§ 1
Dark, tranquil eyes. A small frail man, a thin face with large
protruding ears. His head covered with a little white cap, his body
clothed in coarse white cloth, barefooted. He lives on rice and fruit
and drinks only water. He sleeps on the floor--sleeps very little, and
works incessantly. His body does not seem to count at all. There is
nothing striking about him, at first, except his expression of "great
patience and great love." W. W. Pearson, who met him in South Africa in
1918, instinctively thought of St. Francis of Assisi. There is an almost
childlike simplicity about him.[1] His manner is gentle and courteous
even when dealing with adversaries,[2] and he is of immaculate
sincerity.[3] He is modest and unassuming, to the point of sometimes
seeming almost timid, hesitant, in making an assertion. Yet you feel his
indomitable spirit. He makes no compromises and never tries to hide a
mistake. Nor is he afraid to admit having been in the wrong. Diplomacy
is unknown to him; he shuns oratorical effect or, rather, never thinks
about it; and he shrinks unconsciously from the great popular
demonstrations organized in his honor. Literally "ill with the multitude
that adores him,"[4] he distrusts majorities and fears "mobocracy" and
the unbridled passions of the populace. He feels at ease only in a
minority, and is happiest when, in meditative solitude, he can listen to
the "still small voice" within.[5]
This is the man who has stirred three hundred million people to revolt,
who has shaken the foundations of the British Empire, and who has
introduced into human politics the strongest religious impetus of the
last two thousand years.
§ 2
His real name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was born in a little
semi-independent state in the northwestern part of India, at Porbandar,
the "White City" on the sea of Oman, October 2, 1868. He comes of an
ardent and active race, which to this day has been split by civil
strife; a practical race, commercially keen, which established trade
relations all the way from Aden to Zanzibar. Gandhi's father and
grandfather were both leaders of the people and met with persecution
because of their independent spirit. Both were forced to flee for
safety, their lives in peril. Gandhi's family was well-to-do and
belonged to a cultivated class of society, but it was not of superior
caste. His parents were followers of the Jaïn school of Hinduism, which
regards _ahimsa_,[6] the doctrine of non-injury to any form of life, as
one of its basic principles. This was the doctrine which Gandhi was to
proclaim victoriously throughout the world. The Jaïnists believe that
the principle of love, not intelligence, is the road which leads to God.
The Mahatma's father cared little for wealth and material values, and
left scarcely any to his family, having given almost everything away to
charity. Gandhi's mother was a very devout woman, a sort of Hindu St.
Elisabeth, fasting, giving alms to the poor, and nursing the sick. In
Gandhi's family the Ramayana was read regularly. His first teacher was a
Brahman who taught him to memorize the texts of Vishnu.[7] In later
years Gandhi expressed regret at not being a better Sanskrit scholar,
and one of his grievances against English education in India is that it
makes the natives lose the treasures of their own language. Gandhi
became, however, a profound student of Hindu scriptures, although he
read the Vedas and the Upanishads in translation only.[8]
While still a boy he passed through a severe religious crisis. Shocked
at the idolatrous form sometimes assumed by Hinduism, he became, or
imagined he became, an atheist, and to prove that religion meant nothing
to him he and some friends went so far as to eat meat, a frightful
sacrilege for a Hindu. And Gandhi nearly perished with disgust and
mortification.[9] He was engaged at the age of eight and married at the
age of twelve.[10] At nineteen he was sent to England to complete his
studies at the University of London and at the law school. Before his
leaving India, his mother made him take the three vows of Jaïn, which
prescribe abstention from wine, meat, and sexual intercourse.
He arrived in London in September, 1888, and after the first few months
of uncertainty and deception, during which, as he says, he "wasted a lot
of time and money trying to become an Englishman," he buckled down to
hard work and led a strictly regulated life. Some friends gave him a
copy of the Bible, but the time to understand it had not yet come. But
it was during his stay in London that he realized for the first time the
beauty of the Bhagavad Gitâ. He was carried away by it. It was the
light the exiled Hindu had been seeking, and it gave him back his faith.
He realized that for him salvation could lie only in Hinduism.[11]
He returned to India in 1891, a rather sad home-coming, for his mother
had just died, and the news of her death had been withheld from him.
Soon afterward he began practicing law at the Supreme Court of Bombay.
He abandoned this career a few years later, having come to look upon it
as immoral. But even while practicing law he used to make a point of
reserving the right to abandon a case if he had reason to believe it
unjust.
