Gandhi – the Characterization

To understand Gandhi is a tricky exercise. He was unlike other political thinkers, philosophers and strategists not just because he lacked a definitive set of theory colluded with strange and vacillating principles but also because he held unusual objectives in his mind which often made his public-private life distinction seem to be obscure. Over the years following his assassination, hagiographic accounts created a larger than life image of Gandhi which associate the now popular and text-bookish ideas of Satya, Ahimsa, Non-Cooperation and Civil-Disobediences with him. These ideas, indisputably, were crucial part of the Gandhian way of life however it is a gross error to understand Gandhi as a person by analysing these Gandhian socio-political constructs. In my view, Gandhi’s humility is the crucial lynchpin between his simple yet complex character. I have tried, like many others, to empathize with Gandhi from a self-devised framework but have failed miserably in my attempts to cement together his inconsistencies. Reading Gandhi’s accounts and texts one wonders at the unfazed manner in which he wrote, seemingly detached yet anxious. His ideas continue to evolve with time. He appears as a man who is ever engaged into conversations, primarily with himself, to better understand what he really wants. His personality confounds me because of his eccentric behaviour that makes him difficult to comprehend. Why is he sometimes unusually cold - even with his closest kith and kin - and at other times, outrageously emotive so much that he forgets to take rest even for a second? The likes of M. Chatterjee and A. Sharma describe him as a spiritual seeker who is ever searching, in an odd mixture of passion and detachment, his way ahead in life. Evidently, at times reason can fail to make sense out of a selfless oriental seeker whose personality is largely driven by metaphysical concepts and interests, which lay beyond the conventional boundaries of rationality. A psychoanalytic point of view explains his adult personality as a sort of defence mechanism towards fighting and escaping his childhood guilt and fears.

Methods = Means?

The method of Non-Violent Passive Resistance or Satyagraha is interesting in many ways. Branded by many as anarchic, sometimes even as political blackmail, this was a tool newly invented which helped India to foster its Independence struggle. However, its importance must not stem out of the extent of its success in delivering the Indian freedom fighters with the objectives that they had aimed originally. Going by that logic it failed miserably, when applied 50 years later in 1971 during the Bangladesh war of liberation by East Pakistanis with Awami League leading the vanguard against West Pakistan - eventually leading to brutal crackdown of demonstrators by Pakistani Air-Force and Army. Clamped down with LMGs and artillery fire on major East Pakistan cities, it broke into a violent civil war between Pakistani Army and rebel guerrilla forces demanding emancipation and resulting in the death of around 3 lakh civilians. Satyagraha worked in one case but failed in other. The above small example is important to understand that for Gandhi this is precisely the point. He did not choose a method because it harboured possibility to work and succeed. He seems to be not concerned with the final result of his methods instead his prime focus was the methods themselves. For those who were of the opinion that - means were after all means – for them Gandhi had an answer – means were everything. These methods were not means employed to achieve specific goals, even if Congress and people by and large perceived them to be such. They were instead a way of personal life extended into the larger public domain. More on this later.

Gandhi, Ramana Maharishi and Advaita

Gandhi calls himself an Advaitin. One wonders by what parameters he qualifies as such. Advaita literally means non-dualism. There are texts available which command their authority over the philosophy of Advaita; Shankaracharya’s being the major ones. However to define Advaita or any such attempts goes fundamentally opposite to what Advaita stands for. At most, it can be felt or realized. Ramana maharishi stands as an exemplar personality who lived by the philosophy of Advaita as a Jivanmukt. However, Ramana’s life in many ways was diametrically opposite to Gandhi’s. While the Jivanmukt lived a strange disinterested life, Gandhi was a very active and emotional man. But if there is one commonality in both of them, then it’s their perplexing and unpredictable mind.

The perplexity of non-dual reality

Sound divorced from meaning or the other way round, will result in absurdity. It will not contain any information. For humans, information lies in language, which is a distinctive combination of sound and meaning. So information exists only in the presence of a combination of sound and meaning with a human to perceive it.

