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Author : Gandhi
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It gives me pleasure that a new, revised and enlarged edition of The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Shri Prabhu and Shri Rao is being published by the Navajivan Trust. The first two editions of the book were very popular and its translations had appeared in several languages.
In the new edition, Gandhiji’s thoughts in the last few years of his life have been incorporated. Thus the book has been brought uptodatc.
“Who, indeed, can claim to know the mind of the Great?” is a famous saying of the Poet Bhavabhuti. Gandhiji was a great man; nevertheless, he had laid bare his mind in its fullness before the world. For his part, he had permitted no secrecy. Even so, I must confess, the last chapter of his life, which I have called the “Swarga-rohan Parva”, or the chapter of the “Ascent to Heaven”, remains a mystery to me. Indeed, in my eyes, it stands equal to the last phase of Lord Krishna’s leela To unravel its mystery, it may become necessary for Gandhiji himself to be born again. Till then, I hope, this book will be an essential help for understanding Gandhiji’s mind to those who are striving to establish Sarvodaya and are searching for Truth.
Kishanganj Victory to the World!
Purnea District
Bihar VlNOBA
May 12, 1966
Only now and again does there arise above the common level some rare spirit, who, having thought about God more deeply, reflects more clearly the divine purpose and puts into practice more courageously the divine guidance. The light of such shines like a strong beacon on a dark and disordered world. Gandhi belongs to the race of the prophets who have the courage of the heart, the courtesy of the spirit and the laughter of the unafraid. Through his life and teaching, he bears testimony to the values for which this country has stood for ages, faith in spirit, respect for its mysteries, the beauty of holiness, the acceptance of life’s obligations, the validity of character, values which are neither national nor international, but universal.
There are many who dismiss Gandhi as a professional politician who bungles at critical moments. In one sense politics is a profession and the politician is one trained to transact public business in an efficient manner. There is another sense in which politics is a vocation and the politician is one who is conscious of a mission to save his people and inspire them with faith in God and love of humanity. Such a one may fail in the practical business of government, but succeed in filling his fellows with an invincible faith in their common cause. Gandhi is essentially a politician in the second sense. He has firm faith that we can build a world without poverty and unemployment, without wars and bloodshed, if only we get anchored in the world of spirit. He says: ‘The world of tomorrow will be, must be, a society based on nonviolence. It may seem a distant goal, an unpractical Utopia. But it is not in the least unobtainable, since it can be worked from here and now. An individual can adopt the way of life of the future—the nonviolent way— without having to wait for others to do so. And if an individual can do it. cannot whole groups of individuals? Whole nations? Men often hesitate to make a beginning because they feel that the objective cannot be achieved in its entirety. This attitude of mind is precisely our greatest obstacle to progress—an obstacle that each man, if he only wills it, can clenr away.’
There is a common criticism that Gandhiji’s vision outsoars his perception, that he proceeds on the comfortable but incorrect assumption that the world consists of saints. This is a misrepresentation of Gandhi’s views. He knows that life at best is a long second best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible. The kingdom of God knows no compromise, no practical limitations. But here on earth there are the pitiless laws of nature. We have to build an ordered cosmos on the basis of human passions. Through effort and difficulty ideals struggle to realization. Though Gandhi feels that nonviolence is the ideal of a civilized society, he permits the use-of force. ‘If one has the courage, I want mm to cuii.ivd.tc uie art of killing and being killed, rather than in a cowardly manner flee from danger.’ ‘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.’ In the progress of societies three stages are marked, the first where the law of the jungle prevails, where we have violence and selfishness; the second where we have the rule of law and impartial justice with courts, police and prisons, and the third where we have nonviolence and unselfishness, where love and law are one. The last is the goal of civilized humanity and it is brought nearer by the life and work of men like Gandhi.
There is so much misunderstanding today about Gandhi’s views and ways of thinking. This book, where we find collected together the relevant extracts from Gandhi’s own writings on the central principles of his faith and conduct, will help to make Gandhi’s position clearer to the modern mind.
Benares S Radhakrishnan
4 April 1945
Liberty. London, 1931
Harijan, i “.-1-1933, p. 413
Harijan, 28-9-1934, p. 259
To judge a great man or to decide his place in history, during his life-time, is not easy. Gandhiji had once observed: “Solon found it difficult to pronounce on a man’s happiness during his life; how much more difficult it must be to adjudge on a man’s greatness?” On another occasion, speaking of himself, he had said: “It will be time enough to pronounce a verdict upon my work after my eyes are closed, and this tabernacle is consigned to the flames.” Nineteen years have now passed since he died—a martyr.
