It would be a mistaken impression, however, to suppose that Gandhi devoted these last months of his life exclusively to social and humanitarian tasks. Through this constant stream of visitors he was able to keep in remarkably close touch with Indian opinion and continued to play a most important role as the principal adviser of the Indian Government on all major political issues. Scarcely any important decision was taken without his prior advice, whether the subject was the movement and rehabilitation of refugees, Congress policy or the Kashmir issue. And when he disagreed with any decision taken it was not long, as in the recent case of the non-implementation of the Indo-Pakistan financial agreement, before he took determined and successful steps to have it revoked—Gandhi entered upon what proved to be the last of his many fasts. His action immediately evoked expressions of goodwill from all over the world including Pakistan and on the third day of the fast the Indian Government as a gesture to him announced their willingness, in flat contradiction to their determination of a few days previously, to implement the recently concluded Indo-Pakistan financial agreements. Three days later on 18th January, Gandhi agreed to break his fast on receiving assurances from all communities in Delhi that Muslim life, property and religion would be both respected and protected.
The success of the Delhi fast would cost Gandhi his life. His effective pressure on the new Indian government to meet payments owed to Pakistan and on Hindus to cease persecution of Muslims persuaded his extremist Hindu assassins that they must wait no longer. Yet Gandhi’s power was not finished: it was his murder, more than any other single event, that finally shamed his community into ending India’s civil war. Symon concluded his report with this judgment: “Gandhi in these latter months genuinely came to believe that the future well-being of the Indian Union was entirely contingent on communal concord and that, if need be, he was prepared to sacrifice his life for this cause” [IOR/L/I/1/1379. A.C.B. Symon to Noel-Baker, New Delhi, February 4, 1948, British Commonwealth Affairs, No. 093].
After Gandhi made this sacrifice and the world rose to assess his life, Britons familiar with India tried earnestly to express how much had been lost. E. M. Forster, who had observed the Indian independence movement firsthand long before writing A Passage to India, contrasted Gandhi’s “mature goodness” as a leader with the “blustering schoolboys” among his contemporary politicians. Forster concluded that Gandhi “was not only good. He made good, and ordinary men all over the world now look up to him in consequence…. ‘A very great man’ I have called him. He is likely to be the greatest of our century.” Edward Thompson, an Oxford historian, wrote how after he had talked at length with Gandhi, “The conviction came to me, that not since Socrates has the world seen his equal for absolute self-control and composure… he will be remembered as one of the very few who have set the stamp of an idea on an epoch. That idea is non-violence, which has drawn out powerfully the sympathy of other lands.” Then Thompson concluded with his hope and belief that “a sane and civilized relationship” might develop between Britain and India. “If that should come to pass, when the insanity now ravaging the world has passed away, then my country, as well as India, will look on this man as one of its greatest and most effective servants and sons” (Mahatma Gandhi, ed. S. Radhakrishnan, 1956).
Thompson thus foresaw the end that Gandhi most desired, the mutual redemption of England and India from their long and painful experience of colonialism. With satyagraha, Gandhi argued, there could be neither enemies nor losers, but only, in the end, victory for all. This is the demonstrable virtue of nonviolence.
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INTRODUCTION
Real swaraj [freedom] is self-rule or self control. The way to it is satyagraha; the power of truth and love…
In my opinion, we have used the term “swaraj” without understanding its real significance. I have endeavoured to explain it as I understand it, and my conscience testifies that my life henceforth is dedicated to its attainment.
—M.K. Gandhi,
Hind Swaraj, 19091
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948) was called “Mahatma” (“Great Soul”) because of his extraordinary achievements as leader of the Indian movement for independence. Gandhi was not primarily a theorist but a reformer and activist. When pressed for a treatise on his philosophy, he protested that “I am not built for academic writings. Action is my domain.”2 Yet he was guided by values and ideas that remained remarkably enduring throughout his life. Chief among them were his unique concepts of freedom and power, or, to use his terms, of swaraj and satyagraha. As seen from his statement quoted above, these were closely connected ideas, related to each other as means to end. He did, as he promised in 1909, devote his life to the pursuit of swaraj and he redefined the concept by insisting that individual freedom and social responsibility were no more antithetical than self-realization and self-restraint. In his pursuit of freedom he transformed our conception of power through his practice of nonviolence and satyagraha. Today the Mahatma has come to mean innumerable things to multitudes around the world. At least one of his important achievements was to show how the use of nonviolent power may clarify and enlarge our understanding of freedom.
