Mahatma Gandhi
Page 9
To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means. Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream.46
The main point here is the difference between the logic of swaraj and satyagraha, as against the notion of duragraha or passive resistance as Aurobindo Ghose conceived it. In both theories, the basic idea is that power resides with the people, and if they realize this elementary political fact, they might attain their desired end without violence by withdrawing their support. Satyagraha, however, begins with a major effort to raise the consciousness of each individual in a quest for swaraj that will purify the nature and use of political power. As Gandhi frequently observed, political independence for India would be an empty goal if it were not accompanied by the swaraj of each Indian. When he realized in early 1947 that Indians had not attained personal swaraj, he forecast the social and political disaster of civil war. He wrote, six months before independence: “If this weakness continues, we shall have to go through rivers of blood once the British rule goes.”47
Unlike duragraha, therefore, satyagraha insists on the swaraj of the individual as an integral part of truth-force. “There is a causal connection,” Gandhi wrote, “between the purity of the intention of the individual and the extent of effectiveness of nonviolent action.”48 The effectiveness of duragraha cannot rely on such a condition because the idea of purity of intent and the necessary relationship of means to end is absent. For satyagraha the focus is on the inward capacity of the individual to uncover the dynamics of change, the process of swaraj. In duragraha, it is strictly a use of political power that must, within the confines of nonviolence, attain the desired end. Gandhi’s emphasis on the integral connection between satya and ahimsa in satyagraha is missing in the idea of duragraha as well as the pivotal role played by his means-end theory.
The central significance of ahimsa for Gandhi is that through an authentic commitment to nonviolence, an individual may attain the highest spiritual awareness, may “see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth” leading to “identification with everything that lives,” as he said in his Autobiography. The opposite of ahimsa is himsa, meaning violence or pain caused to another being, and so signifying a sense of separateness or lack of identification with life. Ahimsa in the strict sense of traditional Hinduism is “the renunciation of the will to kill,” but in Gandhi’s broader sense, it is the moral cement binding satyagraha to swaraj. As Iyer observes, “Ahimsa is not a quality to be displayed to order, but an inward growth depending for sustenance upon intense individual effort, and it can be effectively taught only by living it. It is not a mere passive quality but the mightiest force man is endowed with.”49
Whereas passive resistance, in Aurobindo’s terms, conceived of correct action only as an absence of violence, and saw nonviolence as less powerful than violence, Gandhi asserted that the power of satyagraha was superior to either duragraha or violence. Satyagraha could be activated only through strict adherence to ahimsa because the real energy of the former came from the latter. This energy became expressed in the power of conversion. Thus while Aurobindo’s doctrine of passive resistance admits the necessity and even the desirability of coercion to achieve its ends, satyagraha aims, through ahimsa, at “a replacement of coercion by persuasion resulting in the conversion of the violent opponent.”50 With its overwhelming emphasis on passive resistance as a way of humiliating and crippling the opponent, there is little recognition in duragraha of reason and conscience. But for satyagraha, “Gandhi’s appeal to Ahimsa was ultimately an appeal to the conscience and reason of the individual, an affirmation of purity of means in the pursuit of any social or political goal.”51
Satyagrahas Power Applied to Social Reforms
Gandhi believed that only the power of ahimsa could create a basic psychological transformation in the country. He particularly stressed three social reforms that would if attained signal “a real change of heart” among all Indians: these were Hindu-Muslim unity, the abolition of untouchability and swadeshi or the manufacture and use of Indian goods. The last he claimed required that Indians wear khadi or homespun cotton cloth made by the traditional charkha or spinning wheel. The simplicity of a person’s dress could signify a certain commitment to social equality. In November 1921, at the height of the first campaign for independence, Gandhi called attention to the primacy of social reforms and their necessary connection to ahimsa and swaraj:
Swaraj does consist in the change of government and its real control by the people, but that would be merely the form. The substance that I am hankering after is a definite acceptance of the means and, therefore, a real change of heart on the part of the people. I am certain that it does not require ages for Hindus to discard the error of untouchability, for Hindus and Muslims to shed enmity and accept heart friendship as an eternal factor of national life, for all to adopt the charkha as the only universal means of attaining India’s economic salvation and finally for all to believe that India’s freedom lies only through nonviolence, and no other method. Definite, intelligent and free adoption by the nation of this programme, I hold, as the attainment of the substance. The symbol, the transfer of power, is sure to follow, even as the seed truly laid must develop into a tree.52
This emphasis upon the Constructive Program did not mean an abandonment of civil disobedience as an integral form of satyagraha. Gandhi’s faith in mass civil disobedience, however, was considerably shaken in 1922 by several acts of violence; no indictment distressed him more and forced a harder reexamination of satyagraha than that of Chauri Chaura.
