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Selected Writings by Nadesan Satyendra
Mahatma Gandhi
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Neither Saint
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Mahatma Gandhi was an average man - atleast,
that is how
he regarded himself. He laid no claim to be
either a saint or
a mahatma. He declared with humility:
"I claim to be no more than an average man
with less than average ability. Nor can I
claim
any special merit for such non-violence or
continence as I have been able to reach
with
laborious research. I have not the shadow
of a
doubt that any man or woman can achieve
what I have, if he or she would make the
same
effort and cultivate the same hope and
faith.
Work without faith is like an attempt to
reach
the bottom of a bottomless pit."
These words were not the expression of a pretentious
modesty. They
reflected Gandhi's fundamental conviction that each one
of us can
achieve that which he had achieved - and more. For
Gandhi, life was a
permanent experiment with truth. He walked his talk - and
where his
walk did not coincide with his talk, he changed either
his walk or his
talk.
"I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like
any
other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have
humility
enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my
steps. I own that I have an immovable faith in God
and His
goodness and unconsumable passion for truth and love.
But, is that not what every person has latent in
him?"
Stephen Covey, the author of the best selling Seven
Habits of Highly
Effective People, often refers to a story from Gandhi's
life. The parents
had brought their young child to Gandhi. They wanted
Gandhi to advise
the child against eating sweets. Gandhi told the parents
to bring the
child to him the next week. Seven days later, Gandhi
advised the child.
The parents then inquired from Gandhi why it was that he
had not
advised the child on their first visit. Gandhi replied:
"I myself was
eating sweets then."
That Gandhi's words are increasingly quoted by today's
management
gurus is a reflection of the deep underlying truths that
Gandhi had
touched in his own life - deep underlying truths which
have a broad
relevance to all human endeavour.
If Aurobindo was a raja yogi who openly declared his will
to see God
in his lifetime, and Jiddu Krishnamurthi a jnana yogi, to
whom reality
was the interval between two thoughts, then Gandhi was
the karma yogi
beyond compare, engaging in action, and consciously
evolving by
seeking at every turn a coincidence of word and deed.
Ahimsa and the Chakra were the twin pillars on which
Gandhi founded
India's bid for freedom.
For Gandhi, Ahimsa or non violence was not an expression
of
cowardice or weakness. In a famous article 'The Doctrine
of the Sword'
Gandhi wrote in 1920:
"I do believe that when there is only a choice
between
cowardice and 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
victim
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 power to punish; it is meaningless
when it
proceeds from a helpless creature. A mouse hardly
forgives
a cat when it allows itself to be torn to pieces by
her... But
I do not believe India to be helpless, I do not
believe myself
to be a helpless creature...
Let me not be misunderstood. Strength does not come
from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable
will...
I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical
idealist. The
religion of non violence is not meant merely for
rishis and
saints. It is meant for the common people as well.
Non
violence is the law of our species as violence is the
law of
the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute, and
he knows
no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man
requires
obedience to a higher law - to the strength of the
spirit.
I have therefore ventured to place before India the
ancient
law of self sacrifice. For satyagraha and its
offshoots, non
co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but
new names
for the law of suffering.
The rishis who discovered the law of non violence in
the
midst of violence were greater geniuses than Newton.
They were themselves greater warriors than
Wellington.
Having themselves known the use of arms, they
realised their
uselessness and taught a weary world that its
salvation lay not
through violence but through non violence.
Non violence in its dynamic condition means conscious
suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the
will of the
evil doer, but it means the putting of one's whole
soul against
the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our
being, it
is possible for a single individual to defy the whole
might of
an unjust empire to save his honour, his religion,
his soul, and
lay the foundation for that empire's fall or
regeneration.
And so I am not pleading for India to practise non
violence
because it is weak. I want her to practise non
violence
being conscious of her strength and power...
I want India to recognise that she has a soul that
cannot
perish, and that can rise triumphant above any
physical
weakness and defy the physical combination of a whole
world.
I isolate this non co-operation from Sinn Feinism,
for it is
so conceived as to be incapable of being offered side
by
side with violence. But I invite even the school of
violence to
give this peaceful non co-operation a trial. It will
not fail
through its inherent weakness. It may fail because of
poverty
of response.
Then will be the time for real danger. The high
souled men,
who are unable to suffer national humiliation any
longer, will
want to vent their wrath. They will take to violence.
So far as
I know, they must perish without delivering
themselves or
their country from the wrong...."
And from his early days of political activity in South
Africa, Gandhi
was stubborn and unshakeable in his commitment to that
which he
believed. At a meeting of Indians in Johannesburg to
protest against the
South African government's registration law. He said:
"To pledge ourselves...in the name of God or with him
as
witness is not something to be trifled
with...everyone must be
true to his pledge, even unto death, no matter what
others do.
Even if all others go back on the pledge and I am
left alone, I
will die, but never submit to the law."