At this stage of his career he met various people who stirred in him a
presentiment as to his future mission in life. He was influenced by two
men in particular. One of them was the "Uncrowned King of Bombay," the
Parsi Dadabhai, and the other Professor Gokhale. Gokhale was one of the
leading statesmen in India and one of the first to introduce educational
reforms, while Dadabhai, according to Gandhi, was the real founder of
the Indian nationalist movement. Both men combined the highest wisdom
and learning with the utmost simplicity and gentleness.[12] It was
Dadabhai who, in trying to moderate Gandhi's youthful ardor, gave him,
in 1892, his first real lesson in _ahimsa_ by teaching him to apply
heroic passivity--if two such words may be linked--to public life by
fighting evil, not by evil, but by love. A little later we will discuss
this magic word of _ahimsa_, the sublime message of India to the world.
§ 3
Gandhi's activity may be divided into two periods. From 1898 to 1914 its
field was South Africa; from 1914 to 1922, India.
That Gandhi could carry on the South-African campaign for more than
twenty years without awakening any special comment in Europe is a proof
of the incredible short-sightedness of our political leaders,
historians, thinkers, and believers, for Gandhi's efforts constituted a
soul's epopee, unequaled in our times, not only because of the intensity
and the constancy of the sacrifice required, but because of the final
triumph.
In 1890-91 some 150,000 Indian emigrants were settled in South Africa,
most of them having taken up abode in Natal. The white population
resented their presence, and the Government encouraged the xenophobia of
the whites by a series of oppressive measures designed to prevent the
immigration of Asiatics and to oblige those already settled in Africa to
leave. Through systematic persecution the life of the Indians in Africa
was made intolerable; they were burdened with overwhelming taxes and
subjected to the most humiliating police ordinances and outrages of all
sorts, ranging from the looting and destruction of shops and property to
lynching, all under cover of "white" civilization.
In 1893 Gandhi was called to Pretoria on an important case. He was not
familiar with the situation in South Africa, but from the very first he
met with illuminating experiences. Gandhi, a Hindu of high race, who had
always been received with the greatest courtesy in England and Europe,
and who until then had looked upon the whites as his natural friends,
suddenly found himself the butt of the vilest affronts. In Natal, and
particularly in Dutch Transvaal, he was thrown out of hotels and trains,
insulted, beaten, and kicked. He would have returned to India at once if
he had not been bound by contract to remain a year in South Africa.
During these twelve months he learned the art of self-control, but all
the time he longed for his contract to expire, so that he might return
to India. But when at last he was about to leave, he learned that the
South-African Government was planning to pass a bill depriving the
Indians of the franchise. The Indians in Africa were helpless, unable to
defend themselves; they were completely unorganized and demoralized.
They had no leader, no one to guide them. Gandhi felt that it was his
duty to defend them. He realized it would be wrong to leave. The cause
of the disinherited Indians became his. He gave himself up to it, and
remained in Africa.
Then began an epic struggle between spirit on one side and governmental
power and brute force on the other. Gandhi was a lawyer at the time, and
his first step was to prove the illegality of the Asiatic Exclusion Act
from the point of view of law, and he won his case despite the most
virulent opposition. In this connection he had huge petitions signed; he
organized the Indian Congress at Natal, and formed an association for
Indian education. A little later he founded a paper, "Indian Opinion,"
published in English and three Indian languages. Finally, in order to
work more efficaciously for his compatriots in Africa, he decided to
become one of them. He had a lucrative clientele in Johannesburg
(Gokhale says Gandhi was making at that time about five or six thousand
pounds a year). He gave it up to espouse poverty, like St. Francis. He
abandoned all ties in order to live the life of the persecuted Indians,
to share their trials. And he ennobled them thereby, for he taught them
the doctrine of non-resistance. In 1904 he founded at Phoenix, near
Durban, an agricultural colony along Tolstoian lines.[13] He called upon
his compatriots, gave them land, and made them take the solemn oath of
poverty. He took upon himself the humblest tasks.
