Anti -national fellows of Cong have no concerns over China's occupation on Bhartiya territory

“Jai Guru Dev” “Jayatu Bharati” These anti -national fellows of Cong(gang of negative –anti-social, anti-cultural elements) have no concerns over China's occupation on Bhartiya territory accepting that's disputed territory as Chinese land. The matter has been diluted in wonderful way stating by anti-national Cong.men that the occupied territory by China is already Chinese territory. Focus of discussion over Sarabjeet is absolutely in planned way to divert the mindset of the nation from main burning China issue.- ..--- DrVDS “Krantivir” (Swabhimani Swadeshi & Cong hatao desh bachao Manch)

BJP is not so bad as Cong :spiritual Modi ji (Nationalist Saint) will do all his best efforts

“Jai Guru Dev” “Jayatu Bharati” BJP is not so bad as Cong . Cong is gang of looters, anti-nationals, demons, rapists. Hence Cong is untouchable, unbearable. It has become sinking ship because of it’s sins. But BJP is nationalist , it's acceptable. Sanyasi & spiritual Modi ji (Nationalist Saint) will do all his best efforts to filter the impurities of his nationalist party BJP as well as of the Bhartiya Politics vs pollutics & political environment of the nation. ..--- DrVDS “Krantivir” (Swabhimani Swadeshi & Cong hatao desh bachao Manch)

The Sanatana Dharma Conference

The Sanatana Dharma Conference
OM. IT's MY APPEAL TO ALL SANTANIs TO SHARE THIS INFO ABOUT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE & TO FWD TO OTHERS.
DrVD SHARAM
09919883533

The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism : Written by : M. K. Gandhi : www.mkgandhi.org

The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism : Written by : M. K. Gandhi First Published : April 1959 Rs. 7/- Printed & Published by : Jitendra T Desai Navajivan Mudranalaya Ahmedabad 380 014 (INDIA) The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 2 01. FOOD VALUES Whilst it is true that man cannot live without air and water, the thing that nourishes the body is food. Hence the saying, food is life. Food can be divided into three categories: vegetarian, flesh, and mixed. Flesh foods include fowl and fish. Milk is an animal product and cannot by any means be is an animal product and cannot by any means be included in a strictly vegetarian diet. It serves the purpose of meat to a very large extent. In medical language it is classified as animal food. A layman does not consider milk to be animal food. On the other hand, eggs are regarded by the layman as a flesh food. In reality, they are not. Nowadays sterile eggs are also produced. The hen is not allowed to see the cock and yet it lays eggs. A sterile egg never develops into a chick. Therefore, he who can take milk should have no objection to taking sterile eggs. Medical opinion is mostly in favour of a mixed diet, although there is a growing school, which is strongly of the opinion that anatomical and physiological evidence is in favour of man being a vegetarian. His teeth, his stomach, intestines, etc. seem to prove that nature has meant man to be a vegetarian. Vegetarian diet, besides grains, pulses, edible roots, tubers and leaves, included fruits, both fresh and dry. Dry fruit includes nuts like almonds, pistachio, walnuts, etc. Milk I have always been in favour of pure vegetarian diet. But experience has taught me that in order to keep perfectly fit, vegetarian diet must include milk and milk products such as curds, butter, ghee etc. This is a significant departure from my original idea. I excluded milk from my diet for six years. At that time, I felt none the worse for the denial. But in the year 1917, As a result of my own ignorance, I was laid down with severe dysentery. I was reduced to a skeleton, but I stubbornly refused to take milk or buttermilk. But I could not build up my body and pick up sufficient strength to leave the bed. I had taken the vow of not taking milk. A medical friend suggested that at the time of taking vow. I could have had in mind The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 3 only the milk of the cow and buffalo; why should the vow prevent me from taking goat’s milk? My wife supported him and I yielded. Really speaking, for one who has given up milk, though at the time of taking the vow only the cow and the buffalo were in mind, milk should be taboo. All animal milks have practically the same composition, though the proportion of the components varies in cash case. So I may be said to have kept merely the letter, not the spirit, of the vow. Be that as it may, goat’s milk produced immediately and I drank it. It seemed to bring me new life. I picked up rapidly and was soon able to leave the bed. On account of this several similar experiences, I have been forced to admit the necessity of adding milk to the strict vegetarian diet. But I am convinced that in the vast vegetable kingdom there must be some kind, which, while