value
has to survive the severest trials. Your faith is a whited
sepulchre if it cannot stand against the calumny of the
whole world. —Young India : April 25, 1929.
AN M. B. B. S. from Mandalay sends a string of
questions of which' the first is :
"You once expressed your opinion in the pages of
Young India that faith begins where reason ends. Then
I expect you will call it faith, if a person believes in a
thing for which he can give no reasons. Is it npt then
clear that faith is believing unreasonably ? Do you think
it truth or justice if anybody believed in anything un-
reasonable ? I think it is folly to believe in that way.
I do not know what your barrister mind will call it.
If you think like me I hope you will call faith as nothing
but folly."
If the worthy doctor will excuse my saying so, there
is in his question a clear failure to understand my mean-
ing. That which is beyond reason is surely not un-
reasonable. Unreasonable belief is blind faith and is
often superstition. To ask anybody to believe without
proof what is capable of proof would be unreasonable
as for instance asking an intelligent person to believe
without the proof that the sum of the angles of a trian-
gle is equal to two right angles. But, for an experienced
person to ask another to believe without being able to
prove that there is God is humbly to confess his limi-
tations and to ask another to accept in faith the state-
ment of his experience. It is merely a question of that
person's credibility. In ordinary matters of life we
accept in faith the word of persons on whom
200 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
we choose to rely although we are often cheated. Why
may we not then in matters of life and death accept
the testinaoney of sages all the world over that there
is God and that He is to be seen by following Truth
and Innocence (non-violeace) ? It is at least as reasonable
for me to ask my correspondent to have that faith in
this universal testimony a? it would be for him to ask
me to take his medicine in faith even though many a
medicineman might have failed me. I make bold to say
that without faith this world would come to nought in a
moment. True faith is appropriation of the reasoned experi-
ence of people whom we believe to have lived a life purified
by prayer and penance. Belief, therefore, in prophets
or incarnations who have lived in remote ages is not an
idle superstition but a satisfaction of an inmost spiritual
want. The formula, therefore I have humbly suggested
for guidance is rejection of every demand for faith where
a matter is capable of present proof and unqestioned
acceptance on faith of that which is itself incapable of
proof except through personal exprience.
—Young India : 14, July 1927.
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A MAN without faith is like a drop thrown out of
the ocean bound to perish. Every drop in the ocean
shares its majesty and has the honour of giving us the
ozone oflife. — Harijan : April 25, 1936.
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WORK without faith is like an attempt to reach
the bottom of a bottomless pit . — Harijan : Oct. 30, 1936.
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DR. MOTT : What affords you the greatest hope and
satisfaction ?
Gandhiji : Faith in myself born of Faith in God,
Dr. Mott : In moments when your heart may sink
within you, you hark back to this faith in God.
FAITH 201
Gandhiji : Yes. That is why I have always described
myself as an irrepressible optimist.
—Harijan : Dec. 26, 1936.
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FAITH can be turned into knowledge by experience,
and it can come only through the heart and not by
the intellect. The intellect, if anything, acts as a barrier
in matters of faith. — Harijan : June 18, 1938,
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THE greater the difficulties, the greater should be our
faith. — Harijan : April 6, 1940.
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REASON is a poor thing in the midst of tempta-
tions. Faith alone can save us. Reason appears to be
on the side of those who indulge in drink and free love.
The fact is that reason is blurred on such occasions.
It follows the instinct. Don't lawyers ranged on opposite
sides make reason appear to be on their side ? And
yet one of them must be wrong, or it may be that both
are. Hence faith in the Tightness of one's moral position
is the only bulwark against the attack of reason.
There is no such thing as absolute morality for all
times. But there is a relative morality which is absolute
enough for imperfect mortals that we are. Thus, it is
absolutely immoral to drink spirituous liquors except as
medicine, in medicinal doses and under medical advice.
Similarly, it is absolutely wrong to see lustfully any
woman other than one's wife. Both these positions have
been proved by cold reason. Counter arguments have
always been advanced. They have been advanced against
the very existence of God the sum of all that is. Faith
that transcends reason is our only Rock of Ages. My
faith has saved me and is still saving some from pitfalls.
It has never betrayed me. It has never been known to
betray anyone.
—Harijan : Dec. 23, 1939.
202 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I FANCY I see the distinction between you and me.
You, as a Westerner, cannot subordinate reason to faith,
I, as an Indian, caanot subordinate faith to reason even
if I will You tempt the Lord God with your reason; I
won't. As the Gita says: Gjd is the fifth, or the unknown, deciding
factor. —Harijan : Oct. *3, 1939.
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FAITH is the function of the heart. It must be enforced
by reason. The two ar^ not antagonistic as some think.
The more intense one's faith is, the more it whets one's
reason. When faith becomes blind it dies.
—Harijan : April 6, 1940.
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I AM a man of faith. My reliance is solely on God.
One step is enough for me The next step He will
make clear to me when time for it comes.
My faith is not a sham but a reality greater than?
the fact that I am penning these lines.
—Harijan : Oct. 20, 1 940.
Fasting
A MIND consciously unclean cannot be cleaned
by fasting, modifications in diet have no effect on it. The
concupiscence of the mind cannot be rooted out except by
intense self-examination, surrender to God and lastly,
grace. But there is an intimate connection between the
mind and the body, and the carnal mind always lusts
for delicacies and luxuries. To obviate this tendency
dietetic restrictions and fasting would appear to be
necessary. The carnal mind, instead of controlling the
senses, becomes their slave, and therefore the body always
needs clean non-stimulating foods and periodical fasting.
—My Experiments With Truth : Page 403.
A MAN emerging from a long fast should not be in
a hurry to regain lost strength, and should also put a
FASTING 203
curb on his appetite. More caution and perhaps more
restraint are necessary in breaking a fast than in
keeping it. — My Experiments With Truth : Page 422.
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A HARTAL brought about voluntarily and without
pressure is a powerful means of showing popular disapproval,
but fasting is even more so. When people fast in a religious
spirit and thus demonstrate their grief before God, it receives
a certain response. Hardest hearts are impressed by it.
Fasting is regarded by all religions as a great discipline.
Those who voluntarily fast become gentle and purified by
it. A pure fast is a very powerful prayer. It is no small
thing for lakhs of people voluntarily to abstain from food
and such a fast is a Satyagrahi fast. It ennobles individuals
and nations. In it there should be no intention of exercis-
ing undue pressure upon the Government. But we do
observe that like so many other good acts this one of fasting
too is sometimes abused. In India we often see beggars
threatening of fast, fasting, or pretending to fast, until they
receive what they ask for. This is duragrahi fasting and the
person so fasting degrades himself and it will be the proper
thing to let such people fast. It is false kindness to give
anything under pressure of such fasting. If it were to be
otherwise, fasting may be resorted to even for securing un-
lawful demands. Where it is a question of determining the
justice or otherwise of a particular act there is no room for
;ny other force but that of reason regulated by the voice
of conscience. — Young India : May 7, 1919.
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THERE is nothing so powerful as fasting and prayer
that would give us the requisite discipline, spirit of self-
sacrifice, humility and resoluteness of will without which
there can be no real progress.
— Young India : Mar. 31, 1920-.
IN two or three cases, volunteers visited villagers, and
204 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
on the parents hesitating to withdraw their children from
Government schools, sat dhurana and fasted until the bewild-
ered parents had complied with their request. I told the
workers that even this kind of pressure bordered on violence,
for we had no right to make people conform to our opinion
by fasting. One may conceivably fast for enforcing one's
right but not for imposing one's opinion on another.
— Toung India : Dec. 8, 1921
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I KNOW that the mental attitude is everything. Just
as a prayer may be merely a mechanical intonation as of a
bird, so may a fast be a mere mechanical torture of the
flesh. Such mechanical contrivances are valueless for
the purpose intended. Again, just as a mechanical
chant may result in the modulation of voice, a mechani-
cal fast may result in purifying the body. Neither will
touch the soul within.
But a fast undertaken for fuller self-expression, for
attainment of the spirit's supremacy over the flesh, is a
most powerful factor in one's evolution.
—Toung India : Feb. 16, 1922.
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ALL fasting and all penance must as far as possible be
secret. But my fasting k both a penance and a punish-
ment, and a punishment has to be public. It is penance
for me and punishment for those whom I try to serve, for
whom I love to live and would equally love to die. They
have unintentionally sinned against the laws of the
Congress, though they were sympathisers if not actually
connected with it. — Toung India : Feb. 16, 1922.
(In connection with Chauri Chaura Riots)
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FASTING in Satyagraha has well-defined limits. You
cannot fast against a tyrant, for it will be a species of
violence done to him. You invite penalty from him for dis-
obedience of his orders but you cannot inflict on yourselves
FASTING 205
penalties when he refuses to punish and renders it impossible
for you to disobey his orders so as to compel infliction of
penalty. Fasting can only be resorted to against a lover,
not to extort rights but to reform him, as when a son fasts for
a father who drinks. My fast at Bombay and then at Bardoli
was of that character. I fasted to reform those who loved
me. But 1 will not fast to reform, say, General Dyer, who
not only does not love me but who regards himself as my
enemy. Am I quite clear ?"
It need not be pointed out that the above remarks are
of a general character. The words 'tyrant' and 'lover' have
also a general application. The one who d ^es an injustice
is styled 'tyrant.5 The one who is in sympathy with you is
the 'lover.1
There are two conditions attached to a Satyagrahi fasts.
It should be against the lover and for his reform, not for
extorting rights from him.
1 can fast against my father to cure him of a vice, but
I may not in order to get from him an inheritance. The
beggars of India who sometimes fast against those who do
not satisfy them are no more Satyagrahis than children who
fast against a parent for a fine dress. The former are
impudent, the latter are childish. Young India : May 1, 1924.
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MY religion teaches me that whenever there is distress*
which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray.
—Young India : Sept. 25, 1924.
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THOUGH almost all my fasts have been undertaken for
a moral purpose, being an inveterate diet reformer and a
believer in fasting as a cure for many obstinate diseases, I
have not failed to note their physical effects. I must, how-
ever, confess that I have not made any accurate observations
for the simple reason that it was not possible for me to
combine the two. I was much too pre-occupied with the
moral values to note or mind the physical.
—Young India : Dec. 17, 1925.
206 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
FROM a layman's and from a purely physical stand-
point, I should lay down the following rules for all those
who may wish to fast on any account what soever :
1. Conserve your energy both physical and mental
from the very beginning.
2. You must cease to think of food whilst you are
fasting.
3. Drink as much cold water as you can, with or with-
out soda and salt, but in small quantities at a time (water
should be boiled, strained and cooled). Do not be afraid
of salt and soda, because most waters contain both these
salts in a free state.
4. Have a warm sponge daily.
5. Tate an enema regularly during fast. You will
be surprised at the impurities you will expel daily.
6. Sleep as much as possible in the open air.
7. Bathing in the morning sun. A sun and air bath
is at least as great a purifier as a water bath.
8. Think of anything else but the fast.
9. No matter from what motive you are fasting,
during this precious time, think of your Maker, and of
your relation to Him and His other creation, and you will
make discoveries you may not have even dreamed of.
With apologies to medical friends, but out of the
fulness of my own experience and that of fellow-cranks I
•say without hesitation, fast (1) if you are constipated, (2)
if you are anaemic, (3) if you are feverish^ (4) if you have
indigestion, (5) if you have a head-ache, (6) if you are
rehumatic, (7) if you are gouty, (8) if you are fretting and
foaming, (9) if you are depressed, (10) if you are over-
joyed ; and you will avoid medical prescriptions and
patent medicines.
Eat only when you are hungry and when you have
laboured for your food. — Young India : Dec. 17, 1925.
FASTING 207
MY religion says that only he who is prepared to
suffer can pray to God. Fasting and prayer are common
injunctions in my religion. But I know of this sort of
penance even in Islam. In the life of the Prophet I have
read that the Prophet often fasted and prayed, and forbade
others to copy him. Some one asked him why he did not
allow others to do the thing he himself was doing. 'Because
I live on food divine,' he said. He achieved most of his great
things by fasting and prayer I learnt from him that only
he can fast who has inexhaustible faith in God. The
prophet had revelations not in moments of ease and
luxurious living He fasted and prayed, kept awake for
nights together and would be on his feet at all hours of
the night as he received the revelations.
The public will have to neglect my fasts and cease to
worry about them. They are a part of my being. I can
as well do without my eyes, for instance, as 1 can without
fasts. What the eyes are for outer world, fasts are for the
inner. And much as I should like the latest fast to be the
very last in my life, something within me tells me that I
might have to go through many such ordeals and, who
knows, much more trying. I no ay be wholly wrong. Then
the world will be able to write an epitaph over my ashes :
'Well deserved thou fool.7 But for the time being my
error, if it be one, must sustain me. Is it not better that i
satisfy my conscience though misguided, because not per-
fectly pure, than that I should listen to every voice, be it ever
so friendly but by no means infallible ? if I had a Guru, —
and I am looking for one, I should surrender myself body
and soul to him. Bat in this age of unbelief a true Guru is
hard to find. \ substitute will be worse than useless,
often positively harmful. I must therefore warn all against
accepting imperfect ones as Gurus. It is better to grope in
the dark and wade through a million errors to Truth than
to entrust oneself to one who " knows not that he knows
not." Has a man ever learnt swimming by tying a stone
to his neck ?
208 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
And who shall lose by erroneous fasting ? Of course
only myself. But I am public property, it is said. So be
it. But I must be taken with all my faults. I am a
searcher after truth. My experiments I hold to be
infinitely more important than the best equipped Himalayan
expeditions. And the results ? If the search is scientific,
surely there is no comparison between the two. Let me
therefore go my way. I shall lose my usefulness the
moment I stifle the still small voice within.
— Young India : Dec. 19, 1925.
THERE are many forms of Satyagraha, of which fasting
may or may not be one, according to the circumstances
of the case. A friend has put the following poses :
cl A man wants to recover money another owes him.
He cannot do so by going to law as he is a non-co-
operator, and the debtor in the intoxication of the
power of his wealth pays him no heed, and refuses
even to accept arbitration.
If in these circumstances, the creditor sits dhurna at
the debtor's door, would it not be Satyagraha ? The
fasting creditor seeks to injure no one by his fasting.
Ever since the golden age of Rama we have been follow-
ing this method. But I am told you regard this as
intimidation. If you do, will you kindly explain ? "
I know the correspondent. He has written from the
purest motive. But I have no doubt that he is mistaken
in his interpretation of Satyagraha. Satyagraha can never be
resorted to for personal gain. If fasting with a view to recov-
ering money is to be encouraged, there would be no end of
scoundrels blackmailing people by resorting to the means.
I know that many such people are to be met with in
the country. It is not right to argue that those who
rightly resort to fasting need not be condemned because it
is abused in a few cases. Any and every one may not
draw his own distinction between fasting — Satyagraha —
FASTING 209
true and false. What one regards as true Satyagraha may
very likely be otherwise. Satyagraha, therefore, cannot be
resorted to for personal gain, but only for the good of thers.
A Satyagrahi should always be ready to undergo suffering
and pecuniary loss. That there would not be wanting
dishonest people to reap an undue advantage from the
boycott of law-courts practised by good people was a
contingency not unexpected at the inception of Non-Co-
operation. It was then thought that the beauty of Non-
Co-operation lay just in taking those risks.
But Satyagraha in the form of fasting cannot be under-
taken as against an opponent. Fasting can be resorted to
only against one's nearest and dearest, and that solely for
his or her good.
In a country like India, where the spirit of charity or
pity is not lacking, it would be nothing short of an outrage
to resort to fasting for recovering money. I know people
who have given away money, quite against their will, but
out of a false sense of pity. The Satyagrahi has therefore
to proceed warily in a land like ours. It is likely that some
men may succeed in recovering money due to them, by
resorting to fasting ; but instead of calling it a triumph of
Satyagraha, I would call it a triumph of Duragraha or
violence. The triumph of Satyagraia consists in meeting
death in the insistence on truth. A Satyagrahi is always
unattached to the attainment of the object of Satyagraha ;
one seeking to recover money cannot be so unattached. I
am therefore clear that fasting for the sake of personal gain
is nothing short of intimidation and the result of ignorance.
—Toung India : Oct. 7, 1926.
OF what use is it to force the flesh merely if the spirit
refuses to co-operate ? You may starve even unto death but
if at the same time the mind continues to hanker after
objects of the sense, your fast is a sham and a delusion.
—Young India : Oct. 4, 1928.
210 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
ONE of the candidates for the Khadi service went in
one day with his own ailment. He said he was very much
prone to anger and he wanted to cleanse himself with
fasting. 'I warn you,' said Gandhiji, 'that fasting is not
always a penance for sins. Humble surrender to God is
the only escape from sin, and all fasting except when it is
undertaken to help that surrender is useless. I would
suggest a better remedy. Go and apologise to the man
you were angry with, ask him to prescribe the penance for
you and do that. That will be much better expiation than
fasting.' The friend went and did likewise. But what
should the man who has been wronged do in this case ?
Simply forgive ? Forgiveness, we have been told, is the
ornanlent of the brave, but what is that forgiveness ?
Passivity ? Taking the blow lying down ? Is that the
meaning of resisting not evil ?
This was the subject of a talk one evening g.nd I
summarise it briefly : "This talk of passive non-resistance
has been the bane of our national life. Forgiveness is a
quality of the soul, and therefore a positive quality. It
is not negative. 'Conquer anger,' says Lord Buddha, £by
non-anger.' But what is that 'non-anger ?' It is a positive
quality and means the supreme virtue of charity or love.
You must be roused to this supreme virtue which must
express itself in your going to the angry man, ascertaining
from him the cause of his anger, making amends if you
have given any cause for offence and then bringing home
to him the error of his way and convincing him that it is
wrong to be provoked. This consciousness of the quality
of the soul, and deliberate exercise of it elevate not only
the man but the surrounding atmosphere. Of course only
he who has that love will exercise it. This love can
certainly be cultivated by incessant striving." (M.D.)
— Young India : Jan. 11, 1928.
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WE have it in our sha*tras that whenever things go
FASTING 211
wrong, good people and sages go in for tapasya otherwise
known as austerities. Gautama himself, when he saw
oppression, injustice and death around him, and when he
saw darkness in front of him, at the back of hin^, and each
side of him, went out in the wilderness and 'remained there
fasting and praying in search of light. And if such penance
was necessary for him who was infinitely greater than all of
us put together how much more necessary is it for us
—Young India: April 18, 1929.
<$><$> <3>
FAST is the last weapon of a Satyagraha against loved
ones —Young India: April 17, 1930.
<$><$><$>
STARVATION of the body when the mind thinks of a
multiplicity of dishes is worse than useless.
9 —Young Indian April 17, 1930.
^N ^N ^^
THE physical and moral value of fasting is being more
and more recognised day by day. A vast number of diseases
can be more surely treated by judicious fasting than by all
sorts of nostrums including the dreadful injections — dreadful
not because of the pain they cause but because of the in-
jurious by-products which often result from their use. More
mischief than we are aware of is done by the drug treat-
ment. But. not many cases of harm done by fasting can be
cited. Increased vitality is almost the universal experience
of those that have fasted For real rest for body and mind
is possible only during fasting. Suspension of daily work is
hardly rest that the overtaxed and overworked
digestive apparatus needs in a multitude of cases
The moral effect of fasting, while it is considerable, is not
so easily demonstrable For moral results there has to be
perfect co-operation from the mind. And there is danger
of self-deception. I know of many instances in which
fasting undertaken for moral results has been overdone. To a
limited extent it is a most valuable agent if the person fasting
212 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
knows what he is doing. There was considerable force in
the warning given by the Prophet against his disciples
copying his fasting over and above the semi-fasts of Ramzan.
*My Maker sends me food enough when I fast, not so to
you/ said the Prophet. Of what use is a spiritual fast when
the spirit hankers more after food, the longer the body is
starved ?
—Young India : Mar. 28, 1929.
3> <$> <$>
A PARROT-LIKE repetition of the choicest senti-
ment and mere starvation of the body would be worse than
useless. Prayer and fasting avail where there is a definite
consciousness of the presence of God in us, even as we have
of friends living under the same roof. Self-deception will
not do.
—Tiung India : Aug. 13, 1931.
<$> <S> <$
THE question asked by the Village Worker's Training
School boys was regarding the fasts undertaken by Gandhiji
on various occasions. There were those for the redress of
public wrongs, as distinguished from fasts undertaken to
arouse the conscience of a dear one or an intimate co-worker
or those undertaken for self-purification. Some of these
are well known, e. g., those undertaken at the time of the
mill labourer's strike in ARmedabad in 1918 ; those that
followed the Ahmed abad riots in 1919,. which were of a
purely self-purificatory character : the Hindu-Muslim Unity
fast of 1924; and the three Harijan fasts of 1932, 1933 and
1934. I need not go into the details of these. But there
was one of which few readers are likely to have any know-
ledge. I at any rate had certainly no definite recollection
of it — and which has not been, so far as I remember, recorded
anywhere. That was the first occasion of self-suffering in
connection with a public movement, and I must share with
the readers the details given by Gandhiji on that Sunday
morning.
FASTING 213
It was in 1913. The Indian Labourers on the South
Coast of Natal, from Durban to Isiping went on strike when
they came to know of the miners' strike and the marchers'
imprisonment. They all knew that the fight had developed
into one for their emancipation from the annual poll tax of
£3. But they had never been asked to go on strike. For
two obvious reasons. For one thing Gandhiji Had never
intimately known the labourers on the South Coast, and
secondly it was physically impossible to maintain the
thcRisands of labourers and it would be most difficult to
prevent a breach of the peace. But the news of suffering
in one part of (he country and in jails spread like wild fire,
and there was no stopping these labourers. The Govern-
ment came down upon them with a heavy hand. All kind
of pressure was put upon them to bring them back to
work, and the slightest resistance was answered by rifle fire.
These events were followed by an enquiry. Gandhiji was
prematurely released from jail. When he learnt of these
events, he imposed on himself a triple vow of self- suffer ing
to be observed until the £3 lax was abolished : (1) To
adopt the labourer's dress, (i.e. no head-dcess, but only a
cloth wrapped round the waist and a kutrd)\ (2) To walk
barefoot ; (3) To have only one meal during the day a
meal which during those days consisted of fruits untouched
by fire. This penance went on for some months when at
last the settlement came and the tax was removed. "I
have no deubt,1' said Gandhiji, "that this penance willingly
undertaken and cheerfully gone through had something to
do to bringing about the settlement. I do not mean to
imply that it had any direct influence upon the Union
Government. It is my firm belief that all real penances
produce unseen but sure effects. The penance
was undertaken for self-purification, for sharing, however
humbly in the suffering of the strikers. That was the only
way in which I could prayerfully appeal to God."
"The man who performs such penance throws himself
wholly and solely on God. He does not undertake such a
214 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
penance lightly, never in anger, and not certainly with a
view to winning any advantage for himself. Then it must
not be against an opponent with whom there is no bond of
affection. Then it presupposes personal purity and a
living belief in non-violence and truth. Obviously there
pan be no room for pride in such penance." (M. D.)
—Harijan : Dec 12, 1936.
<S> <£> <8>
FASTING is an institution as old as Adam. It has
been resorted to for self-purification or for some ends noble
as well as ignoble. Buddha, Jesus and Mohammad fasted
so as to see God face to face. Ramchandra fasted
for the sea to give way for his army of monkeys. Parvati
fasted to secure Mahadev himself as "her Lord and Master.
In my fasts I have but followed these great examples no
doubt for ends much less noble than theirs,
—Harijan : Mar. 18, 1939.
<3> <3> <$>
FASTING is a potent weapon in the armoury.
It cannot be taken by everyone. Mere physical capacity
to take it is no qualification for it. It is of no use
without a living faith in God. It should never be a mechani-
cal effort nor a mere imitation. It must come from the depth
of one's soul. It is therefore always rare. I seem to be
made for it. It is noteworthy that not one of my colleagues
on the political field has Telt the call to fast. And I am
thankful to be able to say that they have never resented my
fasts. Nor have fellow-members of the Ashram felt the call
except on rare occasions. They have even accepted the
restriction that they may not take penitential fasts without
my permission, no matter how urgent the inner call may
seem to be,
Thus fasting though a very potent weapon has neces-
sarily very strict limitations and is to be taken only by
those who have undergone previous training. And, judged
by my standard, the majority of fasts do not at all come
FASTING 215
under the category of Satyagraha fasts and are, as they are
popularly called, hunger-strikes undertaken without previous
preparation and adequate thought. If the process is
repeated too often, these hunger-strikes will lose what little
efficiency they may possess and will become objects of
ridicule. —Harijan : Mar. 18, 1939
<$><$><$>
FAST is in my blood and my bones, I imbibed it with
my mother's milk. My mother fasted if someone was ill
in the family, she fasted if she was in pain, she fasted in
season and out of season. How can I her son do
otherwise ? —Harijan : April 8, 1939.
<$> 3> <e>
Q. ARE not all fasts violent ? Do I not coerce a
friend when I try to prevent him, by means of my fast,
from doing a wrong act ?
A. Fasts undertaken according to the rules governing
them are truly non-violent. There is no room there
for coercion. If a friend of mine is going astray, and if
I impose suffering on myself by fasting in order to awaken
his better instincts, it can be only out of love. If the
friend for whom I fast has no love in him, he will not
respond. If he has it and responds, it is all to the good.
This is how I would analyse his act : He valued his love
for me more than his bad ways. Ihere is a possible risk,
I admit, namely that as soon as the effect of the fast is
over he would be tempted to go back to his old ways. But
then I can fast again. Ultimately the increasing influence
of my love will either convert the friend to the extent of
weaning him completely from his evil ways, or repeated
fasts may lose their novelty, blunt his mind, and make it
impervious to my fasting. It is my conviction that a fast
undertaken out of genuine love cannot have such an un-
toward result. But because such a result is not impossible
we cannot afford to disregard this pure instrument of
216 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
moral reform. The risk, however, makes it clear that he
who fasts should be properly qualified, and that it should
not be lightly undertaken. — Harijan : Sept. 15, 1940.
<£ <£ 3>
I HAVE however been driven to the conclusion that
fasting unto death is an integral part of Satyagraha pro-
gramme, and it is the greatest and most effective weapon in
its armoury under given circumstance. Not every one is
qualified for un iertaking it without proper course of train-
ing. —Harijan : July 26, 1942.
Fate
FATES decide my undertakings for me. I never
go to seek them. They come to me almost in spite of me.
That has been my lot all my life long, in South Africa as
well as ever since my return to India.
-Young India : May 7, 1925.
Faults
THERE is no one without faults, not even men of God.
They are men of God not because they are faultless, but
because they know their own faults, they strive against
them, they do not hide them and are ever ready to correct
themselves. — Harijan ; Jan. 28, 1939.
<$><§><$>
WHEN we are afraid, it is our ahimsa that is at
fault. Love and weakness cannot co-exist.
—Harijan : July 6, 1940.
<s> <$> <s>
I AM never accustomed to weigh my sins in golden
scales. I can atone for them only if I make a mountain of
a mole-hill. The reason is simple. Man can never see his
faults in proper perspective, and, if he really did so,
he would scarcely survive them. The remedy is, therefore,
to magnify one's shortcomings.
—Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
FEAR 217
Fear
THERE is only one Being, if Being is the proper term
to be used, whom we have to fear, and that is God ? When
we fear God, we shall fear no man, no matter how high-
placed he may be. And if you want to follow the vow of
truth in any shape or form, fearlessness is the necessary
consequence. And so you find, in the Bhagwad Gita, fear-
lessness is declared as the first essential quality of a Brahman.
We fear consequences, and therefore we are afraid to tell
the Truth. A man who fears God will certainly not fear
any earthly consequences. Before we can aspire to the
position of understanding what religion is, and before we
can aspire to the position of guiding the destinies of India,
do you not see that we should adopt this habit of fearless-
ness ? or shall we over-awe our countrymen, even as we are
over-awed ?
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 813.
<s> 4> <$»
FEAR has its use, but cowardice has none. I may not
put my finger into the jaws of a snake, but the very sight
of the snake need not strike terror into me. The trouble is
that we often die many times before death overtakes us.
—Harijan : Aug. 25, 1940,
<s> <$> <s>
WHERE there is fear there is no religion.
—Harijan : Aug>. 25, 1940;
Foreign Cloth
IT revives black memories and is a mark of shame,
the East India Company, having forced it on us and is an
emblem of slavery.
The poor should not be given these for they ought not
to be dead to patriotism, dignity and respect.
— Young India : July 28, 1921.
^N ^^ <&
I FEEL that it was right and wise on the part of the
sisters who gave their costly clothing. Its destruction was
218 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
the most economical use you could have made of it, even
as destruction of plague-infected articles is their most
economical and best use. It was a necessary surgical opera-
tion designed to avert more serious complaints in the body
politic. — Toung India: Aug. 11, 1921.
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IN burning foreign clothes, we are burning our
taste for foreign fineries. The effect upon India would have
been equally disastrous, if Japan instead of England had
tempted us in the first instance. The motive was to punish
ourselves and not the foreigner. We are boycotting not
British but all foreign cloth. The one would be meaningless
as the other is a sacred duty. The idea of burning springs
not from hate but from repentance of our past sins. A
moment's reflection must show the writer that burning
must make us earnest and thus stimulate, as it has stimulat-
ed, fresh manufacture. The disease had gone so deep, that
a surgical operation was a necessity. The ill-clad or the
naked millions of India need no charity but work that they
can easily do in their cottages. Have not the poor any
feeling of self-respect or patriotism ? Is the gospel of
patriotism only for the well-to-do ?
— Toung India: Sept. 15, 1921.
<s> <$> <s>
EVERY yard of foreign cloth, brought into India, is one
bit of bread snatched out of the mouths of the starving poor.
—Young India : Nov. 13, 1924.
^^ ^^ *^
IT is as much a duty as boycott of foreign waters would
je if they were imported to substitute the waters of the
Indian rivers. — Toung India : Dec. 26, 1924,
<$> <3> <^
IT is I hold the duty of Great Britain to regulate
her exports with due regard to the welfare of India, as it
is India's to regulate her imports with due regard to her
FOREIGN CLOTH 219
own welfare. That economics is untrue which ignores or
disregards moral values. The extension of the law of non-
violence in the domain of economics means nothing less than
the introduction of moral values as a factor to be considered
in regulating international commerce. And I must con-
fess that my ambition is nothing less than to see inter-
national relations placed on a moral basis through India's
eftorts. I do not despair of cultivation of limited mass
non-violence. I refuse to believe that the tendency of
human nature is always downward.
— Young India: Dec. 26, 1924.
<3> <$><$>
IT is wrong and immoral for a nation to supply, for
instance, intoxicating liquor to those who are addicted to
drink. What is true of intoxicants is true of grain or cloth,
if the discontinuance of their cultivation or manufacture in
the country to which foreign grain or cloth are exported
results in enforced idleness or penury. These latter hurt a
man's soul and body just as much as intoxication. Depres-
sion is but excitement upside down and hence equally
disastrous in its results and often more so because we have
not yet learnt to regard as immoral or sinful the depression
of idleness or penury. — Young Indip, : Dec. 26, 1924.
<$><$> <S>
I CALL the Lancashire trade immoral, because it was
raised and is sustained on the ruin of millions of India's
peasants. And as one immorality leads to another, the
many proved immoral acts of Britain are traceable to
this one immoral traffic. If therefore this one great tempta-
tion is removed from Britain's path by India's voluntary
effort, it would be good for India, good for Britain and, as
Britain is today the predominant world power, good even for
humanity. — Young India : Dec. 26, 1926.
^ <$> <$>
LANCASHIRE has risen on the' ashes of India's
220 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
greatest cottage industry and it is sustained by the exploita-
tion of the helpless millions of this land.
—Young India : Jan. 23, 1927.
<3> <3> <S>
LANCASHIRE is the Government in substance ; and
to grant India effective protection against Lancashire would
be almost like committing suicide.
— Young India : Jan, 23, 1927.
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INDIA'S pauperism reduces Lancashire to moral
bankruptcy. —Young India : Jan. 23, 1927.
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Q. WHAT is your opinion about the importation of
foreign goods other than cloth into India ? Are there any
foreign commodities which you would like to see immediate-
ly laid under prohibition ? What do you think should be
the nature of India's foreign trade in the future ?
A. I am m6re or less indifferent with regard to
trade in foreign goods other than cloth. I have never been
an advocate of prohibition of all things foreign because
they are foreign. My economic creed is a complete taboo
in respect of all foreign commodities whose importation is
likely to prove harmful to our indigenous interests. This
means that we may not Jn any circumstance import a
commodity that can be adequately supplied from our own
country. For instance I would regard it a sin to import
Australian wheat on the score of its better quality but I
would not have the slightest hesitation in importing oatmeal
from Scotland, if an absolute necessity for it is made out,
because we do not grow oats in India. In other words I
would not countenance the boycott of a single foreign
article out of ill-will or a feeling of hatred. Or to take up
a reverse case, India produces a sufficient quantity of
leather ; it is my duty therefore to wear shoes made out of
Indian leather only; even if it is comparatively dearer and
of an inferior quality in preference to cheaper and superior
FORGIVENESS 221
quality foreign leather shoes Similarly I would condemn
the introduction of foreign molasses of sugar if enough of
it is produced in India for our needs. It will be thus clear
from the above that it is hardly possible for me to give an
exhaustive catalogue of foreign articles whose importation in
India ought to be prohibited. I have simply inculcated
the general principle by which we can be guided in all such
cases And this principle will hold good in future too so
long as the conditions of production in our country remain
as they are today.
— Young India : Nov. 15 , 1928,
<$> <8> <*>
I WANT you to pledge yourselves not before me but
before your God that henceforth you are not going to use
any foreign cloth, that you are going to give up foreign
clothes in your possession, that you will burn them even as
you burn rags in your possession which may require to be dis-
infected, even as a drunkard who suddenly becomes teetotaller
empties his cupboard and destroys every bottle of brandy
and whisky in his possession, no matter what it might have
cost him. You will count no cost too great against the
cause, the liberty and honour of your country.
— Young India : Mar. 14, 1929.
Forgiveness
TO forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving
in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be
loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an
enemy when you forget him for a friend.
—Young India : June 23, 1920.
<^ <$><$>
I BELIEVE tint non-violence is infinitely superior
to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment.
Forgiveness adorns a soldier. But abstinence is forgiveness
only when there is th~ power to punish : it is
meaningless when it pretends to proceed from a helpless
222 TEACHINGS OF MAHA1MA GANDHI
creature, A mouse hardly forgives a cat when it allows
itself to be torn to pieces by her.
—Toung India : Aug. 11, 1920.
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TO err is human and it must be held to be equally
human to forgive if we, though being falliable, would like
rather to be forgiven than punished and reminded of our
deeds. —Toung India; Nov. 18, 1920.
<£ <$> <$>
FORGIVENESS is a quality of the soul, and therefore a
positive quality. It is not negative.
— Young India : Jan. 12, 1928.
THE weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the
attribute of the strong.
— Toung India rDec. 16, 1929.
Foreign Medium Of Instruction
I AM certain that the children of the nation, that
receive instruction in a tongue other than their own,
commit suicide. It robs them of their birth right. A
foreign medium means an undue strain upon the young-
sters, it robs them of all originality. It stunts their
growth and isolates them from their home.
English is a language of international commerce; it
is the language of diplomacy, and it contains many a
rich literary treasure, it gives us an introduction to
Western thought and culture. For a few of us, there-
fore, a knowledge of English is necessary They can carry
on the departments of national commerce and interna-
tional diplomacy, and for giving to the nation the best
of Western literature, thought and science. That would be
the legitimate use of English. Whereas today English has
usurped the dearest place in our hearts and dethroned
our mother-tongues. It is an unnatural place due to-
our unequal relations with Englishmen. The highest deve-
FOREIGN MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION 223
lopment of the Indian mind must be possible without a
knowledge of English. It is doing violence to the man-
hood, and specially the womanhood of India, to encourage
our boys and girls to think t that an entry into the best
society is impossible without a knowledge of English. It
is too humiliating a thought to be bearable. To get
rid of the infatuation for English is one df the essentials
of Swaraj. —Young India : Feb. 2, 192L
^s ^^ ^s
TILAK and Ram Mohan would have been far greater
men if they had not had the contagion of English learning.
I am opposed to make a fetish of English education. I
don't hate English education. When I want to destroy
the Government, I don't want to destroy the English
language but read English as an Indian nationalist would
do. Ram Mohan and Tilak (leave aside my case) were
so many pigmies who had no hold upon the people com-
pared with Chaitanya, Shankar, Kabir and Nanak. Ram
Mohan and Tilak were pigmies before these giants. What
Shankar alone was able to do, the whole arm^ of English
knowing men can't do. I can multiply instances. Was
Guru Govind a product of English education ?
—Young India : April 13, 192L
<$><$><$>
ENGLISH education has emasculated us, constrained
our intellect, and the manner of imparting this education
has rendered Us effeminate, % We want to bask in the
sunshine of freedom, but the enslaving system emasculates
our nation. Pre-British period was not a period of slavery.
We had some sort of Swaraj under Moghul rule. In
Akbar's time the birth of a Pratap was possible and in
Aurangzeb's time a Shivaji could flourish. Has 150 years
of British rule produced any Partap and Shivaji?
—Young India : April 13, 1921.
^N ^^ ^^
A FRIEND asks me to give my considered view on
the value of English education and explain my talk on the
224 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
rsands at Cuttack. I have not read the report of the
•talk. But I gladly respond to the friend's wish.
It is my considered opinion that English education
in the manner it has been given has emasculated the Eng-
ilish-educated Indian, it has put a severe strain upon the
Indian students7 nervous energy, and has made of us
imitators. The process of the displacing the vernacular has
t>een one of the saddest chapters in the British connection.
Ram Mohan Roy would have been a greater reformer and
JLokmanya Tilak would have been a greater scholar, if
they had not to start with the handicap of having to think
in English and transmit their thoughts chiefly in English.
Their effect on their own people, marvellous as it was,
'would have been greater if they had been brought up
under a less unnatural system. No doubt they both
igained from their knowledge of the rich treasures of
English literature. But these should have been accessible
to them through their own vernaculars. No country can
become a nation by producing a race of translators. Think
of what would have happened to the English if they had
not an authorised version of the Bible. I do believe that
Chaitanya, Kabir, Nanak, Guru Coving Singh, Shivaji and
Pratap were greater than Ram Mohan Roy and Tilak.
I know that comparisons- are odious. All are great in
their own way.
But judged by the resists, the effect of Ram Mohan
and Tilak on the masses is not so permanent or far-reach-
ing as that of the others more fortunately born. Judged
by the obstacles they had to surmount, they were giants;
and both would have been greater in achieving results if
they had not been handicapped by the system under
which they received their training. I refuse to believe
that the Raja and the Lokrnanya could not have thought
the thoughts they did without a knowledge of the English
language. Of all the superstitions that affect India, none
is so great as that a knowledge of the English language is
FRAUD 225
necessary for imbibing ideas of liberty and developing
accuracy of thought. It should be remembered that their
has been only one system of education before the country
for the past fifty years, and only one medium of expression
forced on the country. We have, therefore, no data be-
fore us to what we would have b.en but for the educa-
tion in the existing schools and colleges. This, however,
we do know that India to-day is poorer than fifty years
ago, less able to defend herself, and her children have less
stamina. I need not be told that that is due to the defect
in the system of government. The system of education
is its most defective part. It was conceived and born in
error, for the English rulers honestly believed the indige-
nous system to be worse than useless. It has been
nurtured in sin, for the tendency has been to dwarf the
Indian body, mind and soul. —Toung India : Dec. 16, 1921
AMONG the many evils of foreign rule, this blighting
imposition of a foreign medium upon the youth of the
country will be counted by History as one of the greatest.
It has sapped the energy of the nation, it has shortened
the lives of the pupils. It has estranged them from the
masses, it has made education unnecessarily expensive.
If this process is still persisted in, it bids fair to rob the
nation of its soul. The sooner, therefore, educated India
shakes itself free from the hypnotic spell of the foreign
medium, the better it would be for them and the people.
—Toung India : June 5, 1928.
Frankness
A 'NO uttered from deepest conviction is better
and greater than a 'yes' merely uttered to please,
or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
— Toung India: Mar. 17, 1927.
Fraud
FRAUD itself is a species of violence.
— Young India : Mar. 20, 1930
226 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
FORCE always includes fraud, non-violence always
excludes it. — Harijan : Oct. 13, 1937.
Freedom
FREEDOM is never dear at any price. It is the
breath of life. What would a man not pay for living.
—Harijan : Dec. 10, 1938.
3> <3> <S>
FREEDOM received through the effort of others, how-
ever benevolent, cannot be retained when such effort is
withdrawn. In other words, such freedom is not real
ireedom. — Harijan : April 20, 1940.
FREEDOM'S battles are not fought without paying
heavy prices. Just as man would not cherish the thought
of living in a body other than his own, so do nations
not like to live under other nations however noble and
great the latter may be. — Harijan : Aug. 18, 1940.
INDIVIDUAL freedom alone can make a man volun-
tarily surrender himself completely to the service of
society ? If it is wrested from him, he becomes an
automaton and society -is ruined. No society can possibly
be built on a denial of individual freedom. It is contrary
to the very nature of man. Just as a man will not grow
horns or a tail so he will not exist as man if he has
no mind of his own. In reality even those who do not
believe in the liberty of the individual btlieve fa their
own modern editions of Chenghiz Khan retain their own.
—Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
MY conception of freedom is no narrow conception.
It is co-extensive with the freedom of man in all his
majesty. — Harijan : June 7, 1942.
FREEDOM OF INDIA 22*
Freedom of India
SPEAKING with a full sense of responsibility over my
shoulders I know the tremendous consequences of civil dis-
obedience and of no-tax campaign in a vast country like
this, — a country which has undisciplined masses, — but a man
who is mad as I am now after freedom, a man who is hungry
after freedom,— and a real hunger for freedom is infinitely
more painful than hunger for mere bread, — has got to take
tremendous risks, to stake everything that he has in order to
gain that precious freedom, and it is because I am hungry
for that freedom, — although I am on the threshold of death,
I want to see Swaraj whilst I have still breath in me
that I want to take all those risks. But at the same time
I want to take every precaution and therefore I shall plead
with the Government and the powers that be, and shall ask
them to come to their senses. — Young India : March 14, 1929.
>/- V v
FREEDOM is not worth having if it does not connote
freedom to err and even to sin. If God Almighty has given
the humblest of His creatures the freedom to err, it passes
my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so
experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human
beings of that precious right.— Young India : March 12, 1931.
I LIVE for India's freedom and would die for it,
because it is part of truth. —Young India : April 3, 1924,
THERE is no freedom for India so long as one man,
no matter how highly placed he may be, holds in the
hollow of his hands the life, property and honour of millions
of human beings. It is an artificial, unnatural and un-
civilised institution. The end of it is an essential prelimi-
nary to Swaraj. —Young India : Nov. 13, 1924.
228 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
IF we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy, we
cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of
faith in one's cause. — Young India : Feb. 2, 1922.
<$><$><$>
THE spirit of democracy which we want to spread
throughout India cannot be spread by violence whether
verbal or physical, whether direct, indirect or threatened.
— Young India : Feb. 23, 1922.
^N ^^ ^x
DEMOCRACY is not a state in which people act bke
sheep. Under democracy, individual liberty of opinion
and action is jealously guarded. — Young India : Mar. 2, 1922.
^S ^N ^N
I WORK for India's freedom because my Swadeshi teach-
es me that being born in it and having inherited her culture,
1 am fittest to serve her and she has a prior claim to my
service. But my patriotism is not exclusive ; it is calculated
not only not to hurt any other nation but to benefit all in
the true sense of the word. India's freedom as conceived by
me can never be a menance to the world.
— Young India : April 3, 1924.
<$> <^ <$>
LET the youth of India realise that the death of Lalaji
can only be avenged by regaining her freedom. Freedom
of a nation cannot be won by solitary acts of heroism even
though they may be of the true type, never by heroism so-
called. The temple of freedom requires the patient, intelli-
gent and constructive effort of tens of thousands of men
and women, young and old. — Young India : Dec. 27, 1928,
v^ ^^ ^^
I SHALL strive for a constitution, which will release
India from all thraldom and patronage, and give her, if need
be, the right to sin. I shall work for an India, in which
the poorest shall feel that it is their country in whose making
FREEDOM OF INDIA 229
they have an effective voice ; an India in which there
shall be no high class and low class of people, an India in
which all communities shall live in perfect harmony. There
can be no room in such India for the curse of untouchabi-
lity, or the curse of intoxicating drinks and drugs. Women
will enjoy the same rights as men. Since we shall be at peace
with all the rest of the world, neither exploiting, nor being
exploited, we should have the smallest army imaginable.
All interests not in conflict with the interests of the dumb
millions will be scrupulously respected, whether foreign or
indigenous. Personally, I hate distinction between foreign
and indigenous. This is the India of my dreams for which I
shall struggle at the next Round Table Conference. I may
fail, but if I am to deserve the confidence of the Congress,
my principals, I shall be satisfied with nothing less.
—Young India : Sept. 10, 1931
3> <$> 3>
WE must be content to die if we cannot live as frei
men and women. — Young India : Jan. 5, 1922
<$><$><$>
WE seek arrest because the so-called freedom is slavery.
We are challenging the might of this Government because
we consider its activity to be wholly evil. We want to
overthrow the Government. We want to compel its sub-
mission to the people's will. We desire to show that the
Government exists to serve the people, not the people the
Government. Free life under the Goveroment has become
intolerable, for the price exacted for the retention of
freedom is unconscionably great. Whether we are one or
many, we must refuse to purchase freedom at the cost of
our self-respect or our cherished convictions. I haye
known even little children become unbending when ait
attempt has been made to cross their declared purpose, be
it ever so flimsy in the estimation of their parents.
— rmino India ! TVc. 15 1Q9K
230 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
INDIA'S freedom must revolutionise the world's out-
look upon Peace and War. Her impotence affects the
whole of mankind. —Toung India : Sept. 17, 1925.
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IT is true indeed that India's progress in the direction
I desire seems to have come to a pause but I think that it
only seems so. The little seed that was sown in 1920 has
not perished. It is, I think, taking deep root. Presently
it will come out as a stately tree.
—Toung India : Sept. 17, 1925.
<$><$><?>
NO man is indispensable for the evolution of this great
and ancient land of Dharma. Let India live though a hun-
dred Gandhis have to perish. — Toung India : Oct. 18, 1925.
<«> <$><$>
SELF-EXPRESSION and self-government are not
things which may be either taken from us by any body or
which can be given us by anybody. It is quite true that
if those who happen to hold our destinies, or seem to hold
our destinies in their hands, are favourably disposed, are
sympathetic, understand our aspirations, no doubt it is
then easier for us to expand. But after all self-government
depends entirely upon our own internal strength, upon our
ability to fight against * the heaviest odds. » Indeed, self-
government which does not require that continuous striving
to attain it and to sustain it is not worth the name. I have
therefore endeavoured to show both in word and in deed,
that political self-government — that is self-government for
a large number of men and women, — is no better than
individual self-government, and therefore it is to be attained
by precisely the same means that are required for individual
self-government or self-rule, and so as you know also, I
have striven in India to place this ideal before the people
in season and out of season, very often much to the disgust
of those who are politically minded merely.
—Toung India : Dec. 1, 1927.
FREEDOM OF INDIA 231
COUNCILS are no factories for making stout hearts.
And freedom is miasma without stout hearts to defend it.
— Young India : Dec. 15, 1921
<*><§><$>
SELF-GOVERNMENT means continuous effort to be
independent of government control whether it is foreign
government or whether it is national. Swaraj government
will be a sorry affair if people look up to it for the regulation
of every detail of life. — Young India : Aug. 6, 1925.
<$><$><$>
NO paper contribution will ever give us self-govern-
ment. No amount of speeches will ever make us fit for
self-government. It is only our conduct that will fit us for
it. — Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : P. 252 .
IF we are to receive self-government, we shall have to
take it. We shall never be granted self-government. Look
at the history of the British Empire and the British nation ;
freedom-loving as it is, it will not be a party to give
freedom to a people who will not take it themselves.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 258.
THE object of our non-violent movement, is complete
independence for India — not in any mystic sense but in
English sense of the term — without any mental reservation.
I feel that every country is entitled to it without any
question of its fitness or otherwise. As every country is fit
to eat, to drink and to breathe, even so is every nation fit
to manage its own affairs, no matter how badly. Just as a
man with bad lungs will breathe, with difficulty, even so
India, because of her ailments may make a thousand mis-
takes. The doctrine of fitness to govern is a mere eyewash.
Independence means nothing more or less than getting out
of alien control. — Young India: Oct. 15, 1931.
232 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
IF I want freedom for my country, believe me, if I can
possibly help it, I do not want that freedom in order that I,
belonging to a nation which counts one-fifth of the human
race, may exploit any other race upon earth, or any single
individual. If I want that freedom for my country, I would
not be deserving of that freedom if I did not cherish and
treasure the equal right of every other race, weak or strong,,
to the same freedom. — Young India : Oct. 1, 1931.
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NOT even for the freedom of India would I resort to
an untruth. — Young India : Aug. 13, l931t
<$> <$> <3>
MY interest in India's freedom will cease if she adopts
violent means, for their fruit will be not freedom but
slavery in disguise. And if we have not yet attained our
freedom, it is because we have not been non-violent in
thought, word and deed.
1 live for India's freedom and would die for it, because
it is part of Truth. Only a free India can worship the true
God. — Toung India : April 3, 1924.
<$> <3> <£
THE British people must realise that the Empire is to
come to an end. This they will not realise unless we in
India have generated power within to enforce our will.
The English have paid dearly for their freedom such as it
is. They therefore only respect those who are prepared to
pay an adequate price for their own liberty.
-~ Toung India : Jan. 23, 1930.
^ ^ ^
IF we were not under the spell of hypnotism or if we
were not being acted upon by that great force inertia, or
want of self-confidence, we would find it the most natural
thing to breathe the air of freedom which is ours to breathe*
—Young India : Mar. 14, 1929.
FREEDOM OF INDIA 233
WE do not seek our independence out of Britain's ruin.
That is not the way of non-violence.
—Harijan : June 1, 1940.
<$> <£ <$>
I DO not want Britain's humiliation in order to gain
India's freedom. Such freedom, if it were attainable,
cannot be manfully retained. — Harijan : Aug. 4, 1940.
<$><$> <S>
I CANNOT think of anyone wanting less than In-
dependence for his country if he cau get it. No country has
ever got it without its people having fought for it.
—Harijan: July 6, 1940.
<3> «> <3>
I WANT to see India free in my lifetime. But God
may not consider me fit enough to see the dream of life
fulfilled. Then I shall quarrel, not with him but with
myself. —Harijan : April 13, 1940.
^N ^S ^>
WHETHER we are one or many, we must refuse to
purchase freedom at the cost of our self-respect or our
cherished convictions. I have known even little children
become unbending when an attempt has been made to cross
their declared purpose, be it ever so flimsy in the estimation
of their parents. —Young India : Dec. 15, 1921.
<$><$><$>
FREEDOM'S battles are not fought without paying heavy
prices. Just as man would not cherish the thought of
living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like
to live under other nations however noble and great the
latter maybe. — Harijan : Mar. 16, 1940.
Q,. SUPPOSING India does become iree in your life-
time, what will you devote the rest of your years to ?
234 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
A. If India becomes free in my lifetime and I have
still energy left in me, of course I would take my due share,
though outside the official world, in building up the nation
on a strictly non-vio— i.t basis. — Harijan : April 27, 1940
<> <§> <$>
THROUGH the deliverance of India, I seek to deliver
the so-called weaker races of the earth from the crushing
heels of western exploitation in which England is the
greatest partner. — Young India : Jan. 12, 1928.
THERE is no perpetual night on God's earth. Ours too
will have its ending. Only we must work for it.
—Young India : Mar. 11, 1926.
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I WOULD like to see India free and strong so that she
may offer herself as a willing and pure sacrifice for the
betterment of the world. The individual, being pure,
sacrifices himself for the family, the latter for the village,
the village for the district, the district for the province,
the province for the nation, the nation for all.
—Young India : Sept. 17, 1925.
<^ <$><$>
IN any event India free cannot deny freedom to
any son of the soil. It gives one both pain and surprise
when I find people feeling anxious about their future
under a free India. For me an India which does not
guarantee freedom to the lowliest of those born not
merely within an artificial boundary but within its natural
boundary is not free India. Our fear paralyses our
thinking powers, or we should at once know that
freedom means a state at any rate somewhat better
than the prsent for every honest man or woman. It
is exploitors, money-grabbers, pirates and the like who
have to fear the advent of freedom.
—Young India : Dec. 26, 1929.
FRIENDSHIP 235
LIBERTY is a jilt most difficult to woo and please.
— Young India : Feb. 16, 1922.
^S ^^ ^^
WE dare not enter the kingdom of liberty with
mere lip homage to Truth and Non-violence.
—Young India : Feb. 16, 1922.
IT would be a thousand times better for us to be
ruled by a military dictator than to have the dictatorship
concealed under sham councils and assemblies. They
prolong the agony and increase the expenditure. If we
are so anxious to live, it would be more honourable
to face the truth and submit to unabashed dictation
than to pretend that we are slowly becoming free.
There is no such thing as slow freedom. Freedom is
like a birth. Till we are fully free, we are slaves.
All birth takes place in a moment.
— Young India : Mar. 30, 1922.
Free Trade
I AM an out-and-out protectionist. I hold that
every country, especially a poor country like India, has
every right and is indeed bound to protect its interest,
when it is threatened, by all lawful protective measures
and to regain by such measures what has been lawfully
taken away from it. — Toung India]'. Aug. 2, 1928.
Friendship
WHEN a slave salutes a master and a friend salutes
a friend, the form is the same in either case, but there
is a world of difference between the two, which enables
an observer to recognise the slave and the friend at once.
— Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 307.
A REFORMER cannot aftord to have close intimacy
with him whom he seeks to reform. True friendship
236 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
is an identity of souls rarely to be found in this world*
Only between like natures can friendship be altogether
worthy and enduring. Friends react on one another.
Hence in friendship there is very little scope for re-
form. 1 am of opinion that all exclusive intimacies
are to be avoided, for man takes in vice far more readily
than virtue. And he who would be friends with
God must remain alone, or make the whole~world his
friend. — My Experiments With Truth : Page 32.
WHENEVER my contacts with strangers have been
painful to friends, I have not hesitated to blame them.
I hold that believers who have to see the same God in others
that they see in themselves, must be able to live amongst
all with sufficient detachment. And the ability to live thus
can be cultivated, not by fighting shy of unsought oppor-
tunities for such contacts, but by hailing them in a spirit
of service and withal keeping oneself unaffected by them.
—My Experiments With Truth : Page 343.
I COULD think of many friends who have been a
source of great comfort to me in the midst of trials
and disappointments. One who has faith reads in them
the merciful providence of God, who thus sweetens
sorrow itself. — My Experiments With Truth : Page. 439.
SPIRITUAL relationship is far more precious than
physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual
is body without soul.— My Experiments With Truth : Page 472.
<3> 3> 3>
INSISTENCE on truth can come into play when
one party practises untruth or injustice. Only then can
love be tested. True friendship is put to the test only
when one party disregards the obligation of friendship.
—Toung India : May 4, 1919.
THE test of friendship is assistance in adversity, anh
that too, unconditional assistance. Co-operation whicd
FRIENDSHIP 237
needs consideration is a commercial contract and not friend-
ship. Conditional co-operation is like adulterated cement
which does not bind. — Toung India : Dec. 10, 1919.
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MY goal is friendship with the world and I can com-
bine the greatest love with the great opposition to wrong.
—Young India : Mar. 10, 1920.
^> ^N ^s
SELF-SUFFERING is the truest test of sincerity.
— Young India : Sept 8, 1921.
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IT is the special privilege of a friend to own the other's
faults and redeclare his affection in spite of faults.
—Young India : April 24, 1924
FRIENDSHIP presupposes the utmost attention to
the feelings of a friend. It never requires consideration.
— Young India : May 29, 1924.
<$><$><$>
WHY should mere disagreement with my views dis-
please me. If every disagreement were to displease,
since no two men agree exactly on all points, life would
be a bundle of unpleasent sensations and therefore a perfect
nuisance. »On the contrary the frank criticism pleases me.
For our friendship becomes all the richer for our dis-
agreements. Friends to be friends are not called upon
to agree even on most points. Only disagreement must
have no sharpness much less bitterness about them.
—Young India : Nov. 5, 1925.
^\ ^» ^p
FRIENDSHIP that insists upon agreement on all
matters is not worth the name. Friendship to be real
must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, how*
238 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
ever sharp they may be. — Young India : Dec. 1, 1927.
IF those who Jove cannot transfer this love to the
thing for which I stand, their love is blind and of
little value. I do not know if one should live to provide
mere enjoyment for friends. Friendship means loving
mutual service, and sometimes it is a positive disservice to
indulge one's friends and to expose them to temptations.
And if theie aie friends who would spend lavishly for pro-
viding luxuries for me, but would not spend for the cause
I espouse, it is my clear duty to resist such luxuries.
Friends to be friends must first provide me with neces-
saries of life before they think of indulging me with
luxuries, and Kbaddar woik is a vital necessity of life
for me more vital than food. — Tot fig India : Feb. 24, 1927.
^P ^P ^^
A FRIENDSHIP which exacts oneness of opinion and
conduct is not worth much. Friends have to tolerate
one another's ways of life and thought even though
they may be different except where the difference is
fundamental. —Harijan : May 9, 1 940.
^ ^ ^
THERE can be no friendship between the brave
and the effeminate. —Harijan : May 23, 1940.
G
Gambling
IN a way it is worse than the plague or the quake.
For it destroys the soul within. A person without the
soul is a burden upon the earth. No doubt war against
gambling is not so simple as war against plague or
earthquake distress. In the latter there i$ more or less
co-operation from the sufferers. In the former the sufferers
invite and hug their sufferings. To wean the gambler
from his vice is like weaning the drunkard from the
GANDHISM 239
drink habit. This war against gambling is therefore an
uphill task. —Harijan : June 15, 1935.
<£ <$> 3>
I KNOW nothing of horse-racing. I have ever
looked upon it with horror for its associations. I know
that many men have been ruined on the race course.
But I must confess I have not had the courage to
write anything against it. Having seen even an Aga
Khan, prelates, viceroys, and those that are considered
the best in the land, openly patronising it and spend-
ing thousands upon it, I have felt it to be useless to
write about it. As a journalist and reformer, my functions
is to call public attention to these vices about which
there is likelihood of public opinion being created. Much
as I disapprove of vaccination, I deem it to be waste
of effort to draw public attention to the evil. I must
own that I had not the courage to bring the drink
traffic in the campaign of purification. It has come
unsought. The people have taken it up of their own
accord.
But betting is, I apprehend, more difficult to deal
with than drinking. When vice becomes a fashion and
even a virtue, it is a long process to deal with it.
Betting is not only fashionable but is hardly regarded
as a vice. Not so drinking. Fortunately, it is still
the fashion . to consider drinking a weakness, if not posi-
tively a vice. Every religion has denounced it with more
or less vehemence. But betting has escaped much special
attention. Let us hope, however, that the vigilant
public will find a more innocent recreation than attend-
ing the race course, and thus show its disapproval of
gambling at the race course. — Young India : April 27, 192L
Gandhism
LET Gandhism be destroyed if it stands for error*
Truth and ahimsa will never be destroyed, but if Gandhism
240 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
is another name for sectarianism it deserves to be
destroyed. If I were to know, after my death, that
what I stood for had degenerated into sectarianism, I
should be deeply pained. We have to work away silently.
Let no one say that he is a follower of Gandhi. It
is enough that I should be my own follower. I know
what an inadequate follower I am of myself, for I cannot
live upto the convictions I stand for.
—Harijan : Mar. 2, 1940.
I WOULD ask you to give up the name 'Gandhi
ites,' and Gandhism. You may call yourselves ahimsaites,
if you like, but ' Gandhi-ite ' is meaningless. Gandhi is
an erring mortal, a mixture of good and evil, so you
cannot go by the name 'Gandhi-ites'. Ahimsa is no such
adulterated ore, it is pure gold. — Harijan : Mar. 2, 1940.
THEY might kill me but they cannot kill Gandhism.
If Truth can be killed, Gandhism can be killed. If non-
violence can be killed, Gandhism can be killed. For
•what is Gandhism but winning Swaraj by means of truth
and non-violence ? — Young India : April 2, 1931.
THE true method of bestowing affection on me is
to copy such actions of mine as may seem to be worthy
of imitation. No higher compliment can be paid to a
man than to follow him. — Young India : Mar. 4, 1919.
Gandhiji Looks At Himself
I AM an erring mortal like you. I have never
even in my dream thought that I was a Maha-atma
(great soul) and that others were Alpa-atma (little souls).
We are all equal before our Maker— Hindus, Musalmans,
Parsis, Christians, worshippers of one God.
-Harijan : Mar. 30, 1940.
GANDHIJI LOOKS AT HIMSELF 241
FRIENDS who know me have certified that I am
as much a moderate as I am an extremist and as much
conservative as I am a radical. Hence perhaps my good
fortune to have friends among these extreme type of
men. The misture is due, I believe, to my view of
akimta. — Toung India : April 6, 1931.
<S> <$> <$>
AS for my leadership, I have it, it has ftot come
for any seeking, it is a fruit of faithful service. A
man can as little discard such leadership as he can
the colour of his skin. And since I have become an
integral part of the nation, it has to keep me with
all my faults and shortcomings of some of which I am
painfully conscious and of many others of which candid
critics thanks be to them, never fail to remind me.
—Young India : Feb. 13, 1930.
<$> <3> <$>
AS a matter of fact my writings should be cremated
with rny body. What I have done will endure, not
what I have sdid and written. I have oftea said recently
that even if all our scriptures were to perish, one mantra
of Ishopanishad was enough to declare the essence of
Hinduism, but even that one verse will be of no avail
if there is no one to live it. Even so what I have
said and written is useful only to the extent that it has
helped you to assimilate the great principles of truth
and ahimsa. * If you have not assimilated them, my
writings will be of no use to you, I say this to you
as a Salyaqrahi meaning every word of it.
—Harijan : May 1, 1932.
<^ <s> <$>
I FLATTER myself with the belief that some of
my writings will survive me and will be of service to
*he causes for which they have been written.
—Harijan : May 1, 1937.
242 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I HAVE received a cutting, in which I am reported
to be credited with being a messenger of God, and I
am asked whether I claim to have any special revelation
from God. As to this, the latest charge, I must
disown it. I pray like every good Hindu. I believe
that we can all become messengers of God, if we cease to
fear man and seek only God's Truth. I do believe I am
seeking only God's Truth and have lost all fear of man.
I therefore do feel that God is with the movement of
Non-co-operation. I have no special revelation of God's
will. My firm belief is that He reveals Himself daily
to every human being but we shut our ears to the
'still small voice.' We shut our eyes to the
Pillar of Fire in front of us. I realise His omnipresence.
And it is open to the writer to do likewise.
—Young India : May 25, 1921.
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SOME of my correspondents seem to think that I
can work wonders. Let me say as a devotee of truth
that I have no such gift. All the power I may have
comes from God. But He does not work directly. He
works through His numberless agencies. In this case
it is the Congress. All the prestige that I have is
derived from that of the Congress. The latter derives
it from its creed. If Congressmen deny the creed of
truth and non-violence, the Congress loses prestige. I
assure them that my virtues, real or so-called, will not
count for anything, if I did not represent the Congress
mind —Toung India : Oct. 8, 1924.
3> <3> <£
I AM a dreamer. I am, indeed, a practical dreamer.
My dreams are not airy nothings. I want to convert
my dreams into realities, as far as possible.
—Harijan : Nov. 7, 1933.
<$><$><$>
I LAY claim to nothing exculsively divine in me.
GENERALISATION 243
I do not claim prophetship. I am but a humble seeker
after Truth and bent upon finding it. I count no sacrifice
too great for the sake of seeing God face to face. The whole
of my activity whether it may be called social, political,
humanitarian or ethical is directed to that end. And
as I know that God is found more often in the low-
liest of His creatures than in the high and n|ighty, I
am struggling to reach the status of these. I cannot do so
without their service. Hence my passion for the service
of the suppressed classes. And as I cannot render this
service without entering politics, I find myself in them.
Thus I am no master. I am but a struggling, erring humble
servant of India and there through of humanity.
There is already enough surperstition in our country.
No effort should be spared to resist further addition
in the shape of Gandhi worship. Personally I have a
horror of all adoration. 1 believe in adoring virtue
apart from the wearer. And that can be done only
after the wearer's death. Form is nothing. It is perishable.
Virtue persists and incarnates in one person or another.
That poor Gonds know nothing of me or my mission.
I know I have no power to give any person
anything. The very idea of my spirit visiting and
possessing any person is repugnant to me. The practice
can only do harm and lead to fraud. I urge coworkers
to put down the worship the correspondent describes.
It is a sin to let simple folk such as the Gonds to be
encouraged in the practice of superstition.
— Toung India : Sept. 11, 1924.
Generalisation
A SEEKER after Truth cannot afford to indulge in
generalisation.
Darwin for the greater part of his book Origin of
the Species has simply massed fact upon fact without any
theorising, and only towards the end has formulated his
244 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
»
conclusion which, because of the sheer weight of testimony
behind it, becomes almost irresistible. Yes I have criti-
cised even Darwin's generalisation as being unwarran-
ted.
Science tells us that a proposition may hold good
in nine hundred ninety-nine cases and yet fail in the
thousandth case and thus be rendered untenable as a
universal statement. That is why in Jain philosophy so
much stress is laid on Syadvad. A proposition must not
only be able to satisfy the analytical test, but must also
be proved conversely by synthesis before its universal
validity can be established. —Harijan : July 6, 1940.
Generosity
EVEN as justice to be justice has to be generous, gene-
rosity in order to justify itself has got to be strictly just.
—Hanjan : Feb. 24, 1940.
Gita
A FRIEND puts forward the following poser :
The controversy about the teaching of the Gita— whether it is Himsa
(violence) or Ahimsa (non violence) will it seems go on for a long time.
It is one thing what meaning we read in the Gita or rather we want
to read in the Gita, it is another what meaning is furnished by an unbi-
assed reading of it. The question therefore does not present much difficul-
ty to one who implicitly accepts Ahimsa as the eternal principle of life. He
will say that the Gita is acceptable to him only if it teaches Ahimsa. A
grand book like the Gita could, for him, inculcate nothing grander than
the eternal religious principle of Ahimsa. If it did not, it would cease to
be his unerring guide. It would still be worthy of his high regard
but not an infallible authority.
In the first chapter we find Arjuna laying down his weapons, under
the influence of Ahimsa , and ready to die at the hands of the Kauravas.
He conjures up a vision of the disaster and the sin involved in Himsa. He
is overcome with ennui and in fear and trembling exclaims :
*' Oh what a mighty sin we are up to ! "
Shri Krishna catches him in that mood and tells him : " Enough of
this high philosophy. No one kills or is killed. The soul is immortal and the
body must perish Fight then the fight that has come to thee as a matter of duty.
Victory or defeat is no concern ofthi • Acquit thyself of thy task."
GITA 245
In the eleventh chapter the Lord presents a panoramic vision of the
Universe and says :
" / am Kala, the Destroyer of the Worlds, the Ancient of the Days ; I am htr*
engaged in my tisk of destruction of the worlds Kill thou those a1 ready killed by
me. Give not thyself up to grief ."
Himsa and Ahimsa are equal before God. But for man what is God's
message ? Is it this : * Fight : for thou art sure to foil thy enemies
in the field ?' If the Gita teaches Ahimsa the first and the eleventh
chapters arc not consistent with the rest ; at any rate do not support the
Ahimsa theory. I wish you could find time to resolve, my dWtbt.
The question put is eternal and everyone who has studied
the Gila must needs find out his own solution. And, although
I am going to offer mine, I know that ultimately one is
guided not by the intellect but by the heart. The heart
accepts a conclusion for which the intellect subsequently
finds the reasoning. Argument follows conviction. Man
often finds reason in support of whatever he does or
wants to do.
I shall therefore appreciate the position of those
who are unable to accept my interpretation of the
Gita. All I need do is to indicate how I reached my
meaning, and what canons of interpretation I have
followed in arriving at it. Mine is but to fight for my
meaning, no matter whether 1 win or lose.
My first acquaintance with the Gita was in 1889, when
I was almost twenty. I had not then much of an inkling of
the principle of Ahimsa. One of the lines of the Gujarati poet
Shamal Bhatta had taught me the principle of winning even
the enemy with love, and that teaching had gone deep
into me. But I had not deduced the eternal principle
of Non-violence from it. It did not for instance cover
all animal life. I had before this tasted meat whilst in
India. I thought it a duty to kill venomous reptiles
like the snake. It is my conviction today that even
venomous creatures may not be killed by a believer in
Ahimsa. I believed in those days in preparing our-
selves for a fight with the English. I often repeated a
246 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Gujarati poet's famous doggerel : 'What wonder if Britain
rules P etc. My meat-eating was as a first step to qualify
myself for the fight with the English. Such was my
position before I proceeded to England, and there I
escaped meat-eating, etc., because of my determination to
follow unto death the promises I had given to my
mother. My love for truth has saved me from many a
pitfall.
Now whilst in England my contact with two English
friends made me read the Gita. I say 'made me read/
because it was not of my own desire that I read it.
But when these two friends asked me to read the Gita
with them, I was ashamed of my ignorance. The knowledge
of my total ignorance of my scriptures pained me.
Pride I think was at the bottom of the feeling.
My knowledge of Sanskrit was not enough to enable
me to understand all the verses of the Gita unaided.
The friends of course were quite innocent of Sanskrit.
They placed before me Sir Edwin Arnold's magnificent
rendering of the Gita. I devoured the contents from
cover to cover and was entranced by it. The last
nineteen verses of the second chapter have since been
inscribed on the tablet of my heart. They contain for me
all knowledge. The truths they teach are the 'eternal
verities.' There is reasoning in them but they represent
realised knowledge.
I have since read many translations and many com-
mentaries, have argued and reasoned to my heart's
content but the impression that the first reading gave
me has never been effaced. Those verses are the key
to the interpretation of the Gita. I would even advise
rejection of the verses that may seem to be in conflict
with them. But a humble student need reject nothing.
He will simply say : 'It is the limitation of my own
intellect that I cannot resolve this inconsistency. I might
be able to do so in the time to come.' That is how
GITA 247
he will plead with himself and with others.
A prayerful study and experience arc essential for
a correct interpretation of the scriptures. The injunction
that a Shudra may not study the scriptures is not entirely
without meaning. A Shudra means a spiritually uncultured
ignorant man. He is more likely than not to misinterpret
the Vedas and other scriptures. Everyone cannot solve
an algebraical equation. Some perliminary study is a
sina qua non. How ill would the grand truth CI am
Brahman* lie in the mouth of a man steeped in sin 1
To what ignoble purposes would he turn it ! What a
distortion it would suffer at his hands.
A man therefore who would interpret the scriptures
must have the spiritual discipline. He must practise
the Tamas and Niyams — the eternal guides of conduct.
A superficial practice thereof is useless. The Shastras
have enjoined the necessity of a Guru. But a Guru be-
ing rare in these days a study of modern books inculcat-
ing Bhakti has been suggested by the sages. Those who
are lacking in Bhakti, lacking in faith are ill-qualified to in-
terpret the scriptures. The learned may draw an elaborately
learned interpretation out of them, but that will not be true
interpretation. Only the experienced will arrive at the
true interpretation of the scriptures.
But even for the inexperienced there are certain
canons. That interpretation is not true which conflicts
with Truth. To one who doubts even Truth, the
scriptures have no meaning. No one can contend with
him. There is danger for the man who has failed to
find Ahimsa in the scriptures, but he is not doomed.
Truth— Saf — is positive; Non-violence is negative. Truth
stands for the fact. Non-violence negatives the fact. And
yet Non-violence is the highest religion. Truth is self-
evident; Non-violenc is its maturest fruit. It is contained
in Truth, but as it is not self-evident a man may seek to in-
terpret the Shastras without accepting it. But his acceptance
248 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of Truth is sure to lead him to the acceptance of Non-
ivolence.
Renunciation of the flesh is essential for realising Truth.
The sage who realised Truth found Non-violence out of the
violence raging all around him and said : Violence is
unreal, Non-violence is real. Realisation of Truth is
impossible without Non-violence. Brahmacharya (celibacy)
Asetya (non-stealing), Aparigraha (non-possession) are means
to achieve Ahimsa. Ahimsa is the soul of truth. Man
is mere animal without it. A seeker after Truth will
realise all this in his search for truth and he will then
have no difficulty in the interpretation of the Shastras.
Another canon of interpretation is to scan not the
latter but to examine the spirit. Tulsidas's Ramayana
is a noble book because it is informed with the spirit
of purity, pity and piety. There is a verse in it which
brackets drums, shudras, fools and women together as fit
to be beaten. A man who cites that verse to beat his
wife is doomed to perdition. Rama did not only beat
his wife, but never even sought to displease her.
Tulsidas simply inserted in his poem a proverb current
in his days, little dreaming that there would be brutes
justifying beating of their wives on the authority of the verse.
But assuming that Tulsidas himself followed a custom
which was prevalent in his days and beat his wife,
what then ? The beating was still wrong. But the
Ramayana was not written to justify beating of their
wives by their husbands. It was written to depict
Rama, the perfect man, and Sita, the ideal wife, and
Bharat, the ideal of a devoted brother. Any justification
incidentally met with therein of vicious customs should
therefore be rejected. Tulsidas did not write his priceless
epic to teach geography, and any wrong geography
that we happen to come across in Ramayana should be
summarily rejected.
GIT A 249
Let us examine the Gita in the light of these
observations. Self-realization and its means is the theme
of the Gita, the fight between two armies being but
the occasion to expound the theme. You might if you
like say that the poet himself was not against war or
violence and hence he did not hesitate to press the
occasion of a war into service. But a reading of the
Mahabharata has given me an altogether different impress.
The poet Vyasa has demonstrated the futility of war
by means of that epic of wonderful beauty. What he
asks, if the Kauravas were vanquished ? And what if
the Pandavas won ? How many were left of the victors
and what was their lot ? What an end Mother Kunti
came to ? And where are the Yadavas to-day ?
Where the description of the fight and justification
of violence are not the subject-matter of the epic, it is
quite wrong to emphasise those aspects. And if it is difficult
to reconcile certain verses with the teaching of Non-violence,
it is far more difficult to set the whole of the Gita
in the framework of violence.
The poet when he writes is not conscious of all
the interpretations his composition is capable of. The
beauty of poetry is that the creation transcends the
poet. The Truth that he reaches in the highest flights
of his fancy is often not to be met within his life.
The life story of many a poet thus belies his poetry.