In December 1921 and January 1922, Government action against the campaign of noncooperation intensified; thirty thousand noncooperators were imprisoned, volunteer organizations became illegal, and public meetings were dispersed. The National Congress convened at Ahmedabad in December 1921. Gandhi was appointed its sole executive authority, and he was pressed by various members to launch mass civil disobedience.53 He realized that no weapon of satyagraha was more dangerous than this, yet he also believed it to be the duty of an individual to resist unjust rule. “I wish I could persuade everybody,” he wrote on January 5, 1922, “that Civil Disobedience is the inherent right of the citizen …. At the same time that the right of Civil Disobedience is insisted upon, its use must be guarded by all conceivable restrictions. Every possible provision should be made against an outbreak of violence or general lawlessness.”54
On February 1, he made the decision to begin mass civil disobedience in the single district of Bardoli; if it succeeded there, he would extend it throughout India. He immediately communicated this to Lord Reading the Viceroy, and warned him that unless the Government freed the noncooperators and lifted restrictions on the press, the action would be taken.55 Gandhi’s demands were rejected, and Bardoli prepared for mass civil disobedience.
On February 5, a procession of nationalists formed in Chauri Chaura, a village in Uttar Pradesh; a number of constables attempted to intervene, and when the demonstrators turned on them they opened fire. Their ammunition soon becoming exhausted, they withdrew to a police station. The crowd set fire to the building and twenty-two officers were subsequently burnt alive or hacked to death in the midst of the mob’s fury.56 Gandhi received the news on February 8 and his reaction was immediate. He called a meeting of the Congress Working Committee and advised cancellation of civil disobedience; they disagreed with him but his will prevailed. He then imposed upon himself a five days’ fast as a penance for the violence. When nationalists throughout the country rebuked him for his decision to call off th
e campaign he replied, “God spoke clearly through Chauri Chaura.”
No provocation can possibly justify the brutal murder of men who had been rendered defenseless and had virtually thrown themselves on the mercy of the mob. And when India claims to be nonviolent and hopes to mount the throne of Liberty through nonviolent means, mob-violence even in answer to grave provocation is a bad augury.
The tragedy of Chauri Chaura is really the index finger. It shows the way India may easily go, if drastic precautions be not taken. If we are not to evolve violence out of nonviolence, it is quite clear that we must hastily retrace our steps and re-establish an atmosphere of peace, re-arrange our programme and not think of starting mass Civil Disobedience until we are sure of peace being retained in spite of mass Civil Disobedience being started and in spite of Government provocation.57
“We dare not enter the kingdom of Liberty,” Gandhi concluded in this article entitled “The Crime of Chauri Chaura,” “with mere lip homage to Truth and Non-Violence.”58
February, 1922, was not, of course, the last time that Gandhi brandished the weapon of civil disobedience. Chapter 4 concentrates on his civil disobedience campaign of 1930. However, his use of civil disobedience after 1922 grew even more controlled and restricted, subject to careful planning and orchestration. Chauri Chaura taught him the complex nature of the task and the endless difficulties involved. After the noncooperation movement’s first flush, then, Gandhi turned increasingly to social reform or related types of satyagraha in his struggle for swaraj. So as the world came to see Gandhi as a rebel against the Raj, he increasingly saw himself as a social reformer. He remarked in 1931, following the success of his political campaign:
My work of social reform was in no way less 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 therefore 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.59
Focus on Reform of Caste and Untouchability
A major social reform that concerned Gandhi was the injustice in the institutions of caste and untouchability. By 1933, Gandhi had come to state his purpose plainly: “It is the whole of Hinduism that has to be purified and purged. What I am aiming at…is the greatest reform of the age.”60 But this was Gandhi writing in 1933: such a direct challenge to traditional Hindu norms, especially regarding the institution of caste, was not evident in his pronouncements of fifteen years earlier. An analysis of his changing views on caste should be examined in detail, because they reveal so much about his whole approach to social reform and religion.