For years the silent colony resisted the Government. It withdrew from
the cities, gradually paralyzing the industrial life of the country,
carrying on a sort of religious strike against which violence--all
violence--was powerless, just as the violence of imperial Rome was
powerless against the faith of the first Christians. Yet very few of
these early Christians would have carried the doctrine of love and
forgiveness so far as to help their persecutors when in danger, as
Gandhi did. Whenever the South-African state was in serious difficulties
Gandhi suspended the non-participation of the Indian population in
public services and offered his assistance. In 1899, during the Boer
War, he organized an Indian Red Cross, which was twice cited for bravery
under fire. When the plague broke out in Johannesburg in 1904, Gandhi
organized a hospital. In 1908 the natives in Natal revolted. Gandhi
organized and served at the head of a corps of _brancardiers_, and the
Government of Natal tendered him public thanks.
But these disinterested services did not disarm the hatred of the
whites. Gandhi was frequently arrested and imprisoned,[14] and shortly
after official thanks had been proffered for his services during the war
he was sentenced to imprisonment and hard labor, after being beaten by
the mob and left behind as dead.[15] But no abuse, no persecution, could
make Gandhi renounce his ideal. On the contrary, his faith in it grew
stronger for his trials. His only reply to the violence meted out to him
in South Africa was the famous little book, "Hind Swaraj,"[16] published
in 1908. This pamphlet on Indian home rule is the gospel of heroic love.
For twenty years the struggle lasted, reaching its bitterest phase from
1907 to 1914. Although the most intelligent and broad-minded Englishmen
in Africa were opposed to it, in 1906 the South-African Government
hastily passed a new Asiatic law. This led Gandhi to organize
non-resistance on a large scale.
In September, 1906, a huge demonstration took place at Johannesburg, and
the assembled Indians solemnly took the oath of passive resistance. The
Chinese in Africa joined the Hindus; and Asiatics of all races,
religions, and castes, rich and poor alike, brought the same enthusiasm
and abnegation to the cause. The Asiatics were thrown into prison by the
thousand, and as the jails were not large enough, they were hurled into
the mine-pits. But it was as if the prisons fascinated these people whom
General Smuts, their persecutor, called "conscientious objectors." Three
times Gandhi was thrown into jail,[17] while others died as martyrs. The
movement grew. In 1918 it spread from the Transvaal to Natal. Huge
strikes and monster meetings, masses of Hindus marching across
Transvaal, alarmed and excited public opinion in Africa and Asia. All
India was stirred to indignation, and the viceroy, Lord Hardinge, driven
by public opinion, finally lodged a protest against the Government of
South Africa.
The indomitable tenacity and the magic of the "Great Soul" operated and
won out: force had to bow down before heroic gentleness.[18] The man
most bitterly opposed to the Indians, General Smuts, who in 1909 had
said he would never erase from the statutes a measure prejudicial to the
Indians, confessed, five years later, in 1914, that he was glad to do
away with it.[19] An imperial commission backed Gandhi up on almost
every point. In 1914 an act abolished the three-pound poll-tax, while
Natal was opened to all Indians desirous of settling there as free
workers. After twenty years of sacrifice non-resistance was triumphant.
§ 4
When Gandhi returned to India he had the prestige of a leader.
Since the beginning of the century the movement for Indian independence
had been steadily gaining ground, Thirty years before, a few broadminded
Englishmen, among whom were A. O. Hume and Sir William Wedderburn, had
organized a National Indian Congress. Victorian Liberals, they had given
the Congress a loyalist stamp and had tried to consolidate India's
claims with the demands of England's sovereignty. In the meantime,
however, Japan's victory over Russia had awakened the pride of Asiatic
peoples, and Indian patriots resented Lord Curzon's provocative
attitude. An extremist party was formed in the heart of the Congress,
and its more aggressive nationalism corresponded to a general sentiment
throughout the country. Until the war of 1914, however, the old
constitutional part remained under the leadership of G. K. Gokhale, who
was a great Indian patriot, although he believed in loyalty to England.
Although the Indian Congress, reflecting general sentiment, was in favor
of home rule, or _Swaraj_, the various members disagreed as to the form
this home rule should take. Some members believed in cooperation with
England; others wanted to drive the English out of India. Some advocated
the dominion system, as in Canada, while others asserted that India
should aspire to become an independent nation like Japan. Gandhi
proposed a solution. It was religious rather than political, but at
bottom it was more radical than any of the others. The principles are to
be found in his "Hind Swaraj." But as this solution was based on
conditions in South Africa, Gandhi realized it would have to be modified
to suit conditions in India. He also realized that while his stay in
South Africa had made him unfamiliar with conditions in India, it had
proved what an irresistible weapon _ahimsa_, non-violence, could be. And
he determined, therefore, to study conditions in India in order to adapt
the weapon of _ahimsa_ to them.[20]
At this time Gandhi felt no antagonism for England. On the contrary,
when the war broke out in 1914, he went to London to organize an Indian
ambulance corps. As he explained in a letter written in 1921, he
honestly believed himself a citizen of the empire. He refers to his
attitude again and again, as in his letter addressed to "Every
Englishman in India," published in 1920. No Englishman, he says, served
the Government more faithfully than he during twenty-nine years of
public life. He risked his life four times for England, and until 1919
he sincerely believed in cooperating with the Government. But now he can
do so no longer.