supplying those necessary substances which we derive from milk and meat, is free from their drawbacks, ethical and other. In my opinion there are definite drawbacks in taking milk or meat. In order to get meat we have to kill. And we are certainly not entitled to any other milk except the mother’s milk in our infancy. Over and above the moral drawback, there are others, purely from the point of view of health. Both milk and meat bring with them the defects of the animal from which they are derived. Domesticated cattle are hardly ever perfectly healthy. Just like man, cattle suffer from innumerable diseases. Several of these are overlooked even when the cattle are subjected to periodical medical examinations. Besides, medical examination of all the cattle in India seems to be an impossible feat, at any rate for the present. What applies to the milch cattle applies to a much greater extent to the animals slaughtered for meat. As a general rule, man just depends upon luck to escape from such risks. He does not seem to worry much about his health. He considers himself to be a quite safe in his medical fortress in the shape of doctors, vaids and hakims. His main worry and concern is how to get wealth and position in society. This worry overshadows all the rest. Therefore, so long as some selfless scientist does not, as a result of patient research work, discover a vegetable substitute for milk and meat, man will go on taking meant and milk. Now let us consider mixed diet. Man requires food which can supply tissue building substances to provide for the growth and daily wear and tear of the body. It should also contain something which can supply energy, fat, certain slats and roughage to help the excretion of waste matter. Tissue building substances are known as The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 4 proteins. They are obtained from milk, meat, eggs, pulses and nuts. The proteins contained in milk and meat, in other words, the animal proteins being more easily digestible and assailable, are much more evaluable than vegetable proteins. Milk is superior to meat. The medicos tell us that in case where meat cannot be digested, milk is digested quite easily. For vegetarian’s milk, being the only source of animal proteins is a very important article of diet. The proteins, in raw eggs are considered to be the most easily digestible of all proteins. But everybody cannot afford to drink milk. And milk is not available in every place. I would like to mention here a very important fact with regard to milk. Contrary to the popular belief, skimmed milk is a very valuable article to diet. There are times when it proves even more useful than whole milk. The chief function of milk is to supply animal proteins for tissue building and tissue repair. Skimming, instruments cannot removes the fats, does not affect the proteins at all. Moreover , the available skimming instruments cannot remove all the fat from milk. Neither is there any likelihood of such an instrument being constructed. Cereals The body requires other things besides milk, whole or skimmed. I give the second place to cereals wheat, rice, jawar, bajri, etc. These are used as the staple diet. Different cereals are used as staple in different provinces of India. In many places, more than one kind of cereals are eaten at the same time, for instance, small quantities of wheat, bajri and rice are often served together. This mixture is not necessary for the nourishment of the body. It makes it difficult to regulate the quantity of food intake, and puts an extra strain upon digestion. As all these varieties supply starch mainly, it is better to take one only, at a time. Wheat may well be described as the king among the cereals. If we glance at the world map, we find that wheat occupies the first place. From the point of view of health, if we can get wheat, rice and other cereals become unnecessary. If wheat is not available and jawar,etc. cannot be taken on account of dislike or difficulty in digesting them, rice has to be resorted to. The cereals should be properly cleansed, ground on a grinding stone, and the resulting flour used as it is. Sieving of the flour should be avoided. It is likely to The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 5 remove the bhushi or the pericarp which is a rich source of salts and vitamins, both of which is a rich source of salts and vitamins, both of which are most valuable from the point of view of nutrition. The pericarp also supplies roughage, which helps the action of the bowels. Rice grain being very delicate, nature has provided it with an outer covering or epicarp. This is not edible. In order to remove this inedible portion, rice has to be pounded not only removes the outer skin, but also polishes the rice by removes the outer skin of the rice grain. But machine pounding not only removing its pericarp. The explanation of the popularity helps