For an Advaitin there is no distinctness between himself and a bowl. Why so? The answer lies in knowing the origins of distinction. Separation, the word, the concept and its meaning only exists in the framework of language and thought. Outside it, it is hard to imagine its existence. An Advaitin will realize otherness only if he will come to think or speak of it, on employment of thought or language. To address the metaphysical concepts of Advaita with limited faculties of rationality will only create illusions and that is why an Advaitin will never employ dialectics to understand reality. For an Advaita, the non-dual reality can only be felt when the mind is free from the vice grip of reason and language. A mind detached from worldly affairs can best experience it.

Having no way to know what a real Advaitin would be, can we assume that Gandhi is sincere when he says that he is an Advaitin too? Yes, sincere he is, for he does not come out as a man who would give such a public statement just in jest. Everything he does, more than explaining the reason to do it to others, he seems to explain it to himself. So much so that often after deeply pondering he sometimes admits to have believed incorrectly originally and later corrected himself after having seen the light of the day. Such as his view that Truth is God. But is he really an Advaitin? For the sake of our understanding, keeping Ramana maharishi in mind, can we say that he is an Advaitin in making? An Advaitin like Ramana will harbour strikingly different outer and inner views, which unlike conventionally are strangely aligned with each other. Outer view is the same as or emerges out of the inner view. Outer view is the outlook and behaviour towards the external world. When a devotee asked him, does God exist, he replied in return, who is asking the question? This simple answer from the Advaitin explains that there is no separation unless we ask and create one. Who is asking the question, is a food for thought for the questioner to ponder deep within and ask him/herself that who am I and why do I ask and create the illusion of separateness? Inner view is the thought within one’s mind. Ramana would avoid, rather be disinterested in all such thoughts which would create the illusion of duality. There is a continuum from the inner to the outer. The absence of duality and a certain ignorance of language and thought. Internal mental setup is extended to the external behaviour. The private life is carried into the public domain. Or in other words, in consistency to the main philosophy, the distinction between private and public is a myth. They are one and the same.

Model of Politics

At this juncture, we seem to identify the similarities in Gandhi and Ramana. Let’s say, Gandhi holds on to a private life which is disciplined, rigorous in habits and checked by vows. But, he seems to be training himself, for a larger aim and his training extends into the public domain as well. Coming of age leadership experiences in South Africa shaped him into a confident, curious and mature person from a much afraid, reticent and diffident youth. Steady spiritual realizations offered him to think about the wider transcendental mysteries of the world around him. This larger aim seems to be his quest to take control of himself and live a rediscovered righteous life. Satya and Ahimsa are much deeper feelings and recognitions that his humane heart learns to harbour for the whole world around him. His Satya, the feeling of identifying what was just in a situation and then being true to follow one’s inner voice was a universal principle applied in an absolute manner to everything without any exemption. Ahimsa was his belief in universal empathy and love. Satya and Ahimsa go deep as universal Justice and Love, which Gandhi seems to accept as fundamental to universal service. It is hard to see where Advaita fits in this. However, one explanation is Gandhi’s unquestioning dedication to empathize with everything around, with his failure to identify any difference between man and man coupled with nearly obstinate will to challenge and destroy all thoughts that make one believe in distinctions. Never hate the man, hate the intention. This intention is the illusion which divides man from man.

Gandhi’s ways are as much private as they are public. It is hard to find Gandhi ever retreating into an unknown private domain hidden from people around. His engagements with politics are more of a symptom than the cause themselves. The main cause is his lifestyle, curious to ask and question, to care and provide, and to live righteously and maintaining this tempo unaffected by external factors in a detached manner. He is a self-trained man serious about his practices, which are beyond the language of private and public. He holds to his intention of taking full control of his life with sheer fortitude and discipline. This is coupled by what A. Sharma recalls as his quality of putting praxis before theory that makes him the ideal karmayogi of Indian scriptures. The beauty and perhaps curse of Gandhi’s personality is the sheer sincerity and depth of his beliefs yet uncertain character of its ability to bring change.  

