By Ambassador (Retd) Pascal Alan Nazareth
Gandhi’s fundamental contribution to religion was to give primacy to truth and rationality rather than conformity to traditional practices.
In fact, he made truth the basis of all morality by declaring, “I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.”
Though a deeply devout Hindu, Gandhi’s basic approach to religion was ‘sarvadharmasamabhav’ (equal respect for all religions).
For him, all religions had equal status and were different paths to the same goal of achieving union with the Divine.
His religion was that “which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, binds one indissolubly to the truth within and ever purifies.
It is the permanent element in human nature which leaves the soul restless until it has found itself”.
He affirmed: “For me, different religions are beautiful flowers from the same garden or branches of the same majestic tree”.
At his prayer meetings, readings were made from all the holy books.
His favourite hymn began with the line “He alone is a true devotee of God who understands the pains and sufferings of others”.
For him, “The hands that serve are holier than the lips that pray”. His religion essentially was a deeply spiritualised humanism.
He affirmed, “Independent India, as conceived by me, will have all Indians belonging to different religions, living in perfect friendship…….God did not create men with the badge of superiority or inferiority; no scripture that labels a human being an inferior or untouchable because of his or her birth can command our allegiance.
It is a denial of God and Truth, which is God”.
In 1931, he wrote in Young India, “It has been said that Swaraj will be the rule of the majority community i.e., the Hindus….If this were to be true, I would refuse to call it Swaraj and would fight it with all the strength at my command, for to me Hind Swaraj is the rule of all the people and the rule of justice.”
On January 23, 1948, just a week before his assassination he declared “It would spell the ruin of both the Hindu religion and the majority community if the latter, in the intoxication of power, entertains the belief that it can crush the minority community and establish a purely Hindu Rashtra”.
Lauding this enlightened approach his American biographer Louis Fischer wrote, “Mahatma Gandhi, a supremely devout Hindu, was incapable of discriminating against anyone on account of religion, race, caste, colour or anything.
His contribution to the equality of untouchables and to the education of a new generation which was Indian instead of Hindu or Muslim or Parsee or Christian has world significance.”
Gandhi’s great respect for the Qur’an is revealed in his following affirmations:
“I have read the Qur’an more than once. My religion enables me, obliges me, to imbibe all that is good in all the great religions of the earth. I have come to the conclusion that the teaching of the Qur’an is essentially in favour of non-violence. It holds that non-violence is better than violence. Non-violence is enjoined as a duty, violence is permitted only where necessary.”
“Islam’s distinctive contribution to India’s national culture is unadulterated belief in the oneness of God and a practical application of the truth of the brotherhood of man for those within its fold. In Hinduism, the spirit of brotherhood has become too much philosophised. Similarly, though philosophical Hinduism has no other God but God, it cannot be denied that practical Hinduism is not so emphatically uncompromising on this as Islam”.
Gandhi’s reverence for Christ is embodied in his following statements:
“What does Jesus mean to me? To me, he was one of the greatest teachers humanity has ever had.” And because the life of Jesus has the significance and the transcendence to which I have alluded, I believe that he belongs not solely to Christianity but to the entire world, to all races and people. It matters little under what flag, name, or doctrine they may work, profess a faith, or worship a God inherited from their ancestors”.
Gandhi’s biographer Louis Fischer has written that when he arrived at Sewagram Ashram in May 1942, he noticed there was “only one decoration on the mud walls of his hut: a black and white print of Jesus Christ with the inscription ‘He is our peace’“. When asked about it, Gandhi replied, “I am a Christian and a Hindu and a Muslim and a Jew…. Looking at all religions with an equal eye, we would not only not hesitate, but would think it is our duty to blend into our faith every acceptable feature of other faiths”.
Gandhi’s patriotism and nationalism were equally enlightened and in accord with the ancient Indian maxim ‘UdaracharitanamtuvasudaivaKudumbakam’ (for the broad minded all mankind is one family). He did not regard India as a nation in the narrow sense; it was a civilisation with special spiritual qualities and a duty to serve humanity. He wrote, “I live for India’s freedom and would die for it. But my patriotism is not exclusive. It is calculated to benefit all in the true sense of the word. Through the deliverance of India, I seek to deliver the so called weaker races of the world”
“My nationalism includes the love of all nations of the earth irrespective of creed …. It is not nationalism that is evil; it is the narrowness, selfishness, exclusiveness which is the bane of modern nations which is evil. Each one wants to profit at the expense and on the ruin of the other. Indian nationalism has, I hope, struck a different path to find full self expression for the benefit and service of humanity at large”.