Gandhi was not the only one to experience this change of feeling. In
1914 all India had been carried away by the hypocritical idealism of the
so-called "war for justice." In asking for India's support the English
Government had held out the most brilliant hopes. The granting of home
rule, which the people longed for, was said to depend on India's
attitude in the war. In August, 1917, the clever Indian secretary, E. S.
Montagu, promised India a government responsible to the people. A
consultation took place, and in July, 1918, the viceroy, Lord
Chelmsford, and Mr. Montagu signed an official report recommending
constitutional reform in India. The Allied armies were in a most
precarious position in the early days of 1918. On April 2 Lloyd George
had sent an appeal to the people of India, while the war conference,
sitting at Delhi in the end of the same month, had hinted that the hour
of India's independence was near. And India had replied as one man while
Gandhi promised England his loyal backing. India contributed 985,000 men
and made tremendous sacrifices. And she waited confidently for the
promised reward.
The awakening was terrible. Danger was over in the end of 1918, and gone
was the memory of services rendered. After the signing of the armistice
the Government saw no reason for feigning any longer. Instead of
granting the promised liberties, it suspended whatever freedom already
existed. The Rowlatt bills, proposed at the Imperial Legislative Council
at Delhi, expressed an insulting distrust of the country which had given
so many proofs of its loyalty. These bills aimed to establish
definitively the provisions of the Defense Act imposed on India dining
the war, and made secret police services, censorship, and all the
tyrannical annoyances of a real state of siege into a permanent reality.
There was one burst of indignation all over India. The revolt began.[21]
Gandhi led it.
Hitherto Gandhi had been interested in social reforms only, devoting
himself particularly to the conditions of agricultural workers. At
Kaira, in the Gujarat, and at Champaran, in Behar, he had almost
unnoticeably and with success tried out the formidable weapon which he
was soon to use in national struggles. This weapon was the will of
active passionate non-resistance. We will study it later under the name
of _Satyagraha_, which Gandhi has given it.
Until 1919, however, Gandhi did not participate actively in the Indian
nationalist movement. Having been united in 1916 by Mrs. Annie Besant,
the most advanced elements soon outdistanced her and rallied under the
leadership of the great Hindu, Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a man of
extraordinary energy, uniting, as in a triple sheaf of iron, a great
mind, a strong will, and a high character. His intelligence was perhaps
even keener than Gandhi's, or, rather, it was more solidly nourished on
old Asiatic culture. He was an erudite, a mathematician, who had
sacrificed all personal ambitions to serve his country. Like Gandhi, he
sought no personal recognition and longed only for the triumph of his
ideal in order to be able to retire from the political field and go back
to his scientific work. As long as he lived he was the undisputed leader
of India. Who can say what would have happened if he had not met with an
untimely death in 1920? If Tilak had lived, Gandhi, who revered Tilak's
genius, while differing radically from him in regard to methods and
policies, would no doubt have remained religious leader of the movement.
How magnificently the people of India could have marched on under such a
double leadership! They would have been irresistible, for Tilak was a
master of action, just as Gandhi is a master of spiritual power. But
fate decided otherwise. It is, perhaps, to be regretted, not only for
Tilak's sake, but for India's and even for Gandhi's. The rôle of
minority leader, of leader of the moral élite, would have been more in
accordance with Gandhi's inmost desires and nature. He would have been
happy to let Tilak rule the majority, for Gandhi never had any faith in
majorities. But Tilak had. Tilak, a born mathematician and master of
action, believed in numbers. He was democratic instinctively. He was
resolutely a politician, who left religious considerations aside. He
claimed that politics were not for _sadhus_ (saints, pious men). This
austere scientist would have sacrificed truth to patriotism. And this
scrupulously honest and upright man, whose personal life was one of
spotless purity, did not hesitate to say that in politics everything is
justified. It might be said that Tilak's conception of politics and that
of the dictators of Moscow have something in common. Not so with
Gandhi's ideal.[22] Tilak's and Gandhi's discussions brought out their
different points of view. Between men as sincere as they there is bound
to be irreconcilable opposition, since their methods are based on their
convictions, which are in fundamental opposition. Each man respected and
revered the other. But Gandhi felt that if it came to the point he would
always set truth first before liberty and even before his country,
whereas Tilak set his country above everything. Gandhi feels that no
matter how great his love for his country may be, his faith in his
ideal, in religion as expressed in Truth, is greater still.