preservation. The pericarp is very sweet and unless it is removed, rice is easily attacked by certain organisms. Polished rice and wheat without its pericarp, supply us with almost pure starch. Important constituents of the cereals are lost with the removal of the pericarp. The pericarp of rice is sold as rice polishing. This and the pericarp of wheat can be cooked and eaten by themselves. They can be also made into chapatis or cakes. It is possible that rice chapattis may be mor easily digestible than whole rice and in this form a lesser quantity may result in full satisfaction. We are in the habit of dipping each morsel of the chapatti in vegetable or dal gravy before eating it. The result is that most people swallow their food without proper mastication. Mastication is an important step in the process of digestion, especially that of starch. Digestion of starch begins on its coming into contact with saliva in the mouth. Mastication ensures foods should be eaten in relatively dry form, which results in a greater flow of saliva and also necessitates their thorough mastication. Pulses After the starch supplying cereals come the protein supplying pulses beans, lentils, etc. Almost everybody seems to think that pulses are an essential constitution of diet. Even meat eaters must have pulses. It is easy to understand that those who have to do hard manual work and who cannot afford to drink milk, cannot do without pulses. But I can say without any hesitation whatsoever that those who follow sedentary occupations as for instance, clerks, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, teachers and those who are not too poor to buy milk, do not requires pulses. Pulses are generally considered to be difficult to digest and are eaten in a much small quantity than cereals. Out of the varieties of pusses, peas, gram and haricot beans The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 6 are considered to be the most and mung and masoor (lentils) the least difficult to digest. Vegetables Vegetable and fruit should come third on our list. One would expect them to cheap and easily available in India. But it is not so. They are generally considered to be delicates meant for the city people. In the village fresh vegetables are a rarity, and in most places fruit is also not available. This shortage of greens and fruits is a slur on the administration of India, the villagers can grow plenty of green vegetables if they wish to. The question of fruit cannot be solved so easily. The land legislation is bad from the villager’s stand point. But I Am transgressing. Among fresh vegetables, a fair amount of leafy potatoes, sweet potatoes, suran etc. which supply starch mainly, among vegetables. They should be put down in the same category as starch supplying cereals. A fair helping of ordinary fresh vegetables is advisable. Certain varieties such as cucumber, tomatoes, mustard and cress and other tender leaves need not be cooked. They should be washed properly and them eaten raw in small quantities. Fruits As a fruits, our daily diet should include the available fruits of the season, e.g. mangoes, jambu, guavas, grapes, papaiyas, limes sweet or sour, oranges, moosambi, etc. should all be used in their season. The best time for taking fruit is in the early morning. A breakfast of fruit and milk should give full satisfaction. Those who take an early lunch may well have a breakfast of fruit only. Ghee And Oil A certain amount o f fat is also necessary. This can be had in the form of ghee of oil. If ghee can be had oil becomes unnecessary. It is difficult to digest and it not so nourishing as pure ghee. An ounce and a half of ghee per head per day, should be considered ample to supply the needs of the body. Whole milk also is source o f The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 7 ghee. Those who cannot afford it should take enough oil to supply the need for fat. Among oils, sweet oil, groundnut oil and coconut oil should be given preference. Oil must be fresh. If available, it is better to use hand-pressed oil. Oil and ghee sold in the bazaar are generally quite useless. It is matter of great sorrow and shame. But so long as honesty has not become an integral part of business morals, whether through legislation or through education, the individual will have to procure the pure article with patience and diligence. One should never be satisfied to take what one can get, irrespective of its quality. It is far better to do without ghee and oil altogether than to eat rancid oil and adulterated ghee. As in the case of fats, a certain amount of sugar is also necessary. Although sweet fruits supply plenty of sugar, there is no harm in taking one to one and a half ounces of sugar, brown or white, in the day. If one cannot get sweet fruits, sugar may become a necessity. But the undue prominence given to sweet things nowadays is wrong. City folk eat too much of sweet