"Man is so made by nature as to require him to restrict his movements
as far as his hands and feet will take him. If we did not rush about
from place to place by means of railways and such other maddening
conveniences, much of the confusion that arises, would be obviated. Our
difficulties are of our own creation. God set a limit to a man's
locomotive ambition in the construction of his body. Man immediately
proceeded to discover means of overriding the limit. God gifted man
with intellect that he might know his Maker. Man abused it so that he
might forget his Maker. I am so constructed that I can only serve my
immediate neighbours, but in my conceit, I pretend to have discovered
that I must with my body serve every individual in the Universe. In
thus attempting the impossible, man comes in contact with different
religions and is utterly confounded. According to this reasoning, it
must be apparent to you that railways are a most dangerous institution.
Man has gone further away from his Maker".
And he advises all his friends to go into the interior of the country
that has yet not been polluted by the railways and live there in order
to be patriotic.
I shall not insult the intelligence of my reader by attempting a defence
of the railways which have knit India together. I will only observe that
according to Mr. Gandhi, the construction and use of railways for
locomotion not possible for man in his natural condition, is an abuse of
God's gift. And why? Because if he comes into contact with different
natures, with different religions he might try to serve others than his
neighbour whom alone God intended him to serve!!!
As to lawyers, he will have none of them; without lawyers, courts could
not have been established or conducted and without them the British
could not hold India. He has yet to learn that there were courts both in
pre-British India and British India before lawyers. He thinks the
Hindu-Mahomedan quarrels have often been due to the intervention of
lawyers. He wants all people to settle their own quarrels; "men were
less unmanly if they settled their disputes either by fighting or by
asking their relatives to decide them. They became more unmanly and
cowardly when they resorted to the Courts of Law. It is a sign of
savagery to settle disputes by fighting. It is not the less so by asking
a third party to decide between you and me. The parties alone know who
is right and therefore they ought to settle it". Such is his opinion of
lawyers and of Courts.
He is even more harsh on doctors. His opinion is quoted below as any
statement of it in my own words might be regarded as travesty:--
"Let us consider; the business of a doctor is to take care of the body,
or, properly speaking, not even that. Their business is really to rid
the body of diseases that may afflict. How do these diseases arise?
Surely by our negligence or indulgence. I overeat, I have indigestion,
I go to a doctor, he gives me medicine. I am cured, I overeat again,
and I take his pills again. Had I not taken the pills in the first
instance, I would have suffered the punishment deserved by me, and I
would not have over-eaten again. The doctor intervened and helped me to
indulge myself. My body thereby certainly felt more at ease, but my
mind became weakened. A continuance of a course of medicine must,
therefore, result in loss of a control over the mind.
"I have indulged in vice, I contract a disease, a doctor cures me, the
odds are that I shall repeat the vice. Had the doctor not intervened,
nature would have done its work, and I would have acquired mastery over
myself, would have been freed from vice, and would have become happy.
"Hospitals are institutions for propagating sin. Men take less care of
their bodies, and immorality increases".
He says therefore that a doctor should "give up medicine, and
understand that rather than mending bodies, he should mend souls", and
he must also understand that "if, by not taking drugs, perchance the
patient dies, the world will not come to grief and he will have been
really useful to him".
There is no use in arguing with him and his dupes on this subject after
this. But his views must be borne in mind when we come to deal with the
present agitation.
About education, his views are equally remarkable. If, he says,
education simply means knowledge of letters it is merely an instrument
and an instrument may be well used or abused. He adds:--
"We daily observe that many men abuse it and very few make good use of
it".