Mahatma Gandhi
Page 17
Gandhi consequently recruited his fellow marchers not from the Congress, but from his own ashram, where he could rely on bonds forged from trust and discipline. No producer or director can ever have lavished more concern and concerted attention on his cast of characters. Men, women and children, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, high-castes and harijans, college-educated poets from the Punjab and musicians from Maharashtra—this diverse community grew united in its unqualified adherence to Gandhian nonviolence and personal devotion to its prophet. V. G. Desai, one of the marchers, recalls that Gandhi repeatedly told members of the ashram that “he was born in order to destroy the British empire in India. He was a man with a mission and just as he was devoted to this cause, so this inspired devotion in us.”55 By the end of February, Gandhi declared his intention to “start the movement only through the inmates of the Ashram and those who have submitted to its discipline and assimilated the spirit of its methods.”56 In this way, Gandhi underscored both his dissatisfaction with the undisciplined politics of the Congress organization, and his own position that among his adherents only one quality really counted, a disciplined belief in the creed of nonviolence.
In the month before the march began Gandhi moved to strengthen the preparation. Timing was a key consideration: a march of only five days was proposed and rejected in favor of the more ambitious period of twenty-four days. The route of the march was decided on the bases of past contact, present recruitment potential, and overall time. Major rest stops were determined and announced in Gandhi’s weekly, Young India three days before the march began. Advance groups of students from the Gujarat Vidyapith (a national university founded by Gandhi in Ahmedabad) were chosen to scout the area of the march thoroughly. They were to collect data about each of the villages on the route from a questionnaire prepared by Gandhi.57 This information was then used in the talks that he gave in these villages. Weather was a vital factor because the cool Gujarat mornings yielded to intolerably hot mid-afternoons, so that a marching schedule was devised to make maximum use of the hours between 6:00 and 10:00 each morning and evening.
Publicizing Satyagraha: Gandhi’s Letter to the Viceroy and Uses of the Media
Gandhi’s next step was to set down, in an open letter to Lord Irwin (dated March 2 and published soon after), the reasons for his decision to begin civil disobedience. This letter, perhaps one of the most extraordinary documents in the history of British rule in India, may be seen as a model of Gandhi’s inclusive attitude; its tone suggests Gandhi’s acute awareness of his adversary. Gandhi knew Irwin to be an unusual Viceroy, a head of government who was known for his sincere piety and sense of fairness. Gandhi trusted him and from the outset intuited the prospect of a personal accord, however distant or unlikely that seemed under the circumstances of early 1930. He had found that Irwin was capable of deeply humane feelings and a willingness to express them openly. Two years earlier, after Gandhi had suffered a grievous loss with the death of his young nephew, Maganlal Gandhi, Irwin wrote to him a personal note of condolence, sympathizing in markedly unofficial terms, and concluding “I can guess what his loss must mean to you and to his family for all humanity here meets on a common ground of experience, as sorrow and loss come to us all.” Gandhi was genuinely affected by Irwin’s sympathy.58
There is an openness in Gandhi’s letter to Irwin, informing the adversary in advance of the plan of battle. It is the antithesis of an exclusivist style, with its core concept of a small secret conspiratorial circle.59 This is one mark of inclusivity: an open hand extended to the opponent, inviting him to join in an accord. Beginning in Gandhi’s classic manner with “Dear friend,” it sets the tone of congeniality and trust which befuddled Irwin at first in his dealings with Gandhi. The letter opens with a humble request that the Viceroy help him “find a way out” so that he may somehow avoid undertaking an action he dreads: civil disobedience. The initial tone conveys the peculiar mixture of ultimatum and vulnerability characteristic of Gandhi’s approach to the Raj. He seems to be saying, “please help, we both need it,” but there is power behind the plea.
Then Gandhi introduces a line of reasoning that lies at the center of his leadership style. While he regards “British rule to be a curse,” he does “not intend harm to a single Englishman,” How could he, when he has “the privilege of claiming many Englishmen as dearest friends,” and when he has learned much about the evil of British rule from “courageous Englishmen” who dared to tell the truth. Thus Gandhi makes one of his favorite points, distinguishing the evils of institutionalized imperialism and racism from the instinctive goodness of individuals who are unwittingly serving these institutions. The implication is clear, that the sins of the system will be visited upon the heads of its servants: but only if they continue to cooperate with it. The nonviolent method is peculiarly suited, Gandhi believes, to promote noncooperation with the system, even among those Englishmen who may most closely identify with it. For, as his friendship with individual Englishmen had shown, there is a higher and more inclusive identity than nationality, and that is humanity.
