The Essential Gandhi (45 page)

[Gandhi’s hostility to violence and untruth, his objection to the omnipotent State, which embodies both, and his economic ideas made him anti-Communist.]

I do not believe … that an individual may gain spiritually and those who surround him suffer.… I believe in the essential unity of man and … of all that lives. Therefore, I believe that if one man gains … the whole world gains with him, and if one man fall, the whole world falls to that extent. I do not help opponents without at the same time helping myself and my co-workers.…
¹

Bolshevism is the necessary result of modern materialistic civilization. Its insensate worship of matter has given rise to a school which has been brought up to look upon materialistic advancement as the goal of life and which has lost touch with the final things in life.… I prophesy that if we disobey the law of the final supremacy of spirit over matter, of liberty and love over brute force, in a few years’ time we shall have Bolshevism rampant in this land which was once so holy.
²

Whilst I have the greatest admiration for the self-denial and spirit of sacrifice of our [Communist] friends, I have never concealed the sharp difference between their method and mine. They frankly believe in violence and all that is in its bosom.…

 … Their one aim is material progress.… I want freedom for full expression of my personality. I must be free to build a staircase to Sirius if I want to.…
³

 … I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the
greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the root of all progress.…
⁴

I do not believe in the doctrine of the greatest good for the greatest number. It means in its nakedness that in order to achieve the supposed good of fifty-one per cent the interest of forty-nine per cent may be, or rather should be, sacrificed. It is a heartless doctrine and has done harm to humanity. The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all, and this can be achieved only by uttermost self-sacrifice.
⁵

No action which is not voluntary can be called moral. So long as we act like machines there can be no question of morality. If we want to call an action moral it should have been done consciously and as a matter of duty. Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral.
⁶

Democracy and violence can go ill together. The States that are today nominally democratic have either to become frankly totalitarian or, if they are to become truly democratic, they must become courageously nonviolent. It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals.
⁷

I am too conscious of the imperfections of the species to which I belong to be irritated against any member thereof. My remedy is to deal with the wrong wherever I see it, not to hurt the wrong-doer, even as I would not like to be hurt for the wrongs I continually do.
⁸

The Communists seem to make trouble-shooting their profession. I have friends among them. Some of them are like sons to me. But it seems they do not make any distinction between fair and foul, truth and falsehood. They deny the charge. But their reported acts seem to sustain it. Moreover, they take their instructions from Russia,
whom they regard as their spiritual home … I cannot countenance this dependence on an outside power.…
⁹

[The] means to me are just as important as the goal, and in a sense more important in that we have some control over them, whereas we have none over the goal if we lose control over the means.
¹⁰

Nothing … should be done secretly. This is an open rebellion.… A free man would not engage in a secret movement.
¹¹

[On one of Gandhi’s silent Mondays, a group of fifteen “Socialist” students visited him. Gandhi jotted down replies to their questions on slips of paper, his practice on days of silence.]

Now tell me how many of you have servants in your homes? [They said a servant in each home.] And you call yourselves Socialists while you make others slave for you! It is a queer kind of Socialism which, I must say, I cannot understand. If you will listen to me, I will say, do not involve yourselves in any ism. Study every ism. Ponder and assimilate what you have read and try to practice yourself what appeals to you out of it. But for heaven’s sake, do not set out to establish any ism. The first step in the practice of Socialism is to learn to use your hands and feet. It is the only sure way to eradicate violence and exploitation from society. We have no right to talk of Socialism so long as there is hunger and unemployment and the distinction between high and low amongst us and around us.
¹²

Socialism is a beautiful word and so far as I am aware in Socialism all the members of society are equal—none low, none high. In the individual’s body the head is not high because it is [at] the top … nor are the soles of the feet low because they touch the earth. Even as members of the individual’s body are equal so are the members of society.…

In [Socialism] the prince and the peasant, the wealthy and the poor, the employer and the employee are all on the same level.…

In order to reach this state we may not look on things philosophically
and say we need not make a move until all are converted to Socialism.…

Socialism begins with the first convert.…

This Socialism is as pure as crystal. It therefore requires crystal-like means to achieve it. Impure means result in an impure end. Hence the prince and the peasant will not be equalled by cutting off the prince’s head nor can the process of cutting off equalize the employer and the employed. One cannot reach truth by untruthfulness. Truthful conduct alone can reach truth.… Harbor impurity of mind or body and you have untruth and violence in you.
¹³

 … I have never yet copy-righted any of my writings.… I dare not be exclusive.…
¹

 … I own no property and yet I feel that I am perhaps the richest man in the world. For I have never been in want either for myself or for my public concerns. God has always and invariably responded in time.… It is open to the world, therefore, to laugh at my dispossessing myself of all property. For me the dispossession has been a positive gain. I would like people to compete with me in my contentment. It is the richest treasure I own.…
²

…
The life I am living is certainly very easy and very comfortable, if ease and comfort are a mental state. I have all I need without the slightest care of having to keep any personal treasures. Mine is a life full of joy in the midst of incessant work. In not wanting to think of what tomorrow will bring for me I feel as free as a bird.…
³

I am a poor mendicant. My earthly possessions consist of six spinning wheels, prison dishes, a can of goat’s milk, six homespun loincloths and towels, and my reputation which cannot be worth much.
⁴

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.
⁵

Having flung aside the sword, there is nothing except the cup of love which I can offer to those who oppose me. It is by offering that cup that I expect to draw them close to me. I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man, and believing as I do in the theory of rebirth, I live in the hope that if not in this birth, in some other birth, I shall be able to hug all humanity in friendly embrace.
⁶

[Prayer] has saved my life.… I had my share of the bitterest public and private experiences. They threw me into temporary despair. If I was able to get rid of that despair it was because of prayer. It has not been a part of my life as truth has been. It came out of sheer necessity as I found myself in a plight where I could not possibly be happy without it. And as time went on my faith in God increased and more irresistible became the yearning for prayer. Life seemed to be dull and vacant without it.… In spite of despair staring me in the face on the political horizon, I have never lost my peace.… That peace comes from prayer.… I am indifferent as to the form. Everyone is a law unto himself in that respect.… Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life.
⁷

I am in the world feeling my way to light “amid the encircling gloom.” I often err and miscalculate.… My trust is solely in God. And I trust men only because I trust God.…
⁸

 … It is to me a matter of perennial satisfaction that I retain generally the affection and the trust of those whose principles and policies I oppose.…
⁹

Differences of opinion should never mean hostility. If they did, my wife and I should be sworn enemies of one another. I do not know two persons in the world who had no difference of opinion and as I am a follower of the Gita I have always attempted to regard those who differ from me with the same affection as I have for my nearest and dearest.
¹⁰

 … I have no desire to carry a single soul with me if I cannot appeal to his or her reason.
¹¹

 … I do not claim to lead or have any party, if only for the reason that I seem to be constantly changing and shifting my ground.… I must respond to varying conditions and yet remain changeless within. I have no desire to drag anybody. My appeal is continuously to the head and heart combined.…
¹²

 … The highest honor that my friends can do me is to enforce in their own lives the program I stand for or resist me to their utmost if they do not believe in it. Blind adoration in the age of action is perfectly valueless, is often embarrassing and equally, often painful.
¹³

In the majority of cases addresses [compliments] presented to me contain adjectives which I am ill able to carry.… They unnecessarily humiliate me for I have to confess I do not deserve them. When they are deserved their use is superfluous. They cannot add to the strength of the qualities possessed by me. They may, if I am not on my guard, easily turn my head. The good a man does is more often than not better left unsaid. Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
¹⁴

When I think of my littleness and my limitations … and of the expectations raised about me … I become dazed for the moment but I come to myself as soon as I realize these expectations are a tribute not to me, a curious mixture of Jekyll and Hyde, but to the incarnation, however imperfect but comparatively great in me, of the two priceless qualities of truth and non-violence.
¹⁵

Truth to me is infinitely dearer than the “mahatmaship” which is purely a burden. It is my knowledge of my limitations and my nothingness which has so far saved me from the oppressiveness of “mahatmaship.” …
¹⁶

The Mahatma I must leave to his fate. Though a non-coöperator I shall gladly subscribe to a bill to make it criminal for anybody to call me Mahatma and to touch my feet.…
¹⁷

My soul refuses to be satisfied so long as it is a helpless witness of a single wrong or a single misery. But it is not possible for me, a weak, frail, miserable being, to mend every wrong or to hold myself free of blame for all the wrong I see. The spirit in me pulls one way, the flesh in me pulls in the opposite direction.… I cannot attain freedom [from the two forces of spirit and flesh] by a mechanical refusal to act, but only by intelligent action in a detached manner.…
¹⁸