His death was mourned by the entire world, surely as no other death in human history. Grief at his passing away was enhanced by the manner of it. As one observer put it, his assassination would be remembered for centuries to come. The Hearst Press of the United States believed that its emotional impact upon the world at the time had no parallel in human annals since the similar martyrdom of Lincoln. It could aptly be said also of Gandhiji that “he now belongs to the Ages”. One recalls Jawaharlal Nehru’s memorable words on that somber night: “Alight has gone out of our lives”, a sentiment which the New York Times, on January 31, 1948, underscored, adding that it remained for the inexorable hand of history to write down the rest. What, then, will history’s verdict be on Gandhiji?
If contemporary opinion is to be regarded, Gandhiji would be placed side by side with the greatest men of human history. While E. M. Forster believed that he was likely to be considered the greatest man of our century, Arnold Toynbee is convinced that he certainly is. Dr. J. H. Holmes offered a more concrete estimate when he described Gandhiji as “the greatest Indian since Gautama the Buddha and the greatest man since Jesus Christ”. In the hearts of his people, however, he is likely to be enshrined as the Mahatma, or, more endearingly, as Bapu—the ‘Father of the Nation’ who led it to freedom—through a bloodless revolution.
What attributes in Gandhiji constituted the fiber of greatness? He was not merely a great man; rather, he was both a great and a good man—a combination which, as a critic put it—is too rarely achieved and too little appreciated. One recalls George Bernard Shaw’s laconic comment: “It is dangerous to be toe good.”
History will also record that this little man -held tremendous—almost unparalleled—sway over the minds of his fellow men. Strangely, for that command was backed by no sanctions of temporal power or the might of arms. The clue to this enigma, if enigma it was, lay in Gandhiji’s personal character and example, according to Lord Halifax who, as Viceroy during the days of Gandhiji’s Salt Satyagraha, came very close to understanding him. It was that strength of character and of practice, as distinguished from precept, that enabled Gandhiji to influence so deeply the thought of his generation. Indeed, Prof. L. W. Grensted holds that Gandhiji’s greatness lay not in his achievement, but in his character. To this Philip Noel-Baker would add purity of motive and selfless devotion to the cause in which he believed.
But this, surely, is not all the reason for Gandhiji’s unprecedented ascendancy. Reginald Sorensen, to cite again contemporary testimony, believed that if Gandhiji exercised an influence beyond calculation not only in India but upon our modern age, it was because he bore witness to the power of the spirit and sought to implement it in his political activities. Here, then, in his reaffirmation of faith in the human spirit as well as in his introduction of spiritual values and techniques in mundane matters lies the uniqueness of Gandhiji. It is in this context that Dr. Francis Neilson says of Gandhiji: “A Diogenes in action, a St. Francis in humility, a Socrates in wisdom, he reveals to the world the utter paltriness of the methods of the statesman who relies upon force to gain his end. In this contest, spiritual integrity triumphs over the physical opposition of the forces of the State.”
Gandhiji had pitted against the organized might of the State the pure strength of Non-Violence and Truth. And he had won. But the gospel of Nonviolence and Truth which he had preached and practiced was no new philosophy. He had indeed admitted, nay even claimed, that it was “as old as the hills”. Only, he had resurrected that philosophy and used it on a new plane. In conformity with his belief that Truth, as a living principle, has growth and as such, is bound to reveal to any earnest votary of it, newer and newer facets of it, he claimed to have discovered new dimensions and new potencies in the principle of Nonviolence. True, that principle was only the obverse of that of Truth; but, for that very reason, inseparable from it. Gandhiji had made it his life-mission to bring home to his fellow men all over the world the conviction that there is no salvation for them, whether as individuals, communities or nations, unless they tread the path of Nonviolence and Truth.
That path in politics implied—and implies—what one critic put as a revolution much more radical than any other, because it meant that we must change the whole order of personal or political life, or change nothing. But, for Gandhiji there was or could be no wall of separation between the personal and the public, the inner and the outer life of man. In this respect he stood clearly apart from and above most of the world’s politicians and statesmen. And therein lay the secret of his strength.
Gandhiji has himself observed that whatever power, whatever influence he had possessed or exercised had been derived from religion. Stafford Cripps had perhaps this fact in mind when he remarked that there has been no greater spiritual leader in the world of our time. Manchester Guardian, on January 31, 1948, summed up this aspect of Gandhiji’s personality when it wrote: “He is, above all, the man who revived and refreshed our sense of the meaning and value of religion. Though he had not the all- comprehending intellect or the emotional riches which can construct a new philosophy or a new religion, yet the strength and purity of his moral urge were clearly derived from deep religious feelings....”