things. Milk puddings, milk sweets and sweets of other kind are consumed in large quantities. They are all unnecessary and are harmful except when taken in very small quantities. It may be said without any feat of exaggeration that to partake of sweetmeats and other delicacies, in a country where the millions do not even get an ordinary full meal, is equivalent to robbery. What applies to sweets, applies with equal force to ghee and oil. There is no need to eat food fried in ghee or oil. To use up ghee in making puries and laddus is thoughtless extravagance. Those who are not used to such food cannot eat these things at all. For instance, Englishmen on their first coming into our country cannot eat our sweets and fried foodstuffs. Those that do eat them I have often seen fall ill. Taste is acquired, not born with us. All the delicacies of the world cannot equal the relish that hunger gives to food. A hungry man will eat a dry piece of bread with the greatest relish, whereas one who is not hungry gives to food. A hungry man will eat a dry piece of bread with the greatest relish, where one who is not hungry will refuse the best of sweetmeats. How often and How much to Eat Now let us consider how much should one eat. Food should be taken as a matter of duty even as a medicine to sustain the body, never for the satisfaction of the palate. The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 8 Thus, pleasurable feeling comes from satisfaction of real hunger. Therefore, we can say that relish is dependent upon hunger not outside it. Because of our wrong habits and artificial way of living, very few people know what their system requires. Our parents who bring us into this world do not, as a rule, cultivate self-control. Their habits and their way of living influence the children to certain extent. The mother’s food during childhood, the mother pampers the child with all sorts of tasty foods. She gives the child a little bit out of whatever she herself may be eating and the child’s digestive system gets a wrong training from its infancy. Habits once formed are difficult to shed. They are very realization comes to man that he is his own bodyguard, and his body has been dedicated to service, he desires to learn the law of keeping his body in a fit condition and tries hard to follow them. We have now reached a point when we can lay down the amount of various foods required by a man of sedentary habits, which most men and women who will read these pages are. Cow’s milk -2lbs. Cereals (Wheat rice, bajri, in all) -6oz. Vegetables leafy 3oz. Vegetables others 5oz. Vegetables raw 1oz. Ghee 1 and half oz Butter 2 oz Gur or white sugar 1 and half oz Fresh fruit according to one’s taste and purse. In any case it is good to take sour limes a day. The juice should be squeezed and taken with vegetables or in water, cold and hot. All these weight are of raw stuff. I have not put down the amount of salt. It should be added afterwards according to taste. Now, how often should one eat? Many people take two meals a day. The general rule is to take three meals: breakfast early in the morning and before going out to work, The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 9 dinner at midday and supper in the evening or later. There is no necessity to have more than three meals. In the cities some people keep on nibbling from time to time to time. This habit is harmful. The digestive apparatus requires rest. Key to Health, pp. 13-27, Edn. 1956 The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 10 02. UNFIRED FOOD (In the course of a letter from Coonoor, dated 26-7-1929, addressed to Gandhiji in connection with his experiments in dietetics, Dr. R. McCarriso had written as follows: ) “One of the great fault in Indian diets are at the present day is their deficiency in vitamin A, in suitable protein and in certain salts; and the greatest nutritional need of India is the freer use of good milk and its products which supply these factors. There can be no doubt in the minds of those of us who have devoted a life time to the study of nutrition that milk is one of the greatest blessings given to mankind. And to one like myself, whose work is to learn the truth and spread it, the scarcity of this food in India and the lack of appreciation of its value are matters of grave concern. Do not, I beg of you, decry it; for a pint of milk a day will do more for Young India than most things I wot of. It is, for example, to deficiency of vitamin A that we owe so much disease of the bowels and lungs, so much disease to the bladder (such as ‘stone’ ) and so much anaemia in this country. I am glad you are interesting yourself in the matter of food and I agree with much that you say. But let me assure you that a little more ‘fortissimo’ on the ‘milk’ and milk products theme’ will do great good when you are leading the orchestra of Truth. P. S. when next you make an Andhra tour, avoid “the extreme