Gandhi explains next why he sees British rule as a curse and stresses the economic injustice involved. He asks the Viceroy to examine his own salary and to realize that he is earning “much over five thousand times India’s average income [whereas] the British Prime Minister is getting only ninety times Britain’s average income.” Therefore, “a system that provides for such an arrangement deserves to be summarily scrapped.” Yet, the system will not die an easy death, for “Great Britain would defend her Indian commerce and interests by all the forces at her command. India must consequently evolve force enough to free herself from that embrace of death.” What sort of force? Not of violence. Yet, violence of two kinds is already growing fast in India, the violence of the terrorists and the “organized violence of the British Government.” Another kind of force must be applied in order to sterilize violence and liberate India from this cancer. Only “nonviolence…expressed through civil disobedience” will achieve not only swaraj for Indians, but also the “conversion” of the British people, making “them see the wrong they have done to India.”
If, Gandhi concludes, “my letter makes no appeal to your heart,” and the eleven demands,60 are denied, then civil disobedience is unavoidable, and he provides the date and place that it will begin. The specific issue is the salt tax, for it is “the most iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint. As the independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.” He assures the Viceroy that he has no desire to cause him “unnecessary embarrassment” and asks of Irwin the “favor” not to obstruct his path. The letter ends with an archetypal Gandhi an touch: since it is “not in any way intended as a threat,” he has chosen “a young English friend,” who believes in nonviolence and India’s freedom and “whom Providence seems to have sent to me” to hand-deliver the letter to Irwin. The symbolic meaning of this final gesture of a heaven-sent Briton, having seen the truth and charged by Gandhi with the personal task of carrying it to the Viceroy, was not lost on India or on history. As a gesture it perhaps spoke more eloquently for inclusiveness than any words that Gandhi could devise.61
The mass media, involving Indian and foreign correspondents from dozens of domestic, European and American newspapers, together with film companies, recognized the drama of the event and participated actively. Perhaps their coverage would not have been so lavish if Gandhi had not provided ample advance publicity and timed the march to their advantage. As one biographer says, on the Dandi march Gandhi “fully entered the world of newsreel and documentary, and three Bombay cinema companies filmed the event.”62 He consistently captured front-page headlines of major Indian newspapers, nationalist and otherwise, throughout the month of March. An American academic, writing for The Nation, reported how he had arrived at Sabarmati on the eve of the march and watched as “Thousands flocked to the ashram, filling the four miles of dusty country road from Ahmedabad and camp
ing by the gates of the ashram. The next day Ahmedabad declared a hartal (cessation of activities) and in the evening 60,000 persons gathered on the bank of the river to hear Gandhi’s call to arms. This call to arms was perhaps the most remarkable call to war that has ever been made.”63
This excited tone would be sustained in the coming months by numerous American journalists so that the march was given prominent coverage in major U.S. newspapers and periodicals.64 The American media appreciated the newsworthy quality of the event, commenting on how the Mahatma “Reversing the ‘Boston-tea-party’ method of revolt,” “like a master showman” “ceremoniously defies the British Government’s salt monopoly and its resented tax on salt.”65 It was this kind of drama that led Time Magazine to name Gandhi “Man of the Year” for 1930 and conclude that more than Stalin or Hitler, the Mahatma deserved the award, “the little brown man whose 1930 mark on world history will undoubtedly loom largest of all.”66
Gandhi also sought to prepare for the event through a series of public statements from Sabarmati, issued both at his regular prayer meetings and directly to the press. The general climate of expectation was heightened by his repeated anticipation of arrest in these statements. From the moment of his “letter” of March 2 to the Viceroy announcing plans for civil disobedience, suspense over why and whether the government would or would not arrest him increased, so that on the eve of the march Gandhi could rightly observe, “Everyone is on the tiptoe of expectation, and before anything has happened the thing has attracted world-wide attention.”67 Gandhi helped to produce this atmosphere, too, by using language that became markedly more dramatic and even apocalyptic as the hour approached: “This is a battle to the finish. The Divine Hand is guiding it”; “We shall face the bullets with our backs to the wall…there will be no retreat at any cost”; “We are entering upon a life and death struggle, a holy war; we are performing an all-embracing sacrifice in which we wish to offer ourselves as oblation.”68 This was the saint at war, with penance as his weapon, and however somber and sincere their meaning, these words were also theatrical in the extreme.
Gandhi’s influence and impact as a mass leader derived in large part from both a professional use of the media and a performer’s sense of his audience: he staged and executed his events with an uncanny sensitivity to the mood and temper of those around him. The moment of the march shows Gandhi in possession of his audience through a sure understanding of its expectations, and especially of its trust and devotion. This unusual understanding came not through intuition alone, but also from a cultivated grasp of his tradition, his command of the subtler shades of traditional symbols, and his ability to express these symbolic meanings with an awesome consistency in his daily behavior. The Dandi march demonstrates a masterful awareness and use of symbols that surpasses any other event of Gandhi’s career.69
Gandhi on the March
On that historic morning of March 12, 1930, the air was indeed heavy with traditional symbolism. After the customary morning prayers, witnessed now by the huge crowds that had stood vigil throughout the night at the ashram, Pandit Khare, the chosen minstrel of the march, offered a series of devotional songs. Gandhi’s favorite, “Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram,” which told of the legendary glories of Ram and Sita, was followed by two Vaishnava bhajans stressing the courage and valor required of the religious warrior. Not to inflict harm upon another, but to practice self-sacrifice and perform acts of pure renunciation which would ensure liberation: this was the common theme heralded by the Pandit.70 Then Gandhi spoke, the image of the steadfast leader rising determined and secure in the midst of turmoil. He quietly declared that the struggle could be won only through the awakening of the God within all, for “The Self in us all is one and the same.”71 Kasturba, his wife, then applied the benedictory tilak to his forehead and garlanded him, not with flowers but with khadi, and handed to him the walking stick that became his trademark on the march. Tilak, khadi, and stick, symbols of devotion, simplicity, and strength; given by his wife whom he was now leaving, along with his home, in a spirit of renunciation, searching for truth and liberation. This was the satyagrahi on the pilgrimage to swaraj.
One of Gandhi’s oldest and closest associates, Mahadev Desai, observed this moment of departure. He guessed that many in the crowd were:
remembering the Lord Rama on his way to the Ranvati forest bidding farewell to Ayodhyay, the seat of his kingdom …. I beheld in Gandhiji an ideal Vaishnav, Lord Rama on his way to conquer Sri Lanka. But more than this I am reminded of Lord Buddha’s Great March to attain divine wisdom. Buddha embarked on his march bidding farewell to the world, cutting through the darkness, inspired by the mission of relieving the grief-stricken and downtrodden …. What would one say about this march except that it was just like Buddha’s great march of renunciation?72
Whether the allegorical hero was seen as Rama or Buddha, the symbols Gandhi personified were similar: the renunciation of the saint, the valor of the hero, the superior insight of the guru, all combined to symbolize the perfect leader, one who strove earnestly for self-mastery and so might know how to rule the country.73 “Swaraj is the only remedy and the way that I have adopted is the only possible way.”74
Gandhi’s symbols were not derived solely from his religious tradition. His dominant concern, articulated often throughout the march, was with serving the “poor dumb millions” in India’s villages. The economic burden of the salt tax could have meaning only for them, and his use of this central issue related chiefly to England’s expropriation of wealth from the peasant who earned no more than seven pice (four cents) per day.75 He devoted relentless attention to the problem of reaching the peasantry, and especially to perfecting a style of political leadership that would express his dominant concern for this group. From his viewpoint, successful mobilization of the villages depended chiefly on the consistency of his example. He demanded that simple standards of life must be carefully maintained and he gave scrupulous supervision to all aspects of his own life style and that of his closest followers. Diet, dress, use of commodities, all became means of demonstrating his desire to be at one with his people and to preserve the trust he felt that they had invested in his leadership.
His sensitivity to this issue of maintaining public trust is clear from his personal behavior on the salt march. Throughout it Gandhi became increasingly preoccupied with the maintenance of simple standards of behavior, and with their symbolic expression. Near the end of the march, in the village of Bhatgam, he made what he called “an important” and “introspective” speech. He was concerned, he said, with preserving the “purity” of the march and wanted everyone to “turn the searchlight inward” and examine “lapses” that had occurred. Some volunteers, he discovered, had “ordered milk from Surat to be brought in a motor lorry and they had incurred other expenses which I could not justify. I therefore spoke strongly about them. But that did not allay my grief.” How could he criticize the Viceroy’s salary, he wondered, when “I myself was taking from the people an unconscionable toll” to finance the march. His action could be justified “only if my living bore some correspondence with the average income of the people…. We profess to act on behalf of the hungry, the naked and the unemployed… [but] to live above the means befitting a poor country is to live on stolen food…. We must become real trustees of the dumb millions.” Then, with his usual meticulous attention to detail, Gandhi criticized the marchers’ consumption of oranges, grapes, and milk as well as the use of incandescent burners. Discrepancies must be removed, and volunteers will subsist on cereals and water, use candles rather than kerosene, walk for supplies rather than ride on conveyances. “Extravagance has no room in this campaign.” He concludes, characteristically, on a personal and tragicomic note:
In order to procure goat’s milk for me you may not deprive poor women of milk for their children. It would be like poison if you did. Nor may milk and vegetables be brought from Surat. We can do without them…. We may not consider anybody low. I observed that
you had provided for the night journey a heavy kerosene burner mounted on a stool which a poor laborer carried on his head. This was a humiliating sight. This man was being goaded to walk fast. I could not bear the sight. I therefore put on speed and outraced the whole company. But it was no use. The man was made to run after me. The humiliation was complete. If the weight had to be carried, I should have loved to see someone among ourselves carrying it. We would then soon dispense both with the stool and the burner…. Remember that in swaraj we would expect one drawn from the so-called lower class to preside over India’s destiny. If then we do not quickly mend our ways, there is no swaraj such as you and I have put before the people.76
The effect of the speech was stunning. K. M. Dave, then a cub reporter for the local paper, years later conveyed its effect: