Mahatma Gandhi and One World
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
Gandhiji is universally acknowledged as the greatest man of his age. The extraordinary thing about it is that he held no high office, nor was he a statesman ruling the destinies of countries. Nevertheless, he towered above all such personalities. His greatness came from the realm of the spirit, his influence and unparalleled leadership from his universal love and faith in mankind. He drew his strength from what he termed “soul-force”, an inner strength, and one cannot believe in it or non-violence without an abiding faith in the innate goodness lurking in all fellow beings. This is what made Gandhiji a universal leader who served the world. “Mankind is one, seeing that all are equally subject to the moral law. All men are equal in God’s eyes.” It is not strange that Gandhiji should call his deity “Truth”, for this term is universal, it is meaningful, and it is pregnant with manifold experiences and establishes friendly channels of communications with even those who may differ widely in policy and even in interest. Having established these links, he has also shown that local belonging and local ties, though they seemingly limit freedom of action, need not necessarily do so. In fact, he expounds: “Duties to self, to the family, to the country and to the world are not independent of one another. One cannot do good to the country by injuring oneself or one’s family. Similarly one cannot serve the country by injuring the world at large. In the final analysis, we must die that the family may live, the family must die that the country may live and the country must die that the world may live. But only pure things can be offered in sacrifice. Therefore, self-purification is the first step. “When the heart is pure, we at once realize what is our duty at every moment.”
He never conceived of freedom and independence for India in a narrow, exclusive sense as his assertions prove: “My notion of Purna Swaraj is not isolated independence but healthy and dignified interdependence. My nationalism, fierce though it is, is not exclusive, not designed to harm any nation or individual. Legal maxims are not so legal as they are moral. I believe in the eternal truth of Sicutere tuo ut alienum non loedas (use thy own property so as not to injure thy neighbours). Our nationalism can be no peril to other nations inasmuch as we will exploit none, just as we will allow none to exploit us. Through swaraj we would serve the whole world.”
Again, he reiterates: “It is impossible for one to be an internationalist without being a nationalist. Internationalism is possible only when nationalism becomes a fact, i.e., when peoples belonging to different countries have organized themselves and are able to act as one man. It is not nationalism that is evil, it is the narrowness, selfishness, exclusiveness which is the bane of modern nations, which is evil. Each wants to profit at the expense of, and rise on the ruins of, the other.
“I am a humble servant of India and in trying to serve India, I serve humanity at large… After nearly fifty years of public life, I am able to say today that my faith in the doctrine that the service of one’s nation is not inconsistent with the service of the world has grown. It is a good doctrine. Its acceptance alone will ease the situation in the world and stop the mutual jealousies between nations inhabiting this globe of ours.”
Gandhiji has been unique in history in many respects. But his most outstanding contribution lies in his supreme achievement of transforming the principle of non-violent resistance into a successful instrument for achieving liberty, justice and peace. What was once just a personal discipline, he elevated into a social technique for community or national emancipation. Gandhiji’s approach to the wider social and political strains and tensions rested on a basic social harmony which assumed a fundamental unity between all peoples and classes and rejected completely the inevitability of violent confrontations and clashes. He had a convincing confidence of being able to touch the higher and finer side of man, and bend him to modulations and adjustments without calling in the power of the State. Thereby, he offered the alternative of a genuine doctrine of co-existence which has become so significant and strategic in the world affairs of today. The socialism of several of the new rising countries also tends to be based more on national unity than on class warfare.
Yet, he did not stand exactly for a Stateless world. He believed in sovereignty in terms of an authority which directed the national community through democratic process, that is, “consent”. The relationship between States also, therefore, emerged from a mutual identity, common interest and purpose basic to all human existence. Military or similar alliances and expansionist actions are ruled out. The emphasis is on right conduct between fellow States.
However, the inter-State relationship was based on the internal values and domestic social patterns. In this context the stress Gandhiji put on his constructive programmes becomes clear and meaningful. In fact, he declared it as essential to the struggle for freedom. “We can never reach swaraj with the poison of untouchability corroding the Hindu part of the national body,” he proclaimed. To him, freedom conveyed a state where such indignities and religious animosities ceased to exist, and internal harmony, which meant a discipline that had transformed hatred into friendliness, confrontation into co-operation, distrust into trust. A mere shedding of colonial rule to him was an illusory freedom, a meaningless term.