That the central teaching of the Gita is not Himsa
but Ahimsa is amply demonstrated by the subject begun
in the second chapter and summarised in the concluding
(18th) chapter. The treatment in the other chapters also
supports the position. Himsa is impossible without anger,
without attachment without hatred, and the Gita strives to
cany us to a state beyond Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas, a state
that excludes anger, hatred, etc. But I can, even now picture
to my mind Arjuna's eyes red with anger every time he
drew the bow to the end of his ear.
250 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
It was not in a spirit of Ahimsa that Arjuna refused to go
to battle. He had fought many a battle before. Only this
time he was overcome with false pity. 'He fought shy of killing
his own kith and kin. Arjuna never discussed the problem of
killing as such. He did not say he would kill no one, even
if he regarded him as wicked. Sri Krishna knows everyone's
innermost thoughts and he saw through the temporary in-
fatuation ofArjuna. He therefore told him : "Thou hast already
done the killing. Thou canst not all at once argue thyself into Non-
violence. Finish what thou hast already begun.9 If a passenger
going in a Scotch Express gets suddenly sick of travelling and
jumps out of it, he is guilty of suicide. He has not learnt
the futility of travelling or travelling by a railway train.
Similar was the case with Arjuna. -Non-violent Krishna
could give Armna no other advice. But to say that the
Gita teaches violence or justifies war, because advice to kill
was given on a particular occasion, is as wrong as to say that
Himsa is the law of life, because a certain amount of it is
inevitable in daily life. To one who reads the spirit of the
Gita, it teaches the secret of Non-violence, the secret of rea-
lising the self through the physical body.
And who are Dhritrashtra and Yudhishthira, and
Arjuna? Who is Krishna? Were they all historical characters ?
And does the Gita describe them as such ? Is it true that
Arjuna suddenly stops in the midst of the fight and puts the
question to Krishna, and Krishna repeats the whole of the
Gita — before him ? And which that Gita that Arjuna forgot
after having exclaimed that his infatuation was gone and
which he requested Krishna to sing again, but which he
could not, and which therefore he gave in the form
Anugita ?
I regard Duryodhana and his party as the baser
impulses in man, and Arjuna and his party as the higher
impulses. The field of battle is our own body. An eternal
battle is going on between the two camps and the poet seer
GITA 251
has vividly described it. Krishna is the Dweller within, ever
wishpering in a pure heart. Like the watch the heart
needs the winding of purity ; or the Dweller ceases to speak.
Not that actual physical battle is out of the question •
To those who are innocent of Non-violence, the Gita does
not teach a lesson of despair. He who fears, who saves his
skin, who yields to his passions must light the physical battle
whether he will or not ; but that is not his Dharma.
Dharma is one and one only. Ahimsa means Moksha and
Moksha is the realisation of Truth. There is no room here
for cowardice. Himsa will go on eternally in this strange
world. The Gita shows the way out of it. But it also
shows that escape out of cowardice and despair is not the
way. Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed
in battle.
If the meaning of the verses quoted by the correspondent
is not still clear, I must confess my inability to make it so.
Is it agreed that the Almighty God is the Creator, Pretector
and Destroyer and ought to be such ? And if He creates,
He has undoubtedly the right to destroy. And yet He does
not destroy because He does not create. His law is that
whatever is born must die, and in that lies His mercy.
His laws are immutable. Where should we all be if He
changed them capriciously ? — Young India : Nov. 12, 1925,
<$><$><$>
1 MUST tell you in all humility that Hinduism, as I
know it, entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being, and
I find a solace in the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads that I miss
even in the Sermon on the Mount. Not that I do not prize
the ideal presented therein, not that some of the precious
teachings in the Sermon on the Mount have not left a deep
impression upon me but I must confess to you that when
doubts haunt me when disappointments stare me in the face,
and when I see no one ray of light on the horizon I turn to
the Bhagavad Gita and find a verse to comfort me ; and I
252 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming
sorrow. My life has been full of external tragedies and, if
they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I
owe it to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita.
(Form an address to the Missionaries in Calcutta).
—Young India : Aug. 6, 1925.
<3> <$> <$>
THE Gita is, in my opinion, a very easy book to under-
stand. It does present some fundamental problems which
are no doubt difficult of solution. But the general trend of
the Gita is, in my opinion, unmistakable. It is accepted by
all Hindu sects as authoritative. It is free from any form
of dogma. In a short compass it gives a complete reasoned
moral code. It satisfies both the intellect and the heart.
It is thus both philosophical and devotional. Its cippeal
is universal. The language is incredibly simple.
—Young India : Aug. 5, 1927.
<s> <$><$>
I HAVE not been able to see any difference between
the Sermon on the Mount and the Bhagavad Gita. What
the Sermon describes in a graphic manner, the Bhagavad
Gita reduces to a scientific formula. It may not be a
scientific book in the accepted sense of the term, but it has
argued out the law of lave— -the law of abandon as I would
call it—in a scientific manner. The Sermon on the Mount
gives the same law in a wonderful language. The JVtw
Testament gave me comfort and boundless joy, as it came after
the repulsion that parts of the Old had given me. To-day
supposing I was deprived of the Gita, and forgot all its
contents but had a copy of the Sermon, I should derive the
same joy from it as I do from the Gita.
—Young India : Dec. 22, 1927,
<*> 3> ^>
Let the Gita be to you a mine of diamonds, as it has
GITA 253
been to me, let it be your constant guide and friend on life's
way. Let it light your path and dignify your labour.
7 —Young India : Feb. 2, 1928.
It has been my endeavour as also that of some com-
panions to reduce to practice the teaching of the Gita as I
have understood it. The Gita has become for us a spiritual
reference book. I am aware that we ever fail to act in
perfect accord with the teaching. The failure is not due to
want of effort, but is in spite of it. Even through the
failures we seem to see rays of hope. The accompanying
rendering contains the meaning of the Gita message which
this little band is trying to enforce in its daily conduct.
Again this rendering is designed for women, the
commercial class, the so-called Shudras and the like, who
have little or no literary equipment, who have neither the
time nor the desire to read the Gita in the original^ and
yet who stand in need of its support. In spite of my
Gujarati being unscholarly, I must own 'o having the
desire to leave to the Gujaratis, through the mother tongue,
whatever knowledge I may possess, I do indeed wish that at a
time when literary output of a questionable character is
pouring in upon the Gujaratis, they should have before them
a rendering the majority can understand of a book that is
regarded as unrivalled for its spiritual merit and so with-
stand the overwhelming flood of unclean literature.
This ' desire does not mean any disrespect to the
other renderings. They have their own place. But
I am not aware of the claim made by the translators of
enforcing their meaning of the Gita in their own lives. At
the back of my reading there is the claim of an endeavour to
enforce the meaning in my own conduct ior an unbroken
period of 40 years. For this reason I do indeed harbour the
wish that all Gujarati men or women wishing to shape their
conduct according to the faith, should digest and derive
strength from the translation here presented.
254 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
My co-workers, too, have worked at this transla-
tion. My knowledge of Sanskrit being very limited, I
should not have full confidence in my literal translation. To
that extent therefore the translation has passed before the
eyes of Vinoba, Kaka Kalekar, Mahadev Desai and Kishori
Lai Mashruvala.
II
Now about the message of the Gita.
Even in 1888-89, when I first became acquainted
with the Gita, I felt that it was not a historical work but that
under the guise of physical warfare, it described the duel
that perpetually went on in the hearts of mankind and that
physical warfare was brought in merely to make the descrip-
tion of the internal duel more alluring. This preliminary in-
tuition became more confirmed on a closer study of religion
and the Gita. A study of the Maha'/iarta gave it added confir-
mation. I do not regard tl-e Mahabharta as a historical
work in the accepted sense. The Adiparva contains powerful
evidence in support of my opinion. By ascribing to the
chief actors superhuman or subhuman origins, the great
Vyasa made short work of the history of kings and their
peoples. The persons their in described may be historical,
but the author of the Mahabharta has used them merely
to drive home his religious theme.
The author of the Mahabharta has not established
the necessity of physical warfare , on the contrary he has
proved its futility. He has made the victors shed tears of
sorrow and repentance, and has left them nothing but a
legacy of miseries.
In this great work the Gita is the crown. Its second
chapter, instead of teaching the rules of physical warfare,
tells us how a perfected man is to be known. In the
characteristics of the man of the Gita, I do not see any to
correspond to physical warfare. Its whole design is incon-
sistent with the rules of conduct governing the relations
GITA 255
between warring parties.
Krishna of the Gita is perfection and right know-
ledge personified, but the picture is imaginary. That does
not mean that Krishna, the adored of his people, never
lived. But perfection is imagined. The idea of a perfect
incarnation is an aftergrowth.
In Hinduism, incarnation is ascribed to one who
has performed some extraordinary service of mankind. All
embodied life is in reality an incarnation of God, but it is
not usual to consider every living being an incarnation.
Future generations pay this homage to one who, in his own
generation, has been extraordinarily religious in his conduct.
I can sec nothing wrong in this procedure ; il takes nothing
from God's greatness, and there is no violence done to truth.
There is an Urdu saying which means " Adam is not God
but he is spark of the Divine ." And therefore he who is the
most religiously behaved has most of divine spark in him. It
is in accordance with this train of thought that Krishna
enjoys in Hinduism, the status of the most perfect incar-
nation.
This belief in incarnation is a testimony of man's
lofty spiritual ambition. Man is not at peace with himself
till he has become like unto God. The endeavour to reach
this state is the supreme, the only ambition worth having.
And this is self-realisation. This self-realisation is the subject
of the Gita, as it is of all scriptures. But its author surely
did not write it to establish that doctrine. The object of the
Gita appears to me to be that of showing the most excellent
way to attain self-realisation. That, which is to be found,
more or less clearly, spread out here and there in Hindu
religious books, has been brought out in the clearest possible
language in ihzGita even at the risk of repetition.
That matchless remedy is renunciation of xruits of
action.
This is the centre round which the Gita is woven.
256 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
This renunciation is the central sun, round which devotion,
knowledge and the rest revolve like planets. The body has
been likened to a prison. There must be action where there
is body. No one embodied being is exempted from labour.
And yet all religious proclaim that it is possible for man, by
treating the body as the temple of God, to attain freedom.
Every action is tainted, be it ever so trivial. How can the
body be made the temple of God ? In other words, how
can one be free from action, i.e., from the taint of sin ? The
Gita has answered the question in decisive language : " By
desireless action ; by renouncing fruits of action ; by dedicating all
activities to God, i.e., by surrendering «neself to Him body and
But desirelessriess or renunciation does not coaie
for the mere talking about it. It is not attained by an
intellectual feat. It is attainable only by a constant heart-
churn. Right knowledge is necessary for attaining renuncia-
tion. Learned men possess a knowledge of a kind. They may
recite the Vedas from memory, yet they may be steeped in
self-indulgence. In order that knowledge may not run riot,
the author of the Gita has insisted on devotion accompanying
it and has given it the first place Knowledge, without devo-
tion will be like a misfire. Therefore, says the Gita, " Have
devotion, and knowledge will follow.''1 This devotion is not mere
lip worship, it is wrestling with death. Hence the Gita's
assessment of the devotee's qualities is similar to that of
the sages.
Thus the devotion required by the Gita is no soft-
hearted effusiveness. It certainly is not blind faith. The
devotion of the Gita has the least to do with externals. A
devotee may use, if he likes, rosaries, forehead marks, make
offerings but these things are no test of his devotion. He is
the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy,
who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold
and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who
is always contented, whose resolutions are hrm, who has
GITA 257
dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who
is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow
and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains
unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who
treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or
disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go
under when people speak ill of him, who loves silence and solL
tude who has a disciplined reason. Such devotion is inconsist^
ent with the existence at the same time of strong attachments 9
We thus see that to be a real devotee is to realise
onself. Self-realisation is not something apart. One rupee
can purchase for us poison or nectar, but knowledge or
devotion cannot buy us either salvation or bondage. These
are not media of exchange. They are themselves the thing
we want. In other words, if the means and the end are
not identical, they are almost so. The extreme of means
is salvation. Salvation of the Gita is perfect peace.
But such knowledge and devotion, to be true,
have to stand the test of renunciation of fruits of action.
Mere knowledge of right and wrong will not make one fit
for salvation. According to common notions a mere learned
man will pass as a pandit. He need not perform any service.
He will regard it as bondage even to lift a little lota. Where
one test of knowledge is non-liability for service, there is no
room for such mundane work as the lifting of a lota.
Or 'take Bhakti. The popular notion of Bhakti is
soft-heartedness; telling beads and the like and disdaining to
do even a loving service, lest the telling of beads etc. might
be interrupted. This Jbhakta therefore leaves the rosary
only for eating, drinking and the like, never for grinding
corn or nursing patients.
But the Gita says : "No one has attained his goal
without action. Even men like Janaka attained salvation through
action. If even I were lazily to cease working, the world would
perish. How much more necessary then for the people at large is to
258 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
engage in action ?"
While on the one hand it is beyond dispute that
all action binds, on the other hand it is equally true that
all living beings have to do some work whether they will
or no. Here all activity, whether mental or physical, is to
be incited in the term action. Then how is one to be free
from the bondage of action, even though he may be acting ?
The manner in which the Gita has solved the problem is,
to my knowledge, unique. The Gita says : "Do your allotted,
work but renounce its fruit— be detached and work — have no desire
for reward and work."
This is the unmistakable teaching of the Gita. He
who gives up action falls. He who gives up only the
reward rises. But renunciation of fruit in no way means
indifference to the result. In regard to every action one
must know the result that is expected to follow, the meaas
thereto, and the capacity for it. He, who, being thus
equipped, is without desire for the result, and is yet wholly
engrossed in the due fulfilment of the task before him, is
said to have renounced the fruits of his action.
Again, let no one consider renunciation to mean
want of fruit for the renouncer. The Gita reading does not
warrant such a meaning. Renunciation means absence of
hankering after fruit. "* As a matter of fact he who renounces
reaps a thousandfold. The renunciation of the Gita is the
acid test of faith. He who is aver brooding over result
often loses nerve in the performance of his duty. He be-
comes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins
to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action, never
remaining faithful to any. He who broods over results is
like a man given to objects of senses ; he is ever distracted,
he says good-bye to all scruples, everything is right in his
estimation and he therefore resorts to means fair and foul
to attain his end.
From the bitter experiences of desire for fruit the
GITA 259
author of the Gita discovered the path of renunciation of
fruit, and put it before the world in a most convincing
manner. The common .belief is t jat religion is always
opposed to material good. "One cannot act religiously in
mercantile and such other matters. There i\ no placs for religion in
mch pursuits i religion is only for attainment of salvation" we hear
many worldly wise people say. In my opinion the author
of the Gita has dispelled this delusion. He has drawn no
*ine of demarcation between salvation and worldly pursuits.
On the contrary, he has shown that religion must rule even
our worldly pursuits. 1 have felt that the Gita teaches us
that what cannot be followed out m day to day practice
cannot be called religion. Thus, according to the Gita^
all acts that are incapable of being performed without
attachment are taboo. This golden rule saves mankind from
many a pitfall. According to this interpretation murder,
lying, dissoluteness and the like must be regarded as sinful
and therefore taboo. Man's life then becomes simple, and
from that simpleness springs peace.
Thinking along these lines, I have felt that in
trying to enforce in one's life the central teaching of the
Gita, one is bound to follow Truth and Ahimsa. When there
is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or
Mimsa. Take any instance of untruth or violence, and it
will be found that at its back was the desire to attain the
cherished end. But it may be freely admitted that the Gita
was not written to establish Ahims*. It was an accepted
and primary duty even before the Gita age. The Gita had
to deliver the message of renunciation of fruit. This is
clearly brought out as early as the 2nd chapter.
But if the Git i believed in Ahimsv or it was included
in desirelessness, Why did the author take a war like illus-
tration ? When the Gita was written, although people
believed in Ahimsa, wars were not only not taboo but nobody
observed the contradiction between them and Ahimsa.
In assessing the implications of renunciation oJ
260 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
fruit, we are not required to probe the mind of the author
of the Gita as to his limitations of Ahimsa and the like.
Because a poet puts a particular truth before the world, it
does not necessarily follow that he has known or worked
out all its great consequences, or that having done so he is
able always to express them fully. In this perhaps lies the
greatness of the poem and the poet. A poet's meaning is
limitless. Like man, the meaning of great writings suffers
evolution. On examining the history of languages, we
notice that the meaning of important words has changed or
expanded. This is true of the Gita. The author has him-
self extended the meanings of some of the current words.
We are able to discover this even on a superficial examin-
ation. It is possible that in the age prior to that of the
Gita offering of animals in sacrifice was permissible. But
there is not a trace of it in the sacrifice in the Gita sense.
In the Gita continuous concentration on God is the king of
sacrifices. The third chapter seems to show that sacrifice
chiefly means body labour for service. The third and the
fourth chapters read together will give us other meanings
for sacrifice but never animal sacrifice. Similarly has the
meaning of the word sannyasa undergone in the Gita, a trans-
formation. The sannyasa of the Gita will not tolerate
complete cessation of .all activity. The sannyasa of the Gita
is all work and yet no work. Thus the author of the Gita
by extending meanings of words has taught us to imitate
him. Let it be granted that, according to the letter of the
Gita, it is possible to say that w rfare is consistent with
renunciation of fruit. But after 40 years1 unremitting
endeavour fully to enforce the teaching of the Gita in my
own life, I have, in all humility felt that perfect renunciation
is impossible without perfect observance of Ahirwa in every
shape and form.
The Gita is not an aphoristic work, it is a great
religious poerr. The deeper you dive into it, the richer
the meanings you get. It being meant for the people at*
GITA 261
large, there is pleasing repetition. With every age the
important words will carry new and expanding meanings.
But its central teaching will never vary. The seeker is at
liberty to extract from fhis treasure any meaning he
likes so as to enable him to enforce in his life the central
teaching.
Nor is the Gita a collection of Do's and Don't s
What is lawful for one may be unlawful for another. What
may be permissible at one time, or in one place, may not
be so at another time, and in another place. Desire for
fruit is the only universal prohibition. Desirelessress is
obligatory.
The Gita has sung the praises of knowledge, but
it is beyond the mere intellect, it is essentially addressed to
the heart and capable of being understood by the heart.
Therefore the Gita is not for those who have no faith. The
author makes Krishna say :
"Do not entrust this treasure to him who is without sacrifice ,
without devotion, without the desire for this teaching and who denies
Ate. On the other hand, those who will give this precious treasure
to My devotees will by the fact of this service assuredly reach Me.
And those who being free from malice, will* with faith, absorb this
teaching^ shall, having attained freedom, live where people of true
merit go after death''' — Young India : Aug. 6, 193L
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TO-DAY the Gita is not only my Bible or my Qoran, it
is more than that — it is my mother. I lost my earthly mother
who gave me birth long ago ; but this eternal mother has
completely filled her place by my side ever since. She
have never changed, she has never failed me. When I am
in difficulty or distress, I seek refuge in her bosom.
—Harijan : Aug. 24, 1939.
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I AM a devotee of the Gita and a firm believer in the
inexorable Law of Karma. Even the least little tripping or
stumbling is not without its cause and I have wondered why
262 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
one who has tried to follow the Gita in thought; word and
deed should have any ailment. The doctors have assured
me that this trouble of high blcod pressure is entirely the
result of mental strain and worry. If that is true, it is
likely that I have been unnecessarily worrying myself, un-
necessarily fretting and secretly harbouring passions like
anger, lust, etc. The fact that any event or incident should
disturb my mental equilibrium, in spite of my serious efforts,
means not that the Gita ideal is defective but that my
devotion to it is defective. The Gita ideal is true for all
time, my understanding of it and observance of it is full of
flaws. —Harijan : Feb. 29, 1936,
^ ^ ^
I VERILY believe that one who literally follows the
prescription of the Eternal Mother need never grow old
in mind. Such a one's body will wither in due course like
leaves of a healthy tree, leaving the mind as young and as
fresh as ever. —Harijan : Feb. 29, 1936.
I HAVE called it my spiritual dictionary, for it has
never failed me in any distress. It is, moreover, a book,
which is free from sectarianism and dogma. Its appeal is
universal. I do not regard the Gita as an abstruse book.
No doubt learned men can see abstruseness in everything
they come across. But in my opinion a man with ordinary
intelligence should find no difficulty in gathering the simple
message of the Gita. —Harijan : Dec. 2, 1936.
I BELIEVE in the Bible as I believe in the Gita. I
regard all the great faiths of the world as equally true with
my own. It hurts me to see anyone of them caricatured as
they are to-day by their own followers.
—Harijan : Dec. 19, 1936.
^y ^S ^»
THE detachment prescribed by the Gita is the hardest
thing 'to achieve, and yet it is so absolutely necessary for
GITA 263
perfect peace and for the vision of both the little self and
the greatest self. — Harijan : Feb. 6, 1937.
<^ ^^ ^N
Qj IS the central teaching of the Gita selfless action or
non-violence ?
A. 1 have no doubt that it is Anasakti, selfless action.
Indeed, I have called my little translation of the Gita
Anasakti Yoga. And Anasakti transcends Ahimsa. He who
would be anasakti (selfless) has necessarily to practise non-
violence in order to attain the state of selflessness. Ahimsa
is, therefore, a necessary preliminary, it is included in
anasakti, it does not go beyond it*
Qj Then does the Gita teach Hima and Ahimsa both.
A, I do not read that meaning in the Gita. It is
likely that the author did not write it to inculcate Ahimsa,
but as a commentator draws innumerable interpretations
from a poetic text, even so I interpret the Gita to mean that,
if its central theme is Anasakti it also teaches Ahimsa. Whilst
we are in the flesh and tread the solid earth, we have to
practise Ahimsa. In the life beyond there is no Himsa or
Ahimsa.
(£. But Lord Krishna actually counters the doctrine o*
Ahimsa. For Arjuna utters this pacifist resolve :
Better I deem it, if my kinsmen strike.
To face them weaponless, and bare my breast.
To shaft and spear, than answer blow with blow.
And Lord Krishna teaches him to answer " blow
for blow."
A. There I join issue with you. Those words Oi
Arjuna were words of pretentious wisdom. 'Until yesterday,
says Krishna to him, 'you fought your kinsmen with deadly
weapons without the slightest compunction. Even to-day you would
strike if the enemy was a stranger and not your own kith and kin?
264 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
The question before him was not of non-violence, but
whether he should slay his nearest and dearest. (M. D.)
—Harijan : Sept. 1, 1940.
God
A struggle which has to be previously planned is not a
righteous struggle. In a righteous struggle God Himself
plans campaigns and conducts battles A Dharma-Yuddha
can be waged only in the name of God, and it is only
when the Saiyagrahl feels quite helpless is apparently on his
last legs and finds utter darkness all around him, that God
comes to the rescue. God helps when one feels oneself
humbler than the very dust under one's feet. Only to the
weak and helpless is divine succour vouchsafed.
— Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 7.
THERE are innumerable definitions of God, because
His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me
with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me. But I
worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him,
but I am seeking after him. I am prepared to sacrifice
the things dearest tome in pursuit of this quest Even if
the sacrifice demanded be my very life, I hope, I may be
prepared to give it.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 4.
IN the march towards Truth, anger, selfishness, hatred,
etc., naturally give way, for otherwise Truth would be im-
possible to attain. A man who is swayed by passions may
have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word, but he will
never find the Truth. A successful search of Truth means complete
deliverance from the dual throng such as of love and ha:ey happiness
and misery.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 47.
GOD 265
IT may be said that God has never allowed any of my
own plans to stand. He has disposed them in His own
way. — My Experiments with Truth : Page 307.
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I THINK it is. wrong to expect certainties in this world
where all else bat God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All
that appears and happens about and aroun i us is uncertain
and transient. But there is a supreme being hidden therein
as a certainty, and one would be blessed if one would
catch a glimpse of that certainty and hitch one's waggon
to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bmum of
life. — My Experiments with Truth : Page 308.
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GOD is witness above and He is just enough to
chastise every double dealing. — Young India : Feb. 9, 192 J.
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IT is the quality of our work which will please God
and not quantity. —Young India : Jan. 19, 1922.
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A MAN who has the least faith in God and His
mercy, which is His Justice cannot hate men, though, at
the same time, he must hate their evil ways. But having
abundant evil in himself and ever standing in need of
charity, he must not hate those in whom he sees evil.
—Young India : Jan. 26, 1922.
I WANT to see God face to face. God I know is Truth.
For me the only certain means of knowing God is non-
violence —ahimsa — love. I live for India's freedom and
would die for it, because it is a part of Truth. Only a free
India can worship the true God. I work for India's free-
dom because my Swadeshi teaches me thit being bora in
t and having inherited her culture, I am fittest to serve her
aind she has a prior claim to my service. But my patriotism
266 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
is not exclusive ; it is calculated not only not to hurt any
other nation but to benefit all in the true sense of the
word. India's freedom as conceived by me can never be
a menace to the world. — Tcung India : April 3, 1924.
<^ ^s ^k
My trust is solely in God. And I trust men only be-
cause I trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should
be like Timon, a hater of my species.
— Young India : Dec. 4, 1924,
TO me God is Truth and Love ; God is ethics and
morality ; God is fearlessness, God is the source of Light
and Life and yet He is above and beyond all these. God
is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. For
in His boundless love God permits the atheist to live. He
is the searcher of hearts. He transcends speech and reason.
He knows us and our hearts better than we do ourselves.
He does not take us at our word for he knows that we often
do not mean it, some knowingly and others unknowingly.
He is a personal God to those who need His personal pre-
sence. He is embodied to those who need His touch. He
is the purest essence. He simply is to those who have faith*.
He is all things to all men. He is in us and yet above and
beyond us : One ma% banish the word 'God' from the
Congress but one has no power to banish the thing itself.
What is a solemn affirmation if it is not the same thing as
in the name of God. And surely conscience is but a poor
and laborious paraphrase of the simple combination of
three letters called God. He cannot cease to be because
hideous immoralities or inhuman brutalities are committed
in His name. He is long-suffering. He is patient but He
is also terrible. He is the most exacting personage in the
world and the world to come. He metes out the same
measure to us that we mete but to our neighbours — men-
and brutes. With him ignorance is no excuse. And withal
He is ever-forgiving for He always gives us the chance to
GOD 267
repent. He is the greatest democrat the world knows, for
He leaves us 'unfettered' to make our own choice between
evil and good. He is the greatest tyrant ever known, for
He often dashes the cup from our lips and under cover of
free will leaves us a margin so wholly inadequate as to
provide only mirth for himself at our expense. Therefore
it is that Hinduism calls it all His sport— Lila, or calls it all
an illusion — Maya. We are not, He alone Is. And if we
will be we must eternally sing His praise and do His will.
Let us dance to the tune of His bansi— lute, and all would
be well. —Young India : Mar. 5, 1925.
^ ^ <$>
THE divine guidance often coriies when the horizon
is the blackest. — Young India : Aug. 27, 1925.
PERFECTION is the exclusive attribute of God and
it is indescribable, untranslatable. I do believe that it is
possible for human beings to become perfect even as God
is perfect. It is necessary for all of us to aspire after that
perfection, but when that blessed state is attained, it be-
comes indescribable, indefinable.
—Yiung India : Sept. 22, 1927.
^^ ^^ ^y
MANKIND is notoriously too dense to read the signs
that God sends from time to time. We require drums to
be beaten into our ears, before we should wake from our
trance and hear the warning and see that to lose oneself in
all is the only way to find oneself.
—Young India : Aug. 25, 1927:
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THOUGH we may know Him by a thousand names,
He is one and the same to us all.
—Young India : Nov. 25, 1926.
THERE is an indefinable mysterious Power that
pervades everything. 1 feel it, though I do not see it.
268 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
It is this Unseen Power which makes itself felt and yet
defies all proof because it is so unlike all that I perceive
through my senses. It transcends the senses.
But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to
a limited extent. Even in ordinary affairs we know that
people do not know who rules or why and how he rules.
And yet they know that there is a power that certainly
rules. In my tour last year in Mysore I met many poor
villages and I found upon inquiry that they did not know
who ruled Mysore. They simply said some god ruled it.
If the knowledge of these poor people was so limited about
their ruler, I, who an infinitely lesser than God, than they,
than their ruler, need not be surprised if I do not realise
the presence of God, the King of kings. Nevertheless I do
feel as the poor villagers felt about Mysore that there is
orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable Law
governing everything and every being that exists or lives.
It is not a blind law ; for no blind law can govern the
conduct of living beings; and thanks to the marvellous
researches of Sir J. C. Bose, it can now be proved that even
matter is life. That Law then which governs our life is God.
Law and the Law-giver are one. I may not deny the Law
or the Law-giver, because I know so little about It or Him.
Even as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an
earthly power will avail -me nothing, so will not my denial
of God and His Law liberate me from its operation ;
whereas humble and mute acceptance of divine authority
makes life's journey easier even as the acceptance of earthly
rule makes life under it easier.
I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me
is ever-changing, ever-dying there is underlying all that
change a living power that is changeless, that holds
altogether, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That
informing power or spirit is God. And since nothing else
I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He
alone is.
GOD 269*
And is the power benevolent or malevolent ? I see if
as purely benevolent. For I can see that in the midst of
death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in
the midst of darkness light persists. Hence I gather that God
is Life, Truth, Light. He is, Love. He is the Supreme God.
But He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect if,
He ever does. God to be God must rule the heart and',
transform it. He must express Himself in even the smallest
act of His votary. This can only be done through a definite-
realisation more real than the five senses can ever perceive.
Meanwhile I invite the correspondent to pray withi
Newman who sang from experience :
Lead, kindly light amidst the encircling gloom,
Lead Tftou me on ;
The night is dark and I am jar from home,
Lead 1 hou me on ;
Keep Thou my feet, I do not ask to see
The distant scene ; one step enough for me.
—Young India : Oct. 11, 1928.
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IF you would ask Him to help you, you would go to
Him in all your nakedness, approach Him without reserva-
tions, also without fear or doubts as to how He can help
a fallen being like you. He Who has helped millions who
have approached Him, is He going to desert you ? He
makes no exception whatsoever, and you will find that
every one of your prayers will be answered. The prayer of
even the most impure will be answered. I am telling this
out of my personal experience. I have gone through the
purgatory. Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and every-
thing will be added unto you. — Young India : March 1, 1929.
GOD never ordains that only things that we like
should happen and things that we do not like should not
happen, —Young India : Oct. 11, 1928..
270 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE following is taken from a letter from Bengal :
"I had the privilege to go through your article on birth control with the
heading 'A youth's difficulty.'
"With the original theme of your article, I am in full agreement. But,
in that article you have expressed in a line your sentiment of God.
You have "aid that it is the fashion nowadays for yoiingmen to discard the
idea of God and they have no living faith in a living God.
"But may I ask what proof (which must be positive and undisputed)
can you out forth regarding the existence of God ? Hindu philosophers or
ancient Rishis, it seems to me, in their attempt to describe the Swntupa, or
realitv of Ishwara have at least come to the conclusion that He is indescrib-
able and veiled in Maya and so on. In short, they have enveloped God in
an impenetrable mist of obscurity and have further complicated, instead
of simplifying the complicated question of God, I do not dare deny that
a true Mahatma like you or Sri Aurobindo, or the Budha and Shankrirachar-
iya of the past may well conceive and realise the existence of such as
God Who is far beyond the reach of ordinary human intellect.
"But, what have we (the general mass), whose coarse intellect can never
penetrate into the unfathomable deep, to do with such a God if we do not
feel his presence in our midst? If He is the Creator and Father of us all, why
do we not feel His presence or existence in every beat of our hearts ? If He
cannot make His presence felt, He is no God to me. Further, I have the
question— if He is the Father of this universe, does He feel the sorrows of H:s
children ? Tf he feels so, then why did He work havoc and inflict so much
misery on His children by the devastating quakes of Bihar and Quetta ?
Why did He humiliate an innocent nation — the Abyssinians ? Are the
Abyssinians not His sons ? I? He not Allmighty ? Then whv could He
not prevent these calamities. ? You carried on a non-violent truthful
campaign for the independence of my poor Mother India and you implored
the helo of God, But, t think, that help has been denied to you and that
ttrong force of materialism, which never depends on the help of God, got
bhe better of vou and you were humiliated and you have sunk into the
background by forced retirement. If there was a God, He would certainly
teve helped vou, for your cause was indeed a deserving one. I need not
nultiply such instances.
" So, it is not at all surprising that young men of the present day do
lot believe in God, because thay do not want to make a supposition of God—
hev want a real living Gzd. You have mentioned in your article of a living
aith in a living God. 1 shall feel highly gratified and I think you will be
endering a great benefit to the young world, if you put forth some posi-
ive, undeniable proof of the existence of God. I have the confidence
hat you will not more mystify the already mystified problem, ani will
brow some definite light on the matter.'*
I very much fear that what I am about to write will not
GOD 271
remove the mist to which the correspondent alludes.
The writer supposes that I might have realised the
existence of a living God. I can lay no such claim.
But I do have a living faith in a living God even as
I have a living faith in many things that scientists tell me.
It may be retorted that what the scientists say can be
verified if one followed the prescription given for realising
the facts which are taken for granted. Precisely in that
manner speak the Rishis and the Prophets. They saw any-
body following the path they have trodden can realise God.
The fact is we do not want to follow the path leading to
realisation and we won't take the testimony of eye-witnesses
about the one thing that really matters. Not all the
achievements of physical sciences put together can compare
with that which gives us a living faith in God. Those who
io not want to believe in the existence of God do not
believe in the existence of anything apart from the body.
Such a belief is held to be unnecessary or the progress of
humanity. For such persons the weightiest argument in
proof of the existence of soul or God is of no avail. You
cannot make a person who has stuffed his ears, listen to,
much less appreciate, the finest music. Even so can you
not convince those about the existence of a living God who
do not want the conviction.
i
Fortunately the vast majority of people do have a
living faith in a living God. They cannot, will not, argue
about it. For them "It is." Are all the scriptures of the
world old women's tales of superstition ? Is the testimony
of the Rishit, and the Prophets to be rejected ? Is the
testimony of Chaitanya, Ramakrishna Parmahansa, Tukaram,
Dhyandeva, Ramdas, Nanak, Kabir, Tulsidas of no value ?
What about Rammohan Roy, Davendranath Tagore,
Vivekanand — all modern men as well educated as the tallest
among the living ones ? I omit the living witnesses whose
evidence would be considered unimpeachable. This belief
in God has to be based on faith which transcends reason.
272 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Indeed even the so-called realisation has at bottom an ele-
ment of faith without which it cannot be sustained. In the
very nature of things it must be so. Who can transgress the
limitations of His being? I hold that complete realisation
is impossible in this embodied life. Nor is it necessary. A
living immovable faith is all that is required for reaching the
full spiritual height attainable by human beings. God is not
outside this earthly case of ours. Therefore exterior proof is
not of much avail, if any at all. We must ever fail to
percehe Him through the senses, because He is beyond them.
We can feel Him, if ue will but withdraw ourselves, from the
senses, the divine music is incessantly going on within
ourselves, but the Icud senses drown the delicate music which
is unlike 'and infinitely superior to anything we can perceive
or hear with our senses.
The writer wants to know why, if God is a God of
mercy and justice. He allows all the miseries and sorrows we
see around us. I can give no satisfactory explanation. He
imputes to me a sense of defeat and humiliation. I have no
such sense of defeat, humiliation or despair. My retirement,
such as it is, has nothing to do with any defeat. It is no
more and no less than a course of self-purification and self-
preparation. I state this to show that things are often not
what they seem. It may be that what we mistake as sorrows,
injustices and the like are not such in truth. If we could
solve all the mysteries of the universe, we would be co-
equals with God. Every drop of the ocean shares its glory
but is not the ocean. Realising our littleness during this
tiny span of life, we close e.vcry morning prayer with the
recitation of a verse which means: Misery so-called is no
misery nor richs so-called riches. Forgetting (or deny-
ing) God is the true misery, remembering (or faith in)
God is true riches. - Barijan : June 13, 1940.
^S ^» <y
IF God was a capricious person instead of being the
changeless and unchangeable living Law, He would in shee
GOD 273
indignation wipe out all those who in the name of religion
deny Him and His Law. —Young India : July 11, 1929.
Q; HOW can we serve God when we do not know God?
A. We may not know God, but we know his creation
Service of His creation is the service of God.
Q. But how can we serve the whole of God's creation?
A. We can but serve that part of God's creation which
is nearest and best known to us. We can start with our
next door neighbour. We should not be content with keep-
ing our courtyard clean, we should see that our neighbour's
courtyard is also clean. We may serve our family, but may
not sacrifice the village for the sake of the family. Our
own honour lies in the preservation of that of our own
village. But we must each of us understand our own
limitations. Our capacity for service is automatically limited
by our knowledge of the world in which we live. But let me
put it in the simplest possible language. Let us think less of
ourselves than our next door neighbour. Dumping the
refuse of our courtyard into that of our neighbour is no
service of humanity, but disservice. Let us start with the
service of our neighbours. —Harijan : Aug. 22, 1936.
<§> 3> 3>
A FRIEND inquired if Gandhiji's aim was just humani-
tarian in sitting down in the village, just serving the villagers
as best as he could.
"I am here to serve no one else but myself,'7 said
Gandhiji, "to find my own self-realisation through the service
of these village folk. Man's ultimate aim is the realisation of
God, and all his activities,— social, political, religious,— ha v-
to be guided by the ultimate aim of the vision of God. The
immediate service of all human beings becomes a necessary
part of , the endeavour simply because the only way to find
God is to ee Him in His creation and be one with it. This
274 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
can only be done through one's country. I am a part and
parcel of the whole, and I cannot find Him apart from the
rest of humanity. My countrymen are my nearest
neighbours. They have become so helpless, so resourceless
so inert that I must concentrate on serving them. If I
could persuade myself that I should find Him in a
Himalayan cave I would proceed there immediately. But
I know that I cannot find Him apart from humanity/9
Q. But some comforts may be necessary even from
man's spiritual advancement. One could not advance
himself by identifying himself with the discomfort and
squalour of the villager.
"A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is
necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance
instead of help. Therefore the ideal of creating an unlimited
number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a delusion
and a snare. The satisfaction of one's physical needs, even
the intellectual needs of one's narrow self, must meet at a
certain point a dead stop, before it degenerates into physical
and intellectual voluptuousness. A man must arrange his
physical and cultural circumstances so that they do not
hinder him in his service of humanity, on which all his
energies should be concentrated." — Harijan : Aug. 29, 1936.
~ <£ ^
A PROFESSOR of Islamia College came with a ques-
tion that was troubling him and troubling many of the pre-
sent generation— belief in God. What was the basis of his
belief if, Gandhiji had it, as he knew he had it ? What was
the experience ? "It can never be a matter for argument,"
said Gandhiji. If you would have me convince others by
argument I am floored. But I can tell you this that I am
surer of His existence than of the fact that you and I are
sitting in this room. That I can also testify that I ma y
live without air and water but not without Him. You may
pluck out my eyes, but that cannot kill me. You may
chop off my nose, but that will not kill me. But blast my
GOD 275
belief in God, and I am dead. You may call this a super-
stition, but I confess it is a superstition that I hug even as I
used to hug the name of Rama in my childhood when there
was any cause of danger or alarm. That was what aa old
nurse had taught me."
"But you think that supersitition was necessary for
you ?"
"Yes, necessary to sustaih me."
"That is all right. May I now ask if you had anything
like a prophetic vision ?"
"I do not know what you call a vision and whom you
will call prophetic. But let me give you an experience in
my life. When I announced my fast of 21 days in jail I had
not reasoned about it. On retiring to bed the previous
night I had no notion that I was going to announce the next
morning a fast 01 21 days. But in the middle of the night
a Voice woke me up and said : 'Go through a fast.' 'How
many' ? I asked, *21 days/ was the answer. Now let me
tell you that my mind was unprepared for it, disinclined for
it. But the thing came to me as clearly as anything could
be. Let me tell you one thing more and I have done.
Whatever striking things I have done in life I have not done
prompted by reason but prompted by instinct — I would say
God. Take the Dandi Salt March of 1930. I had not the
ghost of a suspicion how the breach of the Salt Law would
work itself out. Pandit Motilalji and other friends were
fretting and did not know what I would do ; and I could
tell them nothing, as I myself knew nothing about it. But
like a flash it came, as you know it was enough to shake
the country from one end to the other. One last thing.
Until the last day I knew nothing about announcing the 6th
of April 1919 as a day of fasting and prayer. But I dreamt
about it — there was no Voice or Vision as in 1930 — And I
felt it was just the thing to do. In the morning I shared it
/vith G. R. and announced it to the country you know with
276 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
what a wonderfully spontaneous response."
— Harijan : May 14, 1938.
IF one wishes to walk in the fear of God, one should be
indifferent about popular praise or blame.
— Harijan: May 7, 1940.
EVERYONE has faith in God though everyone does not
know it. For everyone has faith in himself and that multi-
plied to nth degree is God. The sum total of all that lives
is God. We may not be God but we are of God even as
a little drop of water is of the ocean. Imagine it torn away
from the ocean and flung millions of miles away. It becomes
helpless torn from its surroundings and cannot feel the
might and majesty of the ocean. But if some one could
point out to it that it is of the ocean, its faith would revive,
it would dance with joy and the whole of the might and
majesty of the ocean would be reflected in it.
— Harijan : }\we 3, 1939.
EVER since its commencement, the world, the wise
and the foolish included, has proceeded upon the assumption
that, if we are, God is and that, if God is not, we are not
And since belief in God is treated as a fact more definite
than the fact that the Sun is. This living faith has solved
the largest number of puzzles of life. It has alleviated our
misery. It sustains us in life, it is our one solace in death.
The very search for Truth becomes interesting, worth while
because of this belief. But search for Truth is search for
God. Truth is God. God is, because Truth is. We
embark upon the search, because we believe that there is
Truth and it can be found by diligent search and meticu-
lous observance of the well-known and well-tried rules of
the search. There is no record in history of the failure
of such search. Even the athiests who have pretended to
dfebelieve in God have believed in Truth. The trick they
GOD 277
have performed is that of giving God another not a new
name ; His name are Legion. Truth is the crown of
them all.
What is true of God is true, though in a less degree,
of the 'assumption of the truth of some fundamental morali-
ties/ As a matter of fact they are implied in the belief
in God or Truth. Departure from these has landed the
truants in endless misery. Difficulty of practice should not
be confused withx disbelief. A Himalayan expedition has
its prescribed conditions of success.
I do not regard God as a person. Truth for me is
God, and God's Law and God are not different things or
facts, in the sense that an earthly king and his law are
different. God is an idea, Law Himseli. Therefore it is
impossible to conceive God as breaking the Law. He
therefore does not rule our actions and withdraw Himself.
When we say He rules our actions, we are simply using
human language and we try to limit Him. Otherwise He
and His Law abide everywhere and govern everything.
Therefore I do not think that He answers in every detail
every request of ours, but there is no doubt that He rules
our actions, and I literally believe that not a blade of grass
grows or moves without His will. This free will we enioy is
less than that of a passenger on a crowded deck.
Harijan : Dec. 2, 1939-
Q; — Do yOU feel a sense 'of freedom in your communion
with God ?
A. — I do. I do not feel cramped as I would on a
board full of passengers. Although I know that my freedom
is less than that of a passenger, I appreciate that freedom
as I have imbibed through and through the central teaching
of the Gita that man is the maker of his own destiny in the
sense that he has freedom of choice as to the manner in
which he uses that freedom. But he is no controller ol
results. The moment he thinks he is, he comes to grief.
—Harijan : March 23, 1940
278 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
NOT every person can know God's will. Propei
training is necessary to attain the power to know God's
will. —Harijan : April 27, 1940,
IT is through Truth and Non-violence that I can have
some glimpse of God. Truth and Non-violence are my
God, They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.
—Harijan : July 29, 1940.
^^ ^S ^N
WITH God as our Commander and Infallible Guide
where is there cause for any fear ?
—Harijan : Aug. 25, 1940.
<§> <$> <$>
MAN is nothing Napoleon planned much and found
himself a prisoner in St. Helena. The mighty Kaiser
aimed at the crown of Europe and is reduced to the status
of a private gentleman. God had so ? willed it. Let us
contemplate such examples and be humble.
—Young India : Oct. 9, 1924
<3> <$> <$>
RELIANCE upon the sword is wholly inconsisten
with reliance upon God. — Young India : Dec. 30, 1925-*
<3> <$> <$>
WITH men nothing may be possible, for God nothing
is impossible. — Young India : Feb. 9, 1926.
<s> <£ <$>
WE are but straws in the hands of God. He alone
can blow us where He pleases. We cannot oppose His
wish. He has made us all to unite, not to remain apart
for ever. — Young India : May 15, 1924.
GOD tries His votaries through and through, but
never beyond endurance. He gives them strength enough
GOD 279
to go through the ordeal He prescribes for them.
— Young India : Feb. 19, 1925.
3> 3> 3>
IF we can but throw ourselves into His lap as our only
Help, we shall come out scatheless through every ordeal
that the Government may subject us to. If nothing
happens without His permission, where is the difficulty in
believing that He is trying us even through this Govern-
ment ? I would take our complaints to Him and be angry
with Him for so cruelly trying us. And He will soothe us
and forgive us, if we will but trust Him. The way
to stand erect before the tyrant is not to hate him, not to
strike him, but to humble ourselves before God and cry
out to Him in the hour of agony.
—Young India : Dec. 15, 1921
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GOD sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom.
He wishes to bless. — Young India : June 21, 1931.
<s> <$> <$>
OF all my Tamil lessons one proverb at least abides
with me as an evergreen. Its literal meaning is, 'God is
the only Help for the helpless.7 The grand theory of
Satyagraha is built upon a belief in that truth. Hindu
religious literature is full of illustrations to prove the truth.
—Young India : Feb. 19, 1925.
3> <3> <S>
I CAN certainly say though every one else may forsake
you, God never forsakes people in distress. When I studied
Tamil many" years ago, I came across a proverb which I
cannot forget. This is it : "Tikkattravannukka Daivamed-
hune,77 which means " for those who are helpless, God is
the Help."
"" WE must learn, each one of us, to stand alone. God
only is our infallible and eternal guide.
— Young India : Sep. 29, 1921.
280 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
GOD helps the Helpless, not those who believe they can
do something. —Toung India : Feb. 28, 1922.
^^ ^^ ^^
A SCAVENGER who works in his service shares equal
distinction with a king who uses his gifts in His name and
as a mere trustee. Unlike as among us very imperfect
beings, in His Durbar the motive rather than the act
itself decides its quality. He knowing the intention as much
as the act, judges the act according to the intention.
—Toung India : Nov. 25, 1926.
IN the divine account-books only our actions are noted
not what we have read or what we have spoken.
—Toung India : Jan. 7, 1925.
<$> <$> <$>
GOD keeps an accurate record of all things good and
bad. There is no better accountant on earth.
—Harijan : Sept. 21, 1934.
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GOD requires the purest sacrifice.
— Toung India : Feb. 9, 1927.
- <S> <£ <$>
BRAHMACHARI means searcher after God, one who
conducts himself so as to bring himself nearest to God in the
least possible time. And all the great religions of the
world, however much they may differ, are absolutely one
on this fundamental thing that no man or woman with
an impure heart can possibly appear before the Great White
Throne. — Toung India : Sept. 8, 1927.
<$><$> <$>
GOD is a very hard taskmaster. He is never satisfied
with fire-works display. His mills although they grind
surely and incessantly, grind excruciatingly slow, and He
GOD 281
is never satisfied with hasty forfeitures of life. It is a
•sacrifice of the purest that He demands, and so you and
I have prayerfully to plod on, live out the life so long as
it is vouchsafed to us to live it.
—Young India : Sept. 22, 1927.
<S> 3> <S>
I AM inundated with letters from young men who
write frankly about their evil habits and about the void
that their unbelief has made in their lives. No mere
medical advice can bring them relief. I can only tell them
that there is no way but that of surrender to and trust in
God and His grace. Let us all utilise this occasion by giving
the living religion in our lives the place it deserves. Has
not Akhobhagat said —
Live as you will, but so
As to realise God. x
—Young India : Aug. 28, 1928.
RAMA-NAM is not for those who tempt God in every
way possible and ever expect it to save. It is for those
who walk in fear of God, who want to restrain themselves
and cannot in spite of themselves
—Young India:] an. 30, 1925.
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NEVER-THELESS there are those who are struck with
doubt arid despair For them there is the Name of God.
It is God's covenant that whoever goes to Him in weakness
and helplessness, him He will make strong. 'When I am
weak, then I am strong,1 as the poet Surdas has sung.
Rama is the strength of the weak. This strength is not to
be obtained by throwing oneself on His name. Rama is
but a synonym of God. You may say God or Allah or
whatever other name you like, but the moment you trust
naught but Him, you are strong, all disappointment dis-
appears. — Young India : June 1, 1925.
282 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THOSE who put their implicit faith in Him cannot
but reach their aims. — Toung India : Nov. 1, 1925.
<$> <$> <S>
BUT as I am a believer in God, as I never for a moment
lose faith in Him, as I content myself with the joy and
sorrow that He wills for me, I may feel helpless, but I never
lose hope. —Toung India : Jan. 27, 1 927.
Goondaism
EVEN the goondas are part of us and therefore they
must be handled gently and sympathetically. People
generally do not take to goondaism for the love of it. It is
a symptom of a deeper-seated disease in the body politic.
The same law should govern our relations with internal
goondaism that we apply in our relations with the goondaism
in the system of Government. And if we have felt that
\ve have the ability to deal with that highly organised
goondaism in a non-violent manner how much more should
we feel the ability to deal with the internal goondaism by
the same method ? — Toung India : May 7, 193 L
Government of India
NO conquest by force of arms is worth treasuring, if
it is not followed by cultural conquest, if the conquered do
not hug their chains and regard the conqueror as their
benefactor, The different forts of India are no doubt a
continuous reminder of the British might. But the silent
conquest of the mind of educated India is a surer guarantee
of British stability than the formidable forts.
— Toung India : Aug. 12, 1926.
<3> <$> <s>
WHEREAS, in truth a Government that is ideal
governs the least. It is no self-government that leaves noth-
ing for the people to do. That is pupilage— our present
stage. —Toung India : Aug. 27, 1925,
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 285
WE have no King. We have a rule masquerading
under the sacred name of law. Rulers are many. They
come and go. The rule abides. But it is corrupt, mis-
chievous, soul-destroying rule which has to be ended at
any cost. —Young India : Feb. 23, 1928.
<*><$><$>
THE logical outcome of the Government policy is to
Europeanise India and immediately we have become
Europeanised, our English masters will gladly hand over
the reins of Government to us. We would be welcomed as
their willing agents. I can have no interest in that deadly
process save to put the whole of my humble weight against
it. My Swaraj is to keep in tact the .genius of our civilisa-
tion. I want to write many new things but they must be
all \\ritten on the Indian slate. I would gladly borrow
from the West when I can return the amount with decent
interest.
The Councillors want their fares and extras, the
ministers their salaries, the lawyers their fees, the suitors
the decrees, the parents such education for their boys as
would give them status in the present life, the millionaires
want facilities for multiplying their millions and the rest
their unmanly peace. The whole revolves beautifully round
the central corpoiation. It is a giddy dance from which
no one cares to free himself and so, as the speed increases>
the exhilaration is the greater. But it is a death-dance and
the exhilaration is induced by the rapid heart beat of a
patient who is about to expire. — Toung India : Feb. 9, 1922*
<3> <$> <S>
THE best use we can make of this Government is ta
ignore its existence and to isolate it as much as possible
from our life, believing that contact with it is corrupting
and degrading. — Toung India : Nov. 17, 1921.
Granth Sahib
I HOLD Granth Sahib in high reverence. Several parts
284 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of it have passed into our daily speech. So far as my
reading of it goes, it inculcates faith, valour and invincible
belief in the ultimate triumph of right and justice.
— Young India : March 19, 1931.
Greed
TO take what is required may be profitable ; to have
more given to you is highly likely to be a burden. To
overload a stomach is to court slow death.
—Harijan : July 13, 1940.
Guru
I SAY that it is not within me to be anybody's Guru.
I have always and will always disclaim this title. I, who
am in search of a spiritual Guru, how can I arrogate to
myself the title of a Guru ? I cannot even think of being
anybody's political guru in the sense that I applied the
term to the late Mr. Gokhale, for I am but an infant in
politics.
To be a guru I must be myself flawlessly perfectr which
I can never claim to be. —Young India : July 27, 1921.
<^ <$> <§>
IF I had a Guru, and I am looking for one, I should
surrender myself body and soul to him. But in this age of
unbelief a true Guru is hard to find. A substitute will be
worse than useless, often positively harmful. I must therefore
warn all against accepting imperfect ones as Gurus. It is
better to grope in the dark and wade through a million
errors to Truth than to entrust oneself to one who "knows
not that he knows not." Has a man ever learnt swimming
by tying a stone to his neck ?
—Young India : Dec. 3, 1925.
conception of a Guru is perhaps not of the ordinary.
Nothing but perfection will satisfy me. I am in search of
GURU 285
one who, though in the flesh, is incorruptible and unmoved
by passion, free from the pairs of opposites, who is Truth
and Ahimsa incarnate and who will therefore fear none and
be feared by none. Every one gets the Guru he deserves
and strives for. The difficulty of finding the Guru I want
is thus obvious. But it does not worry me : for it follows
from what I have said, that I must try to perfect myself
before I meet the Guru in the flesh. Till then I must
contemplate him in the spirit. My success lies in my
continuous, humble, truthful striving. I know the path.
It is straight and narrow. It is like the edge of a sword.
I rejoice to walk on it. I weep when I slip. God's word
is : ' He who strives never perishes/ I have implicit faith
in that promise. Though therefore from my weakness I
fail a thousand times, I will not lose faith but hope that
I shall see the Light when the flesh has been brought under
perfect subjection as some day it must.
— Young India : Jan. 3, 1928.
<$><$><$>
I HAVE called Gokhale my political guru. But ia
spiritual matters, I am sorry to say, I have not yet found
any one to whom I could completely surrender myself and
whose opinion I could implicitly and unquestioningly accept
as I could Gokhale's in politics. Perhaps I am not yet ripe
for a spiritual guru because I believe that the spiritual guru
comes to you of himself, in fact seeks you out when you are
ready for him. —Toung India : Sept. 20, 1928.
I BELIEVE in the Hindu theory of Guru and his im-
portance in spiritual realization. I think there is a great
deal of Truth in the doctrine that true knowledge is im-
possible without a Guru. An imperfect teacher may be
tolerable in mundane matters, but not in spiritual matters
only a perfect gnani deserves to be enthroned as Guru,
There must therefore be ceaseless striving after perfection,
286 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
For one gets the Guru that one deserves. Infinite striving
after perfection is one's right. It is one's own reward. The
r«est is in the hands of God.
— My Experiments With Truth : Page 114.
H
Habit
MAN'S destined purpose is to conquer old habits, to
overcome the evil in him and to restore good to its rightful
place. —Toung India : Dec. 20, 1928.
<$><$> <^
WE cannot, in a moment, get rid of habits of a life-
time* —Harijan: Oct. 5, 1934*
Hartal
HARTAL is an aticient Indian institution for expressing
national sorrow and hartal is the best method of marking our
strong disapproval of the action of the Government. It is a
means, more powerful than monster meetings, of exrpressing
national opinion. — Toung India : May 6, 1919.
3> 3> <3>
HARTAL forcibly brought about cannot be considered
Satyagrahi hartal. In^ any thing Satyagrahi there should be
purity of motive, means and end.
—Young India: Jan. 12, 1920.
HARTAL must not be made cheap. It must be used
only for rare occasions. — Toung India : March 10, 1920.
Help
CONDITIONAL assistance is like adulterated cement
that does not bind. — Toung India : -Dec. 3, 1919.
^ ^ ^
HE would be a bad helper who, when hailed to bring
a bucketful of water to quench a fire, brought it after even
the ashes had been removed.
Ymm* imj;» . T«« o 1000
HINDUISM 287
WHERE I cannot help, I must resolutely refuse to
hinder. —Young India : June 25, 1925.
Helplessness
IT is only because we have created a vicious atmos-
phere of impotence round ourselves that we consider our-
selves to be helpless even for the simplest possible things.
—Young India : June 20, 1929.
Himalayas
IN these hills, nature's hospitality eclipses all that man
can ever do. The enchanting beauty of the Himalayas,
their bracing climate and the soothing green that envelopes
you leaves nothing more to be desired. I wonder whether
the scenery of these hills and the climate are to be sarpassed,
if equalled, by any of the beauty spot of the world. After
having been for nearly three weeks in the Almoda hills, I am
more than ever amazed why our people need to go to
Europe in search of health.
—Young India : July 11, 1929.
Hinduism
In dealing with the problem of untouchability during the
Mardar Tour 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
a 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
Svnatana I use in its natural sense.
I call myself a Sanatani Hindu, because,
(1) I believe in the Vedav> the Upanishads, the
Puranas and all that goes by the name of Hindu scriptures,
and therefore in avataras and rebirth.
288 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
(2) I believe in the Varnasharama 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 ZendAvesta 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 implicitly iij the
Hindu aphorism, that no one truly knows the Shastras who-
has nor attained perfection in Innocence (Ahimsa), Truth
(Satya] and Self-control (Brahmacharya] and who has not re-
nounced 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 combina-
tion 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 salva-
tion. But that which distinguishes Hinduism from every other
religion is its cow protection, more than its Varnashrama.
HIDUISM 289
Varnashrama, is in my opinion, inherent in human
nature, and Hinduism has simply reduced it to a science.
I - 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 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 lower. All are born to
serve God's creation, a Brahman with his knowlege, a
Kshatriya with his power of protection, a Vaishya with his
commercial ability and a Shudra with bodily labour. This,
however, does not mean flat a Brahman, for instance, is
absolved from bodily labour, or the duty of protecting him-
self and others. His birth makes a Brahman predominantly
a man of knowlege, the fittest by heredity and training to
impart i t 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 know-
ledge. 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 inter-
dining or intermarriage, Hinduism does most emphatically
discourage interdining and intermarriage between divi-
sions. 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 Hindu's
duty to dine with his son. And by restricting his choice of
290 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
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 know-
ledge. It follows from what I have said above, that res-
traint 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 Mussalman's house. I saw that
he was pained to see me pouring milk into a cup handed by
a Mussalman friend, but his anguish knew no bounds when
he saw me taking toast at the Mussalman's hands. Hindu-
ism 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 un-
doubtedly 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 protec-
tion. 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 realise
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
HINDUISM 291
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 prch
tect the cow.
The way to protect is to die for her. It is a denial oi
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 Mussalmans, whereas cow protection means conquering
the Mussalmans by our love. A Mussalman friend sent me
some time ago a book detailing the inhumanities practised
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 to
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 Englishman for this. We
may not plead poverty in our defence. Criminal negligence
is the only cause of the miserable condition of our cattle.
Our Panjrapolts, though they are an answer to our instinct
of 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.
292 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
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 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 Mussalman 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 Mussalmans, 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. Nor 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 jfancied 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 no other. I am a
reformer through and through. But my zeal never takes
me to the rejection of any of the essential things of Hindu-
ism. 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 com-
HINDUISM 293
posed in a church than elsewhere ? Images are an aid to
worship. No Hindu considers an image to be Gad. I do
not consider idol worship a sin.
ft 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 mis-
sionary religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It has
no doubt absorbed many tribes in its fold, but this absorp-
tion 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 untouchab>lity. 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 practised 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 Hindusthan 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 with our ancestors, those who persisted in eating
beef were ex-communicated. 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 in
our sacred books giving the practice a permanence wholly
undeserved and still less justified. Whether my theory is
correct or not, untouchability is repugnant to reason and
294 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
to the instinct of mercy, pity or love. A religion that
establishes the worship of the cow cannot possibly counten-
ance 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, nor get it if they allow their noble
religion to be disgraced by the retention of the taint of
untouchability. 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 cm an equal footing.
—Young India : Sept. 29, 1920.
<S> <?> <3>
LET me for a few moments consider what Hinduism
consists of, and what it is that has fired so many saints
about Vihom we have historical record. Why has it
contributed so many philosophers to the world ? What
is it in Hinduism that had so enthused its devotees
for centuries ? Did they see untouchability in Hinduism
and still enthuse over it? In the midst of my struggle
against untouchability I have been asked by several
workers as to the essence of Hinduism. We have no
simple Kalema, they said, that we find in Islam, nor
have we J hn, Chapters 3 — 16 of the Bible. Have
we or have we not something that will answer the
demands of the most philosophic among the Hindus
or the most matter-of-fact among them ? Some have
said, and not without good reason, the Gayatri answers
that purpose. I have perhaps recited the Gayatri Mantra
a thousand times, having understood the meaning of
it. But still it seems to me that it did not answer the
whole of my aspirations. Then as you are aware I
have, for years past, been swearing by the Bhagwad Gita,
and have said that it answers all my difficulties and has
been my Kamadhenu, my guide, my open sesame, on
hundreds of moments of doubts and difficulty. I can-
not recall a single occasion when it has failed me.
HINDUISM 295
But it i§ not a book that I can place before the whole
of this audience. It requires a prayerful study before
the Kamadhenu yields rich milk she holds in her
udders.
But I have fixed upon one Mantra that I am going
to recite to you as containing the whole essence of
Hinduism. Many of you, I think, know the Ishopamshad.
I read it years ago with translation and commentary.
I learnt it by heart in Yervada Jail. But it did not
then captivate me, as it has done during the past few
months, and I have now come to the final conclusion
that if all the Upanishads and all the other scriptures
happened all of a sudden to be reduced to ashes, and
if only the first verse in the Ishopanishads were left intact
in the memory of Hindus, Hinduism would live for
ever.
Now this Mantra divides itself in four parts. The
first part is.
All this that we see in this great Universe is pervaded by
God. Then come the second and third parts which read
together, as I read them :
I divide these into two and translate them thus :
Renounce it and enjoy it. There is another rendering which
means the same thing : Enjoy what He gives you. Even
so you can divide it into two parts. Then follows
the final and most important part, which means : Do not
covet anybody's wealth or possession. All the other Mantras
of that ancient upanishad are a commentary or .an attempt
to give us the full meaning of the first Mantra.
As I read the Mantra in the light of the Gita or the
Gita in the light of the Mantra I find that the Gita
is a commentary on the Mantra. It seems to me to
satisfy the cravings of the socialist and the communist.
I venture to suggest to all who do not belong to the
Hindu faith that it satisfies their cravings also. And if
it is true— and I hold it to be true-— you need not
296 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
take anything in Hinduism which is inconsistent with
or contrary to the meaning of this Mantra. What more
can a man in the street want to learn than this that
the one God and Creator and Master of all that lives
pervades the Universe ? The three other parts of the Mantra
follow directly from the first. If you believe that God
pervades everything that He has created you must believe
that you cannot enjoy anything that is not given by
Him. And seeing that he is the Creator of His number-
less children, it follows that you cannot covet anybody's
possession. If you think that you are one of His numerous
creature, it behoves you to renounce everything and lay
it at His feet. That means the act of renunciation of
everything is not a mere physical renunciation but repre-
sents a second or new birth. It is a deliberate act,
not done in ignorance. It is therefore a regeneration.
And then since he who holds the body must eat and
drink and clothe himself, he must naturally seek all that
he needs from Him. And he gets it as a natural
reward of that renunciation. As if this was not enough
the Mantra closes with this magnificent thought : Do not
covet anybody's possession. The moment you carry out these
precepts you become a wise citizen of the world, living at
peace with all that lives. It satisfies one's highest aspirations
on this earth and hereafter. No doubt it will not satisfy
the aspirations of him who does not believe in God and
His undisputed sovereignty. It is no idle thing that the
Maharaja of Travancore is called Padmabhadas. It is a great
thought we, know that God himself has taken the title of Das-
anudas Servant of servants. If all the princes would call them-
selves servants of God, they would be correctly describing
themselves, but they cannot be servants of God unless
they are servants of the people. And if zamindar's and
moined men and all who have possessions would treat
themselves as trustees and perform the act of renunciation
that I have described, this world would indeed be a blessed
world to live in, — Harijan : Jan. 30, 1937.
HINDU-MUSLIM UNITY 297
God the Ruler pervades all there is in this Universe.
Therefore renounce and dedicate all to Him and then enjoy or
use the portion that may fall to thy lot. Never covet anybody^
possessions,
Hindu-Muslim Unity
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.
—Tarnf India : Feb. 25, 1920.
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DIVIDED, we must ever remain slaves. This unity,
therefore, cannot be a mere policy to be discarded when it
does not suit us. We can discard it only when we are
tired of Swaraj. Hindu-Muslim unity must be our creed
to last for all time and under all circumstances.
Nor must that unity be a menace to the minorities —
the Parsees, the Christians, the Jews or the powerful Sikhs.
If we seek to crush any of them, we shall some day want
to fight each other. — Young India : Dec. 2, 1920.
Every body knows that without unity between Hindus
and Mussalmans, no certain progress can be made by the
nation. —Toung India : July 28, 1921.
<3> <S> <$>
THAT unity is strength is not merely a copybook
maxim but a rule of life, is in no case so clearly illustrated
as in the problem of Hindu- Muslim Unity. Divided we
must fall. Any third power may easily enslave India so
long as we Hindus and Mussalmans are ready to cut each
other's throats. Hindu-Muslim Unity means not unity
only between Hindus and Mussalmans but between all
298 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
those who believe India to be their home, no matter to
what faith they belong. —Toung India : May 11, 1921.
^N ^> ^^
WHAT can be more natural than that Hindus and
Mussalmans born and bred in India having the same
adversities, the same hopes, should be permanent friends,
brothers born of the same Mother India ? The surprise is
that we should fight, not that we should unite.
—Tcung India : Aug. 21, 1924.
I AM striving to become the best cement between the
two communities. My longing is to be able to cement the
two with my blood, if necessary.
— Toung India : Sept. 25, 1924.
<$> 3> <S>
IF the Hindus and the Mussalmans rid themselves of
mutual distrust and fear, there is no power that can stop
their freedom. We are the makers of our own slavery.
—Young India : Jan. 27, 1927.
<^ <$> <*>
WE may think we are living, but disunited we are
worse than dead. Tfre Hindu thinks that in quarrelling with
the Mussalman he is benefiting Hinduism, and the Mussalman
thinks that in fighting a Hindu he is benefiting Islam. But
each is ruining his faith. — Toung India : Jan. 27, 1927.
^ <J> <$>
IT is a sign of weakness, not of fitness for Swaraj to go
to the foreign ruling power to arbitrate between us or to
enforce the peace between us at the point of the bayonet.
— Toung India : June 16, 1927.
IF it could be achieved by giving my life, I have the
will to give it and I hope I have the strength for it. I
HINDU-MUSLIM UNITY 299
should with the greatest joy undertake an indefinite fast,
as I very nearly did at Delhi, in 1924, if it would melt and
change the stony hearts of Hindus and Mussalmans.
—Toung India : June 16, 1927.
THIS unity among all is no new love with me. I have
treasured it, acted up to it from my youth upward. When
I went to London as a mere lad in 1889 I believed in it as
passionately as I do now. When I went to South Africa
in 1893 I worked it out in every detail of my life. Love so
deep seated as it is in me will not be sacrificed even for
the realm of the whole world,
—Toung India : Feb. 20, 1930.
I HAVE never dreamt that I could win Swaraj merely
through my effort or assisted only by the Hindus. I stand
in need of the assistance of Musalmans, Parsis, Christians,
Sikhs, Jews and all other Indians. I need the assistance even
of Englishmen. But I know too that all this combined assist-
ance is worthless if I have not one other assistance that is
from God. All is vain without His help. And if He is with
this struggle no other help is necessary. But to realise His
help and guidance in this struggle, I need your blessings,
the blessings of all communities.
—Toung India April 3, 1930.
THE only non-violent solution I know is for the
Hindus to let the minority communities take what they
like. I would not hesitate to let the minorities govern
their country. This is no academic belief. The solution
is attended with no risk. For under a free Government
the real power will be held by the people.
—Young India : April 24, 1930.
300 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
LET all of us Hindus, Mussalmans, Parsis, Sikhs,
Christians live amicably as Indians, pledged to live and die
for our motherland. Let it be our ambition to live as the
children of the same mother, retaining our individual
faiths and yet being one, like the countless leaves of one
tree. " —Young India: April 23, 1931.
<$><*><*>
THAT we have prepared the ground for Hindu-
Muslim unity I have not the slightest doubt. During the
Khilafat days it seemed to be near accomplishment, and
then suddenly our hopes seemed to have been dashed to
pieces. But was darkness ever an endless or permanent
phenomenon of Nature ? Indeed can it exist without
light ? The deeper the darkness the nearer, I think, is the
dawn, the deeper the gloom the nearer is the approach of
cheer-giving light. The severest illness is not without its
end. If not recovery, death ends the agony. The present
agony, for aught we know, is nearing its end. It is deeper
because the problem is more keenly realised today then it
was during the Khilafat agitation. That agitation had its
origin, it may perhaps be truly said, in me. Today though
the Hindu Muslim question wears an ugly face it belongs
very largely to the people, and therein lies my hope for a
permanent peace out of the present wanton violence.
People must get tired of mutual slaughter. In 1920-21 we
had just a passing glimpse of Hindu Muslim unity as it
would be when completely achieved. The effect can
never vanish completely, though ugly elements which have
come upon the surface may shake one's faith for the
moment. Don't say to me that Hindu Muslim unity which
was so near in 1921 has receded very far; you will then
say the same thing about prohibition, khadi, Swaraj. But
it is not correct to say so. All these things are nearer to-
day for the work done in 1920-21.
—Harijan : Dec. 15, 1936.
HINDU-MUSLIM UNITY 301
FOR good or for ill, the two communities are wedded to
India, they are neighbours, sons of the soil. They are
destined to die here as they are born here. Nature will
force them to live in peace if they do not come together
voluntarily. — Harijan : Oct. 29, 1938.
<$><$> <S>
<c WOULD not the march to full responsible govern-
ment be more rapid, if the Muslims were taken along?'7
"Of course it would be," replied Gandhiji. " Personally I do
not want anything which the Muslims oppose. But I have
faith that the solution of the Hindu-Muslim tangle will
come much sooner than most people expect. I claim to be
able 'to look at the whole position with a detached mind.
There is no substance in our quarrels. Points of difference
are superficial, those of contact are deep and permanent.
Political and economic subjection is common to us. The
same climate, the same rivers, the same fields supply both
with air, water and food. Whatever, therefore, leaders,
Mahatmas and Maulanas may say or do, the masses, when
they are fully awakened, will assert themselves and combine
for the sake of combating common evils.
(i The effect of the Socialist and Communist propaganda
too is to bring the masses of both the communities together
by emphasizing identity of interests. I have my differences
with them, but I cannot withhold my admiration for their
endeavaur to demolish the superstition that keeps the
different communities apart." — Harijan : Dec. 31, 1938.
<$>«><$>
BRITAIN has hitherto held India by producing before
the world Indians who want Britain to remain in India as
ruler and arbiter between rival claimants. These will
always exist. The question is whether it is right for Britain
to plead these rivalries in defence of holding India under
subjection, or whether she should now recognize the mistake
and leave India to decide upon the method of her own
government, —Harijan : Oct. 21, 1939,
302 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
ABSOLUTE protection of the rights of minorities is a
greater concern of the Congress than it ever can be of Great
Britain. The Congress dare not seek and cannot get justice,
if it is not prepared to do itself. To be above suspicion
is the only way open to non-violent organisations. But
British policy may make a just solution impossible at the
present moment. — Harijan : Oct. 28, 1939.
<$><$><$>
WE must prove to the Muslim countrymen and to the
world that the Congress docs not want independence at
the sacrifice of a single legitimate interest, be it Muslim or
other. We may leave no stone unturned to carry the
minorities with us. This meticulous care for the rights of
the least among us is the sine qua non of non-violence.
—Harijan : Dec. 2, 1939,
<*><$><$>
TIME is a merciless enemy, if it is also a n^erciful
friend and healer. I claim to be amongst the oldest lovers
of Hindu-Muslim unity and 1 remain one even today. I
have been asking myself why every whole-hearted attempt
made by all including myself to reach unity has failed, and
failed as completey that I have entirely fallen from grace
and am described by some Muslim papers as the greatest
enemy of Islam in Ijidia. It is a phenomenon I can only
account for by the fact that the third power, even without
deliberately wishing it, will not allow real unity to take
place. Therefore I have come to the reluctant conclusion
that the two communities will come together almost im-
mediately after the British power comes to a final end in
India. —Harijan : June 21, 1942.
Hindustani
WHAT is Hindustani ? There is no such language
apart from Urdu and Hindi Urdu has sometimes been
called Hindustani. It means a scientific blend of Hindi and
Urdu. There is no such written blend extant. But it is
HOPE 303
the common speech of the unlettered millions of Hindus
and Muslims living in Northen India. Not being written,
it is imperfect, and the written language has taken two
different turns tending to widen the difference by each
running away from the other. Therefore the word Hindus-
tani means Hindi and Urdu. — Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
Honour
NO cost is too heavy for the preservation of one's
honour, especially religious honour.
—Young India : Aug. 11, 1920.
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I WOULD prefer total destruction of myself and my
all to purchasing safety at the cost of my manhood.
—Young India: May 25, 192L
<$><$><$>
ONE who knows how to die need never fear any harm
to her or his honour. — Young India : Dec. 15, 1921.
<:>«><$>
IT is known by this time that I spare neither friend
nor foe when it is a question of departing from the code of
honour. — Young India : March 2, 1922.
^> <$> <$>
IT is any day better to stand erect with a broken and
bandaged- head than to crawl on one's belly, in order to be
able to save one's head. — Young India : April 2, 1925.
<s> <$> <s>
IMPRISONMENTS, forfeitures deportation, aeath
must all be taken in the ordinary course by those who
count honour before everything else.
—Young India : May 31, 1928.
Hope
I NEVER give up hope so long as there is the least
chance. —Young India : July 13, 192K
304 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
IF we had no faith in the ultimate God, we would
lose all hope. — Toung India : May 14, 1931.
Human Nature
THE most practical, the most dignified way of going
on in the world is to take people at their word, when
you have no positive reason to the contrary. I refuse to
believe that the tendency of the human nature is always
downward. — Toung India : Dec. 26, 1926.
<$><$><$>
MEN like me cling to their faith in human nature and
expect to bend even the haughty English spirit, all appear-
ances to the contrary notwithstanding.
— Toung India : Feb. 3, 1927.
<$><$><*>
I AM more concerned in preventing the brutalisation
of human nature than in preventing the sufferings of my
own people. I have often gloated over the sufferings of
my own people. I know that people who voluntarily
undergo a course of suffering raise themselves and the
whole of humanity, but I also know that people, who
become brutalised in 'their desperate efforts to get victory
over their opponents, or to exploit weaker nations or weaker
men not only drag down themselves but mankind also. And,
it cannot be a matter of pleasure to me or anyone else to see
human nature dragged in the mire. If we are all sons of
the same God, and partake of the same divine essence,
we must partake of the sin of every person whether he be-
longs to us or to another race. You can understand how
repugnant it must be to invoke the beast in any human
being. —Tounglndia : Oct. 29, 1931.