weakness”, which overtook you in your last one, by taking a pint of milk a day! (Commenting on Dr. McCarrison’s letter Gandhiji wrote as under: ) I publish this letter thankfully and wish that other men versed in medical science would also guide me. In making the experiment, I may trying to find out the truth about food in so far as it is possible for a layman to do so. As for Dr. McCarrison’s argument about the necessity of animal food. I dare not as a layman combat it, but I may state that there are medical men who are decidedly of opinion that animal food including milk is not instinct and upbringing I personally favour a purely vegetarian diet, and have for years been experimenting in finding a suitable vegetarian combination. But there is no danger of my decrying mild until I have obtained overwhelming evidence in support of milk less diet. It is one of many The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 11 in consistencies of my life that whilst I am in my own person avoiding milk, I am conducting a model dairy which is already producing cow’s milk that can successfully compete with any such milk produced in India in purity and fat content. Notwithstanding Dr. McCoarrion’s claim for medical science I submit that science I submit that scientist have not yet explored the hidden possibilities of the innumerable seeds, leaves and fruits for giving the fullest possible nutrition to mankind. For one thing the tremendous vested interests that have grown round the belief in animal food prevent the medical profession from approaching the question with complete detachment. It almost seems to me that it is reserved for lay enthusiasts to cut their way through a mountain of difficulties even at the risk of their lives to find the truth. I should be satisfied if scientists would lend their assistance to such humble seekers. Young India, 15-8-1929 As a searcher for Truth I deem it necessary to find the perfect food for a man to keep body, mind and soul in a sound condition. I believe that the search can only succeed with unfired food, and that in the limitless vegetable kingdom there is an effective substitute for milk, which every medical man admits, has its drawbacks and which is designed by nature not for man but for babies and young ones of lower animals. I should count no cost too dear for making a search which in my opinion is so necessary from more points of view than one. I therefore still seek information and guidance from kindred spirits. Young India, 22-8-1929 If one may take ripe fruit without cooking I see no reason why one may not take vegetables too in an uncooked state provided one can properly digest them. Dialecticians are of opinion that the inclusion of a small quantity of raw vegetables like cucumber, vegetable marrow, pumpkin, gourd, etc. in one’s menu is more beneficial to health than the eating of large quantities of the same cooked. But the digestions of most people are very often so impaired through a surfeit of cooked fare than one should not be surprised if at first they fail to do justice to raw greens, The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 12 though I can say from personal experience that no harmful effect need follow if a tola or two of raw greens are taken with each meal provided one masticates them thoroughly. It is a well-established fact that one can derive a much greater amount of nourishment from the same quality of food if it is masticated well. The habit of proper mastication of food inculcated by the use of uncooked greens , therefore, if it does nothing else, will at least enable one to do with less quantity of food and thus not only make for economy in consumption but also automatically reduced the dietetic himsa that one commits to sustain life. Therefore, whether regarded from the viewpoint of dietetics or that of Ahimsa, the use of uncooked vegetables is not only free from all objection but is to be highly recommended. Of course, it does without saying that if the vegetables are to be eaten raw extra care will have to be exercised to see that they are not stale, overripe or rotton, or otherwise dirty. Young India, 15-11-1928 The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 13 03. VITAL NEED FOR RESEARCH The unlimited capacity of the plant world to sustain man at his highest is a region yet unexplored by modern medical science which through force of habit pins its faith on the shambles or at least milk and its by-products. It is a duty which awaits discharge by Indian Medical men whose tradition is vegetarian. The fast developing researches about vitamins and the possibility of getting the most important of them directly from the sun bid fair to revolutionize many of the accepted theories and beliefs propounded by medical science about food. Young India, 18-7-1929 I have found after prolonged experiment and observation that there is no fixed dietetic rule for all constitutions. All that the wisest physicians claim for their advice is that it is likely to benefit in a given case as in a majority of cases they have found it to answer fairly well. In no branch of science is the scientist so hampered in his research as in the medical. He dare not speak with certainly of the effect of a single drug or food or of the reactions of human bodies. It is and will always remain empirical. The popular saying that one man’s food may be another’s poison is based on vast experience which finds daily verification. Such being the case, the field for experiment on the part of intelligent men and women is limitless. Laymen ought to acquire a workable knowledge of the body which plays such an important part in the evolution of the soul within. And yet about nothing are we so woefully negligent or ignorant as in regard to our bodies. Instead of using the body as a temple of God we use it as a vehicle for indulgence, and are not ashamed to run medical men for help in our effort to increase them and abuse the earthly tabernacle. Young India, 8-8-1929 Take up any modern textbook on food or vitamins, and you would find in it a strong recommendation to take a few edible green leaves uncooked at every meal. Of course, these should always be well washed half a dozen times to remove all dirt. These leaves are to be had in every village for the trouble of picking. And yet greens The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 14 are supposed to be only a delicacy of cities. Villagers in many parts of India live on dal and rice or roti, and plenty of chilies, which harm the system. Since the economic reorganization of villages has been commenced with food reform, it is necessary to find out the simplest and cheapest foods that would enable villagers to regain lost health. The addition of green leaves to their meals will enable villagers to avoid many diseases from which they are now suffering. The villagers’ food is deficient in vitamins; many of them can be supplied by fresh green leaves. That, of course, means elaborate research and examination in detail of the nourishing properties of the innumerable leaves that are to be found hidden among the grasses that grow wild in India. Harijan, 15-2-1935 The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 15 04. VEGETARIANISM A correspondent is born in a meat-eating family. He has successfully resisted the pressure from his parents to return to the flesh-pot. “But”, he says, “in a book I have before me, I read the opinion of swami Vivekanand on the subject and feel a good deal shaken in my belief. The Swami holds that for Indians in their present state flesh diet is a necessity and he advises his friends to eat flesh freely. He even goes so far as to say, “if you incur any sin thereby throw it upon me; I will bear it.’ I am now fix whether to eat flesh or not.” This blind worship of authority is a sign of weakness of mind. If the correspondent has such a deep seated conviction that flesh eating is not right, why should he be moved by the opinion to the contrary of the whole world? One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds. As for the opinion of the great Swami, I have not seen actual writing but I fear the correspondent has correctly quoted him. My opinion is well known. I do not regard flesh-food as necessary for us at any stage and under any clime in which it is possible for human beings ordinarily to live. I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it. Experience teaches that animal food is unsuited to those who would curb their passions. But it is wrong to overestimate the importance of food in the formation of character or in subjugating the flesh. Diet is a powerful factor not to be neglected. But to sum up all religion in terms of diet, as is often done in India, is as wrong as it is to disregard all restraint in regard to diet and to give full reins to one’s appetite. Vegetarianism lightly given up. It is necessary, therefore, to correct the error that vegetarianism has made us weak in mind or body or passive or inert in action. The greatest Hindu they have invariably been vegetarians. Who could show greater activity than say Shankara or Dayanand in their times? But my correspondent must not accept me as his authority. The choice of one’s diet is not a thing to be based on faith. It is a matter for everyone to reason out for himself. There has grown up especially in the West an amount of literature on vegetarianism which any seeker after truth may study with profit. Many eminent medical men have contributed to this literature. Here, in India, we have not needed The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 16 any encouragement for vegetarianism. For it has been hitherto accepted as the most desirable and the most respectable thing. Those, however, who like the correspondent towards vegetarianism in the West. Young India, 7-10-1926 One should eat not in order