Gandhiji has been hailed as a social scientist and an unusual one, for he generally made the first test of his hypothesis on himself before he commended it to others. He was a class apart in this as in other ways. An unerring instinct in the choice of the problems, a persistence and thoroughness in research, and a rare skill in organizing made a perfect combination in him. It has been said that a reformer’s business is to make the impossible possible by giving an ocular demonstration in his own conduct. Perhaps, in his case, the old Sanskrit saying “Power does not come to a man because he does things that are hard, but because he does things with a pure heart” could be very aptly applied.
Gandhiji’s great contribution lay in his opening up before the world a new way of life, the path of peace, if one may call it, a method of combating in a creative and constructive way aggression and exploitation in inter-group as in international relations. His constant references to the world beyond India prove that he believed that his beliefs and techniques were equally applicable to the rest of the world and to India. He declared at the Asian Conference in Delhi his confidence that the fragrance of non-violence would permeate the whole world.
Some have raised the point whether Gandhiji’s being an Indian did not make it easier for him to fashion this technique in relation to the indigenous people and environment. But experience has shown that his philosophy and example are equally valid for all human beings and the forces he invokes are deeper than cultural or social, and function at a more basic level. In a way our daily lives testify to this truth, for it is a physical as much as an emotional experience. For, a common bond draws us towards the same objectives and inspires us to the same ideals. There is an identity in our human interests. That is why a tragedy, wherever it may have taken place, fills us with sorrow just as a triumph or success fills us with joy.
“All that produces ties of sentiment between man and man must serve as an antidote to war”, said Sigmund Freud. It is this bond of identification that brings out the essential resemblance between men, the sense of closeness and oneness with the larger community that Gandhiji tried to stimulate and stress. In truth, the entire edifice of human society is founded on this.
In this context, there is faith in the assumption that, the opponent or the erring party is redeemable, negotiations between the conflicting sides possible, and the unadjusted adjustable. Nevertheless, in Gandhiji’s scheme of things, there are situations and factors that could not be compromised. In fact one may say that non-resolvable matters are integral to the Gandhian strategy, like, for instance, colonialism, colour or caste or religious discrimination. The Gandhian technique, employed where bargaining was not possible, was pacific but involving active sacrifices. “Abstract truth has no value for me,” said Gandhiji, “unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it by proving their readiness to die for it.”
The Gandhian strategy of social dissent, though historically not new, gained special significance as it came to be more widely adopted in more recent times. During World War II, several of the subject peoples under Nazi rule employed it and even if they did not always win political success, certainly generated moral fervour and a sense of inner satisfaction that moral assertion brings. In recent years, the struggle in the United States for civil rights claims to be fashioned on a similar pattern. But for satyagraha to be an alive, effective weapon, creativity, not rigidity, is essential.
Closely linked with this was Gandhiji’s concept of religion as an all-pervasive influence, not a matter of deities, worship and rituals. His was a basic religion that could become the common faith of all. The very fact that devout Christians and ministers of the Church would seek him for inspiration and guidance was proof enough of his universal faith that could enfold all.
“The better mind of the world desires today,” said Gandhiji, “not absolutely independent States warring one against another but a federation of friendly interdependent States. The consummation of that event may be far off. I want to make no grand claim for our country. But I see nothing grand or impossible about our expressing our readiness for universal interdependence rather than independence. I desire the ability to be totally independent without asserting the independence.
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“We want freedom for our country, but not at the expense or exploitation of others, and not to degrade other countries. I do not want the freedom of India if it means the extinction of England or the disappearance of the Englishmen. I want the freedom of my country, so that the resources of my country might be utilized for the benefit of mankind. Just as the cult of patriotism teaches us today that the individual has to die for the family, the family has to die for the village, the village for the district, the district for the province, and the province for the country, even so, a country has to be free in order that it may die, if necessary, for the benefit of the world. My love, therefore, of nationalism or my idea of nationalism, is that my country may become free, that if need be, the whole country may die, so that the human race may live. There is no room for race-hatred there. Let that be our nationalism.
“There is no limit to extending our services to our neighbours across State-made frontiers. God never made those frontiers.
“My goal is friendship with the whole world and I can combine the greatest love with the greatest opposition to wrong.”
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“I would not like to live in this world if it is not to be One World.”