<S> <S> 3>
I BELIEVE that the sum-total of the energy of man-
kind is not to bring us down but to lift us up, and that is
the result of the definite, if unconscious, working of the
HUMILITY 305
law of love. The fact that mankind persists shows that
the cohesive force is greater than the disruptive force, cen-
tripetal force greater than centrifugal. And inasmuch as I
know only of the poetry of love, you should not be sur-
prised that I trust the English people. I have often been
bitter and I have often said to myself, u When will this
camouflage end ? When will these people cease to ex*
ploit these poor people ?1? But instinctively I get the re-
ply : "That is the heritage that they have had from
Rome.7' I must conduct myself in accordance with the
dictates of the Law of Love, hoping and expecting in the
long run to affect the English nature.
— Young India : Nov. 11, 1931.
<$> <3> <S>
MAN'S nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has
been known to yield to the influence of love. You must
never despair of human nature.
—Young India : Nov. 5, 1938.
^^ <^ ^^
HUMAN nature will only find itself when it fully
realizes that to be human it has to cease to be beastly or
brutal. Though we have the human form, without the
attainment of the virtue of non-violence we still share the
qualities of our remote reputed ancestor the ourangou-
tang. * —Harijan : Oct. 8, 1938.
3> 3> <$>
MY belief in the capacity of non-violence rejects the
theory of permanent inelasticity of human nature.
— Harijan : June 7, 1942.
Humility
TAKE water, which in its solid state remains on the
earth; it cannot ascend until it is rarefied into steam.
306 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
But once it is rarefied into steam it rises up in the
sky where at last it is transformed into the clouds which
drop down in the form of rain and fructify and bless
the earth. We are like water, we have to strive
so to rarefy ourselves that all the ego in us perishes
and we merge in the infinite to the eternal good of
all —Young India : Jan, 12, 1928,
«><$><$>
THE first condition of humaneness is a little humanity
and a little diffidence about the correctness of one's
conduct and a little re-ceptiveness.
—Toung India : Sept. 20, 1928.
^P ^o ^»
HUMILITY cannot be an observance by itself-
For it does not lend itself to being deliberately practised.
It is, however, an indispensable test of ahimsa. In one
who has ahimsa in him it becomes part of his very
nature.
A preliminary draft of the rules and regulations of
the Satyagraha Ashram was circulated among friends, includ-
ing the late Sir Gurudas Banerji. He suggested that
humility should be accorded a place among the observances.
This suggestion could not then be accepted for the same
reasons as I am mentioning here.
But although humility is not one of the observances, it
is certainly as essential as, and perhaps even more essential,
than any one of them. Only it never came to any one by
practice. Truth can be cultivated as well as love. But to
cultivate humility is tantamount to cultivating hypocrisy.
Humility must not be here confounded with mere manners
or etiquette. One man will sometimes prostrate himself
before another, although his heart is full of bitterness,
against the latter. This is not humility, but cunning.
HUMILITY 307
A man may repeat Ramanana^ or ttll his btads all the day
long, and move in society like a sagt; but if he i&
selfish at heart, he is not meek but o>niy hypocritical,
A humble person is not himself conscious of hi$
humility. Truth and the like perhaps, admit of measure-
ment, but not humility. Inborn humility can never
remain hidden, and yet the possessor is unaware of itsf
existence. Tbe story of Vasishtha and Vishvamitra
furnishes a very good case in point Humility should
make the possessor realise that he is as nothing. Directly
one imagines oneself to be something, there is egotism.
If a man who keeps observances, who is proud of keep-
ing them, will lose much if not all of their value.
And a man who is proud of his virtue often becomes
a curse to society. Society will not appreciate it, and
he himself will fail to reap any benefit from it. Only
a little thought will suffice to convince us that all creatures
are nothing more than a mere atom in this universe.
Our existence as embodied beings is purely momentary;
what are a hundred years in eternity ? But if we
shatter the chains of egotism, and melt into the ocean
of humanity, we share its dignity. To feel that we are
something is to set up a barrier between God and
ourselves; to cease feeling that we are something is to be-
come one with God. A drop in the ocean partakes of
the greatness of its parent, although it is unconscious of
it, but it is dried up as soon as it enters upon an
existence independent of the ocean. We do not exaggerate
when we say that life on earth is a mere bubble.
A life of service must be one of humility. He who
would sacrifice his life for others has hardly time to
reserve for himself a place in the sun. Inertia must
not be mistaken for humility, as it has been in Hinduism.
True humility means most strenuous and constant
308 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
endeavour entirely directed towards the service of humanity.
God is continuously in action without resting for a
single moment. If we would serve Him OF become
one with Him, our activity must be as unwearied as
His. Iheie maybe momentary rest in store for the drop
which is separated from the ocean, but not for the drop
in the ocean, which knows no rest. The same is the
case with ourselves. As soon as we become one with the
ocean in the shape of God, there is no more rest xor
us, nor indeed do we need rest any longer. Our very
sleep is action. For we sleep with the thought of God in our
hearts. TLis leMlesMiess constitutes true test. This never
ceasing agitation holds the key to peace ineffable. This
supicmc state of total surrender is difficult to describe
but not beyond the bounds of human experience. It
has been attained by many dedicated souls and may
be attained by ourselves as well. This is the goal which
we of the Sayagraha Ashram have set before ourselves ;
all our observances and activities are calculated to assist
us in reaching it. We shall reach it some clay all unawares
if we have truth in us. — Teravda Mandir.
Humanitarianism
HUMAN1TARIANISM without knowledge is futile
and may even be harmful. —Harijm : June 19, 1937.
<£ <£ ^
MERE learning, mere humanitarianism divorced
from actual experience may spell disaster to the cause
sought to be espoused. —Harijan : July 1, 1939.
Humour
Q. DO you think a sense of humour is necessary in
life?
HUNGER-STRIKE 309
If I had no sense of humour, I would long ago
have committed suicide.
—Harijan : Dec. 12, 1928.
Hunger-Strike
THERE should be no hunger-strike on any account.
Though there are circumstances conceivable in which
a hunger-strike may be justified, hunger-strike in order
to secure release or redress of grievances is wrong.
—Harjan : April 23, 1938.
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HUNGER-STRIKE has positively become a plague. On
the slightest pretext some people want to resort to hunger-
strike. It is well, therefore, that the Working Committee
has condemned the practice in unequivocal terms, so far at
least as hunger-strike for discharge from imprisonment is
concerned. The Committee should have gone further and
condemned also the practice of forcible feeding. I regard
forcible feeding as an undue liberty with the human body
which is too sacred to be trifled with, even though it belongs
to a prisoner. No doubt the State has control over the
bodies of its prisoners but never to the extent of killing their
soul. That control has well-defined limits. If a prisoner
decides to starve himself to death, he should, in my opinion,
be allowed to do so. A hunger-strike loses its force and dig-
nity, when it has any, if the striker is forcibly fed. It be-
comes a mockery if somehow or other sufficient nourishment
is poured down the throat, whether through the mouth or
nose. Of course, the mind instinctively revolts against
feeding through the nose. But I understand that after a few
days' practice the process ceases to offend the subject himself.
Where a prisoner offers violent resistance the matter becomes
difficult. But cases of such resistance are rare. It is not pos-
310 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
sible to keep up effective resistance for any length of time.
A determined resister will of course die at the very first at-
tempt and thus frustrate it. But such resistance requires great
daring and reckless defiance of death. In any case it is my
firm conviction that the method of forcible feeding should
be abandoned as a relic of barbarism. I know that some
prisoners welcome forcible feeding for the empty glory of
being regarded as hunger-strikers. Jailors have often told
me that such prisoners would deplore stoppage of forcible
feeding. I am told that under the existing law jail authori-
ties are bound to resort to forcible feeding if reasoning fails.
I would recommend amendments of such legislation if any.
—Harijan : Aug. 19, 1939,
I
Ideal
WHEN a man works for an ideal, he becomes irresis-
tible. —Young India : July 28, 1920.
IDEALS must work in practice, otherwise they are not
potent. — Young India : Jan. 27, 192L
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THE virtue of an ideal consists in its boundlessness.
But although religious ideals must thus from their very
nature remain unattainable by imperfect human beings,
although by virtue of their boundlessness they may seem
ever to recede farther away from us, the nearer we go to
them, still they are closer to us than our very hands and
feet because we are more certain of their reality and truth
than even of our own physical being. This faith in one's
ideals alone constitutes true life, in fact it is man's all in all.
—Harijan : Dec. 20, 1927.
IDOL- WORSHIP 311
IF I am to make an ever-increasing approach to my
ideal, I must let the world see my weaknesses and failures
so that I may be saved from hypocrisy and so that even
for very shame I would try my utmost to realise the ideal.
The contradiction pointed out by the friend also shows that
between the ideal and practice there always must be an
unbridgeable gulf. The ideal will cease to be one if it
becomes possible to realise it. The pleasure lies in making
the effort, not in its fulfilment. For, in our progress
towards the goal we even se$ more and more enchanting
scenery. — Harijan : July 12, 1937.
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THE reality is always present before me, but my striv-
ing is always to reach the ideal. Euclid's straight line
exists only in our conception, but we have always to postu-
late it. We have always to strive to draw a true line
corresponding to Euclid's imaginary line.
—Harijan : Sept. 8, 1940.
Idleness
PURITY of mind and idleness are incompatible.
—Harijan : Oct. 22, 1938.
Idol-Worship
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 corfaposed in a
church than elsewhere ? Images are an aid to worship.
No Hindu considers an image to be God. I do not consi-
der idol- worship a sin. — Toung India : Sept. 29, 1920.
IDOLATRY is permissible in Hinduism when it sub*
312 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
serves an ideal. It becomes a sinful fetish when the idol
itself becomes the ideal. —Toung India : June 21, 1923.
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I AM both an idolator and an iconoclast in what I
conceive to be the true sense of the terms. I value the
spirit behind idol-worship. It plays a most important part
in the uplift of the human race. And I would like to
possess the ability to defend with my life the thousands of
holy temples which sanctify this land of ours. My alliance
with the Musalmans pre-supposes their perfect tolerance
for my idols and my temples. I am an iconoclast in the
sense that I break down the subtle form of idolatory in the
shape of fanaticism that refuses to see any virtue in any
other form of worshipping the Diety save one's own. This
form of idolatry is more deadly for being more fine and
evasive than the tangible and gross form of worship that
identifies the Deity with a little bit of a stone or a golden
image. —Toung India : Aug. 28, 1924.
^ <>> <$>
PROPER worship is not image worship, it is the wor-
ship of God in the image. — Harijan : Feb. 16, 1935.
^N ^^ ^N
Q. I AM a Hindu student. I have been great friend
with a Muslim, but we have fallen out over the question of
idol-worship. I find solace in idolworship but I cannot
give an answer to my Muslim friend in terms of what may
be called convincing. Will you say anything on idolwor-
ship in Harijan ?
A. My sympathies are botti with you and your Mus-
lim friend. I suggest your reading my writings on the
question in Toung India and, if you feel at all satisfied, let
your Muslim friend read them too. If your friend has real
love for you, he will conquer his prejudice against idol-
IMPRISONMENT 315
worship. A friendship which exacts oneness of opinion and
conduct is not worth much. Friends have to tolerate one
another's ways of life and thought even though they may be
different, except where the difference is fundamental May
be your friend has come to think that it is sinful to associate
with you as you are an idolater. Idolatry is bad, not so
idolworship. An idolater makes a fetish of his idol. An
idolworshipper sees God even in a stone and therefore
takes the help of an idol to establish his union "with God.
Every Hindu child knows that the stone is the famous
temple in Benares is not Kashi Vishwanath. But he be-
lieves that the Lord of the Universe does reside specially in
that stone. This play of the imagination is permissible and
healthy. Every edition of the Git a on a bookstall has not
that sanctity which I ascribe to my own copy. Logic tells
me there is no more sanctity in my copy than in any
other. The sanctity is in my imagination. But that im-
agination brings about marvellous concrete results. It
changes men's lives. I am of opinion that, whether we
admit it or not, we are all idol-worshippers or idolators, if
the distinction I have drawn is not allowed. A book, a
building, a picture, a carving are surely all images in
which God does reside, but they are not God* He who
says they are errs. . —Harijan : March 9, 1940.
Imitation
IMITATION is the sheerest flattery.
—Young India : Mar. 21, 1925.
Imprisonment
IF one has committed an offence, he must plead
guilty and suffer the penalty. If he has not and is still
found guilty, imprisonment for him is no disgrace.
—Young India: Mar. 12,1919.
314 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
FOR me, solitary confinement in a prison cell without
any breach on my part of the code of Non-co-opera-
tion, or private or public morals, will be freedom. For
me, the whole of India is a prison, even as the
master's house is to his slave. A slave, to be free, must
continuously rise against his slavery, and be locked up
in his master's cell for his rebellion. The cell-door is
the door to freedom. I feel no pity for those who are
•suffering hardships in the goals of the Government. In-
nocence under an evil Government must ever rejoice on
the scaffold. —Young India : Jan. 12, 1920.
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IMPRISONMENTS must not inspire fear in us.
Under an unjust Government, imprisonments of innocent
men must be regarded as their ordinary lot even as disease
is the ordinary state of persons living in insanitary con-
ditions. The Government will cease to imprison us when
we cease to fear imprisonments. The Government will
cease to exist or (which is the same thing) will reform
itself, when its most frightful punishments, even Dyerism,
fail to strike us with fear — Young India : May, 4, 1921.
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I AM convinced that it is not argument but suffer-
ing of the innocent that appeals both to the persecutor
and the persecuted. — Toung India : Dec. 8, 1921.
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WE seek arrest because the so-called freedom is slavery.
— Toung India: May 15, 1921.
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IMPRISONMENTS, forfeitures, deportations, death
must all be taken in the ordinary course by those who
•count honour before any thing else.
—Toung India : May 31, 1928.
IMPRISONMENTS 315
IN my opinion, the ability to go to jail is of far less
consequence than ability and the readiness to observe in
their fulness the conditions about Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-
Parsi-Christian unity, about untouchability and hand-spun
khadi. Without a due fulfilment of those conditions, we
shall find that all our going to jail is bravado and so
much wasted effort. Self-purification is the main considera-
tion in seeking the prison. Embarrassment of the Gov-
ernment is a secondary consideration. It is my unalter-
able conviction that, even though the Government may
not feel embarrassed in any way whatsoever by the
incarceration or even execution of an innocent, unknown
but a purified person, such incarceration will be the end
of that Government. Even a single lamp dispels the
deepest darkness. —Young India : Feb. 9, 1922.
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JAILS are no gate-way to liberty for the confirmed
criminal. They are temples of liberty only for those who
are innocence personified. The execution of Socrates made
immortality a living reality for us, — not so the execution
of countless murderers. There is no warrant for suppos-
ing that we can steal Swaraj by the imprisonment of
thousands of nominally non-violent men with hatred, ill-
will aad violence raging in their breasts,
—Young India : Mar. 2, 1922*
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IMPRISONMENTS, forfeitures, deportations, death
must all be taken in the ordinary course by those who
count honour before anything else.
—Young India : May 31, 1928.
India
I HAVE recognised that the nation has the right,
316 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
if it so wills, to vindicate her freedom even by actual1
violence. Only then India ceases to be the land of my
love, though she be the land of my birth, even as I
should take no pride in my mother if she went astray.
India : Jan. 12, 1920,
INDIA must learri to live before she can aspire ^to
die for humanity. —Toung India : Oct. 13, 1921.
<*><*>«>
INDIA of the near future stands for perfect tole-
ration of all religions. Her spiritual heritage is simple
living and high thinking. —Toung India : Dec. 12, 1922.
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AS it is, everything in India attracts me. It has
everything that a human being with the highest possible
aspirations can want. — 'loung India : Feb. 21, 1929.
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AN India prostrate at the feet of Europe can give no
hope to humanity. An India awakened and free has a
message of peace and goodwill to a groaning world.
Congress does not consider India to be a sickly child
requiring nursing, outside help, and other props.
4 - -Young India: Mar. 12, 1931.
Indian Civil Service
THE Indian Civil Service is the most highly paid
service in the world, and that more than a third of the
revenue is absorbed by the military service. Imagine
the state of a family which has to devote a third of its
income for paying its door-keepers.
—Toung India : June 22, 1921.
INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE 317
THE LC.S. is not really the Indian Civil Service,
it is the E.C S. the English Civil Service. I say this
knowing that there are Indians in the service. Whilst
India is a subject nation, they cannot but serve the in-
terests of England. But supposing India secures freedom,
and supposing able Englishmen are prepared to serve
India, then, they would be truly national servants. At
the present time, under the name of LC.S. , they serve the
exploiting Government. In a free India, Englishmen
will come out to India either in a spirit of adventure,
or from penance, and willingly serve on a small salary and
put up with the rigours of Indian climate instead of being
a burden on p)or India, whilst they draw inordinately
laarge salaries and try to live there in extra English ex-
travagance, and reproduce even the English climate.
We would have them as honoured comrades, but if there
is even a lurking desire to lord ii over us, and behave as
a superior race, they are not wanted.
— Young India : Nov. 12, 1931.
luiiaa Civilization
THE true Indian civilisation is in the Indian
villages. The modern city civilisation you find in Europe
and America, and in a handful of our cities which are
copies of the Western cities and which were built for the
foreigner, and by him. But they cannot last. It is only
the handicraft civilisation that will endure and stand the
test of time But it can do so only if we can correlate the
intellect with the hand. The late Madhusudan Das used to
say that our peasants and workers had, by reason of work-
ing with bullocks, become like bullocks ; an 1 be was right,
We have to lift them from the state of the brute to the
state of man, and that we can do only by correlating the
intellect with the hand. Not until they learn to work
318 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
intelligently and make something new every day, not until
they are taught to know the joy of work, can we raise them
from their low estate. —Harijan ; March 30, 1940.
Indian States
THE imperial power has used them as pawns in
its game of exploitation.
They are least able to resist the illegitimate and
insidious pressure that is brought ft) bear upon them
from time to time. They must therefore realize that
the increase of peoples power means decrease of the
humiliating influence described by me.
— Young India : Nov. 17, 1921.
THAT Prince is acceptable to me who becomes a
Prince among his people's servants. The subjects are the
real master. — Young India : Jan. 8, 1925.
IF the states persist in their obstinacy and hug
their ignorance of the awakening that has taken place
throughout India, they are courting certain des-
truction. I claim to be a friend of the States. Their
service has been an heirloom in my family for the past
three generations, if not longer. I am no blind worshipper
of antiquity. But I am not ashamed of the heirloom.
All the States may not live. The biggest ones can live
only if they will recognise their limitations, become servants
of their people, trustees of their welfare and depend
for their existence not on arms, whether their own or
British, but solely on the goodwill of their people, Faithless-
ness will feed the fire of violence that one feels smouldering
everywhere. If the States are badly advised and they rely
INDIAN STATES 319
upon organised violence for resisting the just demands of
their people, ahimsa, so far generated in the country as a
means of redressing social injustice, will not protect them. It
had grown into a Himalayan oak, it would have passed
any test however severe. But sad to confess, it has
not gone deep enough into the Indian soil.
—Harijan : Sept. 17, 1938.
^N <& <&
CONGRESS non-intervention in the affairs of the
States was conceived in 1920 and has been more or less
its policy since that time in spite of many on-slaughts
made on it. But I see that it has become the fashion in
the States to quote against the Congressmen the self-imposed
restraint even when there is any attempt to criticise or
offer advice or help. It is therefore necessary to examine
the implications of non-intervention. It was never regarded
as a principle. It was a limitation imposed on itself
by the Congress for its own sake and that of the people
of the States. The Congress had no sanction behind
its resolution regarding the States. Its advice
might be ignored, its intervention resented and the
people of the States might be harassed without gaining
anything. There was certainly a friendly motive behind
that policy. It was a wise recognition of the limited
capacity of the Congress for doing good. The restraint
exercised by the Congress in this and many other ways
has given "it a prestige and power which it would be
unwise for it not to use. Any hesitation in this respect
would be like that of the foolish steward who would
not use the talents which were placed at his disposal.
Up to a point the , States are beginning to recognise
the power of the Congress be it ever so reluctantly. It is be-
coming sufficiently clear that the people of the States are
looking to the Congress for guidance and help. I think that it
320 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
is the duty of the Congress to give them the guidance
and help wherever it can. I wish I could convince
every Congressman that the prestige and power of the
Congress are in ekact proportion to its inner purity,
its sense of exact justice and its all-round goodwill.
If the people of the States feel safe in entrusting their
welfare to the Congress, the Princes should feel equally
safe in trusting the" Congress. All the prestige built up
by patient effort of years will certainly br undermined,
if the warnings uttered by me to the Congressmen go
unheeded.
Even at the risk of tiresome repetition let me say
to the people of the States that they must not set much
store by the Congress help. It is not enough that they
are truthful and non-violent. It is necessary also for
them to know their own capacity for suffering. Liberty
is a dame exacting a heavy price from her wooers.
And unless there are many who are prepared to pay
the price, the few enthusiasts that are to be found
everywhere would do well to conserve their energy.
They will do well to undertake constructive service of
the people without having an ambitious political programme.
The ability to gain political ends will surely come
from constructive service. Wisdom and patience will
give them a power which in time will become irresistible.
6 —Harijan : Oct. 1, 1938.
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People say that I have changed my view, that
I say today something different from what I said years
ago. The fact of the matter is that conditions have
changed. I am the same. My words and deeds are
dictated by prevailing conditions. There has been a
gradual evolution in my environment and I react to
it as a Satyagrahi. — Harijan : Jan. 28, 1939.
INDUSTRIALIZATION 321
THE policy of non-intervention by the Congress was,
in *ny opinion, a perfect piece of statesmanship when the
people of the States were not awakened. That policy would
be cowardioe where there is an all-round awakening among
tfce people of the States and a determination to go through
a long course of suffering for the vindication of their just
rights. Whenever the Congress thinks it can usefully
intervene, it must intervene. — Harijan : Jan. 28, 1939,
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I VENTURE to suggest that the best gurantee of their
status consists not in the treaties with the British but in the
goodwill, contentment and co-operation of their own people
and the friendship of the people of non-State India.
— Harijan : Aug. 4, 1940.
Individual Freedom
If the individual ceases to count, what is left of
society ? Individual freedom alone can make a man voluntarily
surrender himself completely to the service of society. If
it is wrested from him, he becomes an automaton and
society is ruined. No society can possibly be built on a
denial of individual freedom. It is contrary to the very
nature of man. Just as a man will not grow horns or a
tail, so he will not exist as man if he has no mind of his
own. In reality even those who do not believe in the
liberty of the individual believe in their own.
—Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
Industrialization
A SOCIALIST holding a brief for macnmery asked
Gandhiji if the Village Industries Movement was not meant
to oust all machinery.
" Is not this wheel a machine ?" was the counter question
that Gandhiji, who was just then spinning, gave in reply.
" I do not mean this machine, but I mean bigger
machinery."
322 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
*c Do you mean Singer's sewing machine ? That too
is protected by the Village Industries Movement, and for
that matter any machinery which does not deprive masses
of men of the opportunity to labour, but which helps the
individual and adds to his efficiency, and which a man can
handle at will without being its slave.'7
" But what about the great inventions ? You would
have nothing to do with electricity ?"
" Who said so ? If we could have electricity in every
village home, I should not mind villagers plying their im-
plements and tools with the help of electricity. But
then the village communities or the State would own power-
houses, just as they have their grazing pastures. But
where there is no electricity and no machinery, what are
idle hands to do ? Will you give them work, or would you
have their owners cut them down for want of work ?
" I would prize every invention of science made for the
benefit of all. There is a difference between invention and
invention. 1 should not care for the esphixiating gases capable
of killing masses of men at a time. The heavy machinery for
work of public utility which cannot be undertaken by
human labour has its inevitable place, but all that would
be owned by the State and used entirely for the benefit of
the people. I can have no consideration for machinery
which is meant either to enrich the few at the expense of
the many, or without cause to displace the useful labour
of many.
" But even you as a socialist would not be in favour of
an indiscriminate use of machinery. Take printing presses.
They will go on. Take surgical instruments. How can
one make them with one's hands ? Heavy machinery
would be needed for themi But there is no machinery for
the cure of idleness, but this," said Gandhiji pointing to his
spinning wheel. " I can work it whilst I am carrying on
this conversation with you, and am adding a little to the
INDUSTRIALIZATION 323
wealth of the cou try* This machine no one can oust."
—Harijan : June 22, 1935.
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DEAD machinery must not be pitted against the
millions of living machines represented by the villagers
scattered in the seven hundred thousand villages of India,
Machinery to be well-used has to help and ease human
effort The present use of machinery tends more and more
to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few in total dis-
regard of millions of men and women whose bread is sna-
tched by it out of their mouths. — Harijan : Sept. 14, 1935.
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DON'T you see that if India becomes industrialized,
we shall need a Nadirshah to find out other worlds to
exploit, that we shall have to pit ovcrselves against the naval
and military powers of Britian and Japan and America, of
Russia and I day ? My head reels to think of these rivalries.
No, I am clear that whilst this machine age aims at con-
verting men into machines, I am aiming at reinstating man
turned machine in his original estate.
—Harijan : Nov. 30, 1935.
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A FACTORY employs a few hundreds and renders
thousands unemployed. I may produce tons of oil from an
oil-mill, but 1 also drive thousands of oil-men out of employ-
ment. I call this destructive energy, whereas production by
the labour of millions of hands • is constructive and conducive
to the common good. Mass production through power driven
machinery, even when state-owned, will be of no avail.
But why not, it is asked, save the labour of millions, and
give them more leisure for intellectual pursuits. ? Leisure is
good and necessary upto a point only. God created man
to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, and I dread the
prospect of our being able to produce all that we want, in-
cluding our food-stuffs out of a conjurer's hat.
—Harijan : May 16, 1936
324 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
"Are you against large scale production ?" Gandhiji
answered, "I never said that. This belief is one of the many
superstitions about me. Half of my time goes in answering
such things. But from scientists I accept better knowledge.
Your question is based on loose newspaper reports and the
like. What I am against is large scale production of things
villagers can produce without difficulty/7
Q. Do you think that cottage industries and big indus-
tries can be harmonized.
A. Yes, if they are planned so as to help the villages.
Key industries, industries which the nation needs, may be
centralized. But then I would not choose anything as a
'key industry' that can be taken up by the villages with a
little organizing. For instance, I did not know the possibili-
ties of handmade paper. Now I arn so hopeful that I believe
that every village can produce its own paper, though not for
newspapers, etc. Supposing the State controlled paper-
making and centralized it, 1 would expect it to protect all
the paper that villages can make.
Q,. What is meant by protecting the villages ?
A. Protecting them against the inroads of the cities.
At one time cities were dependent on the villages. Now it is
the reverse. There is no interdependence. Villages are
being exploited and drained by the cities.
Q Don't the villages need a lot of things that the
cities produce ?
A. I wonder. In any case, under my scheme, nothing
will be allowed to be produced by cities which can be
equally well produced by the villages. The proper function
of cities is to serve as clearing houses for village products.
Q. Can we harmonize cloth-mill activity with hand-
loom production ?
A. So far as I know, my answer is an emphatic 'no'.
All the cloth we need can easily be produced in the villages.
INDUSTRIALIZATION 325
Q. But the number of mills is increasing,
A. That is a misfortune.
—Harijan : June 28,1939.
3> <£ <3>
God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism
after the manner of the West. The economic imperial-
ism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is to-
day keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300
millions took to similar economic exploitation, it would
strip the world bare like locusts. Unless the capitalists of
India help to avert that tragedy by becoming trustees of the
welfare of the masses and by devoting their talents not to
amassing wealth for themselves but to the service of the
masses in an altruistic spirit, they will end either by destroy-
ing the masses or being destroyed by them.
—Harijan : Jan. 28, 1939.
Inertia
STRANGE as it may appear, the fact remains that
people find the easiest of things often times to be the most
difficult to follow. The reason, to borrow a term from the
science of physics, lies in our inertia. Physicits tell us that
inertia is an essential, and in its own place a most useful
quality of matter. It is that alone which steadies the
universe and prevents it from flying off at a tangent. But
for it the latter would be a chaos of motion. But inertia
becomes an incubus and a vice when it fies the mind
down to old ruts. — Harijan : July 21, 1940.
Inner Voice
THIS ability to hear and obey that Voice gives me what
ever power 1 may have and, has enabled me to render some
little service to the country. You will not have me at this
time of my life to change my course and listen to any other
voice but the Inner. — Young India : Jan. 23, 1930*
326 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Q. DOES the Inner Voice mean the 'message of
God?'
A The Inner Voice may mean a messsage from God or
from the Devil, for both or wrestling in the human breasts.
Acts determine the nature of the Voice.
—Young India : Feb. 13, 1930.
Instinct
MY instinct has not betrayed me even once.
—Harijan : July 20, 1940.
Inter- dependence
SELF-dependence is a necessary ideal so long as and to
the extent that it is an aid to one's self-respect and spiritual
discipline. It becomes an obsession and a hinderance when
it is pushed beyond that limit, On the other hand inter-
dependence when it is not inconsistent with one's self-respect
is necessary to bring home to man the lesson of humility and
the omnipotence of God. One must strike a golden mean
between these two extremes. A fanaticism that refuses to
discriminate is the negation of all ideal.
. —Toung India : March. 21, 1929.
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Inter-dependence is and ought to be as much the ideal
of man asself-sufficiency. Man is a social being. Without
inter-relation with society he cannot realise his oneness with
the universe or suppress his egotism. His social inter-depen-
dence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on
the touchstone of reality. If man were so placed or could
so place himself as to be absolutely above all dependence on
his fellow-beings he would become so proud and arrogant as
to be a veritable burden and nuisance to the world. De-
pendence on society teaches him the lesson of humility.
That a man ought to be able to satisfy most of his essential
INSURANCE 327
needs himself is obvious ; but it is no less obvious to me that
when self-sufficiency is carried to the length of isolating
oneself from society it almost amounts to sin. A man can-
not become self-sufficient even in respect of all the various
operations from the growing of cotton to the spinning of the
yarn. He has at some stage or other to take the aid of the
members of his family. And if one may take help from one's
own family why not from one's neighbours ? Or otherwise
what is the significance of the great saying : c The world is
my family ?' —Young India : Mar. 21, 1929
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IT is man's social nature which distinguishes him from
the brute creation. If it is his privilege to be indepen-
dent it is equally his duty to be inter-dependent. Only an
arrogant man will claim to be independent of every body
else and be self-contained. — Young India : April 25, 1929.
Insurance
I DID insure my life in 1901 and a short time after I
gave up the policy because I felt that I was distrusting God
and making my relatives in whose behalf the policy was taken
dependent upon me or the money I might leave them rather
than upon God and themselves. The opinion arrived at
when I gave up the policy has been confirmed by subsequent
experience. —Young India : Mar. 14, 1929.
Intentions
BEFORE the throne of the Almighty, man will be
judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God
alone reads our hearts. — Harijan : Mar. 16, 1940.
Inter-dining
INTERDRINKING, inter-dining, inter-marrying, I hold
are not essential for the promotion of the spirit of democracy.
I do not contemplate under a most democratic constitution.
328 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
universality of manners and customs about eating, drinking
and marrying. We shall ever have to seek unity in diversity,
and I decline to consider it a sin for a man not to drink or
eat with any and every-body. In Hinduism, children
of brothers may not intermarry. The prohibition does not
interfere with cordiality of relations, probably it promotes
healthiness of relationships. In Viashnava households, I
have known mothers not dining in the common kitchen, nor
drinking from the same pot, without their becoming exclu-
sive, arrogant, or less loving. These are disciplinary restraints
which are not in themselves bad. Carried to ridiculous
extremes, they may become harmful, and if the motive is one
of arrogation of superiority the restraint beco ones an indul-
gence, therefore hurtful. But as time goes forward, and new
necessities arid occasions arise, the custom regarding inter-
drinking, inter-dining, and inter-marrying will require
cautious modifications or rearrangement.
— Toung India : Aug. 12, 1920.
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THIS question of inter-dining is a vexed one and in my
opinion no hard and fast rules can be laid down. Per-
sonally, I am not sure that inter-dining is a necessary
reform. At the same time , I recognise the tendency to-
wards breaking down the restriction altogether. 1 can find
reasons for and against the restriction. I would not force
the pace. I do not regard it as a sin for a person not to dine
with another nor do I regard it as sinful if one advocates and
practises inter-dining. I should, however, resist the attempt
to break down the restriction in disregard of the feelings of
others. On the contrary, I would respect their scruples in
the matter. —Toung India : April 30, 1925.
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INTER-DINING and inter-caste marriage are in no
way essential for the promotion of the spirit of brotherhood
or for the removal of untouchability. At the same time, a
ISLAM 329
super-imposed restriction would undoubtedly stunt the
growth of any society, and to link these restrictions to Varna
Dharma or caste is undoubtedly prejudicial to the freedom
of the spirit and would make Varna a drag upon religion.
—Harijan : April 29, 38.
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RESTRICTIONS on inter-dining have no vital con-
nection with Varma Dharma. They were, in my opinion
hygienic rules in origin. Given a proper confirmation with
the rules of cleanliness there should be no scruple about
dming with anybody. — Harijan : Feb. 13, 1937.
Islam
IF I understand the spirit of Islam properly, it is
essentially republican in the truest sense of the term.
— Toung India :Ju]y 21, 1920.
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ISLAM is a noble faith. Trust it and its followers,
— Young India: Aug. 4, 1920.
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I DO regard Islam to be a religion of peace in the
same sense as Christianity, Budhism and Hinduism are. No
doubt there are differences in degree, but the object of these
religions is ^pcace. I know the passages that can be
quoted from the Koran to the contrary. But so is it
possible to quote passages from the Vedas to the contrary.
What is the meaning of imprecations pronounced against
the Anryas ? Of course, these passages bear to-day a differ-
ent meaning, but at one time they did wear a dreadful
aspect. What is the meaning of the treatment of untouch-
ables by us Hindus ? Let not the pot call the kettle black.
The fact is that we are all growing. I have given my opinion
that the followers of Islam are too free with the sword. But
that is not due to the teaching of the Koran. That is due in
330 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
my opinion to the environment in which Islam was born*
Christianity has a bloody record against it, not because
Jesus was found wanting, but because the environment in
which it spread was not responsive to his lofty teaching.
These two, Christianity and Islam, are, after all, religions
of but yesterday. They are yet in the course of being inter-
preted. I reject the claim of Maulvis to give a final interpre-
tation to the message of Mahomed, as I reject that of the
Christian clergy to give a final interpretation to the message
of Jesus. Both are being interpreted in the lives of those
who are giving these massages in silence and in perfect self-
dedication. Bluster is no religion, nor in vast learning stored
in capacious brains. The Seat of religion is in the heart. We
Hindus, Christians, Musalmans and others have to write the
interpretation of our respective faiths with our own crimson
blood and not otherwise. — Young India : July 10, 1924.
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MY association with the noblest of Mussalmans has
taught me to see that Islam has spread not by the power of
the sword, but by the prayerful love of an unbroken line of its
saints and fakirs. Warrant there is in Islam for drawing the
sword : but the conditions laid down are so strict that they
are not capable of being fulfilled by everybody. Where is
the unerring general urorder Jehad ? Where is the suffering,
the love and the purification that must precede the very
idea of drawing the sword ? Hindus are at least as much
bound by similar restrictions as the Musalmans of India.
The Sikhs have their recent proud history to warn them
against the use of force. We are too imperfect, too impure
and too selfish, as yet to resort to an armed conflict in the
cause of God as Shaukat Ali would say. Will a purified India
ever need to draw the sword ? — Young India : Aug. 14, 1924.
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ISLAM is not a denial of God. It is a passionate avowal
of one Supreme Deity. Not even its worst detractors have
accused Islam of atheism. — Young India : Aug. 21, 1924.
ISLAM 331
In my writings about Islam 1 take the same care
of its prestige that I do of Hinduism. I apply the same
method of interpretation to it that I apply to Hinduism.
I no more defend on the mere ground of authority a
single text in the Hindu scriptures than 1 can defend
one from the Quran. Every thing has to submit to
the test of reason. Islam appeals to people because
it appeals also to reason. And in the long run it will
be found that any other method would land one in
trouble. There are undoubtedly things in the world
which transcend reason. We do not refuse to bring
them on the anvil of reason but they will not come
themselves. Uy their very nature they defy reason.
Such is the mystery of the Deity. It is not incon-
sistent with reason, it is beyond it.
— Toung India: March 4>6, 1925.
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I CERTAINLY regard Islam as one of the in1*
spired religions, and therefore the Holy Quarn as an
inspired book and Muhammad as one of the prophets.
But even so I regard Hinduism, Christianity, Zoroastrinism
as inspired religions. The names of many of them have
been already forgotten, for the simple reason that those
religions and those prophets related to the particular
ages for which and peoples for whom they flourished.
Some principal religions are still extant. After a study
of those religious to the extent it was possible for me,
I have come to the conclusion that, if it is proper and
necessary to discover an underlying unity among all
religions, a master-key is needed. That master-key is
that of truth and non-violence. When I unlock the
chest of a religion with this master-key, I do not find
it difficult to discover its likeness with other religions. When
you look at these religions as so many leaves of a tree
they seem so different, but at the trunk they are one.
Unless and untill we realize this fundamental unity,
332 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
wars in the name of religion will not cease. These are
not confined to Hindus and Mussalmans alone. The
pages of world history are soiled with the bloody accounts
of these religious wars. Religion can be defended only
by the purity of its adherents and their good deeds,
never by their quarrels with those of other faiths.
— Harijanijuly 13, 1940.
Institutions
IT is not that I harbour disloyalty towards anything
whatsoever, but I do so against all untruth, all that
is unjust, all that is evil. This I want to make clear
as I do not want to sail under false colours. I remain
loyal to an institution so long as that institution conduces
to my growth, to the growth of the nation. Immediately
I find t|j3t the institution instead of conducing to its
growth impedes it, I hold it to be my bounden duty
4o be disloyal to it. — Young India : Aug. 13, 1925.
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ALL public institutions are public trust and, those
who are in charge of them have often times to harden
their hearts and rigorously collect all debts owing to the
trust and their charge. Leniency in the management
of public trust is a misplaced virtue and may often
amount to an unpardonable breach.
—Young India : Oct. 8, 1925.
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BUT as I have so often pointed out laws are
made by institutions for self preservation not for suicide.
When therefore, they hamper their growth they are worse
than useless, and must be set aside.
— Young India : Oct. 8, 1925.
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EVERYONE joining an institution owes it to obey
the rules framed by the management from time to
time. When any new rule is found irksome, it is open
JAILS 333
to the objector to leave the institution in accordance
with the provisions made for resignation. But he
may not disobey them whilst he is in.
—Harijan : July 13, 1940.
Jails
JAILS are no gate- way to liberty for the confirmed
criminal. They are temples of liberty only for those
who are innocence personified. The execution of Socrates
made immortality a living reality for us, not so the
execution of countless murderers. There is no warrant
for supposing that we can steal Swaraj by the imprison-
ment of thousands of nominally non-violent men with
hatred, ill-will and violence raging in their breasts.
— Young India : Mar. 2, 1922.
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IT is now therefore clear that a civil resister's.
resistance ceases and his obedience is resumed as soon
as he is under confinement. In confinement he
claims no privileges because of the civility of his dis-
obedience. Inside the jail by his evemplary conduct he
reforms even the criminals surrounding him, he softens
the hearts of jailers and others in authority. Such meek
behaviour springing from stength and knowledge ulti^
mately dissolves the tyranny of the tyrant. It is for
this reason that I claim that voluntary suffering is the
quickest and the best remedy for the removal of abuses
and injustices. — Young India : Dec. 29, 1921,
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GAOL discipline must be submitted to, until gaol
government itself becomes or is felt to be corrupt
and immoral. But deprivation of comfort, imposition of
restriction and such other inconveniences do not make
gaol government corrupt. It becomes that, when prisoners
are humiliated or treated with inhumanity as when they
334 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
are kept in filthy dens or are given food unfit for
human consumption. Indeed, I hope that the conduct
of Non-co-operators in the goal will be strictly correct,
dignified and yet submissive. We must not regard
gaolers and warders as our enemies, but as fellow human
beings, not utterly devoid of the human touch Our
gentlemanly behaviour is bound to disarm all suspicion
or bitterness. I know that this path of discipline, on
the one hand, and fierce defiance, on the other, is a
very difficult path, but there is no royal road to Swaraj.
The country has deliberately chosen the narrow and
the straight path. Like a straight line, it is the short-
est distance. But even as you require a steady and
experienced hand to draw a straight line, so are steadi-
ness of discipline and firmness of purpose absolutely
necessary, if we are to walk along the chosen path
with an unerring step. — Young India : Dec. 15, 1921.
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MERE fillings of the jails would not bring India
freedom. Even thieves and criminals go to prison,
but their prison going has no merit. It is the suffer-
ing of the pure arid innocent that tells. It is only
when the authorities are compelled to put into prison
the poorest and the Inost innocent citizens that a change
of heart is forced ^ upon them. A Satyagrahi gce> to
prison, not to embarras the authorities but to convert
them by demonstrating to them his innocence. You
should realize that unless you have developed the moral
fitness to go to prison which the law of Satyagraha de-
mands, your jail going will be useless and will bring
you nothing but disappointment in the end. A votary
of non-violence must have the capacity to put up with
the indignities and hardships of prison life not only
without retaliation or anger but with pity in his heart
for the perpetrator of those hardships and indignities.
JESUS CHRIST 335
PRISONERS must be treated as defectives and not as
criminals to be looked down upon. Warders should cease
to be the terrors of prisoners, and the jail officials should
be their friends and instructors. — Harijan: July 31, 1937.
Jesus Christ
Q. I SHOULD be obliged to hear from you your
attitude to the personality of Jesus.
A. I have often made it clear. 1 regard Jesus as a
great teacher of humanity, but I do not regard him
as the only begotten son of God. That epithet in its
material interpretation is quite unacceptable. Metaphori-
cally we are all begotten sons of God, but for each of
us there may be different begotten sons of God in a
special sense. Thus for me Ghaitanya may be the only
begotten son of God.
Q,. But don't you believe in the perfection of human
nature, and don?t you believe that Jesus had attained
perfection ?
A. I believe in the perfectibility of human nature.
Jesus came as near to perfection as possible To say
that he was perfect is to deny God's superiority to man.
And then in this matter I have a 'theory of my own.
Being necessarily limited by the bonds of flesh, we can
attain perfection only after dissolution of the body.
Therefore -God alone is absolutely perfect. When he
descends to earth, He of His own accord limits himself.
Jesus died on the Gross because he was limited by the
flesh. I do not need either the prophecies or the mira-
cles to establish Jesus' greatness as a teacher. No hing
can be more miraculous than the three years of his
ministry. There is no miracle in the story of the
multitude being fed on a handful of loaves. A magi-
cian can create that illusion. But woe wroth the day
on which a magician would be hailed as the Saviour
336 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of humanity. As for Jesus raising the dead to life,
well I doubt if the men he raised were really dead.
I raised a relative's child from supposed death to life,
but that was because the child was not dead, and
but for my presence there she might have been cremated.
But I saw that life was not extinct. I gave her an
enema and she was restored to life. There was no
miracle about it, I do not deny that Jesus had certain
psychic powers and he was undoubtedly filled with the love
of humanity. But he brought to life not people who were
dead but who were believed to be dead. The laws of nature
are changeless, unchangeable, and there are no miracles in
the sense of infringement or interruption of Nature's
laws. But we limited beings fancy all kinds of things
and impute our limitations to God. We may copy God,
but not He us. We may not divide Time for Him.
Time for Him is eternity. For us there is past, present
and future. And what is human life of a hundred
years but less than a mere speek in the eternity of
Time ? —Harijan : April 17, 1937.
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I say in one sentence that for many years I have
regarded Jesus of Nazareth as one amongst the mighty
teachers that the word has had, and I say this in all
humility. I claim humility for this expression for the
simple reason that this is exactly what I feel. Of course,
Christians claim a higher place for Jesus of Nazareth
than as a non-Christian and as a Hindu I have been
able to feel. I purposely use the word 'feel' instead
of give, because I consider that neither I, nor anybody
else can possibly arrogate to himself the claim of giving
place to a great man. The great teachers of mankid have
had the places not given to them, but the place has
belonged to them as a matter of right, a matter of
seivice that they have rendered; but it is given to the
lowest and humblest amongst us to feel certain
things ahead certain people.
JEWELLERY 337
The relation between great teachers and ourselves
is somewhat after the style of relation between a husband
and wife. It would be a most terrible thing, a tragic
thing, if I was to argue out intellectually for myself
what place I was to give to my wife in my heart.
It is not in my giving, but she takes the place that
belongs to her as a matter of right in my heart. It is
a matter purely for feeling. Then, I can say that Jesus
occupies in my heart the place of one of the great
teachers who have made a considerable influence on my
life. — Gandhiji in Ceylon : Page 146.
Jewellery
I WILL far rather sec the race of man extinct than
that we should become less than beasts by making the
noblest of God's creation the object of our lust.
—Young India July 21, 1921.
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SURELY, it is easy enough to realise that so long as
there are millions of men and women in the country starving
for want of food because of want of work, the sisters have no
warrant for possessing costly jewels for adorning their bodies,
or often for the mere satisfaction of possessing them.
— Young India : April 5, 1928.
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IN this country of semi-starvation and insufficient
nutrition of practically eight per cent, of the people, the
wearing of jewellery is an offence to the eye.
-Harijan: Dec. 22, 1933.
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The real ornament of woman is her character, her
purity. Metal and stones can never be real ornaments.
The names of women like Sita and Damyanti have become
sacred to us lor their unsullied virtue, never for their
jewellery, if they wore any, — Harijan : June 12, 1934.
338 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Journalism
IN the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized
that the sole aim of Journalism should be service. The
newspaper press, is a great power, but just as an unchained
torrent of water submerges whole country-sides and devas-
tates crops, even so an uncontrolled \ en serves but to destroy.
If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than
want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised
from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many
of the journals in the world would stand the test? But who
would stop those that are useless ? And who should be the
judge ? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil
generally, go on together, and man must make his choice.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 349.
Trial by Juries
I AM unconvinced of the advantages of jury trials over
those by judges. Incoming to a correct decision, we must not
be obsessed by our unfortunate experience of the judiciary
here, which in political trials has been found to be notori-
ously partial to the Government. At the right moment
juries have been found to fail even in England. When
passions are roused, juries are affected by them and give
perverse verdicts. Nor need we a.ssume that they are always
on the side of leniency. I have known juries finding prisoners
guilty in the face of evidence and even judge's summing up
to the contiary. We must not slavishly copy all that is
English. In matters where absolute impartiality, calmness
and ability to sift evidence and understand human nature
are required, we may not replace trained judges by un-
trained men bought together by chance. What we must
aim at is an inconuptible, impartial and able judiciary right
from the bottom. I regard village panchayats as an in-
stitution by itself. Hut thanks to the degradation of the
caste system and the evil influence of the present system
JUSTICE 339
of Government and the growing illiteracy of the
masses this ancient and noble institution has fallen into
desuetude, and where it has not, it has lost its former purity
and hold. It must, however, be revived at any cost, if the
villages arc not to be ruined. —Young India : Aug. 27, 193U
Justice
ALL the world over a true peace depends not upon
gun-powder but upon pure justice. When Government
perpetrate injustice and fortify it by the use of arms,
such acts are a sign of anger and they add injustice
to injustice. If people also become angry by reason
of such acts on the part of Government, they resort to
violence and the result is bad for both, mutual ill-will
increases. But whenever people regard particular acts
of Government as unjust and express their strong dis-
approval by self-suffering, Government cannot help grant-
ing redress. This is the way of Saiyagraha*
— Young India : May 9, 1919,
^S ^S ^S
JUSTICE as between Europeans and Indians is a
rare commodity. —Young India : August 14, 1924.
I HAVE said enough in these columns to show
that justice is practically unobtainable in the so-called
courts of justice in India. — Young Ind a Sept. 19, 1929 •
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TODAY it is the luxury of the rich and the joy
of the gambler. —Harijin : Aug. 21, 1937.
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MY experience has shown me that we win justice
quickest by rendering justice tu the other party.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 225.
340 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
K
Law of Karma
Q. IF you believe in the Law of Karma then your
killing of the calf was a vain attempt to interfere with
the operation of that law.
I firmly believe in the law of Karma, but I believe
too in human endeavour. I regard as the summnm
bonum of life the attainment of salvation through Karma
by annihilating its effects by detachment. If it is a
violation of the Law of Karma to cut short the agony
of an ailing animal by putting an end to its life, it
is no less so to minister to the sick or try to nurse
them back to life. And yet if a man were to refuse
to give medicine to a patient or to nurse him on the
ground of Karma, we would hold him to be guilty of
inhumanity and himsa. Without therefore entering into
a discussion about the eternal controversy regarding pre-
destination and free-will, I will simply say here that I
deem it to be the highest duty of man to render what
(litile service he can). (The calf was poisoned at the instruc-
tion of Gandhiji when it was in agony and could not be
saved from suffering.) - Young India: Oct. 18, 1928
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Now to come to the question of renunciation versu*
action : I believe in the doctrine of renunciation bul
I hold that renunciation should be sought for in and
through action. That action is the sine qua non of life
in the body, that the Wheel of Life cannot go on ever
for a second without involing some sort of action goe*
without saying Renunciation can therefore in these
circumstances only mean detachment or freedom of th<
spirit from action, even while fhe body is engaged ir
action. A follower of the path of renunciation seeks to attair
it not by refraining from all activity but by carrying i
LAW OF KARMA 341
on in a perfect spirit of detachment and altruism as
a pure trust. Thus a man may engage in farming,
spinning, or any other activity without departing from
the path of renunciation provided one does so merely
for selfless service and remains free from the taint of
egoism or attachment. It remains for those therefore
who like myself hold this view of renunciation to dis-
cover for themselves how far the principle of ahimsa is
compatible with life in the body and how it can be
applied to acts of every day life. The very virtue of a
dharma is that it is universal, that its practice is not the
monopoly of the few, but must be the privilege of all.
And it is my firm belief that the scope of Truth and
Ahimsa is world-wide. That is why I find an ineffable
joy in dedicating my life to researches in Truth and
Ahimsa and I invite others to share it with me by do-
ing like-wise. —Young India : Oct. 25, 1928.
I AM a believer in previous births and rebirths.
All our relationships arc the result of the umkars we
carry from our previous births. God's laws are inscrut-
able and are the subject of endless search. No one
will fathom them, —Harijan : Aug. 18, 1940.
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SO many things have happened in my life for
which I had intense longing, but which I could never
have achieved myself. And I have always said to my
co-workers that it was in answer to my prayer. I did
not say to them it was in answer to my intellectual effort
to lose myself in the Divinity in me ! The easiest and
the correct thing for me was to say " God has seen
me through my difficulty/'
"But that you deserved by your Karma. God is
Justice and not Mercy. You are a good man and
good things happen to you,11 contended Dr. Fabri.
342 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
No fear. I am not good enough for things to happen
like that. If I went about with that philosophical
conception of Karma, I should often come a cropper.
My Karma wculd not come to my help. Although I
believe in the inexorable Law of Karma I am striving
to do so many things, every moment of my lif is a
strenuous endeavour, which is an attempt to build
up more Karma> to undo the past and add to the present.
It is, therefore, wrong to say that because my past is
good, good is, happening at present. The past would
be soon exhausted and I have to build up the future
with prayer. I tell you Karma alone is powerless.
ifc!gnite this match," I say to myself, and yet I cannot
if there is no co-operation from without. Before I strike
the match my hand is paralysed or 1 have only one
match and the wind blows it out. Is it an accident
or God or Higher power ? Well 1 prefer to use the
language of my ancestors or of children. I am no
better than a child. We may try to talk learnedly and
of books, but when it comes to brass tacks — when we
are face to face with a calamity — we behave like children
and begin to cry and pray and our intellectual belief
gives no satisfaction ! — Harijan : Aug. 19, 1939,
Kisan Sabhas
MY opinion is clear-out, having worked among
the kisans and labourers all my life. There is nothing
constitutionally wrong in the Congress allowing the Kisan
Sabbas to work independently nor in allowing the
office-bearers of the Kisan Sabhas to be office-bearers
of the Congress, for they will come in the usual way.
But my study of separate kisan organizations has led
me definitely to the Conclusion that they are not work-
ing for the interests of the kisans but are organized only
with a view to capturing the Congress organization.
They can do even this by leading the kisans along
KHADDAR 343
the right channels, but I am afraid they are mislead-
ing them. If the kisans and their leaders will capture
the Congress by doing nothing but authorised Congress
work, there is no harm. But if they do so by making
false registers, storming meetings and so on, it would
be something like Fascism.
"But the main question is whether you want the
Kisan Sabhas to strengthen the Congress or to weaken
it, to use the kisan organization to capture the Congress
or to serve the kisans, whether the Sabha is to be a
rival organization working apparently in the name of
the Congress or one carrying out the Congress programme
and policy. If it is really a rival organization and
Congress organization only in name, its strength and energy
will be utilized in resisting the Congress and those
of the Congress will be utilized in resisting the Kisan
Sabha, with the result that the poor kisans will be
ground between the two mill-stones.
—Harijan : April 23, 1938.
Khaddar
SO long as the taste persists, so long is complete renun-
ciation impossible. And boycott means complete renuncia-
tion. We must be prepared to be satisfied with such cloth
as India can produce, even as we are thankfully content with
such children as God gives us. I have not known a mother
throwing away her baby even though it may appear ugly
to an outsider. So should it be with the patriotic women
of India about Indian manufactures.
— Young India : July 6, 1921.
<§><$><$>
Q. WHY do you emphasise Khaddar and not Swadeshi ?
Is not Swadeshi the principle and Khaddar a mere detail?
A. I do not regard Khaddar to be a detail. Swadeshi is a
theoretical term. Khaddar is the concrete and central fact
344 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of Swadeshi. Swadeshi without Khaddar is like the body
without life, fit only to receive a decent burial or cremation.
The only Swadeshi cloth is Khaddar. If one is to interpret
Swadeshi in the language of and in terms of the millions of
this country, Khaddar is a substantial thing in Swadeshi
like the air we breathe. The test of Swadeshi is not the univ-
ersality of the use of an article which goes under the name
of Swadeshi, but the universality of participation in the pro-
duction or manufacture of such article. Thus considered
mill-made cloth is Swadeshi only in a restricted sense. For,
in its manufacture only an infinitesimal number of India's
millions can take part. But in the manufacture of Khaddar
millions can take part. The more the merrier. With
Khaddar, in my opinion, is bound up the welfare of millions
of human beings. Khaddar is therefore the largest part of
Swadeshi and it is the only true demonstration of it. All else
follows from it. India can live, even if we do not use brass
buttons or tooth picks made in India. But India cannot
live if we refuse to manufacture and wear Khaddar. Khaddar
will cease to have this paramount importance when a more
profitable employment is discovered for the idle hours of
India's millions.
Q. Good Khaddar is costly and the ordinary variety is
ugly.
A. I deny that any Khaddar is ugly. Want of the dead-
sameness of a machine-made article is not a sign of ugliness*
but, it is a sign of life, even as absence of sameness in the
millions of leaves of a tree is no sign of its ugliness. As a
matter of fact, it is the variety about the leaves which gives
a tree its life-like beauty. I can picture a machine-made
tree whose every leaf would be absolutely the same size. It
would look a ghastly thing, because we have not yet ceased
to love the living tree. And, why should the cost of
Khaddar, good or bad, worry us if every penny we pay for
it goes directly into the pockets of the starving millions ?
My experience is that in the majoiity of cases where people
LANGUAGE 345
have taken to Khaddar they have revised their tastes a bout
dress. Though Khaddar may be dearer per yard than
the same quality of Manchester calico, the rejection of
superfluous clothing more than balances the extra cost.
—Young India : June 17, 1926.
<J> <$> <S>
Khaddar delivers the poor from the bonds of the rich
and creates a moral and spiritual bond between the classes
and the masses. It restores to the poor somewhat of what
the rich have taken from them.
—Young India : March 17, 1927.
<£> <*> <$>
KHADDAR economics is wholly different from the
ordinary. The latter takes no note of the human factor*
The former wholly concerns itself with the human. The
latter is frankly selfish, the former necessarily unselfish.
Competition and therefore prices are eliminated from the
conception of Khaddar. There is no competition between
hotels and domestic kitchens. It never enters into the head
of the queen of the house to calculate the cost of her labour,
the floor space, etc. She simply knows that to conduct the
domestic kitchen is as much her duty as it is to bring up •
children. If she were to count the cost, the logic of facts
will irresistibly drive her to the destruction of her kitchen as
well as her children. Some have done both. But thank
God the cult makes no promise of appreciable increase. It
is our innate laziness which prevents us from seeing that we
sinned against Indian humanity when we destroyed the
domestic wheel. Let us repent of our sin and return to the
peace-giving wheel. — Young India : July 16, 1931.,
Language
IN one respect all languages are incomplete. Man's
reason is limited and language fails him when he begins to
346 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
talk of God and Eternity. Human reason controls human
speech. It is, therefore, limited, to the extent that reason
itself is limited, and in that sense all languages are incom-
plete. The ordinary rule regarding language is that a
language takes shape in accordance with the thoughts of its
wielders. If they are sensible, their language is full of sense,
and it becomes nonsense when foolish people speak it.
There is an English proverb, "A bad carpenter quarrels with
his tools." Those who quarrel with a language are often
like the bad carpenter. — Young India : Oct. 20, 1917.
<s> <s> <s>
A LANGUAGE that borrows unstintingly from the
others without harming its special characteristic will be
enriched, even as the English language has become enriched
by free borrowing. — Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
<3> <$> <3>
A LANGUAGE becomes what its speakers and writers
make it. English had no merit apart from what Englishmen
made it. In other words, a language is a human creation
and takes the colour of its creators. Every language is
capable of infinite expansion. — Harijan : Feb. 8, 1942.
<*><£><£
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. I refuse to
live in other people's houses as an interloper, a beggar or a
.slave. — Young India :June 1, 1921.
^o ^^ ^o
THERE never was a greater superstition than that a
particular language can be incapable of expansion or
of expressing abstruse or scientific ideas. A language is an
exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.
—Young India : June 5, 1928-
LAW 347
MAN is neither mere intellect, nor the gross animal
body, nor the heart or soul alone. A proper and harmo-
nious combination of all the three is required for the making
of the whole man and constitutes the true economics
and education.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 213.
Law
JUSTICE that love gives is a surrender, Justice that
law gives is a punishment. — Toung India : Jan, 9, 1925.
PEOPLE seem to think, that when a law is passed
against any evil, it will die without any further effort.
Tliere never was a grosser self-deception. Legislation is
intended and is effective against an ignorant or a small
evil-minded minority ; but 110 legislation which is opposed
by an intelligent and organised public opinion, or under
cover of religion by a fanatical minority, can ever succeed.
—Young India : July 7, 1927.
<$><$><$>
ONCE a law is enacted, many difficulties must be en-
countered before it can be reversed. It is only when public
opinion is highly educated that the laws in force in a country
can be repealed. A constitution under which laws are
modified or repealed every now and then cannot be said
to be stable or well organised.
—Satyagraka in South Africa : Page 140.
Lawyers
IN England, in South Africa, almost everywhere I
feave found that in the practice of their profession, lawyers
are consciously or unconsciously led into untruth for the
sake of their clients. An eminent English lawyer has gone
€0 far as to say that it may even be the duty of a lawyer
348 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
to defend a client whom he knows to be guilty. Th ere I
disagree. The duty of a lawyer is always to place before
the judges and to help them to arrive at the truth, never
to prove the guilty as innocent.
—Gandhiji in Ceylon : Page 85.
o> <s> <s>
A TRUE lawyer is one who places truth and service in
the first place and the emoluments of the profession in the
next place only. —Harijan : Nov. 26, 1938.
Law Courts
TRULY speaking I am in no love with fighting in law
courts. Victory there does not depend on the truth of
your case. Any experienced vakil will bear me out that it
depends more on the judge, the counsel, and the venue of
the court. In English there is a proverb that it is always
the man with the longest purse that wins. And there is
a good deal of truth in this, as there is exaggeration in it.
—Young India : June 17, 1919.
<$><$><$>
I HAVE not a shadow of doubt that society will be
much cleaner and healthier if there was less resort to law
courts than there is. The rush after the best council is
undignified.
If one has committed an offence, he must plead
guilty arid suffer the penalty. If he has not and is still
found guilty, imprisonment for him is no disgrace.
—Young India : Dec. 3, 1919.
<$> <s> <§>
IF we were not under the spell of lawyers and law
courts and if there were no touts to tempt us into the
quagmire of the courts and to appeal to our basest passions,
we would be leading a much happier life than we do today.
Let those who frequent the law-courtsr— the best of them-
LAW COURTS 349
bear witness to the fact that the atmosphere about them is
foetid. Perjured witnesses are ranged on either side, ready
to sell their very souls for money or for friendship's sake.
But that is not the worst of these courts. The worst is
that they support the authority of a government. They
are supposed to dispense justice and are therefore called the
palladile of a nation's liberty. But when they support the
authority of an unrighteous Government, they are no
longer palladile of liberty, they are crushing houses to crush
a nation's spirit. Such were the martial law tribunals and
the summary courts in the Punjab. We had them in their
nakedness. Such they are even in normal time when it is
a matter of dispensing justice between a superior race and
its helots. This is so all the world over Look at the trial
of an English officer and the f.ircical punishment he received
for having deliberately tortured inoffensive negroes at
Nairobi. Has a single Englishman suffered the extreme
penalty of the law or anything like it for brutal murders in
India ? Let no one suppose that these things would be
• changed when Indian judges and Indian prosecutors take
the place of Englishmen. Englishmen are not by nature
corrupt. Indians are not necessarily angels. Both succumb
to their environment. There were Indian judges and
Indian prosecutors during the martial law regime, who
were generally guilty or just as bad as the Englishmen.
Those, who tortured the innocent women in Amritsar, were
Indians, if it was a Bosworth Smith in Manianwala who
insulted its women.
—Young India : Oct. 6, 1920,
<$> <$» <3>
If we will cease to be slaves we must cease to rely for
protection upon the British bayonet or the slippery justice
of law courts. — Toung India : April 2, 1925.
L eaders
COURAGE, tendurance, fearlessness and above all self-
acrifice are the qualities required of our leaders. A
350 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
person belonging to the suppressed classes exhibiting these
qualities in their fulness would certainly be able to
lead the nation; whereas the most finished orator, if he
has not these qualities, must fail.
—Young India : Sept. 29, 1921.
<$> <s> <s>
ALL cannot become leaders, but all can be bearers.
— Young India : Sept. 29, 1921.
<£ <S> <$>
IN well ordered organisations leaders are elected
for convenience of work, not for extra ordinary merit.
A leader is only first among equals. Some one may
be put first, but he is and should be no stronger than
the weakest link in the chain.
— Young India : Dec 8, 1921.
^> ^^ ^^
A LEADER is useless when he acts against the
promptings of his own conscience. Harijan : Dec. 12, 1937.
Liberty
WHERE a choice has to be made between liberty
and learning, who will not say trut the former has to
be preferred a thousand times to the latter.
The youths whom -I called in 1920 from cidatels.
of slavery — their schools and colleges — and whom I advised
that it was far better to remain unlettered and break
stones for the sake of liberty than to go in for a
literary education in the chains of slaves will probably
be able now to trace my advice to its source
— My Expcrimmts with Truth : Page 248*
4 <$><$>
Death in the fight is a deliverencc, and prison, a
gateway to liberty.
Religious freedom, like liberty, becomes licence when
it is indulged in at the expense of the health and salety
of others, or in contravention of the principles of decency
LOVE 351
or moral ity. If you want to claim unrestricted and
absolute liberty for yourselves, you must choose to retire
from society and take to solitude.
—Harijan : Feb. 18, 1939.
Life
TO enjoy life one should give up the lure of life:
—Harijan : March 1, 194%
<*><$><$>
TO deprive a man of his natural liberty and to
deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse than
starving the body. It is starvation of the soul — the dweller
in the body. Harijans are a powerful illustration of this
process of starvation of the soul.
—Harijan : Oct. 26, 1934;
Love
WHERE love is, there God is also.
— Saiyagraha in South Africa : Page 360
<£> <S> <£
WHAT barrier is there that love cannot break ?
—My Experiments with Truth : Page 222;
<+><*><?>
THE only way love punishes is by suffering.
—Young India : Feb. 16, 1922,
<*><?><$>
AFFECTION cannot be manufactured or regulated
by law. If one has no affection for a person or system
one should be free to give the fullest expression to his
disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote
or incite violence. —Young India : Mar. 15, 1922.
<$> 3> <$>
IT is perfectly true, I must admit it in all humility,
that however indifferently it may be, I endeavour to
represent love in every fibre of my being. I am impatient
352 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
to realise the presence of my Maker, who to me embodies
truth, and in the early part of my career I discovered
that if I was to realise Truth I must obey, even at
the cost of my life, the Law of Love.
—Young India: Nov. 16, 1931.
<$> <£> <$>
HATRED ever kills. Love never dies. Such is the
vast diffierence between the two. What is obtained by
love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred
proves a burden in reality, for it increases hatred.
— Toung India : May 10, 1919.
<£ <$> <$>
IT may be long before the law of love will be
recognized in international affairs. The machineries of
governments stand between and hide the hearts of one
people from those of another.
— Toung India : June 23, 1919.
<*><$> <$>
THE test of love is tapasya and tapasya means
self- suffering. — Toung India : June 12, 1922.
<S> <$» <£
WITHOUT truth there is no love, without truth
it may be affection, as for one's country to the injury
of others; or infatuation, as of a young man for a girl*
or love may be unreasoning and blind, as of ingnorant
parents for their children. Love transcends all animality
.and is never patrial.
True love is boundless like the ocean and rising
and swelling within one spreads itself out and crossing all
boundaries and frontiers envelops the whole world.
— Toung India : Sept. 20, 1928.
<$><$><$>
LOVE never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers,
•never resents, never revenges itself.
— Toung India: July 9, 1925.
LOVE 353
TO surrender is not to confer favour. Justice that
love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a
punishment. What a lover gives transcends justice. And
yet it is always less than he wishes to give because he
is anxious to give more and frets that he has nothing
left. —Young Mia : July 9, 1925.
<$><$><$>
HAVING flung aside the sword, there is nothing
except the cup of love which I can offer to those who
oppose me. It is by offering that cup that I accept
to draw them close to me. I cannot think of permanent
enmity between man and man, and believing as I do
in the theory of rebirth, I live in the hope that if not
in this birth, in some other birth, I shall be able to
hug all humanity in friendly embrace.
—Young India : April 2, 1931.
I AM quite conscious of the fact that blind surrender
to love is often more mischievous than a forced surrender
to the lash of the tyrant. There is hope for the slave
of the brute, none for that of love. Love is needed to
strengthen the weak, love becomes tyrannical when it
exacts obediene from an unbeliever.
--Young India : Oct. 13, 1921.
<$><$><$>
A LOVE that is based on the goodness of those
whom you love is a mercenary affair, whereas, true
love is self-suffering and demands no consideration. It
is like that a model Hindu wife, Sita for instance, who
loved her Rama even whilst he bid her pass through a
raging fire. It was well with Sita, for she new what
she was doing. She sacrificed herself out of her strength,
not out of her weakness. Love is the strongest force
the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imagin-
able. —Young India : Aug. 20, 1925.
354 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
TRUTH quenches untruth. Love quenches anger,
scli- suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a
rule not for saints only but for all.
—Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
<$><$> <S>
IT is my firm belief that it is love that sustains
the earth. There only is life where there is love. Life
without love is death. Love is the reverse of the coin
of which the obverse is Truth.
It is my firm faith and it is my experience of
forty years that \ve can conquer the world by truth
and love.
The root of Non-co-operation is in Satyagraha, which
is love. The Law of Love, call it attraction, affinity,
cohesion, if you like, governs the world. Life persists
in the face of death. The universe continues in spite
of destruction incessantly going on. Truth triumphs over
untruth* Love conquers hate. God eternally triumphs
over Satan. —Young India : Oct. 23, 1924.
<S> <£ <$>
THE more efficient a force is, the more silent and
the more subtle ii -is. Love is the subtlest force in the
world. —Young India : Oct. 4, 1924.
M
Mahatmaship
MY Mahatmaship is worthless. It is due to my out-
ward activities, due to my politics which is the least part of
me and is theicfore evanescent. What is of abiding worth
is my insistence on tiuth, non-violence and Brahmacharya
which is the real part of me. That permanent part of me,
however, small is riot to be despised. It is my all. 1
prize even the failuies and disillusionmcnts which are but
steps towards success. —Young India : Dec. 2, 1921.
MAHATMASHIP 355
THE Mahatma I must leave to his fate. Though a
non-co-operater I shall gladly subscribe to a bill to make it
criminal for anybody to call me Mahatma and to touch ray
feet. Where I can impose the law myself, i.e., at the
Ashram^ the practice is criminal.
— Toting India : March 17, 1927.
<$> <s> <s>
THANK God my much vaunted Mahatmaship has
never fooled me. — Toung India : Jan. 12, 1930.
<$><•><$>
Q. Are you really a Mahatma ?
A. I do not feel like being one. But I do know that
I am among the humblest of God's creatures.
Q. If so, will you define the word Mahatma ?
A. Not being acquainted with one I cannot give any
definition.
Q. If not, did you ever tell your followers that you
aie not one ?
A. The more I repudiate, the more it is used.
- — Toung India : Oct. 27, 1931.
Man
I HAVE found by experience that man makes his plans
to be often upset by God, but, at the same time where the
ultimate goal is .the search of Truth, no matter how a man's
plans aie frustrated the issue is never injurious and often
better than anticipated.
— My Exf,erimtnts with Truth : Page 37J?.
<3> <S> <£
ALL men are imperfect, and when imperfection is
observed in some one in a larger measure than in others,
people are apt to blame him. But that is not feir. Man
can change his temperament, can control it, but cannot
eradicate it. God has not given him so much liberty. If
the leopard can change his spots then only can man modify
the peculiarities of his spiritual constitution.
— Satjagrah in South Africa : Page 212.
356 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
MAN is a fallible being. He can never be sure of his
steps. —Young India : Sept. 25. 1924.
<s> <*> <$>
PROGRESS is man's distinction, man's alone, not
beasts. Man has dicrimination and reason. Man does
not live by bread alone, as the brute does. He uses his
reason to worship God and to know Him, and regards the
attainment of that knowledge as the sumnun bonum of life.
The brute, if he can be said to worship God, does so in-
voluntarily. The desire to worship God is inconceivable
in the brute, while man can voluntarily worship even Satan.
It must therefore, be and is, man's nature to know and find
God. When he worships Satan, he acts contrary to his
nature. Of course, I will not carry conviction to one who
makes no distinction between man and the brute. To him
virtue and vice are convertible terms. While to the man
whose end and aim is realisation of God, even the functions
of eating and drinking can be natural only within certain
limits. For having knowledge of God as his end, he will
not eat or drink for the sake of enjoyment, but solely for
sustaining the body. Restraint and renunciation will
therefore always be his watch-words even in respect of these
functions.
And if it is man's nature to know and find God,
sexual indulgence should be contrary to his nature, and
complete renunciation of it will accord best with his mission.
For realisation of God is impossible without complete re-
nunciation of the sexual desire. It is not man's duty to
develop all his faculties to perfection ; his duty is to develop
all bis God-ward faculties to perfection and to suppress
completely those of contrary tendencies.
— Young Mia : June 26, 1926^
«> <*> 3>
MAN has reason, discrimination, and free-will such as
it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent,
MAN 357
and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and
evil. Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions,
and when he follows his higher nature shows himself far
superior to the brute, but when he follows his baser nature
can show himself lower than the brute.
—Young India : Jume 3, 1926.
<$><$><*>
MAN is not all body but he is something infinitely
higher. — Young India : April 14, 1927
<3> <£> <S>
OF all the animal creation of God, man is the only
animal who has been created in order that he may kn«w his
maker. Man's aim in life is not therefore to add from day to
to day his material prospects and to his material possessions
but his predominant calling is from day to clay to come
nearer his own Maker. — Young India : Oct. 20 1927
<$><$><*>
Q. IS man a special creation of God ?
A. Man is a special creation of God precisely to the
extent that he is distinct from the rest of His creation
— Young India : Fcb 13, '!930
<$><$><$>
MAN is, undoubtedly, an artist and create Un
doubtedly he must have beauty and, therefore, colour H
artistic and creative nature at its best taught him tn !?*
criminate, and to know that any conglomeration of
was no mark of beauty, nor every sense of enim,™
in iueir. His eye for it taught nln ££"%
usefulness Thus, he learnt at an early stage of h,™ ell "
tion that he was to eat not for its own sake as som, r
still do, but he should eat to enable him ^ Z A,™
later stage he learnt further that there was neither' heL^
norjoym living for its own sake, but that be must j£? 2
serve his fellow creatures and through the« his Maker
—Harijan : April 4, 'l936.
358 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
MAN'S estate is one of probation. During that period
he is played upon by evil forces, as well as good. He is
ever prey to temptations. He has to prove his manliness
by resisting and fighting temptations. He is no warrior
who fights outside foes of his imagination, and is powerless
to lift his little finger against the innumerable foes within,
or what is worse, mistakes them for friends.
—Harijm : April 4, 1936.
<S> <J> <$>
TH E main purpose of life is to live rightly, think
rightly tact rightly : the soul must languish when we give
all our, hought to the body. —Haryan : Feb. 27, 1936.
<3> <S> <*>
IT is man's special privilege and pride to be gifted
with the faculties of head and heart both, that he is a think-
ing no less than a feeling animal as the very derivation of
the word shows ; and to renounce the sovereignty
of reason over the blind instincts is, therefore, to renounce
a man's estate. In man reason quickens and guides the
fetluig, in brute the soul lies ever dormant. To awaken
the heart is to awaken the dormant soul, to awaken reason,
and to inculcate discrimination between good and evil.
—Haryan : Nov. 21, 1936.
<$><$><*>
MAN'S destined purpose is to conquer old habits, to
over-come the evil in him and to restore good to its rightful
place. If religion does not teach us how to achieve this
conquest, it teaches us nothing. But there is no royal road
to success in this, the truest enterprise in life. Cowardice
is perhaps the greatest vice from which we suffer and is also
possibly the greatest violence, certainly far greater than
bloodshed and the like that generally go under the name
of violence. For it comes from want of faith in God and
ignorance of His attribute. —Harijan : Dec. 12, 1937.
Manliness
MANLINESS consists not in bluff, bravado or lordi-
ness. It consists in daring to do the right and facing
MANLINESS 359
consequences, whether it is in matters social, political or
other. It consists in deeds, not in words.
— Young India : Jan. 24, 1929.