In South Africa, as early as 1909, Gandhi had publicly decried the caste system for its inequalities: its “hypocritical distinctions of high and low” and “caste tyranny” which had made India “turn [her] back on truth and embrace falsehood.”61 But however much Gandhi condemned inequality of castes in South Africa, shortly after he returned to India the emphasis fell on the generally beneficial aspects of caste, and a strong defense of it for its “wonderful powers of organization.”62 It is on the basis of his remarks on caste in this five-year period, from 1916 to 1921, that he acquired the reputation of orthodoxy; and certainly it is true that at this time he was most sensitive to that community of opinion. Caste prohibitions on interdining and intermarriage are upheld, since they foster “self-control”; and the system itself is regarded as a beneficial, “natural institution.”63
Gradually Gandhi began in his comment on caste reform to use the term varna (or varnashrama or varnadharma). These denoted his conception of aspects of an idea social order based on ancient Hindu thought.64 At first, in this relatively underdeveloped stage of his views, the idea of caste and varna are not distinguished.65 Gandhi is at this point searching for an approach to caste that will allow him to reform it effectively from within, without alienating the orthodox. The remark that he makes at this time on the issue of intercaste marriage is suggestive of his attitude. He advises that a beginning should be made with intermarriage not between different varnas (the four brahmanical occupational classes), but among members of different sub-castes. “This would satisfy the most ardent reformers as a first step and enable men like Pandi Malaviya [an orthodox Hindu] to support it.”66 The remark signals the approach he would take for almost another decade, an approach that continues to sanction prohibitions on intermarriage and interdining. Thus gradually he builds varna into a social ideal distinct from orthodox notions of caste.
After 1919, when Gandhi assumes effective control of the Congress, signs appear that he has begun the long process of gaining confidence as a national leader. He is now the “Mahatma,” and while for some his credentials as a Sanatani or orthodox Hindu remain in question and his writings are still replete with defensive remarks, there is nonetheless evident now a surer sense of purpose. He urges the caste ideal as the right path to social harmony: “If we can prove it to be a success, it can be offered to the world as a leaven and as the best remedy against heartless competition and social disintegration born of avarice and greed.”67 This defense of caste, however, is significantly qualified in December 1920 by distinguishing between “the four divisions” (yarnas) and “the subcastes,” and also by stressing his earlier insistence on equality among the four orders:
I believe that caste has saved Hinduism from disintegration. But like every other institution it has suffered from excrescences. I consider the four divisions alone to be fundamental, natural and essential. The innumerable subcastes are sometimes a convenience, often a hindrance. The sooner there is fusion the better. The silent destruction and reconstruction of subcastes have ever gone on and are bound to continue. Social pressure and public opinion can be trusted to deal with the problem. But I am certainly against any attempt at destroying the fundamental divisions. The caste system is not based on inequality, there is no question of inferiority, and so far as there is any such question arising, the tendency should undoubtedly be checked. But there appears to be no valid reason for ending the system because of its abuse. It lends itself easily to reformation. The spirit of democracy, which is fast spreading throughout India, and the rest of the world, will, without a shadow of doubt, purge the institution of the idea of predominance and subordination. The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of the heart.68
Writing in October 1921, Gandhi reinforces the distinction between the four divisions and caste; significantly, he now begins to use the term varna quite consistently. With a view to the orthodox, he maintains his support of restrictions on interdining and intermarriage, for Hinduism “does most emphatically discourage interdining and intermarriage between divisions,” in the interests of “self-restraint.” Indeed, he goes so far as to say that “Prohibition against intermarriage and interdining is essential for a rapid evolution of the soul.” This is the justification of caste practices that he later repudiated. “But,” he continues, now suggesting his line of reform: “this self-denial is no test of varna. A Brahamana may remain a Brahamana, though he may dine with his Shudra…. The four divisions define a man’s calling, they do not restrict or regulate social intercourse.”69
The Gandhian technique is here in full swing: on the one hand, he holds that since varna is, as the orthodox contend, inherited, “I do not believe that interdining or even intermarriage necessarily deprives a man of his status that birth has given him.” On the other hand, the two key pillars of caste, interdining and intermarriage, are neatly separated from the concept of varnashrama. It is precisely on this basis that Gandhi can argue, six years later, “Varna has nothing to do with caste. Down with the monster of caste that masquerades in the guise of varna. It is this travesty of varna that has degraded Hinduism and India.”70 This unambiguous castigation of caste began as early as January 1926,71 and as caste comes under an i
ncreasingly scathing attack the ideal of varna moves in to fill the vacuum, replacing one traditional concept with another. The admixture of continuity and innovation that always characterized his style is evident in this passage—a statement that offers an outstanding example of Gandhi’s use of language:
When we have come to our own, when we have cleansed ourselves, we may have the four varnas according to the way in which we can express the best in us. But varna then will invest one with higher responsibility and duties. Those who will impart knowledge in a spirit of service will be called Brahamanas. They will assume no superior airs but will be true servants of society. When inequality of status of rights is ended, every one of us will be equal. I do not know, however, when we shall be able to revive true varnadharma. Its real revival would mean true democracy.72
Gandhi is thus able to urge on the orthodox a “democratic” ideal derived from the classical Indian tradition, while he opposes as “excrescences” those caste practices he has separated from varna. The varna ideal with which by 1927 he has replaced caste could hardly have been seen by the orthodox as a suitable substitute: