We are different, so are our ‘isms’

Socialism and communism of the West are based on certain conceptions which are fundamentally different from ours. One such conception is their belief in the essential selfishness of human nature. I do not subscribe to it for I know that the essential difference between man and the brute is that the former can respond to the call of the spirit in him, can rise superior to the passions that he owns in common with the brute and, therefore, superior to selfishness and violence, which belong to the brute nature and not to the immortal spirit of man.

That is the fundamental conception of the Hindu way of life, which has years of penance and austerity at the back of the discovery of this truth. That is why, whilst we have had saints who have worn out their bodies and laid down their lives in order to explore the secrets of the soul, we have had none, as in the West, who laid down their lives in exploring the remotest or the highest regions of the earth. Our socialism or communism should, therefore, be based on non-violence and on harmonious cooperation of labour and capital, landlord and tenant.

Amrita Bazar Patrika, 02-08-1934

Judge not thy neighbour!

I have repeatedly observed that no school of thought can claim a monopoly of right judgement. We are all liable to err and are often obliged to revise our judgments. In a vast country like this, there must be room for all schools of honest thought. And the least, therefore, that we owe to ourselves as to others is to try to understand the opponent’s view-point and, if we cannot accept it, respect it as fully as we expect him to respect ours. It is one of the indispensable tests of a healthy public life and therefore fitness for Swaraj. If we have no charity, and no tolerance, we shall never settle our differences amicably and must, therefore, always submit to the arbitration of a third party, i.e. to foreign domination.

Young India,  17-4-1924

The curse of Industrialism

There is a growing body of enlightened opinion which distrusts this civilization which has insatiable material ambition at one end and consequent war at the other. But whether good or bad, why must India become industrial in the Western sense? The Western civilization is urban. Small countries like England or Italy may afford to urbanize their systems. A big country like America with a very sparse population, perhaps, cannot do otherwise. But one would think that a big country, with a teeming population with an ancient rural tradition which has hitherto answered its purpose, need not, must not copy the Western model.

What is good for one nation situated in one condition is not necessarily good enough for another differently situated. One man’s food is often another man’s poison. Physical geography of a country has a predominant share in determining its culture. A fur coat may be a necessity for the dweller in the polar regions, it will smother those living in the equatorial regions.

Young India, 25-7-1929

Count me too!

If the individual ceases to count, what is left of society? Individual freedom alone can make a man voluntarily surrender himself completely to the service of society. If it is wrested from him, he becomes an automaton and society is ruined. No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.

Harijan, 1 -2-’42

Spines for the middle class

The remedy against cowardice is not physical culture but the braving of dangers. So long as the parents of the middle class Hindus, themselves timid, continue to transmit their timidity by keeping their grown-up children in cotton-wool, so long will there be their desire to shun danger and run no risks. They will have-to dare to leave their children alone, let them run risks and even at times get killed in so doing. The puniest individual may have a stout heart. The most muscular Zulus cower before English lads. Each village has to find out its stout hearts.

Young India, 29-5-’24

Bapu,

Nothing has changed since. Wonder why! The average self-righteous Hindu middle class father continues to define the course of his child’s life. Many insecure parents treat their children like pension plans.

Cow care, and our culture…

The central fact of Hinduism is cow protection. Cow protection to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in human evolution. It takes the human being beyond his species. The cow to me means the entire sub-human world.

Man through the cow is enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives. Why the cow was selected for apotheosis is obvious to me. The cow was in India the best companion. She was the giver of plenty. Not only did she give milk, but she also made agriculture possible. The cow is a poem of pity. One reads pity
in the gentle animal. She is the mother to millions of Indian mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb creation of God. The ancient seer, whoever he was, began with the cow. The appeal of the lower order of creation is all the more forcible because it is speechless. Cow protection is the gift of Hinduism to the world. And Hinduism will live so long as there are Hindus to protect the cow. . . .

Hindus will be judged not by their tilaks, not by the correct chanting of mantras, not by their pilgrimages, not by their most punctilious observances of caste rules but their ability to protect the cow*

Young India, 6-10-1921

Our Inheritance

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