MANLINESS consists in making circumstances sub-
serve to ourselves. These who will not heed themselves
perish. To understand this principle is not to be impa-
tient, not to reproach fate, not to blame others. He who
understands the doctrine of self-help blames himself for
failure. —Harijan : June 25, 1936.
Manners
AFTER all, manners and methods change with the
times. We must grow with our years. What was good
enough for our babyhood cannot be good enough for
manhood. —Young India : July 14, 1920.
Marriage
IN India, it must be held to be a crime to spend
money on dinner and marriage parties, tamashas and other
luxuries as long as millions of people are starving. We
would not have a feast in a family if a member was about
to die of starvation. If India is one family, we should
have the same feeling as we would have in a private family.
—Young India : Dec. 22, 1920.
<3> 3> <:>
THOSE who want to perform national service, or
those who want to have a glimpse of the real religious
life, must lead a celibate life, no matter if married or un-
married. Marriage but, brings a woman closer together
with the man, and they become friends in a special sense,
never to be parted either in this life or in the lives that are
to come. But I do not think that, in our conception of
marriage, our lusts should necessarily enter.
—Young India: Dec. 2, 1921.
Every girl, every Indian girl, is not born to marry. I
can show many girls who are to-day dedicating themselves
360 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
to service instead of serving one man. It is high time that
Hindu girls produce or reproduce an edition and, if
possible, a glorified edition of Parvati and Sita.
— Gandhiji in Ceylon : Page 146.
Q. ARE you against the institution of marriage ?
* I shall have to answer this question at some length,
said Bapu, ' The aim of human life is Moksha. As a Hindu,
I believe that Moksha is frcedem from birth, by breaking the
bonds of the flesh, by becoming one with God. Now
marriage is a kindrance in the attainment of this supreme
object, in as much as it only tightens the bonds of flesh.
Celibacy is a great help, inasmuch as it enables one to
lead a life of full surrender to God. What is the object
generally understood of marriage, except a repetition of
one's own kind ? And why need you advocate marriage ?
It propagates itself. It requires no agency to promote its
growth.'
* But must you advocate celibacy and preach it to one
and all ?'
4 Yes,' said Gandhiji. — Ramachandran looked pre-
plexed, — 'Then you fear there will be an end of creation ?'
4 No. The extreme logical result would be not extinction
of the human species, but the transference of it to a higher
plane.'
6 But may not an artist or a great genius leave a legacy
of his genius to posterity through his own children ?'
* Certainly net,' said Bapu, with emphasis, c He wil I
have more disciples than he can ever have children ; and
through those disciples all his gifts to the world will be hand-
ed down in a way that nothing else can do it. It will be
the soul's marriage with the sipirit : the progeny being the
disciple, — a sort of divine procreation. No. ! You must
leave marriage to take care of itseh. Repetition and not
MARRIAGE 36V
growth would be the result ; for lust has come to play the
most important part in marriage.'
'Mr. Andrews' said Ramachandran, ' docs not like
your emphasis on celibacy.'
' Yes, I know,' said Gandhiji, * that is the legacy of
Protestantism. Protestantism did many good things, but
one of its few evils was that it ridiculed celibacy.'
' That ' rejoined Ramachandran, * was becasue it had;
to fight the deep abuses in which the clergy of the age had
sunk.'
c But all that was not due to any inherent evil of celi-
bacy,' said Bapu, 'It is celibacy that has kept Catholicism
green up to the present day.7 (M. D.)
— Young India : Nov. 13, 1924*
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Married life would be intolerable, as it does become,
when one partner breaks through all bonds of restraint.
Marriage confirms the right of union between two partners
to the exclusion of all the others when in their joint opinion
they consider such union to be desirable but it confers no
right upon one partner to demand obedience of the other
to one's wish for union. What should be done when one
partner on moral or other grounds cannot conform to the
wishes of the other is a separate question. Personally, if
divorce was the only alternative I should not hesitate to
accept it, rather than interrupt my moral progress, — assum-
ing that I want to restrain myself on purely moral grounds.
—Young India : Oct. 8, 1925i
<^ <S> <3>
A correspondent, whom I know well, raises an issue
I take it, for purely academic interest because I know the
views he has set out are not his. * Is not our present day
morality unnatural ?> he asks. If it was natural it should
have been the same everywhere in all ages, but every race
and community seems to have its own peculiar marriage
362 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
laws and in enforcing them men have made themselves worse
than beasts. For diseases which are unknown amongst
animals are quite common amongst men ; infanticide,
abortions, child-marriages, which are impossible in the brute
creation, are the curse of the society that holds up marriage
as a sacrament, and no end of evil results have sprung
from what we uphold as laws of morality. And the miserable
condition of Hindu widows — what is it due to, but to the
existing marriage laws ? Why not go back to nature, and
take a leaf out of the book of the brute creation ?
I do not know whether the advocates of free love in
the West resort to the argument summarised above or
have any stronger reasons to put forth, but I am sure that
the tendency to regard the marriage-bond as barbarous is
distinctly Western. If the argument is also borrowed from
the West, there is no diffiulty about meeting it.
It is a mistake to institute a comparison between man
and the brute and it is this comparison that vititates the
whole argument. For man is higher than the brute in his
moral instincts and moral institutions. The law of nature
as applied to the one is different from the law of nature as
applied to the other. Man has reason, discrimination, and
free will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It
is not a free agent, and knows no distinction between virtue
and vice, good and evil. Man, being a free agent, knows
these distinctions, and when he follows his higher nature
shows himself far superior to the brute, but when he follows
his baser nature can show himself lower than the brute.
Even the races regarded as the most uncivilised on earth
accept some restriction on sexual relations. If it be said
that the restriction is itself barbarous, then freedom from
all restraints should be the law of man. If all men were to
act according to this lawless law, there would be perfect
chaos withra twenty four hours. Man being by nature
more passionate than the brute, the moment all restraint
is withdrawn, the lava of unbridled passion would over-
MARRIAGE 363
spread the whole earth and destroy mankind. Man is
superior to the brute inasmuch as he is capable of self-
restraint and sacrifice of which the brute is incapable.
Some of the diseases that are so common at the present
day are the result of infringement of marriage laws. I
should like to know a single instance of a man strictly
observing the restraint of the marriage bond having suffered
from the diseases the correspondent has in mind. Infanti-
cide, child-marriages and the like, are also the result of the
breach of marriage laws. For the law lays down that a
man or woman shall choose a mate only when he or she
bas come <rf age, is healthy, and capable of restraint, and
desires to have progeny. Those who strictly obey this law,
and regard the marriage bond as a sacrament, have never
in occasion to be unhappy or miserable. Where marriage
s a sacrament, the union is not the union of bodies but the
mion of souls indissoluble even by the death of either
party. Where there is a true union of souls, the re-
marriage of a widow or widower is unthinkable, improper
and wrong. Marriages, where the true law of marriage is
ignored, do not deserve the name. If we have very few
true ^ marriages now-a-days it is not the institution of
marriage that is to blame, but the prevailing form of it,
which should be reformed.
The correspondent contends that marriage is no mora'
>r religious bond but a custom, and a custom which i5*
>pposed to religion and morality and hence deserves to be
Abolished. I submit that marriage is a fence that protects
religion. If <the fence were to be destroyed religion would
?o to pieces. The foundation of religion is restraint and
marriage is nothing but restraint. The man who knows
no restraint has no hope of self-realisation. I confess it may
be difficult to prove the necessity of restraint to an atheist
or a materialist. But he who knows the perishable nature
of flesh from the imperishable nature of the spirit, instinc-
tively knows that self-realisation is impossible without self-
364 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
discipline and self-restraint. The body may either be a
play-ground of passion, or temple of self-realisation. If it
is the latter, there is no room there for libertinism. The
spirit needs must curb the flesh every moment.
Woman will be the apple of discord where the marriage
bond is loose, where there k no observance of the law of
restraint. If men were as unrestrained as the brutes they
would straightway take the road to destruction. I am
firmly of opinion that all the evils that the correspondent
complains of can be eradicated not by abolishing marriage
but by a systematic understanding and observance of the
law of marriage.
I agree that whereas amongst some communities-
marriage is permitted amongst very near relations, it is
prohibited among other communities, that whereas some
communities forbid polygamy some permit it. Whilst one
would wish that there was a uniform moral law accepted
by all communities, the diversity does not point to the
necessity of abolishing all restraint. As we grow wise in
experience our morality will gain in uniformity. Even
today the moral sense of the world holds up monogamy as
the highest ideal and no religion makes polygamy obligatory.
The ideal remains unaffected by the relaxation of practice
according to time and place.
I need not reiterate my views regarding re-marriage of
widows, as I consider re-marriage of virgin widows n»t only
desirable but the bounden duty of all parents who happen
to have such widowed daughters.
—Toting India : June 3, 1926.
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MY ideal of a wife is Sita, and of a husband'
Rama. But Sita was no slave of Rama, Or, each was-
slave of the other The wife has a perfect right to
take her own course, and meekly brave the consequences
when she knows herself to be ia thje right, and when
MARRIAGE 365
her resistance is for a nobler purpose.
—Young India: Oct. 21, 1926.
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FOR rn^, the married state is as much a state of dis-
cipline as any other. Life is duty, a probation. Married
life is intended to promote mutual good, both here
and hereafter. It is meant also to serve humanity.
When one partner breaks the law of discipline, the
right accrues to the other of breaking the bond. The
breach here is moral and not physical. It precludes
divorce. The wife or the husband separates but to
serve the end for which they had united. Hinduism
regards each as absolute equal of the other. No doubt
a different practice has grown up, no one knows since
when. But s~j have many other evils crept into it.
This, however, I do not know that Hinduism leaves
the individual absolutely free to do what he or she
likes for the sake of self-realisation, for which and which
alone he or she is born. —Young India : Oct. 21, 1926.
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MARRIAGE, for the satisfaction of sexual appetite
is no marriage. It is vyabhichara — concupisence. Today's
ceremony, therefore, means that the sexual act is per-
mitted only when there is a clear desire by both for
a child. The whole conception is sacred. The act has,
therefore, to be performed prayerfully. It is not preceded
by the usual courtship, designed to provide sexual excite-
ment and pleasure. Such union may only be once in a
life-time, if no other child is desired. Those who are
not morally and physically healthy have no business
to unite, and if they do, it is vyabhichara — concupisence.
You must unlearn the lesson, if you have learnt it
before, that marriage is for the satisfaction of animal
appetite. It is <a superstition.
—Young India : April 24, 1927.
366 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE very purpose of marriage is restraint and
sublimation of the sexual passion. If there is any other
purpose: marriage is no consecration, but marriage for
other purposes besides having progeny.
—Toung India : April 24, 1927.
MARRIAGE outside one's religion stands on a
different footing. Even here, so long each is free to
observe his or her religion, I can see no moral objection
to such unions. But, I do not believe that these unions
can bring peace. They may follow peace. I can see
nothing but disaster following any attempt to advocate
Hindu-Muslim unions, so long as the relations between
the two remain strained. That such union may be happy
in exceptional circumstances can be no reason for their
general advocacy. Inter-dining between Hindus and
Mussalmans does take place even now on a large scale.
But that again has not resulted in promoting peace. It is
my settled conviction that intermarriage and inter-dining
have no bearing on communal unity. The causes of discord
are economic and political — and it is these that have to be
removed. There is -inter-marriage and inter-dining in
Europe, but the Europeans have fought amongst themselves
as we Hindus and Mussalmans have never fought in all
history. Our masses have stood aside,
— Toung India : June 4, 1931.
I DO not envisage the wife, as a rule, following
an avocation independently of her husband. The care
of the children and the upkeep of the household arc
quite enough to fully engage all her energy. In a well-
ordered society, the additional burden of maintining the
family ought not to fall on her. The man should look
MASSES 367
to the maintenance of the family, the woman to household
management; the ttvo thus supplementing and coplimenting
each other's labours. —Harijan : Oct. 12, 1934.
BETWEEN husband and wife there should be no
secrets from one another. I have a very high opinion
of the marriage tie. I hold that husband and wife
merge in each other. They are one in two or two in
one. —Harijan : March 9, 1940.
MARRIAGE is a natural thing in life, and to
consider it derogatory in any sense is wholly wrong.
The ideal is to look upon marriage as a sacrament
and therefore to lead a life of self-restraint in the married
state. Marriage in Hinduism is one of the four Ashramas*
In fact the other three are based on it. But in modern
times marriage has unfortunately come to be regarded
purely as a physical union. The other three Ashramas
are all but non-existent. —Harijan : March 22, 1942
Masses
THE educated class, lovers of Swaraj, must freely
mix with the masses. We dare not rejer* * single
member of the community. We shall make progress
only if we carry all with us.
—Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 212*
WE regard them (masses) as our main-stay, for it is
they who have to attain Swaraj. It is neither the sole
concern of the monied men or that of the educated-
class. Both must subserve their interest in any scheme
of Swaraj. —Young Mia : April 20, 1920.
368 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
MY faith in the people is boundless. Theirs is an
amazingly responsive nature. Let not the leaders distrust
them. — Young India : Sept. 8, 192C
<3> <$»<$>
THE masses are by no means so foolish, or unitelllgent
as we sometimes imagine. They often perceive things
with their intution, which we ourselves fail to see with
our intellect. But whilst the masses know what taey
want, they often do not know how to exppress their
wants and, less often, how to get what they want.
Herein comes the use of leadership, and disastorous
results can easily follow a bad, hasty, or what is worse,
selfish lead. —Young India : Nov. 3, 1920.
<3> <*>
THE Congress must progressively represent the masses.
They are as yet untouched by politics. They have no
political consciousness of the type our politicians desire.
Their politics are confined to bread and salt I dare
not say butter, for millions do not know the taste of
ghee or even oil. Their politics are confined to communal
adjustments. It is right however to say that we the
politicians do represent the masses in opposition to
•Government. But if we begin to use them before they
are ready we shall cease to represent them. We must
•first come in living touch with them by working for
them and in their midst. We must share their sorrows,
•understand their difficulties and anticipate their wants.
'With the pariahas must be pariaha and see how
*we feel to clean the closets of the upper classes
and have the remains of their table thrown at us.
We must see how we like being in the boxes, miscalled
houses, of the labourers of Bombay. We must indentify •
ourselves with the villagers who toil under the hot sun
beating on their bent backs and see how we would like to
drink water from the pool in which the villagers bathe,
wash their clothes and pots and in which their cattle drink
MASSES 369
and roll Then and not till then shall we truly represent
the masses and they will, as surely as I am writing
this, respond to every call.
We cannot all do this, and if we are to do this, good-bye to
Vwaraj for a thousand years and more," some will say. I shall
sympathise with the objection. But I do claim that
some of us at least will have to go through the agony
and out of it only will a nation full, vigorous and free
be born. I suggest to all that they should give their
mental co-operation and that they should mentally iridentify
themselves with the masses, and as a visible and tangible
token thereof, they should earnestly spin for at least thirty
minutes per day in their name and for their sake. It
will be a mighty prayer from the intelligentia among the
Hindus, Mussalmans, Parsis, Christians and others of
India, rising up to Heaven for their, that is, India's
deliverance.
— Young India : Sept. 11, 1924.
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I CLAIM to know my millions. All the 24 hours
of the day I am with them. They are my first care
and last, because I recognise no God except the God
that is to be found in the hearts of the dumb millions.
They do not recognise His presence; I do. And I wor-
ship the God that is TrutH or Truth which is God
through the service of these millions.
—Harijan: March H, 1939.
Means And End
WE are merely the instruments of the Almighty's
will and are therefore ignorant of what helps us forward
and what acts as an impediment. We must thus rest
satisfied with a knowledge only of the means and if
these are pure, we can fearlessly leave the end to rake
care of itself. — Saiyagraha in South Africa : Page 480.
370 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
FOR me it is enough to know the means. Means
and end are convertible terms in my philosophy of life.
— Young India : Dec. 26, J924.
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THEY say 'means are after all means'. I would
say 'means are after all everything'. As the means so
the end. Violent means will give violent Swaraj. That
would be a menace to the world and to India herself.
There is no wall of separation between means and end.
Indeed the Creator has given us control (and that too very
limited; over means none over the end. Realisation of the
goal is in exact proportion to that of the means. This is a
proposition that admits of no exception.
—Harijan : Feb. 28, 1937.
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FOR over 50 years I have trained myself never to
be concerned about the result. What I should be con-
cerned about is the means, and when I am sure of the
purity of the means, faith is enough to lead me on.
All fear and trembling melt away before that faith.
—Harijan : Sept. 22, 1940
Measures Before Men
MEASURES must always in a progressive society be
held superior to men, who are after all imperfect in-
struments, working for their fulfilment.
—Young India : July 18, 1921.
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If we want to serve India we must put measures
before men. The latter come and go, but causes must
survive even the greatest of them.
— Young India : June 5, 1924.
THE cause is everything. Those even who are
MINORITY AND MAJORITY 371
dearest to us must be shunted for the sake of the
cause. — Toung India rjune 12, 1924.
Meetings
IF we confine our activities for advancing Swardj
only to holding meetings, the nation is likely to suffer
barm. Meetings and speeches have their own place and
time. But they cannot make a nation.
—Toung India : Nov. 3, 1921.
Minority and Majority
IT will be the duty of the majority to see to it
that minorities receive proper hearing and are not other-
wise exposed to insults. Swaraj will be an absurdity
if individuals have to surrender their judgment to
majority. — Toung India : Dec. 8, 1921.
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THE reader does not know that in South Africa
I started with practical unanimity, reached a minority
of sixty-four and even sixteen, and went up again to
a huge majority. The best and the most solid work
was done in the wilderness of the minority.
—Yt.ung India : March 2, 1922-
<s> <s> <>
A LIVING faith cannot be manufactured by majority.
—Toung India : March 16, 1922.
CORRUPTION is the bane of governments by
majority. — Tovng India : Sept. 4, 1924.
<S> ^> <:>
POWER that is sought in the name of service and
can only be obtained by a majority of votes is a delusion
and snare to be avoided, especially at the present
moment. — Toung India: Sept. 11, 1924.
372 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THERE is at the present moment a note of des-
|x>ndency in the air over the number of Congress
members. The complaint is that the members have been
never so few as today. The complaint would be reason-
able if the franchise being the same the response was
less than before. It would also be reasonable, if the
influence of the Congress was to be measured by the
number of members. Opinions would undoubtedly differ
as to the measure to be applied for gauging the Congress
influence. For me there is one measure. I attach the
highest importance to quality irrespective almost of
quantity, the more so for Indian conditions. In the
midst of suspicion, discord, antagonistic interests super-
stition, fear, distrust and the like there is not only no
safety in numbers but there may be event danger in
them. Who does not kno\v how often numbers have
embarrassed us during the past four years ? Numbers
become irresistible when they act as one man under
exact discipline. They are a self- destroying force when
each pulls his own way or when no one knows which
way to pull.
I am convinced that there is safety in fewness so long
as we have not evolved cohesion, exactness and intelligent
CQ-operation and responsiveness. One virtuous son is better
than one hundred loafers. Five Pandavas were more
than a match for one hundred Kauravas. A disciplined
army of a few hundred picked men has time without
number routed countless undisciplined hordes. A few
members fully satisfying the Congress test can give a
good account of themselves, whereas one million members
nominally on the Congress register may not be worth
the register itself. —Toung India : April 30, 1925.
<S> <S> <S>
IN a popular instituuon, it must be opinion of the
majority that must coun*. But I have always held that
when a respectable minority objects to any rule of
MOBS 373
conduct, it would be dignified for the majority,
and would conduce to the good of the Congress, for
the majority to yield to the minority. Numerical strength
savours of violence when it acts in total disregard of
any strongly felt opinion or a minority. The rule of
majority is perfectly sound, only where there is no rigid
insistence on the part of the dissenters upon their dissent
and where there is on their behalf a sportsmanlike
obedience to the opinion of the majority. No organisation
can run smoothly when it is divided into camps, each
growling at the other and each determined to have
its own way by hook or by crook.
— Toung Mia : Nov, 9, 1929,
Mobs
PERSONALLY I do not mind Governmental fury as
I mind mob fury. The latter is a sign of national dis-
temper and therefore more difficult to deal with than the
former which is confined to a small corporation. It is
easier to oust a Government that has rendered itself unfit
to govern than it is to cure unknown people in a mob of
their madness. But great movements cannot be stopped
altogether because a Government or a people or both go
wrong. We learn and profit through our mistakes and
failures. No general worth the name gives up a battle
because he has suffered reverses, or which is the same thing,
made mistakes. —Young India : July 28, 1920.
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THE greatest obstacle is that we have not yet
emerged from the mobocratic stage. But my consolation
lies in the fact that nothing is so easy as to train mobs, for
i he simple reason that they have no mind, no premeditation.
They act in a frenzy.
They repent quickly. Our organised Government
does not repent of its fiendish crimes at Jallianwala, Lahore,
374 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Kasur, Akalgarh, Ramnagar, etc. But I have dtawn
tears from repentant mobs at Gujranwala and everywhere
a frank acknowledgment of repentance from those who
formed the mob during that eventful month of April.
Non-co-operation I am therefore now using in order to
evolve democracy. — Toung India : Sept. 8, 1920.
Modern Civilization
I AM no indiscriminate superstitious worshipper of
all that goes under the name of ancient ! I never hesitated
to endeavour to demolish all that is evil or immoral, no
matter how ancient it may be, but with that reservation
I must confess to you that I am an adorer of ancient in-
stitutions, and it hurts me to think that a people in their
rush for everything mordern despise all their ancient
traditions and ignore them in their lives.
We of the East, very often, hastily consider that all
that our ancestors laid down for us was nothing but a
bundle of superstitions, but my own experience, extending
now over a fairly long period, of the inestimable treasures
of the East has led me to the conclusion that, whilst there
may be much that was superstitious, there is infinitely
more which is not only not supersititious, but if we under-
stand it correctly and reduce it to practice, gives life and
enobles one. Let us not, therefore, be blinded by the
hypnotic dazzle of the West.
Again, I wish to utter a word of caution against your
believing that I am an indiscriminate despiser of every-
thing that comes from the West. There are many things
which I have myself assimilated from the West. There
is a very great and effective Sanskrit word for that parti-
cular faculty which enables a man always to distinguish
between what is desirable, and what is undesirable, what
is right and what is wrong, that word is known as viveka.
— Gandhiji in Ceylon : Page 105»
MOKSHA 375
Moksha
WHAT I want to achieve, — what I have been striving
and pining to achieve these thirty years, — is self-realisation,
to see God face to face, to attain Moksha. I live and move
and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I do
by way of speaking and writing, and all my ventures in the
political field, are directed to this same end.
From the introduction to The Story of My
Experiments with Truth.
A friend inquired if Gandhi)? s aim was mst humanitarian in
sitting down in the village, just serving the villagers as best as he
could.
" I am here to serve no one else but myself," said
Gandiji, " to find my own self-realisation through the
service of these village-folk. Man's ultimate aim is the rea-
lisation of God, and all his activities, — social, political,
religious, — have to be guided by the ultimate aim of the
vision of God. The immediate service of all human beings
becomes a necessary part of the endeavour simply because
the only way to find God is to see Him in His creation and
be one with it. This cannot be done except through one's
country. I am a part and parcel of the whole, and I
cannot find Him apart from the rest of humanity. My
countrymen * are my nearest neighbours. They have be-
come so helpless, so resourceless, so inert that I must
concentrate on serving them. If I could persuade myself
that I should find Him in a Himalayan cave, I would
proceed there immediately. But I know that I cannot find
Him apart from humanity.'*
Qj But some comforts may be necessary even for man's
spiritual advancement. One could not advance
himself by identifying himself with the discomfort
and squalor of the villager.
376 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
A. A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort
is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hind-
rance instead of help. Therefore the ideal of creating an
unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be
a delusion and a snare. The satisfaction of one's physical
needs, even the intellectual needs of one's narrow self, must
meet at a certain point a dead stop before it degenerates
into physical and intellectual voluptuousness. A man must
arrange his physical and cultural circumstances so that they
do not hinder him in his service of humanity, on which all
his energies should be concentrated.
—Harijan : Aug. 29, 1936.
I WANT to see God face to face. God I know is
Truth. For me the only certain means of knowing God is
non-violence — ahimsa — love. I live for India's freedom and
would die for it, because it is part of Truth. Only a free
India can worship the true God. I work for India's free-
dom because my Swadeshi teaches me that being born in it
and having inherited her culture, I am fittest to serve her
and she has a prior claim to my service. But my patriotism
is not exclusive : it is calculated not only not to hurt
any other nation but to benefit all in the true sense of
the word. India's freedom as conceived by me can never
be a menace to the world. — Young India \ April 3, 1924.
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I do not consider myself worthy to be mentioned in the
same breath with the race of prophets. I am a humble
seeker after Truth. I am impatient to realise myself, to
attain Moksha in this very existence. My national service
is part of my training for freeing my soul from the bondage
of flesh. Thus considered, my service may be regarded as
purely selfish. I have no desire for the perishable kingdom
of earth. I am striving for the Kingdom of Heaven which
is Moksha. To attain my end it is not necessary for me to
MOKSHA 377
seek the shelter of a cave. I carry one about me, if I
would but know it. A cave-dweller can build castles in the
air whereas a dweller in a palace like Janak has no castles to-
build. The cave-dweller who hovers round the world on
the wings of thought has no peace. A Janak though
living in the midst of ( pomp and circumstance ' may have
peace that passeth understanding. For me the road to
salvation lies through an incessant toil in the service of my
country and there through of humanity. I want to identify
myself with everything that lives. In the language of the
Gita I want to live at peace with both friend and foe.
Though therefore a Musalman or a Christian or a Hindu
may despise me and hate me, I want to love him and serve
him even as I would love my wife or son though they hate
me. So my patriotism is for me a stage in my journey to
the land of eternal freedom and peace. Thus it will be seen
that for me there are no politics devoid of religion. They
subserve religion. Politics bereft of religion are a death-
trap because they kill the soul.
— Young India : April 3, 1924.
The aim of human life is Moksha. As a Hindu I
believe that Moksha is freedom from birth by breaking the
bonds of the flesh, by becoming one with God. Now
marriage is a hindrance in the attainment of this supreme
object, inasmuch as it only tightens the bonds of flesh.
Celibacy is a great help inasmuch as it enables one to lead
a life full of surrender to God.
—Young India : Nov. 20, 1924.
Moksha is liberation from impure thought. Complete
extinction of impure thought is impossible without ceaseless
penance. There is only one way to achieve this. The
moment an impure thought arises, confront it with a pure
one. This is possible only with God's grace,, and. God's
378 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
grace comes through ceaseless communion with Him and
complete self-surrender. This communion with Him in
the beginning be just a lip repetition of His name even
disturbed by impure thoughts. But ultimately what is on
the lips will possess the heart. And there is another thing to
bear in mind. The mind may wander, but let not the senses
wander with it. If the senses wander where the mind takes
them, one is done for. But he who keeps control of the
physical senses will some day be able to bring impure
thoughts under control Impure thoughts need not dis-
may you. We are monarchs of the domain of effort. God
is the sole Monarch of the domain of Result You know
what to do to create a pure atmosphere about you. Spare
diet, sight fixed on the earth below, and impatience with
oneself to the extent of plucking the eye out if cit offends
thee.'
(From a letter written to Jamanalal Bajaj by Gandhiji)
—Harijan : Feb. 22, 1942.
Money
I HAVE seen from experience that money cannot go
as far as fellow-feeling, kind words and kind looks can. If
a man, who is eager to get riches gets the riches from
another but without sympathy, he will give him up in the
long run. On the other hand, one who has been con-
querred by love is ready to encounter no end of difficulties
with him wha ^as given him his love.
— Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 340.
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I HAVE never known a good cause backed by good
men ever to have died for want of funds, only we often
mistake a bad cause for good and bad men for good and
then complain that the cause fails for want of funds.
—Young India : Feb. 21, 1929.
MORALITY 379
Money-Gifts
MONEY-GIFTS are hardly ever a sure indication of
love. In fact in our epics we have the story often told of
God refusing the richest presents from those having great
possessions, and preferring to eat the coarse morsel lovingly
given by a devotee.
— Young India : April 18, 1929.
Monotony
MONOTONY is the law of nature. Look at the mono-
tonous manner in which the sun rises. And imagine the cat-
astrophe that would befall the universe, if the sun became
capricious and went in for a variety of pastime. But there
is a monotony that sustains and a monotony that kills. The
monotony of necessary occupation is exhilarating and life-
giving. An artist never tires of his art. A spinner who has
mastered his art will certainly be able to do s* ^ined work
without fatigue. There is a music about th die which
the practised spinner catches without fail.
—Young India : Jai ">, 1921.
Morality
AS soon as we lose the moral basr , we cease to De
religious. There is no such thing as religion overri ing
morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, ~r L or
incontinent and claim to have God on his side.
— Young India : Nov. 2^,
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THE morals, ethics and religion are convertible
terms. A moral life, without reference to religion, is like
a house built upon sand. And religion, divorced from
morality, is like ' sounding brass, good only for making a
noise and breaking heads.7 Morality includes truth, ahimsa
and continence. Every virtue that mankind has ever
practised is referable to, and derived from, these three
380 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
fundamental virtues. Non-violence and continence are
again derivable from Truth, which for me is God.
—Harijan : Oct. 3, 1936.
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THAT which is opposed to the fundamental maxims
of morality, that which is opposed to trained reason cannot
be claimed as Shastra no matter how ancient it may be.
—Harijan: Dec. 16, 1937.
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MORALITY which depends upon the helplessness
of a man or woman has not much to recommend it.
Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.
—Harijan : June 8, 1940.
Moral Authority
MORAL authority is never retained by any attempt to
hold on to : It comes without seeking and is retained
without cF —Young India : Jan. 29, 1925,
Motivr
PU *^otives can never justify impure or violent
';on ' —Toting India : Dec. 18, 1924.
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T) come now to the question of motive, whilst it is
true mental attitude is the crucial test of Ahimsa, it is
no* ,ole test. To kill any living being or thing save for his
o .1$ own interest is himsa, however noble the motive may
oti. ^wise be. And a ma ^ who harbours ill-will towards
another is no less guilty of himib because for fear of society
or want of opportunity, he is unable to translate his ill-will
into action. A reference to both intent and deed is thus
necessary in order finally to decide whether a particular
act or abstention can be classed as ahimsa. After all intent
has to be inferred from a bunch of correlated acts.
— Young India : Oct. 18, 1928.
MUNICIPALITIES 381
THE rmmeat there is suspicion about a person's
motives, everything he does becomes tainted.
— Toung India : Mar. 12, 1920.
Municipalities
NATIONAL Government is dependent upon purity of
the Government of our cities.
— Toung India : Nov. 3, 1921.
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Municipalities are perhaps the greatest fraud palmed
off upon India. The Government has hitherto used them
for consolidating its power. But where the citizens are
united, they can attain the muncipal home-rule in a
moment. —Toung India ; Jan. 26, 1922.
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I consider myself a lover of Municipal life. I
think that it is a rare privilege for a person to find himself
in the position of Municipal Councillor, but let me note
down for you as a man of some experience in public life
that one indispensable condition of that privilege is that
Municipal Councillors dare not approach their office from
interested or selfish motives. They must approach their
sacred task in a spirit of service.
— Toung India : March 28, 1929.
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THE one thing which we can and must learn from the
West is the science of Municipal sanitation. By instinct
and habit we are used to village life, where the need for
corporate sanitation is not much felt. But as the Western
civilisation is materialistic and therefore tends towards the
development of the cities to the neglect of villages the
people of the West have evolved a science of corporate
sanitation and hygiene from which we have much to learn.
Our narrow and tortuous lanes, our congested ill-ventilatpd
houses, our criminal neglect of sources of drinking water
382 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
require remedying. Every Municipality can render the
greatest service by insisting on people observing the law of
sanitation. It is a superstition to consider that vast sums
of money are required for effecting sanitary reform. We
must modify western methods of sanitation to suit our re-
quirements. And as my patriotism is inclusive and admits
of no enmity or ill-will, I do not hesitate, in spite of my
horror of Western materialism to take from the West what
is beneficial for me. And as I know Englishmen to be
resourceful, I gratefully seek tBeir assistance in such matters.
For instance, 1 owe to Poore my knowledge of the cheapest
and the most effective method of disposal of human excreta.
He has shown how by our ignorance or prejudice we waste
this precious manure Excreta are not dirt in their proper
place and when they are properly handled. Dirt, as the
English say, is * matter misplaced. '
—Toung India : Dec. 26, 1924.
N
Nation
BEFORE we become a nation possessing an effective
voice in the councils of nations, we must be prepared to
contemplate with equanimity, not a thousand murders of
innocent men and worsen but many thousands before we
attain a status in the world that shall not be surpassed by
any nation. —Toung India : April 7, 1920.
NATIONS are born out of travail and suffering.
— Toung India: Nov. 19, 1920.
WHAT is true of the individual will be tomorrow true
of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose
heart and hope. —Young India : April 7, 1927.
Nationalism vs. Internationalism
IN my opinion, it is impossible for one to b- inter-
nationalist without being a nationalist. Internationalism
NATIONAL FLAG 383
is possible only when nationalism becomes a fact, i.e., when
people belonging to different countries have organised
themselves and are able to act as one man. It is not
nationalism that is evil, it is the narrowness, selfishness,
exclusiveness which is the bane of modern nations, which is
evil. Each wants to profit at the expense of, and rise on,
the ruin of the other. Indian nationalism has, I hope,
struck a different path. It wants to organise itself or to
find full self-expression for the benefit and service of huma-
nity at large. Any way, there is no uncertainty about my
patriotism or nationalism. God having cast my lot in the
midst of the people of India, I should be untrue to my
Maker if I failed to serve them. If I do not know how
to serve them I shall never know how to serve humanity.
And I cannot possibly go wrong so long as I do not harm
other nations in the act of serving my country.
—Young India : June 18, 1925.
National Dress
I WEAR the national dress because it is the most
natural and the most becoming for an Indian. I believe
that our copying of the European dress is a sign of our
degradation, humiliation and our weakness, and that we
are committing a national sin in discarding a dress which
is best suited to the Indian climate and which, for its
simplicity, art and cheapness, is not to be beaten on the
face of the earth and which answers hygienic require-
ments. Had it not been for a false pride and equally
false notions of prestige, Englishmen here would long ago
have adopted the Indian costume.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahaima Gandhi : Page 117.
National Flag
A FLAG is a necessity for all nations. Millions have
died for it. It is no doubt a kind of idolatry which it
would be a sin to destroy. For a flag represents an ideaL
384 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
The unfurling of the Union Jack evokes in the English
breast sentiments whose strength it is difficult to measure.
The Stars and Stripes mean a world to the Americans.
The Star and the Crescent will call forth the best bravery
in Islam. —Young India : April 13, 1921.
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IT was reserved for a Punjabee to make a suggestion
that at once arrested attention. It was Lala Hansraj of
Jullunder who, in discussing the possibilities of the spinning
wheel, suggested that it should find a place on our
Swaraj Flag. — Toung India : April 13, 1921.
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I AM the author of the flag. It is dear to me as life.
But I do not believe in flag waving. This flag represents
unity, non-violence, and identification through the charkha
of the highest with the lowliest in the land. Any insult
,to the flag must leave a deep scar on an Indian breast.
—Harijan : April 17, 1938.
National Service.
WE want an army of whole-time workers. In a poor
.country like India, it is not possible to get such workers
without pay. I see not only no shame, but I see credit in
accepting p^y for national work honestly and well done.
We shall have to engage many paid whole -time worker
when Swaraj is established. Shall we then feel less pride in
belonging to the Swaiaj service than Englishmen do in
belonging to the India Civil Service ?
— Toung India : July 10, 1924.
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LET there be no shame about accepting remuneration*
A labourer is worthy of his hire. And he is no less selfless
because he accepts remuneration. As a matter of fact, a
most selfless man has to give his all to the nation body,
mind and soul. And he has still to feed himself. The
nation gladly feeds such men and won»en and yet regards
NATURE 385
them as selfless. The difference between a voluntary worker
and a hireling lies in the fact that whereas a hireling gives
his service to whosoever pays his price, a national voluntary
worker gives his service only to the nation for the cause he
believes in and he serves it even though he might have to
starve. —Young India : May 19, 1929.
Nature
NATURE abhors a vacuum. Therefore, construction
must keep pace with destruction.
— Young India : May 8, 1 924,
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NATURE abhors weakness
— Young India : Jan. 13, 1927,
Nobility
LIGHT brings light, not darkness, and nobility done
with a noble purpose will be twice rewarded.
—Toung India : Oct. 13, 1920.
Non-co-operation
THE primary object of Non-co-operation is nowhere
stated to be paralysis of the Government. The primary
object is self-purification. Its direct result must be paralysis
of a Government which lives on our vices and weaknesses.
—Young India : April 20, 1920.
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< THE movement,' says Sir William, ' is purely destruc-
tive, and, so far as I have been able to ascertain, con-
tains no element of constructive ability.7 It is undoubtedly
destructive in the knse that a surgeon who applies the
knife to a diseased part may be said to make a destructive
movement. This destructive movement bears in it the
surest seed of construction as the surgeon's knife contains
the seed of health. Is temperance destructive ? Are
national schools springing up everywhere destructive ? Arc
the thousands of spinning wheels destructive of a nation'*
386 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
prosperity ? They will destroy foreign domination whether
it hails from Lancashire or is threatened from Japan.
—Young India : April 20, 1920.
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NON-CO-OPERATORS are to be blessed for turning the
fury of an outraged people from Englishmen to the system they
are called upon to administer.— Young India : April 20, 1920.
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MY friend objects to my statement that Non-co-opera-
tion is not anti-Government, because he considers that
refusal to serve it and pay its taxes is actually anti-Govern-
ment. I respectfully dissent from the view. If a brother
has fundamental differences with his brother, and association
with the latter involves his partaking of what in his opinion
is an injustice, I hold that it is his brotherly duty to refrain
from serving his brother and sharing his earnings with him.
This happens in everyday life. Prahlad did not act against
his father when he declined to associate himself with the
latter's blasphemies. Nor was Jesus anti-Jewish when he
declaimed against the Pharisees and the hypocrites, and
would have none of them. In such matters, is it not the
intention that determines the character of a particular act ?
It is hardly correct as the friend suggests that withdrawal
of association under general circumstances would make all
government impossible.** But it is true that such withdrawal
would make,all injustice impossible.
— Taunt India : May 19, 1920.
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I CONSIDER Non-co-operation to be such a power-
ful and pure instrument that, if it is enforced in an earnest
spirit, it will be like seeking first the Kingdom of God and
everything else following as a matter of course. People will
then have realized their true power. They would have
learnt the value of discipline, self-control, joint action, non-
violence, organisation and everything else that goes to make
a nation great and good, and not merely great.
—Young India : June 2, 1920.
NON-CO-OPERATION 387
NON-CO-OPERATION in itself is more harmless than
Civil Disobedience, but in its effect it is far more dangerous
for the Government than Civil Disobedience.
—Toting India : July 28, 1920.
^s ^s ^s
THERE is no instrument so clean, so harmless and
yet so effective as Non-co-operation. Judiciously hauled it
need not produce any evil consequences. And its intensity
will depend on the capacity of the people for sacrifice.
— Young Mia : June 30, 1920.
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I HAVE most carefully read the manifesto addressed
by Sir Narayan Chandavarkar and others dissuading the
people from joining the Non-co-operation movement. 1
had expected to find some solid argument against Non-co-
operation, but to my great regret I have found in it nothing
but distortion (no doubt unconscious) of the great religions
and history. The manifesto says that * Non-co-operation
is deprecated by the religious tenets and traditions of our
motherland, nay, of all the religions that have saved and
elevated, the human race. I venture to submit that the
Bhagwad Gita is a gospel of Non-co-operation between the
forces of darkness and those of light. If it is to be literally
interpreted, Arjun representing a just cause was enjoined
to engage in bloody warfare with the unjust Kauravas.
Tulsidas advises the Sant (the good) to shun the Asant (the
evil-doer). The Zendavesta represents a perpetual duel
between Oriruzd and Ahriman, between whom there is no
compromise. To say of the Bible that it taboos Non-co-
operation is not to know Jesus, a Prince among passive
resisters, who uncompromisingly challenged the might of the
Sadducees and the Pharisees and for the sak* of truth
did not hesitate to divide sons from their parents. And
what did the Prophet of Islam do ? He non-co-operated
in Mecca in a most active manner so long as his life was
not in danger and wiped the dust of Mecca off his feet
when he found that he and his followers mic^ht haw
388 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
uselessly to perish, and fled to Medina and returned when
he was strong enough to give battle to his opponents.
The duty of Non-co-operation with unjust men and kings is
as strickly enjoined by all the religions as is the duty of
CO-operation with just men and Kings. Indeed most of the
scriptures of the world seem even to go beyond Non-co-
operation and prefer violence to effeminate submission to a
wrong. The Hindu religious tradition of which the mani-
festo speaks clearly proves the duty of Non-co-operation.
Prahalad dissociated himself from his father Meerabai from
her husband. Bibi Shahan from her brutal brother.
—Young India : Aug. 4, 1920.
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THE movement of Non-co-operation is neither anti-
Christian nor anti-English nor anti-European. It is a
struggle between religion and irreligion, powers of light and
powers of darkness. —Toung India : Sept. 8, 1920.
ENLIGHTENED Non-co-operation is the expression of
anguished love. —Toung India : Nov. 20, 1920.
NON-VIOLENT Non-co-operation will and must
remain the creed of theu nation that has grown weary of
camouflage, humbug, and honeyed words.
India : Nov. 17, 1920.
YOU cannot raise this great nation to its full height by
the unclean methods of secrecy. We must, by boldly carry-
ing on our campaign in the light of the blazing sun of
openness, disarm the secret and demoralising police depart-
ment. Non-co-operation is nothing if it des not strike at
the root. And you strike at the root when you cease to
water this deadly tree of the British Government by means of
open and honourable Non-cooperation.
—Toung India : Dec. 1, 1920.
NON-CO-OPERATION 389
NON-CO-OPERATION is an attempt to awaken the
masses to a sense of their dignity and power. This can only
be by enabling them to realize that they need not fear
brute force, if they would but know the soul within.
—Young India : Dec. 1, 1920.
HITHERTO we have looked up to the Government to
do everything for us, and we have found it almost wholly
irresponsive in everything that matters. We have therefore
been filled with blank despair. We have ceased to
believe in ourselves or the Government. The present move-
ment is an attempt to change this winter of our despair into
the summer of hope and confidence. When we begin to
believe in ourselves, Englishmen will, I promise, begin to
believe in us. Then, and not till then, is there any hope of
co-operation between the Government and us. The existing
system of government, it will be found upon analysis, is
based upon a scientific study of our weaknesses, which have
rather been promoted by it than reduced. Non-co-opera-
tion is, therefore, as much a protest against our own weak-
ness, as against the inherent corruption of the existing system,
British and Indian, we become impure by belonging to it.
The withdrawal from it of one party purifies both. I invite
even the sceptics to follow the programme of Non-co-opera-
tion as a trial, and I promise that there will be Swaraj in
India during the year, if the programme is carried out
in its fulness. —Young India : Dec. 15, 1920.
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NON-CO-OPERATION is not a movement of brag,
bluster, or bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires
solid and silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and
our capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims
at translating ideas into action. And the more we do, the
more we find that much more must be done than we had
expected. And this thought of our imperfection must make
us humble. * —Young India : Jan. 12, 1921.
390 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE movement of self-government cannot — must not —
be made to depend upon one man. I have but presented
India with a new and matchless weapon, or rather an ex-
tended application of an ancient and tried weapon. She
must reject or accept it for her own use. I cannot use it for
her, I can use, have used it, for myself and feel free.
Others have done, and feel likewise. If the nation uses
the weapon, she becomes free. — Toung India : April 6, 1921.
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I^HAVE said repeatedly that I am acting towards the
Government as I have acted towards my own dearest rela-
tives. Non-co-operation on the political field is an extension
of the doctrine as it is practised on the domestic field.
— Toung India : April 20, 1921.
IT is directed not against men but against measures.
It is not directed against the Governors, but against the
system they administer. The roofs of Non-co-operation lie
not in hatred but in justice, if not in love.
— Toung India : May 25, 1921.
WE had lost the power of saying 'no'. It had become
disloyal, almost sacrilegious to say 'no' to the Government.
This deliberate refusal to co-operate is like the necessary
weeding process that a cultivater has to resort before he
sows. Weeding is as necessary to agriculture as sowing.
Indeed, even whilst the crops are growing, the weeding fork,
as every husbandman knows, is an instrument almost of
daily use. The nation's Non-co-operation is an invitation to
the Government to co-operate with it on its own terms as is
every nation's right and every good government's duty.
Non-co-operation is the nation's notice that it is no longer
satisfied to be in tutelage. — Toung India : June 1, 1921.
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 te^ch that two
NON-CO-OPERATION 391
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. — Young India : June 1, 192 1»
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THIS campaign of Non-co-operation has no reference
to diplomacy, secret or open. The only diplomacy it admits
of is the statement and pursuance of truth at any cost.
. —Young India : June 8, 1921.
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NON-CO-OPERATION is beyond the reach of the
bayonet. It has found an abiding place in the Indian
heart. Workers like me will go when the hour has struck,
but Non-co-operation will remain.
— Young India : June 8, 1921.
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THE movement of Non-co-operation, is nothing, if it
does not purify us and restrain our evil passions.
—Young India : Sept. 15, 1921.
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THE secret of Non-violence and Non-co-operation lies
in our realizing that it is through suffering that we are to
attain our goal. What is the renunciation of titles, councils,
law courts, schools but a measure (very slight indeed) of
suffering ? The preliminary renunciation is a prelude to the
larger suffering — the hardships of a goal life, and even the
final consummation on the gallows, if need be. The more
\ve suffer and the more of us suffer, the nearer we are to our
cherished goal.
The earlier and the more clearly we recognise that it is
not big meetings and demonstrations that would give us
victory, but quiet suffering, the earlier and more certain will
our victory be. —Young India : Sept. 29, 1921.
INTOLERANCE is itself a form of violence and an
obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit. Arro-
392 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
gant assumption of superiority on the part of a Non-co-
operator who has undergone a little bit of sacrifice or put on
Khadi is the greatest danger to the movement. A Non-co-
operator is nothing if he is not humble. When self-satisfac-
tion creeps over a man, he has ceased to grow and therefore
has become unfit for freedom. He who offers a little sacrifice
from a lowly and religious spirit quickly realises the miserable
littleness of it. Once on the path of sacrifice, we find out
the measure of our selfishness, and must continually wish to
give more and not be satisfied till there is a complete self-
surrender.
And this knowledge of so little attempted and still less
done must keep us humble and tolerant. It is our exclusive-
ness and the easy self-satisfaction that have certainly kept
many a waverer away from us. Our motto must ever be
conversion by gentle persuasion and a constant appeal to the
head and the heart. We must therefore be ever courteous
and patient with those who do not see eye to eye with us. We
must resolutely refuse to consider our opponents as enemies
of the country. —Young India : Sept. 29, 1921.
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THE scheme of Non-co-oparation or Swtdeshi is not an
exclusive doctrine. My modesty has prevented me from
declaring from the house-top that the message of Non-co-
operation, Non-violence and Swedeshi, is a message to the
world. It must fall flat, if it does not bear fruit in the soil
where it has been delivered. At the present moment India
has nothing to share with the world save her degradation,
pauperism and plagues. Is it her ancient Shastras that we
should send to the world ? Well they are printed in many
editions, and an incredulous and idolatrous world refuses to-
look at them, because we, the heirs and custodians, do not
live them. Before, therefore, I can think of sharing with
the world, I must possess. Our Non-co-operation is neither
with the English nor with the West. Our Non-co-operation
is with the system the English have established, with the
NON-CO-OPERATION 39$
material civilisation and its attendant greed and exploitation
of the weak. Our Non-co-operation is a retirement within
overselves. Our Non-co-operation is a refusal to co-operate
with the English administrators on their own terms. We
say to them, 'Come and co-operate with us on our terms,
and it will be well for us, for you and the world/ We must
refuse to be lifted off our feet. A drowning man cannot sam
others. In order to be Jit to save others, we must try to save our-
selves. Indian nationalism is not exclusive, nor aggressive,
nor destructive. It is health-giving, religious and "therefore
humanitarian. India must learn to live before she can
aspire to die for humanity. The mice which helplessly find
themselves between the cat's teeth acquire no merit from
their enforced sacrifice. —Young India : Oct. 13, 1921.
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HITHERTO the people have been the football of
officials or so-called representatives. Non-co-operation en-
ables the people to become the players in the game. Re-
presentatives must represent or they perish.
— Young India : Oct. 27, 1921.
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I HAVE said repeatedly that this movement is not in-
tended to drive out the English; it is intended to end or mend
the system they have forced upon us.
— Young India : Nov. 17, 1921,
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NON-CO-OPERATION is not a passive state, it is an
intensely active state, more active than physical resistance 01
violence. Passive resistance is a misnomer. Non-co-opera-
tion in the sense used by me must be non-violent and there-
fore neither punitive nor vindictive nor based on malice, ill-
will or hatred. It follows therefore that it would be sin foi
nie to serve General Dyer and co-operate with him to shoo
innocent men. But it will be an exercise of forgiveness O]
love for me to nurse him back to life, if he was suffering fron
physical malady. I would co-operate a thotasandi times, wit]
'394 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
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 begger'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. — Young India : July 24, 1924.
NO big or swift movement can be carried on without
bold risks, and life will not be worth living, if it is not
attended with large risks. Does not the history of the world
show that there would have been no romance in life, if there
had been no risks ? It is the clearest proof of a degenerate
atmosphere that one finds respectable people, leaders of
society, raising their hands in horror and indignation at the
slightest approach of danger or upon an outbreak of any
violent commotion. We do want to drive out the beast in
man, but we do not want on that account to emasculate
him. And in the process of finding his own status, the beast
in him is bourjd, now and again, to put up his ugly appear-
ance. As I have often stated in these pages, what strikes me
down is not the sight of blood under every conceivable cir-
cumstance. It is blood split by the Non-co-operator or his
supporters in breach of his declared pledge, which paralyses
me as I know it ought to paralyse every honest Non-co-
operator. — Young India : Dec. 15, 1921.
<$> <$> <S>
OUR present Non-co-operation refers not so much to the
paralysis of a wicked government as to our being proof
against wickedness. It aims therefore not at destruction but
at construction. It deals with causes rather than with
symptoms. *—Young India : Dec. 22, 1921.
NON-CO-OPERATION 395
IT is unlawful for a Non-co-operator even to wish ill to
his enemies. —Toung India : Dec. 22, 1921.
NON-CO-OPERATION is a method of cultivating
public opinion, — Toung India : Dec. 29, 1921.
^N <^ ^N
OURS is a struggle in which we are pledged to
make all sacrifice and exact none. We must voluntarily
though temporarily, embrace poverty, if we will banish
pauperism and pariahdom from the land. The sacrifice
of the ease by a few of us is nothing compared to the
reward which is in store for us, viz, the restoration
af the honour and prosperity of this holy land.
— Toung India: Jan. 12, 1922.
0 & <S>
ONE true and perfect Non-co-operator is any day
better than a million No-co-operator so-called.
—Toung India : Jan. 19, 1922.
^N ^^ ^^
CO-OPERATORS do not see that the action of the
Govt. is like that of a man, who refuses to give food
to a hungry man and then threatens to shoot him
whilst he is attempting to help himself.
—Toung India : Jan. 26, 1922.
^ <^ Q
NON-CO-OPERATION and Civil Disobedience are
but different branches of the same tree called Satyagraha
It is my Kalpadara — my Jam-i-jfam — the Universal Provider.
Satyagraha is search for Truth; and God is Truth.
Ahimsa or Non-violence is the light that reveals that
Truth to me. Swaraj for me is part of that Truth.
—Young India : Dec. 26, 1924.
BEHIND my non-co-operation there is always the
keenest desire to co-operate on the sightest pretext even
with the worst pf opponents. To me, a very imperfect
396 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
mortal, ever in need of God's grace, no one is be-
yond redemption. — Young India : Jan. 4, 1925.
<$><$><$>
I HAVE said that I am a non-co-operator. I call myself
a civil-resister and both words have come to posses a
bad odour in the English language like so many other
English words but I non-co-operate in order that I may
be able to co-operate. I cannot satisfy myself with
false co-operation, anything inferior to 24 carats gold.
My non-co-operation does not prevent me from being
friendly even to Sir Michael O7 Dwyer and General
Dyer. It harms no one, it is non-co-operation with evil,
with an evil system and not with the evil doer. My
religion teaches me to love even an evil doer, and my
non-co-operation is but part of that religion
—Young India. : Aug. 20, 1925.
<$> <$> <$>
NON-CO-OPERATION is not only my political
but it is also my domestic and social religion. Voluntary
and health giving co-operation is impossible without the
possibility of non-co-operation at a certain stage and
under certain conditions. — Young India : Oct. 8, 1925.
<3> <S> <S>
REASONED and willing obedience to the laws of
the state is the first ICSSOH in Non-co-operation.
The second is that of tolerance. We must tolerate
many laws of the State, even when they are incon-
venient. A son may not approve of some orders of the
father and yet he obeys them. It is only when they
are unworthy of tolerance and immoral that he dis-
obeys them. The father will at once understand such
respectful disobedience. In the same way it is only when
a people have proved their active loyalty by obeying
the many laws of the State that they acquire the right
of Civil Disobedience.
The third lesson is that of suffering. He who has
NON-CO-OPERATION 397
not the capacity of suffering cannot non-co-operate. He
who has not learnt to sacrifice his property and even
his family when necessary can never non-co-operate. It
is possible that a prince enraged by non-co-operation
will inflict all manner of punishments. There lies the
test of love, patience, and strength. He who is not
ready to undergo the fiery ordeal cannot non-co-operate.
—Toung India : Jan. 8, 1925.
<S> <$> <$>
THE movement of Non-violent Non-co-operation has no-
thing in common with the historical struggles for freedom in
the West. It is not based on brute force or hatred. It does not
aim at destroying the tyrant. It is a movement of self-
purification. It therefore seeks to convert the tyrant.
It may fail because India may not be ready for mass
non-violence. But it would be wrong to judge the
movement by false standards. My own opinion is that
the movement has in no wise failed. Non-violence has
found an abiding place in India's struggle for freedom.
That the programme could not be finished in a year's time
merely shows that the people could not cope with a
mighty upheaval during such a short time. But it is
a leaven which is silently but surely working its way
among the masses. — Young India : Feb. 11, 1926.
<s> <$> <s>
THERE is no doubt about it that whenever free-
dom comeS, it will come through some application of Non-
co-operation including Civil Disobedience.
— Toung India : March 18, 1926.
<$> <s> <s>
Q,. IT has been suggested in Bombay that you went
to the Government uninvited, in fact you forced your-
self upon his attention. If so, was it not co-operation
even without response ? What could you have to do with
the Governor, I wonder ?
A. My answer that I am quite capable even of forc-
ing myself upon the attention of my opponent when I
398 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
have strength. I did so in South Africa. I sought inter-
views after interviews with General Smuts when I knew that
I was ready for battle. I pleaded with him, to avoid the un-
told hardships that the Indian settlers must suffer, if
the great historic march had to be undertaken. It is
true that be in his haughtiness turned a deaf ear, but
I lost nothing. I gained added strength by my humility.
So would I do in India when we are strong enough
to put up a real fight for freedom. Remember that
ours is a non-violent struggle. It pre-supposes humility.
It is a truthful struggle and consciousness of truth should
give us firmness. We are not out to destroy men. We
own nc enemy. We have no ill-will against a single
soul on earth. We mean to convert by our suffering.
I do not despair of converting the hardest-hearted or
the most selfish Englishman. Every opportunity of meet-
ing him is therefore welcome to me.
Let me distinguish. Non-violent Non-co-operation
means renunciation of the benefits of a system with
which we non-co-operate. W7e therefore renounce the
benefits of schools, courts, titles, legislatures and offices
set up under the system. The most extensive and per-
manent part of cur JSTon-co-operation consists in the
renunciation of foreign cloth which is the foundation
for the vicious system that is crushing us to dust.
It is possible to think of other items of Non-co-operation.
But owing to our weakness or want of ability
we have restricted curselves to these items only.
If then I go to any cfficial for the purpose of
seeking the benefits above named I co-operate.
Where as if I go to the meanest cfficial for
the purpose of converting him, say to Khcddar, or wean-
ing him fjcm his service or persi ding him to with draw
his children from Govt. schools, I fulfill my duty as a non-
co-operator. 1 should fail if I did not go to him with that
definite and direct purpose. —Toung India : May. 27, 1926-
NON-CO-OPERATION 399
It is my humble opinion that within the last two
generations our country has not gained as much as it has
gained since the advent of Non-violent Non-co-operation.
I entertain no doubt whatever as to the verdict of
history upon Non-violent Non-co-operation. It is also
my certain belief, that every student who left his school
sr college or every Government servant who left what
passes as public services has gained immeasurably and
lost nothing by having done so. That public services
in spite of non-co-operation Ijave riot been abandoned,
that Government schools have not been abandoned by
our boys is no demonstration whatsoever of the failure
of my doctrine, even as because men and women are
not all votaries of truth, truth cannot be challenged as
to its efficacy or soundness. — Toung India Oct. 20 1927.
<s> <?> <s>
IF co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-
operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty,
—Tow<g India : Oct. 27, 1927,
<$><$><*>
THE many years that have passed have left me utterly
unrepentant for having asked those boys to come out
of those institutions, and I am firmly of opinion that
those who responded to the call served their land, and
I am sure the future historian of India will record
their sacrifice with approval. — Toung India : Nov. 10, 1927,
<$><$><$>
THE mass awakening that took place in 1920 all
of a sudden was perhaps the greatest demonstration oi
the efficacy of non-violence. The Government has lost
prestige never to be regained. Titles, law-courts, education-
nal institutions no longer inspire the awe they did in 1920.
— Toung India : Nov. 10, 1927.
^S <^^ ^S
NON-CO-OPERATION is not allopathic treatment,
it is homeopathic. The patient does not taste the drops given
to him. He is sometimes even incredulous, but if the homeo-
400 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
paths are to be trusted, the tasteless drops or the tiny pills of
homeopathy are far more potent than ounce dozes or
choking pills of allopathy. I assure the reader that the
effect of purifying Non-co-opeiation is more certain
than the effect of homeopathic medicine.
—Toung India : Feb. 9, 1928.
<$><$> <$>
THE following is from a God-fearing political friend
whom everybody knows :
"You must have shouldered the responsibility of making
difficult decisions many a time in your life, but the responsi-
bility which the Ramgarh Congress Resolution has entrusted
you with is the gravest of all. The future of India, nay of
the world, depends upon it.
"You are far above me in wisdom and experience. But
I feel you are very hard upon yourself. The experiments
that you sometimes carry on in your search of Truth,
involving yourself and thousands of others, make me
gasp.
"I have been closely following your experiments in
Ahimsa and Satyagraha and read carefully every word that
you write. You feel that these weapons are effective for
establishing the right and putting down the wrong in the
world. But I tell you these weapons of yours have been
and are being abused in the world. The reason for it, I
think, is this that once the people begin to feel the strength
of these weapons the latent hatred in their hearts comes to
the surface and, armed with these, becomes ten times, even
a hundred times, more potent for mischief. That is bound to
do great harm to the country, and it may take ages to undo
it. Non-co-operation has become a curse in every-day life.
Its ill effects are seen in family circles, in associations, in
business, in factories and in Government offices.
"The most unfortunate part is this that those who are in
the wrong are using this weapon against those who are in
NON-CO-OPERATION 401
the right. An unworthy son or an unworthy daughter, a
father on the wrong path, a miserly businessman or mill-
owner, a dishonest worker, all these resort to non-co-operation
to defend their indefensible conduct. My experience is that
those who are in the right are perplexed and paralysed by
your weapon. Non-co-operation hits one from behind and
in a manner more deadly than the deadliest weapon. Twice
I have seen it used in connection with political movements
in India, and it brings tears to my eyes whenever I see you
about to resort to it. Having learnt its use from you, selfish
people use it in your name in order to gain their selfish ends,
and bring misery upon thousands of people. Therefore I
beg of you not to employ this weapon in politics. It may
get us some rights, but it spreads hatred among mankind,
not love. We are too imperfect. You are a wise man, you
are a man of God. Pray God that He may show you
another way.
UI request you not to embarrass the British in any way
while they are engaged in this life and death struggle. But
I know, by itself the Congress will not have the patience to
do so, though it may under your advice. The ill-will and
the hatred that would be let loose if non-co-operation is
started and the communal bitterness to which it may give
rise, would have an adverse effect upon the war and expose
India to greater danger.
ulf Congressmen must embarrass the British, I feel they
should go back to offices in the provinces and should face the
British Government with a dilemma at every step in the
Provincial and the Central Assemblies. This is the
only right course and it tells upon the British public.
"Again we have to solve the Hindu- Muslim problem.
For that we should call a conference of all the communal
leaders and party leaders. If we make an effort beforehand,
we might become united by the time the Government is
willing to call the Constituent Assembly. No time should be
lost. JThc demands of the Mussalmans will mount up as
402 TEACHINGS OF MA&ATMA GANDHI
time goes on. I am certain God will help us to
attain unity if we try for it in right earnest and without
delay. God has put the reins of the country in your hands ;
you alone can make or or mar her fate/*
The writer is one of the most earnest among us. He
has presented one side of the picture, but like all one-sided
picture, this also is misleading.
Every powerful thing is liable to misuse. Opium and
arsenic are most potent and useful drugs. And they lend
themselves to great abuse. No one has for that reason
suggested the stopping of their good use. If Non-co-operation
has lent itself to abuse in some cases, in many cases its wise
use has proved absolutely efficacious. A thing has to be
judged by its net effect. The net effect of Non-violent Non-
co-operation has been of the greatest benefit to India. It has
brought about an awakening among the masses which would
probably have taken generations otherwise. It has preven-
ted bloodshed and anarchy and on the whole improved the
relations between the Britishers and ourselves. There is a
better mutual understanding because there is better mutual
respect than ever before. And yet our Non-co-
operation has been indifferently non-violent. I hold
that Non-co-operation i& of universal use. Well applied, its
use in politics can wholly displace the use of barbarous
weapons of mutual destruction. The thing to do, therefore,
is not to restrict its use but to extend it care being taken that
it is used in accordance with the known laws regulating its
use. Risk of misuse has undoubtedly to be run. But with
the increase in the knowledge of its right use, the risk can be
minimised.
One safe thing about non-co-operation is that in the end
its abuse recoils more upon the users than upon those against
whom it is used. Its abuse is the greatest in domestic rela-
tions because those against whom it is used are not strong
enough to resist the abuse. It becomes a case of misapplied
affection. Doting parents or wives are the greatest victims.
NON-CO-OPFRATION 403
These will learn wisdom when they realise that affection does
not demand yielding to extortion in any form. On the coa~
trary true affection will resist it.
The writer suggests the usual parliamentary progfimm^
with obstruction. Its futility, when it is not backed by readi-
ness for Non-co-operation and Civil disobedience, has bee;
fully demons r.tecL
So far as the British are concerned I have already said
that I will do nothing to embarrass them. I am strainiog
every nerve to avoid a conflict. But they may make it
inevitable. Even so, I am praying for a mode of application
which will be effective and still not embarrassing in the
sense of violent outbreaks throughout the country.
Here I must say that, whilst it is true that active co-
operation on the part of Congressmen is not yet much in
evidence, of passive co-operation on their part there is. jao
lack. Violent, sporadic eruptions on the part of the people
would have paralysed my effoit to gather together forces of
non-violence in an effective manner. As it is, the restraint
which they have exercised fills me with hope for tbt
future.
Hindu-Muslim Unity is a morsel by itself. But my
friend is on the wrong track when he suggests that unity
should be hastened for fear of Muslims raising their demand^.
Demands against whom ? India is as much theirs as any-
body else's The way to unity lies through just demands
once 'for all, not through ever-increasing demands whether
just or unjust. The demand for partition puts an end to all
effort for iunity for the time being. I hold that communal
understanding is not a pre-requisite to the British . doing
justice, on their part. When they feel that they want .to
recognise 'India's right of self-determination, all the difficul-
ties that they put forth as obstacles in their path will melt
awaytlike ice before the sun's rays. The right of self-
determination means the right of determination by every
404 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
group and ultimately every individual. The demand for a
Constituent Assembly presumes that the determinations of
the groups and individuals will coincide. Should it happen
otherwise and partition become the fashion, either we shall
have partition or partitions rather than foreign rule* or we
shall continue to wrangle among ourselves and submit to for-
eign rule, or else have a proper civil war. Anyway the present
suspense cannot continue. It has to end one way or the
other. I am an optimist. I have every hope that when
we come to grips, Hindus, Muslims, and all others will throw
in their weight in favour of India which all will claim as
their o,wn.
—Harijan : Aug. 18. 1940.
Non-violence
AHIMSA is not the crude thing it has been made to
appear. Not to hurt any living thing is no doubt a part of
ahimsa.
But it is its least expression. The principle of Ahimsa is
hurt by every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by
hatred, by wishing ill to anybody. It is also violated by
one's holding on to what the world needs. But the world
needs even what we eat day by day. In the place where we
stand there are millions of micro-organisms to whom the
place belongs, and who are hurt by our presence there.
What should we do then ? Should we commit suicide ?
Even that is no solution, if we believe, as we do, that so long
as the spirit is attached to the flesh, on every destruction of
the body it weaves for itself another. The body will cease
to be only when we give up all attachment to it. This
freedom from all attachment is the realisation of God as
Truth. Such realisation cannot be attained in a hurry. The
body does not belong to us. While it lasts, we must use it
as a trust handed over our charge. Treating in this way
the things of the flesh, we may one day expect to become
free from the burden of the body. Realising the limitations
NON-VIOLENCE 405
of the flesh, we must day by day strive towards the ideal
with what strength we have in us.
It is perhaps clear from the foregoing, that without A/iimsa
it is not possible to seek and find Truth. Ahimsa and Truth
are so intertwined that it is practically impossible to disentan-
gle and separate them. They are like the two sides of a coin,
or rather of a smooth, unstamped metallic disc. Who can
say, which is the obverse and which is the reverse ? Never-
theless Ahimsa is ths means ; Truth is the end. Means to be
means must always be within our reach, and so Ahimsa is our
supreme duty. If we take care of the means, we are bound
to reach the end sooner or later. When once we have
grasped this point, final victory is beyond question. What-
ever difficulties we encounter, whatever apparent reverses
we sustain, we may not give up the quest for Truth which
alone is being God Himself. — From Yeravda Mandir.
<S> <$> <$>
LITERALLY speaking, Ahimsa means non-killing,
But to me it has a world of meaning and takes me intc
realms much higher, infinitely higher, than the realm tc
which I would go, if I merely understood by Akimsa, non-
killing. Ahimsa really means that you may not offend
anybody, you may riot harbour an uncharitable thought
even in connection with one who may consider himself to
be your enemy. Pray notice the guarded nature of this
thought ; I do not say " whom you consider to be your
enemy ", but " who may consider himself to be your
enemy." For one who follows the doctrine of Ahimsa there
is no room for an enemy ; he denies the existence of an
enemy. But there are people who consider themselves to
be his enemies, and he cannot help that circumstance.
So, it is held that we may not harbour an evil thought even
in connection with such persons. If we return blow for
blow, we depart from the doctrine of Ahimsa. But I go
further. If we resent a friend's action or the so-called
enemy 7s action, we still fall short of this doctrine. But
*06 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
when I say, we should not resent, I do not say that
we should acquiesce : but by resenting I mean wish-
ing that some harm should be done to the enemy, or
that he should be put out of the way, not even by any
action of ours, but by the action of somebody else, or, say,
by Divine agency. If we harbour even this thought, we
depart from this doctrine of Ahimsa. Those who join the
Ashram have to literally accept that meaning. That does
not mean that we practise that doctrine in its entirety. Far
from it. It Is an ideal which we have to reach, and it is
an ideal to be reached even at this very moment, if we
arc capable of doing so. But it is not a proposition in
geometry to be learnt by heart ; it is not even like solving
difficult problems in higher mathematics ; it is infinitely
more difficult than solving those problems. Many of you
have burnt the midnight oil in solving those problems. If
you want to follow out this doctrine, you will have to do
much more than burn the midnight oil. You will have to
pass many a sleepless night, and go through many a mental
torture and agony before you can reach, before you can
even be within measurable distance of this goal. It is the
goal and nothing less than that, you and I have to reach,
if we want to understand what a religious life means. I
will not say much more on this doctrine than this : that a
man who believes in -the efficacy of this doctrine finds in
the ultimate stage, when he is about to reach the goal, the
whole world at his feet, — not that he wants the whole
world at his feet, but it must be so. If you express your
love — Ahimsa — in such a manner that it impresses itself
indelibly upon your so-called enemy, he must return that
love. Another thought which comes out of this is that,
Under this rule, there is no room for organised assasinations,
and there is no room for murders even openly committed,
and there is no room for any violence even for the
sake of your country, and even for guarding the
bonour of precious ones that may be under your change.
After ally that would be a poor defence of the honour.
NON-VIOLENCE 407
This doctrine of A kirns a tells us that we may guard the
honour of those who are under our charge by delivering
ourselves into the hands of the man who would commit the
sacrilege. And that requires far greater physical and
mental courage than the delivering of blows. You may
have some degree of physical power, — I do not say cour-
age— and you may use that power. But after that is ex-
pended, what happens ? The other man is filled with
wrath and indignation, and you have made him more angry
by matching your violence against his : and when he has
done you to death, the rest of his violence is delivered
against your charge. But if you do not retaliate, but
stand your ground, between your charge and the opponent,
simply receiving the blows without retaliating, what
happens ? I give you my promise that the whole of the
violence will be expended on you, and your charge will
be left unscathed. Under this plan of life there is no
conception of patriotism which justifies such wars as you
witness to-day in Europe.
(From an address to the T. M. C. A. Madras) : Feb. 16, 1916
<8> <S> <S>
IN this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost
impossible for any one to believe that any one else could
possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute
force. And so I receive anonymous letters advising me
that I must not interfere with the progress of Non-co-
operation, even though popular violence may break out.
Others come to me and, assuming that secretly I must be
plotting violence, inquire when the happy moment for
declaring open violence is to arrive. They assure me
that the English will never yield to anything but
violence secret or open. Yet others, I am informed,
believe that I am the most rascally person living in
India, because I never give out my real intention and that
they have not a shadow of a doubt that I believe in violence
just as much as most people do.
408 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Such being the hold that the doctrine of the sword
has on the majority of mankind, and as success of Non-
co-operation depends principally on absence of violence
during its pendency and as my views in this matter affect
the conduct of a large number of people, I am anxious to
state them as clearly as possible.
I do believe that, where there is only a choice bet-
ween cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.
Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have
done, had he been present when I was almost fatally
assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and
seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical
force which he could and wanted to use, and defended
me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by
using violence. Hence it was that I took part in the Boer
War, the so-called Zulu rebellion and the late War.
Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who
believe in the method of violence. I would rather have
India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than
that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a
helpless witness to her own dishonour.
But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to
violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment.
Forgiveness adorns a soldier. But abstinence is forgiveness
only when there is the power to punish ; it is meaningless
when it pretends to proceed from a helpless creature. A
pnouse hardly forgives a cat when it allows itself to be torn
to pieces by her. I therefore appreciate the sentiment of
those who cry out for the condign punishment of General
Dyer and his ilk. They would tear him to pieces if they
could. But I do not believe India to be helpless. I do
not believe myself to be a helpless creature. Only I want
to use India's and my strength for a better purpose.
Let me not be misunderstood. Strength does not come
from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable
will. An average Zulu is any way more than a match
NON-VIOLENCE 409
for an average Englishman in bodily capacity. But he
flees from an English boy, because he fears the boy's
revolver or those who will use it for him. He fears
death and is nerveless in spite of his burly figure./ We
in India may in a moment realise that one hiindred
thousand Englishmen need not frighten three hundred
million human beings. A definite forgiveness would
therefore mean a definite recognition of our strength.
With enlightened forgiveness must come a mighty wave
of strength in us, which would make it impossible for a
Dyer and a Frank Johnson to heap affront upon India's
devoted head. It matters little to me that for the
moment I do not drive my point home. We feel too
down-trodden not to be angry and revengeful. But I
must not refrain from saying that India can gain more
by waiving the right of punishment. We have better work
to do, a better mission to deliver to the world.
I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist.
The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the
Rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people
as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence
is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the
brute and he knows no law but that of physical might.
The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law — to
the strength of the spirit.
I have therefore ventured to place before India the
ancient law of self-sacrifice. For Satyagraha and its
off-shoots, Non-co-operation and Civil Resistance, are
nothing but new names for the law of suffering. The
Rishis, who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst
of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton. They
were themselves greater warriors than Wellington. Having
themselves known the use of arms, they realised their use-
lessness and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not
through violence but through non-violence.
Non-violence in its dynamic condition means conscious
410 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will
of the evil-doer, but it means the putting of one's whole
soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law
of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy
the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honour, his
religion, his soul and lay the foundation for that empire's
fall or its regeneration.
And so I am not pleading for India to practise non-
violence, because she is weak. I want her to practise non-
violence being conscious of her strength and power. No
training in arms is required for realisation of her strength.
We seem to need it, because we seem to think that we are
but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognise that she
has a soul that cannot perish and that . can rise triump-
hant above every physical weakness and defy the physical
combination of a whole world.* What is the meaning
of Rama, a mere human being, with his host of mon-
keys, pitying himself against the insolent strength of
ten-headed Ravan surrounded in supposed safety by the
raging waters on all sides of Lanka ? Does it not mean
the conquest of physical might by spiritual strength ?
However, being a practical man, I do not wait till India
recognises the practicability of the spiritual life in the
political world. India considers herself to be powerless
and paralysed before ~the machine-guns, the tanks and the
aeroplanes of the English. And she takes up Non-co-
operation out of her weakness. It must still serve the
same purpose, namely, bring her delivery from the crush-
ing weight of British injustice, if a sufficient number of
people practise it.
I isolate this Non-co-operation from Sinn Feinism, for,
it is so conceived as to be incapable of being offered
side by side with violence. But I invite even the school
of violence to give this peaceful Non-co-operation a trial.
It will not fail through its inherent weakness. It may
fail because of poverty of response. Then will be the
NON-VIOLENCE 411
time for real danger. The high-souled men, who are
unable to suffer national humiliation any longer, will
want to vent their wrath. They will take to violence.
So far as I know, they must perish without delivering
themselves or their country from the wrong. If India
takes up the doctrine of the sword, she may gain
momentary victory. Then India will cease to be the
pride of my heart. I am wedded to India because I owe
my all to her. I believe absolutely that she has a
mission for the world. She is not to copy Europe
blindly. India's acceptance of the doctrine of the sword
will be the hour of my trial. I hope I shall not be found
wanting. My religion has no geographical limits. If
I have a living faith in it, it will transcend my love for
India herself. My life is dedicated to service of India
through the religion of non-violence which I believe to
be the root of Hinduism.
Meanwhile, I urge those who distrust me, not to
disturb the even working of the struggle that has just
commenced, by inciting to violence in the belief that
I want violence. I detest secrecy as a sin. Let them
give Non-violent Non-co-operation a trial and they will find
that I had no men taj ^reservation whatsoever.
— Young India : Aug, 11, 1920.
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I WOULD rather have India resort to arms in
order to defend her honour than that she should in a
cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness
to her own dishonour, — Young India : Aug. 11, 1920.
THE spirit of non-violence necessarily leads to humi*
lity. Non-violence means reliance on God, the Rock
412 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of Ages. If we would seek His aid, we must approach
Him with a humble and a contrite heart.
—Young India : Jan. 12, 1921*
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 prero-
gative 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 harm-
lessness 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
offened 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 oix. 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. —Young India : Jan. 19, 1921.
INDIA'S past training for ages I mean the train-
ing of the masses, has been against violence. Human nature
in India has advanced so far tha* the doctrine of Non-
violence is more natural for the people at large than that of
violence.
— Towg India : Jan, 26, 1922.
NON-VIOLENCE 413
IT has been my belief and practice for over forty
years deliberately to practise the doctrine of N>n-
resistance to evil, not to retaliate. Taere are m^re in-
stances than one in my public life when, with the
ability to retaliate, I have refrained from doin? so and
advised friends to do like wise. My life is dedicated
to the spread of that doctrine. I read it in the teach-
ing of all the greatest teachers of the world, Zoroaster,
Mahavir, Daniel, Jesus, Mahomed, Nanak and a host
others. Indeed, I am not sure that we do justice to
Moses when we impute to him the doctrine of retaliation
in the sense that he mide it obligatory on his followers
to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tODth.
It may be my wish that is father to the thought. But
I do think that in an age when people were unrestrain-
ed in their appetite for the enemy's blood, Moses re-
stricted retaliation to equal measure and no more.
— Toung India : Fcb 9, 1922,
THE only virtue I want to claim is Truth and
Non-violence, I lay no claim to superhuman powers.
I want none. I wear the same corruptible flesh that
the weakest of my fellow beings wear, and am there-
fore as liable to err as as any. — Toung India : Feb. 16, 1922.
FOR me, I am positive that neither in the Koran
nor in the Mahabharata there is any sanction for and
approval of the triumph of violence. Though there is
repulsion enough in Nature she lives by attraction.
Mutul love enables Nature to persist. Man does not
live by destruction. Self-love compels regard for others.
Nations cohere, because there is mutual regard among
414 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
the individuals composing them. Some day we must
extend the national law to the universe, even as we
have extended the family law to form nations — a larger
family. God has ordained that India should be such
a nation. For so far as reason can perceive, India can-
not become free by armed rebellion for generations. India
can become free by refraining from national violence. India
has now become tired of rule based upon violence.
That to me is the message of the plains. The people
of the plains do not know what it is to put up an
orgainsed armed fight. And they must become free, for
they want freedom. They have realised that power
seized by violence will only result in their greater grinding.
—Young India : March 2, 1922.
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I AM sorry that I find a nervous fear among
some Hjndus and Mahomedans that I am undermining
their faith and that I am even doing irreparable
harm to India by my uncompromising preaching of
non-violence. They ?eem almost to imply that violence
is their creed. I touch a tender spot if I talk about
extreme non-violence in their presence. They confound
me with texts from the Mahabharata and the Koran
eulogising or permitting violence. Of the Mahabharata I
can write without restraint, but the most devout
Mahomedan will not, I hope, deny me the privilege
of understanding the message of the Prophet. I make
bold to say that violence is the creed of no religion
and that, whereas non-violence in most cases is obligatory
in all, violence is merely permissible in some cases.
—Young India : March 2, 1924.
^o ^k «^
MY interest in India's freedom will cease if she
adopts violent means, for their fruit will be not free-
dom but slavery in disguise.
— Young India : April 3, 1924.
NON-VIOLENCE 415
VIOLENT means will give violent Swaraj. That
would be a menace to the world and to India herself.
-Young India .-July 17, 1924
<$><$><$> .
IT would be a calamity if by my obstinacy
I stand in the way of the country's progress by other
means, so long as they are not positively mischievous
and harmful. I should for instance rise, even if I was
alone against methods of actual violence. But I have
recognised that the nation has the right, if it so wills,
to vidicate her freedom even by actual violence. Only
then, India ceases to be the land of my love even^
though she be the land of my birth, even as I should*
take no pride in my mother if she went astray.
— Toung India : Nov. 20, 1924.
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MY religion is based on Truth and Non-violence.
Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising*
Hicr. —Toung India : Jan. 8, 1925.
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AHIMSA and Truth are as my two lungs. I cannot
live without them. — Toting India : Oct. 21, 1926..
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ANGER is the enemy of Ahimsa ; and pride is a
monster that swallows it up. — Toung India : Oct. 21, 1926.
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HE who trifles with truth cuts at the root of Ahimsa.
He who is angry is guilty of Ahimsa.
— Toung India : Oct. 21. 1926V
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AHIMSA is the religion of a Kshatriya. Mahavir was
Kshatriya, Buddha was a Kshatriya, Rama and Krishna
were Kshatriyas and all of them were votaries of Ahimsa*
We want to propagate Ahimsa in their name. But to-day
Ahimsa has become the monopoly of timid Vaishyas and
that is why it has been besmirched. Ahimsa is the extreme
416 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
limit of forgiveness. But forgiveness is the quality of the
brave. Ahimsa is impossible without fearlessness.
— Young India : Oct. 21, 1926.
AHIMSA is a weapon of matchless potency. It is the
summum bonum of life. It is an attribute of the brave,
in fact it is their all. It does not come within the reach of
the coward. It is no wooden or life-less dogma, but a living
and a life-giving force. It is the special attribute of the
soul. That is why it has been described as the highest
dharma (law).
Ill-will cannot stand in its presence. The sun of Ahimsa
carries all the hosts of darkness such as hatred, anger and
malice before himself. — Young India : Sept. 6, 1928.
AHIMSA is not mere non-killing. A person who
remains smugly satisfied with the non-killing of noxious life
but has no love in his heart for all that lives will be
counted as least in the Kingdom of Heaven. True love
is boundless like the ocean and rising and swelling within
one spreads itself out and crossing all boundries and
frontiers envelops the whole world.
- Young India : Sept. 20, 1928.
AHIMSA is not the way of the timid or the cowardly.
It is the way of the brave ready to face death. He who
perishes sword in hand is no doubt brave, but he who faces
death without raising his little finger and without flinching
is braver. For fear of being beaten is a coward and
no votary of Ahimsa. He is innocent of Ahimsa. He,
who for fear of being beaten, suffers the women of his house-
hold to be insulted, is not manly but just the reverse.
He is fit neither to be a husband nor a father, nor a brother.
Such people have no right to complain.
He, who cannot protect himself or his nearest and
dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death, may
NON-VIOLENCE 417
and ought to do so by violently facing death, may and
ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor.
He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has
no business to be the head of a family. He must either
hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in help-
lessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the
bidding of a bully. —Toung India : Oct. 11, 1928-
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TO me it is one of the most active forces in the
world. It is like the sun that rises upon us unfailingly
from day to day. Only if we would but understand it, it
is infinitely greater than a million suns put together. It
radiates life and light and peace and happiness.
— Toung India : April 18, 1929.
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IT is infinitely greater than the gems and the diamonds
people prize so much. It can become, if you will make
wise use of it, your own saving and the saving of mankind.
— Toung India: April 18, 1929.
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WHERE the Law of Ahimsa reigns supreme, there
should be no jealousy, no unworthy ambition, no crime.
— Young India : April 18, 1929.
NON-VIOLENCE and cowardice are contradictory
terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardic^ the
greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice
from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would
always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest
bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising, cow-
ardice always is. — Toung India : Oct. 31, 1929.
^^ ^S ^^
NON-VIOLENCE cannot be taught to a person who
fears to die and has no power of resistance. A helpless,
mouse is not non-violent because he is always eaten by
pussy. He would gladly eat the murderess if he could, but
418 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
he ever tries to flee from her. We do not call him a coward,
because he is made by nature to behave no better than he
does. But a man who, when faced by danger, behaves like
a mouse, is rightly called a coward. He harbours violence
and hatred in his heart and would kill his enemy if he could
without being hurt himself. He is a stranger to non-violence.
AH sermonizing on it will be lost on him. Bravery is
foreign to his nature. Before he can understand non-vio-
lence he has to be taught to stand his ground and even
suffer death in the attemp" to defend himself against the
aggressor who bids fair to overwhelm him. To do otherwise
would be to confirm his cowardice and take him furthur
away from non-violence. Whilst I may not actually help
anyone to retaliate, I must not let a coward seek shelter
behind non-violence so-called. Not knowing the stuff of
which non-violence is made many have honestly believed
that running away from dangei every time was a virtue
compared to offering resistance especially when it is fraught
with danger to one's life. As a teacher of non-violence I
must so far as it is possible for me, guard against such an
unmanly belief.
Non-violence is^ the greatest force at the disposal of
mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of
destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. Des-
truction is not the law of the humans. Man lives freely
only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his
brother, never by killing him. Every murder or other
injury, no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted ou
another is a crime against humanity.
But I see quite clearly that this truth about non-violence
cannot be delivered to the helpless. They must be taught
to defend themselves.
The sceptic then argues : " You cannot teach non-
violence to the weak and you dare not take it to the power-
ful. Why not admit that it is a futile creed ? r" The answer
NON-VIOLENCE 419
is, non-violence can be effectively taught only by living it.
When there is an unmistakable demonstration of its power
and efficacy the weak will shed 'their weakness and the
mighty will quickly realize the valuelessness of might and
becoming meek acknowledge the sovereignty of non-violence.
It is my humble effort to show that this is no unattainable
goal even in mass action. —Harijan : July 20, 1935
NON-VIOLENCE is not a quality to be evolved or
expressed to order. It is an inward growth depending for
sustenance upon intense individual effort.
— Toting India : April 23, 1938.
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SHOULD India take to the sword, she would cease to
be the India of my dreams and I should like to betake me
to the Himalayas to seek rest for my anguished soul.
—Harijan : Oct. 15, 1938.
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NO N- VIOLENCE is a quality not of the body but of the
soul. Once its central meaning sinks into your being, all the
rest by itself follows. -Harijan : Nov. 5, 1938.
^N ^N ^s
THIS non-violence is not a mere passive quality. It
is the mightiest force God had endowed man with.
Indeed, possession of non-violence distinguishes man from
the brute creation. It is inherent in every human being,
but in most it lies dormant. Perhaps the word non-violence
is an inadequate rendering of ahimsa which itself was an
incomplete connotation of all lies was used for conveying. A
better rendering would be love or goodwill. Violence was
to be met by goodwill. And goodwill came into play only
when there was ill-will matched against it. To be good to
the good is an .exchange at par. A rupee against a rupee
gives no index to its quality. It does when it is matched
420 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
against an anna. Similarly a man of goodwill is known
only when he matches himself against one of ill-will.
—Harijan : Nov. 19, 1938.
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I AM here to tell you, with fifty years' experience of
non-violence at my back, that it is an infinitely superior
•power as compared to brute force. An armed soldier relies
on his weapons for his strength. Take away from
Mm his weapons for his strength — his gun or his sword, and
he generally becomes helpless. But a person who has truly
realized the principle of non-violence has the God-given
strength for his weapon and the world has not known any-
thing that can match it. Man may, in a moment of
unawareness forget God, but He keeps watch over him and r
protects him always. — Harijan : Nov. 19, 1938.
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TO consider the opponent, or, for the matter of that,
anybody, even in thought, as your enemy would, in the
parlance of non-violence or love, be called a sin. Far from
seeking revenge, a votary of non-violence would pray to
God that He might bring about a change of heart of his
opponent and if that does not happen he would be prepared
to bear injury that his opponent might inflict upon him,
not in a spirit of cowardice or helplessness, but bravely with
smile upon his face. I believe in the ancient saying
that non-violence real and complete will melt the stoniest
hearts. —Harijan : Nov. 19, 1938.
^x ^^ ^^
THE hardest metal yields to sufficient heat. Even so
must the hardest heart melt before sufficiency of the heat of
non-violence. And there is no limit to the capacity of non-
violence to generate heat. — Harijan ; Jan. 7, 1939.
IT was only when I had learnt to reduce myself to a
zero that I was able to evolve the power of Satayagraha in
South Africa. Ahimsa must express itself through acts of
NON-VIOLENCE 421
selfless service of the masses. I cannot think of a better
symbol of or medium for its expression than the spinning
wheel.
Ahimsa is a science. The word 'failure' has no place
in the vocabulary of science. Failure to obtain the expected
result is often the precursor to further discoveries.
—Harijan : May 6, 1939
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YOUR ahimsa to be effective must shine through your
speech, your action, your general behaviour. A votary of
ahimsa must cultivate a habit of unremitting toil, sleepless
vigilance, ceaseless self-control. — Harijan : May 6, 1939>.
HIMSA did not merely mean indulgence in physical
violence ; resort to trickery, falsehood, intrigue, chicanery
and deceitfulness — in short, all unfair and foul means-cprne
under the category of kimsa, and acceptance of ahimsa
whether as a policy or a creed necessarily implied renuncia-
tion of all these things.
A votary of ahimsa has therefore to be in-corruptible,
fair and square in his dealings, truthful, straightforward and
utterly selfless. He must have also true humility.
—Harijan : May 20, 1939
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JUST as one must learn the art of killing in the
training for violence, so one must learn the art of dying
in the training for non-violence. Violence does not mean
emancipation from fear, but discovering the means of
combating the cause of fear. Non-violence, on the other
hand, has no cause of fear. The votary of non-violence
has to cultivate the capacity for sacrifice of the highest
type in order to be free from fear. He recks not if he
should loose his land, his wealth, his life. He who has
not overcome all fear cannot practise ahimsa to perfection'
The votary of ahimsa has only one fear, that is of God
He who seeks refuge in God ought to have a glimpse oi
422 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
the Atman that transcends the body, and the moment one
has glimpse of the Imperishable Atman one sheds the love
of the perishable body. Training in non-violence is thus
diametrically opposed to training in violence. Violence
is needed for the protection of things external, non-violence
is needed for the protection of the Atman, for the protection
of one's honour.
The badge of the violent is his weapon-spear or
sword, or rifle. God is the shield of the non-violent.
—Harijan : Sept. 1, 1940.
AHIMSA in theory no one knows. It is as indefinable
as God. But in its working we get glimpses of it as we
have glimpses of the Almighty in his working amongst and
through us. — Harijan : March 2, 1940.
IT is the law of love that rules mankind. Had
violence, i.e., hate, ruled us, we should have become
extinct long ago. And yet the tragedy of it is that the so-
called civilized men and nations conduct themselves as if
the basis of society was violence. — Harijan : April 13, 1940.
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I HAVE been practising with scientific precision non-
violence and its possibilities for an unbroken period of over
fifty years, I have applied it in every walk of life, domestic,
institutional, economic and political. I know of no single
case in which it has failed. Where it has seemed sometimes
to have failed, I have ascribed it to my imperfections. I
claim no perfection for myself but I claim to
be a passionate seeker after Truth, which is but
another name for God. In the course of that search the
discovery of non-violence came to me. Its spread is my
life mission. I have no interest in living except for the
prosecution of that mission. —Harijan : July 6, 1940.
NON-VIOLENT strength comes from construction,
not destruction. —Harijan : Jan. 25, 1942.
OATH 425
WE dare not exchange non-violence even for Swaraj.
For Swaraj thus got will be no true Swaraj.
—Harijan : Jan. 25, 1942.
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THIS however I can say from the house top that I am
as confirmed a believer in non-violence as I have ever been.
The Congress Resolution of the 8th August is definitely
against Fascism in every shape or form. It extends co-
operation in war efforts under circumstances which alone
can make effective and nation wide co-operation possible.
(From a letter to Lord Linlithgow) : Jan. 29, 1943.
0
OATH
SHRI SHIVAPRASAD GUPTA, the great philanthro-
pist of Benares, writes :
"After hearing the Harijan of May 1st read to me,
I have been pondering over the note 'Gandhi Seva
Sangh and Legislatures.' I re-read it today, I also
read the Weekly Letter, but I could not give rest
to the surging thought rising in my mind.
The last paragraph of the note reads : 'It is not
a religious oath and so far as I understand the
Constitution, it is wholly consistent with the demand
for immediate and concrete independence/ The
following are the questions that arise in my
mind :
1 . Are oaths of several and different kinds ?
2. Can an oath taken in the name of God, or in
the alternative form where one has to affirm solemnly,
be classed in two categories, 'religious oath and
non-religious oath?'
3. What is the governing idea behind a non-
religious oath ?
4. How can an oath of allegiance to the person
of a king be consistent with 'the demand for immed-
424 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
iate and concrete independence?' This demand,
at least to me, means depriving the same sovereign
of his sovereignty.
I would very much like your answer to these
pertinent questions."
My answer to the first and the second questions is
'Yes*. The answer to the other two questions may be
gathered from what follows.
An oath may be taken in the name of God and yet
may not be styled religious. An oath that a witness takes
in a court of law is a legal not a religious oath, breach of
which would carry legal consequences. An oath taken by
members of Parliament may be called a constitutional not
a religious oath, breach of which may involve mundane
consequences. Breach of a religious oath carries no legal
consequences, but in the opinion of the taker does carry
divine punishment. This does not mean that any of the
three varieties of oaths is less binding than the others on a
conscientious man. A conscientious witness will tell the
truth, not for fear of the legal consequence, but he will do
so in every case. The legislator's oath has an interpretation
in terms of the Constitution which prescribes the oath.
The interpretation may be given in the Constitution itself
or may grow up by usage. So far as I understand the
British Constitution, the oath of allegiance simply means
that the legislator will in pushing forward his policy or
point conform to the Constitution. I hold that it is open
to the legislator consistently with his oath under the
British Constitution to adopt measures in the legislature
for complete independence. That to my mind is the
saving grace of the British Constitution. I fancy that the
members of the Union Parliament of South Africa take
substantially the same oath as the members in India, but
it is open to that Parliament today to declare complete
independence without any violation of the oath of alleg-
iance. It is because I have a profound conviction that
OATH 425
the British Constitution in theory permits of the fulfilment
of the highest ambition of an individual or the nation of
which he is a member that I advised the Working Com-
mittee to accept my formula for office acceptance. And
it is in the same conviction that I am struggling to get the
British Government to respond to it. I am painfully con-
scious that they would prolong the agony to the breaking
point. But I know that if we have faith and grit we shall
win at every point and reach our goal without shedding a
drop of blood. The British people apply the same laws
to the game of politics that they apply to the game of
football which I believe is their invention. They give no
quarter to the opponent and ask for none. The fundamen-
tal difference in our case is that we have abjured the use
of arms. This has confounded them. They do not believe
our prostestations. They do not mind our agitation for
complete independence so long as we keep it within the
constitutional limit. What else can the legislators do or are
they to do inside their assemblies ? They may not take
their pistols in their pockets. That would be a flagrant
breach of the oath and also the law. Shri Shivaprasad
Gupta need not worry himself over the propriety of the
oath by Congressmen. If the agitation for complete in-
dependence was inconsistent with the oath, surely the
British Government themselves would have raised that
preliminary objection even to the candidature of Con-
gressmen. —Harijan : May 22, 1937.
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I SEE the clearest possible distinction between the
oath or affirmation that a person takes before a court of
law, a legislature, and before his God perhaps daily at the
time of rising and retiring. They have different functions,
different incidences. —Harijan : June 26, 1937.
Opponents
I WANT you to feel like loving your opponents and
426 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
the way to do it is to give them the same credit for honesty
of purpose which you would claim for yourself.
And immediately we begin to think of things as our
opponents think of them we shall be able to do them full
justice. I know that this requires a detached state of mind,
and it is a state very difficult to reach. Nevertheless for a
Sutyagrahi it is absolutely essential. Three fourths of the
miseries and misunderstandings in the world will disappear,
if we step into the shoes of our adversaries and understand
their standpoint. We will then agree with our adversaries
quickly or think of them charitably.
— Young India : March 19, 1925.
AN OPPONENT is entitled to the same regard for his
principles as we would expect others to have for ours.
Non-violence demands that we should seek every oppor-
tunity to win over opponents. —Harijan : May 43 1940,
Obstinacy
I AM not conscious of being obstinate- Those, who
know me, have always credited me with an ample faculty
for compromise though they have found rne unyielding on
matters of principle — Harijan : May 4, 1935.
Optimism
I am an irrepressible optimist, but I always base my
noptimismon solid facts. —Young India : Oct. 23, 1924.
I am an irrepressible optimit because I believe in
myself. That sounds very arrogant : does it not ? But I say it
from the depth of my humility. I believe in the supreme
power of God. I believe in Truth and future of humanity.
I trust in God who knows how to confound the wisdom of
men. He is a consumate Jadugar and I have placed
myself in His Hands. He is a hard task-master. He would
ORGANISATION 427
accept nothing short of the best you are capable of. I am
an optimist because I expect many things from myself. I
have not got them I know, as I am not yet a perfect bemg.
If I was one, I should not even need to reason with you.
When I am a perfect being I have simply to say the word
and the nation will listen. I want to attain that perfection
by service. — Young India : Aug. 13, 1925.
. ^ ^. ^
1 am an irrepressible optimist. No scientist starts his
experiments with a faint heart. I belong to the tribe of
Columbus and Stevenson, who hoped against hope in the
face of heaviest odds. The days of miracles are not gone.
They will abide so long as God abides.
— Harijan : June 15, 1940.
Organisation
MY experience has taught me that no movement ever
stops or languishes for want of funds. This does not mean
that any temporal movement can go on without money, but
it does mean that wherever it has good men and true at its
helm, it is bound to attract to itself the requisite funds. On
the other hand, I have also observed that a movement
takes its downward course from the time that it is afflicted
with a plethora of funds. When therefore a public institu-
tion is managed from the interest of investments, I dare not
:all it a sin but I do say that it is a highly improper pro-
cedure. The public should be the bank for all public
institutions, which should not last a day longer than the
public wish. An institution run with the interest of accumu-
lated capital ceases to be amenable to public opinion and
becomes autocratic and self-righteous.
— Sataygraha in South Africa : Page 252.
<s> <*> <s>
AN organisation has every right to prescribe penalties
for a breach by its members of self-imposed conditions.
India ; July 10, 1924.
428 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
I KNOW no organisation that has died for want of
funds. Organisations die always for want of men i.e.
honesty, efficiency and self-sacrifice.
—Young India : June 3, 1926.
<s> <$> <s>
NO organisation can be run with success if its mem-
bers, especially its officers, refuse to carry out its policy and
hold on to it in spite of opposition to it. For winning
Swaraj one requires iron discipline.
— Young India : Aug. 28, 1926.
<$> <§> <$>
LET us not forget that organisations are meant for the
service of the people, and not the people for the service of
the organisations. — Young India : Aug. 18, 1927.
<s> <$> <s>
DISTORTED notions of superiority and inferiority
have given rise to indiscipline in almost all the national,
organisations. Many people think that to abolish distinc-
tions of rank means passport to anarchy and licence.
Whereas the meaning of abolition of distinctions should be
perfect discipline, — perfect because of voluntary obedience
to the laws of the organisation to which we may belong,
i.e. the laws of our being. For man is himself a wonderful
organisation and what applies to him applies to the social
or political organisations of which he may be a member.
And even as, though the different members of the body are
not inferior to any, they are voluntarily subject to the
control of the mind, whilst the body is in a healthy st t^, so
have the members of an organisation, whilst none is superior
or inferior to any other, to be voluntarily subject to the
mind of the organisation which is the head. An organisa-
tion which has no directing mind and which has no members
co-operating with the mind, suffers from paralysis and
i*i in a dying condition. — Young India : May 3, 1928*
^ ^ ^
AN organisation weakens if its members continuously
PAKISTAN 429
seek indulgence. I know that procrastination among
members is the bane of most institutions.
—Toung India : Aug. 8, 1929.
ORGANISATIONS, like men, if they are to command
respect and grow, must have a sense of honour and
must fulfil their promise. — Toung India : Jan 23, 1930.
NO movement or organization having vitality dies
from external attack. It dies of internal decay.
—Harijan : April 11, 1936.
NO movement or activity that has the sure foundation
of purity of character of its workers, is ever in danger to
come to an end for want of funds. — Harijan : Nov. 28, 1936.
Pakistan
IN my opinion, India is today one nation, even a
Italy or France is ; and this I maintain in spite of a vivid
and painful knowledge of the fact, that Hindus and
Musalmans are murdering one another, that Brahmins and
Non-brahmins are preparing for a similar battle, and that
both Brahmins and Non-brahmins exclude from their
purview the classes which both have left no stone unturned
to suppress. But I have known similar quarrels in families
and in other nations. It has often seemed to me, that a
family connection is necessary to establish a good ground
for a quarrel. —Toung India : Aug. 11, 1927.
^s ^^ ^^
BUT though we may quarrel and murder one another
though we have numerous languages and still more numer-
ous dialects, India is geographically one, and we are and
have been only one people. Those speaking the same
language have been known before now to belong to
different nationalities, and those that have fought among
430 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
themselves like dogs have been known to belong to one
nation. The fact is that oneness of speech and absence of
internal feuds are no indispensable test of nationality.
— Young India : July 30, July 193L
<$><$><$>
A MUSLIM friend writes a long letter which pruned
down reads as follows :
cc The chief difficulty that stands in your way of right
thinking is that your heart has so hardened by looking at
and interpreting things in the light of your self-assumed
principles, that you cannot bring to bear an open mind on
anything, howsoever valuable it may be.
u If God ha? not appointed you as His Messenger, what
you say or teach cannot be claimed to be a word of God.
No one would contest the truthfulness of truth and non-
violence as teachings of the prophets and principles of very
high spiritual value, but their true understanding and
application require a soul that is in direct communion with
God. Any person who has only polished his soul by
suppressing or acting against the desires and cravings of the
flesh and the self is not a prophet.
" The fact thatjyou stand as a teacher of the world and
claim to have diagnosed the disease from which the world is
suffering, and proclaim that the truth of your choice and
practice and the non-violence of your convictions and appli-
cations are the only cures for the afflicted world, betrays your
utter disregard and misconception of the truth. You admit
you make mistakes. Your non-violence is actually a concealed
violence as it is not based on actual spiritual life and is not
the earnest of true inspiration from God.
" As a true believer, and in pursuance of that teaching
of Islam which enjoins on every Muslim to convey the truth
to every human being, I would request you to clear your
mind of all complexes, to place yourself in the position of an
PAKISTAN 431
ordinary human being who wants to learn and not to teach
and to become a real seeker after truth.
" If you wish to find out the truth, I would request you
to study the Quran and the life of the Prophet Mohamed
(Peace of God be upon him) written by Shebli Nomani and
M. Sulaiman Nadwi with an open mind.
u As for unity among the different communities inhabit*
ing India, it can never come in terms of a single nation.
Broad-minded toleration of each other's religion and
practises and an agreement based on the recognition of the
Muslims as a nation with their own complete code of life
and culture to guide them and an equality of status in
political life, shall bring harmony and peace to India."
I have omitted no argument used by the writer.
I have not hardened my heart. I have never claimed
to be a messenger of God except in the sense in which all
human beings are. I am a mortal as liable to err as any
other. Nor have I claimed to be a teacher but I cannot
prevent admirers from calling me a teacher or a Mahatma,
as I cannot prevent traducers from calling me all sorts of
names and ascribing to me vices to which I am a
stranger. I lay both praise and blame at the feet of the
Almighty and go my way.
For the information of my correspondent, who is a
schoolmaster in a high school, I may say that I have
reverently studied the works he mentions and also many
other works on Islam. I have more than once read the
Quran. My religion enables me, obliges me, to imbibe all
that is good in all the great religions on the earth. This
does not mean that I must accept the interpretation that my
correspondent may put upon the message of the Prophet of
Islam or any other Prophet. I must use the limited
intelligence that God has given me to interpret the teachings
bequeathed to mankind by the Prophets of the world. I
1*32 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
am glad to find that my correspondent agrees that truth and
non-violence are taught by the holy Quran. Surely it is for
him, as for every one of us to apply these principles to daily
life according to the light given to us by God.
The last paragraph in the letter lays down a dangerous
doctrine. Why is India not one nation.? Was it not one
during, say, the Moghul period ? Is India composed
of two nations ? If it is, why only two ? Are not
Christians a third Parsis a fourth, and so on ? Are
the Muslims of China a nation separate from the other
Chinese ? Are the Muslims of England a different nation
from the other English ? How are the Muslims of the
Punjab different from the Hindus and the Sikhs ? Are they
no tall Punjabis, drinking the same water, breathing the
same air and driving sustenance from the same soil ? What
is there to prevent from following their respective religious
practises ? Are Muslims all the world over a separate
nation ? Or are the Muslims of India only to be a separate
nation distinct from the others ? Is India to be vivisected
into two parts, one Muslim and the other non-Muslims? And
what is to happen to the handful of Muslims living in the
numerous villages where the population is predominantly
Hindu, and conversely to the Hindus where, as in the
frontier Province or Sind, they are a handful ? The way
suggested by the correspondent is the way of strife. Live
and let live. Mutual forbearance and toleration is the law
of life. That is the lesson I have learnt from the Qjiran, the
Bible, the %end A vesta and the Gita.
—Harijan : Oct. 28, 1939.
PAKISTAN 433
AS a man of non-violence I cannot forcibly resist the
proposed partition if the Muslims of India really insist
upon it. But I can never be a willing party to the vivi-
section. I would employ every nbn-violent^ means to
prevent it. For it means the undoing of centuries of work
done by numberless Hindus and Muslims to live together
as one nation. Partition means a patent untruth. My
whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam
represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To
assent to such a doctrine is for me denial of God. For I
believe with my whole soul that the God of the Quran is
also the God of the Gita, and that we are all, no matter
by what name designated, children of the same God. I
must rebel against the idea that millions of Indians who
were Hindus the other day changed their nationality oji
adopting Islam as their religion.
But that is my belief. I cannot thrust it down the
throats of the Muslims who think that they are a different
nation. I refuse, however, to believe that the eight crores
of Muslims will say that they have nothing in common with
their Hindu and other brethren. Their mind can only be
known by a referendum duly made to them on that cleat
issue. The contemplated Constituent Assembly can easily
decide the question. Naturally on an issue such as this
there can be no arbitration. It is purely and simply a
matter of. self-determination, I know of no other conclusive
method of ascertaining the mind of the eight crores of
Muslims. —Harijan : April 13, 1940.
^ ^ ^
THE partition proposal has altered the face of the
Hindu-Muslim problem. I have called it an untruth.
There can be no compromise with it. At the same time
I have said, that, if the eight crores of Muslims desire it,
no power on the earth can prevent it, notwithstanding
opposition violent or non-violent. It cannot come by
honourable agreement.
434 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
That is the political aspect of it. But what about the
religious and moral which are greater than the political ?
For at the bottom of the cry for partition is that belief
that Islam is an exclusive brotherhood, and anti-Hindu.
Whether it is against other religions it is not stated. The
newspaper cuttings in which partition is preached describe
Hindus as practically untouchables. Nothing good can
come out of Hindu or Hinduism. To live under Hindu
ilile is a sin. Even joint Hindu- Muslim rule is not to be
thought of. The cuttings show that Hindus and Muslims
are already at war with one another and that they mu$t
be prepared for the final struggle.
Time was when Hindus thought that Muslims were
the natural enemies of Hindus. But as is the case with
Hinduism, ultimately it comes to terms with the enemy
and makes friends with it. The process had not been
completed. As if nemesis had overtaken Hinduism, the
Muslim League started the same game and taught that
there could be no blending of the two cultures. In this
connection I have just read a booklet by Shri Atulanand
Ghakrabarti which shows that ever since the contact of
Islam with Hinduism there has been an attempt on the
part of the best mind of both to see the good points of
each other, and to emphasise inherent similarities rather
than seeming dissimilarities. The author has shown Islamic
history in India in a favourable light. If he has stated
the truth and nothing but the truth, it is a revealing booklet
which all Hindus and Muslims may read with profit. He
has secured a very favourable and reasoned preface from Sir
Shaafat Ahmed Khan and several other Muslim testimon-
ials. If the evidence collected there reflects the true
evolution of Islam in India, then the partition propaganda
is anti-Islamic.
Religion binds man to God and man to man. Does
Islam bind only Muslim to Muslim and antagonise the
Hindu? Was the message of the Prophet peace only for
PAKISTAN 435
and between Muslims and war against non-Muslims and
Hindus ? Are eight crores of Muslims to be fed with thai
which I can only describe as poison ? Those who are
instilling the poison into the Muslim mind are rendering
the greatest disservice to Islam. I know that it is no Islam.
I have lived among Muslims not for one day but closely
and almost uninterruptedly for twenty years. Not one
Muslim taught me that Islam was an anti-Hindu religion.
8 —Harijan : May 4, 1940.
AN English friend writes thus :
"It is still reasonable at present fo proceed on the
assumption that the Muslims would accept something a
good deal less than 'Pakistan*. But the trouble is that the
longer the time that elapses without any compromise
being reached, the stronger and more insistent will
be the cry for 'Pakistan', for that in the end civil war or
Sartition will be the only alternatives. I think the view
eld by some that there is nothing to be done but to wait
upon events is fatal. It is up to the British now to use
all their powers of persuasion and statesmanship to compel
the parties to settle.
"The crux of the matter is who is to control power at
the Centre-Hindus or Muslims ? Over this the Congress
must be prepared to make great concessions. The principles
of parliamentary democracy and majority rule must be
jettisoned. They are not applicable when two distinct
civilisations have got to live down together. Majority rule
from the Muslim point of view will mean, or at any rate,
contain the menace of the dominance of one civilisation
over the other. If the Congress does not recognize this
quickly, I am afraid partition will become, if not the only
alternative, the best one which will give you an idea of how
bad the other alternatives will be !
great
"If the Congress can be brought to see the need for
t concessions on this point, I am sure compromise
4S6 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
solutions can be found. I hold this necessity to be
vital."
Of course the British Government can do much. They
have done much by force. They can make the parties
come to a solution by force. But they need not go so
for. What they have done hitherto is to prevent a proper
solution. In proof of my statement I commend the
esteemed correspondent to the columns of the Harijan. The
only thing the British Government have to do is to change
their attitude. Will they ? They can retain their hold on
India only by a policy of divide and rule. A living unity
between Muslims and Hindus is fraught with danger to
their rule. It would mean an end of it. Therefore it
seems to me that a true solution will come with the end
of the rule, potentially if not in fact.
What can be done under the threat of Pakistan ? If
it is not a threat but a desirable goal, why should it be
be prevented ? If it is undesirable and the means only for
Muslims to get more under its shadow, any solution would
an unjust solution. It would be worse than no solution.
Therefore I am entirely for waiting till the menace is gone.
India's independence js a living thing. No make-believe
will suit. The whole world is in the throes of a new birih.
Anything done for a temporary gain would be tantamount
to an abortion.
I cannot think in terms of narrow Hinduism or narrow
Islam. I am wholly uninterested in a patchwork solution.
India is a big country, a big nation composed of different
cultures, which are tending to blend one another, each
complimenting the rest. If I must wait for the completion
of the process, I must wait. It may not be completed in
my life. I shall love to die in the faith that it must come
m the fullness of time. I should be happy to think that I
had clone nothing to hamper the process. Subject to this
condition I would do anything to bring compromise, but
PAKISTAN 43'
th^ey arc compromises that have brought m<5 nearer the goal.
Pakistan cannot be worse than foreign domination. I have
lived under the latter though not willingly. If God so
desires it, I may have to become a helpless witness to the
undoing of my dream. But I do not believe that the
Muslims really want to dismember India.
— Harijan : May 4, 1940.
Q. ARE you right in conceding the right of self
determination to Muslims in a matter so vitally affecting
others also, ri( Hindus, Sikhs, etc. Supposing the majorit)
of the Muslims decide in favour of partition in terms o
the Muslim League resolution, what happens to the self-
determination of Hindus, Sikhs, etc., who will be minorities
in the Muslim States ? If you will go on like this, where
will be the end of it ?
A! Of course Hindus and Sikhs will have the same
right. I have simply said that there is no other non-violent
method of dealing with the problem. If every component
part of the nation claims the right of self-determination for
itself, there is no one nation and there is no independence. I
have already said that Pakistan is such an untruth that it
cannot stand. As soon as the authors begin to work
out, they will find that it is not practicable. In any case
mine is a personal opinion. What the vast Hindu masses
and the others will say or do I do not know. My mission
is to work for the unity of all, for the sake of the equal
good. —Harijan : May 18, 1940.
Q. YOU have said in Harijan that "if the eight crores
of Muslims desire partition, no power on earth can prevent
it.1' Does it not strike you that 25 crores of non^Muslirns
too might have a say in the matter ? Does not your
statement imply that you put a premium on the opinion
of the Muslims while underrating that of the Hindus ?
A. I have only given my opinion. If the majority
438 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of Hindus or Christians or Sikhs or even Parsis, small
though their number is, stubbornly resist the express wish
of the duly elected representatives of eujht crores of
Muslims, they will do so at the peril of a civil war. This
is not a question of majority or minority If we are to
solve our problems non-violently, there is no other-way.
I say this not because the eight crores happen to be
Muslims, I would say the same if the eight crores were
any other community. —Harijan : May 25,1940.
Panic
PANIC is the most demoralising state anyone can be
in. There never is any cause for panic. One must keep
heart whatever happens. War is an unmitigated evil. But
it certainly does one good thing, it drives away fear and
brings bravery to the surface. Several million lives must
have been already lost between the Allies and the Germans.
They have been wasting blood like water. Old men,
women both old and young, and children in Britain and
France are living in the midst of imminent death. But
there is no panic there. If they were seized by panic, that
would be an enemy more dreadful than German bullets,
bombs and poison gas.- Let us learn from these suffering
nations of the West and banish panic from our midst. And
in India there is no cause whatsoever for panic. Britain
will die hard and heroically even if she has to. We may
hear of reverses, but we will not hear of demoralisation.
Whatever happens will happen in an orderly manner.
—Harijan : June 8, 1940.
Passions
HUMAN passions are fleeter even than the wind and
to subdue them completely requires no end of patience.
-Tout* India : Oct. 15. 1927.
PATIENCE 439
Parties
YOU suggest the desirability of unity. I think unity
of goal we have. But parties we shall have — we may not
find a common denominator for improvements. For some
will want to go further than others. I see no harm in a
wholesome variety. What I would rid ourselves of, is dis-
trust of one another and imputation of motives. Our be-
setting sin is not our differences, but our littleness. We
wrangle over words, we fight often for shadow and lose the
substance It is not our differences that really matter.
It is the meanness behind that is ugly.
— Toung India : Feb. 1 1920.
THERE is room enough in our country for as many
parties as there are honest men.
— Toting India : Dec. 8, 1921.
I HAVE repeatedly observed that no school of thought
can claim a monopoly of right judgment. We are all
liable to err and are often obliged to revise our judgments.
In a vast country like this, there must be room for all
schools of honest thought. And the least therefore that we
owe to ourselves as to others is to try to understand the
opponent's view-point and, if we cannot accept it, respect
it as fully as we would expect him to respect ours. It is
one of the indispensable tests of a healthy public life and ,
therefore fitness for Swaraj. If we have no charity, and no
tolerance, we shall never settle our differences amicably and
must therefore always submit to the arbitrament of a third
party i.e., to foreign domination.
—Young India : April 17, 1924.
Patience
TO lose patience is to lose the battle.
—Towig India : Dec. 12, If 20.
TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
IF patience is worth anything, it must endure to the
end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of
the blackest storm. — Young India: Jan. 7, 1926.
Patriotism
FOR me patriotism is the same as humanity. I am
patriotic because I am human and humane. It is not ex-
clusive. I will not hurt England or Germany to serve
India. Imperialism has no place in my scheme of life.
The law of a patriot is nqt different from that of the
patriarch. And a patriot is so much the less a patriot if
be is a lukewarm humanitarian. There is no conflict
between private and political law. My patriotism is not
exclusive: it is calculated not only not to hurt any other
nation but to benefit all in the true sense of the word.
India's freedom as conceived by me can never be a menace
to the world, —Young India : April 3, 1924.
THE first thing is that my mission is not merely brother-
hood of Indian humanity. My mission is not merely free-
dom of India, though today, it undoubtedly engrosses
practically the whole of my life and the whole of my time.
But through realisation, of freedom of India I hope to realise
and carry on the mission of brother-hood of man. My
patriotism is not an exclusive thing. It is all-embracing and
I should reject that patriotism which sought to mount upon
the distress or the exploitation of other nationalities. The
conception of my patriotism is nothing if it is not always in
every case without exception consistent with the broadest
good of humanity at large. Not only that but my religion
and my patriotism derived from my religion embrace all
life. I want to realise brother-hood or identity not merely
with the beings called human, but I want to realise identity
with all life, even with such beings as crawl on earth. I
waijf, if I don't jpve you a shock, to realise identity with
even the crawling things on earth, because we claim
PEACE 441
common descent from the same God, $nd that being so, all
life in whatever form it appears must be essentially one.
—Toting India : April 4, 1929.
YOU cannot serve both self and country. Service 01
self is strictly limited by that of the country, and hence ex-
cludes a living beyond the means of this absolutely poor
country. To serve our villages is to establish Swaraj.
Everything else is but an idle dream.
— Young India : Dec. 26, 1929.
THERE never can be any conflict between the real
interest of one's country and that of one's religion. Where
there appears to be any, there is something wrong with one's
religion ; i et one's morals. True religion means good
thought and good conduct. True patriotism also means
good thought and good conduct. To set up a com-
parison between two synonymous things is wrong.
— Young India : Jan 9, 1930.
^^ ^> ^>
I AM a humble servant of India, and in trying to serve
India, I serve humanity at large. I discovered, in my early
days, that the service of India is not inconsistent with the
service of humanity. As I grew older in years, and I hope
also in wisdom, I saw that the discovery was well made,
and after nearly 50 years of public life, I am able to say to-
day that my faith in the doctrine, that the service of one's
nation is not inconsistent with the service of the world, has
grown. It is a good doctrine. Its acceptance alone will
ease the situation in the world, and stop the mutual jeal-
ousies between nations inhabiting this globe of ours.
—Young India : Nov. 7, 1933.
Peace
I AM a man of peace. I believe in peace. But I do
not want peace at any price. I do not want the peace that
you find in the grave : but I do want that peace which you
442 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
find embedded in the human breast, which is exposed to
the arrows of a whole world, but which is protected
from all harm by the Power of the Almighty God.
— Young India : Jan. 19, 1922.
THE way of peace is the way of truth. Truthfulness is
even, more important than peacefulest
-rTowig India : May 20, 1925.
EACH one has to find his peace from within. And
peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstan-
ces. — Toung India : Nov. 19, 1929.
Penance
PENANCES with me are no mechanical acts. They are
done in obedience to the "inner voice."
— Toting India : April 2, 1931.
Perfection
NO human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption
no human being is so perfect as to warrant his destroying
him whom he wrongly considers to be wholly evil.
— Toung India : March 26, 1931.
Perseverance
PERSEVERANCE opens up treasures which bring
pcrenial joy. — Harijan : April 5, 1942.
Petition Writing
I DO wish as a practised draughtsman to warn
writers of petition, whether they be pleaders or otherwise, to
think of the cause they may be expousing for the time being.
I assure them that a bare statement of facts unembellished
with adjectives is far more eloquent and effective than a
narrative glowing with exubercnt language. Petition writers
must understand that they address busy men, not necessarily
PICKETING 443
sympathetic, sometimes prejudiced, and almost invariably
prone to sustain the decisions of their subordinates. Peti-
tions have to be read and analysed by public workers and
journalists who have none too much time at their disposal*
I make a present of my valuable experience to young
patriots whe wish to try the art of advocating public cause
by writing petitions or otherwise. I hfti the it privilege of
serving under the late Mr. Gokhale and for a time under the
G.O.ML of India. Both told me that if I wanted to be
heard I must be brief, I must write to the point and adhere
to facts, and never travel beyond the cause under notice,
and I must be most sparing in my adjectives And if
some success has attended my effort it is due to my accep-
tance of the golden advice given to me by the two illustrious
deceased. — Toung India : Jan. 12, 1920.
Picketing
PICKETING in its nature must be temporary, but it is
like what a stimulant is in medicine. Drink is more a
disease than a vice. I know scores of men who would
gladly leave off drink if they could.
Inspite of the temptation having been put away at their
instance, I have known them to steel drink. I do not,
therefore, think that it was wrong to have removed the
temptation. Diseased persons have got to be helped against
themselves. If I have a son who is addicted (say to gam-
bling, and a gambling company imposes itself on me to
tempt my boy, I have either violently to knock the company
down or to post watches at its offices, in order, if possible, to
shame my son into not going there. It is true that there
are other gambling companies some distance from my place.
Still I take it, I would be held in the right in having posted
a watch at the company's door. I must make it difficult for
my son to gamble. What, for instance, should the public
do, if the state were to build palaces in every street for
women of ill-fame, and issue to them licences to ply their
444 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
trade ? Will it not be its duty, unless it destroys these
palaces inhabited by vice, to quarantime them and warn
the public of the danger of falling an easy prey to the temp-
tation forced on it ? I recognise the necessity of using only
men and women of character as pickets and of guarding
against violence being offered to those who insist on drinking
in the face of public opinion. Picketing is a duty, a citizen
must discharge, when he is not helped by the state. What
is a police patrol, if it is not picketing against thieves ?
The police use the gun, when the thief betrays an inclination
to break into another's house. A picket uses the pressure
of shame, i.e., love, when he warns a weak brother against
the dangers of the drink evil. — Toung India : Jan. 13, 1920.
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PEACEFUL picketing does not mean that so long as no
physical violence is used, any kind of pressure could be
exercised. The picketers' duty is merely to wara drinkers
against the vice of drink, not molest them or otherwise pre-
vent them if they will not listen. If we may force temper-
ance upon the people believing it to be good for them, the
English administrators and their Indian supporters are
certainly performing an analogous operation. They too
force the present system on us well believing that it is good
for us. I would rather have India to be free than sober if
freedom has to buy sobriety.
—Young India : Feb. 23, 1922'
Plains-peaking
IF plain-speaking were rudeness, I am simply saturated
with it. —Harijan : April 20, 1935.
Policy
LET us understand the distinction between policy and
creed. A policy may be changed, a creed cannot. But
either is as good as the other whilst it is held.
—Toung India ; July 30, 1931.
POLITICS 445
Politics
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 havp
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 in-
troducing 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 quality 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 appre-
ciated the true correspondence between the Maker and
itself. —Young India : May 8, 1920.
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POURING ridicule on one's opponent is an app-
roved method in " civilized politics!11
— Toting India : Sept. 1, 1920.
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I HAVE sacrified no principle to gain a political
end. —Town I^a : March 12, 1925,
OURS is a movement of self-purification. There are
some who think that morality has nothing to do with
politics. We do not concern ourselves with the character
446 TEACHINGS 0* MAHATMA GANDHI
of our leaders. The democracies of Europe and
Aaperiea steer clear of any notion of morality having
artfthing to do with politics. Bad characters are often
great intellects, and they can manage certain affairs
wefl enough by the force of their intellect. The private
character of some of the leading men of the House of
Commons will not bear examination. We too have often
carried on our political movement in the same fashion.
We did not concern ourselves with the morals of the
Congress delegates or leaders. But in 1920 we struck an
entirely new departure and we declared that since truth
and non-violence were the sole means to be employed
by the Congress to reach its goal, self-purification was
necessary even in political life. —Young India : Jan. 23, 1930
Political Power
TO me political power is not an end but one ol
the means of enabling people to better their condition
in every department of life. Political power means
capacity to regulate national life through national re-
presentatives. If national life becomes so perfect as to
become self-regulated, no representation is necessary.
There is then a state of enlightened anarchy. In such
a state every one is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a
manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbour.
In the idle state therefore there is no political power because
there is no State. But the ideal is never fully realised in life.
Hence the classical statement of Thoreau that that Govern-
ment is best which governs the least.— Harij an : Dec. 2, 1938.
Politics vs, Religion
I THINK the political life must be an echo of private
life and that there cannot be any divorce between the
*wo. —Toung India : July 11, 1925.
I HAVE always said that my politics are subservieni
POLITIES VS. KJ&L-itiiuw 447
to my religion. I have fotifi^ myfidf in them, as I
could not live my religion fife (i. e.) a life of service,
without being affected by them. I should discard them
today if they hindered it. I cannot therefore subscribe
to the doctrine that I may not, being a political leader
deal with matters religious. — Toung India : July 19 1924.
FOR me there is no politics without religion— not
the religion of the supcrstitous and the blind religion
that hates and fights, but the Universal Religion of
Toleration. Politics without morality is a thing to be
avoded. Then says the critic, I must retire from all
public activity. Such however is not my experience. I
must try to live in society and yet remain untouched
by its pitfalls. — Toung India : Nov. 27, 1924.
TODAY there is not much open opposition to the idea,
though there are many who secretely believe that politics
should have nothing to do with morality. That is why our
progress is so slow and in some respects even nil. If we had
acted up to our creed of 1920, we should not have taken
nine years to arrive at the present stage. If Swaraj was not
meant to civilize us, and to purify and stabilise our civilisa-
tion, it would be nothing worth. The very essence of our
civilisation is that we give a paramount place to morality in
ail our affairs, public or private. — Toung India. Jan. 23, 1930.
YOU must understand that I cannot isolate politics
from the deepest things of my life, for the simple reason that
nay politics are not corrupt, they are inextricabely bound up
with Non-violence and Truth. As I have said often enough I
would far rather that India perished than that she won
freedom at the sacrifie of truth. — Toung India : Oct. 1, 1931.
Poverty
THE curse of the poor has destroyed nations, has de-
prived kings of their crowns and the rich of their riches*
448 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Retributive justice is inexorable. The blessings of the poor
have made kingdoms flourish.
Riches arc no test of goodness. Indeed poverty is the
only test. A good man voluntarily embraces poverty.
—Young India : Nov. 19, 1925,
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EVERY palace that one sees in India is a demonstration
not of her riches but of the isolence of power that riches
give to the few, who owe them to the miserably requited
labours of the millions of the paupers of India.
—Young India : July 7, 1927.
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NON-POSSESSION is allied to Non-stealing. A thing
not originally stolen must nevertheless be classified as stolen
property, if one possesses it without needing it. Possession
implies provision for the future. A seaker after Truth,
a follower of the Law of Love cannot hold anything against
tomorrow. God never stores for the morrow. He never
creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment.
If therefore we repose faith in His providence, we should
rest assurred that He will give us every day our daily breadr
meaning everything that we require. Saints and devotees,
who have lived in such faith, have always derived a justifi-
cation for it from their experience. Our ignorance or
negligence of the Divine Law, which gives to man from day
to day his daily bread and no more, has given rise to in-
equalities with all the miseries attendant upon them. The
rich have a superfluous stoie of things which they do not
need, and which are therefore neglected and wasted ; while
millions are starved to death for want of sustenance. If
each retained possession only of what he needed, no one
would be in want, and all would live in contentment. As
it is, the rich are discontented no 1( ss than the poor. The
poor man would fain become a millionaire and the millio-
naire a multi-millionare. The rich should take the initiative
in dispossession with a view to a universal diffusion of the
NON-POSSESSION 449
spirit of contentment. If only they keep their own property
within moderate limits, the starving will be easily fed, and
will learn the lesson of contentment along with the rich.
Perfect fulfilment of the ideal of Non-possession requires
that man should, like the birds, have no roof over his head,
no clothing and no stock ot food for the morrow. He will
indeed need his daily bread, but it will be God's business,
and not his, to provide it. Only the fewest possible, if any
at all. can reach this ideal. We ordinary seekers may not
be repelled by the seeming impossibility. We must
keep the ideal constantly in view, and in the light thereof
critically examine our possessions, and try to reduce them*
Civilisation, in the real sense of the term, consists not in the*
multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction
of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and content-
ment, and increases the capacity for service. Judging by
this cnterion, we find that in the Ashram we possess many
things, the necessity for which cannot be proved, and we
thus tempt our neighbours to thieve.
From the standpoint of pure Truth, the body too is a
possession. It has been truly said that desire for enjoyment
creates bodies for the sdul. When this desire vanishes there
remains no further need for the body, and man is free from
the vicious cycle of birth and deaths. The soul is omnipre-
sent ; why should she care to be confined within the cagelike
body, or do evil and even kill for the sake of that cage ? We
thus arrive at the ideal of total renunciation, and learn to
use the body for the purposes of service so long as it exists,
so much so that service, and not bread, becomes with us the
staff of life. We eat and drink, sleep and wake, for service
alone. Such an attitude of mind brings us real happiness,
and the beatific vision, in the fulness of time. Let us all
examine ourselves from this standpoint.
We should remember that Non-possession is a principle
applicable to thoughts, as \yell as to things. One who fill*
his brain with useless knowledge violates that inestimable
450 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
principle. Thoughts, which turn us away from God, or do
not turn us towards Him, constitute impediments in our
way* In this connection we may consider the definition of
knowledge contained in the 13th chapter of the Gita. We
are there told that humility (amanitvarri) , etc., constitute
knowledge, and all the rest is ignorance. If this is true, —
and there is no doubt that it is true, — much that we hug to-
day as knowledge is ignorance pure and simple, and there-
fore only does us harm, instead of conferring any benefit.
Jt makes the mind wander, and even reduces it to a vacuity,
and discontent flourishes in endless ramifications of evil.
Needless to say, this is not a plea for inertia. Every moment
of our life should be filled with mental or physical activity.
But that activity should be sattvikay tending to Truth. One
who has consecrated his life to service cannot be idle for a
single moment. But one has to learn to distinguish between
good activity and evil activity. This discernment goes
naturally with a single-minded devotion to service.
— From Teravda Mandir.
Power
POWER is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear
of punishment and the other by «arts of love. Power
based on love is a thousand times more effective and
permanent than the^one derived from fear of punishment.
— Toung India : Jan. 8, 1925.
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POWER invariably elects to go into the hands of
strong. That strength may be physical or of the heart
or, if we do not fight shy of the word, of the spirit. Stength
of the heart connotes soul force. Let it be remembered that
physical force is transitory even as the body is transitory. But
the power of the spirit is permanent, even as the spirit
is ever lasting. — Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
Prayer
HERE is a letter written by a student to the
PRAYER 451
Principle of a national instution asking to be excused
from attending its prayer meetings :
"I beg to state that I have no belief in prayer, as I do not
believe in anything known as God to which I should pray, I
never feel any necessity of supposing a God for myself. What do
I lose if I do not care for Him and calmly and sincerely work my
own schemes ?
"So far as congregational prayer is concerned, it is of no
usf. Can such a huge mass of men enter into any mental con-
centration upon a thing, however trifling it may be ? Are the
little and ignorant children expected to fix their fickle attention
on the subtlest ideas ot our great scriptures, God and soul and
equality of all men and many other high-sounding phrases ?
This great performance is required to be done at a particular
time at the command of a particular man. Can love for the
jo-called Lord take its root in the hearts of boys by any such
mechanical function ? Nothing can be more repugnant to reason
than to expect the same behaviour from men of every tem-
perament. Therefore, prayer should not be a complusioo. Let
those pray who have a taste for it and those avoid who dislike
it Anything done without conviction is an immoral and
degrading action."
Let us first examine the worth of the last idea. Is it an
immoral and degrading act to submit to discipline before one
begins to have conviction about its necessity ? Is it immoral
and degrading to study subjects according to the school
syllabous if one has no conviction about its utility ? May a
boy be excused from studying his vernacular if he has
persuaded himself that it is useless? It is not true to say
that a schoolboy has no conviction about the things he has to
learn or the discipline he has to go through ? His choice is
exhausted if he had it, when he elected to belong to an
institution. His joining one means that he willingly
submits to its rules and regulations. It is open to him to leave
it but he may not choose what or how he will learn.
It is for teachers to make attractive and intelligible what
to the pupils may at first appear repulsive or uninteresting.
452 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
It is easy enough to say, 'I do not believe in God
for God permits all things to be said of Him with im-
punity. He looks at our acts. And any breach of His
Law carries with it, not its vindictive, but its purify-
ing, compelling punishment. God's existence cannot be,
does not need be proved. God is. If He is not felt,
so much the worse for us. The absence of feeling is a
disease which we shall some day throw off nolens volens.
But a boy may not argue. He must out of sense
of discipline attend prayer meeting if the institution to
which he belongs requires such attendance. He may
respectfully put his doubts before his teachers. He need
not believe what does not appeal to him. But if he has
respect for his teachers he will do without believing what he is
asked to do out of fear, not out of churlishness, but with the
knowledge that it is right for him so to do and with
the hope that what is dark to him to-day will some
day be made clear to him.
Prayer is not an asking. It is a longing of the
soul. It is a daily admission of one's weakness. The
tallest among us has a perpetual reminder of
his nothingness before death, disease, old age, accident,
etc. We are living in the midst of death. What is
the value of 'working for our own schemes7 when they
might be reduced to naught in the twinkling of an eye
or when we may be equally swiftly and unawares be
taken away from them ? But we may feel strong as a
rock, if we could truthfully say 'we work for God and
His scheme.' Then all is as clear as day-light. Then
nothing perishes. All perishing is then only what seems.
Death and destruction have then,bvt only then, no reality
about them. For death or destruction is then but a
change. An artist destroys his picture for creating a
better one. A watch maker throws away a bad spring
to put in new and useful one.
A congregational prayer is a mighty thing. What
PRAYER 453
' v I
we do not often do alone, we do together. Boys do
not need conviction. If they merely attend in obedience
to the call to prayer without inward resistence, they
feel the exaltation, But many do not. They
are even mischievous. All the same the uncon-
scious effect cannot be resisted. Are there ftot boys
who at the commencement of their career were scoffers
but who subsequently became mighty believers in the
efficacy of congregational prayer ? It is a common
experience for men who have no robust fkith to seek
the comfort of congregational prayer. All who flock to
churches, temples, or mosques are not scoffers or humbugs.
They are honest men and women. For them congre-
gational prayer is like a daily bath, a necessity of thrir
existence. These places of worship are not a mere idle
superstition to be swept away at the first opportunity.
They have survived all attacks up to now and are likely
te persist to the end of time. — Young Jndia : Sept. 23, 1926.
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NO act of mine is done without prayer. Man is a
fallible being. He can never be sure of his steps.
What he may regard as an answer to prayer may be an
echo of his pride. For infallible guidance man has to
have a perfectly innocent heart incapable of evil. I
can lay no such claim. Mine is a struggling, striving,
erring, imperfect soul. But I can rise only by experi-
menting upon myself and others. I believe in absolute
oneness of God and therefore also of humanity.
What though we have many bodies ? We have
but one Soul. The rays of the sun are many
through refraction. But they have the same source. I
cannot, therefore, detach myself from the wickedest soul
nor may I be denied identity with the most virtuous.
Whether, therefore, I will or not, I must involve in my
experiment the whole of my kind. Nor can I do with-
out experiment. Life is but an endless series of experiments
— Young India : Sept. 25, 1942,
454 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
DRAUPADI, when she found that not even her five
husbands could help her, cried out in agony to Krishna, the
only help of the helpless, and he heard her prayers. Even
so shall I work away to-day and cry in the name of the
dumb millions of India, and I am sure, my prayers will be
heard one day. — Young India : Sept. 6, 1926.
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A MEDICAL graduate asks :
"What is the best form of prayer? How much time
should be spent at it ? In my opinion to do justice is the
best form of prayer and one who is sincere about doing
justice to all, does not need to do any more praying. Some
people spend a long time over Sandhya and 95 per cent of
them do not understand the meaning of what they say. In
my opinion prayer should be said in one's mother tongue.
It alone can affect the soul best. I should say that a sincere
prayer for one minute is enough. It should suffice to promise
God not to sin."
Prayer means asking God for something in a reverent
attitude. But the word is used also to denote any devo»
tional act. Worship is a better term to use for what the
correspondent has in mind. But definition apart, what is it
that millions of Hindus, Musalmans, Christians and Jews
and others do every day during the time set apart for the
adoration of the Maker ? It seems to me that it is a yearn*
ing of the heart to be one with the Maker, an invocation
for His blessing. It is the attitude that matters, not
words uttered or muttered. And often the association of
words that have been handed down from ancient times has
an effect which in their rendering into one's mother-tougue
they will lose altogether. Thus the Gayatri translated and
recited in, say, Gujarati, will not have the same effect
as the original. The utterance of the word Rama will
instantaneously affect millions of Hindus, while the word
God, although they may understand the meaning will leave
tliem untouched. Words after all acquire power by long
PRAYER 455
usage and sacredncss associated with their use. Thtrt is
much, therefore, to be said for the retention of the old
Sanskrit formulae for the most prevalent mantras or verses.
That the meaning of them should be properly understood
goes without saying.
There can be no fixed rule laid down as to the time
these devotional acts should take. It depends upon indivi-
dual temperament. These are precious moments in one's
daily life The exercises are intended to sober and humble
us and enable us to realise that nothing happens without
His will and that we are but 'clay iri the hands of the
Potter.' These are moments when one reviews one's
immediate past, confesses one's weakness, asks for forgiveness
and strength to be and do better* One minute may be enough
for some, twenty-four hours may be too little for others. For
those who are filled with the presence of God in them, to
labour is to pray. The life is one continuous prayer or act
of worship. For those others who act only to sin; to indulge
themselves, and live for self, no time is too much. If they
had patience and faith and the will to be pure, they would
pray till they feel the definite purifying presence of God
within *hem. For us ordinary mortals there must be a
middle path between these two extremes; We are not so
exalted as to be able to say that all our acts are a dedica-
tion nor perhaps are we so far gone as to be living purely
for self. Hence have all religions set apart times far general
devotion. Unfortunately these have nowadays become
merely mechanical and formal, *where they are not hypo-
critical. What is necessary, therefore, is the correct attitude
to accompany these devotions,
For definite personal prayer in the sense of asking God
for something, it should certainly be in one's own tongue.
Nothing can be grander than to ask God tb make us juitly
towards everything that lives. —Young India : June 10,
THERE is an etertii! *truggle i-aging in mto's bttwt
TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Between the powers of darkness and of light, and
he who has not tfye sheet-anchor of prayer to rely
upon will be a victim to the powers of darkness. The
man of prayer will be at peace with himself and with the
whole world, the maft who goes about the affairs of the
world without a prayerful heart will be miserable and
will bate the world also miserable. Apirt therefore from
its bearing on main's condition after death prayer has incal-
culable Valiie for man in this world of the living. Prayer is
the oiily means tjf bringing about orderliness and peace and
repose in bur daily acts. We inmates of the Ashram who
came here in search of Truth and for insistence on truth
professed to believe in the efficacy of prayer, but had never
up to now made it a matter of vital concern. We did not
bestdw cm it the care that* we did on other matters. I
aivoke from my slumbers one day and realised that I had
bden iyoefully negligent of my duty in the matter. I have,
therefore, Suggested measures of stern discipline and far
from being any the worse, I hope we are the better for it:
is so obvious. Take care of the vital things and other thi gs
\Vlll tiake care of themselves. Rectify one angle of a square
afad other angles will be automatically right.
Begin theiefore your day with prayer, and make it so
soulful that it may remain with you until the evening.
Close the day with prayer so that you may have a peaceful
night free from dreams and nightmares. Do not worry
about the form of prayer. Let it be any form , it should
be stuih as can put into communion with the divine. Only,
whatever be the form, let not the spirit wander while the
words of prayer run out of your mouth.
r Prayer has been the saving of my life. Without it I
should have been a lunatic long ago. My autobiography
will tell you that I have had my fair share of th? bitterness,
public apd private experiences. They threw me into tem-
porary despair, but if I was able to get rid of— it was
because of prayer. Npw I may tell you th^t pray or has not
PRAYER 457
been part of my life in the sense that truth has been. It
came out of sheer necessity, as I found myself in a plight
when I could not possibly be happy without it. And the
more my faith in God increased, the more irresistible be-
came yearning for prayer. Life seemed to be dull and
vacant without it. I had attended the Christian service 'in
South Africa but it 'had failed to grip me. I C6u\d not
join them in prayer. They supplicated God, but I could
not do so, I failed egregioUsly. I started with disbelief in
God and prayer and until at a later stage in lift I diet not
feel anything Hkfe a void in life. But at that stage I felt
that &s food was indispensable for the body so was prayer
indispensable for the soul. In fact food foir the body is not
so necessary as prayer for the soul. For starvation is often
necessary in order to keep the body in health, but there
is no such thing as prayer starvation. You cannot possible
have a surfeit of prayer. Three of the greatest teachers of
the world— Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad — have left unim-
peachable testimony, that they found illumination through
prayer and could not possibly live without it. But to come*
n'eaWr home millions of Hindu and Musalmans and Chris-
tians find their oWy solace in life in prayer. Either yoir
vote them dovvn as liars or self-deluded people. Well,
then I will say that this lying has a charm for me, a truth-
seeker. It is " lying " that has given me that mainstay
or staff of life, without which I could not bear to live for a
moment. In spite of despair staring me in the face on the
political horizon, I have never lost my peace. In fact 1
have found people who envy mv peace. That peace, I telt
ybti, comes from prayer. I am not a man of learning, but
I humbly clairri to be a man of prayer. I am indifferent as to
the form. Every ohe is a Jaw unto himself in that respect.
But there are some well-marked roads, and it is safe to
walk along the beaten tracks, trod by ancient teachers,
Well, I have giveh my personal testimony. Let every one
tfrv and find that1, afe a result of daily prayer, he adds some
458 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
thing new to his life, something which nothing can be
compared."
" But," youth asked the question, " Sir whilst you start
with belief in God, we start with unbelief. How are we
•to pray."
" Well, " said Gandhiji, " it is beyond my power to
induce in you a belief in God. There are certain things
which are self* proved and certain which are not proved at
all. The existence of God is like a geometrical axiom. It
may be beyond our heart grasp. I shall not talk of an
intellectual grasp. Intellectual attempts are more or less
failures, as a rational explanation cannot give you the
faith in a living God. For it is a thing beyond the grasp
of reason. It transcends reason. There are numerous
phenomena from which you can reason out the existence
of God, but I shall not insult your intelligence by offering
you a rational explanation of that type. I would have you
brush aside all rational explanations and begin with a
simple childlike faith in God. If I exist, God exists. With
me it is a necessity of my being as it is with millions. They
may not be able to talk about it, but from their life you
can see that it is a part of their Hie, I am only asking you
to restore the belief that has been undermined. In order
to do so, you have to unlearn a lot of literature that dazzles
your intelligenqe and throws you off your feet. Start with
the faith which is also a token of humility and an admission
that we know nothing, that we are less than atoms in this
universe. We are less than atoms, I say, because the atom
obeys the law of its being, whereas we in the insolence of
our ignorance deny the law of nature. But I have no
argument , to address to those who have no faith.
" Once you accept the existence of God, the necessity
for prayer i$ unescapable. Let us not make the astoiinding
claim, that our whole Jife is a pirayer, and therefpre wie
ne<jd not sit down at a particular hour to pray.^ Even mej)i
who were all their time in tune witft ' the Infinite did not
PRAYER 459
make such a claim. Their lives were a continuous prayer,
and yet for our sake, let us say, they offered prayer at set
hours, and renewed each day the oath of loyalty to God.
God of course never insists on the oath, but we must renew
our pledge every day, and I assure you we shall then be free
from every imaginable misery in life " 'M. D.)
— Young India : Sep. 24, 1931.
^s ^^ ^^
GANDHIJI had enough time to think and write during
his recent visit to Abbottabad, especially as he was kept
free of many engagements and interviewers. But even
there he had some interviewers— not of the usual type
interested in politics or topics of the day, but of the
unusual type troubled with ultra mundane problems.
History has it that discourses on such problems used to take
place in this region hallowed of old by the steps of the
followers of Buddha. One of the interviewers of Gandhiji
described himself as a follower of Buddha, and discussed a
problem arising out of his creed. He is an archaeologist and
loves to live in and dream of the past. Dr. Fabri— for that
is his name — has been in India for many years. He was a
pupil of Prof. Sylvan Levy and came out as an assistant to
the famous archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein. He served in the
Archaeological Department for many years, helped in
reorganizing the Lahore Museum, and has some archaeo-
logical work to his credit. Delving deep in Buddhistic
lore has turned him into a stark rationalist. He is a
Hungarian and had in the past corresponded with Gandhiji
and even sympathetically fasted with him. He had come
to Abbottabad specially to see Gandhiji.
He was particularly exercised about the form and
content of prayer and would very much like to know what
kind of prayer Gandhiji said. Could the Divine Mind be
changed by prayer ? Could one find it out by prayer ?
" It is a difficult thing to explain fully what I do when
I pray, " aaid Gandhiji. c< But I must try to answer your
460 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
question. The Divine Mind is unchangeable, but that
Divinity is in everyone and everything— animate and in-
ariiaiatfc. The meaning of grayer is that: I want to evoke
that Divinit^r within me. Now I may have that intellectual
corivictidn, but not a living touch, And so when 1 pray for
Swaraj or Independence for India I pray or wish for
adequate pow'er tb gaifr that Swaraj or to make the largest
contribution I can towards winning it, and I maintain that
1 can get that power in answer* to prayer/' : '
" Then you are not justified in calling it prayer. To
pray means to beg or demand/7 said Dr. Fabri.
" Yes, indeed. You may say I beg it of myself, of my
Higher Self, the Real Self with whkh I have not yet
achieved complete identification. You may, therefore, des-
cribe it as a continual longing to lose oneself in the Divinity
which comprises all."
" And you use an old form to evoke this ?"
" I do. The habit of a lifetime persists, and I would
allow it to be said that I pray to an outside Power. I am
part of that Infinite, and yet such an infinitesimal part that
I feel outside it. Though I give you the intellectual
explanation, I feel, with identification with the Divinity, so
small that I am nothing. Immediately I begin to say I
do this thing and that thing I begin to feel my unworthi-
ncss and nothingness, and feel that someone else, some
Higher Power, has to help me.'*
" Tolstoy says the same thing. Prayer really is com-
plete meditation and melting into the Higher Self, though
one occasionally does lapse in imploration like that of a
child to his father.1'
* Pardon me," said Gandhiji, cautioning the Buddhist
doctor, " I vfrould not call it a lapse. It is more in the
fitness Of things to say that I pray to God who exists some-
where* up in the clouds, afcd the more distant He is, the
PRAYER 461
greater is my longing for Him and ftnd myself ip His pre-
sence in thought. And thought a$ you kijpw has a greater
velocity than light. Therefore, the distance between me
Sid Him, though so incalculably great, is obliterated,
e is far and yet so near."
"It becomes a matter of belief but some people
like me are cursed with an acute critical
faculty," said Dr. Fabri. "For me there is no-
thing higher than what Buddha taught, and no greater
master. For Buddha alone among the teachers of the
world said : 'Don't believe implictly what I say. Don't
accept any dogma or any book as infallible. There is
for me no infallible book in the world, inasmuch as
all were made by men, however inspired they may have
been. I cannot hence believe in a personal idea of God
a. Maharaja sitting on the Great White Throne listening
to our prayers. I am glad that your prayer is on a
different level."
Let it be said in fairness to the savant that he is a
devotee of the Bhagawad Gita and the Dhammapada, and
those are the two scriptures he carries with him. But
he was arguing an extreme intellectual position. Even
here Gandhiji caught him from being swept into the
torrent of his logic.
"Let me remind you," said Gandhiji, "that you are
again only partially true when you say my prayer is on a
different level. I told you that the intellectual convic-
tion that I gave you is not eternally present with me.
What is present is the intensity of faith whereby I lose
myself in an Invisible Power. And so it is far truer
to say that God has done a thing for me than that I
did it. So many things *have happened in my life for which
I had intense longing, but which I could never have
achieved myself. And I have always said to my
co-workers it was in ans^ef to my prayer. I »flid not
say to them it was in answer to my intellectual effort
462 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
to lose myself in the Divinity in me ! The easiest and
the correct thing for me was to say, 'God has seen
me through my difficulty1."
"But that you deserved by your Karma. God i&
Justice and not Mercy. You are a good man and good
things happen to you, " contended Dr. Fabri.
"No fear. I am not good enough for things ta
happen like that. If I went about with that philosophical
conception of Karma, I should often come a cropper.
My Karma would not come to my help. Although I
believe in the inexorable Law of Karma, I am striving
to do so many things, every moment of my life is
strenuous endeavour, which is an attempt to build up
more Karma, to undo the past and add to the present.
It is therefore wrong to say that because my past
is good, good is happening at present. The past
would be soon exhausted, and I have to build up the
furture. I tell you Karma alone is powerless. Ignite thi&
match, I say to myself, and yet I cannot if there is no co-
operation from without. Before I strike the match my
hand is paralysed or I have only one match and
the wind blows it off. Is it an accident of God or
Higher Power ? Well, I prefer to use thf language of
my ancestors or of children. I am no better than a
child. We may try to talk learnedly and of books, but
when it comes to brass tacks— when we are face to face with
a calamity — we behave like children and begin to cry
and pray and our intellectual belief gives no satisfaction !"
"I know very highly developed men to whom be-
lief in God gives incredible comfort and help in the
building of character," said Dr. Fabri. ciBut there are some
great spirits that can do without it. That is what Bud-
dhism has taught me."
"But Buddhism is one long prayer," rejoined
Gandhiji.
PRAYER 463
"Buddha asked everyone to find salvation for
himself. He never prayed, he meditated/' maintained
Dr. Fabri.
"Call it by whatever name you like, it is the same
thing. Look at his statues."
"But they are not true to life," said the archaeolo
gist questioning the antiquity of these statues. "They are
400 years later than his death."
"Well," said Gandhiji, refusing to be beaten by a
chronological argument, "give me your own history of
Buddha as you may have discovered it. I will prove
that he was a praying Buddha. The intellectual con-
ception does not satisfy me. I have not given you a
perfect and full definition as you cannot describe your
own thought. The very effort to describe is a limitation
It defies analysis and you have nothing but scepticism
as the residue."
Was it of such people that Pope wrote : —
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side.
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride.
He hangs between ; in doubt to act, or rest :
In doubt to deem himself a god or beast.
In doubt his mind or body, to prefer ;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled.
The glory, jest and riddled of the world.
But to proceed. "What about the people who cannot
pray ?n asked Dr. Fabri.
"Be humble ! said Gandhiji, "I would say to them
and do not limit even the r£al Buddha by your own con-
ception of Buddha. He could not have ruled the lives of
millions of men that he did and does to-day if he was
not humble enough to pray. There is some thing in-
finitely higher than intellect that rules us and even the
464 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
-sceptics. Their scepticism and philosophy do not help
them in critical periods of their lives. They need some-
thing better, something outside them that can sustain
4 hem. .And so if someone puts a conundrum before me
I say to him, 'You are not going to know the mean*
ing of God or prayer unljess you reduce yourself to a
Cipher. You must be humble enough to see that in spite
of your greatness and gigantic intellect you are buj: a
speck in the universe. A merely intellectual conception
of the things of life is not enough. It is the spiritual con-
ception which eludes the intellect, and which alone can
-give one satisfaction. Even monied men have critical
periods in their lives; though they are surrounded by
•everything that money can buy and affection can give,
they find at certain moments in their lives utterly dis-
tracted. It is in these moments that we have a glimpse
of God, a Vision of Him who is guiding every one of our
steps in life. It is prayer."
"You mean what we might call a true religious
experience which is stronger than intellectual conception,'*
said Dr. Fabri, "Twice in life I had that experience, but I
have since lost it. But I now find great comfort in one or two
sayings of Buddha : 'Selfishness is the cause of sorrow.' 'Re
member monks, everything is fleeting.' To think of these
takes almost the place of belief."
"That is prayer," repeated Gandhiji with an insist-
ence that could not but have gone home.
—Harijm Aug. 19, 1939.
Preaching
AN ounce of practice is more than tons of preaching:.
—Toung India : June 25, 1931.
Principle
THERE is no principle worth the name if it is not
wholly good. —flung India : May 21, 1925.
PROGRESS 465
Let no one charge me with ever having abused or
encouraged weakness or surrunder on matter of principle.
But I have said, as I say again, that every trifle must not be
dignified into a principle. „ — Young India : Oct. 22, 1925.
A PRINCIPLE is the expression of perfection, and as
imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise
every moment limits of its compromise in practice.
— Young India : Oct. 21, 1926.
3> <£ <3>
ILL-DIGESTED principles are if anything, worse
than ill-digested food, for the latter harms the body and
there is cure for it, whereas the former ruin the soul and
here is no cure for it. — Harijan : May 1, 1937.
^ ^ ^
A PRINCIPLE is a principle, and in no case can it be
watered down because of our incapacity to live it in
practice. We have to strive to achieve it, and the striving
should be conscsious, deliberate and hard.
—Harijan : Nov. 18, 1939.
Priests
IT is a painful fact, but it is a historical truth, that
priests who should have been the real custodians of religion
have been instrumental in destroying the religion of which
they have been custodians. — Youn& India : Oct. 20, 1927.
Progress
PROGRESS is to be measured by the amount of
suffering undergone by the smferer. The purer the suffer-
ing, the greater is the progress.
—Young India: June 16, 1920.
PROGRESS towards Swaraj will be in exact proportion
466 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
to increase in the number of workers who will dare to sacri-
fice their all for the cause of the poor.
— Young India : June 20, 1926.
^ 3» <$>
HEALTHY discontent is the prelude to progress.
—Young India : Aug. 1, 1929,
THE road to any progress is strewn with such difficulty,
and the story of man's accent in the scale of evolution is
co-extensive with the history of the successful over-coming
of these difficulties. Take the story of the attempts to
conquer the Himalayas. The higher you go, the steeper
becomes the climb, the more difficult the ascent, so much
so that its highest peak still remains unvanquished. The
enterprise has already exacted a heavy toll of sacrifice. Yet
every year sees fresh attempts made, only to end in failure
like their predecessors. All that has, however, failed to
damp the spirit of the explorers. If that is the case with
the conquest of the Himalayas, what about the conquest of
self, which is a harder job by far, even as the reward is
richer ? The scaling of the Himalayas can, at best, give a
temporary feeling of elation and triumph. But the reward
of the conquest of s"felf is a spiritual bliss that knows no
waning, and grows ever more and more.
—Harijan : March 20, 1937.
IF an individual can observe a certain rule of conduct
it follows that a group of individuals can do likewise. It
is necessary for me to emphasise the fact that no one need
wait for anyone else in order to adopt a right course.
Men generally hesitate to make a beginning if they feel that
the objective cannot be had in its entirety. Such an
attitude of mind is in reality a bar to progress.
—Harijan : Aug. 25, 1940.
PROMISE 467
Promise
I AM fully convinced that no body of men can make
themselves into a nation to perform great task uftles* they
become as true as steel and unless their promises come to bfe
regarded by the world like the law of the Medes and Persians
inflexible and unbreakable.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 119*
MY own opinion and that of many others is that pro-
mises or vows are necessary for the strongest of us. A
promise is like a right angle not nearly but exactly 90°*
The slightest deflection makes it useless for the grand pur-
pose that the right angle serves. A voluntary promise 1$
like a plumb line keeping a man straight and warning him
when he is going wrong. Rules of general application d6
not serve the same purpose as an individual vow. We!
find therefore the system of declarations followed in all targe
and well conducted institutions. The Viceroy has to 'take
the oath of office. Members of Legislatures have to do
likewise all the world over, and in my opinion rightly so.
A soldier joining an army has to do likewise. Moreover a
written undertaking reminds one of what one has promised
to do. Memory is a very frail thing. The written worrf
stands for ever. —Yaung India : Dec. 12, 1925.
WE have in this country a habit of making promises
in a fit of enthusiasm, keeping them for a time,, and then
forgetting altogether. — Toung India : July 7, 1927.
ABOVE all keep yourselves pure and clean, and learn
to keep your promise* even at the cost of life.
—Young India : Nov. 10, 1927.
I BELIEVE in the necessity of the performance of one's
promises at all costs. —Young India : March 27, 192$.
468 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
BREACH of promise is a base surrender of truth.
—Young India : May I, 1929.
JJREACH of a promise is no less an act of insolvency
than a refusal to pay one's debt.
—Toung India : Sept. 16, 1930.
TO my knowledge, thr ughout my public and private
career, I have never broken promise.
—Harijan : April 22, 1939.
Propaganda
PRACTICE is the best speech and the best propa-
ganda.
Black flags, noisy slogans, and hurling of stones and
shoes have no place in educative and destructive propa-
ganda. —Harijan : Sept. 9, 1939.
Prostitution
OF all the evils for which man has made himself res-
ponsible, none is so degrading so shocking or so brutal as
his abuse of the better half of humanity to me, the female
sex, not the weaker sex. It is the nobler of the two, for it
is even to-day the embodiment of sacrifice, silent suffering,
humility, faith and knowledge. A woman's intution has*
often proved truer than man's arrogant assumptipn of
superior knowledge. There is method in putting Sita before
Rama and Radha before Krishna.
— Toung India ; Nov. 17, 1921,
3> <$> <$>
THEY are driven to a life of shame. I am satisfied
that they do not go to it from choice. And the beast in
man has made the detestable crime a lucrative profession.
—Toung India : Dec. 18, 192L
OF all the addresses I received in the South the most
touching was <$fae on behalf of the Devadasis— a euphemisn*
PROSTITUTION 469
for prostitutes. It was prepared and brought by people
who belong to the clan from which these unfortunate sisters
are drawn. I understood from the deputation that brought
the address that reform from within was going on but that
the rate of progress was still slow. The gentleman who
led the deputation told me that the public in general was
apathetic to the reform. The first shock I received was at
Gocanada. And I did not mince matters when I spoke 'to
the men of that place. The second was at Barisal where I
met a large number of these unfortunate sisters. Whether
they be known as Devadasis or by any other name, the
problem is the same. It is the matter of bitter shame aind
sorrow, of deep humiliation, that a number of women have
to sell their chastity for man's lust. Man the law-giver,
will have to pay a dreadful penalty for the degradation he
has imposed upon the so-called weaker sex. When woman,
freed from man's snares, rises to the full height and rebels
against man's legislation and institutions designed by him,
her rebellion, no doubt non-violent, will be none-the-less
effective. Let the Indian man ponder over the fate of the
thousands of sisters who are destined to a life of shame for
his unlawful and immoral indulgence. The pity of it
is that the vast majority of the men who visit these pestilen-
tial haunts are married men and therefore commit a double
sin. They sin against their wives to whom they have sworn
allegiance and thdy sin against the sisters whose purity they
are bound "to guard with as much jealousy as that of their
own blood sisters. It is an evil which cannot last for a
single day, if we men of India realise our own dignity.
If many of the most respectable among us were not
steeped in the vice this kind of indulgence would be regard-
ed as a greater crime than the stealing of a banana by a
hungry man or the picking of a pocket by a youngster who
is in need of money. What is worst and more hurtful to
society— to steal property or to steal the honour of a
woman? Let me not be told that the public woman is a party
470 TEACHINGS QF MAHATMA GANDHI
to the sale of her honour, but not the millionaire on the
race-course whose pocket is picked by a professional pick-
pocket. Who is worse— an urchin who picks a pocket or
a scoundrel who drugs his victim and then makes him singn
away the whole of his property ? Does not man by his
subtle and unscrupulous ways first rob woman of her noblest
instinct and then make her partner in the crime committed
against her ? Or are some women, like Panchamas born to
a life of degradation ? I ask every young man married or
unmarried to contemplate the implications of what I have
written. I cannot write all I have learnt about this social
disease, this moral leprosy. Let his imagination fill in the
rest and then let him recoil with horror and shame from
the sin if he has himself been guilty of it. And let every
pure man, wherever he is, do what he can to purify his
neighbourhood. I now that the second part is easier
written than practised. It is a delicate matter. But for
its very delicacy it demands the attention of all thoughtful
men. Work among the unfortunate sisters must be left
everywhere to experts. My suggestion has reference to
work among the visitors to these houses of ill-fame.
— loung India : April 16, 192 K
Provincialism
TO attain Swaraj implies the cultivation of a spirit
of self-sacrifice, including the sacrifice of provincialism.
Provincialism is a bar not only to the realisation of
national Swaraj, but also to the achievement of provincial
autonomy. Women perhaps are more responsible than men
1w keeping up this narrow spirit. Variety is worth cherish-
ing up to a certain limit, but if the limit is exceeded,
amenities and customs masquerading under the name of
varietv are subversive of nationalism,
y -Young ludia : Feb. 2, 1928,
Public Fund
LET me, however, in conclusion, warn the public rfial
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 471
the safety of the public fund lies more in an intelligent
vigilance of the public than in the strict integrity of those
who are in charge of fund. Absolute honesty of the
trustees is a necessity, but public inertia is a crime. Ig-
norant criticism must not be mistaken for intelligent vigi-
lance. What I have found that some publicmen, with a
knowledge of account-keeping, make it a point, now and
again, of overhauling the administration of public fund*
and bringing the administrators to book.
— Yourg India: Aug. 20, 1925,
A PUBLIC fund becomes public property and there-
fore every member of the public is entitled to know iq
detail the administration of such funds.
— Young India : Feb. 24, 1927
I DO not think any one can beat me in my passior
for guarding and expending public money like a miser. The
reason is obvious. Public money belongs to the pool
public of India than whom there is none poorer on earth,
—Young India : April 16, 1931
Public Institutions
IT has become my firm conviction that it is not
good to run public institutions on permanent funds. A
permanent fund carries in itself the seed of the moral fall
of the institution. A public institution means an institution
conducted with the approval, and from the funds oi
the public. When such an institution ceases to have
public support, it forfeits its right to exist. Institutions
maintained on permanent funds are often found to ignore
public opinion, and are frequently responsible for acts
contrary to it. In our country we experience this at
every step. Some of the so-called religious trusts have
ceased to render any accounts. The trustees have become
the owners and are responsible to none. I have no
doubts that the ideal is for public institutions to live,
472 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
like nature, from day to day. The institution that fails
to win public support has no right to exist as such.
The subscriptions that an institution annually receives
are a test of its popularity and the honesty of its manage-
ment, and I am of opinion that every institution should sub-
mit to that test. But let no one misunderstand me. My
remarks do not apply to the bodies which cannot, by
their very nature, be conducted without permanent
buildings. What I mean to say is that the current
expenditure should be found from subscriptions voluntarily
received from year to year.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 243.
Public Opinion
PUBLIC opinion alone can keep a society pure and
healthy.
— Young India ; Dec. 18, 1920.
^ ^ <s>
LEGISLATION in advance of public opinion is often
worse than useless. Non-co-operation is the quickest
method of creating public opinion.
—Toung India : Jan. 29, 1921.
FOR me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
—Toung India : April 24, 1924.
<$> <£ <3>
PUBLIC opinion cannot be aroused over grievances
that cannot be verified and traced to their sources.
—Toung India : May 5, 1927.
HEALTHY public opinion has an influence of which
we have not realised the full significance. Public opinion
becomes intolerable when it becomes violent and aggres-
sive.
— Toung India : May 7, 1931.
PUBLIC WORKERS 473
A POPULAR state can never act in advance of
public opinion. If it goes against it, it will be destroyed.
— Young India ; July 30, 1931.
^S ^k ^S
THE evolution of public opinion is at times a tardy
process but it is the only effective one.
—Young India : June 9, 1925.
Public Workers
I AM used to misrepresentation all my life. It is
the lot of every public worker. He has to have a tough
hide. Life would be burdensome if every misrepresentation
had to be answered and cleared. It is a rule of life
with me never to explain misrepresentation except when
the cause requires correction. This rule has saved much
rime and worry.
—Young India : May 27, 1926,
^^ ^^ ^^
FINALLY a servant of the people should never
fear or give way to bitterness if he finds himself a
victim of misunderstanding, whether unintentional or wilful.
The acts of men who have come out to serve or lead have
always been misunderstood since the beginning of the world
and none can help it. To put up with these misrepresenta-
tions and to stick to one's guns come what might, — this is the
essence of the gift of leadership. Misunderstandings have been
my lot ever since I entered public life, and I have got inured
to them.
—Toung India : Aug. 12, 1927.
THERE is in modern public life a tendency to
ignore altogether the character of a public worker so
long as he works efficiently as a unit in an adminis-
trative machinery. It is said that everybody's character
is his own private concern. Though I have known this
view to have been often taken I have never been able
to appreciate, much less to adopt if . I have known
474 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
the serious consequences overtaking organizations that
have counted private character as a matter of no con-
sequence.
—Harijan : Nov. 7, 1936,
Punctuality
I ATTACH the greatest importance to punctuality
in our programme as it is a corrollary of non-violence.
—Harijan : Nov. 12, 1938.
Punishment
I KNOW that thrusting my finger into a furnace
will surely burn it and still I thrust it; my suffering is
no punishment, it is the natural consequence of my
action. Punishment depends upon the will of the judge.
Natural consequences are independent of any person's
will.
—Harijan : Sept. 3, 1938,
<$><$><$>
PUNISHMENT is God's, who alone is the Infallible
Judge. It does not belong to man "with judgement weak."
Harijan : Jan. 12, 1939.
Purity
IT is my faith, based on experience, that if one's heart
is pure, calamity brings in its train men and measures
to fight it " —My Experiments with Truth : Page 355.
Q
Quality 'Vs. Quantity
STRENGTH of numbers is the delight of the timid.
The valiant of spirit glory in fighting alone. And you
are all here to cultivate that valour of the spirit. Be
you one or many, this valour is the only true valour,
all else is false. And the valour of the spirit cannot be
achieved without Sacrifice, Determination, Faith and
Humility, -~~Toung India ;J*rac 17, 1926-
RAMRAj 475
IN every great cause it is not the number of fighters
that counts but it is the quality of which they are
made that becomes the deciding factor. The greatest
men of the world have always stood alone. Take
the great prophets, Zoraster, Buddha, Jesus, Mahomed —
they all stood alone like many others whom I can
name. But they had living faith in themselves and their
God, and believing as they did that God \\as on their side,
they never felt lonely. You may recall the occasion when
pursued by numerous enemies Abu Bakr, who was accom-
panying the Prophet in his flight, trembled to think of
their' fate and said : 'Look at the number of the enemies
that is overtaking us. What shall we two do against these
heavy odds ?' Without a moment's reflection, the Prophet
rebuked his faithful companion by saying : 'No, Abu Bakr,
we are three, for God is with us ?' Or, take the invincible
faith of Vibhishan and Prahlad. I want you to have that
same living faith in yourselves and God.
— Young India : Oct. 10, 1929.
THAT quality is more than quantity is sound
theory because it is true in practice. Indeed, I hold
that what cannot be proved in practice cannot be sound
in theory. — Toung India : Nov. 14, 1929r
R
Ramaraj
I WARN my Musalman friends against misunderstand-
ing me in my use of the words 'Ramaraj.' By Ramaraj I da
not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by Ramaraj Divine
Raj, the Kingdom of God. For me Rama and Rahim
are one and the same deity, I acknowledge no other
God but the one God of truth and rightness. Whether
Rama of my imagination ever lived or not on this earth,
the ancient ideal of Ramaraj is undoubtedly one of true
476 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of
swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure. Even
the dog is described by the poet to have received justice
under Ramaraj. —Young India : Sept. 19, 1929.
Reason
Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a
certain limit but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith
transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and
human reason is beaten down to the ground that
faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue. It is
such faith that our youth requires and this comes when
one has shed all pride of intellect and surrendered one
self entirely to His will, — Young India : March 21, 1929.
RATIONALISTS are admirable beings, rationalism
is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence.
Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of
idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it
to be God. —Young India : Dec. 12, 1936.
TRUTH is superior to everything and I reject what
conflicts with it. Similarly that which is in conflict
with non-violence "should be rejected. And on matters
which can be reasoned out, that which conflicts with
Reason must also be rejected. There are subjects where
Reason cannot take us far and we have to accept
things on faith. Faith then does not contradict Reason
but transcends it. Faith is a kind of sixth sense which
works in cases whicty are without the purview of
reason. —Young India : March 6, 1937.
Rebellion
REBELLION in a just cause is a duty, the extent
of opposition being determined by the measure of the
injustice done and felt. — Yowg India : June 2, 1920.
RELIGION 477
Reformer
A REFORMER cannot always afford to wait. If
he does not put into force his belief he is no reformer.
Either he is too hasty or too afraid or too lazy. Who is to ad-
vise him or provide him with a barometer ? You can only
guide yourself with a disciplined conscience, and then run all
risks with the protecting armour of truth and non-violence.
A reformer could not do otherwise.
—Toung India : Nov. 12, 11931.
Regularity
IT is universal experience that a boy with regular
habits does twice the amount of work than a boy doe»
who works irregularly. — Toung India : Dec. 3, 1925~
Religion
I DO not like the world tolerance but could
not think of a better one. Tolerance may imply
gratuitous assumption of the inferiority ot other faiths*
to one's own, whereas ahimsa teaches us to entertain the
same respect for the religious faiths of others as we
accord to our own, thus admitting the imperfection
of the latter. This admission will be readily made
by a seeker of Truth, who follows the Law of
Love. If we had , attained the full vision of
Truth, we would no longer be mere seekers, but would
have become one with God, for Truth is God, But
being only seekers, we prosecute our quest, and are
conscious of our imperfection. And if we are imperfect
ourselves, religion as conceived by us must also be
imperfect. We have not realised religion in its perfection,
even as we have not realised Godt, Religion of our
conception, tyeing thus imperfect, is always subject to a
process of evolution and reinterpretatiom Progress towards-
Truth towards God, is possible only because of such evolu-
478 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
tion. And if all faiths outlined by nisn are imperfect, the
question of comparative merit does not arise. All faiths
constitute a revelation of Truth, but all are imperfect
and liable to error. Reverence for other faiths need
not bind us to their faults. We must be keenly alive
to the defects of our own faith also, yet not leave it
on that account, but try to overcome those defects.
Looking at all religions with an equal eye, we would
not only not hesitate but would think it our duty to
blend into our faith every acceptable feature of other
faiths.
The question then arises. Why should there be so
many different faiths ? The Soul is one, but the bodies
Which She animates are many. We cannot reduce the
number of bodies, yet we recognise the unity of the
Soul. Even as a tree has a single trunk,
but many branches and leaves, so is there one true
and perfect religion, but it becomes many,
as it passes through the human medium. The
one religion is beyond all speech. Imperfect men put
it into such language as they can command, and
their words are interpreted by other men equally im-
perfect. Whose interpretation is to be held to be the
right one ? Everyboby is right from his own standpoint
but it is not impossible that every body is wrong.
Hence the necessity for tolerance, which does not mean*
indifference towards one's own faith, but a more intelligent
and purer love for it. Tolerance gives us spiritual
insight, which is as far from fanaticism as the north
pole from the south. True knowledge of religion breaks
down the barriers between faiths and faith. Cultivation
of tblerence for other faith will impart to us a truer
understanding of our own.
Tolerence obviously does not disturb the distinction
between right and wrong, or gpoJ and evil. The
reference here throughout is naturally to the principle
RELIGION 479
faiths of the world. They are all based on common
fundamentals. They have all produced great saints-
— Taravda Mmdir : Chapter X.
THE acceptance of the doctrine of Equality of
Religions does not abolish the distinction between religion
and irreligion. We do not propose to cultivate toleration for
irreligion. That being so some people might object that there
would be no room left for equi-mindedness, if everyone
took his own decision as to what was religion and
what was irreligion. If we follow the Law of Love,
we shall not bear any hatred towards the irreligious
brother. On the contrary, we shall love him, and
therefore either we shall bring him to the error of
his ways or he will poipt out our error, or each will
tolerate the others difference of opinion. If the other
party does not observe the Law of Love, he may be
violent to us. If, however we cherish real love for
him, it will overcome his bitterness in the end. AH
obstacles in our path will vanish, if only we observe
the golden rule that we must not be impatient with
those whom we may consider to be in error, bat
must be prepared, if need be to suffer in our own person.
— Yaravda Mandir : Chapter XL
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 appre-
ciated the true correspondence between the Maker and
itself — Young India : May 12, 1920.
AS soon as we loose moral basis, we cease to be
480 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
religious. There is no such thing as religion overriding
morality, man for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel, or
incontinent and claim to have God on his side.
— Toung India : Nov. 24, 1921.
RELIGION is a matter of the heart. No physical
inconvenience can warrant l abandonment of one's own
religion. —Toung India : Oct. 27, 192Q.
RELIGION is more than life. Remember that his own
religion is the truest to everyman even if it stands low in the
scales of philosophical comparison.
—Toung India : Aug. 28, 1924.
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MY religion is based on truth and non-violence.
Truth is my Cod. Non-violence is the means of realising
Him. —Toung India : Jan. 8, 1928.
IN nature there is fundamental unity running through
all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to
mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of
fundamental unity. — Toung India : Aug. 20, 1934.
ONE'S own religion is after all a matter between one-
self and one's Maker and no one else's.
—Toung India : Aug. 20, 1924.
RELIGION worth the name can only be saved by
purity, humility and fearlessness of the uttermost typfr
among its professors. It is the only shuddhi and only pro-
paganda. — Toung India: June 16, 1927-
IN matters of religion I am against any state inter-
ference. —Toung India : July 7, 1927.
ALL the religions of the world, while they may differ
RELIGION 481
in other respects undoubtedly proclaim that nothing livts in
this world but truth. — Toung India : Oct. 20, 1927.
IT is a painful fact, but it is a historical truth, that
priests who should have been the real custodians of religion
have been instrumental in destroying the religion of which
they have been coustodians. — Toung India : Oct. 20, 1927.
^^ ^> ^N
LET no one even for a moment entertain the fear that
a reverent study of other religions is likely to weaken or
shake on'es faith in one's own. The Hindu system of philo-
sophy regards all religions as containing the elements of
truth in them and enjoins an attitude of respect and
reverence towards them all. This of course presupposes
regard for one's own religion. Study and appreciation of
other religions need not cause a weakening of that regard ;
it should mean extension of that regard to other religions.
—Toung India : Dec. 6, 1928.
TO me religion means truth and Ahimsa or rather truth
alone, because truth includes ahimsa, ahimsa being the
necessary and indispensable means for its discovery.
—Toung India : Dec. 6, 1928.
IN the Congress we must cease to be exclusive Hindus
or Musalmans or Sikhs, Parsis, Christians, Jews. While we
may staunchly adhere to our respective faiths, we must be
in the Congress Indians first and Indians last. A good
Hindu or a good Musalman should be a better Hindu or a
better Musaiman for being a lover of his country. There
never can be any conflict between the real interest of one's
country and that of one's religion. Where there appears to
be any there is something wrong with one's religion, i. *.,
one's morals. True religion means good thought and good
conduct. True patriotism also means good thought and
482 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
good conduct. To set up a comparison between two-
synonymous things is wrong. — Toung India : Jan. 9, 1930.
THE Allaha of Islam is the same as the God of Christians
and the Ishwara of Hindus. Even as there are numerous name&
of God in Hinduism, there are many names of God in Islam.
The name do not indicate individuality but attributes and
little man has tried in his humble way to describe mighty
God by giving Him attributes, though He is above all attri*
butes, Indescribable, Immeasurable. Living faith in this
God means acceptance of the brotherhood of mankind.
It also means equal respect for all religions. If Islam
is dear to you, Hinduism is dear to me. The closest
though very incomplete analogy for religion I can find is.
marriage. It is or used to be an indissoluble tie. Much
more so is the tie of religion. And just as a husband does
not remain faithful to his wife, or wife to her husband,
because either is conscious of some exclusive superiority of
the other over the rest of his or her sex but because of some
indifinable but irresistible attraction so does one remain
irresistbly faithful to one's own religion and find ful satisfac-
tion in such adhesion. And just as a faithful husband does
not need in order to sustain his faithfulness to consider other
women as inferior to" his wife, so does not a person belonging
to one religion need to consider others to be inferior to his
own. To pursue the analogy still further, even as faith-
fulness to one's wife does hot presuppose blindness to-
her shortcomings, so does not faitfulness to one's
religion persuppose blindness to the shortcomings of
the religion. Indeed faithfulness certainly demands
a keener perception of shortcomings and therefore
a livelier sense of the proper remedy for their removal.
Taking the view I do of religion, it is unneces-
sary for me to examine the beauties of Hinduism. The
reader may rest assured that I am not likely to remain a
Hindu if I was not conscious of its many beauties. Only
for my purpose they need not be exclusive. My approach
RELIGION 483
to other religions, therefore, is never as a Fault-finding critic
but as a devotee hoping to find the like beauties in the other
religions and wishing to incorporate in my own the good I
may find in them and miss in mine.
—Htrijan : Aug. 12, 1938.
I BELIEVE in the fundamental truth of all great religi-
ons of the world. I believe that they are all God-given, and
I believe that they were necessary for the people to whom
these religions were revealed. And I believe that, if only
we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths
from the standpoint of the followers of those faiths, we
should find that they were at bottom all one and were all
helpiul to one another. — Harijan : Feb. 10, 1934.
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RELIGION deals with the science of the soul.
Great as the other forces of the world are, if there is such
a thing as God, soul force is the greatest of all. We know
as a matter of fact that the greater the force the finer it is.
Hitherto electricity has held the field among the finer
physical powers. And yet nobody has seen it except
through its wonderful results. Scientific speculation
dares to talk of a force finer even than that of electricity.
But no instrument devised by man has been able to know
anything .positive of soul force or spiritual force. It is on
that force that the true religious reformer has hitherto
relied.
—Harijan : Aug. 22, 1936.
*jp & & &
RELIGION is a matter of life and death. A man
does not change religion as he changes his garments. He
takes it with him beyond the grave. Nor does a man pro-
fess his religion to oblige others. He professes a religion be-
cause he cannot do otherwise. A faithful husband loves his
wife as he would love no other woman. Even her faith-
Jessness would not wean him from his faith. The bond is
484 TEACHINGS, OF MAHATMA GANDHI
mere than blood-relationship. So is the religious bond if it
is worth anything. It is a matter of the heart.
—Harijan : Jan. 17, 1937.
^P ^^ ^^
TRUE reKjfism is not a narrow dogma. It is not ex-
ternal observance. It is faith in God, and living in the
presence of God, it means faith in a future life, in truth and
tMmsa. There prevails to-day a sort of apathy towards these
(things of the spirit. Our temples appear today to be meant
only for the simple and the ignorant. Few visit real temples
of God. Let the educated class take up the work of leform
in this direction. — Harijan : Aug. 30, 1938.
^& ^& ^O
TO try to root out religion itself from society is a wild
goose chase. And were such an attempt to succeed, it
Would mean the destruction of society. Superstitions, evil
customs and other imperfections creep in from age to age
and mar religion for the time being. They come and go.
Bui religion itself remains. Because the existence of the
world in a broad sense depends on religion. The ultimate
difinition of religion may be said to be obedience to the Law
of God. God and His law are synonymous terms. There-
fore God signifies aa unchanging arid living law. No one
has ever really found Him. But avatars and prophets
have, by means of their 'tapasya* given to mankind 4 faint
glimpse of the Eternal Law. — Harijan : Aug. 25, 1940.
Religion and Reason
I REJECT any religious doctrine that does not appeal
lo reason and is in conflict with morality.
— Young India: : July 21, 1920.
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I HAVE found that mere appeal to reason does not
answer where prejudices are age long and based on supposed
religious authority. Reason has to be strengthened by suffer-
ing and suffering opens the eyes of understanding.
— TounR India : Dec. 14, 1928.
REPRESSION 4«5
EVERY formula of every religion has in this age of
reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal
assent ' —Young India : Feb. 26, 1925*
BUT religion that takes no count of practical affairs and
does not help to solve them, is no religion,
—Young India : May 7, 1925.
RELIGION without the backing of reason and en-
lightenment is a worthless sentiment which is bound to die
of inanition. It is knowledge that ultimately gives aahf*
ation. — Young India : May 7, 1925.
Religious Neutrality
IN free India every religion should prosper on terms
of equality, unlike what is happening today. Christianity
being the nominal religion of the rulers, it receive^
favours which no other religion enjoys. A Government
responsible to the people dare not favour one religion over
another. —Harijan : Dec. 30, 1939.
Repentance
A GLEAN confession, combined with a promise never
to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has
the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 41 2»
Repression
REPRESSIONi if it does not cow us down, if it doe?
not deter us from our purpose, can but hasten the advent
of Swaraj, for it puts us on our mettle and evokes the spirit
of self-sacrifice and courage in the face of danger. Repres*
sion does for a true man or a nation what fire does for
gold. —Toung India : Dec. 26, 192*4
ACCORDING to the science of Satyagraka, the
greater the repression and lawlessness on the part of
4K TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
authority, the greater should be the suffering courted by
the victims. Success is the certain result of suffering of the
pctremest character, voluntarily undergone.
—Young India : May 8, 1930.
REPRESSION is really an oxygen draught.
— Young India : Dec. 17, 1931.
Resolutions
IT would conduce to national progress and save a
great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of
never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting
for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to
carry them out. x —Toung India : March 7, 1929.
Retreat
RETREAT itself is often a plan of resistence and may
be a precursor of great bravery and sacrifice. Every
retreat is not cowardice which implies fear to die*
Of course a brave man would more often die in
violently or non-violently resisting the aggressor in the
latter' s attempt to oust him from his property, but he will
be no less brave if wisdom dictates present retreat.
—Harijan : April 12, 1942,
Revenge
YOU have now perhaps learnt that the best way of
resisting injury is never to injure the injurer, but ever to
refuse, no matter how much suffering the refusal costs us,
to do his will when w& know it to be wrong.
— Young India : May 28, 1931.
Riches
I KNOW that generally speaking it is the experience of
the world that possession of gold is inconsistent with the
possession of virtue; but though such is the unfortunate
experience in the world it is by no means an inexorable
law; We have the celebrated instance of Janaka, who,
RIGHT 487
although he was rolling in riches and had a limitless power,
being a great prince, was still one of the purest men of his*
age. And even in our own age I can cite from my own
personal experience and tell you that I have the good
fortune of knowing several moneyed men who do not find it
impossible to lead a straight pure life. What is possible.
For these few men is surely possible for every one of you.
And I wish that my word can find an abiding place in your
heart and know how much good it will do you and the
society in which you are living. — Young India : Oct. 6, 1927.
LET not possession of wealth be synonomous with
degradation and profigacy. — Toung India : Oct. 6, 1927.
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THE rich, monied class ought to use their God-given
wealth for philanthropic purposes.
—Toung India: March 1, 1928.
Ridicule
RIDICULE is like repression. Both give place to
respect when they fail to produce the intended effect.
—Toung India : Dec. 2, 1921.
Right
Proved right should be capable of being vindicated by
right means as against the rude i.e., sanguinary, means. Man
nay and should shed his own blood for establishing what
ne considers to be his right. He may not shed the blood of
his opponent who disputes his cright.'
— Harijan : Jan. 2, 1930.
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"A MORAL right, if there is any such thing, does not
need any asserting and defending.7'
" And is there anything like a moral right ? Give me
an illustration "
"Have I not a moral right to speak ?J>
4«8 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
" It is not a moral right but a legal right. There is
no right but is legal. Divorced from legality, moral right id
a misnomer. And therefore you either enforce a right or
fight for it. Whereas nobody asserts one's duty. He
humbly performs it. I shall take an illustration. You are
here. You feel like preaching to me the Gospel. I deny
the right and ask you to go away. If you regard praying
for me a duty, you will quietly go away and pray for me.
But if you claim the right to preach to me, you will call
the police and appeal to them for preventing my obstructing
you. That leads to a clash. But your duty no one dare
question. You perform it here or elsewhere, and if your
prayers to God to change my heart are genuine, God will
change my heart. What Christianity, according to my
interpretation of it, expects you to do is to pray to God to
change my heart. Duty is a debt. Right belongs to a
creditor, and it would be a funny thing indeed if a devout
Christian claimed to be a creditor !" — Harijan : April, 6 1937.
(From a conversation between Gandhi ji and a Christian.)
s
Sacrifice
NO cost is too heavy for the preservation of one's
honour, especially religious honour. Only they will
ssacrifice who cannot abstain. Forced sacrifice is no
acrifice. It will not last. A movement lacks sincerity
when it is supported by unwilling workers under pressure*
The Khilafat Movement will become an irresistible
force when every Musalman treats the peace terms as
an individual wrong. No man waits for others help
or sacrifice in matters of private personal wrong. He
seeks help no doubt, but his battle against the wrong
goes on whether he gains help or not. If he has justice
on his side, the divine law is that he does get help. iGod is
the help of the helpless. When the Pandava brothers were
unable to help Draupadi, God came to the rescue and saved
her honour. The Prophet was helped by God when he
Deemed to be forsaken by men. — Toitng India : Aug. 11, 1920.
SACRIFICE 469
WHEN self-satisfaction creeps over a man, he has
ceased to grow and therefore has become unfit for
freedom. He who offers a little sacrifice from a lowly
and religious spirit quickly realises the miserable
littleness of it. Once on the path of sacrifice, we find
out the measure of our selfishness, and must continually
wish to give more and not be satisfied till there is.
a complete self-surrender. — Toung India : Sept. 29, 1921.
A LITTLE reflection would however show that
self-sacrifice must not be allowed to excuse a crime.
Not even self-immolation can be allowed to support a
bad or an immoral cause. He would be a weak father
who would permit his child to play with fire because
the child is hunger-striking for the permission.
— Toung India : Dec. 18, 1924.
^ ^ ^
SELF-SACRIFICE of one innocent man is a million
times more potent than the sacrifice of million men
who die in the act of killing others. The willing
sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful retort to
insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God or
man. —Toung India : Feb. 12, 1925,
^^ ^^ ^^
THERE is no necessary charm about death on
the gallows; often such death is easier than a life of
drudgery and toil in malarious tracts.
I suggest to my friend the revolutionary that
death on the gallows serves the country only when
the victim is a 'spotless lamb.'
— Toung India : April 9, 1925.
^N ^x ^S
NO sacrifice is worth the name unless it is a joy*
Sacrifice and a long face go ill together. Sacrifice is
'making sacred.7 He must be a poor specimen of huma-
nity who is in need of sympathy for his sacrifice. Buddbfc
490 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
renounced everything because he could not help it. To
have anything was a torture to him. The Lokamanaya
remained poor because it was painful for him to possess
riches. Andrews regards the possession of even a few
rupees a burden, and continually contrives to lose them
if he gets any. I have often told him that he is in
need of a caretaker. He listens, he laughs and repeats
the same performance without the slightest contrition.
Madar-i-Hind$ is a terrible goddess. She will exact the
willing, nye, even the unwilling sacrifice of many a young
man and young woman before she deigns to say. 'Well done
my childern you are free.' We are as yet playing at sacrifice.
The reality has still to come. — Toung India ; June 25, 1925.
WE are all creatures of circumstances. Brought up
only to work as servants under constant constraint and
with all initiative killed in us, we cannot respond to
the call for self-sacrifice, for love of the country above
love of self or family, for service without distinction.
—Young India : Dec. 10, 1925.
THAT sacrifice which causes pain loses its sacred
character and will break down under stress. One gives up
things that one considers to be injurious and therefore
there should be pleasure attendant upon the giving up.
Whether the substitute is effective or not is a different
question altogether. If the substitute is effective, it is
no doubt well, but, it is well also even if the sub-
stitute is ineffective. It must lead to an effort to
procure a bettter substitute, but surely not to a return
to what has been given up after full knowledge and
experience of its harmfull character.
—Toung India : July 15, 1926.
THE world is touched by sacrifice. It does not
fhen discriminate about the merits of a cause. Not so
SATIHOOD 491
God. He is all seeing. He insists on the purity of
the cause and on adequate sacrifice therefore.
— Young India : April 3, 1930
^ 0 <3>
THE law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the
world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the
bravest and the most spotless.
—Young India : April 21, 1930.
^s ^s ^^
SWARAJ won without sacrifice cannot last longi
I would therefore like our people to get ready to make
the highest sacrifice that they are capable of. In true
sacrifice all the suffering is on one side-one is required to
master the art of getting killed without killing, of gaining life
by losing it. May India live up to this mantra.
—Young India : May 8, 1930
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GENTLENESS, self-sacrifice and generosity are the
exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
— Young India : Aug. 3, 1930.
Satihood
SATIHOOD is the acme of purity. This purity can-
not be attained or realised by dying. It can be attained
ootf through constant striving, constant immolation ol
the spirit from day to day. — Young India : May 21, 1931.
A SATI has been described by our ancients, and
the description holds good to-day, as one who ever
Bxed in her love and devotion to her husband, signali-
ses herself by her selfless service during her husband's
lifetime as well as after, and remains absolutely chaste
in thought, word and jdeed. Self-immolation at the
death of the husband 'is mot a sign of enlightenment,
but of gross ignorance as to the nature of the
sooL Th« -soul is immortal, tu&changeable and immanent
492 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
It docs not perish with the physical body but jourfteys
on from one mortal frame to another, till it completely
emancipates itself from earthly bondage. The truth of
it has been attested to by the experience of countless
sages and seers, and can be realised by any one wha
may wish to even to-day. How can suicide be, then,
justified in the light of these facts ?
Again, true marriage means not merely unipn ot
bodies. It connotes the union of the souls too. If mar-
riage meant no more than a physical relationship, the
bereaved wife should be satisfied with a portrait or a
waxen image of her husband. But self-destruction is
worse than futile. It cannot help to restore the dead
to life, on the contrary it only takes away one more
from the world of the living.
— Tcung India : May 12, 1931.
Satyagraha
THE very nature of Satyagraha is such that the
fruit of the movement is contained in the movement
itself. Satyagraha is based on self help, self-sacrifice
and faith in God.
— Safyagraha in South Africa : Page 282.
<S> 3> <$>
THE humility of a Satyagrahi knows no bounds.
He does not let slip a single opportunity for settlement,
and he does not mind if any one therefore looks upon
him as timid. The man who has faith in him and
the strength which flows from faith, does not care if
he is looked down upon by others. He relies solely
upon his internal strength. He is therefore courteous
to all, and thus cultivates and enlists world opinion
in favour of his own cause.
— Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 442.
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SATYAGRAHA is a priceless and matchless weapon
SATYAGRAHA 493
and those who wield it are strangers to disappointment
or defeat* — Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 511.
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THE end of a Satyagraha campaign can be des-
cribed as worthy, only when it leaves the Satyagrahis
stronger and more spirited then they are in the beginn-
ing — My Experiments with Truth : Page 538.
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THE hope of India lies in Satyagraha. And what
is Satyagraha ? It has often been described. But just
as the sun cannot be fully described even by the my-
riad tongued Sheshnaga, so also the sun of Satyagraha
cannot be adequately described. And though we always
see the sun but know really very little of it, even so
we do ever seem to see the sun of Satyagraha, but we know
precious little about it. — Satyagraha Leaflets.
<$><$> <§>
IN the course of the Satyagraha struggle in South
Africa several thousand indentured Indians had struck
work. This was a Satyagraha strike and therefore, en-
tirely peaceful and voluntry. Whilst the strike was go-
ing on, a strike of a European miners, railway employ-
ers, etc, was declared. Overtures were made to me to
make common cause with the European strikers. As a
Satyagrahi, I did not require a moment's consideration
to decide not to do so. I went further and for fear
of our strike being classed with the strike of Europe-
ans, in which methods of violence and the use of arms
found prominent place, ours was suspended and Satya-
graha from that moment came to be recognized by the
Europeans of South Africa as a humble and honest
:novemeat and, in the words of General Smuts, a "con-
stitutional movement." — Young India : April 18, 1919.
SATYAGRAHA is like a banian tree with innumer-
able branches. Civil disobedience is one such branch.
494 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Satya (truth) and Ahimsa (non-violence) together make the
parent trunk from which all innumerable branches shoot
out. We have found by bitter experience that whilst
in an atmosphere of lawlessness civil disobedience found
ready acceptance, Satya (truth) and Ahimsa (non-violence)
from which alone civil disobedience can worthily spring
have commanded little or no respect. Ours then is a
herculian task, but we may not shirk it. We roust
fearlessly spread the doctrine of Satya and Ahimsa and!
then and not till then, shall we be able to undertake
mass Satyagraha. — Toting India : May 1, 1919.
^s ^^ ^s*
FOR the past thirty years I have been preaching
and practising Satyagraha. The principles of Satyagraha>
as I know it to-day, constitute a gradual evolution.
The term Satyagraha was coined by me in South
Africa to express the force that the Indians there used
for full eight years, and it was coined in order ta
distinguish it from "the movement, then going OB in
the United Kingdom and South Africa under the name
of Passive Resistance.
Its root meaning is holding on to truth; hence,,
Truth-force. I have also called it Love-force or Soul-
force. In the application of Satyagraha I discovered*
in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit
of violence being inflicted on one's opponent but that
he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy.
For what appears to be truth to the one may appear
to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffer-
ing. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth
not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but one's
own self.
Satyagraha differs from Passive Resistance as the
North Pole from the South. Tfie latter has been concei-
ved as a weapon of the weak and does not exclude
the use of physical force or violence for the purpose of
SATYAGRAHA 495
gaining one's end; where as the former has been con-
ceived as a weapon of the strongest and excludes th<
use of violence in any shape or form.
When Daniel disregarded the laws of the Medes and
Persians which offended his conscience and meekly suffer
ed the punishment for his disobedience, he offered Satya-
graha in its purest form. Socrates would not refrain
from preaching what he knew to be the truth to the
Athenian youth, and bravely suffered the punishment
of death. He was in this case, a Satyagrahi. Prahlad
disregarded the orders of his father because he consider-
ed them to be repugnant to his conscience. He un-
complainingly anil cheerfully bore the tortures to which
he was subjected at the instance of his father. Mirabai,
who is said to have offended her husband by following her
own conscience was content to live in separation from him and
bore with quiet dignity and Designation all the injuries that
are said to have been done to her in order to bend her
to her husband's will. Both Prahlad and Mirabai practised
Satyagraha. It must be remembered, that neither
Daniel nor Socrates, neither Prahlad nor Mirabai had
any ill-will towards their prosecutors. Daniel and Socrates
are regarded as having been model citizens of the States
to which they belonged, Prahlad a model son, Mirabai
a model wife.
This doctrine of Satyagraha is not new; it is merely
an extension of the rule of domestic life to the political.
Family disputes and differences are generally settled
according to the law of love. The injured member has
so much regard for the others that he suffers injury
for the sake of his principles without retaliating and with-
out being angry with those who differ from him. And
as repression of anger, self-suffering are difficult processes
he does not dignify trifles into principles, but, in all
non-essentials, readily agrees with the rest of the family
and thus contrives to gain the maximum of peace for
496 TEACHINGS OF M&HATMA GANDHI
himself without disturbing that of the others. Thus his
action, whether he resists or resigns, is always calculated
to promote the common welfare of the family. It is
this law of love which, silently but surely governs the family
for the most part throughout the civilized world.
I feel that nations cannot be one in reality nor
can their activities be conducive to the common good
of the whole humanity, unless there is this definition
and acceptance of the law of the family in national
and international affairs, in other words, on the political
platform. Nations can be called civilized, only to the
extent: that they obey this law.
This law of love is nothing but a law of truth.
Without truth there is no love; without truth it may
be affection, as for one's country to the injury of others;
or infatuation, as of a young man for a girl; or love
may be .unreasoning and blind as of ignorant parents
for their children. Love transcends all animality and
is never partial. Satyagraha has, therefore, been des-
cribed as a coin, on whose face you read love and
on the reverse you read truth. It is a coin current
everywhere and has indefinable value.
Satyagraha is self-dependent, It does not require
the assent of the opponent before it can be brought into
play. Indeed it shines out most when the opponent
resists. It is, therefore, irresistible. A Satyagrahi does
not know what defeat is for he fights for truth with-
out being exhausted. Death in the fight is a deliver-
ance, and prison, a gate-way to liberty.
It is called also soul-force, because a definite re-
cognition of *the soul within is a necessity, if a Satya-
grahi 'is to believe that death does not mean cessation
of struggle, but a culmination. The body is merely a
vehicle for self-expression; and he gladly gives up the
body, when <its existence is an obstruction in the way
SATYAGRAHA 497
of the opponent seeing the truth, for which the Satya-
grahi stands. He gives up the body in the certain
faith that if anything would change his opponent's view
a willing sacrifice of his body must do so. And with
the knowledge that the soul survives the body, he is
not impatient to see the triumph of truth in the present
body. Indeed, victory lies in the ability to die in the
attempt to make the opponent see the truth which
the Satyagrahi for the time being expresses.
And as a Satyagrahi never injures his opponent
and always appeals, either to his reason by gentle argu-
ment, or his heart by the sacrifice of self, Satyagraha
is twice blessed, it blesses him who practises it, and
him against whom it is practised.
It has, however, been objected that Satyagraha, as
we conceive it, can he practised only by a select few.
My experience proves the contrary. Once its simple
principles— adherence to truth and insistence upon it by
self- suffer ing — are understood, anybody can practise it.
It is as difficult or as easy to practise as any other
virtue. It is as little necessary for its practice that
everyone should understand the whole philosphy of it,
as it is for the practice of total abstinence.
After all, no one disputes the necessity of insisting on
truth as one sees it. And it is easy enough to understand
that* it is vulgar to attempt to compel the opponent
to its acceptance by using brute force ; it is discredit-
able to submit to error because argument has failed
to convince, and that the only true and honourable
course is not to submit to it even at .the cost of one's
life. Then only can the world be purged of error, if
it ever can be altogether. There can be no compromise
with error where it hurts the vital being.
But, on the political field, the struggle on behalf
of the people mostly consists in opposing error ia the
498 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
shape of unjust laws. When you have failed to bring
the error home to the lawgiver by way of petitions
and the like, the only remedy open to you, if you do
not wish to submit to it, is to compel him to retrace
his steps by suffering in your own person, i.e., by
inviting the penalty for the breach of the law.
Hence, Satyagraha largely appears to the public as-
civil disobedience or civil resistence. It is civil in the
sense that it is not criminal.
The criminal, i. e., the ordinary law-breaker breaks
the law surreptitiously and tries to a void the penalty;,
not so the civil resister. He ever obeys the laws of the
State to which he belongs, not out of fear of the sanctions,
but because he considers them to be good for the
welfare of society. But there come occasions, generally
rare when he considers certain laws to be so unjust
as to render obedience to them a dishonour, he then
openly and civilly breaks them and quietly suffers the
penally for their breach. And in order to register hi*
protest against the action of the law-giver, it is open
to him to withdraw his co-operation from the State
by disobeying such other laws whose breach does not
involve moral turpitude. In my opinion, the beauty and
efficacy of Satyagraha are so great and the doctrine
so simple that " it can be preached even to children^
(From the Report of the Commissioners appointed by the
Indian National Congrtssty*
WITH Satya combined with Ahimsa you can bring the
world to your feet. Satyagraha in its essence is nothing
but the introduction of truth and gentleness in the political,
w., national life. —Young India : March 10, 1920.
SATYAGRAHA is not predominantly civil disobedience
but a quiet and irresistible pursuit of truth. On the rare*
SATYAGRAHA 499
occasions it becomes civil disobedience. But conscious and
willing obedience must, in the case of a large body of
workers, precede it. — Young India : Jan. 12, 1922.
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SATYAGRAHA is never adopted abruptly and never
till all other and milder methods have been tried.
— Young India : Jan. 11, 1929.
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IT is undertaken not from a belief in human aid but it
is based upon an unquenchable faith in God and His justice.
And God is both gentle and hard. He tries us through and
through to the last suffering point but He js so gentle as
never to test us to the breaking point.
—Young India : Feb. 18, 1926.
^^ <^ ^^
NO power on earth can make a person do a thing
against his will. Satyagraha is a direct result of the recog-
nition of this great Law and is independent of number?
participating in it. — Young India : Feb. 18, 1926.
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SATYAGRAHA, cannot be resorted to for persona]
gain, but only for the good of others. A Satyagrahi should
always be ready to undergo suffering and pecuniary loss.
—Young India : Sept. 30, 1926,
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* SATYAGRAHA struggle requires no prestige save that
of truth, and no strength save that of self*suflering which
comes otily from an immovable faith in one's cause and
from a completely non-violent spirit.
Impatience is a phase of violence. A Satyagrahi has
nothing to do with victory. He is sure of it, but he has also
to know that it comes from God. His is but to suffer.
—Young India : Oct. 18, 1927.
THE fact is that batyagrstha presupposes the livimr
500 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
presence and guidance of God. The leader depends not on
his own strength but on that of God. He acts as the Voice
within guides him. Very often therefore what are practical
politics so-called are unrealities to him, though in the end his
prove to be most practical politics.
—Young India : Aug. 2, 1928.
SATYAGRAHA presupposes self-discipline, self-control
self-purification, and a recognised social status in> the person
offering it. A Satyagrahi must never forget the distinction
between evil and evil doer. He must not harbour ill-will or
bitterness against the latter. He may not even employ
needlessly oifei^sive language against the evil person, how-
ever unrelieved his evil might be. For it should be an
article of faith with every Satyagrahi that there is none so
(alien in this world but can be converted by love. A Satya-
grahi will always try to overcome evil by good, anger by
love, untruth by truth, himsa by ahimsa. There is no other
way of purging the world of eviL Therefore a person who
claims to be a Satyagrahi always tries by close and prayer-
ful self-introspection and self-analysis to find out whether he
is himself completely free from the taint of anger, ill-will and
such other human infirmities, whether he is not himself
capable of those "Very evils against which he is o**t to lead
a crusade. In self-purification and penance lies half the
victory of a Satyagrahi. A Satyagrahi has faith that the
silent and undemonstrative action of truth and love produces
far more permanent and abiding results than speeches or
such other showy performances.
But although Satyagraha can operate silently, it requires
certain amount of action on the part of a Satyagrahi.
A Satyagrahi, for instance, must first mobilise public opinion
against the evil which he is out to eradicate, by means of a
wide and intensive agitation. When public opinion is suffi-
ciently roused against a social abuse even the tallest will
not dare to practice or openly to lend support to i|. An
SATYAGRAHA 501
awakened and intelligent public opinion is the most potent
weapon of a Satyagrahi. When a person supports a social
evil in total disregard of a unanimous public opinion, it in-
dicates a clear justification for his social ostracism. But the
object of social ostracism should never be to do injury to the
person against whom it is directed. Social ostracism means
complete non-co-operation on the part of society with the
offending individual ; nothing more, nothing less, the idea
being that a person who deliberately sets himself to flout
society has no right to be served by the society. For all
practical purpose this should be enough. Of course, special
action may be indicated in special cases and the practice may
have to be varied to suit the peculiar features of each
individual case. — Young Indf^; Aug. 28, 1929.
^^ ^^ ^^
SATYAGRAHA literally means insistence on truth.
This insistence arms the votary with matchless power. This
power or force is connoted by the word Satyagraha. Satya-
graha, to be genuine, may be offered against one's parents
against wife or one's children, against rulers, against fellow
citizens even against the whole wo'rld.
Such a universal force necessarily makes no distinc-
tion between kinsmen and strangers, young and old,
man and woman, friend and foe. The force to be so
applied can never be physical. There is in it no room
for violence. The only force of universal application
can, therefore, be that of ahimsa or love. In other
words it is Soul Force.
Love does not burn others, it burns itself. There-
fore, a Satyagrahi i. e., a civil resister will joyfully suffer
even unto death.
It follows, therefore, that a civil resister, whilst he
will strain every nerve to compass the end of the exist-
ing rule, will do no intentional injury in thought,
word or deed to the person of a single Englishman.
—Toting India : Feb. 27, 1930.
502 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
THE Satyagrahi whilst he is ever ready for fight
must be equally eager for peace. He must welcome any
honourable opportunity for peace. The essential condition
of a compromise is that there should be nothing humiliating,
nothing panicky about it.
Whilst however a Satyagrahi never yields to panic
or hesitancy, neither does he think of humiliating the other
party of reducing it to an abject surrender. He may not swerve
from the path of justice and may not dictate imposible
terms. He may not pitch his demands too high, neither
may he pitch them too low.
— Young India : March 19, 1931.
t ^ ^
I AM myself daily growing in the knowledge of
Satyagraha. I have no text book to consult in time
of need, not even the Gita which I have called my
•dictionary. Satyagraha as conceived by me is a science
in the making. It may be that what I claim to be
a science may prove to be no science at all and may
well prove to be the musings and doings of a fool,
if not a mad man. It may be that what is true in
Satyagraha is as ancient as the hills.
—Harijan : Sept. 24, 1938.
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Q. IF some of the Socialists and Communists who
did not believe in God could be Satyagrahis ?
A. I am afraid not. For a Satyagrahi has no other
stay but God, and he who has any other stay or de-
pends on any other help cannot offer Satyagraha. He
may be a passive resister, non-co-operator and so on,
but not a true Satyagrahi. It is open to you to argue
that this excludes brave comrades, whereas it may in-
clude men who profess a belief in God but who in
the daily lives are untrue to their profession. I am
not talking of those who are untrue to their profes-
sion, 1 am talking of those who are prepared in the*
SATYAGRAHA 503
name God to stake their all for the sake of their
principle. Don't ask me again why I am enunciating
this principle today and did not do so 20 years ago,
I can only say that I am no prophet but an erring mortal,
progressing from blunder towards truth. 'What about
the Buddhists and Jains, then ?' someone has asked.
Well, I will say that if the Buddhists and Jains raise
this objection themselves, and say that they would be
disqualified if such a strict rule were observed, I should
say to them that I agree with them.
But far be it from me to suggest that you should
believe in the God that I believe in. May be your
definition is different from mine, but your belief in that
God must be your ultimate mainstay. It may be some
Supreme Power or some Being even indefinable, but
beliei in it is indispensable. To bear all kinds of tor-
tures without a murmur of resentment is impossible
for a human being without the strength that comes
from God. Only in His strength we are strong. And
only those who can cast their cares and their fears
on that Immeasurable Power have faith in God.
—Harijan : June 3, 1939.
Schools
THERE is no doubt that the safest and the most
honourable course for the student world is to leave Gov-
ernment schools and colleges at any cost. But the next
best course for them is to hold themselves in readiness
to be thrown out whenever a conflict occurs between the
Government and the people, — Toung India : Feb. 16, 1928.
IT is my conviction that our schools and colleges,
instead of making us manly, make us obsequious, timid
indecisive and ballastless. Manliness consists not in bluff,
bravado arlordiness. It consists in daring to do the light*
504 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
and facing consequences, whether it is in matters social,
political or other. It consists in deeds not in words.
—Young India : Jan. 31, 1929.
IT is gross superstition to suppose that knowledge can
be obtained only by going to schools and colleges. The
world produced brilliant students before schools and
colleges came into being. There is nothing so ennobling or
lasting as self-study. Schools and colleges make most of us
mere receptacles for holding the superfluities of knowledge.
Wheat is left out and mere husk is taken in. I do not wish
to decry schools and colleges as such. They have their
use. But we are making altogether too much of them.
They are but one of the many means of gaining knowledge.
—Young India : June 25, 193L
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A SCHOOL or a college is a sanctuary where there
should be nothing that is base or unholy. Schools and
colleges are factories for the making of character.
—Young India : July 30, 1931.
Science
I AM not opposed to the progress of science as such.
On the contrary, the scientific spirit of the West commands
my admiration, and if that admiration is qualified, it is
because the scientist of the West takes no note of God's
lower creation. I abhor vivisection with my whole soul.
I detest the unpardonable slaughter of innocent life in the
name of science and humanity so-called, and all the scienti-
fic discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no
consequence. If the circulation of blood theory could not
have been discovered without vivisection, the human kind
could well have done without it. And, I see the day clearly
dawning when the honest scientist of the West will put
limitations upon the present methods of pursuing knowledge.
Futiirc measurements will take note jiot merely of the human
SCORTCHED EARTH POLICY 505
family but of all that lives and even as we are slowly but
surely discovering that it is an error to suppose that Hindus
can thrive upon the degradation of a fifth of themselves, cr
that peoples of the West can rise or live upon the exploi-
tation and degradation of the Eastern and African nations,
so shall we realise, in the fulness of time, that our dominion
over the lower order of creation is not for their slaughter,
but for their benefit equally with ours. For, I am as certain
that they are endowed with a soul, as that I am.
—Young India : Dec. 17, 1925,
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WHO can deny that much that passes for science and
art today destroys the soul instead of uplifting it and instead
of evoking the best in us panders to our basest passions ?
—Young India : Jan. 23, 1922.
Scortched Earth Policy
THERE is no bravery in my poisoning my well or
filling it in so that my brother who is at war with me may
not use the water. Let us assume that I am fighting him
in the orthodox manner. Nor is there sacrifice in it, for it
does not purify me, and sacrifice, as its root meaning
implies, presupposes purity. Such destruction may be
likened to cutting one's nose to spite one's face. Warriors
of old had wholesome laws of war. Among the excluded
things* were poisoning wells and destroying food crops.
But I do claim that there are bravery and sacrifice in my
leaving my wells, crops and homestead intact, bravery in
that I deliberately run the risk of the enemy feeding him-
self at my expense and pursuing me, and sacrifice in that
the sentiment of leaving something for the enemy purifies
and ennobles me. — Harijan : April 12, 1942.
SCORTCHED earth policy is a self-defeating measure.
—Harijan : April) 19* 1942.
506 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Scriptures
I EXERCISE my judgment about every scripture,
including the Gita. I cannot let a scriptural text supersede
my reason. Whilst I believe that the principal books are
inspired, they suffer from a process of double distillation.
Firstly they come through a human prophet, and then
through the commentaries of interpreters. Nothing in them
comes from God directly. Matthews may give one version
of one text and John may give another. I cannot
surrender my reason whilst I subscribe to divine revelation.
And above all, the letter killeth, the spirit gioeth life. But you
must not misunderstand my position. I believe in Faith
also, in things where reason has no place, e. g.9 the existense
of God. No argument can move me from that faith, and
like that little girl who repeated against all reason 'yet we
are sever? I would like to repeat, on being baffled in argu-
ment by a very superior intellect, 'Yet there is God.' (M.D.)
—Harijan : Dec. 5, 1936.
Section 124-A
SECTION 124-A is hung over our heads like the sword
of Damocles whether we are feasting or fasting.
—Young India : July 18, 1929.
DISAFFECTION has been described by a commenta-
tor on the section as want of affection. He goes so far as to say
that he who has no affection for the Government established
by law is guilty of disaffection. I do not know any Indian
who has actually affection for the Government as it is today
established.
It is a rape of the word 'law' to say that it is
a Government established by 'law7. It is established by the
naked sword, kept ready to descend upon us at the will of
the arbitrary rulers in whose appointment the people have
no say. — Young India : July 18, 1929.
SELF-HELP AND MUTUAL HELP 507
Sfelf-confidence
THE history of the world is full of instances of men
who rose to leadership, by sheer force of self-confidence,
bravery and tenacity. We too, if we sincerely aspire to
Swaraj and are impatient to attain it, should have similar
self-confidence. — Young India : March 20, 1930.
Self-evolution
I DO not realise that I am staking a whole nation for
self-evolution. For self-evolution is wholly, consistent with
a nation's evolution. A nation cannot advance, without the
units of which it is composed advancing and conversely no
individual can advance, without the nation of which he is a
part also advancing. — Young India : March 26, 1931.
Self-help and Mutual help
SELF-HELP is the capacity to stand on one's legs
without anybody's help. This does not mean indifference
to or rejection of outside help, but it means the capacity to
be at peace with oneself, to preserve one's self-respect, whom
outside help is not forthcoming or is refused. A farmer who
rejecting friends, help, insists on tilling his own soil, making
his own implements, gathering his own harvest, spinning
and weaving his own cloth and building his own house,
all by himself, must be either foolish or self- conceited or bar-
barous. Self-help includes bread-labour and means that
every man shall earn his bread in the sweat of his brow.
Hence a man who works in his field for eight hours daily is
entitled to help from the weaver, the carpenter, the black-
smith or the mason. It is not only his right, it is his duty to
seek the help of these, and they in their turn benefit by the
agriculturist's labour in the field. The eye that would
dispense with the help of the hands does not practise self-
help, but is conceited and self-deceived. And as the differ-
ent members of the body sre self-reliant so far as their own
508 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
functions are concerned and yet are mutually helpful and
mutually dependent, so are we three hundred million
members of the Indian body politic, each following the rule
of self-help in performing his own function, and yet co-
operating with one another in all matters of common
interest. Only then can we be said to be servants of the
country and only then do we deserve to be called
nationalists. —Young India : May 13, 1926.
NATIONS are born after much travail. Either we
must die like flies in an armed rebellion than submit to
military autocracy and in the distant and dim future hope
to have democratic rule ; or by patient, natural, unperceiv-
ed suffering evolve as a self-ruling self- respecting nation.
{—Young India : July 24, 1924.
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Self-interest
CONSIDERATIONS of self-interest drive shame away
and mislead men out of the straight and narrow path.
— Satajagraha in South Africa : Page 214.
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WE must evolve the capacity for going on with our
programme without the leaders. That means self-government.
And no government in the world can possibly put a whole
nation in prison, it must yield to its demand or abdicate in
favour of a government suited to that nation.
— Young India : Oct. 27, 1920.
Self-purification
HAVING travelled in Ceylon and now fairly long
enough in Burma I feel that we in India have perhaps more
fully, though by no means as fully as possible, interpreted
SELF-REALIZATION 509
the message of the Buddha then you have done. We have
it in our Shastras that whnever things go wrong, good
people and sages go in for tapasya otherwise known as
austeries. Gautama himself, when he saw oppression,
injustice and death around him, and when he saw darkness
in front of him, at the back of him and each side of him
went out in the wilderness and remained there fasting and
praying in searcih of light. And if such penance was
necessary for him who was infinitely greate than all of
us put together, how much more necessary is it for us, no
matter whether we are dressed in yellow or not ? My
friends, if you will become torch bearers lighting the path of
a weary world towards the goal of ahimsa, there is no other
way out of it, save that of self-purification and penance.
—Toung India : April 18, 1929.
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THIS gospel of self- purification that has been made so
familiar to us during the last ten years thanks to the non-co-
operation movement was something startingly new to this
friend and he seemed to feel as if a new star had 'swum into
his ken/ Gandhiji continued. "This spiritual weapon of
self-purification intangible as it seems is the most potent
means for revolutionising one's environment and for loosen-
ing external shackles. It works subtly and invisibly ; it is
an intensive process and though it might often seem a
weary and long drawn out process, it is the straightest
way to liberation, the surest and the quickest, and no
effort can be too great for it. What it requires is faith— an
unshakable, mountain-like faith that flinches from nothing."
(M.D.)—rwng India : March 28, 1929.
Self-realization
TO develope the spirit is to build character and to en-
able one to work towards a knowledge of God and self-
realization.
I am familiar with the superstition that self-realisation
is possible only in the fourth stage of life, i.e. sannyasa
510 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
(renunciation). But it is a matter of common knowledge
that those who defer preparation for this invaluable
experience until the last stage of life attain not self-realiza-
tion but old age amounting to a second and pitiable child-
hood, living as a burden on this earth.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 413,
Self-respect
DIGNITY of the soul and self-respect are interpreted
differently by different persons. I am aware that self-
respect is often misinterpreted. The over-sensitive man
may see disrespect or hurt in almost everything. Such
a man does not really understand what self-respect is.
That has been my experience in many cases. But no
harm accrues even if a non-violent man holds mistaken*
notions of self-respect. He can die cheerfully for the
sake of what he believes to be his dignity and self-
respect. Only he has no right to injure or kill the
supposed wrong-doer. — Harijan : Aug. 18, 1940.-
Separate Electorates
SEPARATE electorates to the untouchables will1
assure them bondage in perpetuity. The Musalmans
will never cease to be Musalmans by having separate
electorates. Do -you want the untouchables to remain
* untouchables1 for ever ? Well, the separate elctorates
would perpetuate the stigma. What is needed is destruc-
tion of untouchability, and when you have done it, the
bar sinister which has been imposed by an insolent
'superior' class upon an 'inferior' class will be destroyed.
When you have destroyed the bar sinister, to whom
will you give the separate electorates ? Look at the history
of Europe. Have you got separate electorates for the work-
ing classes or women ? With adult franchise, you give
the untouchables complete security. Even the orthodox.
Hindus would have to approach them for votes.
— Tounz India : Nov. 12, 1931,
SILENCE 511
SEPARATE electorates have resulted in the separa-
tion of hearts. They presupposed mutual distrust and
conflict of interests. They have tended to perpetuate
differences and deepen the distrust. — Harijan : Jan. 25, 1942,
Service
SERVICE which is rendered without joy helps
neither the servant nor the served. But all other
pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before
service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 215*
Service is no mushroom growth. It presupposes the will1
first, and then experience.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 274,
THAT service is the noblest which is rendered for its
own sake. —Young India : Feb. 24, 1925,
3> <$> ^
REAL affection is not shown through praise;
but through service. Self-purification is a preliminary
process, an indispensable condition of real service.
—Toting India : March 14, 1929i
Shraddha Ceremonies
PERSONALLY I do not believe in the Shraddha
ceremony as commonly understood among us in India
and although I remember having performed Shraddha
at a time, I have given up the practice long since,
for, as I wrote to a correspondent recently in reply to
a question of his, I believe that the only true way
of celebrating the Sharaddha of one's ancestors is con-
stantly to ponder over and translate into daily life
their good qualities. • —Toung India : Sept. 20, 1928;
Silence
I MUST say that, beyond occasionally exposing me
to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no dis-
512 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
advantage whatever. In fact I can say that, on the
contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy
in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a
pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me
the economy of words. I have naturally formed the
habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now
give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hard -
ly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect
ever having had to regret anything in my speech or
writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and
waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence
is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth.
Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth
wittingly, or unwittingly is a natural weakness of man and
silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few
words will really be thoughtless in his speech, he will
measure every word. We find so many people impatient to
talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered
with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the
permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the
time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking
without permission. All this talking can hardly be said
to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much
waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my
shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It
has helped me in my discernment of truth.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 84.
IT has often occurred to me that a seeker after
truth has to be silent. 1 know the wonderful efficacy
of silence. I visited a monastery Trappist in South
Africa. A beautiful place it was. Most of the inmates
of the place were under a vow of silence. I enquired
of the fatfier the motive of it and he said that "the motive
is apparent. We are frail human beings. We do not
know very often what we say. If we Want to listen
to the still small voice that is always speaking within
SILENCE 513
us, it will not be heard if we continually speak.77 I
understood that precious lesson. I know the secret of
silence. — Young India : Aug. 6, 1925.
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THERE are occasions when silence is wisdom.
—Toung India : Oct. 17, 1929.
1 BELIEVE that it often becomes the duty of
every public man to be silent even at the risk of
incurring unpopularity and even a much worse penalty
as it undoubtedly becomes his duty to speak out his
rnind when the occasion requires it, though it may be
at the cost of his life. —Toung India : Oct. 17, 1929.
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AS I do nothing except with an ultimate spiritual
end in view, this silence obviously carried with it
its spiritual advantage. Silence is essential for one
whose life is an incessant search for truth But
such silence is a much more serious affair than this.
Even writing as a means of communication must stop.
Truth would speak, if it must, in every act and not
through the written word. —Harijan : April 27, 1935.
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THERE is another merit in silence which these
bur weeks demonstrated to me unmistakably. I am
prone to anger like anyone else, but I can successfully
juppress it. Well I found out that silence helps one to
;uppress one's anger as perhaps nothing else does. How
s one to give vent to one's wrath if one is silent ?
Nfot by eyes. Surely not be physical violence, when
>ne is pledged to non-violence. Not by writing, for
;he wrath would disappear in the very process of
writing.
There are number of other uses of silence that 1
:ould mention, but these should suffice. Let me tell
514 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
you that I was not looking forward to the termination
of this silence. I was dreading it, and I should often
like to go into silence, if not quite for a month or months, at
least for brief periods.
No wonder Carlyle wrote : Speech is silvery, but silenee
is golden. — Harijan : April 17, 1935.
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WELL I should like to leave you a message of silence*
Speech without the backing of experience based on action
will lack chastity and refinement. I would ask you to
curb your tongues and make use of your hands and
feet for the service of the community. After you have
done so for a few years, you will speak the speech
that counts and never fails. — Harijan : May 4, 1935.
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Q. THE greatest thing you have ever done is the ob-
servance of your Monday silence. You illustrate thereby the
storing up and releasing of power when needed. What place
has it continued to have in the preparation of your spiritual
tasks ?
A. It is not the greatest thing I have done, but
it certainly means a great thing to me. I am now
taking silence almost every day. If I could impose
on myself silence for more days in the week than
one I should love it. In Yervada Jail I once
observed 15 days' silence. I was in the seventh heaven
during that period. But this silence is now being utilized
to get through arrears of work. It is a superficial
advantage after all. The real silence should not be
interrupted even by writing notes to others and carrying
on conversation through them. The notes interrupt the
sacredness of the silence when you should listen to the
music of the spheres. That is why I often say that
silence is a fraud ^Hmj®n : Dec. 29, 1936.
SILENCE 515
IT has now become both a physical and spiritual neces-
sity for me. Originally it was taken to relieve the sense of
frustration. Then I wanted time for writing. After, how-
ever, I had practised it for some time I saw the spiritual
value of it. It suddenly flashed across my mind that that
was the time when I could best hold communion with God.
And now I feel as though I was naturally built for silence.
Of course I may tell you that from my childhood I have
been noted for my silence. I was silent at school, and in
my London days I was taken for a silent drone by friends.
—Harijan : Dec, 10, 1938.
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1. THERE is a perceptible drop in blood pressure
when I observe silence. Medical friends have therefore
advised me to take as much silence as I can.
2. There is no doubt whatsoever that after every
silence I feel recuperated and have greater energy for work.
The output of work during silence is much greater than
when I am not silent.
3. The mind enjoys a peace during silence which it
does not without it. That is to say, the decision to be silent
itself produces a soothing effect on me. It lifts a burden off
my mind. My experience tells me that silence soothes the
nerves in a manner no drugs can. With me it also induces
sleep.
Caution : I have noticed in the jails that prisoners go
moody when, deprived of company, they have to observe en-
forced silence. To produce the effect I have said that
silence has to be liked. No one, therefore, need be silent
out of love of imitation or merely for the knowledge that it
produces on me the effect described by me. The best thing
would be to take silence on medical advice. Needless to say
that here I do not refer to the spiritual need and effects of
silence. —Harijan : Oct; 28, 1939*
516 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
WHEN Shri Sarat Chandra B(3se was here the other day
t asked him if he had been to Segaon. He said that he had
been and had a long talk with Gandhiji, but all that Gandhiji
had said to him was contained on a slip of the newspaper :
"Give my love to all the members of the family.'7 Then
he proceeded. " I asked Mahatmaji if he was going
to continue his silence in Delhi. The reply was a nod of
assent. I then asked him if he would continue it in the
Frontier Province also. Again he noded assent. Amazing,
is it not,"
I do not know how all this is going to be, but I am sure
his keenest desire is to continue the silence indefinitely.
Several times, during this period of silence he has written :
f£What a mercy I am silent !" There is no doubt it has given
him immeasurable joy and freedom from what may have
been many an unhappy moment of angry outburst.
When one comes to think of it one cannot help feeling
that nearly half of the misery of the world would disappear
if we fretting mortals knew the virtue of silence. Befory
modern civilisation came upon us, at least six to eight hours
of silence out of twenty-four were vouchsafed to us. Modern
civilisation has taught us to convert night into day and
golden silence into brazen din and noise. What a great
thing it would be If we in our busy lives could retire into
ourselves each day for at least a couple of hours and prepare
our minds to listen into the voice of the Great Silence. The
Divine Radio is always singing if we could only make our-
selves ready to listen to It, but it is impossible to listen in
without silence. St Teresa has used a charming image to
sum up the sweet result of silence :
"You will at once feel your senses gather themselves to-
gether ; they seem like bee? which return to the hive and there
ahut themselves up to work at the making of honey : and this will
take place without effort or care on your part. God thus rewards
the violence which your soul has been doing to itself ; and gives
to it such a domination over the senses that a sign is enough
SIN 517
when it desires to recollect itself, for them to obey and so
gather themselves together. At the first call of the will they
come back more and more quickly. At last afcer many and
many exercises of this kind God disposes them to a state of
absolute repose and of perfect contemplation."
— Harijan : Dec. 12, 1937.
Sin
MAN and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a
good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed
disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or
wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be.
4 Hate the siri and not the sinner ' is a precept which
though easy enough to understand is rarely practised, and
that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.
This ahirnsa is the basis of the search lor truth. I am
realizing every day that the search is vain unless it is
founded on ahimsa as the basis. It is quite proper to resist
and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is
tantamount to resisting and attacking oneseli. For we are
all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and
the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us
are infinite. To slight a human being is to slight those
divine powers. —My Experiments with Truth : Page 327%
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A HIDDEN sin is like poison corrupting the whole
body. The sooner the poison is thrown off, the better it is for
society. And just as a bit of arsenic mixed with milk
renders it none the-less vitiating for the addition of pure
milk, so also do good deeds in a society tail to cover unex-
piated sins — Young India : Jan. 12, 1927.
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*RE thou certain, none can perrish, trusting Me,' says
the Lord, but let it not be understood to mean that our sinfc
will be washed away by merely trusting Him without any
518 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
striving. Only he who struggles hard against the allure-
ments of sense objects, and turns in tears and grief to the
Lori, will be comforted, —Toung India : Jan. 12, 1928.
Slavery
I WISH you could realize that the destiny of our
beloved land lies not in us, the parents, but in our children.
Shall we not free them from the curse of slavery which has
made us crawl on our bellies ? Being weak, we may not
have the strength or the will even to throw off the yoke.