to please the palate but just to keep the body going. When each organ of sense sub serves the body and through the body the soul, its special relish disappears, and then alone does it begin to function in the way nature intended it to do. Any number of experiments is too small and no sacrifice is too great for attaining this symphony with nature. But unfortunately the current is nowadays flowing strongly in the opposite direction. We are not ashamed to sacrifice a multitude of other lives in decorating the perishable body and trying to prolong its existence for a few fleeting moments with the result that we kill ourselves, we give rise to a hundred new ones; in trying to enjoy the pleasures of sense, we lose in the end even our capacity for enjoyment. All this is passing before our very eyes, but there are none so blind as those who will not see. Autobiography, p. 237, Edn. 1958 There is a great deal of truth in the saying that man becomes what he eats. The grosser the food the food the grosser the body. Harijan, 5-8-1933 I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants. The beautiful lines of Goldsmith occurs 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, pp. 402, Edn. 1932 The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 17 05. NOT AN END IN ITSELF Abstemiousness from intoxicating drinks and drugs, and from all kinds of foods, especially meat, is undoubtedly a great aid to the evolution of the spirit, but It is by no means an end in itself. Many a man eating meat and with everybody living in the fear of God is nearer his freedom than a man religiously abstaining from meat and many other things, but blaspheming God in every one of his acts. Young India, 6-10-21 Abjure brinjals or potatoes by all means, if you will, but do not for heaven’s sake begin to feel yourself self-righteous or flatter yourself that you are practicing Ahimsa on that account. The very idea is enough to make one blush. Ahimsa is not a mere matter of dietetics, it transcends it. What a man eats or drinks matters little; it is the self-denial, the self-restraint behind it that matters. By all means practice as much restraint in the choice of the articles of your diet as you like. The restraint is commendable, even necessary, but it touches wide latitude in the matter of diet and yet may be a personification of Ahimsa and compel our homage, if his heart overflows with love and melts at another’s woe, and has been purged of all passions. On the other hand, a man always over scrupulous in diet is an utter stranger to Ahimsa and a pitiful wretch, if he is a slave to selfishness and passions and is hard of heart. Young India, 6-9-1928 I am painfully aware of the fact that my desire to continue life in the body involves me in constant himsa. That is why I am becoming growingly indifferent to this physical body of mine. For instance, I know that in the act of respiration I destroy innumerable invisible germs floating in the air. But I do not stop breathing. The consumption of vegetables involves himsa, but I find that I cannot give them up. Again, there is himsa in the use of antiseptics, yet I cannot bring myself to discard the use of disinfectants like kerosene, etc. to rid myself of the mosquito pest and the like. I suffer snakes to be killed in the Ashram when it is impossible to catch The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 18 them and put them out of harm’s way. I ever tolerate the use of the stick to drive the bullocks in the Ashram. Thus there is no end of himsa which I directly and indirectly commit. If, as a result of this humble confession of mine, friends choose to give me up as lost I would be sorry, but nothing will induce me to try to conceal my imperfection ion in the practice of Ahimsa. All I claim for myself is that I am ceaselessly trying to understand the implications of great ideals like Ahimsa and to practice them in thought, word and deed and that not without a certain measure of success as I think. But I know that I have long distance yet to cover in this direction. Young India, 1-11-1928 The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 19 06. THE MORAL BASIS OF VEGETARIANISM (Address to the London Vegetarian Society* on 20th November, 1931.) When I received the invitation to be present at this meeting, I need not tell you how please I was, because it revived old memories and recollections of pleasant friendships formed with vegetarians. I feel especially honoured to find on my right Mr. Henry Salt. It was Mr. Salt’s book. A Plea for Vegetarianism, which showed me why, apart from a hereditary habit, and a part from my adherence to a vow administered to me by my mother, it was right to be a vegetarian. He showed me why it was a moral duty incumbent on vegetarians not to live upon fellow-animals. It is, therefore, a matter of additional pleasure to me that I find Mr. Salt in our midst. I do not propose to take up your