Sixty years after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, with his legacy of non-violence under serious threat, with India teetering perpetually on the brink of socio-political anarchy, with the menace of state and fundamentalist terror ever present in a society still torn apart by caste, colour and creed, the words of the mahatma ring true as never before
Violence and terrorism
My experience teaches me that truth can never be propagated by doing violence. Those who believe in the justice of their cause have need to possess boundless patience and those alone are fit to offer civil disobedience who are above committing criminal disobedience or doing violence.
Popular violence
If I can have nothing to do with the organised violence of the government, I can have less to do with the unorganised violence of the people. I would prefer to be crushed between the two.
For me, popular violence is as much an obstruction in our path as the government violence. Indeed, I can combat the government violence more successfully than the popular. For one thing, in combating the latter, I should not have the same support as in the former.
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. But I have not put before India the final form of non-violence.
I object to violence because when it appears to do good the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
No faith in violence
It is an unshakeable faith with me that a cause suffers exactly to the extent that it is supported by violence. I say this in spite of appearances to the contrary. If I kill a man who obstructs me, I may experience a sense of false security. But the security will be short-lived. For I shall not have dealt with the root cause. In due course, other men will surely rise to obstruct me. My business therefore is not to kill the man or men who obstruct me but to discover the cause that impels them to obstruct me and deal with it.
I do not believe in armed risings. They are a remedy worse than the disease sought to be cured. They are a token of the spirit of revenge and impatience and anger. The method of violence cannot do good in the long run.
The revolutionary
I do not deny the revolutionary’s heroism and sacrifice. But heroism and sacrifice in a bad cause are so much waste of splendid energy and hurt the good cause by drawing away attention from it by the glamour of the misused heroism and sacrifice in a bad cause.
I am not ashamed to stand erect before the heroic and self-sacrificing revolutionary because I am able to pit an equal measure of non-violent men’s heroism and sacrifice untarnished by the blood of the innocent. Self-sacrifice of one innocent man is a million times more potent than the sacrifice of a 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.
Prevention of brutalisation
I am more concerned in preventing the brutalisation of human nature than in the preventing of 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.
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’.
…I do not condemn everything European. But I condemn for all climes and for all times secret murders and unfair methods even for a fair cause… Armed conspiracies against something satanic is like matching Satans against Satan. But since one Satan is one too many for me, I would not multiply him. …
Cowardice, whether philosophical or otherwise, I abhor. And if I could be persuaded that revolutionary activity has dispelled cowardice, it will go a long way to soften my abhorrence of the method, however much I may still oppose it on principle. …
I do not regard killing or assassination or terrorism as good in any circumstances whatsoever. I do believe that ideas ripen quickly when nourished by the blood of martyrs. But a man who dies slowly of jungle fever in service bleeds as certainly as the one on the gallows. And if the one who dies on the gallows is not innocent of another’s blood, he never had ideas that deserved to ripen.
Between cowardice and violence
I would risk violence a thousand times rather than risk the emasculation of a whole race.
Violence the choice
I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise 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. …
But I do not believe India to be helpless… I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature… Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
We do want to drive out the best in the 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 bound now and again to put up his ugly appearance.
The world is not entirely governed by logic. Life itself involves some kind of violence and we have to choose the path of least violence.
No cowardice
I want both the Hindus and Mussalmans to cultivate the cool courage to die without killing. But if one has not that courage, I want him to cultivate the art of killing and being killed rather than, in a cowardly manner, flee from danger. For the latter, in spite of his flight, does commit mental himsa (violence). He flees because he has not the courage to be killed in the act of killing. …
No matter how weak a person is in body, if it is a shame to flee he will stand his ground and die at his post. This would be non-violence and bravery. No matter how weak he is, he will use what strength he has in inflicting injury on his opponent and die in the attempt. This is bravery but not non-violence. If, when his duty is to face danger, he flees, it is cowardice. In the first case, the man will have love or charity in him. In the second and third cases, there would be a dislike or distrust and fear. …
Self-defence by violence
I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-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 helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully.
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.
(from The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi.)
Untouchability
Untouchability as at present practised is the greatest blot on Hinduism. It is (with apologies to Sanatanists) against the shastras. It is against the fundamental principles of humanity; it is against the dictates of reason that a man should, by mere reason of birth, be for ever regarded as an untouchable, even unapproachable and unseeable. These adjectives do not convey the full meaning of the thing itself. It is a crime for certain men, women and their children to touch or to approach within stated distances or to be seen by those who are called caste Hindus. The tragedy is that millions of Hindus believe in this institution as if it was enjoined by the Hindu religion.
Happily, Hindu reformers have recoiled with horror from this practice. They have come to the conclusion that it has no support in the Hindu shastras taken as a whole. Isolated texts torn from their context and considered by themselves can no doubt be produced in support of this practice, as of any evil known to mankind. But there is abundant authority in the shastras to warrant the summary rejection, as being un-Hindu, of anything or any practice that is manifestly against the fundamental principles of humanity or morality, of ahimsa or satya.
This movement against untouchability has been daily gathering strength. It was in last September that leading Hindus, claiming to represent the whole of Hindu India, met together and unanimously passed a resolution condemning untouchability and pledging themselves to abolish it by law if possible during the existing regime and, failing that, when India had a parliament of her own.
Among the marks of untouchability to be removed was the prohibition against temple entry by Harijans. In the course of the struggle it was discovered that the British courts in India had recognised this evil custom, so much so that certain acts done by untouchables as such came to be offences under the British Indian Penal Code. Thus, the entry by an untouchable into a Hindu temple would be punishable as a crime under the Indian Penal Code.
Before, therefore, the movement of temple entry can make headway, it has become imperative to have this anomaly removed. It is for this purpose that Sjt. Ranga Iyer has given notice of two bills to be introduced in the central legislature. After ascertaining the opinion of the provincial governments, H.E. the viceroy has sanctioned the introduction of these bills… (one of the bills) withdraws legal recognition from untouchability.
There are practices in various religions professed by the inhabitants of this land whose breach is not regarded as criminal though it would be regarded as very serious by the respective religious codes. Thus beef eating by a Hindu is an offence in the eye of the Hindu religious code but rightly not punishable as a crime under the Indian Penal Code. Is there then any reason why the common law of India should punish a breach of the custom of untouchability?
…On the 25th of January 1933 was held the session of the All-India Sanatan Dharma Sabha, presided over by Pundit Malaviyaji and attended by over one hundred learned men. It passed a resolution to the effect that Harijans were as much entitled to temple entry as the rest of Hindus.
If the bills are not passed, it is obvious that the central part of the reform will be hung up almost indefinitely. Neutrality in matters of religion ought not to mean religious stagnation and hindrance to reform. …
…Nevertheless the caste Hindus who recognise that untouchability is a blot on Hinduism have to atone for the sin of untouchability. Whether, therefore, Harijans desire temple entry or not, caste Hindus have to open their temples to Harijans, precisely on the same terms as the other Hindus. For a caste Hindu with any sense of honour, temple prohibition is a continuous breach of the pledge taken at the Bombay meeting of September last. Those who gave their word to the world and to god that they would have the temples opened for the Harijans have to sacrifice their all, if need be, for redeeming the pledge. It may be that they did not represent the Hindu mind. They have then to own defeat and do the proper penance. Temple entry is the one spiritual act that would constitute the message of freedom to the untouchables and assure them that they are not outcastes before god. n
(from Harijan, 11-2-1933.)
www.mkgandhi.org
Archived from Communalism Combat, February 2008 Year 14 No.128, Document