But shall we not have the wisdom not to leave the cursed
inheritence to our children ? —Toung India : Nov. 3, 1920.
^N ^s ^N
THE slave owner is always more hurt than the slave.
— Young India : Nov. 10, 1930.
OUR slavery is complete when we begin to hug it.
—Toung India : Nov. 24, 1920.
RATHER die begging than live in bondage.
— Toung India : April 13, 1921.
FROM childhood up a slave-mentality is sedulously
cultivated in us.* And if we cannot think freely, how can we
act freely ? We are alike slaves of the caste, of a foreign
education, and of an alien government. Every one of the
facilities provided us have become our fetters.
—Young India : Feb. 4, 1926.
A SLAVE is a slave because he consents to slavery.
—Toung India : Feb. 4, 1926-
GOLDEN fetters are no less galling to a self-rerpecting
man than iron ones ? The sting lies in the fetters, not in the
metal. —Young, India : June 6, 1929*
SLAVERY 519
IT is only because we have created a vicious atmosphere
of impotence round ourselves that we consider ourselves to
be helpless even for the simplest possible things.
—Young India : June 20, 1929.
VOTARY as I am of non-violence, if I was given a
choice between being a helpless witness to chaos and per-
petual slavery, I should unhesitatingly say that I would far
rather be witness to chaos in India, I would far rather be
witness to Hindus and Musalmans doing one another to
death than that I should daily witness our gilded slavery. To
iny mind golden shackles are far worse than iron ones, for
one easily feels the irksome and galling nature of the latter
and is prone to forget the former. If therefore India must
be in chains, I would they were of iron rather than of gold
or other precious metal. —Young India : Jan. 16, 1930.
FOKlEIGN domination is undoubtedly responsible for
many evils, but we need to remember that many pre-existing
evils were also a potent cause of that domination. Therefore
the mere throwing off of the foreign yoke, whilst it is as es-
sential as life breath, will never be the cure all.
—Young India : Feb. 27, 1930.
JUST as a man would not cherish the thought of living
in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live
under other nations however noble and great the latter may
be — Harijan : March 16, 1942.
HOW can one be compelled to accept slavery ? I
simply refuse to do the master's bidding. He may torture
me, break my bones to atoms, and even kill me. He will
then have my dead body, not my obedience. Ultimately,
therefore, it is I who am the victor and not he, for he has
failed in getting me to do what he wanted done.
—Harijan ; June 7, 1942
520 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Smoking
EVER since I have grown up, I have never desired to
smoke and haye always regarded the habit of smoking- as
barbarou?, dirty and harmful. I have never understood why
there is such a rage for smoking throughout the world. I
cannot bear to travel in a compartment full of people
smoking. I become choked.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 213
I HAVE a horror of smoking as I have of wines,
Smoking I consider to be a vice. It deadens one's conscience
and is often worse than drink, in that it acts imperceptibly.
It is a habit which is difficult to get rid of when once it seizes
hold of a person. It is an expensive vice. It fouls the breath,
discolours the teeth and some time even causes cancer. It is
an unclean habit. —Young India : Jan. 13, 1921,
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SMOKING is in a way a greater curse than drink, in-
as much as the victim does not realise its evil in time. It is
not regarded as a sign of barbarism, it is even acclaimed by
civilised people. I can only say, let those who can, give it
up and set the example. — Young India : Feb. 4, 1926
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I SHALL now proceed to say something about cigarette
smoking and coffee and tea drinking. They are not necessities
of life. There are some who manage to take ten cups ol
coffee a day. Is it necessary for their healthy development
and for keeping them awake for the performance of their
duties ? If it is necessary to take coffee or tea to keep them
awake, let them not drink coffee or tea but go to sleep. We
must not become slaves to these things. But the majority
of the people who drink coffee or tea are slaves to them
Cigars and cigarettes, whether foreign or indigenous, must be
avoided. Cigarette smoking is like an opiate and the cigars
that you smoke have a touch of opium about them. They
get to yotir herves and you cannot leave them afterwards,
SMOKING 521
How can you foul your mouth by converting it into a
chimney ? If you give up these habits of smoking cigars
and cigarettes and drinking coffee, and tea you will find out
for yourselves how much you are able to save. A drunkard
in Tolstoy's story is hesitating to execute his design of murder
so long as he has not smoked his cigar. But he puffs it, and
then gets up smiling and saying, "What a coward ami/3
takes the dagger and does the deed. Tolstoy spoke from
experience. ,He has written nothing without having had
personal experience of it. And he is much more against
cigars and cigarettes than against drink. But do not make
the mistake that between drink and tobacco, drink is a lesser
evil. No. If cigarettes is Beelzebub, then drink is Satan.
—Young India : Sept. 15, 1927.
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IF every smoker stopped the dirty habit, refused to make
of his mouth a chimney, to foul his breath, damage his
teeth and dull his sense of delicate discrimination and make
a present of his savings to some national cause, he would
benefit both himself and the nation.
—Toung India : July 5, 1929.
Social Boycott
SOCIAL Boycott is an age-old institution. It is coeval
with caste. It is the one terrible sanction exercised with
great effect. It is based upon the notion that a community
is not bound to extend its hospitality or service to an ex-
communicate. It answered when every village was a self-
contained unit, and the occasions of recalcitrancy were rarfc.
But when opinion is divided, as it is to-day, on the merits of
Non-co-operation, when its new application is having d\ trial,
a summary use of social boycott in order to bend a minority
to the will of the majority is a species of unpardonable
violence. If persisted in, such boycott is bound to destroy
the movement. Social boycott is applicable and effective
when it is not felt as a punishment and accepted by tfie
522 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
object of boycott as a measure of discipline. Moreover,
social boycott to be admissible in a campaign of Non-
violence must never savour of inhumanity. It must be civi-
lised. It must cause pain to the party using it, if it causes
inconvenience to its object, Thus, depriving a man of the
services of a medical man, as is reported to have been done
in Jhansi, is an act of inhumanity tantamount in the moral
code to an attempt to murder. I see no difference in
murdering a man and withdrawing medical aid from a man
who is on the point of dying. Even the laws of war, I
apprehend, require the giving of medical relief to the enemy
in need of it. —Young India : Feb. 16, 1921.
WE must not resort to social boycott of our opponents.
It amounts to coercion. Claiming the right of free opinion
and free action as we do, we must extend the same to others.
The rule of majority, when it becomes coercive, is as intole-
rable as that of a bureaucratic minority. We must patiently
try to bring round the minority to our view by gentle per*
suasion and arguments. — Young India : Jan. 26, 1922.
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OSTRACISM is violent or peaceful according to
the manner in which it is practised. A congregation
may well refuse to recite prayers after a priest who
prizes his title above his honour. But the ostracism
will become violent if the individual life of a person
is made unbearable by insults, innuendoes or abuse.
The real danger of violence lies in the people resorting
to Non-co-operation, becoming impatient and revengeful.
— Young India : April 28, 1920.
Social Reform
THE sooner it is recognised that many of our social
evils impede our march towards Swaraj, the greater will be
our progress towards our cherished goal. To postpone social
reform, till after the attainment of Swaraj > is not to know the
meaning of Swaraj. —Young India : Jijne 28, 1929,
SOCIAL WORK 523
THERE is, I know, a section who says that political
freedofa must be won first and social reform would follow
later. It is a wrong idea^ and certainly inconsistent with
one who would win Swarw by non- violent means
—Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
Social Work
SOCIAL service to be effective has to be rendered
without noise. It is best performed when the left hand
knoweth not what the right is doing.
—Speeches and writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Pages 397.
INDIA whose chief disease is her political servitude
recognises only those who are fighting publicly to remove it
by giving battle to a bureaucracy that has protected itself
with a treble line of entrenchment— army and navy, money
and diplomacy. She naturally does not know her self-less
and self-effacing workers in other walks of life, no less useful
than the purely political. — Young India : Dec. 12, 1920.
I MUST say that the service of the so-called "untouchables*
does not rank with me as in any way subordinate to any
kind of political work. Just a moment ago I met two mis-
sionary friends, who drew the same distinction and therefore
came in for some gentle rebuke from me. I suggested to them
that my work of social reform was in no way less than or
subordinate to political work. The fact is, that when I saw
that to a certain extent my social work would be impossible
without the help of political work, I took to the latter and
only to the extent that it helped the former. I must there-
fore confess that work of social reform or self-purification of
this nature is a hundred times dearer to me than what is
called purely political work. — Young India : Aug. 6, 193L
524 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Speeches
IT is contended that it is courage, it is undoubtedly
wisdom, to restrain the tongue whilst one is unprepared for
action. Mere brave speech without action is lettimg off
useless steam. Speech is necessary for those who are dumb-
struck. Restraint is necessary for the garrulous.
—Harijan : Sep. 30, 1939..
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YOLJ cannot get Swaraj by mere speeches, shows, pro-
cessions, etc. What is needed is solid, steady, constructive
work, what the youth craves for and is fed on is only the
former. —Harijan : Jan. 12, 1940^
Speed
SPEED is not the end of life. Man sees more truly and
lives more truly by walking to his duly.
—Harijan : Sep. 30, 1939..
Spirits
»
I NEVER receive communications from the spirits of
the dead. I have no evidence warranting a disbelief in the
possibility of such communications. But I do not strongly
disapprove of the practice of holding or attempting to hold
such communications. They are often deceptive and are
products of imagination. The practice is harmful both to
the medium and the spirits, assuming the possibility of such
communications. It attracts and ties to the earth the spirit
so invoked whereas its effort should be to detach itself from
the earth, and rise higher, A spirit is not necessarily purer
because it is disembodied. It takes with it most of the
frailties to which it was liable when on earth. Information
or advice therefore given by it need not be true or sound.
That the spirit likes communications with those on earth is
no matter for pleasure. On the contrary it should be
weaned frpm such unlawful attachment. So much for tht
harm done to the spirits.
SPIRITULISM 525
As for the medium, it is a matter of positive knowledge
with me that all those within my experience have been
deranged or weak brained and disabled for practical work
whilst they were holding or thought they were holding such
communications. I can recall no friend of mine who having
held such communication had benefited in any way.
— Young India : Sept, 12, 1929
Spiritulism
WE often confuse spiritual knowledge with spiritual
attainment. Spirituality is not a matter of knowing scrip-
tures and engaging in philosophical discussions. It is a matter
of heart culture, of immeasurable strength. Fearlessness is
the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be
moral. — Harvan : June 22, 1921
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I DO not believe as the friend seems to do that an in-
dividual may gain spiritually and those who surround him
suffer. I believe in advaita, I believe in the essential unity
of man and for that matter of all that lives. Therefore I
believe that if one man gains spiritually, the whole world
gains with him and if one man falls the whole world falls
to that extent. I do riot help opponents without at the same
time helping myself and my co-workers.
—Young India : Dec. 4, 1924.
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JUST as this physical purification is necessary for the
health of the body, even so spiritual purification is necessary
for the health of the soul. In fact the necessity for physical
cleanliness is in inverse proportion to the necessity for spiri-
tual cleanliness. That is to say, spiritual cleanliness means
automatic physical cleanliness. Have we not heard that a
Yogi's body emits a frequent smell ? The 'fragrant' smell
means here the absence of bad smell.
—Young India : July, 1925;.
526 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
BUT I am not so stupid as to think that I or any single1
person can supply the spiritual needs of his neighbour.
Spiritual needs cannot be supplied through the intellect or
through the stomach even as the needs of the body cannot
be supplied through the spirit. One can paraphrase the
famous saying of Jesus and say "Render unto the body that
which is its, and unto the spirit that which is its.77 And the
only way I can supply my neighbour's spiritual needs is by
living the life of the spirit without even exchanging a word
with him. The life of the spirit will translate itself, into
acts of love for my neighbour. — Harijan : June 12, 1937.,
IT is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul
grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh,
— Young India : Oct. 23, 1924.
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FAR more indispensable than food for the physical.
body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can
do without food for a considerable time, but a man
of the spirit cannot exist for a single second without
spiritual nourishment. —-Haiijan : April 8, 1939.
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I DO believe the most spiritual act is the most
practical in the true sense of the term.
—Harijan : July I, 1939^
State
A GOVERNMENT is an instrument of service
only in so far as it is based upon the will and consent
of the people. It is an instrument of oppression whem
it enforces submission at the point of the bayonet.
Oppression therefore ceases when people cease to fear
bayonet. —Young India : Oct. 22, 1919.
STATE 527
A GOVERNMENT that is loyal to the governed
commands their loyalty as a matter of course.
— Young India ' Oct. 27, 1919t
IN truth a Government that is ideal governs the least.
It is no self-government that leaves nothing for the
people to do. That is pupilage — our present state.
But if we are to attain Swaraj, a large number of
us must outgrow enforced nonage and feel our adole-
scence. We must govern ourselves at least where there
is no deadly opposition from armed authority. The
constructive programme is the test of our capacity for self-
government. If we impute all our weaknesses to the
present Government, we *hall never shed them.
—Young India : Aug. 27, 1925
SUBMISSION to the state law is the price a
citizen pays for his personal liberty. Submission there-
fore, to a state wholly or largely unjust is an immoral barter
for liberty. —Young India : Jan. 13, 1927.
<^ <$><$>
PEOPLE are the roots, the state is the fruit. If the
roots are $weet, the fruits are bound to be sweet.
—Young India ; Feb. 2, 1928;
WHEN, therefore, there is only a caricature ofi
responsible government, things can be much worse than
under a frankly and purely autocratic government. The
latter not depending upon the votes of any class can.
afford to be impartial to all. The former dare not.
—Young India : July 8, 1926..
A MAN is generous when he does something a
bis own expense. Governments can do nothing at thtfc
.528 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
own expense. But they always succeed in making
people believe that they are generous even when they
are barely or less than just. Justice is like a debt
which has to be discharged. — Harijan : Oct. 12, 1937.
<3> <S> <S>
I AM no believer in the doctrine that the same
power can at the same time trust and distrust, grant
(liberty and repress it. — Harijan : Jan. 12, 1939
Strength
STRENGTH does not come from physical capacity.
tit comes from an indomitable will.
— Toung India : Aug. 11, 1920.
Strikes
WHILST I have pleaded for the removal of restrictions
on the speech and movements of students, I am not
able to support political strikes or demonstrations.
Students should have the greatest freedom of expression
and of opinion. They may openly sympathise with any
political party they like. But, in my opinion, they
may not have freedom of action whilst they are study-
ing. A student cannot be an active politican and pursue his
studies at the same time. It is difficult to draw hard
and fast lines at the time of big national upheavals
Then, they do not strike or, if the word 'strike7 can
be used in such circumstances, it is a wholesale strike;
it is a suspension of studies. Thus, what may appear
to be an exception is not one in reality.
— Toting India : Oct. 2, 1927.
I THINK I have written often enough against
strikes by students and pupils except on the rarest of
occasions. I hold it to be quite wrong on the part
of students and pupils to take part in political de-
wipnstrations and party politics. Sach. ferment inter-
STUDENTS 529
feres with serious study and unfits students for solid
work as future citizens. — Harijan : June 15, 1938.
^ <£ <S>
IN a country groaning as India is under foreign
rule, it is impossible to prevent students from taking
part in movements for national freedom. All that can
be done is to regulate their enthusiasm, so as not to
interfere with their studies. They may not become
partisans, taking side with warring parties. But they
have a right to be left free to hold, and actively to
advocate, what political opinion they choose. The
functions of educational institutions is to impart education
to the boys and girls who choose to join them, and
there through to help to mould their character, never
to interfere with their political or other non-moral
activities outside the school-room.
—Young India : Jan. 24, 1929.
Students
I am an autumnal leaf on the tree that might
fall off at any moment; the tdbchers are the young
sprouts that would last longer, but fall off at their
proper time; but you, the students, are the branches
that would put forth new leaves to replace the old
ones. — Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 510.
<$> <s> <s>
HOW can we understand the duty of students to-
day ? We have fallen so much from the ideal. The
parents take the lead in giving the wrong direction.
They feel that their children should be educated only
in order that they may earn wealth and position.
Education and knowledge are thus being prostituted and
we look in vain for the peace, innocence and bliss
that the life of student ought to be. Our students
are weighed down with cares arid worries when they
should really be careful for nothing. They have simply
to receive and to assimilate. They should know only
530 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
to discriminate between what should be received and
what rejected. It is the duty of the teacher
to teach his pupils discrimination. If we go on
taking in indiscriminately, we would be no bet-
ter than machines. We are thinking, knowing beings
and we must in this period distinguish truth from un-
truth, sweet from bitter language, clean from uuclean things,
and so on But the student's path to-day is strewn
with more difficulties than the one of distinguishing
good from bad things. He has to fight the hostile atmosphere
around him. Instead of the sacred surroundings of a
Rishi Guru's Ashrama and his paternal care, he has the
atmosphere of broken-down home and the artificial
surroundings created by the modern systems of education.
The Rishis taught their pupils without books. They only
gave them few Mantras, which the pupils treasured in,
their memories and translated in practical life. The
present-day student has to live in the midst of heap*
of books, sufficient to choke him.
— Young India : Jan. 29, 1925u
THE base imitation of the West, the ability to
speak and write correct and polished English, will)
not add one brick to the Temple of Freedom. The
student world, which is receiving an education far too
expensive for starving India, and an education which
only a miscroscopic minority can ever hope to receive-
is expected to qualify itself for it by giving its life-
blood to the nation. Students must become pioneer*
in conservative reform, conserving all that is good'
in the nation and fearlessly ridding society of the in-
numerable abuses that have crept into it.
—Young India : June 9, 1927L
Students and Politics
ALL the world over students arc playing: a. most
STUDENTS AND POLITICS 531
important and effective part in shaping and strengthening
national movements. It would be monstrous if the students
of lawflia did less. —Toung India : Feb. 9, 1928.
THE correspondent has written in the hope of my con-
demning the participation by the student world in active
political work. But I am sorry to have to disappoint him.
He should have known that in 1920-21 I had not an incon-
siderable share in drawing students out of their schools and
colleges and inducing them to undertake political duty
:arrying with it the risk of imprisonment. I think it is their
:lear duty to take a leading part in the political movement
of their country. They are doing so all the world over.
In India where political consciousness has till recently been
unfortunately confined in a large measure to the English
educated class, their duty is, indeed, greater. In China and
Egypt it was the students who have made the national
movement possible. They connot do less in India.
—Toung India : March 29, 1928.
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THE students should know that the cultivation of
nationalism is not a crime but a virtue.
—Harijan : Sep. 18, 1937.
STUDENTS cannot afford to have party politics.
They may hear all parties, as they read all sorts of books,
but their business is to Assimilate the truth of all and reject
the balance. That is the only worthy attitude that they
can take.
Power politics should be unknown to the student
world. Immediately they dabble in that class of work, they
:ease to be students and will, therefore, fail to serve the
:ountry in its crisis. — Harijan : Jan. 26, 1941.
3> ^ <8>
OUR real strength must lie in the people doing in
532 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
normal times the things they did in abnormal times under
the severe pressure of public opinion or worse.
— Young India :May 14, 1931.
Submission
SUBMISSION to convention in trivial matters in
which there is no danger of deceiving others or oneself is
often desirable and even necessary. But submission in
matters of religion, especially where there is a positive
repugnance from within and a danger of deceiving our
neighbours and ourselves, cannot but be debasing,
— Young India : Sep. 1, 1927.
<§> <$> <$>
WHAT is readily yielded to courtesy is never yielded to
force. Submission to a courteous request is religion, sub-
mission to force is irreligion. — Harijan : March 12, 1936.
Suffering
REAL suffering bravely borne melts even a heart of
stone. Such is the „ potency of suffering, or tapasa. And
there lies the key to Satyagraha,
— Satyagrahai n South Africa : Page 212.
<£ <S> <$>
SUFFERING cheerfully endured ceases to be suffering
and is transmitted into an ineffable Joy. The man who
flies from suffering is the victim of endless tribulation before
it has come to him, and is half-dead when it does come.
But one who is cheerfully ready for anything and everything
that comes, escapes all pain ; his cheerfulness acts as an
anaesthetic. —Young India : Oct. 13, 193 L
<*><$><$>
THE hardest heart and the grossest ignorance must
disappear before the rising sun of suffering, without anger
— Youm India : Feb. 19, 1925.
SUICIDE $33
THE conviction has been growing upon me,
that things of fundamental importance to the people are
not secured by reason alone but have to be purchased with
their suffering. Suffering is the law of human beings, war
is the law of the jungle. But suffering is infinitely more
powerful than the law of the jungle for converting the
opponent and opening his ears, which are otherwise shut to
the voice of reason. Nobody has probably drawn up more
petitions or exposed more forlorn causes than I and I have
come to this fundamental conclusion that if you want some-
thing really important to be done, you must not merely
satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also. The
appeal of reason is more to the head but the penetration
of the heart comes from suffering. It opens up the inner
understanding in man. Suffering is the badge of the
human race, not the sword. — Toung India : Nov. 5, 1931.
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JOY comes not out of infliction of pain on others but
out ofpain voluntarily borne by ourself.
— Toung India : Dec. 31. 1931.
Suicide
BUDDHA had excused monks who committed suicide,
"What would you say to the right of man to dispose of his
life ? Life as life I hold of very little importance," or
Fabri asked.
1<I think," said Gandhiji, "that man has a perfect
right to dispose of his life under certain circumstances. A
co-worker, suffering from leprosy, knowing that his disease
was incurable and that his life was as much an agony for
those who had to serve him as it was for him, recently
decided to end his life by abstaining from food and water,
I blessed the idea. I said to him : clf you really think you
can stand the trial, you may- do so.' I said this to him for I
knew how different it is to die by inches from, say, suddenly
killing oneself by drowning or poisoning, And my warning
was fully justified, for someone tempted him with the hope
534 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
that there was one who could cure leprosy, and I now hear
that he has resumed eating and put himself under his
treatment !"
"The criterion, " said Dr. Fabri, "seems to me to be
that if one7s mind is completey obscured by pain, the best
thing for him would be to seek nirvana. A man may not be
ill but he may be tired of the struggle."
"No, no," said Gandhiji, correcting him as he was again
running away with the thought that his view was identical
with Gandhiji's. "My mind rejects this suicide. The
criterion is not that one is tired of life, but that one feels that
one has become a burden on others and therefore wants to
leave the world. One does not want to fly from pain but
from having to become an utter burden on others. Other-
wise one suffers greater pain in a violent effort to end one's
agony. But supposing I have a cancer, and it is only a
question of time for me to pass away, I would even ask my
doctor to give me a sleeping draught and thereby have the
sleep that knows no waking.'7
Dr. Fabri got up to go with the parting wish that
there may be many more years of helpful activity left for
Gandhiji.
"No," said Gandhiji, with a hearty laugh, "according
to you I should have no business to stay if I feel I
have finished my task. And I do think I have finished
mine !"
"No, I am convinced that you can serve humanity for
many more years. Millions are praying for your
life. And though I can neither pray nor desire any-
thing—/'
"Yes/' said Gandhiji interrupting him, "the English
language is so elastic that you can find another word to say
the same thing."
"Yes/* said Dr. Fabri, "I can unselfishly opine that you
have many years before you."
SWADESHI 535
"Well that's it. You have found the word ! Here too
let me tell you there is the purely intellectual conception of
a man being unable to live. If he has not the desire to live,
the body will perish for the mere absence of the desire to
live." —Harijan : Aug. 19, 1939.
^ ^ ^
Q. IT has been said that the "will to live" is irration-
al ; being born of a deluded attachment to life. Why is
then suicide a sin ?
A. The will to live is not irrational. It is also
natural. Attachment to life is not a delusion. It is very
real. Above all, life has a purpose. To seek to defeat that
purpose is a sin. Therefore suicide is very rightly held to
be a sin. —Harijan .June 1? 1940,
Suspicion
I BELIEVE in trusting. Trust begets trust. Suspicion is
foiled and only stinks. He who trusts has never yet lost in
the world. A suspicious man is lost to himself and the world
Let those who have made of non-violence a creed beware of
suspecting opponents. Suspicion is the brood of violence.
Non-violence cannot but trust. I must at any rate, refuse
to believe anything against anybody, much less against my
honoured fellow workers, unless I have absolute proof.
—Toung India : June 4, 1925.
THE canker of suspicion cannot be cured by argu-
ments or explanations. — Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 285.
Swadeshi
WE do not realise that Swaraj is almost wholly obtain-
able through Swadeshi. If we have no regard for our
respective vernaculars, if we dislike our clothes, if our dress
repels us, if we are ashamed to wear the sacred Shikha, if our
336 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
food is distasteful to us, our climate is not good enough, our
people uncouth and unfit for our company, our civilization
faulty and the foreign attractive, in short, if everything
native is bad and everything foreign pleasing to us, I should
not know what Swaraj can mean for us. If everything
foreign is to be adopted, surely it will be necessary for us to
continue long under foreign tutelage, because foreign
civilisation has not permeated the masses. It seems to me
that, before we can appreciate Swaraj, we should have not
only love but passion for Swadeshi. Every one of our acts
should bear the Swadeshi stamp. Swaraj can only be built
upon the assumption that most of what is national is on
the whole sound. If the view here put forth be correct,
the Swadeshi movement ought to be carried on vigorously.
Every country that has carried on the Swaraj movement
has fully appreciated the Swadeshi spirit. The Scotch
Highlanders hold on to their kilts even at the risk of their
lives. We humourusly call the Highlanders the 'petticoat
brigade.5 But the whole world testifies to the strength that
lies behind that petticoat and the Highlanders of Scotland
will not abandon it, even though it is an inconvenient
dress, and an easy target for the enemy. The object in
developing the foregoing argument is not that we should
treasure our faults, but what is national, even though
comparatively less agreeable should be adhered to, and
that what is foreign should be avoided, though it may be
more agreeable than our own. That which is wanting in
our civilization can be supplied by proper effort on _ our
part. —Young India : Nov. 3, 1917.
3> ^ <$>
TO use foreign articles rejecting those that are manu-
factured in India is to be untrue to India. It is an un-
warranted indulgence. To use foreign articles because we
do not like indigenous ones is to be a foreigner. It is
obvious that we cannot reject indigenous articles, even as
we cannot reject the native air and the native soil because
SWADESHI 537
they are inferior to foreign air and soil.
— Young India : May 13, 1919j
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
surroundings. 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 idigenous institutions and serve them by
curing them of their proved defects. In that of 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 millenium. And as we do not abandon oui
pursuit after the millenium, 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. — Young India : June 21, 1919,
<$> <$> <5>
I WANT to see God face to face. God I know is Truth,
For me the only certain means of knowing God is non-
violence— ahimsa — love. I live for India's freedom and
would die for it, because it is part of Truth. Only a free
India can worship the true God. I work for Indians free-
dom because my Swadeshi teaches me that being born in it
and having inherited her culture, I am fittest to serve hei
and she has a prior claim to my service. But my patriotism
is not exclusive ; it is calculated not only 'not to hurt any
other nation but to benefit all in the true sense of the word.
India's freedom as conceived by me can never be a menace
to the world. —foung India : April 2, 1924.
538 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
MY definition of Swadeshi is well known. I must not
serve my distant neighbour at the expense of the nearest.
It is never vindictive or punitive. It is in no sense narrow,
for I buy from every part of the world what is needed for
ray growth. I refuse to buy from anybody anything how-
ever nice or beautiful if it interferes with my growth or
injures those whom Nature has made my first care. I buy
useful healthy literature from every part of the world.
I buy surgical instruments from England, pins and pencils
from Austria and watches from Switzerland. But I will
not buy an inch of the finest cotton fabric from England or
Japan or any other part of the world because it has injured
and increasingly injures the millions of the inhabitants of
India. I hold it to be sinful for me to continue to buy the
cloth spun and woven by the needy millions of India's
paupers and to buy foreign cloth, although it may be
superior in quality to the Indian hand-spun. My Swadeshi
therefore chiefly centres round the hand-spun Khaddar and
extends to every thing that can be and is produced in India.
My nationalism is as broad as my Swadeshi, I want India
to rise so that the whole world may be benefitted. I do not
want India to rise on the ruin of other nations. If therefore
India was strong and able, India would send out to the
world her treasures of art and health-giving spices, but will
refuse to send out opium or intoxicating liquors although
the traffic may bring much material benefit to India.
— Toung India : May 12, 1925.
^x ^P ^^»
SWEDESHI does not mean drowning oneself in one?s
own little puddle, but making it tributary to the ocean, that
is, the nation. And, it can claim to contribute to the ocean
only if it is and keeps itself pure.
—Toung India : Feb. 2, 1928.
RULE of the best and the cheapest is not always true.
Just as we do not give up our country for. one with a better
SWADESHI 539
climate but endeavour to improve our own, so also may we
not discard Swadeshi for better or cheaper foreign things.
Even as a husband who being dissatisfied with his simple
looking wife goes in search of a better looking woman is
disloyal to his partner, so is a man disloyal to his country
who prefers foreign made things though better to country
made th ngs. The law of each country's progress demands
on the part of its inhabitants, preference for their own pro-
ducts and manufactures. — Toung India : May 30, 1929.
AS regards the definition of a Swadeshi company, I
would say that only those concerns can be regarded as
Swadeshi whose control, direction and management either
by a Managing Director or by Managing Agents are in
Indian hands. I should have no objection to the use of
foreign capital, or to the employment of foreign talent,
when such are not available in India, or when we need
them, — but only on condition that such capital and such
talents are exclusively under the control, direction and
management of Indians and are used in the interests of
India. —Harijan : March 26, 1938.
<$> <3> <$>
IF I have to use the adjective 'true' before Swadeshi*
a critic may well ask, 'Is there also false Swadeshi ?' Un"
fortunately I have to answer 'yes.' As, since the days o*
khadiy I am supposed to be an authority on Swadeshi,
numerous conundrums are presented to rne by correspon-
dents. And I have been obliged to distinguish between the
two kinds of Swadeshi. If foreign capital is mixed with
indigenous, or if foreign talent is mixed with indigenous, is
the enterprise Swadeshi ? There are other questions
too. But I had better reproduce the definition I gave to a
Minister the other day. "Any article is Swadeshi if it sub-
serves the interests of the millions, even though the capital
and talent are foreign but under effective Indian control.11
Thus khadi of the definition of the A. I. S. A. would be
540 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
true Swadeshi even though the capital may be all foreign,
and there may be Western specialists employed by the
Indian Board. Conversely Bata's rubber or other shoes
would be foreign though the labour employed may be all
Indian and the capital also found by India. The manu-
factures will be doubly foreign because the control will be
in the foreign hands and the article, no matter how cheap
it is, will oust the village tanner mostly and the village
mochi always. Already the mochis of Bihar have begun to
feel the unhealthy competition. The Bata shoe may be the
saving of Europe : it will mean the death of our village
shoe-maker and tanner. I have given two telling illustra-
tions, both partly imaginary. Fur in the A. I. S. A. the
capital is all indigenous and the whole of the talent also.
But I would love to secure the engineering talent of the west
to give me a village wheel which will beat the existing wheels,
through deep down in me I have the belief that the improve-
ments that indigenous talent has made are by no means to
be despised. But this is a digression. I do hope that
those ministers and others who guide or serve the
public will cultivate the habit of distinguishing between
true and false Swadeshi.
—Harijan : Feb. 25, 1939.
Swaraj
WE get what Government we deserve. When we im-
prove, the Government also is bound to improve. Only
when we improve can we attain Swaraj.
— Young India : N«v. 10, 1920
<$><$><*>
THE Swaraj that I dream of will be a possibility only
when the nation is free to make its choice both of good and
evil and not be good at the dictation of an irresponsible,
insolent, and godless bureaucracy.
—Young India : Dec. 8, 1920.
SWARAJ 541
IF India could make a successful effort to stop this
drain — sixty crores of rupees annually paid by us for piece-
goods, she can gain Swaraj by that one act.
—Young India .-Jan. 19, 1921.
<s> <$> <$>
OUR civilization, our culture, our Swaraj depend
not upon multiplying our wants —self-indulgence, but upon
restricting our wants — self-denial.
— Young India : Feb. 23, 1921.
^s ^s ^&
I SHOULD be a bad representative of our cause, if I
went to any body to ask for Swaraj I have had the hardihood
to say that Swaraj could not be granted even by God. We
would have to earn it ourselves, Swaraj from its very
nature is not in the giving of anybody.
—Young India : May 25, 1921.
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SWARAJ means ability to regard every inhabitant of
India as our own brother or sister
— Young India : Sep. 15, 1921.
<s> <§> <s>
SAWARAJ is the abandonment of the fear of death. A
nation which allows itself to be influenced by the fear of
death cannot attain Swaraj, and cannot retain it if some-
how attained. — Young India : Oct. 13, 1921.
<$> <3> <S>
FIGHT for SWARAJ means, not mere political awaken-
ing, but an all round awakening — social, educational moral,
economic and political. — Gandhi ji in Ceylon : Page 146.
<$><$><§>
EVERY yard of yarn spun or khaddar woven is a
step towards Swaraj. —Young India : April 3, 1924,,
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A SWARAJ Government means a Government establish-
542 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
cd by the free-joint will of Hindus, Mussalmans and others.
Hindus and Mussalmans> if they desire Swaraj, have per-
force to settle their differences amicably.
—Young India : May 12, 1924.
^> ^^ ^N
SWARAJ for me means freedom for the meanest of our
countrymen.
I am not interested in freeing India merely from the
English yoke. I am bent upon freeing India from any yoke
whatsoever. I have no desire to exchange king 4Iog for
king stork.1 Hence for me the movement of Swaraj is a
movement of self-purification. — Toung India : June 12, 1924.
<3> <S> <3>
I SUGGEST, therefore, that there is no substitute for
Swaraj, and the only universal definition to give it is,
that status of India which her people desire at a given
moment. — Toung India : July 17, 1924.
<$> <*> <$>
REAL Swaraj will corne not by the acquisition of authori-
ty by a few but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to
resist authority when it is abused. In other words,
Swaraj is to be attained by educating the masses to a sense
of their capacity to regulate and control authority.
—Toung India : Jan. 29, 1925.
HINDU-Muslim Unity, khaddar and removal of un-
touchability are to me the foundation for Swaraj. On that
firm foundation it is possible to erect a structure nobler
than which the world has not seen. Anything without
that foundation will be like a building built on sand.
India : April 2, 1925.
HE who has sacrificed his all for Swaraj has certainly
attained it for himself —Toung India : Oct. 22, 1925.
SWARAJ is not meant for cowards, but for those who
SWARAJ 543
would mount smilingly to the gallows and refuse even tc
allow their eyes to be bandaged.
— Toting India : Feb. 14, 1929
YOU cannot get Swaraj by mere speeches, shows,
processions, etc. What is needed is solid, steady, constructive
work; \\hat the youth craves for and is fed on is only the
former. —Young India : Sep. 5, 1929,
YOU say that complete independence is an indifferent
rendering for Purana Swaraj. What then is the real mean-
ing of Purana Swaraj.
Proper translation I cannot give you. I do not know
any word or phrase to answer it in the English language —
I can, therefore, only give an explanation. The root mean-
ing of Swaraj is self-rule, "Swaraj" may, therefore, be render-
ed as disciplined rule from within and purana means "com-
plete". "Independence*" has no such limitation. Indepen-
dence may mean licence to do as you like. Swaraj is positive.
Independence is negative. Purana Swaraj does not exclude
association with any nation, much less with England. But
it can only mean association for mutual benefit and at will.
Thus, there are countries which are said to be independent
but which have no Purana Swaraj, e. g. Nepal. The word
Swaraj is a sacred word, a Vedic word, meaning self-rule
and self-restraint, and not freedom from all restraint which
"independence" often means. —Toung India : March 19, 193L
^ ^ ^
IT has been said that Indian Swaraj will be the rule of
the majority community, i. e. the Hindus. There could not
be a greater mistake than that. If it were to be true, I for
>ne would refuse to call it Swaraj and would fight it with all
he strength at my command, for to me Hind Swaraj is the
•ule of all the people, is the rule of justice. Whether under
that rule the ministers were Hindus or Musalmans or Sikhs*
and whether the legislatures were exclusively filled by the
544 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Hindus or Mussalmans or any other community, they would
have to do even handed justice. And just as no community
in India need have any fear of Swaraj being monopolised by
any other, even so the English should have no fear. The
question of safe-guards should not arise at all. Swaraj would
be real Swaraj only when there would be no occasion for
safe-guarding any such rights.
— Young India : April 16, 1931.
<$><$><$>
I CLAIM to live for the semi-starved paupers of India
and Swaraj means the emancipation of these millions of
skeletons. Parana Swaraj denotes a condition of things when
the dumb and the lame millions will speak and walk. That
Swaraj cannot be achieved by force, but by organisation and
unity. —Young India : April 28, 1931.
<$><$><$>
ONCE I said in spinning wheel lies^Swaraj, next I said
in prohibition lies Swaraj. In the same way I would say in
cent per rant. Swadeshi lies Swaraj. Of course, it is like
the blind man describing the elephant. All of them are right
and yet not wholly right. — Harijan : Dec. 12, 1935.
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WITHOUT overcoming lust, man cannot hope to rule
over self. And without rule over self, there can be no Swaraj
or Rama Raj. Rule of all without rule of oneself, would
prove to be as deceptive and disappointing as a painted toy
mango, charming to look at outwardly but hollow and
empty from within. — Harjan : April 25, 1936.
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IT is therefore clear to me as daylight that real Swaraj,
whenever it comes to us, will have to be not a donation
rained on us from London, but a prize earned by hard and
health-giving non-co-operation with organized forces of
evil. —Harijan : Nov. 10, 1940.
TEMPLES 545
Takli
IT is the solace of the perturbed heart and a
mute companion. The wheel sings to you and may
therefore distract your attention. The takli is eloquent
in its very muteness, and in that way is perhaps a
fitter representative of the dumb millions. Try it and
you will experience the same joy that many of us
do. —Young India : April 24, 1930.
Temples
IF anyone doubts the infinite mercy of God, let
him have a look at these sacred places. How much
"hypocricy and irreligion does the Prince of Yogis
suffer to be perpetrated in His holy name ? He proclaim-
ed long ago.
1 Whatever a man sows that shall he reap.' The
Law of Karma is inexorable and impossible of evasion.
There is thus hardly any need for God to interfere.
He laid down the law and, as it were retired.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 298.
CHURCHES, mosques and temples, which cover so
tnuch hypocricy and humbug and shut the poorest out
of them, seem but a mockery of God and His worship
when erne sees the eternally renewed temple of worship
under the vast blue canopy inviting every one of us ta
real worship, instead of abusing His name by quarrel*
iiBg in the name of religion. — Young India : March 5, 194-2*
OUR temples are not meant for show but for
546 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
expression of humility and simplicity which are typicaB
of a devotional mood. — Young India : Dec. 12, 1927.
^> ^& ^^
I DO not regard the existence of temples as a sin
or superstition. Some form of common worship, and a
common place of worship appear to be a human necessi-
ty. Whether the temples should contain images or not
is a matter of temperement and taste. I do not regard
a Hindu or Roman Catholic place of worship contain-
ing images as necessarily bad or superstitious and a
mosque or a Protestant place of worship being good
or free from superstition merely because of their
exclusion of images. A symbol such as a Cross or a
book may easily become idolatrous and therefore super-
stitous. And the worship of the image of Child Krishna
or Virgin Mary may become ennobling and free of
all superstitions. It depends upon the attitude of the
heart of the worshiper. — Young India : Nov. 5, 1925.
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BITTER experience has taught me that all temples
are not houses of God. They can be habitations off
the devil. These places of worship have no value un-
less the keeper is a good man of God. Temples,,
mosques, churches are what man makes them to be.
—Young India : May 19, 1927,
I HAVE a letter from a Jaffna Hindu telling me
that there are some temples in this place where you*
have dances by women of ill-fame on certain occassions.
If that information is correct, then let me tell you that
you are converting temples of God into dens of prostitution.,
A temple to be a house of worship, to be a temple
,of God has got to conform to certain well-defined*
limitations. A prostitute has as much right to go to-
ft house of worship as a saint. But she exercises that
right when she enters the temple to purify herselL
TEMPLES 547
But when the trustees of a temple admit a prostitute
under cover of religion or under cover embellishing
the worship of God then they convert a house of Gdd
into one of prostitution. And if any body no matter
how high he may be comes to you and seels
to justify the admission of women of ill-fame into your
temples for dancing or any such purpose, reject him
and agree to the proposal that I have made to you,
If you want to be good Hindus, if you want to wor-
ship God, and if you are wise, you will fling the
doors of all your temples open to the so-called untouch-
ables, God makes no distinction between His worshippers.
He accepts the worship of these untouchables just as
well and as much as that of the so-called touchables
provided it conies from the bottom of the heart.
—Young India : Dec, 25, 1927.
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IN imagination my mind travelled back to the
pre-historic centuries when they began to convey the
message of God in stone and metal. I saw quite
clearly that the priest, who was interpreting each
figure in his own choice Hindi, did not want to tell
me that each of those figures was God. But without
giving me that particular interpretation he made
me realize that these temples were so many bridges
between the Unseen, Invisible and Indefinable God and
ourselves who are infinitesimal drops in the Infinite
Ocean. We, the human family, are not all philoso-
phers. We are of the earth very earthy, and we are
riot satisfied with contemplating the Invisible God.
Somehow or other we want something which we can
touch, something which we can see, something before
which we can kneel down. It does not matter whethti
it is a book, or an empty stone building, or a stone
building inhabited by numerous figures. A book ifiM
satisfy some, an empty building will satisfy some others, and
many others will not be satisfied unless they see something
$48 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
inhabiting these empty buildings. Then I ask you to approach
these temples not as if they represented a body of supersti-
tions. If you will approach these temples with faith in them
you will know each time you visit them you will come
away from them purified, and with your faith more and more
in the living God.
It depends upon our mental condition whether we
gain something or do not gain anything by going to the
temples* We have to approach these temples in a
humble and penitent mood. They are so many houses
of God. Of course God resides in every human form,
indeed in every particle of His creation, everything
that is on this earth. But since we very fallible mor-
tals do not appreciate the fact that God is every-
where, we impute special sanctity to temples and think
I hat God resides there. And so when we approach
these temples we must cleanse our bodies, our minds
and our hearts and we should enter them in a prayer-
ful mood and ask God to make us purer men and
purer women for having entered" their portals. And if
you will take this advice of an old man, this physi-
cal deliverance that you have secured will be a de-
liverance of the soul —Harijan : Jan. 13, 1937.
Temptation
THERE are some actions from which an escape
is a god-send both for the man who escapes and for
those about him Man, as soon as he gets back his
consciousness of right, is thankful to the Divine mercy
for the escape. As we know that a man often succumbs
tp temptation, however much he may resist it, we also
know that Providence often intercedes and saves him
in Spite of himself How all this happens how far a
man is free and how far a creature of circumstances —
how far freewill comes into play and where fate
THOUGHT
enters on the scene,— all this is a mystery and will
remain a mystery — My Experiments with Truth : Page 37.
Thought
SO long as thought is not under complete control
of the will, Brahmacharya in its fullness is absent.
Involuntary thought is an affectation of the mind, and
curbing of thought, therefore means curbing of the
mind which is even more difficult to curb than the
wind. Nevertheless the existence of God within makes
even control of the mind possible. Let no one think
that it is impossible because it is difficult. It is the
highest goal and it is no wonder that the highest
effort should be necessary to attain it.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 259.
I FEEL thankful to God that for years past I
have come to regard secrecy as a sin, more especially
in politics. If we realised the presence of God as a wit-
ness to all we say and do, we would not have any-
thing to conceal from anybody on earth. For we would
not think unclean thoughts before our Maker, much less
speak them. It is uncleanliness that seeks secrecy and dark-
nes?. The tendency of human nature is to hide dirt, we do
not want to see or touch dirty things : we want to put them
out of sight. And so must it be with our speech. I would
suggest that we should avoid even thinking thoughts we
would hide from (he world. —Toung India : Dec. 12, 1922.
THE potency of thought unsuppressed but unembodi*
ed is far greater than that of thought embodied that is
translated into action. And, when the action is brought
under due control, it reacts upon, and regulates the thought
itself. Thought thus translated into action becomes a
prisoner and is brought under subjection.
— Young India : Jan. 12, 1927.
550 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
ALWAYS aim at complete harmony of thought and
word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts
and everything will be well. There is nothing more potent
than thought. Deed follows word and word follows thought.
The word is the result of a mighty thought, and where the
thought is mighty and pure the result is always mighty and
pure, —Harijan : April, 24, 1937.
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MODERN scientists recognize the potency of thought
and that is why it is said that as a man thinks so does he
become. One who always thinks of murder will turn a
murderer, and one who thinks of incest will be incestu-
ous. On the contrary he who always thinks of truth and
non-violence will be truthful and non-violent, and he whose
thoughts are fixed on God will be godly.
1 - Harijan : Jan, 11, 1936.
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TRUTH has been the very foundation of my life.
Brahmachaiya and Ahimsa were born later out of truth. What-
ever, therefore, you do, be true to yourselves and to the
world. Hide not your thoughts. If it is shameful to reveal
them, it is more shameful to think them.
-Harijan : April 24, 1937.
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A DISSOLUTE character is more dissolute in thought
than in deed. And the same is true of violence. Our
violence in word and deed is but a feeble echo of the surging
violence of thought in us. —Harijan : June 17, 1939.
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MAN often becomes what he believes himself to be.
If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain
thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming in-
capable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief
that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it
even if I may not have it at the beginning.
—Harijan : Sep. 1, 1940.
TRUTH 551
Trusteeship
THE trusteeship theory is not unilateral, and does not
in the least imply superiority of the trustee. It is, as I
have shown, a perfectly mutual affair, and each believes
that his own interest is best safeguarded by safeguarding
the interest of the other. 'May you propitiate the gods and
may the gods propitiate you, and may you reach the highest
good by this mutual propitiation,' says the Bhagawad Gita.
There is no separate species called gods in the universe, but
all who have the power of production and will work for
the community using that power are gods — labourers no
less than the capitalists. — Harijan : June 25, 1938.
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IF the trusteeship idea catches, philantrophy, as we
know it, will disappear. A trustee has no heir but the
public. In a state built on the basis of non-violence, the
commission of trustees will be regulated. Princes and
Zamindars will be on a par with the other men of wealth.
—Harijan ; April 13, 1948*
Truth
THE word Safya (truth) is derived from Sat which
means being. And nothing is or exists in reality except truth.
That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important
name of God. In fact it is more correct to say that Truth
is God, than to say that God is Truth. But as we cannot do
without a ruler or a general, names of God such as King of
kings or the Almighty are and will remain more usually
current. On deeper thinking, however, it will be realised
that Sat or Satya is the only correct and fully significant name
for God.
And where there is Truth, there also is knowledge, pure
knowledge, Where there is no Truth, there can be no true
knowledge. That is why the word Chit or knowledge is asso-
ciated with the name af God. And where there is true know-
ledge, there is always bliss (Ananda}. Sorrow has no place
552 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
there. And even as Truth is eternal, so is the bliss derived
from it. Hence \ve know God as Sat-chit-ananda, one who
combines in' Himself Truth, Knowledge and Bliss.
Devotion to this Truth is the sole reason for our exist-
ence. All our activities should be centered in Truth. Truth
should be the very breath of our life. When once this stage
in the pilgrim's progress is reached, all other rules of correct
living will come without effort, and obedience to them will
be instinctive. But without Truth it would be impossible
to observe any principles or rules in life.
Generally speaking, observing the Jaw of Truth is'mere-
]y understood to mean that we must speak the truth. But
we in the Ashram understand the word Satya or Truth in a
much wider sense. There should be Truth in thought,
Truth is speech, and Truth in action. To the man who
has realised this Truth in perfection, nothing else remains
to be known, because all knowledge is necessarily included
in it. What is not included in it is not Truth, and so not
true knowledge ; and there can be no inward peace without
true knowledge. If we once learn how to apply this never-
failing test of truth, we will at once be able to find out what
is worth being, what is worth seeing and what is worth
reading.
But how is one to realise this Truth, which may be
likened to the philosopher's stone or the cow of plenty ? By
single-minded devotion (Abhyas) and indifference to every
other interest in life Vairagja — replies the Bhaghwadgita. In
spite, however, of such devotion, what may appear as truth
to one person will often appear as untruth to another
person. But that need not worry the seeker. When
there is honest effort, it will be realised that what appears to
be different truths are like apparently different countless
leaves of the same tree. Does not God Himself appear to
different individuals in different aspects ? Still we know that
He is One. But Truth is the right designation of God »
Hence there is nothing wrong in every one following Truth
TRUTH 55S
according to one's lights. Indeed it is one's duty to do so.
Then if there is a mistake on the part of any one so follow-
ing Truth, it will be automatically set right. For the quest of
Truth involves tejto— self-suffering, sometimes even unto
death. There can be no place in it for even a trace of self-
interest. In such selfless search for Truth no body can lose
his bearings for long. Directly one takes to the wrong path
one stumbles, and is thus redirected to the right path.
Therefore the pursuit of Truth is True Bhagkti (devotion).
It is the path that leads to God, and therefore there is no
place in it for cowardice, no place for defeat. It is the
talisman by which death itself becomes the portal to life
eternal.
In this connection we should ponder over the lives and
examples of Harishchandra, Prahlad, Ramchandra, Imams
Hassan and Hussian, the Christian Saints, etc. How
beautiful it would be, if all of us, young and old, men and
women, devoted ourselves wholly to Truth in all that we
might do in our waking hours, whether working, eating,
drinking or playing till pure dreamless sleep claimed us for
her own ? God as Truth has been for me a treasure beyond
price, may He be so to every one of us.
—Young India : July 30, 1931.
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MORALITY is the basis of things and truth is the sub-
stance of all morality.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 37..
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TRUTH is like a vast tree which yields more and more
fruit, the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the
mine of truth, the richer the discovery of the gems buried
there, in the shape of openings for an ever greater variety of
service. — My Experiments with Truth : Page 268.
IN the inarch towards Truth, anger, selfishness, hatred,
etc., naturally gives way, for otherwise Truth would be
554 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
impossible to attain. A man who is swayed by passions
may have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word,
but he will never find the Truth. A successful search for
Truth means complete deliverance from the dual throng
such as of love and hate happiness and misery.
—My Experiments with Truth : Page 428.
A DEVOTEE of Truth may not do anything in deference
to convention. He must always hold himself to correction,
and whenever he discovers himself to be wrong he must
confess it at all costs and atone for it.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 429.
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NOT truth simply as we ordinarily understand it, that
as far as possible, we ought not to resort to a lie, that is to
say, not truth which merely answers the saying, "Honesty is
the best policy" — implying that if it is not the best policy,
Ave may depart from it. But here truth as it is conceived,
means that we have to rule our life by this law of Truth at
any cost. And in order to satisfy the definition I have
drawn upon the celebrated illustration of the life of Prahlad.
For the sake of truth, he dared to oppose his own father, and
he defended himself, not by retaliation, by paying his father
back in his own coin, but in defence of Truth, as, he knew
it : he was prepared to die without caring to return the
blows that he had received from his father or from those who
were charged with his father's instructions. Not only that :
he would not in any way even parry the blows : on the
contrary, with a smile on his lips, he underwent the innume-
rable tortures to which he was subjected, with the result
that, at last, Truth rose triumphant, not that Prahlad
suffered the tortures because he knew that some day or other
in his very life-time he would be able to demonstrate the
infallibility of the Law of Truth. The fact was there; but
if he had died in the midst of tortures, he would still have
TRUTH 555
adhered to Truth. That is the Truth which I would like to
follow.— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, : Page 2 13.
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MY desire is to close this life searching for truth, acting
truth and thinking truth and that alone and I request the
blessings of the nation that that desire of mine may be
fulfilled.— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 223.
EVERYTHING appears to me to be lifeless without
truth. I am convinced that untruth will never benefit the
country, and even if untruth seems to bring immediate
benefit, I firmly believe that truth ought never to be abon-
doned. I have grasped this truth ever since I learnt to think
for myself, and I have been trying to put into practice for
the last 40 years. And still I feel that I have not been
uniformly successful in preserving unity in thought, word and
deed. But what matters it ? Ideals seem to recede from us
as we approach them. Manliness lies in accelerating our
motion towards them all the more. 'We fall to rise, are
baffled to fight better?' It will suffice simply if we never
turn our backs. —Toung India : Sept. 13, 1919.
MOREOVER there are not many fundamental truths,
but there is only one fundamental truth which is Truth it-
self, otherwise known as Non-violence. Finite human be-
ings shall never know in its fulness Truth and Love which is
in itself infinite. —Toung India : May 5, 1920.
I AM a humble but very earnest-seeker after Truth.
And in my search, I take all fellow-seekers in uttermost
confidence so that I may know my mistakes and correct
them. I confess that I have often erred in my estimates
and judgments. —Toung India : May 5, 1920.
I CLAIM to be a humble servant of India and
humanity, and would like to die in the discharge of such
556 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
service. I have no desire to found a sect. I am really too
ambitious to be satisfied with a sect for a following. For
I represent no new truths. I endeavour to follow and re-
present Truth as I know it. I do claim to throw a new
light on many an old Truth.— Toung India : May, 12, 1920.
IF truth is violent, I plead guilty to the charge of
violence of language. But I could not, without doing
violence to truth, refrain from using the language I have
regarding General Dyer's action.
— Toung India : Sept. 29, 1920.
IF it was a good thing to scale the heights of Mt.
Everest, sacrificing precious lives in order to be able to go
there and make some slight observations, if it was a glorious
thing 10 give up life after life in planting a flag in the utter-
most extremities of the earth, how much more glorious
would it be to give not one life, surrender not a million lives
but a billion lives in search of the potent and imperishable
truth ? — Toung India : Oct. 6, 1920.
HE who does not know what it is to speak the truth
is like a false coin valueless. —Toung India : Oct. 6, 1920.
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 realise oneself and one's destiny to
become perfect. I am painfully conscious of my imperfec-
tions, and therein lies all the strength I possess, because it
is a rare thing for a man to know his own limitations.
— Toung India : Nov. 17, 192 K
ABSTRACT truth has no value, unless it incarnates
in human beings who represented it by proving their readi-
ness to die for it. Our wrongs live because we only pretend
TRUTH 557
to be their living representatives. The only way we can
prove our claim is by readiness to suffer in the discharge
of our trust. —Young India : Dec, 22, 1921.
^ ^ ^
We must speak the Truth under a shower of bullets.
_ Young India : Jan. 5, 1922.
NO veil of darkness can ever cover up truth from view
for all time. — Young India : Jan. 12, 1922.
LET the opponent glory in our humiliation or so call-
ed defeat. It is better to be charged with cowardice and
weakness than to be guilty of denial of our oath and sin
against God. It is million times better to appear untrue be-
fore the world than to be untrue to ourselves.
— Young India : Feb. 16, 1922.
TRUTH is superior to man's wisdom.
— Young India : July 3, 1924.
MY religion is based on truth and non-violencei Truth
is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
_ Young India : Jan. 8, 1924.
,THE way of peace is the way of truth. Truthfulness
is even more important than peacefulness. Indeed, lying is
the mother of violence. A truthful man cannot long remain
violent. He will perceive in the course of his search that
he has no need to be violent and will further discover that
so long as there is the slightest trace of violence in him, he
will fail to find the truth he is searching.
There is no half way between truth and non-violence
on the one hand and untruth and violence on the other.
We may never be strong enough to be entirely non-yiotent
in thought, word and deed. But we must keep non-violence
558 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
as our goal and make steady progress towards it. The attain-
ment of freedom whether for a man, a nation or the world,
must be in exact proportion to the attainment of non-
violence by each. Let those, therefore, who believe in non-
violence as the only method of achieving real freedom,
keep the lamp of non-violence burning bright in the midst
of the present impenetrable gloom. The truth of a few
will count, the untruth of millions will vanish even like
chaff before a whiff of wind. — Young India : May 20, 1925.
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WITH reference to my removal of certain passages
from a correspondent's letter recently published, he thus
complains :
"In spite of the expurgation you have thought fit
to effect in my letter I may claim that in all my
letters to you, especially where communal questions
are involved, I have tried to observe not the 'prudent'
maxim, (which means in brief 'speak not the unpleasant
truth') although it be found in most of our received texts of
Manu, but the saying of William Lloyd Garrison, the
American slave-liberator, which has stood for many years
at the head of the Indian Social Refoimer of Bomby as its
motto : I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromis-
ing as justice," etc.
I do not mind harsh truth but I do object to spiced
truth
Spicy language is as foreign to truth as hot chillies U>
a healthy stomach. The passages removed by me were not
necessary to elucidate the meaning of the correspondent or
give point to it. They were offensive without being useful
or necessary. There seems to be in fashion to think that
in order to be truthful one must use harsh language; whereas
truth suffers when it is harshly put. It is like wanting tt>
support strength : Truth being itself jfully strong is in-
suited when an attempt it made to support its harshness. I
TRUTH 559
see no conflict between the Sanskrit text and Garrison's
motto quoted by the correspondent. In my opinion the
Sanskrit text means that one should speak the truth in
gentle language. One had better not speak it, if one can-
not do so in a gentle way; meaning thereby that there is not
truth in a man who cannot control his tongue. In other
words, truth without non-violence is not truth, but untruth.
Garrison's motto requires to be interpreted in terms of his
own life. He was one of the gentlest of men of his time.
Mark his language. He will be as harsh as truth, but
since truth is never harsh but always gentle and
beneficial, the motto can only mean that Garrison would be
as gentle as truth but no more. Both the texts have ralation to
the inner state of the speaker or writer, not to the effect that
will be produced upon those to whom the speech or the
writing is addressed. The Indian Social Reformer is rarely,,
if ever, harsh. It tries to be fair though often jumps to
conclusions in a hurry and is obliged later to revise its esti-
mate of men and things. In these days of surrounding
bitterness one cannot be too cautious. After all who knows
the absolute truth ? It is in ordinary affairs of life, only
a relative term. What is truth to me is not necessarily truth
to the rest of my companions. We are all like the blind
men who on examining an elephant gave different descrip-
tions of the same animal according to the touch they were
kable to have of him. And they were all, according to their
own lights in the right. But we know also that they were
all in the wrong. Everyone of them fell far short of the
truth. One cannot be too insistent therefore upon the
necessity of guarding oneself against bitterness. Bitter-
ness blurs the vision and to that extent disables one
from seeing even the limited truth that the physically blind
men in the fable were able to do.
—Young India : Sept. 17, 1925.
TRUTHFULNESS is the master-key. Do not lie under
560 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
any circumstances whatsoever. Keep nothing secret, take
your teachers and your elders into your confidence and make
a clean breast of everything to them. Bear ill-will to none,
do not say an evil thing of anyone behind his back, above
all 'to thine own-self be true5, so that you are false to no one
else. Truthful dealings even in the least, little things of life
is the only secret of a pure life. —Toung India: Dec. 25/1925.
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EVERY truth is self-acting and possesses inherent
strength. I therefore remain unperturbed even when I find
myself grossly misrepresented. — Toung India : Dec. 11, 1924.
I AM nothing but a mere lump of earth in the hands of
the Potter. Truth and Love — Ahmisa — is the only thing that
counts. Where this is present, everything right is in the
end. This is a law to which there is no exception. It would
be very bad indeed that Gujrat or India should look up to
me and sit with folded hands. Let her worship Truth and
Love, look up to that divine couple, employ servants like
myself so long as they, tread the strait and narrow path and
check them when they swerve from it.
—Toung India : Aug. 18, 1927.
I WILL not sacrifice truth and ahimsa even for the
deliverance of my country or religion. This is as much as
to say that neither can be so delivered.
—Toung India . Oct. 13, 1927.
ALL the religions of the world, while they may differ in
other respects unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this
world but truth. — Toung India : Oct. 20, 1927.
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FIRHAD in his quest of Shiri a wore away his life in
breaking rocks, shall we do less for our Shirin of Truth,
without which service is not ? — Toung India : Sep. 20, 1928.
TRUTH 561
THOSE who join me in ,my experiments in Truth seek-
ing are not my "test-tubes," they are my valued fellow-
workers, sharing with me the joy that the search for Truth
brings as no other search does.
6 —Young India : March 25, 1931.
IF observance of truth was a bed of roses, if truth cost
one nothing and was all happiness and ease, there would be
no beauty about it. We must adhere to truth even if the
heavens should fail. % —Young India : Sept. 27, 1928.
I HAVE no hesitation in saying that I should, if there
could be such a choice, most decidedly sacrifice the country
for Truth which to me is God. 1 further hold that no indivi-
dual or nation has ever gained by the sacrifice of Truth —
there is, therefore, no such thing as sacrifice of country for
Tmth. —Young India : March 26, 1931.
TRUTH is not truth merely because it is ancient. Nor
it is necessarily to be regarded with suspicion because it is
ancient. There are some fundamentals of life, which may
not be lightly given up because they are difficult of enforce-
ment in one's life. —Harijan : March 14, 1936.
TRUTH and non-violence are not for the dense. Pur-
suit of them is bound to result in an all round growth of the
body, mind and heart. If this does not follow, either
truth and non-violence are untrue, or we are untrue and
since the former is impossible the latter will be the only con-
clusion. The whole of the constructive programme — including
handspinning and handweaving, Hindu Muslim Unity, re-
moval of untouchability, prohibition — is in pursuit of truth
and non-violence. —Harijan : May 8, 1937.
IS it not a fact that untruth and dishonesty often win
in life ?
562 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
A. That certainly is not my experience. They often
seem to win, but if you dive a little deeper you will find
that in reality truth wins. But if the victory of truth was
always easy and self-evident truth would not have the
value it has, and the observance of truth would be no merit.
—Harijan : May 28, 1938,
THE way of truth is straight and narrow, and it is our
duty to point it out whenever there is an opportunity.
—Harijan : May 28, 1938v
WE do not always know wherein lies our good. That
is why it is best to assume that good always comes from
following the path of truth. —Harijan : May 28, 1938,
I HAVE often said that I would not sell truth for the
sake of India's deliverence much less would I do so for win-
ing Muslim friendship. —Harijan : May 27, 1939.
<£ ® ^
ONLY truth quenches untruth, Love quenches anger, self-
suffering quenches violence. This enternal rule is a rule not
for saints only but for all. Those who observe it may be few
but they are the salt of the earth, it is they who keep the
society live together not those who sin against light and
truth. —Harijan : Feb. 1 1942.
Tulsidas Ramayana
SEVERAL frknds on various occasions have addressed
to me criticims regarding my attitude towards Juki
Ramqyana. The substance of their criticisms is as follows : —
"You have described the Ramayana as the best of books,
but we have never been able to reconcile ourselves with
your view. Do not you see how Tulsidas has disparaged
womankind, defended Rama's unchivalarous ambuscade on
Vali, praised Vibhishan for betrayal of his country, and
TULSIDAS RAMAYANA 5«
described Rama as an avatar in spite of his gross injustice to
Sita ? What beauty do you find in a book like this ? Or
do you think that the poetic beauty of the book compen-
sates for everything else ? If it is so then we venture to
suggest that you have no qualification for the task. '
I admit that if we take the ciriticisms of every point
individually they will be found difficult to refute and the
whole of the Ramayana can in this manner, be easily con-
demned. But that can be said of almost everything and
everybody. There is a story related about a celebrated
artist that in order to answer his critics he put his picture
in a show window and invited visitors to indicate their
opinion by marking the spot they did not like. The result
was that there was hardly any portion that was not covered
by the critics' marks. As a matter of fact, however, the
picture was a masterpiece of art. Indeed even the Veda;,
the Bible and the Koran have not been exempt from condem-
nation. But their lovers fail to discover those faults in
them. In order to arrive at a proper estimate of a book
it must be judged as a whole. So much for external criti-
cism. The internal test of a book consists in finding out
what effect it has produted on the majority of its readers.
Judged by either metfaod the position of the Ramayana as
a book par excellence remains unassailable. This, however,
does not mean that it is absolutely faultless. But it is claim-
ed on behalf of the Ramayana that it has given peace to
millions, has given faith to those who had it not, and i$
even today serving as a healing balm to thousands who
are burnt by the fire of unbelief. Every page of it »
flowing with devotion. It is a veritable mine of spiritual
experience.
It is true that the Ramayana is sometimes used by
evil-minded persons to support their evil practices* Bat
that is no proof of evil in the Ramayana. I admit that Tub*-
das has, unintentionally as I think, done injustice to woma»-
kind. In this, as in serveral other respects also, he
564 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
tailed to rise above the prevailing notions ol Jus age. In
other words, Tulsidas was not a reformer; he was on ly a
prince among devotees. The faults of the Ramayana are less
a reflection on Tulsidas than a reflection on the age in
which he lived.
What should be the attitude of the reformer regarding
the position of women or towards Tulsidas under such
circumstances ? Can he derive no help whatever from
Tulsidas ? The reply is emphatically 'he can.' In spite
of disparaging remarks about women in the Ramayana it
should not be forgotten that in it Tulsidas has presented
to the world his matchless picture of Sita. Where
would be Rama without Sita ? We find a host of
other ennobling figures like Kaushalya, Sumitra etc.,
it! (he Ramayana. We bow our head in reverence before
the faith and devotion of Shabari and Ahalaya. Ravana
was a monster but Manododari was a sati. In my opinion
these instances go to prove that Tulsidas was no reviler of
women by conviction. On the contrary, so far his convic-
tions went, he had only reverence for them. So much for
Tubidasji's attitude towards women.
In the matter of the killing of V*li, however, there is
rbom for two opinions. In Vibhishan I can find no lault.
Vibhishan offered Satyograha against his brother. His ex-
ample teaches us that it is a travesty of patriotism to sympa-
thise with or try to conceal the faults of one's rulers or
country arid to oppose them is the trust patriotism. By
helping Rama, Vibhishan rendered the truest service to
his country. The treatment of Sita by Rama does not
devote heartlessness. It is a proof of a duel between kingly
duty and a husband's love for his wife.
To thfc sceptics who feel honest doubts in connection
with the R&msywa, I would suggest th£t they should not
accfept, anybody's interpretations mechanically. They should
tekvc out Such portions about Which they feel doubtful.
UNEMPLOYMENT 565
Nothing contrary to truth and ahirwa need be condoned.
It would be sheer perversity to argue that because in o*jr
opinion Rama practised deception, we too may do likewise.
The proper thing to do would be to believe that Rama was
incapable of practising deception. As the Gita says. There •»
nothing in the world that is entirely free from fault. Let us there-
fore like the fabled swan, who rejects the water and takes
only the cream, learn to treasure only the good and reject
the evil in everything. Nothing and no one is perfect but
God. —Young India : Oct. 31, 1929.
u
Unemployment
IN one of his talks to the students of the Village Workers*
Training School, Gandhiji pointed out the difference between
the problem of unemployment in this country and that in
Western countries. " In one sense," he said, " the problem
of unemployment in our country is not so difficult <is in other
countries. The mode of life is a great factor. TJ*he western
employed worker must have warm clothing, boots or shoes
and socks like the rest of the people, w he must have a warm
house and many other things incidental to the cold climate.
We do not want all these things. I have indeed wept' to see
the stark poverty and unemployment in our country, but I
must confess our own negligence and ignorance are 'largely
responsible for it. We do not know the dignity of labour as
such. Thus a shoemaker will not <Jo anything beyond,
making his shoes, he will think that all other labour is below
his dignity. That wrong notion rtwst go/* There is enougfy
employment in India for all who will wort with their hands
and feet honestly. God has given everyone the capacity, to
work and earn more than his daily br^ad, and Whoever is
ready to use that capacity is sure to find work. No labour
is top mean for one who wants to earn an honest penny.
The only thing is the readiness to use the tiands
that God Has given us. (M. D.) —ttariiah :'Dec:
566 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Unitary Method
j
IN a well-regulated family the relations are governed by
the unitary method. Thus a father gives to his children not
a* a result of a pact. He gives out of love, a sense of justice
without expecting any return therefor. Not that there is
none. But everything is natural, nothing is forced. Nothing
is dime out of fear or distrust. What is true of a well regu-
lated family is equally true of a well-regulated society which
is but an extended family. — Harijan : Feb. 1, 1942.
Untouchability
IT is, to my mind, a curse that has come to us, and as
long as that curse remains with us, so long I think we are
bound to consider that every affliction that we labour under
in this sacred land is a fit and proper punishment for this
great and indelible crime that we are committing. That any
person should be considered untouchable because of his call-
ing passes one's comprehension.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 217,
A RELIGION that establishes the worship of the cow
cannot possibly countenance or warrant a cruel and inhu-
man 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, nor
get it if they allow their noble religion to be disgraced by
the retention of the taint of untouchability. 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- — Toung India : Sep. 29, 1920.
IF it was proved to me that this is an essential part of
Hinduism, I for one would declare myself an open rebel
•gainst Hinduism itself. — Toting India : Nov. 2, 1920.
UNTOUGHABILITY 567
Thus, whilst I am prepared to defend, as I have always
done, the division of Hindus into four castes, as I have so
often said in these columns, I consider untouchability to be
a heinous crime against humanity. It is not a sign of
self-restraint but an arrogant assumption of superiority. It
has served no useful purpose and it has suppressed as nothing
else in Hindiusm has, vast numbers of the human race who
are not only every bit as good as ourselves, but are rendering
in many walks of life an essential service to the country. It
is a sin of which the sooner Hinduism purges itself the better
it is for itself, if it is to be recognised as an honourable and
elevating religion. I know no argument in favour of its
retention and I have no hesitation in rejecting scriptural
authority of a doubtful character in order to support a
sinful institution. Indeed I would reject all authority if it is
in conflict with sober reason or the dictates of the heart.
Authority sustains and ennobles the weak when it is the
hand- work of reason, but it degrades them when it supplants
reason, sanctified by the still Small voice within.
— Young India : Dec. 8, 1920.
WE can do nothing without Hindu-Muslim Unity and
without killing the snake of untouchability. Untouchability
is a corroding poison that is eating into the vitals of Hindu
society. Varanashram is not a religion of superiority and
inferiority. No man can consider another man as inferior
to himself. He must consider every man as his blood-brother.
It is the cardinal principle of every religion.
— Toung India : Feb. 23, 1921.
UNTOUCHABILITY is the sin of the Hindus. They
must suffer for it, they must purify themselves, they must pay
the debt that they owe their suppressed brothers and sisters.
Theirs is the shame and theirs must be the glory when they
have purged themselves of the black sin. The silent loving
suffering of one single pure Hindu as such will be enough to
568 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
melt the heart of millions of Hindus : but the sufferings of
thousands of non-Hindus on behalf of the untouchables will
leave the Hindus unmoved. Their blind eyes will be opened
by outside interference, however, well-intentioned and
generous it may be ; for it will not bring home to them the
sense of guilt. On the contrary, they would probably hug
the sin all the more for such interference. All reform to be
sincere and lasting must come from within.
— Young India : May 1, 1924.
MANY sincere and otherwise noble-minded Hindus con-
sider untouchability as a part of the Hindu creed and would
therefore regard the reformers as outcastes. If untouch-
ability was a part of the Hindu creed, I should decline to
call myself a Hindu and most decidely embrace some other
faith if it satisfied my highest aspirations. Fortunately for
me, I hold that untouchability is no part of Hinduism. On
the contrary it is a serious blot upon it, which every lover of
it must sacrifice himself to remove. Suppose, however, I
discovered that untouchability was really an integral part of
of Hinduism, I should have to wander in the wilderness
because the other creeds as I know them through their
accepted interpreters would not satisfy my highest aspira-
tions. — Young India : April 24, 1924.
HINDUS living as they do in glass houses have no right
to throw stones at their Mussalman neighbours. See what
we have done, are still doing, to the suppressed classes ! If
* Khaffir ? is a term of opprobrium, how much more so is
* Chandal ' ? In the history of the world religions, there is
perhaps nothing like our treatment of the suppressed classes*
The pity of it is that the treatment still continues. God
does not punish directly. His ways are inscrutable. Who
knows that all our woes are not due to that one black sin ?
— Young India : May 29, 1924.
UNTOUCHABILITY 569
THE scriptures proclaimed that there is n© distinction
between a Brahmin and a Scavenger. Both have souls ;
both have five organs of sense. — Young Indie, : Jan. 8, 1925.
THE fight against untouchability is a religious fight.
It is a fight for the recognition of human dignity. It is a
fight for a mighty reform in Hinduism. It is a fight against
the entrenched citdatels of orthodoxy.
—Young India : Feb. 55. 1925.
IN the eyes of God there are no touchables and untouch-
ables. Brahmans are called Brahmans not for their superi-
ority, not for their ability to lord it over, but because of
their ability to serve mankind by their knowledge and by
their ability to efface themselves in the act of serving.
Theirs is the privilege and theirs the duty, of serving their
fellow men and they cannot do so to the full, unless they re-
nounce every earthly reward. —Young India : Sept. 22, 1927.
UNTOUCHABILITY poisons Hinduism as a drop of
arsenic poisons milk. —Young India : Oct. 20, 1927.
<$> <s> <s>
YOU must remember that all the great^religions of the
world are at the present time in the melting pot. Let us
not ostrich-like hide our faces and ignore the d anger that
lies at the back of us. I have not a shadow of doubt that
in the great turmoil now taking place either untouchability
has to die or Hinduism has to disappear. But I do know
that Hinduism is not dying, is not going to die, because I
see untouchability is a corpse struggling with its last breath
to hold on for a little while. —Young India : Oct. 20, 1927.
THAT is the lesson that comes down to us from South
Africa too. A just nemesis has descended upon us there.
Just as we are treating our brothers here, our kith and kin
570 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
are being treated as Pariahas and Bhangis in South Africa.
The moment we purge ourselves of the sin, the moment we
are free from the curse of untouchability, you will find the
jhackles dropping off our countrymen in South Africa.
—Taung India : Jan. 13, 1927.
UNTOUCHABILITY is undoubtedly, a difficult point
among the masses. It does however appeal to them, only
it appeals in a way we do not like. They hug the exclusive-
ness which they have inherited for ages. But if we cannot,
by our purity, unselfishness and patience, cure them of the
disease, we must perish as a nation. The sooner every
political reformer realises the fact, the better it is for him
and the country. We must refuse to give up the struggle
or postpone it till after Swaraj. Postponement of it means
postponement of Swaraj. It is like wanting to live without
lungs. Those who believe that Hindu-Muslim tension and
untouchability can be removed after Swaraj are living in
the dream land. They are too fatigued to grasp the
significance of their proposition.
—Young India : Aug. 14, 1924.
<^ <8> <£
THE Hindu reformers have undertaken the work not
as patrons, not to do the favour to the untouchables,
certainly not to exploit them politically. They have under-
taken the task, because their conception of Hinduism prem*
ptorily demands it. They have either to leave Hinduism or
to make good the claim that untouchability is no part of it
but that it is an excrescence to be rooted out.
—Young India : April 17, 1930.
AN untouchable who lives his Hindusim in the face of
persecution at the hand of those Hindus who arrogate to
themselves a superior status is a better Hindu than the self-
styled superior Hindu, who by the very act of claiming
superiority denies his Hinduism. — Young India : June 4, 1925.