Antony Copley, in his ‘Gandhi against the Tide’ book has named Marx, Lenin, Mao Tse Tung and Gandhi as the four most influential social and political thinkers of the twentieth century and added “Yet Gandhi is very much the odd man out in such company: it would be more accurate to see him as their antagonist than as a fellow thinker……Theirs was an unscrupulous, ruthless, Machiavellian acceptance that the ends justify the means; a tolerance of the brutishness and violence of power politics. Gandhi possessed an acute moral awareness that means would colour the ends and that only just, non-violent means would lead to a just and harmonious society. It is that optimism and that endlessly argued idea which probably make Gandhi so attractive and so relevant a figure to the world of today.
Though fully engaged in India’s freedom struggle Gandhi never lost sight of the world and its travails. His world view was all inclusive and broad spectrum. Having studied in England, he was well acquainted with its politics, culture and people. He had many friends there particularly among vegetarians, Theosophists and Liberals. In South Africa, where he spent 21 years, he experienced the most virulent British and Boer racism. Among his early supporters there were two Jews and a British clergyman. It was through the former he first became aware of feudal oppression in Russia. After he read Tolstoy’s ‘The Kingdom of God is within you’ he became more aware of the deplorable conditions of the Russian peasantry. In 1905, he wrote in ‘Indian Opinion’: “The power of the Viceroy is in no way less than that of the Tsar. The difference is that the British are more efficient and less crude in their brutal oppression. As a result the Russians, in desperation, become anarchists and terrorists.”
After Gandhi’s return to India his confrontation with the British Empire was far more challenging than it had been in South Africa. It required nearly all his time and energy. Yet he did not lose sight of the world.
About the 1917 Russian Revolution, he declared in a speech at Madras, “I am yet ignorant of what exactly Bolshevism is. I do not know whether it is for the good of Russia in the long run. But I know that in so far as it is based on violence and denial of God, it repels me”.
About the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, he wrote (in a letter dated May 25, 1920, to C.F. Andrews), “The position created by the Peace Treaty is simply intolerable. The Arabians have lost what independence they had under the Sultan because they were more than a match for him. And now if the King of Hejaz and Amir Feisal can help it, Arabia and Mesopotamia will be drained dry for both these men will be puppets in the hands of British officers whose one aim would be to make as much money as possible for British Capitalists.” A few days later, in Young India (June 30, 1920) he referred to “British interest in the oil of Mosul”.
When Major-General Oliver (Lee) Stack, Governor General of Sudan, was assassinated in November 1924 and the British imposed extremely harsh political and economic penalties on Egypt, Gandhi wrote, “Egypt fares no better than we do. An Egyptian kills a British officer – certainly a detestable crime. The punishment is not only a detestable crime, but it is an outrage upon humanity. Egypt has nearly lost all it got. A whole nation has been mercilessly punished for the crime of one man. It may be that the murder had the sympathy of the Egyptians. Would that justify terrorism by a power well able to protect its interests without it?” (Young India, December 26, 1924, CW, Vol 25, p 488)
About Spain and China he wrote “The fate of Republican Spain is hanging in the balance. So is that of China. If in the end they lose, it will not be because their cause is not just…… I suggest that, if it is brave, as it is, to die as a man fighting against all odds, it is braver still to refuse to fight and yet to refuse to yield to the usurper”.
When, some months after the Japanese invasion of China, a delegation from the former country called on him and urged Japan-India friendship, he sternly told them, “You have left the West far behind in diplomacy, in cheap manufactures, in armed warfare, in exploitation. How then can there be friendship between you and us so long as you see nothing wrong in exploitation” (Harijan, 24-12-1938).
After the 1938 Munich agreement, in which England and France conceded German takeover of Czechoslovakia, he averred with prophetic foresight, “England and France quailed before the combined violence of Germany and Italy. The agreement that has been signed is a peace that is no peace. The war is only postponed ”.
He lauded the heroic Polish resistance to Nazi invasion saying: “The Poles knew they would be crushed to atoms and yet they resisted the German hordes. That is why I call it almost non-violence”.
In early 1942, with Japan’s military threat against India looming large, Gandhi wrote a letter to President Roosevelt which inter alia stated: “Dear Friend, I twice missed coming to your great country. I have the privilege of having numerous friends there, both known and unknown to me. Many of my countrymen have received and are still receiving higher education in America. I know, too, that several have taken shelter there. I have profited greatly from the writings of Thoreau and Emerson. I say this to tell you how much I am connected with your country…….. My personal position is clear. I hate all war.
If, therefore, I could persuade my countrymen, they would make a most effective contribution. Under foreign rule, however, we can make no effective contribution in this war, except as helots….. I have suggested that if the allies think it necessary, they may keep their troops in India, at their own expense, not for keeping internal order, but for preventing Japanese aggression and defending China.
So far as India is concerned, she must become free even as America and Britain are. It is on behalf of this proposal that I write this to enlist your active sympathy”.