As he says on August 11,1920:
I am wedded to India because I believe absolutely that she has a mission
for the world ... My religion has no geographical limits. I have a
living faith in it which will transcend even my love for India
herself.[23]
These noble words give the key to the struggle which we now will
describe. They prove that the Apostle of India is the Apostle of the
World, and that he is one of us. The battle the Mahatma began fighting
four years ago is our battle.[24]
§ 5
It should be noted that when Gandhi stepped into the political field as
leader of the opposition to the Rowlatt bills, he was moved only by a
desire to spare the country from violence.[25] The revolt was bound to
come; he knew there was no possibility of avoiding it. The point,
therefore, was to turn it into non-violent channels.
To understand Gandhi's activity, it should be realized that his doctrine
is like a huge edifice composed of two different floors or grades. Below
is the solid groundwork, the basic foundation of religion. On this vast
and unshakable foundation is based the political and social campaign. It
is not the ideal continuation of the invisible foundation, but it is the
best structure possible under present conditions. It is adapted to
conditions.
In other words, Gandhi is religious by nature, and his doctrine is
essentially religious. He is a political leader by necessity, because
other leaders disappear, and the force of circumstances obliges him to
pilot the ship through the storm and give practical political expression
to his doctrine. These developments are interesting, but the essential
part of the edifice is the crypt, which is deep and well built and meant
to uphold a very different cathedral from the structure rapidly rising
above it. The crypt alone is durable. The rest is temporary and only
designed to serve during the transition years, until the plans for a
cathedral worthy of the groundwork can be worked out. An understanding
of the principles on which the vast subterranean crypt is based is
essential, therefore, for here Gandhi's thought finds its real
expression. It is into the depths of this crypt that he descends every
day to seek inspiration and strength to carry on the work above.
Gandhi believes in the religion of his people, in Hinduism. But he is
not a scholar, attached to the punctilious interpretation of texts, nor
is he a blind believer accepting unquestioningly all the traditions of
his religion. His religion must satisfy his reason and correspond to the
dictates of his conscience.
I would not make a fetish of religion and condone evil in its
sacred name.[26]
My belief in the Hindu scripture does not require me to accept every
word and every verse as divinely inspired. I decline to be bound by any
interpretation however learned it may be if it is repugnant to reason or
moral sense.[27]
Nor does he look upon Hinduism as the only religion, and this is a
very important point.
I do not believe in the exclusive divinity of the Vedas. I believe the
Bible, the Koran and the Zend-Avesta to be as divinely inspired as the
Vedas.... Hinduism is not a missionary religion. In it there is room for
the worship of all the prophets in the world ... Hinduism tells every
one to worship God according to his own faith or _Dharma_ and so it
lives in peace with all religions.[28]
He sees the errors and vices that have crept into religion through the
centuries, and he brands them, but he adds:
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. Not that she has no faults;
I dare say, she has many more than I see myself. But the feeling of an
indissoluble bond is there. Even so I feel about Hinduism with all its
faults and limitations. Nothing elates me so much as the music of the
Gitâ or the Ramayana by Tulasidas, the only two books in Hinduism I may
be said to know. I know that vice is going on to-day in all the great
Hindu shrines but I love them in spite of their failings. I am a
reformer through and through. But my zeal never takes me to the
rejection of any of the essential things of Hinduism.[29]
What are the essential things in which Gandhi believes? In an article
written October 6,1921, Gandhi defines his conception of Hinduism:
1. He believes, he says, in the "Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and
all that goes by the name of Hindu scriptures." He believes, therefore,
in _Avataras_ and rebirth.
2. He believes in the _Varnashrama Dharma_[30] or the "Discipline of the
Castes," in a sense which he considers "strictly Vedic," but which may
not correspond to the present "popular and crude sense."
3. He believes in the "protection of the cow in a much larger sense than
the popular."