The world today admittedly stands on the verge of disaster that may well be irretrievable. The reason: the constant ideological conflict, the fierce race hatreds that may lead to wars more terrible than any in history, and the ever-present threat of nuclear proliferation, involving the possibility of unimaginable destruction. Thus situated, mankind has to make its choice—for its sheer survival—between the moral and the material forces. The latter are leading humanity headlong on the road to self-annihilation. Gandhiji shows the other road, because he represents the moral forces. Maybe, it is no new road. But it is the road which the world has either forgotten so long or has not had the courage to take, and which it can now ignore only at the cost of its very existence.
Here in this book of his own words, the Mahatma speaks, and speaks for himself, with no interpreter between him and the reader, for none is necessary. Western people have sometimes expressed difficulty in understanding him. Note, for instance, Horace Alexander’s statement that, in some ways, Gandhiji’s deep metaphysical reasonings could be very baffling to the Anglo-Saxon mind. This volume offers basic material for understanding Gandhiji’s mind on matters moral, social, political and spiritual. The advanced student of psychology, however, may need to probe deeper into the fundamental origins and sources of Gandhiji’s motivation and conduct. To him this work can only be a source of reference.
The present revised and enlarged edition appears over twenty years after the earlier ones. It incorporates what they could not: the thought and philosophy of Gandhiji’s crucial final years: 1946–48, when he rose to the transcendental heights of the human spirit—above caste, creed, party, and even country. Then he belonged, more truly than ever, to all humanity. For, in those years which led him inevitably to the supreme denouement of martyrdom in defense of his faith, he preached and practiced the religion of humanity, the religion by which alone mankind can survive. And it is because of this that the views and opinions which he had expressed in those last year’s assume for us and posterity a sanctity and a valedictory finality which make them indispensable to the comprehension of the totality of his mind. Their assimilation in the present volume has involved the introduction of some new chapters and the enlargement of several of the old ones.
Again, the earlier editions suffered somewhat from the exclusion largely, if not wholly, of most of his thoughts on problems of purely Indian interest. This was done on grounds both of limitations of space and the needs of the wider readership abroad. The defect needed to be remedied if the personality and vision of Gandhiji had to be understood in their fullness. In his eyes, India had a mission for the world, and he bad wanted her to be at once the example and the exponent of his philosophy. This India of his dreams is now presented in an almost entirely new section: “Freedom and Democracy”.
There has also been a noticeable re-organization and re-arrangement of the material which is calculated to fulfill better the aim and purpose of the book.
The compilers’ grateful acknowledgments are due and are here made to the publishers of all the books, periodicals etc., from which the material has had to be drawn in the preparation of this volume. The compilers are deeply grateful to Acharya Vinoba Bhave for writing a foreword of great significance to the new edition.
It remains only to add a personal note. This preface appears; it will be seen, under the initials of only one of the compilers. For, the other is no more. R. K. Prabu, life-long student and faithful exponent of Gandhiji’s teachings, friend, philosopher and guide to many including his collaborator, passed away on January 4. This was before the preface to the new edition could be drawn up and the book itself published. For much of what has been written here, therefore, the responsibility is that of the surviving compiler; likewise, the blame for that which ought to have been said, but is not. Yet, both responsibility and blame stand somewhat mitigated in that the present writer had recourse to the random jottings and lucubrations, as Prabhu called them, conveyed in his letters almost to the last day.
For thirty years the present writer has been privileged to enjoy Prabhu’s friendship and, for quite some of them, active collaboration with him. No tribute that he can pay, therefore, may be adequate in his own eyes: for a similar reason, none that he pays may appear wholly impartial in those of the readers, Prabhu was the originator of the “grand” Gandhi project which was to encompass this and several other volumes of Gandhiji’s thought and philosophy. Only three, however, could materialize from the joint labors. Fortunately, Prabhu by himself produced several others big and small, all published by Navajivan. It is for the serious student of Gandhian literature to evaluate Prabhu’s contribution to it. His collaborator must content himself with acknowledging his debt to one who gave him his inspiration, initiation and association.
Two very special and unsolicited observations as to Prabhu’s place in the field of Gandhi compilations may, however, be cited here. One, Gandhiji’s own, made to the compilers during a memorable interview on June 27, 1944, at the Nature Cure Clinic in Poona: “You are saturated with the spirit of my writings.” The other by a notable philosopher-interpreter of Gandhiji: Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who, in a personal message of condolence on Prabhu’s death, wrote: “The publication of his work on Gandhiji will be a good reminder to us all of his main life-interest.”