Gandhi's religious thought (review part-3)

Truth

Chatterjee mentions how truth has always had a role to play in various Indian systems of thoughts like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. It was used as a blanket cover for several spiritual pursuits, yogic practices and meditative techniques. In such a backdrop, Gandhi’s experiments with truths become interesting because he has his own ways of ascesis. She mentions how at a later stage in his life he discovers that God is Truth. He is not substituting Truth for God but is in fact trying to elucidate what God means for him. Gandhi has very peculiar views on religion. As Chatterjee mentions, he believes in idolatry and is also an iconoclast, which means his God does not have a perceptible image but at the same time he is reflected in the faces of starving millions. Gandhi mentions verses from the holy Koran, reads passages from the Sermon on the Mount and this also not for nothing. Several times he has received criticism for such ventures and so many times he was taken to task by his fellow Hindus. How can we forget that a fellow radical Hindu took his life? But the point nevertheless remains that he borrowed and absorbed from wherever he could look. He educated himself into developing a religio-ethical creed. A theory which is humanistic and practical first and anything else later. Gandhi was also close to atheists and Chatterjee recounts the incident when he attended the funeral of Charles Bradlaugh whom he admired very much. Gandhi saw in atheists, a will to enquire and search for truth. They rejected sentimental and metaphysical arguments on rational grounds and he saw a thrust for truth in them.

Another reason, on similar lines, why Gandhi preferred to see his God in the absolute truth is because time had proved that in every religion, the mere word God appeared as the biggest stumbling block. The word itself weaves debates around it and very often the essence of religion is lost in these debates. Gandhi didn’t want to engage in this God-talk and was rather impatient with those who were only interested into talking religion and not acting. Truth solved such problems.

This calls for understanding the meaning of Truth. Gandhi’s understanding finds its resonance in the Upanishads. The TaittirIya Upanishad says that ‘Brahman is truth eternal.’ For Gandhi, truth is the absolute Brahman. In the Sabarmati Ashram evening prayers would include the BhajanAvalI and one of the hymns said: ‘Early in the morning I call to mind that Being which is felt in the heart, which is sat (the eternal), chit (the knowledge) and ananda (the joy). Truth was sat existing beyond and unconditioned by space and time. Gandhi once quoted from Mahabharata: ‘There is no dharma other than Truth.’ Satyam eva jayate nanRtam means Truth is victory not falsehood. For Gandhi Truth was not the path to salvation, it was salvation. He saw the whole Hindu tradition was a relentless pursuit after truth.

His methods of this pursuit are interesting. There’s a distinct element of Advaita in it. He understands the whole species of humans, animals and nature as one. Moreover as Chatterjee observes later that this is actually one and the only inconsistency that we can observe in Gandhi- he is a believer in one world one people and at the same time he’s a nationalist fighting for independence and sovereignty. He believes that men should rationalize their needs so that everyone receives his due share. The needs have to be decreased when so many people sleep at night without even one morsel of bread in their stomachs. He calls for vegetarianism because eating non-veg is an act of ahimsa towards animals. Similarly water must be saved because at some places women have to walk miles to get just one bucket of not very clean water. His self-discipline is actually an inculcation of God-ward proclivities. This is a certain kind of ethical behaviour true to the atman inside.

In Gandhi’s mArg of truth, the tapasya, a series of disciplines is necessary. This mArg overlaps very considerably with the Jain list of vratas or resolutions. These are Ahimsa (non-violence), Nidarta (fearlessness, truth), Brahmacharya (chastity), Asteya (non-stealing) and Aparigraha (non-possession). He also pays a lot of attention to means rather than ends and often quoted a famous adage ‘as you sow so shall you reap.’ Gandhi advocates a strict steadfastness in their enforcement upon the people he led. He borrowed the scrupulous discipline present in nature like the sequence of day and night, cycle of seasons and saw them not as mechanical but as a model for human activity. He was of the view that before being send on campaigns, the satyagrahis had to be trained in the above mentioned resolution with the same steadfastness as shown by nature. Gandhi believed that discipline was utmost important and that the vows were important not so much to control the tempest raging within us but more so as they were a sign of strength. It was not a formalistic framework to keep oneself on rails but a way of entering more deeply into the truth.