Gandhi, later spelt out in his own words, the path that
had led him to
non-violence:
" Upto the year 1906 I simply relied on appeal to
reason. I
was a very industrious reformer......But I found that
reason
failed to produce an impression when the critical
moment
arrived in South Africa. My people were excited; even
a
worm will and does sometimes turn - and there was
talk of
wreaking vengeance. I had then to choose between
allying
myself to violence or finding out some other method
of
meeting the crisis and stopping the rot; and it came
to me that
we should refuse to obey the legislation that was
degrading
and let them put us in jail if they liked. Thus came
into being
the moral equivalent of law.....
Since then the conviction has been growing upon me,
that
things of fundamental importance to the people are
not
secured by reason alone but have to be purchased with
their suffering. Suffering is the law of human
beings; war is
the law of the jungle. But suffering is infinitely
more powerful
than the law of the jungle for converting the
opponent and
opening his ears, which are otherwise shut, to the
voice of
reason.....I have come to this fundamental
conclusion, that if
you want something really important to be done you
must not
merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart
too. The
appeal to reason is more to the head but the
penetration of the
heart comes from suffering. It opens up the inner
understanding in man."
If ahimsa sprang from the ageless spirituality of India,
then the chakra
gave the peoples of India self worth in the 'modern'
material world.
Gandhi pointed to the evils of modern day industrialism.
He was
reviled for looking backward and rejecting 'modernism'.
But, perhaps
he was an early 'post-modern'.
The chakra, just as much as ahimsa, brought the vast
masses of India
into the freedom struggle. Gandhi reached out to rural
India. The chakra
gave the peoples of India tangible proof of their own
capacity to satisfy
their material wants. It gave them 'thanmaanam'. They
were not beggars
always trying to 'catch up' with the 'modern' West. They
were not a part
of the 'third' world. They were part of the 'majority'
world - the post
modern world of the future, where India's spiritual
heritage would make
its special contribution, especially to a developing
'First' World no
longer content to regard gross national product as the
measure of
'development'.
Again, Gandhi was not an elitist who predicated social
change to the
transformation of a select few. The power of the salt
march to mobilise
a people surprised many, including Jawarhalal Nehru. On
31 December
1929, the Indian National Congress declared Poorna Swaraj
(complete
independence) as the goal of the Indian people. On 2
March 1930,
Gandhi, after reflecting for two months, wrote to British
Viceroy Lord
Irwin:
"...The British system seems to be designed to
crush the very
life out of the peasant. Even the salt he must use to
live, is so
taxed as to make the burden fall heaviest on him. The
British
administration is the most expensive in the world.
Take your
own salary...It is over Rs 21,000 per month. The
British
Prime Minister gets Rs 5,400 per month... If India is
to live as
a nation, if the slow death by starvation of her
people is to
stop, some remedy must be found. If my letter, makes
no
appeal to your heart, I shall proceed with such
co-workers of
the Ashram that I can take, to disregard the
provisions of the
Salt Laws."
Initially, the British Viceroy, decided to ignore the
march - 'a few
Indians, picking up salt from the beaches, were not going
to topple the
British empire'. But as thousands upon thousands of the
peoples of India
flocked to the beaches to openly breach the law, the
Viceroy concluded
that there was an immense organisation behind this open
defiance.
The British then set about arresting the 'organisers'.
But as more and
more 'organisers' were arrested and detained, the
defiance increased
and thousands more joined. The truth was that the salt
march succeeded
not because of skilful 'organisation' - the salt march
was a 'self
organising idea'. Yet again, Gandhi had dug deep and
touched base with
his fellow Indians.
A story is told of Gandhi and Bhagat Singh, a militant in
the Indian
freedom struggle. In the 1930s, Bhagat Singh was charged
and
convicted for dacoity and sentenced to death. In prison,
awaiting death,
Bhagat Singh said that, he regarded himself as a member
of the Indian
liberation army, and that he should not be hung but
should be taken
before a firing squad and shot. Mahatma Gandhi visited
Bhagat Singh in
prison and when asked by newspaper reporters as to why
Gandhi, the
apostle of non violence, had visited a militant who had
taken to arms,
Gandhi replied: 荘His way is not my way. But I bow my
head before
one who is ready to give his life for the freedom of his
people.鋳
Martin Luther King was one of those who was inspired by
Gandhi - and
today, Gandhi continues to inspire all those concerned
with political
change - change for the better, change so that the
essential goodness in
each one of us may find settled expression.
"Work without faith is like an attempt to reach the
bottom of a
bottomless pit "
Gandhi's Daily Resolution
Let the first act of every morning be to make the
following
resolve for the day:
I shall not fear anyone on earth
I shall fear only God
I shall not bear ill toward anyone
I shall not submit to injustice from anyone
I shall conquer untruth by truth
And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all
suffering
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