U. R. R.
New Delhi
January 13, 1967
‘GANDHI is an enigma.’ How often does one hear this said, not only by people who are critical of his utterances and doings, but even by those closely associated with him! This is the more surprising because, for the past fifty years, he has had almost no private life. He is scarcely ever alone, and works, talks, meditates, prays and eats in the company of his followers. When he sleeps, it is in the open air in a dormitory, seldom in a room of his own.
That there have been contradictions in his life Gandhiji has often admitted. Far from excusing himself for them, he has stated, ‘I have never made a fetish of consistency. I am a votary of truth and I must say what I feel and think at a given moment on the question, without regard to what I may have said before on it... As my vision gets clearer, my views must grow clearer with daily practice.’ He believed that his inconsistencies have been merely apparent. ‘There is, I fancy, a method in my inconsistences,’ he has written. Some of his inconsistencies spring from that spirit of compromise which is an inalienable part of his spiritual make-up. ‘All my life,’ he has remarked, ‘the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise.’ It is his homage to truth that leads him to recognize the truth in the viewpoints of others. At the same time he holds that there are eternal principles which admit of no compromise and that one must be prepared to lay down one’s life in their practice.
The riddle of Gandhiji’s mind is the riddle of his soul. ‘Le coeur a ses raison, que la raison ne connait point.’ His philosophy has to be synthesized from scattered writings and utterances. He has never sat down to write a complete statement of his creed, and the very title of his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, shows that he considers himself a mere seeker, ready and anxious to share his experiences with others, but claiming no finality for his own conclusions. He is ofien accused of irresponsibility for the way in which he speaks his mind at times when political expediency would seem to require silence or the expression of some other point of view from a national leader, but his answer to this charge is that it is every man’s duty to express the truth as he sees it. If the motive is pure, no harm can result. ‘I believe that if, in spite of the best of intentions, one is led into committing mistakes, they do not really result in harm to the world or, for the matter of that, any individual.’
In matters spiritual he claims to apply the method of trial and error, the experimental method of the scientist, and though he may have achieved no finality, yet, like an astronomer who is undeterred by his knowledge of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity from stating that the mean distance of the Moon from the Earth is 238,857 miles, Gandhiji has reached a stage, after a life of ‘experiments with truth’, when his moral judgments are hard and assured. In his universe, he steers by the stars of Truth, Love and Labor. ‘Having made a ceaseless effort to attain self-purification,’ he says, T have developed some little capacity to hear ‘the still small voice within’; and that inner voice is, for him, Truth. Love and God are interchangeable terms: ‘My goal is friendship with the world....’ ‘I refuse to suspect human nature. It will, is bound to, respond to any noble and friendly action.’ Lastly he believes ‘there can never be too much emphasis placed upon work.’ ‘If all labored for their bread and no more, then there would be enough food and leisure for all.’ Then, ‘our wants would be minimized, our food would be simple. We should then eat to live, not live to eat.’ Gandhiji is concerned with the salvation of the individual soul, and for him high thinking is not to be separated from plain living. ‘I do want growth, I do want self-determination, I do want freedom, but I want all these for the soul.’
It may be of interest to record how this work came to be composed. Over a dozen years ago, the idea occurred to one of us of making a systematic collection of the eternal verities’ expressed by Gandhiji in his writings and speeches and stringing them together so as to bring into relief the philosophical thought behind them, and afford an insight into the Gandhian philosophy of life. A plan of a dozen volumes was drawn up, embodying Gandhiji’s thoughts on such subjects as Truth, Nonviolence, Satyagraha, Love, Faith, Non-possession, Freedom, Fasting, Prayer, Brahmacharya, Labor, Machinery, and so on, as well as a separate volume containing the gist of his thoughts on these subjects, and the work of collecting the material was begun. Within a few years, the task was found to be so vast that it was necessary to enlist the cooperation of a fellow-worker, and since then both of us have labored at it without respite. Circumstances intervened during the last two years which obliged us to concentrate our attention on the last volume, the one containing the kernel of Gandhiji’s teachings as a whole, and this is what is now presented to the reader, though in a more condensed form than was originally planned.
The proofs of this work were submitted to and read by Gandhiji and we are sincerely thankful to him for his approval of our effort and to the Navajivan Trustees for permission to make use of his writings. We are also thankful to Shri Kanu Gandhi for allowing us to reproduce in this work one of his photographs of Gandhiji.
R.K.P.
U.R.R.
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