Freedom as Swaraj: Redefinitions
In the heat of India’s struggle for independence from British rule, the goal of swaraj was constantly invoked. It often meant simply freedom for India. But Gandhi argued that the word should mean more than political independence. When in 1931 he was asked to define the term precisely, he said it was not easily translated into a single English word. But he then went on to explain its meaning as it had evolved since the beginning of the nationalist movement:
The root meaning of swaraj is self-rule. Swaraj may, therefore, be rendered as disciplined rule from within…. ‘Independence’ has no such limitation. Independence may mean license to do as you like. Swaraj is positive. Independence is negative…. 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.3
When Gandhi invoked ancient Vedic tradition in this way to define swaraj, he knew that it would allow for interpreting the idea of freedom in two distinct senses. Swaraj meant literally “self-rule” and could denote, in a strict political sense, a sovereign kingdom’s freedom from external control.4 Or it could mean freedom in a spiritual sense as being free from illusion and ignorance. From this perspective, one is liberated as one gains greater self-knowledge and consequent self-mastery. Obsessions with money or other means of domination become addictive forms of human bondage; freedom comes as we learn through self-discipline to rule ourselves. Thus The Bhagavad-Gita, Gandhi’s primary text of Hinduism, saw the liberated individual as one who “acts without craving, possessiveness,” and “finds peace” in awareness of the “infinite spirit,” thereby being “freed from delusion.”5 The Chandogya Upanishad, like the Gita, defined freedom in a spiritual sense: “self-governing autonomy” and “unlimited freedom in all worlds,” were the traits of swaraj in the sage. As in the Gita, this liberation evolved from a higher consciousness, an awareness of the unity of all being, the identity of oneself with the universal Self or Atman.6
This philosophy which related spiritual freedom or swaraj to a perception of the unity or oneness of life became the source of a vital stream of Gandhi’s ideas: his conceptions of nonviolence, truth, and tolerance flow from it. And each of these important ideas, together with swaraj, denoted individual self-discipline. The traditional sage’s “unlimited freedom” flowed from an enlightened self-restraint. Because the sage perceived a spiritual equality in the sacred connectedness of all life, an infatuation with power or drive to dominate others violated that vision; in their stead came self-control and an expansive sense of social duty. Thus The Bhagavad-Gita acclaimed the liberated sage as “the man of discipline” and affirmed that: “Arming himself with discipline, seeing everything with an equal eye, he sees the self in all creatures and all creatures in the self.”7 No lines from the Gita
were more essential for Gandhi’s idea of swaraj.
These were the meanings of swaraj—political and spiritual—that came from India’s ancient tradition into the twentieth century to inspire the independence movement with a philosophy of freedom. But Gandhi was not the first Indian nationalist to interpret the idea of swaraj for the movement. The nationalist movement had begun in the late nineteenth century and India had its philosophers of freedom before Gandhi. Among these political leaders, swaraj at first implied no more than political liberty or national independence. Prominent leaders of the Indian National Congress like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Dadabhai Naoroji meant by swaraj only this. In 1906, Naoroji, then elder statesman of the Indian National Congress, proclaimed the goal of swaraj as political autonomy in these terms:
We do not ask any favours. We want only justice. Instead of going into any further divisions or details of our rights as British citizens, the whole matter can be comprised in one word—“self-government” or Swaraj like that of the United Kingdom or the Colonies.8
Soon after this, though, other Indian theorists developed further the meaning of swaraj. They argued along the lines stated later by Gandhi, that swaraj must mean more than just independence. “Self-rule” required what The Bhagavad-Gita and Upanishads demanded, knowledge of the individual self. Only this knowledge could produce a higher form of spiritual freedom, that is, freedom from the illusion of separateness and freedom to realize the universal Self. The aim of these theorists was not, of course, to discard the goal of Indian independence but to forge a synthesis of two meanings of freedom, political (“external”) and spiritual (“internal”) liberation.
Aurobindo Ghose and Bipin Chandra Pal, both Bengali theorists from the extremist faction of the Indian Congress, were the first to shape this synthesis that Gandhi eventually adopted. They insisted that swaraj was too sacred a word to be translated as the Western notion of political liberty. Ghose argued that “Swaraj as a sort of European ideal, political liberty for the sake of political self-assertion, will not awaken India.” An ideal of “true Swaraj for India” must derive from the Vedantic concept of “self-liberation.”9 Pal took the idea of swaraj still further by defining it as “the conscious identification of the individual with the universal.” Its correct meaning derived not from Indian liberals like Dadabhai Naoroji but “in the Upanishads to indicate the highest spiritual state, wherein the individual self stands in conscious union with the Universal or the Supreme Self. When the Self sees and knows whatever is as its own self, it attains swaraj: so says the Chandogya Upanishad.” Pal then contrasted this Vedantic conception of swaraj with the modern European notion of freedom, arguing as Ghose did the superiority of the classical Indian view:
“Indeed, the idea of freedom as it has gradually developed in Europe ever since old Paganism was replaced by Christianity with its essentially individualistic ethical implications and emphasis, is hardly in keeping with the new social philosophy of our age. Freedom, independence, liberty [as defined in Europe] are all essentially negative concepts. They all indicate absence of restraint, regulation and subjection. Consequently, Europe has not as yet discovered any really rational test by which to distinguish what is freedom from what is license.” Western thought should learn from the Indian philosophy of freedom because it is not negative but positive: “It does not mean absence of restraint or regulation or dependence, but self-restraint, self-regulation, and self-dependence.” This follows from the core principle that “the self in Hindu thought, even in the individual, is a synonym for the Universal.”10
In this analysis of swaraj and freedom, the Bengali theorists set the ideological foundations for Gandhi’s construction. As Pal, Ghose, and eventually Gandhi conceived it, the idea of swaraj had three distinct components. First, while it pretended to reject the European liberal concept of freedom as “negative,” in fact it accepted that idea as one essential element of swaraj. Freedom for India, they believed, must include complete independence from England and after that guarantee the basic civil liberties that British liberalism had preached but denied Indians in practice. This was fundamental to their vision of an independent India. Gandhi later asserted that “Civil liberty consistent with the observance of non-violence is the first step towards swaraj. It is the breath of political and social life. It is the foundation of freedom. There is no room for dilution or compromise.”11
Yet, if civil liberty was a necessary condition for swaraj, it could not be deemed sufficient: it lacked an essential correlate of social responsibility. Thus, the next part of their thinking about swaraj was a criticism of the liberal idea of liberty. They argued that Europeans saw the freedom of self-realization as mere self-aggrandizement, conceiving of freedom as unrestrained pursuit of selfish aims at the expense of others. So the Western notion of progress meant only a compulsive competition for material goods and never cooperation for a secure and just community. A corrective was needed and they prescribed a theory of freedom compatible with the value of self-restraint, and containing, as Pal intended, a decidedly positive quality.