Lastly Chatterjee mentions what words Gandhi used to represent the untruth. Gandhi says the nApAk (unholy), Satanism, evil, adharma, irreligion and deadly sins were untruth and that a Satyagrahi, a genuine seeker of truth must have a heart as hard as granite to fight against them.

SUFFERING

  

Suffering plays a very important role in Gandhi’s scheme of things. Before proceeding to Gandhi’s views, Chatterjee has explained the traditional Indian outlook attached to the idea of suffering – dukkha. In the Indian metaphysics as well as religions, dukkha has always been considered as a chief practical problem. Hinduism holds the concept of rebirth where the endless cycle of birth and death with ceaseless dukkha appears as a horrifying prospect. However, Gandhi held an innovative view on suffering, which he considered to be the richest treasure of life. He did not see dukkha from a Hindu cosmic point of view but from a very human and practical point of view. He saw suffering in the form of the injustices inflicted upon the weak and the wickedness present in the human heart such as the emotions of anger, greed, lust etc. However, he was not talking about this form of suffering only. More importantly he was concerned about the suffering which was self-inflicted- known as tapasya. Tapasya was the marg for tackling the above-mentioned miseries.

Gandhi focused on two things. First, tapasya should not be a method which only the spiritually strong sannyasins can adopt but it should also be achievable by all. Second, while it would enable the common man to build up a good life it must also be an effective weapon against the prevalent suffering. Gandhi looked for a method through which the constructive energies of all men could be released. He believed non-violence to be that method, the tapasya. The moral equivalent of warfare. Gandhi believed that the reality must be changed but non-violently otherwise the total burden of suffering in the world would increase. Non-violence was voluntary adoption of suffering by an individual and a group as a self-purificatory act to set up an example for others and convert the heart of the oppressor. He puts self-sacrifice in the place of ancient YagNas. This sacrifice was not the individual suffering undertaken through austerities in quest for self-perfection. Instead, this was the combined heroism of groups of satyagrahis.

Regardless of all, Gandhi repeatedly said that this method was new and yet to be tested. He believed that the suffering undertaken through the path of non-violence was not just to rectify the injustices inflicted upon common people or only making the authority concede to righteous demands but also to win the heart of the opponent and establish with him a new human relationship.

In matters of training Satyagrahis Gandhi paid utmost importance to discipline. To those, he led, he commanded with the wisdom of a spiritual dictator. Non-violence was not just to be observed in physical terms but also in terms of thought. Gandhi knew that the teachings of self-suffering can be put to use only after necessary preliminary training and he had the knack for sensing the readiness of Satyagrahis for embarking on a particular campaign.

Gandhi also said that each should find his salvation within his own community. This view might appear contradictory since Gandhi exhorted groups of satyagrahis rather than individual suffering. The contradiction is solved when we understand that Gandhi was asking everyone, all members of the group, to first clean their own houses. As an example, he meant that while untouchables must non-violently defy Brahmin edicts like, not using a certain road expecting reprimand in return-suffering- they must also improve their own lives by observing cleanliness, spinning etc.

Chatterjee goes on to argue that independent observers might not find Gandhi’s strategy of using suffering that effective a tool. It might simply appear as a kind of political blackmail. However, she clarifies this doubt by invoking the images of violent struggles of history which include assassinations, hostages, guerrilla strategies, isolated acts of terrorism and innocent people getting killed. Gandhi’s strategy of non-violent suffering was not political blackmail because he made sure that proper preliminary training of self-purification was given to the satyagrahis before they would be embarked on a campaign. The self-suffering was eventually supposed to move the heart of the oppressor, hridaya-parivartana. If it could not be done then it was better to get killed than kill, apparently to fail than to submit to tyranny. Such a method were satyagrahis were ready to lay their lives for the truth was not political blackmail.

Chatterjee explains that the method of self-suffering would not always be useful and effective unless the parallel constructive works are also run. Gandhi was extraordinarily sensitive to timings of campaigns because he believed that the voluntary assumption of suffering cannot be justified in the absence of supporting constructive work.