UNTOUCHABILITY 571
WHO can deny that the custom of untouchability is
immoral, barbarous and cruel. — Young India : Dec. 24, 1925.
ITS removal is calculated to purge Hinduism of the
greatest evil that has crept into it, without touching the
great system of division of work. — Young India, : Feb. 11, 1925.
THIS removal of untouchability is not to be brought
about by any legal enactment. It will only be brought
about when the Hindu conscience is roused to action,
and of its own accord removes the shame. It is a duty the
touchables owe to the untouchables.
—Young India : June 30, 1927.
<$> <s> <s>
IT is a weedy growth fit only to be weeded out, as we
weed out the weedes that we see growing in wheat fields or
rice fields, — Young India : Oct. 20, 1927.
I SPEAK with a due sense of my resposibility that this
untouchability is a curse that is eating into the vitals of
Hinduism, and I often feel that unless we take due precau-
tions and remove this curse from our midst, Hinduism itself
is in danger of destruction. That in this age of reason, in
this age of wide travel, in this age of a comparative study
of religions, there should be found people, some of whom
are educated, to uphold the hideous doctrine of treating a
single human being as an untouchable, unapproachabe, or
wnseeable because of his birth, passes my comprehension.
As a lay humble student of Hinduism and claiming to be
one desirous of practising Hinduism in the spirit and to the
letter let me tell you that 1 have found no warrant or
support for this terrible doctrine. Let us not deceive our-
selves into the belief that everything that is written in
Sanskrit and printed in Shastra and has any binding effect
upon us. That which is opposed to the fundamental
maxims of morality, that which is opposed to trained reason,
572 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
cannot be claimed as no matter how ancient it may
be. There is enough warrant for the proposition that I
have just stated in the Vedas, in the Mahabharata and in
the Bhagad Gita. —Young India : Oct. 20, 1927.
<^ <^ ^>
LET me not forget the so-called untouchables, the
classes that we, Hindus, have been guilty of suppressing.
Shall we not have the vision to see that in suppressing a
sixth (or whatever the number) of ourselves, we have de-
pressed ourselves ? No man takes another down a pit with-
out descending into it himself and sinning in the bargain.
It is not the suppressed that sin. It is the suppressor who
has to answer for his crime against those whom he suppres-
ses. —Young India : March 29, 1928.
<$><$> <3>
PATIENCE with evil is really trifling with evil and
with ourselves. — Young India : Oct. 10, 1927.
$> <S> <:>
UNTOUCHABILITY attaching to birth or calling is
an atrocious doctrine repugnant to the religious sense of
man. —Young India : Oct 3, 1929.
<£ <$> <$>
LET those who are present here today understand that
we have not been able yet to win Swaraj because of the
load of sin that we are still carrying on our backs. If all
the so called "touchable" Hindus did real penance for hav-
ing wronged their "untouchable" brethren, Swaraj would
be automatically in our hands. And pray understand mei;e
removal of physical untouchability does not mean expiation.
The removal of untouchability means the removel of all
distinctions of superiority and inferioHty attaching to fc>irth.
Varnashramadharma is a beautiful institution, but if it is
used to buttress up social superiority of one section over
another, it will be a monstrosity. Let removal of untouch-
ability result from a living conviction that all are one, ip
the eyes of God, that the Father in Heaven will deal with, y$
all with even-handed justice. — Young India : Aug, 63 193J,.
UNTOUCHABIL1TY 573
SEPARATE electorates to the untouchables will en-
sure them bondage in perpetuity. The Musalmans will
never cease to be Musalmans by having separate electorates.
Do you want the untouchables to remain "untouchables'*
for ever ? Well the separate electorates would perpetuate
the stigma. What is needed is destruction of untouchability
and when you have done it; the bar sinister which has been
imposed by an insolent "superior" class upon an "inferior"
class will be destroyed. When you have destroyed the bar
sinister, to whom will you give the separate electorates?
Look at the history of Europe. Have you got separate
electorates for the working classes or women ? With adult
franchise, you give the untouchables complete security.
Even the orthodox Hindus would have to approach them
for votes. —Young India : Nov. 12, 1931.
<*> <$> <$>
Q, DON'T you think that the whole Harijan problem
is in the last anaylises an economic problem, and that the
moment you improve the Harijans' economic status you
solve the problem ?
A. No. You may solve the economic problem, but un-
happily the Harijan problem, which is essentially that of
the eradication of a disease in Hinduism, will not be solved
thereby. Dr. Ambedkar who is economically much better off
than most of us is still regarded as an untouchable.
—Harijan : July 4, 1934.
V
Vaccination
I A M and have been for years a confirmed anti-
vaccinationist but I recongnise that I must not expect
public support for my views. Anti-vaccinaiton has no
backing from the orthodox medical opinion. A medical man
who expresses himself against vaccination loses castCr Tre-
mendous pecuniary interests too have grown round vaccina-
tion. A sort 6f temporary immunity ' from small p6& i*
574 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
gained by vaccinatio * though at much cost otherwise to the
body and certainly to moral fibre. But all this argument
often based on solid experience counts for nothing against
the tangible though temporary immunity from small pox,
which the person who has the filthy vaccine injected into his
body gets. It will be thus to the end of the world.
— Young India : July 18, 1928.
Varnashrama Dharma
A FAIR friend writes :
"A fellow traveller drew my attention to the message of
yours to the Rajput Parishad ofVartej, By reading it, a
protest which was lying suppressed in the subconscious
level of the mind made its way to the surface and claimed
a hearing. Man is one who does manan or thinking. So I
hope you will be tolerant to a fellow-thinker and give an
attentive hearing to thoughts that may run counter to your
habitual ones. These thoughts had occurred at the first
sight of the Sabarmati Ashram with its weaving shed in 1920
had disappeared and reappeared off and one, till of late
they have been busy building a permanent abode in my
mind for which your message to the Rajputs has supplied
the straw for the last brick.
"In a place where the whole station was lined from one
end to the other with volunteers dressed in military style
with swords hanging at their sides, where the whole air
was redolent with reminiscences of bravery and chivalry
of men of the military caste of India, was not your message
urging them in a way to substitute the music of your wheel
for the music of their sword, a preaching of the dharma of
of your cast to all cast ad absurdum like the Christian
missionary ? Should you not rather like the sages of ancient
India exhort a Brahman to be a true Brahman, a Kshatriya
to be an ideal Kahatriya and a Vaisha to be a model
Vaisha ? The insignia of the Brahman is the book or pen.
VERNASHRAMA DHARMA 575
of the Kshatriyha the sword, and of the Vaishya the wheel
or plough. You may well pride yourself in being called a
weaver or an agriculturist as thereby you are true to the
natural tendencies of your jati or to Vaishya dhaima. But
why would you a Hindu a believer in Varnashrama princi-
ples help in the degradation of a Brahman or a Kshatriya
by instisting on their accepting Vashya dharma and rejecting'
or neglecting their respective jati dharmos ? Can a Kshatriya
not serve and protect the poor even in these days but in the
Vaishya way ?
The great men of India have always upheld swadharmai
for each individual temperament. You are the first ofi
them to preach the throwing in of the dharmas of all people
into the same melting pot and thereby Vaishyaising the
whole nation. Uplift the Vaishyas by all means but pray
do not pull the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas by their leg&>
Spiritualise your caste people but do not materialise the
men of other casts by turning them into spinners and*
weavers with the spell of your personality. To my think-
ing a Vinoba and a Balkoba would have rendered more
potent service to the nation as pure Brahmans with their
intellects fully developed rather than as spiritual weavers
which you have turned them into."
I have not reproduced the whole of the letter but 1
have given the cream of it. The rest is a commentary on
the extract quoted by me. The friend is born and claims
to be a Hindu even as I claim to be one. As I have
regarded spinning to be superior to sectional reli-
gions, I had hoped that I would not be misunderstood
by cultured friends. But it was not to be. The friend teJJs
me she is not the only one to oppose the charkha. 1 must
therefore endeavour patiently to examine the argument. I
have noted in the course of my journalistic experience dat-
ing from 1904 that most of the criticism received by editors is
based upon an imperfect understanding of an opponent's,
statement. In the case in point if only the friend bad
576 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
borne in mind that I had presented that mess-
age of the wheel not to be Hindus alone but to all Indians
<withont exception, to men and women, to Mussalmans,
Parsis, Chiristians, Jews, Sikhs and all others who claimed
to be Indians, she would have written differently. She
would then have inferred that I had placed before the
people of India something which not only did not come in
conflict with the several religions but which in so far as it
was taken up, added lusture to one's own religion and in
Hinduism to one's own varna or caste. Mine therefore I
claim to be a method not of confusion but cleansing. I
ask no one to forsake his own hereditary dharma or occu-
pation but I ask every one to add spinning to his natura-
occupation. The Rajputs of Kathiawad knew this.
They asked me whether I wanted them to give up their
swords. I told them I wanted them to do no such thing.
On the contrary, I added, I wanted each one of them to
possess a trusty sword so long as long as they believed in it.
But I certainly told them that my ideal Rajput was he
who defended without the sword and who died at his post
without killing A sword may be snatched from one, not
so the bravery to die without striking. But this is by the
way. For my purpose, it is enough to show that the Raj-
puts were not to give up their calling of protecting the
weak. Nor do T want the Brahman s to give up their
vocation as teachers I have suggested to th£m that they
become better teachers for sacrificial spinning. Vinoba
and Balkoba are better Brahmans for having become spin-
ners and weavers and scavengers. Their knowledge is
more digested. A Brahman is one who knows God. Both
these fellow-workers are nearer to God today by reason of
their having felt for and identified themselves through spin-
ning with the starving millions of India. Divine knowledge
is not borrowed from books. It has to be realised in one-
self. Books are at best an aid, often even a hindrance. A
learned Brahman had to learn divine wisdom from a God-
fearing butcher.
VARNASHRAM A DHAKMA 577
What is this Varnashrama ? It is not a system of
watertight compartments. It is a recognition to me of a
scientific fact whether we know it or not. A Brahman is
not only a teacher. He is only predominantly that. But
a Brahman who refuses to labour will be voted down as an
idiot. The Rishis of old who lived in the forests cut and
fetched wood, tended cattle and even fought. But their pur-
suit in life was pre-eminently search after Truth. Similarly a
Rajput without learning was good for nothing no matter how
well he wielded the sword. And a Vaishya without divine
knowledge sufficient for his own growth will be a veritable
monster eating into the vitals of society as many modern
Vaishyas whether of the East or the West have become.
They are, according to the Gita 'incarnations of sin who
live only for themselves.' The spinning wheel is designed
to wake up every one to a sense of his duty. It enables
everyone better to fulfil his dharma or duty. When a vessel
is running on smooth waters, work on board is exquisitly
•divided. But when it is caught in the grip of a violent
storm and is about to sink, every one has to give a helping
hand to the necessary work of life-saving.
Let us also bear in mind that with the rest of the world
India finds herself in the deadly coil of the mercantile
cobra. It is a nation of shop-keeping soldiers that claims
to rule her. It will tax all the resources of all her best
Brahmans to unwind India from that coil. Her learned men
and her soldiers will therefore have to bring their learning
and their prowess to bear upon the mercantile require-
ments of India. They must therefore, in order to be able
faithfully to carry out their dharma, learn and practise
spinning.
Nor have I the least hesitation in recommending hand-
weaving as a bread winning occupation to all who are in
need of an honest occupation. To the Brahmans, the
Kshalnyas and others, who are at the present momemt
not following their hereditary occupation but are Engaged
578 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
in the mad rush for riches, I present the honest and (for
them) selfless toil of the weaver and invite them with a
view to returning to their respective dharmas to be satisfied
with what little the handloom yields to them. Just as eat-
ing, drinking, sleeping etc. are common to all castes and
all religions, so must spinning be common to all without
exception whilst the confusion, selfish greed and resulting
pauperism persist. Mine therefore, is a method not of mak-
ing Varnasankara— confusion worse confounded — but it is
one of making Varnashram-cleansing more secure*
—Young India : Sep, 22, 1927.
<§> <s> <s>
IN his speech at Cuddalore, Gandhiji spoke at length
on the Brahman Non-Brahman problem :
You have drawn my attention to the existence of the
dissensions between the Brahmans and the Non-Brahmans?
and asked nee to find out a solution. As a Non-Brahman
myself, if I could remove the dissensions by forfeiting my
life, I should do so this very moment. But God is a very
hard taskmaster. He is never satisfied with fire-works
display. His mills, although they grind surely and incessant-
ly, grind excruciatingly slow, and He is never satisfied with
hasty forfeitures of life. It is a sacrifice of the purest that
He demands, and so you and I have prayerfully to plod on,
live out the life so long as it is vouchsafed to us to live it. I
have said, only very recently in Madras, that whenever you
want me to take part in your deliberations, or want me to
advise you, you will find me at your disposal. I have no
clear-cut solution for this difficult question. I confess to
you, that I do not even now know the points of differences
between the two. I tried to draw out some Non-Brahmans,
who came to me on Nandi Hill, and they promised to see
me in my tour and place all the points of difference before
me. I must confess to you that I am no wiser about the
Bra hn: an side of the question. And will as the Brahmans
VARNASHRAM A DHARMA 570
are, I admit they have not told me what the differences are,
fully well knowing what my opinion would be about all
these questions. As you are aware, though a Non-Brahman
myself I have lived more with them and amongst them
than amongst Non-Brahmans, and on that account
some of my Non-Brahman friends suspect me of having
taken all my colouring from Brahman friends. I have
a shrewd suspicion, that the Non-Brahman friends consider
that I am not to be accepted as a hope for a proper solution
and so I find myself in the happy position of being
isolated by both the parties, a position which in the present
state of my health suits me admirably. But all the same
I give you my assurance that I for my part hold myself in
readiness to be wooed by either party. And I assure you too,
that I shall not plead physical unfitness.
But I have for both the parties two counsels of perfec-
tion which I can lay before you. To the Brahman I will
say : "Seeing that you are repositories of all knowledge and
embodiments of sacrifice and that you have chosen the life
of mendicancy, give up all that the Non-Brahman wants
and be satisfied with that they may leave for you/' But
the modern Brahman would, I know, summarily reject my
Non- Brahman interpretation of his dharma. To the Notf-
Brahman I say : "Seeing that you have got numbers on
your side, seeing that you have got wealth on your side,
what is it that you are worrying about ? Resisting as you
are, and as you must, untouchability, do not be guilty of
creating a new untouchability in your midst. In your haste,
in your blindness, in your anger against the Brahmans, you
are trying to trample under foot the whole * of the culture
which you have inherited from ages past. With a stroke of
the pen, may be at the point of the sword, you are impatient
to rid Hinduism of its bed-rock. Being dissatisfied and
properly dissatisfied with the husk of Hinduism, you are in
danger of losing even the kernel, life itself. You in your
impatience seem to think that there is absolutely nothing to,
580 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
be said about Varnashrama. Some of you are ready even to
think that in defending Varnashrama I am also labouring
under a delusion. Make no mistake about it. They who say
this have not even taken the trouble of understanding what I
mean by Varnashrama"
It is universal law, stated in so many words by Hindu-
ism. It is a law of spiritual economics. Nations of the West
and Islam itself unwittingly are obliged to follow that law.
It has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority. The
customs about eating, drinking and marriage are no integral
part of Varnashrama Dharma. It was a law discovered by
your ancestors and my ancestors, the rishis who saw that if
they were to give the best part of their lives to God and to
the world, and not to themselves, they must recognise that
it is the law of heredity. It is a law designed to set free
man's energy for higher pursuits in life. What true Pson-
Brahmans should therefore set about doing is not to under-
mine the very foundations on which they are sitting, but to
clean all the sweepings they have gathered on the founda-
tion and make it perfectly clean. Fight by all means the
monster that passes for Varnashrama to-day, and you will
find me working side by side with you. My Varnashrama
enables me to dine with anybody who will give me clean
food, be he Hindu* Muslim, Christian, Parsi, whatever he is.
My Varnashrama accommodates a pariah girl under my own
roof as my own daughter. My Varnashrama accommodates
maay Panchama families with whom I dine with the
greatest pleasure,— to dine with whom is a privilege. My
Varnashrama refuses to bow the head before the grea-
test potentate on earth, but my Varnashrama compels me to
bow down my head in all humility before knowledge, before
purity, before every person, where I see God face to face.
Do not therefore swear by words that have, at the present
moment become absolutely meaningless and obsolete. Swear
all you are worth, if you like, against Brahmans but never
against Brahmanism, and even at the risk of being under-
VEGETARIANISM 581
stood or being mistaken by you to be a pro-Brahman, I
make bold to declare to you that whilst Brahmans have
many sins to atone for, and many for which they will receive
exemplary punishments, there are to-day Brahmans living
in India who are watching the progress of Hinduism and
who are trying to protect it with all the piety and all the
austerity of which they are capable. Them you perhaps do
not even know. They do not care to be known. ^ They
expect no reward, they ask for none. Their work is its own
reward. They work in this fashion because they must. It
is their nature. You and I may swear against them for all
we are worth, but they are untouched. Do not run away
with the beleif that I am putting in a plea for Brahmans,
Vakils and Ministers and even Justices of the High Courts
in India. I have not thought of them in my mind at all.
What, therefore, both Brahmans and Non-Brahmans and
for that matter everybody who wants India to progress has
to do, is to sweep his own house clean. I therefore suggest
to Non-Brahmans, who have not yet lost their heads, to
think out clearly what it is that they are grieved over, and
make up your minds and fight for all they are worth to re-
move those grievances. I recognise however that I have thil
evening entered upon an academic discussion. Not know*
ing the merits of their quarrels, I do nothing else. But in
my own humble opinion, I have indicated the lines of
action for both and within the limits of your capacity,
it is open to you to make use of it in any manner you*
like.
Vegetarianism
THE real seat of taste is not the tongue but the mind.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 77.
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
582 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
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. —Young India : Sept. 29, 1920.
IT is generally known that I am a taunch vegetarian
and food reformer. But it is not equally generally known that
Ahmisa extends a? much to human beings as to lower ani-
mals and that I freely associate with meat-eaters.
I would not kill a human being for protecting a cow, as
I will not kill a cow for saving a human life, be it ever so
precious. Needless to say I have authorised no one to
preach vegetarianism as a part of Non-Co-operation.
—Young India : May 18, 1921.
I DO not regard flesh-food as necessary for us at any
stage and under any clime in which it is possible for human
beings ordinarily to live. I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to
our species We err in copying the lower animal world if
we are superior to it. Experience teaches that animal food is
unsuited to those who would curb their passions.
But it is wrong to over estimate the importance of food
in the formation of character or in subjugating the flesh.
Diet is a powerful factor not to be neglected. But to sum
up all religion in terms of diet, as is often done in India, is as
wrong as it is to disregard all restraint in regard to diet and
to give full reins to one's appetite. Vegetarianism is one of
the priceless gifts of Hinduism. It may not be lightly given
up. It is necessary therefore to correct the error that vege-
tarianism has made us weak in mind or body or passive or
inert in action. The greatest Hindu reformers have been
the activest in their generation and they have invariably
been vegetarians. Who could show greater activity than say
Sfcankara or Dayanand in their times ?
—Young India : Oct. 7, 1926.
VESTED INTEREST 583
THE golden rule to be observed always in this connec-
tion is that you can never be too severe in dealing with
yourself but you must be deliberately liberal in judging
others. For, experience has shown that no matter how
severe we may try to be with regard to ourselves, we shall,
in the result, still be found to have acted partially towards
ourselves, for the simple reason that our unconscious bias
always prepossesses us in our favour and seldom allows the
test to be carried beyond our capacity for endurance. But
in the case of others we do not know their weaknesses and
limitations, which are known only to God who alone can
read our hearts. There is therefore always a danger, with
all our desire to be liberal, of our being betrayed into a
hollow harshness and intolerance when we proceed to apply
our personal standards to others ; and paradoxical though it
may sound, the more liberal, the more patient, the more
considerate we are in such cases, the quicker the results are
likely to be ; they will certainly be more permanent and
lasting. — Harijan : March 1, 1937*
Vested Interest
EVERYONE who knows anything of public finance
knows how extravagant this Government is and how heavy
is the load of debts that is crushing the nation. Everyone
knows also what concessions have been given to foreigners in
utter disregard of the national interest. These cannot
demand, dare not expect recognition from Independent India
under the much abused name of vested interests. All vested
interests are not entitled to protection. The keeper of a
gambling den or of a brothel has no vested interest. Nor
has a Corporation that gambles away the fortunes of a
nation and reduces it to impotence.
—Toung India : Jan. 9, 1930.
IF we contemplate examining so-called vested rights
in the light of India's interests, it is not because of racial
584 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
prejudice but because of vital necessity. Their vested rights
may not smother nascent indigenous enterprise.
—Young India : April 16, 1931.
Vice
WRONG like vice flourishes in secrecy. It dies of sun
light. - Toung India : Feb. 2, 1922.
<s> <$><$>
IT is easier for the average man to run away from evil
than remain in it and still remain unaffected by it. Many
men can shung gog-shops and remain tea-totallers, but not
many can remain in these pestilential places and avoid the
contagion. — Toung India : Aug. 6, 1925.
<$><§><$>
VICE pays a homage to virtue, and sometimes the way
it chooses is to expect virtue, not to fall from its pedestal
even whilst vice is rampant round about.
—Toung India : Jan. 16, 1930.
^S ^o <§>
CRIME and vice generally require darkness for prowl-
ing. They disappear when light plays upon them.
—Harijan : Dec. 31, 1933.
Villages
WE have /until a little ago concentrated on work
in cities and we have arranged our plans according to
the needs of cities. We have to reverse the process now.
The cities are capable of taking care of themselves. It is
the villages we have to turn to. We have to disburse them
of their prejudices, their superstitions, their narrow outlook
and we can do so in no other manner than that of staying
amongst them and sharing their joys and sorrows and
spreading education and intelligent information amongst
them. — Toung India : April 30, 1931.
VIOLENCE 585
I HAVE been saying that if untouchability stays,
Hinduism goes ; even so I would say that if the village
perishes India will perish too. It will be no more India.
Her own mission in the world will get lost. The revival of
the village is possible only when it is no more exploited.
Industrialization on a mass scale will necessarily lead to
passive or active exploitation of the villagers as the problems
of competition and marketing come in. Therefore we have
to concentrate on the village being self-contained, manufac-
turing mainly for us. Provided this character of the
village industry is maintained, there would be no objection
to villagers using even the modern machines and tools that
they can make and can aftord to use. Only they should not
be used as a means of exploitation of others.
—Harijan : Aug. 29, 1936.
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INDIA lives in her villages, not in her cities.
—Harijan : Sept. 19, 1936.
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THE key to Swaraj is not with the cities but with the
villages. When I succeed in ridding the villages of their
poverty, I have won Swaraj for you and for the whole of
India. —Harijan: Nov. 11, 1936.
Violence
BRUTE force has been the ruling factor in the world
for thousands of years, and mankind has been reaping its
bitter harvest all along. He who runs may read. There
is little hope of anything good coming out of it in the
future. If light can come out of darkness, then alone can
love emerge from hatred.
— Satyagraha in South Africa : Page 289
IF India makes violence her creed and I have survived,
I would not care to live in India. She will cease to evoke
any pride in me. My patriotism is subservient to my reli-
586 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
gion. I cling to India like a child to its mother's breast,
because I feel that she gives me the spiritual nourishment I
need. She has the environment that responds to my highest
aspiration. When that faith is gone, I shall feel like an
orphan without hope of ever finding a guardian. Then
the snowy solitude of the Himalaya must give what rest it
:an to my bleeding soul. —Young India : April 6, 1922.
<*> <s> <s>
TO use violence for securing rights may seem an easy
path, but it proves to be thorny in the long run. Those
who live by the sword die also by the sword. The swimmer
often dies by drowning. —Young India : June 8, 1921.
EXPERIENCE convinces me that permanent good
can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. Even if
my belief is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a
fascinating delusion. —Young India : Dec. 11, 1924.
HOWEVER much I may sympathise with and admire
worthy motives, I am an uncompromising opponent of
violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes.
—Young India : Dec. 11, 1924.
<$> <s> <s>
JUST as certain as personal abuse, irritating conduct,
lying, causing hurt and murder are symbols of violence,
similarly courtesy, inoffensive conduct, truthfulness etc., are
symbols of non-violence. —Young India : Dec. 26, 1924.
EVEN if I was assured that we could have independence
by means of violence, I should refuse to have it. It wont
be real independence. —Harijan : Feb. 13, 1937.
I DO not believe in eradicating evil from the human
breast at point of bayonet. The human breast does
aot lend itself to that means. —Harijan : March 13, 1937.
VIRTUE 587
Virtue
THE world, though not itself virtuous pays an uncons-
cious homage to virtue. — Toung India : Feb. 2, 1928«
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LET us not seek to prop virtue by imagining hellish
torture after death for vice and houris hereafter as a reward
for virtue in this life. If virtue has no attraction in itself
it must be a poor thing to be thrown away on the dung
heap. Nature, I am convinced is not so cruel as she seems
to us, who are so often filled with cruelty ourselves. Both
heaven and hell are within us. Life after Death there is,
but it is net so unlike our present experiences as either to
terrify us or make us delirious with joy. 'He is steadfast
who rises above joy and sorrow.' says the Gita. 'The wise
are unaffected either by death or life. These are but faces
of the same coin/ — Young India : Oct. 25, 1928.
<$> <$> <3> ir
THERE comes a time in man's life when virtue itself
becomes vice. Virtue which was virtue in its time, when torn
from the purpose to which it was dedicated, becomes vice.
If our liberty of speech is chocked, the movement for
the freedom of our country from bondage is choked. Then
.;he virtue of sell-restraint is going to become vice.
—Harijan : Sept. 22, 1940.
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TO trast is a virtue. It is weakness that begets distrust.
—Young India : Dec. 31, 1919 .
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We should cease to grow the moment we cease to dis-
criminate between virtue and vice.
— Young India : Sept. 15, 1921.
Voters
MY attempt is to point out that we need an electorate,
which is impartial, independent and intelligent. If the
588 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANBHI
electors do not interest themselves in national aflfcirs and
remain unconcerned with what goes on in their midst, and
if they elect men with whom they have private relations or
Whose aid they need for themselves, this state of things can
do no good to the country ; on the contrary, it will be
harmful. —Young India : June 9, 1920^
Vows
INTERPRETATION of pledges has been a fruitful
source of strife all the world over no matter how explicit
the pledge, people will turn and twist the test to suit their
own purposes. They are to be met with among all classes of
society, from which the rich down to poor, from the prince
down to the peasant. Selfishness turns them blind, and
by the use of the ambiguous middle they deceive themselves
and seek to deceive the world and God. One golden rule
is to accept the interpretation honestly put on the pledge by
the party administering it. Another is to accept the inter-
pretation of the weaker party, where there are two interpre-
tations possible. Rejection of these two rules gives rise to
strife and inequity which are rooted in untruthfulness. He
who seeks truth alone easily follows the golden rule. He
need not seek learned advice for interpretation.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 79*
<& ^» «£>
THE importance of vows grew upon me more clearly
than ever before. I realized that a vow, far from closing
the door to real freedom, opened it. Upto this time I had not
met with success because the will had been lacking, because
I had no faith in myself, no faith in the grace of God, and
therefore my mind had been tossing on the bosterous sea of
doubt. I realized that in refusing to take a vow, man was
drawn into temptations, and that to be bound by a vow
was like a passage from liberatism to a real monogamous
marriage. I believe in effort, I do not want to bind myself
with the vows, is the mentality of weakness and betrays a
VOWS 589
subtle desire for the thing to be avoided or where can be the
difficulty in making a final decision. I vow to flee from the
serpent which I know will bite me, I do not simply
make an effort to flee from him. I know that mere effort
may mean certain death, mere effort means ignorance of the
certain fact that the serpent is bound to kill me. The fact,
therefore, that I could rest content with an effort only,
means that I have not yet clearly realized the necessity of
definite action. 'But supposing my views are changed m the
future, how can I bind myself by a vow ?' such a doubt
often deters us. But that doubt also betrays a lack of clear
perception that a particular thing must be renounced.
That is why Nishkulanand has sung.
^Renunciation without aversion is not lasting.1
Where therefore the desire is gone, a vow of renuncia"
tion is the natural and inevitable fruit.
— My Experiments with Truth : Page 255.
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PERSONALLY I hold that a man, who deliberately and
intelligently takes a pledge and then breaks it, forfeits his
manhood. And just as a copper coin treated with mercury
not only becomes valueless when found out but also makes
its owner liable to punishment, in the same way a man who
lightly pledges his word and then breaks it becomes a
man of straw and fit$ himself for punishment here as well as
hereafter. — Sataygraha in South Africa : Page 165,
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I KNOW that pledges and vows are, and should be,
taken on rare occasions. A man who takes a vow every
now and then is sure to stumble.
— Salayagraha in South Africa : Page 116.
3> <S> <S>
WHEN once a man has pledged himself he need not
hesitate to pledge himself a hundred times. But yet it is no
590 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
uncommon experience to find men weakening in regard to»
pledges deliberately taken and getting perplexed when asked
to put down a verbal pledge in black and white.
— Satayagraha in South Africa : Page 186.
<S> 3> 0
A VOW is a purely religious act which cannot be
taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with
a mind purified and composed and with God as
witncss. —Toung India : Jan. 21, 1919.
ACTS which are not possible by ordinary self-denial,
become possible with the aid of vows which require
extraordinary self-denial. It is hence believed that vows can
only uplift us. —Young India : Jan. 28, 1919.
<S> 3> <3>
IT is certainly better not to take a vow than having
taken it to break it ; one cannot be too cautious about taking
vows. But we hold that the vast mass of mankind need the
binding force of pledges. They build up a man's character.
They are, on the one hand, a recognition of the fickleness of
the human nature and, on the other, an additional help to
strong minds. Every one recognises the excellent effect
produced by temperance pledges. With the support derived
from such pledges many have succumbed to the temptation
to drink. A vow is fixed and unalterable determination to
do a thing, when such a determination is related to some-
thing noble which can only uplift the man who makes the
resolve. A vow is to all other indifferent resolves what a
right angle is to all other angles. And just as a right angle
gives an invisible and correct measure, so does a man of
vows, rightly followed, gives of himself an unvariable and
correct measure. — Young India : June 28, 1919.
ONLY he can take great resolves who has indomit-
able faith in God and has fear of God.
— Harijanijuly 17, 1938.
VOWS 591
MY religion teaches me that a promise once made or a
vow once taken for a worthy object may not be broken.
—Young India: Sept. 9, 1924.
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IT is easy enough to take a vow under a stimulating
influence. But it is difficult to keep to it especially in the
midst of temptation. —Young India : Jan. 22, 1925.
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MY own opinion and that of many others is that pro-
mises or vows are necessary for the strongest of us. A
promise is like a right angle not nearly but exactly 90
degrees. The slightest deflection makes it useless tor the
grand purpose that the right angle serves. A voluntary
promise is like a plumb line keeping a man straight and
warning him when he is going wrong. Rules of general
application do not serve the same purpose as an individual
vow. We find therefore the system of declaration followed
in all large and well conducted institutious. The Viceroy
has to take the oath of office. Members of legislatures have
to do likewise all the world over, and in my opinion rightly
so. A soldier joining an army has to do likewise. More-
over, a written undertaking reminds one of what one has
promised to do. Memory is a very frail thing. The
written word stands for ever.
— Young India : Oct. 1, 1925.
A CORRESPONDENT who seems to be a regular and
careful reader of J\avajiwan writes :
"I spin regularly, but the question is whether or not I should
bind myself to it by a vow. If I take a vow to spin
regularly for hour every day, I suppose I must do an
hour's honest spinning unfailingly, come what may.
Suppose now having taken the vow, I am required to go
out on a long journey, how can I fulfil my vow about
spinning or again, suppose 1 fall seriously ill even then I
must do my spinning, or else be guilty of breaking my
vow before man and God. On the other hand if I do
592 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
not take a vow what guarantee is there that my
resolution would not give way and betray me at a critical
moment ?
"You will perhaps say that one's resolution ought to be
made of sterner stuff. But when even the acknowledged
leaders of the country are seen hourly breaking their
resolutions, what can one expect from the rank and life ?
What are lesser mortals like myself to do ? Would you
kindly icsolve my dilemma ?"
Being accustomed from very childhood to taking vows
I confess I have a strong bias in favour of the practice. It
has come to my rescue in many a crisis. I have seen it save
others from many a pitfall. A life without vows is like a
•ship without anchor or like an edifice that is built on slip-
sand instead of a solid rock. A vow imparts stability,
ballast and firmness to one's character. What reliance can
be placed on a person who lacks these essential qualities ?
An agreement is nothing but a mutual interchange of vows ;
simultaneously one enters into a pledge when one gives one's
word to another.
In old days, the word of most of illustrious persons
was regarded as good as a bond. They concluded trans-
actions involving millions by oral agreements. In fact our
•entire social fabric rests on the sanctity of the pledged word.
The world would go to pieces if there was not this element
of stability, or finality in agreements arrived at. The
Himalayas are immovably fixed for ever in their place. India
would perish if the firmness of the Himalayas gave way. The
sun, the moon and other heavenly bodies move with unerring
regularity. Were it not so human affairs would come to a
standstill. But we know that the sun has been rising regu-
larly at its fixed time for countless ages in the past and will
continue to do so in future. The cooling orb of the moon
will continue always to wax and wane and it has done for
ages past with a clock-work regularity. That is why we call
the sun and the moon to be witness to our affairs. We base
VOWS 595
our calender on their movements, we regulate our time by
their rising and setting.
The same law, which regulates these heavenly bodies,
applies equally to men. A person unbound by vows can
never be absolutely relied upon. It is overweaning pride to
say, "This thing comes natural to me. Why should I bind
myself permanently by vows ? I can well take care of
myself at the critical moment. Why should I take an
absolute vow against wine ? I never get drunk. Why
should I forgoe the pleasure of an occasional cup for
nothing ?" A person who argues like this will never be
weaned from his addiction.
To shirk taking of vows betrays indecision and want of
resolution. One never can achieve anything lasting in this
world by being irresolute. For instance, what faith can you
place in a general or a soldier who lacks resolution and
determination, who says, 'I shall keep guard as long as I
can ?' A householder, whose watchman says that he would
keep watch as long as he can, can never sleep in security.
No general ever won victory by following the principle of
being vigilant so long as he could.
I have before me innumerable examples of spinners at
will. Every one of them has come to grief sooner or later.
On the other hand, sacramental spinning has transformed
the entire life of those who have taken to it ; mountains of
yarn stored up by them tell the tale. A vow is like a right
angle. An insignificant right angle will make all the
difference between ugliness and elegance, solidity and
shakiness of a gigantic structure. Even so stability or un-
stability, purity or otherwise of an entire career may depend
upon the taking of a vow.
It goes without saying that moderation and sobriety are
of the very essence of vow-taking. The taking of vows that
are not feasible or that are beyond one's capacity would
betray thoughtlessness and want of balance. Similarly a
594 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
vow can be made conditional without losing any of its
efficacy or virtue. For instance there would be nothing
wrong about taking a vow to spin for at least one hour
every day and to turn out not less than 200 yards daily
except when one is travelling or is sick. Such a vow would
not only be quite in form but also easy of observance. The
essence of a vow does not consist in the difficulty of its per-
formance but in the determination behind it unflinchingly
to stick to it in the teeth of difficulties.
Self-restraint is the very key-stone of the ethics of vow
taking. For instance, one cannot take a vow of self-indul-
gence, to eat, drink and be merry, in short to do as one
pleases. This warning is necessary because I know of
instances when an attempt was made to cover things of
questionable import by means of vows. In the heyday of
Non-co-operation one even heard of the objection raised;
"How can I resign from Government service when I have
made a covenant with it to serve it ?" Or again, "How can
I close my liquor shop since I have bound myself by contract
to run it lor five years ?" Such questions might appear
puzzling sometimes. But on closer thinking it will be seen
that a vow can never be used to support or justify an
immoral action. A vow must lead one upwards, never
downwards towards perdition.
The correspondent has concluded by having a fling at
the 'acknowledged leaders' of the country and cited their
so-called fickleness to justify his position. This sort of
reasoning only betrays weakness. Once should try to
emulate and imitate only the virtues of one's leaders, never
their faults. Our national leaders do not claim to be
paragons of prefection. They occupy the position of emi-
nence that they do in public life by virtue of certain qualities
which they exhibit in their character. Let us ponder over
those qualities and try to assimilate them, let us not even
hink of their shortcomings. No son can be called a worthy
$on of his father who only imbibes the shortcomings of his
VOWS 595
parents or pleads inability to keep clear of them. It is the
virtues, not the faults, of one's parents that constitute one's
true legacy. A son who only adds to the debts of his
parents would be written down as unworthy. A worthy
son is he who would liquidate their debts and increase the
legacy left by them. —Young India : Aug. 22, 1929.
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Q. ALL agree that mechanical repetition of prayers is worse
than useless. It acts as an opiate on the soul. I often
wonder why you encourage repetition morning and
evening of the eleven great vows as a matter of routine-
May not this have a dulling effect on the moral consci*
ousness of our boys ? Is there no better way of incul .
eating these vows ?
A. Repetitions when they are not mechanical produce
marvellous results. Thus I do not regard the rosary as a
superstition. It is an aid to the pacification of a wandering
brain. Daily repetition of the vow falls under a different
category. It is a daily reminder to the earnest seeker as he
rises and retires that he is under the eleven vows which are
to regulate his conduct. No doubt it will lose its effect if a
person repeats the vows mechanically under the delusion
that the mere repetition will bring him merit. You mac
ask, "Why repeat the vows at all ? You know that you havy
taken them and are expected to observe them." There is
force. in the argument. But experience has shown that a
deliberate repetition gives stimulus to the resolution. Vows
are to the weak mind and soul what tonics are to a weak
body. Just as a healthy body needs no tonics, a strong mind
may retain its healh without the need of vows and the daily
reminder thereof. An examination of the vows will, how-
ever, show that most of us are weak enough to need their
assistance.* —Harijan : May 27, 1936.
Q. I AM a genuine seeker after brahamacharya. But in spite
of all my prayerful effort I am sinking deeper and
5% TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
deeper into self-indulgence. I cannot blame my part-
ner for it. My circumstances do not permit me to
enforce the rule about segregation.
You advocate and believe in the efficacy of vows. You
have said in Harijan that "for the weak in mind and
soul vows are like tonics." But how will you adminis-
ter this tonic to a case like mine who has not the
strength of will to carry out the vow he has taken ?
Had I such a strong will, the necessity for taking
vows would not have arisen.
A. Let me bluntly tell you that I do not believe in your
genuineness, not that you are wilfully lying. You are un-
consciously ungenuinc. If you are genuine, you will at
least observe the rules of the game. You give up your case
when you say you cannot segregate yourself from your wife
for want of room. I have never heard such an excuse. If you
take the vow, you must at least produce the necessary
atmosphere around you for its observance. Everyone who
has successfully carried out the vow has invariably observed
this first condition. If you are living in only one room, you
should go elsewhere or send away your wife or have a
relative to sleep in the same room. The question is how "far
you are determined. It may be that you want to observe
brahamacharya because you have read much about it and
would like to be classed among brahamacharis. I know many
such young men. [f that is your case, you should not make
the attempt. One must have a burning desire to live that
life. If you have it, you will adopt the measures that all
aspirants have invariably adopted. You are then bound to
succeed. — Harijan : June 29, 1940.
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YOUR capacity to keep your vow will deperfd .on the
purity of your life. A gambler or a drunkard, or a dissolute
character can never keep a vow.
—Harijan : Nov. 11, 1936.
WESTERN CIVILIZATION 597
w
Western Civilization
I DO not think that everything Western is to be reject-
ed. I have condemned the Western civilisation in no measur-
ed terms. I still do so, but it does not mean that everything
Western should be rejected. I have learnt a great deal from
the West and I am grateful to it. I should think myself un-
fortunate if contact with and the literature of the West had
no influence on me. — Young India : Oct. 21, 19?ft
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IF any one thinks that the people in the West are in-
nocent of humanity he is sadly mistaken. The ideal of hum-
anity in the West is perhaps lower, but their practice of it is
very much more thorough than ours. We rest content with
lofty ideal and are slow or lazy in its practice. We are wrap-
ped in deep darkness, as is evident from ,our impoverished
cattle and other animals. They are eloquent of our irreligion
rather than of religion. —Young India : Oct. 21, 1926,
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THE distinguishing characteristic of modern civilisation
is an indefinite multiplicity of human wants. The charac-
teristic of ancient civilisation is an imperative restriction
upon and a strict regulating of these wants The modern or
Western insatiableness arises really from want of a living
faith in a future state and therefore also in Divinity. The
restraint of ancient or Eastern civilisation arises from a
belief, often in spite of ourselves, in a future state and the
existence of a Divine Power. The record condensed above is
a warning, if we will take it, against a blind imitation of the
West, which one sees so often in the city life of India and
especially among the educated classes. Some of the imme-
diate and brilliant results of modern inventions are too mad-
dening to resist. But I have no manner of doubt that the
victory of man lies in that resistance. We arc in danger <tf
598 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
bartering away the permanent good for a momentary
pleasure. — Young India : June 2, 1927.
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WISDOM is no monopoly of one continent or one race.
My resistance to Western civilisation is really a resistance to
its indiscriminate and thoughtless imitation based on the
assumption that Asiatics are fit only to copy everything
that comes from the West. I do believe, that if India has
patience enough to go through the fire of suffering and to
resist any unlawful encroachment upon its own civilisation
which, imperfect though it undoubtedly is, has hitherto
stood the ravages of time, she can make a lasting contribu-
tion to the peace and solid progress of the world.
—Young India : Jan. 12, 1928.
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THE whole of the Europen system is based on mutual
distrust and fear. Well did Wallace the contemporary of
Darwin say that the amazing material progress of the West
made little or no difference in the moral condition of
the peoples of , the West. Even liberty in many cases is a
misnomer. —Toung India : Feb. 14, 1929t.
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I WOULD neartily welcome the union of East and
West provided it is not based on brute force.
—Toung India : Oct. 1, 1931.
Wickedness
ONE may detest the wickedness of a brother withou
hating him. Jesus denounced the wickedness of the Scribes,
and the Pharisees, but he did not hate them. He did not
enunciate this law of love for the man and hate for the evil
in him for himself only, but he taught the doctrine for uni-
versal practice. Indeed, I find it in all the scriptures of the
world. — Young India : July 14, 1921.
WIDOWHOOD 599
'JUDGE not lest ye be judged is a golden rule.' Those
whom we regard as wicked as a rule return the compliment
and in their turn accuse us of what we charge them with.
But here again I quite grant the proposition that if one re-
gards another as irrevocably wicked, one is bound ordinarily
to non-co-operate with him, for unfortunately many things
are regulated purely by one's mental condition. If I mis-
take a rope for a snake, I am likely to turn pale with fright
much to the amusement of the bystander who knows that
it is but a rope. — Young India : Dec. 26, 1924.
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AFTER all no one is wicked by nature. And if others
are wicked, are we the less so ? — Harijan : March 30, 1940
Widowhood
IF a young man of 18 being widowed could re-marry
why should not a widow of that age, have the same right ?
Voluntary enlightened widowhood is a great asset for any
nation, as enforced ignorant widowhood is a disgrace.
—Young India : May 2, 1929.
.THE curse of every widow, who is burning within to
re-marry but dare not for fear of a cruel custom, descends
upon Hindu society so long as it keeps the widow under an
unforgivable bondage. — Young India : May 2, 1929.
I HAVE repeatedly said that every widow has as much
right to re-marry as every widower. Voluntary widowhood
is a priceless boon in Hinduism; enforced widowhood is a
curse. And I very much feel that many young widows;
600 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
if they were absolutely free, not so much from the fear of
physical restraint as from the opprobrium of Hindu public
opinion, would re-marry without the slightest hesitation.
—Harijan : June 22, 1935.
Will Power
STRENGTH does not come from physical capacity.
It comes from an indomitable will.
—Young India : Aug. 11, 1920.
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STREAM becomes a mighty power only when it allows
itself to be imprisoned in a strong little reservoir and pro-
duces tremendous motion and carries huge weights by per
mining itself a tiny and measured outlet. Even so have the
youth of the country of their own free will to allow their
inexhaustible energy to be imprisoned, controlled and set
free in strictly meaured and required quantities.
—Toung India : Oct. 3, 1929.
Wisdom
EVEN as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes
so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The
golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and
experience, no matter from whom it comes.
—Harijan : March 28, 1936.
NOT mad rush, but unperturbed calmness brings wis-
dom. This maxim holds as true today as when it was first
propounded ages ago. —Harijan : Oct. 12, 1934.
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WISDOM, it is said, often comes from the mouths of
babes and sucklings. It may be a poetic exaggeration, but
WOMAN 601
there is no doubt that sometimes it does come through
babes. Experts polish it and give it a scientific shape.
—Harijan : Dec. 2, 1937.
IT is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It
is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken
and the wisest might err. — Harijan : Feb. 17, 1940.
Woman
WOMAN, I hold, is the personification of self-sacrifice,
but, unfortunately, to-day, she does not realise what a
tremendous advantage she has over man. As Tolstoy used
to say, they are labouring under the hypnotic influence of
man. If they would realise the strength of non-violence, they
would not consent to be called the weaker sex.
— India's Case For Swaraj : Page 401.
IT is no exaggeration to say that a human being with-
out education is not far removed from an animal. Educa-
tion, therefore, is necessary for women as it is for men. Kot
that the methods of education should be identical in both
cases. In the first place, our State system of education is
full of error, and productive of harm in many respects. It
should be eschewed by men and women alike. Even if it
were free from its present blemishes, I would not regard it
as proper for women from all points of view. Man and
woman are of equal rank, but they are not indentical.
They are a peerless pair, being supplementary to one
another; each helps the other, so that without the one the
existence of the other cannot be conceived, and, therefore,
it follows as a necessary corrollary from these facts, that
anything that will impair the status of either of them will
involve the equal ruin of them both. In framing any scheme
€02 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of women's education, this cardinal truth must be constantly
kept in mind. Man is supreme in the outward activites of
a married pair, and, therefore, in is the fitness of things
he should have greater knowledge thereof. On the
other hand, home life is entirely the sphere of woman, and,
therefore, in domestic affairs, in the upbringing aud edu-
cation of children, women ought to have more knowledge,
Not that knowledge should be divided into watertight com-
partments, or that some branches of knowledge should be
closed to anyone; but unless courses of instrucation are based
on a discriminating appreciation of these basic principles,
the fullest life of man and woman cannot be developed.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 423.
WOMAN is the companion of mant gifted with equal
mental capacities. She has the right to participate in very
minutest detail in the activities of man, and she has an
equal right of freedom and liberty with him.
— Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 423.
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I WILL far rather see the race of man extinct than
chat we should become less than beasts by making the
noblest of God's creation the object of our lust.
— Young India : July 21, 1921.
WOMAN must cease to consider herself the object of
man's lust. The remedy is more in her hands than man's.
She must refuse to adorn herself for men, including her
husband, if she will be an equal partner with man, I can-
aot imagine Sita ever wasting a single moment on pleasing
WOMAN 603
Rama by physical charms. — Young India, : July 21, 1921.
OUR one limb is paralysed. Women have gat to come
up to the level of man. As I said to the ladies at a meet-
ing to-day, they may not copy man in all the wildness of
his nature, but they must come to the level of man in all
that is best in him. —Toung India : Dec. 1, 1927.
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IF you want to play yourt part in the world's affairs
you must refuse to deck yourselves for pleasing man. If I
was born a woman, I would rise in rebellion against any
pretention on the part of man that woman is born to be his
plaything. I have mentally become a woman in order to
steal into her heart. I could not steal into my wife's heart
until I decided to treat her differently than I used to do,
and so I restored to her all her rights by dispossessing
myself of all my so-called rights as her husband. And you
see her to-day as simple as myself. You find no necklaces,
no fineries on her. I want you to be like that. Refuse to
be the slaves of your own whims and fancies, and the slaves
of men. Refuse to decorate yourselves, don't go in for
scents and lavender waters ; if you want to give out the
proper scent, it must come out of your heart, and then you
will captivate not man, but humanity. It is your birthright.
Man is born of woman , he is flesh of her flesh and bone of
her .bone. Come to your own and deliver your message
again, —Toung India : Feb. 20, I920«
THE economic and the moral salvation of India
rests mainly with you. The future of India lies on your
knees, for you will nurture the future generation. You can
bring up the children of India to become simple, God-fear-
ing and brave men and women, or you can coddle them to
be weaklings, unfit to brave the storms of life and used to
foreign fineries which they would find it difficult in after-
life to discard. ' — Toung India : Aug. 1, 192 1§
604 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
EQUALITY of the sexes does not mean equality of
occupations. There may be no legal bar against a woman
hunting or wielding a lance. But she instinctively recoils
from a function that belongs to man. Nature has created
sexes as compliments to each other. Their functions are
defined as are their forms. — Harijan : Dec. 25 1939*
WOMAN is nothing if she is not self-sacrifice and
purity personified. — Young India : Nov. 19, 1925.
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WOMAN is the incarnation of ahimsa. Ahimsa means in-
finite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering.
Who but woman, the mother of man, shows this capacity
in the largest measure? She shows it as she carries the infant
and feeds it during nine months and drives joy in the suffer-
ing involved. What can beat the suffering caused by the
pangs of labour ? But she forgets them in the joy of creation.
Who, again suffers daily so that her babe may wax from day
to day ? Let her transfer that love to the whole of humanity,
let her forget that she ever was or can be the object of man's
lust. And she will occupy her proud position by the side of
man as his mother, maker and silent leader. It is given
to her to teach the art of peace to the warring world thirst-
ing for that nectar r She can become the leader in Satyagraha
which does not require the learning that books give but
does require the stout heart that comes from suffering and
faith.
I am uncompromising in the matter of woman's rights.
In my opinion she should labour under no legal disability
not suffered by man, I should treat the daughters and sons
on a footing of perfect equality.
-Toung India: Oct. 17, 1929.
WOMAN has circumvented man in a variety of ways
in her unconsciously subtle ways, as man has vainly and
WOMAN 605
equally unconsciously struggled to thwart woman in gaining
ascendancy over him. The result is a stalemate. Thus
viewed, it is a serious problem the enlightened daughters of
Bharat Mata are called upon to solve. They may not ape
the manner of the West, which may be uited to its environ-
ment. They must apply methods suited to the Indian
genius and Indian environment. Theirs must be the strong,
controlling, purifying, steadying hand, conserving what is
best in our culture, and unhesitatingly rejecting what is base
and degrading. This is the work of Sitas, Draupadis
Savitris and Damayantis, not of amazons and prudes.
—Toting India : Oct. 17, 1928.
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HINDU culture had erred on the side of excessive
subordination of the wife to the husband, and has insisted
on the complete merging of the wife in the husband. This
has resulted in the husband somtimes usurping and exerci-
sing authority that reduces him to the level of the brute.
—Young India : Oct. 23, 1929.
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MAN has regarded woman as his tool She has learned
to be his tool, and in the end found this easy and pleasurable
to be such, because when one drags another in his fall the
descent is easy* — Hanjan : Jan. 25, 1936
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TO call Ja woman a member of the weaker sex is a
libel. In what way is woman the weaker sex, I do not
know. If the implication is that she lacks the brute instinct
of man, or does not possess it in the same measure as man
the charge may be admitted. But then, woman becomes'
as she is, the nobler sex. If she is weak in striking, she is
strong iii suffering. I have described woman as the em-
bodiment of sacrifice and ahimsa. She has to learn not to
rely on man to protect her virtue or her honour. I do not
know a single instance of a man having ever protected the
virtue of a woman He cannot, even if he would. Rama
certainly did not protect the virtue of Sita, not rhe five
606 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
Pandawas of Draupadi. Both these noble women protected
their own virtue by the sheer force of their purity. No
person loses honour or self-respect but by his consent. A
woman no more loses her honour or virtue, because a brute
renders her senseless and ravishes her, than a man loses his
because a wicked woman administers to him a stupefying
drug and makes him do what she likes.
—Harijan : Nov. 14, 1936
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1 SUGGEST that before you put your pens to paper,
think of woman as your own mother, and I assure you the
chasest literature will flow from your pens, even like the
beautiful rain from heaven which waters the thirsty earth
below. Remember that a woman was your mother, before
a woman became your wife. Far from quenching their
spiritual thirst, some writers stimulate their passions, so
much so that poor ignorant women waste their time wonder-
ing how they might answer to the description our fiction
gives of them. Are detailed description of their physical
form an essential part of literature. I wonder ? Do you find
anything of the kind in the Upanishads, the Quran or the
Bible ? And yet, do you know that the English language
would be empty without the Bible ? Three parts Bible, and
one part Shakespeare is the description of it. Arabic would
be forgotten without the Quran. And, think of Hindi
without Tulsidas. Do you find in it anything like what you
find in the present-day literature about women.
—Harijan : Nov. 21, 1936*
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I BELIEVE, in the proper education of women. But I
do not believe that woman will not make her contribution
to the world by mimicing or running a race with man.
She can run the race but she will not rise to the great
heights she is capable of by mimicing man. She has to be
the complement of man. —Harijan : Feb. 27, 1937.
WOMAN 607
MAN has converted her into a domestic drudge and an
instrument of his pleasure, instead of regarding her as his
helpmate and better half ! The result is a semi-paralysis of
our society. Woman has rightly been called the mother of
the race. We owe it to her and to ourselves to undo the
great wrong that we have done her. — Harijan : Feb. 12, 1939.
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ONLY the toad under the harrow knows where it
pinches him. Therefore, ultimately, woman will have to
determine with authority what she needs. My own opinion
is, that just as fundamentally man and woman are one, their
problem must be one in essence. The soul in both is the
same. The two live the same life, have the same feelings.
Each is a complement of the other. The one cannot live
without the other's active help.
But, somehow or other, man has dominated woman
from ages past, and so woman has developed an inferior-
ity complex. She has believed in the truth of man's inter-
ested teaching that she is inferior to him. But the seers
among men have recognised her equal status.
—Harijan ; Feb. 24, 1940.
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IN my opinion, it is degrading both for man and
woman, that woman should be called upon or induced to-
forsake the hearth, and shoulder the rifle for the protection
of that hearth. It is a reversion to barbarity and the
beginning of the end. In trying to ride the horse that man
rides, she brings herself and him down. The sin will be on
man's head for tempting or compelling his companion to
desert her special calling. There is as much bravery in
keeping one's home in good order and condition, as there is
in defending it against attack from without.
—Harijan : Feb. 24, 1940,
^ ^ ^
THERE is as much reason for man to wish that he was
born a woman, as for woman to do otherwise. But the
<608 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
wish is fruitless. Let us be happy in the state to which we
are born, and do the duty for which nature has destined us.
—Harijan : Feb. 24, 1940.
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WHERE there is a non-violent atmosphere, where
there is the constant teaching of ahimsa, woman will not
regard herself as dependent, weak or helpless. She is not
really helpless when she is really pure. Her purity makes
her conscious of her strength. I have always held that it is
physically impossible to violate a woman against her will.
The outrage takes place only when she gives way to fear, or
does not realise her moral strength. If she cannot meet the
assailiant's physical might, her purity will give her the
strength to die before he succeeds in violating her. Take
the case of Sita. Physically she was a weakling before
Ravana, but her purity was more than a match even for his
giant might. He tried to win her with all kinds of allure-
ments but could not carnally touch her without her consent.
On the other had, if a woman, depends on her own physical
strength, or upon a weapon she possesses, she is sure to be
discomfited whenever her strength is exhausted.
— Harijan : Sept. 1, 1940.
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WOMAN is described as man's better half. As long as
she has not the same rights in law as man, as long as the
birth of a girl does not receive the same welcome as that
of a boy, so long we should know that India is suffering
from partial paralysis. Suppression of woman is a denial
of Akimsa. —Harijan : Aug. 18, 1940.
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IT is my firm conviction that a fearless woman who
fcnows that her purity is her best shield can never be dis-
honoured. However beastly the man, he will bow in shame
before the flame of her dazzling purity.
— Harijan : March 1, 1942.
WOMAN 609
WOMAN is the companion of man, gifted with equal
mental capacities. She has the right to participate in every
minutest detail in the activities of man and she has an
equal right of freedom and liberty with him,
—Speeches and Writings of Mahatma Gandhi : Page 213.
WOULD that woman realize the power she has
latent in her for good, if she has also for mischief. It is in her
power to make the world more livable both for her and her
partner whether as father, son or husband, if she would
cease to think of herself as weak and fit only to serve as a
doll for man to play with. If society is not to be destroyed
by insane wars of nation against nations and still more
insane wars on its moral foundations, the woman will have
to play her part not manfully, as some are trying to do, but
womanfully. She won't better humanity by vying with man
•n his ability to destroy life mostly without purpose.
1 —Harijan : Nov. 16, 1936.
I AM firmly of opinion that India's salvation depends
on the sacriace and enlightment of her women. In many of
the women's meetings I used to address, I emphasised the
facts that when we wanted to speak of our ancient heroes
and heroines or gods and godesses we would name the latter
first e.g., Sita Ram, Radha Krishna and not Ram Sita or
Krishna Radha. This practice is not without its signifi-
cance. Women used to be honoured and their work and
worth were regarded as of special value. Let us continue
the tradition in letter and spirit. —Harijan : Dec. 27, 1936.
MORE often than not a woman's time is taken up,
not by the performance of essential domestic duties, but in
catering for the egoistic pleasure of her lord and master and
610 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
for her own vanities. To me, this domestic slavery of
woman is a symbol of our barbarism. In my opinion, the
slavery of the kitchen is a remanant of barbarism mainly. It
is high time that our womankind was freed from this
incubus. Domestic work ought not to take the whole of a
woman's time. — Harijan : June 8, 1940.
Work
WE shall be judged not by our words, but solely by
our deeds. —Toung India : March 18, 1919.
<^ <$> <s>
INDEED a sincere worker prefers work to responsibility
of office and by not being on the executive escapes the
terrible wranglings that take place therein.
—Young India : July 3, 1924.
<s> <s> <s>
TIME must work in their favour, for it always does in
favour of honest and industrious workers.
—Toung India : May 21, 1925.
<$> <s> <s>
PRAYERFUL well-meaning effort never goes in vain,
and man's success lies only in such an effort. The result is
in His hands. * —Toung India : June 17, 1926.
Working Committee
THE Congress is a paramount authority. The Working
Committee is its creature. — Harijan : April 9, 1931.
^ ^ ^
I ATTEND the Working Committee meetings not to
identify myself with its resolutions or even its general policy.
I attend in the pursuit of my mission of non-violence. So
long as they want my attendance. I go there to emphasize
non-violence in their acts and through them in those of
Congressmen. We pursue the same goal. They all of them
would go the whole length with me if they could, but they
WORRY 611
want to be true to themselves and to the country which they
represent for the time being, even as I want to be true to
myself. I know that the progress of non-violence is seemingly
a terribly slow progress. But experience has taught me that
it is the surest way to the common goal. There is deliverance
neither for India nor for the world through clash of arms.
Violence, even for vindication of justice, is almost played
out. With that belief I am content to plough a lonely
furrow, if it is to be my lot that I have no co-sharer in the out
and out belief in non-violence. — Harijan : Aug. 26, 1939.
<s> <s> <§>
SO far as the Working Committee is concerned, I do
attend its meetings whenever I am required to do so. I do
influence its decision in the matters that may be referred
to me and never in any others. Many sittings of the com-
mittee I do not attend at all. Of many of its resolutions, 1
ha\e no knowledge except after they are passed and that
through the press. This was the arrangement when I first
severed my legal connection with the Congress. What hold I
have on the committee is purely moral. My opinion pevails
only to the extent that I carry conviction. Let me give out
the secret that often my advice makes no appeal to the
members. For instance, if I had my way, the Congress would
be reduced to the smallest compass possible. It would consist
of a few chosen servants removable at the will of the nation
but getting the willing co-operation of the millions in the
programme, they may put before the nation. But this is too
drastic and too undemocratic for Congressmen.
—Harijan : Aug. 12, 1939,
Worry
THERE is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one
who has any faith in God should be ashamed to won*)
about anything whatsoever. It is a difficult rule no doubt foi
the simple reason, that faith in God with the majority oi
mankind is either an intellectual belief or a blind belief, a
612 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
kind of superstitious fear of something indefinable. But to
ensure absolute freedom from worry requires a living utter
faith which is a plant of slow, almost unperceived, growth and
requires to be constantly watered by tears that accompany
genuine prayer. They are the tears of a lover who cannot
brook a moment's separation from the loved one, or of the
penitent who knows that it is some trace of impurity in him
that keeps him away from the loved one.
— Young India : Sept. 1, 1927.
<S> <$> 3>
WHY worry one's head over a thing that is inevitable?
Why die before one's death? — Young India : Nov. 27, 1936
Wrong
MY soul refuses to be satisfied so long as it is a helpless
witness of a single wrong or a single misery. But it is not
possible for me a weak, frail, miserable being, to mend
every wrong or to hold myself free of blame for all the
wrong I see. The spirit in me pulls one way, the flesh in me
pulls in the opposite direction. There is freedom from the
action of these two forces, but that freedom is attainable
only by slow and painful stages. I cannot attain freedom by
a mechanical refusal to act, but only by intelligent action
in a detached manner. This struggle resolves itself into an
incessant crucification of the flesh so that the spirit may
become entirely free. —Toung India : Nov. 17, 1921.
Y
Yajna or Sacrifice
WE make frequent use of the word yajna. We have
raised spinning to the rank of a daily mahayajna (primary
sacrifice). It is therefore necessary to think out the various
implications of the
Yajna means an act directed to the welfare of others,
done without desiring anv return for it. whether of a tern-
YAJNA OR SACRIFICE 613
widest sense, and includes thought and word, as well as
deed. 'Others' embraces not only humanity but all life.
Therefore, and also from the standpoint of ahimsa, it will
not be ayajna to sacrifice lower animals even with a view
to the service of humanity. It does not matter that animal
sacrifice is alleged to find a place in the Vedas. It is enough
for us that such sacrifice cannot stand the fundamental tests
of Truth and Non-violence. I readily admit my incompe-
tence in Vedic scholarship. But the incompetence, so far as
this subject is concerned, does not worry me, because even
if the practice of animal sacrifice be proved to have been a
feature of Vedic society, it can form no precedent for a votary
of ahimsa.
Again, a primary sacrifice must be an act which con-
duces the most to the welfare of the greatest number in the
widest area, and which can be performed by the largest
number of men and women with the least trouble. It will
not therefore be yajna, much less a mahqyyna, to wish or to
do ill to anyone else, even in order to serve a so-called
higher interest. And the Gita teaches, and experience testi-
fies, that all action that cannot come under the category of
yajna promotes bondage.
The world cannot subsist for a single moment without
yajna in this sense, and therefore the Gita, after having dealt
with true wisdom in the second chapter, takes up in the
third the means of attaining it, and declares in so many
words that yajna came with the Creation itself. This body
therefore has been given us only in order that we may serve
all Creation with it. And, therefore, says the Gita, he who
eats without offering yajna eats stolen food. Every single
act of one who would lead a life of purity should be in the
nature of yajna. Tajna having come to us with our birth,
we are debtors all our lives, and thus for ever bound to
serve the universe. And even as a bondslave receives food,
clothing and so on from the master whom he serves, so should
61* TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
we gratefully accept such gifts as may be assigned to us by
the Lord of the Universe. What we receive must be called
a gift ; for as debtors we are entitled to no consideration for
the discharge of four obligations. Therefore we may not
blame the Master if we fail to get it. Our body is His to be
cherished or cast away according to His will. This is not a
matter for complaint ; on the contrary, it is a
natural and even a pleasant and desirable state, if only we
realise our proper place in God's scheme. One does indeed
need strong faith, if one would experience this supreme
bliss. Do not worry in the least about yourself y leave all worry to
God, — this appears to be the commandment in all religions.
This need not frighten anyone. He who devotes him-
self to service with a clear conscience will day-by-day grasp
the necessity for it in greater measure, and will continually
grow richer in faith. The path of service can hardly be
trodden by one, who is not prepared to renounce self-interest
and to recognise the conditions of his birth. Consciously or
unconsciously everyone of us does render some service or
other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deli-
berately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger,
and will make not only for our own happiness, but that of
the world at large., — From Yeravda Mandir,
I WROTE about yajna last week, but feel like writing
more about it. It will perhaps be worthwhile further to con-
sider a principle which has been created along with mankind.
Yajna is a duty to be performed, or service to be rendered, all
the twenty four hours of the day, and hence a maxim like
fl^pCT^iq- ^gfj f*4j^*i : | is inappropriate, if ^T^ri* has any
taste of favour about it. To serve without desire is to favour
not others, but ourselves, even as in discharging a debt we
serve only ourselves, lighten our burden and fulfil, our duty.
Again, not only the good, but all of us are bound to place our
resources at the disposal of humanity. And if such is the law,
as evidently it is, indulgence ceases to hold a place in life and
YAJNA OR SACRIFICE 615
gives way to renunciation. The duty of renunciation differ-
entiates mankind from the beast.
Some object, that life thus understood becomes dull and
devoid of art, and leaves no room for the householder. But
renunciation here does not mean abandoning the world and
retiring into the forest. The spirit of renunciation should
rule all the activities of life. A house-holder does not cease
to be one, if he regards life as a duty rather than as an in-
dulgence. A Merchant, who operates in the sacrificial
spirit, will have crores passing through his hands, but he
will, if he follows the law, use his abilities for service. He
will therefore not cheat or speculate, will lead a simple life,
will not injure a living soul and will lose millions rather than
harm anybody. Let no one run away with the idea, that
this type of merchant exists only in my imagination. Fortu-
nately for the world, it does exist in the West as well as in
the East. It is true, such merchants may be counted on
one's fingers' ends, but the type ceases to be imaginary, as
soon as even one living specimen can be found to answer to
it. All of us know of a philanthropic tailor in Wadhwan.
I know of one such barber. Every one of us knows such a
weaver. And if we go deeply into the matter, we shall
come across men in every walk of life, who lead dedicated
lives. No doubt these sacrificers obtain their livelihood by
their work. But livelihood is not their objective, but only
a by-product of their vocation. Motilal was a tailor at first
and continued as tailor afterwards. But his spirit was
changed, and his work was transmuted into worship. He
began to think about the welfare of others, and his life be-
came artistic in the real sense of the term. A life of sacrifice
is the pinnacle of art, and is full of true joy. Yajna is no
yajna if one feels it to be burdensome or annoying. Self
indulgence leads to destruction, and renunciation to immor-
ality. Joy has no independent existence. It depends upon
our attitude to life. One man will enjoy theatrical scenery,
another the ever new scenes which unfold themselves in the
616 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
tsky. Joy, therefore, is a matter of individual and national
education. We shall relish things which we have been
aught to relish as children. And illustrations can be easily
cited of different national tastes.
Again, many sacrificcrs imagine that they are free to
receive from the people every thing they need, and many
things they do not need, because they are rendering disin-
terested service. Directly this idea sways a man, he ceases
to be a servant, and becomes a tyrant over the people.
One who would serve will not waste a thought upon his
own comforts, which he leaves to be attended to or neglected
by his Master. He will not therefore encumber himself
with everything that comes his way, he will take only
what he strictly needs and leave the rest. He will be
calm, free from anger and unruffled in mind even if he finds
himself inconvenienced. His service, like virtue, is its own
reward, and he will rest content with it.
Again, one dare not be negligent in service, or be behind
hand with it. He, who thinks, that one must be diligent
only in one's personal business, and unpaid public business
may be done in any way and at any time one chooses, has
still to learn the very rudiments of the science of sacrfice.
Voluntary service of others demands the best of which one
is capable, and must take precedence over service of self. In
fact, the pure devotee consecrates himself to the service of
humanity without any reservation whatever.
— From Yerwada Mandir.
YATNA is a word full of beauty and power. Hence
with the growth of knowledge and experience and with the
change of time its meaning is likely to grow and change.
Tajna literally mean worship; hence sacrifice; hence any
sacrifical act or any act of service. And in this sense every
age may and should have its own particular Tajna.
For mankind lives by Tajna, sacrifice. But all the Tajnas
described in the Shastras cannot and should not be revived.
TO THE ZAMINDARS 617
Some of the rites that go under that name cannot be de-
fended. I even doubt whether the meaning that is put upon
some of those rites to-day was ever put upon them in Vedic
times and even if there be no room for doubt, some of them
cannot stand the test of reason or morality. Those versed in
the scriptures say that in ancient times our ancestors perform-
ed human scrifices. Are they possible today ? And a horse
sacrifice would be ridiculous. Again it is needless to can-
vass whether yajnas purify the air or not; for the value of
a religious rite cannot be measured by considering whether
it produces a result like purifying the air. Modern science is
likely to be more helpful in devising means for purifying the
air. The principles are absolute and irrespective of space and
time. Practices change with place and time.
— Young India : May 13, 1926.
To The Zamindars
THE Congress will stand by you certainly. But you
will have to make your life correspond to your surroundings.
In Bengal some years ago I was the guest of a Zamindar
who served me my milk and fruit in gold bowls and plates.
The good host naturally thought, that he was doing me the
greatest honour by placing before me his costliest plates. He
could not know what was passing through my mind. "Whers
did he get these golden plates from ? I was asking myself,
and the answer I got was: "From the substance of the ryots.'*
How then could I reconcile myself to those costly luxuries ?
I would not mind your using gold plates provided your
tenants were comfortable enough to afford silver plates,
but where their life is one long drawn out agony, how dare
you have those luxuries ? You will remember, how, fifteen
years ago, on the occasion of the opening of the Hindu
University, I shocked the Rajas and Maharajas by a reference
to their glittering pomp and glory, and raised quite an up-
roar. My views are the same today; only experience and life
618 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
among the humble folk have confirmed them all the more.
—Young India : May 28, 1931,
^^ ^^ ^^
THE Zamindars would do well to take the time by
the forelock. Let them cease to be mere rent collectors.
They should become trustees and trusted fnends of their
tenants. They should limit their privy purse. Let them
forego the questionable requisites they take from the ten-
antain shape of forced gifts on marriage and other occasions
or nazrana on transfer of holdings from one kisan to an-
other or on restoration to the same kisan after eviction for
non-payment of rent. They should give them fixity of
tenure, take a lively interest in their wellfare, provide well
managed schools for their childern, night school for adults,
hospitals and dispensaries for the sick, look after the sanita-
tion of villages and in a variety of ways make them feel
that they the Zamindars are their true friends taking only
a fixed commission for their manifold services. In short
they must justify their position. They should trust Congress-
men. They may themselves become Congressmen and
know that the Congress is a bridge between the
people and the Government. All who have the
true welfare of the people at heart can harness the
services of the Congress. Congressmen will on their part
see to it that kisans scrupulously fulfil their obligations to
the Zamindars. I mean not necessarily,the statuary but the
obligations which they have themselves admitted to be just.
They must reject the doctrine that their holdings are absolu-
tely theirs to the exclusion of the Zamindars. They are or
should be members of a joint family in which the Zamindar
is the head guarding their rights against encroachment.
Whatever the law may be, the Zamindar to be defensible
must approach the conditions of a joint family.
— Young India : May 28, 1931,
<$» <§> <$>
"THE difference between your view and mine is based
on the question whether the Zamindari System is to be
TO THE ZAMINDARS 619
mended or ended. I say it should be mended, and if it
cannot be mended, it would end itself. You say that it is
incapable of being mended." In these words Gandhiji sum-
med up the difference between the Socialist school, and what
may be called the Satyagrahi school, before an informal
meeting of Calcutta Congressmen. At the root of the various
questions that arise on the subject lies this fundamental
difference, and the answers to those questions naturally
reflect the philosophy which the replier holds. Thus one
of the questions that puzzles many is :
"The Zamindars and mahajans are the instruments of
the bureaucracy. They have always sided with it and are
an obstacle to our progress and freedom. Why should not
the obstacle be removed ?"
To this Gandhiji's reply reflecting his philosophy was
this; "They are indeed part and parcel of the bureaucracy.
But they are its helpless tools. Must they for ever remain
so ? We may do nothing to put them away from us. If they
change their mentality, their services can be utilized for the
nation. If they will not change, they will die a natural
death. If we have non-violence in us, we will not frighten
them. We have to be doubly careful when the Congress
has power."
Q. — But cannot we say the system of zamindari is an
anachronism and should go, by non-violent means of
course ?
A. — Of course we can. The question is 'must we ?T
Why can we not say to the Zamindars, "These are the
evils which we ask you to remove yourselves ?" I admit that
this presumes trust in human nature.
Q. — Would you say that the permanent settlement
should remain ?
A. — No, it has to go. The way to make the kisans
happy and prosperous is to educate them to know the reason
620 TEACHINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI
of their present condition and how to mend it. We may
show them the non-violenet way or the violent. The later
may look tempting, but it is the way to perdition in the Jong
run.
Q. — But don't you agree that the land belongs to him
who tills it ?
A. — I do. But that need not mean that the zamin-
dar should be wiped out. The man who supplies
brains and metal is as much a tiller as the one who labours
with his hands. What we aim at, or should, is to remove
the present terrible inequality between them.
Q. — But the mending process may be very long.
A — Seemingly the longest process is often the shortest.
Q. — But why not parcel out the land among the tillers ?*
A. — That is a hasty thought. The land is today in
their hands. But they know neither their rights nor how
to exercise these. Supposing they told neither to move out of
the land nor to pay the dues to the zamindar, do you think
their misery would be over ? Surely much will still re-
main to be done. I suggest that that should be undertaken
now and the rest will follow as day follows night.
—Harijan : April 23, 1938.
i-ND
JUST OUT !
TAGORE & GANDHI ARGUE
Edited by JAG PARVESH CHANDER
Interchanges of thought between Rabin-
dranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi on
several important issues, and their distinc-
tive traits of outlook are revealed in this
book, which contains a carefully gleaned
collection of articles and letters represen-
tative of the two leaders' viewpoints. The
subtle shades that distinguished their atti-
tude and approach to political and econo.
mic problems and the difference in their
ideas on topics like Non-co-operation, the
Charkha cult and students' role in politics,
afford an interesting study, in the light of
the common bonds that held them to-
gether. — The Hindu : Madras.
Price Bs. 3/~
Obtainable from the
Indian rrinfinq Work*
Kacheri Road, Lahore
NOW READY
ETHICS OF FASTING
M. K. GANDHI
Edited by JAG PARVESH CHANDER
Ethics of Fasting is the first comprehensive book on
the Gandhian philosophy of fasting. The necessity of
fasts is not understood by modern men and women.
Gandhiji has attached the greatest importance to fasting
in his evervday round of life. An occasional fast serves
as an antidote to an over- worked stomach. Its efficacy
is acknowledged and advised even by the physicians.
Fasting is also the best method of self purification.
When passions are controlled, the soul thrives and
prospers ; fasting is the surest way to eradicate the
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Fasting is closely interlinked with the practice of
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Price Rs. 2/8/-
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