|
Mahatma Gandhi & Salman
Rushdie
13 April 1998 (from a contribution to
the Tamil.net)
Vannakam
Salman Rushdie's article on Mahatma Gandhi appears to
have been written (presumably for a fee), with a view to
entertaining the readers of Time magazine. Rushdie
declares somewhat patronisingly:
"These days, few people pause to
consider the complex character of Gandhi's personality,
the ambiguous nature of his achievement and legacy, or
even the real causes of Indian independence. These are
hurried, sloganize times, and we don't have the time
or, worse, the inclination to assimilate many-sided
truths."
But it seems that Rushdie himself falls
too easily into the trap of these 'hurried sloganizing
times' and his closing reference to Gandhi's 'passive'
resistance serves to underline this propensity. On
several occasions in his life, Gandhi took great pains to
explain that to him, non violence was not 'passive' - it
was a very 'active' form of resistance, no less 'active'
than violent resistance. Rushdie may have found it useful
to have read and understood the famous article titled the
'Doctrine of the Sword', that Gandhi wrote in 1920:
"I do believe that when there is only a
choice between cowardice and violence.... I would
rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her
honour than that she should in a cowardly manner become
or remain a helpless victim to her own dishonour. But I
believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to
violence, forgiveness is more manly than
punishment.
Forgiveness adorns a soldier. But abstinence is
forgiveness only when there is power to punish; it is
meaningless when it proceeds from a helpless creature.
A mouse hardly forgives a cat when it allows itself to
be torn to pieces by her... But I do not believe India
to be helpless, I do not believe myself to be a
helpless creature...
Let me not be misunderstood. Strength does not come
from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable
will...
I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical
idealist. The religion of non violence is not meant
merely for rishis and saints. It is meant for the
common people as well. Non violence is the law of our
species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit
lies dormant in the brute, and he knows no law but that
of physical might.
The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law -
to the strength of the spirit.
I have therefore ventured to place before India the
ancient law of self sacrifice. For satyagraha and its
offshoots, non co-operation and civil resistance, are
nothing but new names for the law of suffering.
The rishis who discovered the law of non violence in
the midst of violence were greater geniuses than
Newton. They were themselves greater warriors than
Wellington.
Having themselves known the use of arms, they realised
their uselessness and taught a weary world that its
salvation lay not through violence but through non
violence.
Non violence in its dynamic condition means conscious
suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will
of the evil doer, but it means the putting of one's
whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working
under this law of our being, it is possible for a
single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust
empire to save his honour, his religion, his soul, and
lay the foundation for that empire's fall or
regeneration.
And so I am not pleading for India to practise non
violence because it is weak. I want her to practise non
violence being conscious of her strength and
power...
I want India to recognise that she has a soul that
cannot perish, and that can rise triumphant above any
physical weakness and defy the physical combination of
a whole world.
I isolate this non co-operation from Sinn Feinism, for
it is so conceived as to be incapable of being offered
side by side with violence. But I invite even the
school of violence to give this peaceful non
co-operation a trial. It will not fail through its
inherent weakness. It may fail because of poverty of
response.
Then will be the time for real danger. The high souled
men, who are unable to suffer national humiliation any
longer, will want to vent their wrath. They will take
to violence. So far as I know, they must perish without
delivering themselves or their country from the
wrong...."
A story is told of Gandhi and Bhagat
Singh, a militant in the Indian freedom struggle. In the
1930s, Bhagat Singh was charged and convicted for dacoity
and sentenced to death. In prison, awaiting death, Bhagat
Singh said that, he regarded himself as a member of the
Indian liberation army, and that he should not be hung
but should be taken before a firing squad and shot. When
asked by newspaper reporters for his response, Gandhi
replied: ''His way is not my way. But I bow my head
before one who is ready to give his life for the freedom
of his people.''
Gandhi was sentenced to prison for his writings. But
Gandhi did not seek to hide and avoid the sentence passed
on him. He was not devious. He was ready to suffer for
that which he believed and that which he said and therein
lay his capacity to influence a people. Without being
unkind to Salman Rushdie, he may want to ponder why it is
that long after the likes of him have been forgotten,
Mahatma Gandhi will continue
to inspire all those concerned with political change -
change for the better, change so that the essential
goodness in each one of us may find settled expression.
As Schumacher (the author of Small is Beautiful) remarks
in his later book 'A Guide for the Perplexed':
"In modern times there is no lack of
understanding of the fact man is a social being and
that 'No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe' (John
Dunne, 1571-1631). Hence there is no lack of
exhortation that he should love his neighbour - or at
least not to be nasty to him - and should treat him
with tolerance, compassion and understanding. At the
same time, however, the cultivation of self knowledge
has fallen into virtually total neglect, except, that
is, where it is the object of active suppression.
That you cannot love your neighbour, unless you love
yourself; that you cannot understand your neighbour
unless you understand yourself; that there can be no
knowledge of the 'invisible person' who is your
neighbour except on the basis of self knowledge - these
fundamental truths have been forgotten even by many of
the professionals in the established religions.
Exhortations, consequently, cannot possibly have any
effect; genuine understanding of one's neighbour is
replaced by sentimentality, which ofcourse crumbles
into nothingness as soon as self interest is
aroused...
Anyone who goes openly on a journey into the interior,
who withdraws from the ceaseless agitation of everyday
life and pursues the kind of training - satipatthana,
yoga, Jesus Prayer, or something similar - without
which genuine self knowledge cannot be obtained, is
accused of selfishness and of turning his back on
social duties.
Meanwhile, world crisis multiply and everybody deplores
the shortage, or even total lack, of 'wise' men or
women, unselfish leaders, trustworthy counselors etc.
It is hardly rational to expect such high qualities
from people who have never done any inner work and
would not even understand what was meant by the
words..."
Rushdie dismisses Richard Attenborough's
'much-Oscared movie Gandhi' as an example of
'unhistorical Western saintmaking' but fails to recognise
that which led Attenborough to make the film and the
influence that Louis Fischer's Biography of Gandhi had on
Attenborough's own life. It seems that Rushdie is writing
from the dark bottom of a bottomless pit into which he
has dug himself. He may want to heed Gandhi's words,
rather than dismiss them as 'homilies and nostrums':
"I claim to be no more than an average
man with less than average ability. Nor can I claim any
special merit for such non-violence or continence as I
have been able to reach with laborious research. I have
not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can
achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same
effort and cultivate the same hope and faith. Work
without faith is like an attempt to reach the bottom of
a bottomless pit."
Stephen Covey, the author of the best
selling Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, often
refers to a story from Gandhi's life. The parents had
brought their young child to Gandhi. They wanted Gandhi
to advise the child against eating sweets. Gandhi told
the parents to bring the child to him the next week.
Seven days later, Gandhi advised the child. The parents
then inquired from Gandhi why it was that he had not
advised the child on their first visit. Gandhi replied:
"I myself was eating sweets then."
That Gandhi's words are increasingly quoted by today's
management gurus is a reflection of the deep underlying
truths that Gandhi had touched in his own life - deep
underlying truths which have a broad relevance to all
human endeavour. For Gandhi, life was a permanent
experiment with truth. He walked his talk - and where his
walk did not coincide with his talk, he changed either
his walk or his talk. He once declared:
"I claim to be a simple individual
liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own,
however, that I have humility enough in me to confess
my errors and to retrace my steps. I own that I have an
immovable faith in God and His goodness and
unconsumable passion for truth and love. But, is that
not what every person has latent in him?"
|