Chatterjee also suggests that using ahimsa and dukkha together, Gandhi has created a certain kind of enlightened anarchism. One wonders that if non-violent suffering is used as a tool against authority of the day then who will justify its enlightenment. Gandhi was both a spiritual dictator and an epitome of self-sacrifice which gave his enlightenment the required legitimacy. However, ordinary men are not like Gandhi and if today the method is used then how will it qualify as enlightened? We must realize that devoid of enlightened the method is just another form of anarchism.

SECULARISM

As Chatterjee talks about religion, inner voice and Gandhi’s spiritual pursuits to train satyagrahis, she does not miss the important problem of religion getting mixed with public life and the response that Gandhi’s critics give to it. For Gandhi, secularism was never a problem neither was the presence of more than one religion. He saw similar ethical and human concerns in all religions. Pluralism was never an intellectual problem for Gandhi. Moreover, anyone with a Jain background and training in Syadvad would take this plurality for granted.

To understand more deeply why Gandhi had inter-religious beliefs is to understand the kind of pursuit on which Gandhi was moving. As mentioned earlier by Chatterjee, his was a relentless pursuit of truth. He was not a pioneer labouring on theological frontiers because the frontier mentality was alien to him whether on fronts of religion or geography. He also had a knack to relate and find his own convictions reflected in whatever he was reading. Chatterjee points to the fact that Gandhi had some deep rooted convictions and things that he read only made them much stronger. Ideas such as civil disobedience by H.D.Thoreau and life of labour by John Ruskin were some examples. Wherever he found these ideas, he wholeheartedly accepted them regardless if they crossed religious boundaries. In his thoughts, commitment to common ethical values was in no way incompatible with the diversity of religious belief.

As mentioned earlier, one and perhaps only contradiction in his scheme of things was to believe in one world one government and at the same time in nationalism. Unity of mankind and nationalist aspirations didn’t go hand in hand. However, he explained that the unity was based on our common imperfections which all men have. A microcosm form of this unity and coexistence was mentioned by him in his speeches like this: all men must acquire the wisdom of a Brahmin the fighting spirit of a Kshatriya the business acumen of a Bania and the spirit of service of a Sudra.

We can see his application of these cross religion beliefs in so many forms. One of the examples is his disapproval of materialism. He was against rapacious acquisitiveness mainly for two reasons, one emerges out of Swami Vivekananda’s Advaita view that this acquisition of wealth and material is unequal which would lead to some people being discriminated vis a vis to others. The other reason stemmed out from Ruskin’s notion of life of labour. If machines would dominate the market then labour will be displaced which would be disastrous in a country where God resides in the faces of so many labouring men and women.

In India, public and social lives have been different. There was never an Indian parallel to the proletarian pop culture in the west that accompanied along with it secularization. In India, Chatterjee mentions, there was a continuity between beliefs and religious practices in India’s villages for hundreds of years. Politics for Gandhi was a mission, not any art, business or a game as Tilak one put it and Gandhi would use all his religious knowledge no matter where it came from to purge out the dirt. He also believed that Gita has shown that there are multiple paths to attain the highest truth of all. Politics was also a human activity which is built into man’s community and there was nothing wrong to walk on it and purifying it by infusing a non-violent spirit into it. Gandhi thought that activism of religion, when it is purged of obscurantism, superstition and doctrinal barriers, was to bring about conflict resolution as it had in itself the seed of sensitivity to social injustice. This quality made religion an integral part of politics.

Chatterjee also mentions about Gandhi’s dislike for any kind of compartmentalization. To divide religion on the basis of doctrines and sacraments was another form of fragmentation which Gandhi could not accept. His Advaita beliefs prevented him from engaging in any form of partitions. He believed in the whole, unity of one.

Although Secularism was not a serious issue for Gandhi, and he involved cross religion thoughts freely in the field of politics, he also received a lot of flak for it. Occasionally he read passages from the holy Koran as in 1947 which brought a shower of criticism on his head. He was called a slave of Jinnah-Saheb and a fifth columnist. He was also taken to task by students of Gujarat National College when he read some passages from the New Testament. These incidents show that although Secularism had entered Indian public discussion or perhaps it was infused from west but Gandhi did not pay much importance to it ever. His thoughts and beliefs worked on a different plane situated much higher. He paid the price to Godse.