I do feel that spiritual progress at some stage demands that we cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants. The beautiful lines of Goldsmith occur to me as I tell you of my vegetarian fad:
No flocks that range the valley free
To slaughter I condemn
Taught by the power that pities me
I learn to pity them.
India’s Case for Swaraj page 402
If I was appointed dictator for one hour for all of India, the first thing I would do would be to close without compensation all the liquour shops, and compel factory owners to produce humane conditions for their workmen and open refreshment and recreation rooms where these workmen would get innocent drinks and equally innocent amusements
Young India, 25-06-1931
We are inheritors of a rural civilisation. The vastness of our country, the vastness of the population, the situation and the climate of the country have, in my opinion, destined it for a rural civilisation. Its defects are well known, but not one of them is irremediable. To uproot it and substitute for it an urban civilisation seems to me an impossibility, unless we are prepared by some drastic means to reduce the population from three hundred million to three or say even thirty.
I can therefore suggest remedies on the assumption that we must perpetuate the present rural civilisation and endeavour to rid it of its acknowledged defects. This can only be done if the youth of the country will settle down to village life. And if they will do this, they must reconstruct their life and pass every day of their vacation in villages surrounding their colleges or high schools, and those who have finished their education or are not receiving any should think of settling down in villages.
Young India, 07-11-1929
Tobacco has simply worked havoc among mankind. Once caught in its tangle, it is rare to find anyone get out again….Tolstoy has called it the worst of all intoxicants.
In India people use tobacco for smoking, snuffing and also for chewing….lovers of (or seekers after) health, if they are slaves to any of these evil habits, will resolutely get out of the slavery. Several people are addicted to one, two or all the three of these habits. They do not appear loathsome to them. But if we think over it calmly, there is nothing becoming about blowing off smoke or keeping the mouth stuffed with tobacco and pan practically the whole day long or keep on opening the snuff box and take snuff every now and then. All the three are most dirty habits.
Excerpt from ‘Key to Health’ - Pages 39-42
The one thing which we can and must learn from the West is the science of municipal sanitation. The peoples of the West have evolved a science of corporate sanitation and hygiene from which we have much to learn. We must modify western methods of sanitation to suit our requirements
Young India, 26-12-1924
I do not expect India of my dream to develop one religion, i.e, to be wholely Hindu or wholly Christian, or wholly Musalman, but I want it to be wholly tolerant, with it’s religions working side by side with one another
Young India, 22-12-1927
To me political power is not the end but one of the means of enabling people to better their condition in every department of life. Political power means capacity to regulate national life through national representatives. If national life becomes so perfect as to become self-regulated, no representation becomes necessary. There is then a state of enlightend anarchy. In such a state everyone is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbour. In the ideal State, therefore there is not political power because there is no State. But the ideal is never fully realised in life. Hence the classical statement of Thoreau that that government is best which governs the least.
Young India, 02-07-1931
The great nature has intended us to earn our bread in the sweat of our brow. Everyone, therefore, who idles away a single minute becomes to that extent a burden upon his neighbours, and to do so is to commit a breach of the very first lesson of Ahimsa….Ahimsa is nothing if not a well-balanced exquisite consideration of one’s neighbour, and an idle man is wanting in that elementary consideration.
Young India, 11-04-1929
I must confess that I do not draw a sharp of any distinction between economics and ethics. Economics that hurt the moral well-being of an individual or a nation are immoral and, therefore, sinful. Thus, the economics that permit one country to prey upon another are immoral. It is sinful to buy and use articles made by sweated labour.
Young India, 13-10-1921
I have believed and repeated times without number that India is to be found not in its few cities but in its 7,000,000 villages. But we town-dwellers have believed that India is to be found in its towns and the villages were created to minister our needs. We have hardly ever paused to inquire if those poor folk get sufficient to eat and clothe themselves with and whether they have a roof to shelter themselves from sun and rain.
Harijan, 04-04-1946
This blog is merely an attempt to put a few of his thoughts on the table, for conversation.