This conceptualization of freedom bears some similarities with European political philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, G. W. F. Hegel, or T H. Green, who formulated theories of “positive” freedom in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.12 The Indians, however, consistently infused into their thinking about freedom insights from their own tradition. The “positive” freedom that they constructed argued that self-knowledge could lead to a discovery of human unity and thus reconcile the antagonism between individual and society so characteristic of the liberal concept of liberty. Ghose expressed this best:
By liberty we mean the freedom to obey the law of our being, to grow to our natural self-fulfillment, to find out naturally and freely our harmony with our environment. The dangers and disadvantages of liberty [when conceived in the ‘negative’ sense]… are indeed obvious. But they arise from the absence or defect of the sense of unity between individual and individual, between community and community, which pushes them to assert themselves at the expense of each other instead of growing by mutual help…. If a real, a spiritual and psychological unity were effectuated, liberty would have no perils and disadvantages; for free individuals enamored of unity would be compelled by themselves, by their own need, to accommodate perfectly their own growth with the growth of their fellows and would not feel themselves complete except in the free growth of others…. Human society progresses really and vitally in proportion as law becomes the child of freedom; it will reach its perfection when, man having learned to know and become spiritually one with his fellow-man, the spontaneous law of his society exists only as the outward mould of his self-governed inner liberty.13
In his extensive writing on freedom, Ghose contended that “the spirit of ancient Indian polity” inspired for our age a new perspective on political theory. Its cooperative rather than competitive approach to social life bred a secure self-discipline. The “spirit” of Indian culture, as distinct from its corrupt “forms” (manifest, for example, in the caste system), fostered a mature self-restraint and with it a harmony of political and social interests. Spiritual freedom meant liberation from attitudes of political or social separateness that foster ideologies of xenophobia and exclusivity. The idea of positive freedom or swaraj is thus inextricably interwoven with attitudes of inclusivity.14 These two categories of “exclusivist” separatist thinking contrasted with an inclusivist perception of “unity in diversity” became essential to Gandhi’s philosophy.
The importance of Bengali theorists like Ghose and Pal for the Indian idea of freedom should be recognized but not exaggerated. It was Gandhi who translated the theory of swaraj into political reality through a program and style of national leadership. But it was not just his activism that was unique. He shaped the theory of swaraj in at least three novel ways. First and foremost, he connected it with his conception of satyagraha or the power of nonviolence. Others like Pal had observed that swaraj signified a spirit of human
unity but they did not then deduce from that a strategy of nonviolent change. The ancient Indian idea of ahimsa (literally, “not violent”) posited the value that harming others was tantamount to injuring oneself but it took Gandhi to use this as an underpinning for political and social reform. He alone theorized that India’s freedom could be attained only through nonviolence—that swaraj required the power of satyagraha—and simultaneously worked out ways to put it into practice.
Another distinctive feature of Gandhi’s idea of swaraj was his persistent relation of the personal to the political. “Swaraj of a people,” he declared, “means the sum total of the swaraj (self-rule) of individuals,”15 and “… 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.”16 That is, personal self-rule or self-realization, attained through knowledge and examination of oneself, is the foundation of national independence. This view of swaraj demanded that the quest for India’s freedom begin with each individual assuming personal responsibility for changing attitudes of intolerance and exclusivity. He stated succinctly this conception of swaraj when he wrote: “The outward freedom therefore that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is the correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated upon achieving reform from within.”17 “Outward” or “external” freedom is thus only one part of swaraj: political independence can be nothing more than a “means of measuring the freedom of the self within.” The right aim of those “who wish to attain true freedom” should be “an improvement in the self.”18
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