time by giving you my various experiences of vegetarianism, nor do I want to tell you something of the great difficulty that faced me in London itself in remaining staunch to vegetarianism, but I would like to share with you some of the thoughts that have developed in me in connection with vegetarianisms. Forty years ago I used to mix freely with vegetarians. There was that time hardly a vegetarian restaurant in London that I had not visited. I made it a point, out of curiosity, and to study at that time hardly a vegetarian restaurant in London, to visit every one of them. Naturally, therefore, I came into close contact with many vegetarians. I found at the tables, that largely the conversation turned upon food and disease. I also found that the vegetarians who were struggling to stick to their vegetarianism were finding it difficult from health point of view. I do not know whether, nowadays, you have those debates that were held between vegetarians and vegetarians, and between vegetarians and non-vegetarians. I remember one such debate, between Dr. Densmore, and the late Dr. T. R. Allinson. Then vegetarians had a habit of taking of nothing but food and nothing but disease. I feel that is the worst way of going about the business. I notice also that it is those persons who become vegetarians because they are suffering form some disease or other that is from purely the health point of view. It is those persons who largely fall back. I discovered that for remaining staunch to vegetarianism a man requires a moral basis. The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 20 For me that was a great discovery in my search after truth. At an early age in the course of my experiments, I found that a selfish basis would not serve the purpose of taking a man higher and higher along the paths of evolution. What was required was an altruistic purpose. I found also that health was by no means the monopoly of vegetarians. I found many people having no bias one way or the other, and that nonvegetarians were able to show, generally speaking, good health. I also found that several vegetarians found it impossible to remain vegetarians because they had made food a fetish and because they thought that by becoming vegetarians they could eat as much lentils, haricot beans, and cheese as they liked. Of course those people could not possibly keep their health. Observing along these lines, I saw that a man should eat sparingly and now and then fast. No man or woman really ate sparingly or consumed just that quantity which the body requires and no more. We easily fall a prey to the temptations of the palate, and therefore when thing taste delicious we do not mind taking a morsel or two more. But you cannot keep health under those circumstances. Therefore I discovered that in order to keep health, no matter what you ate, it was necessary to cut down the quantity of your food, and reduce the number of meals. Becomes moderate; err on the side of less, rather than on the side of more. When I invite friends to share their meals with me I never press them to take anything except only what they require. On the contrary, I tell them not to take a thing if they do not want to. What I want to bring to your notice is that vegetarians need to be tolerant if they want to convert others to vegetarianism. Adopt a little humility. We should appeal to the moral sense of the people who do not see eye to eye with us. If a vegetarian became ill, and a doctor prescribed beef-tea, then I would not call him a vegetarian. A vegetarian is made of sterner stuff. Why? Because it is for the building of the spirit and not of the body. Man is more than meat. It is the spirit in man for which we are concerned. Therefore vegetarians should have that moral basis that a man was not born carnivorous animal, but born to live on the fruits and herbs that the earth grows. I know we must all err. I would give up milk if I could, but I cannot. I have made that experiment times without number I could not after a serious illness, regain my strength unless I went back to milk. That has been the tragedy of my life. Bu the basis of my vegetarianism is not physical, but moral if anybody said that I should die if I did not take beef tea of mutton, even under medical advice, I would The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 21 prefer death. That is the basis of my vegetarianism. I would love to think that all of us who called ourselves vegetarians should have that basis. There were thousands of meat-eaters who did not stay meat-eaters. There must be a definite reason for our making that change in our lives, for our adopting habits and customs different from society, even though sometimes that change may offend those nearest and dearest to us. Not for the world should you sacrifice a moral principle. Therefore the only basis for having a vegetarian society and proclaiming a vegetarian principle is, and must be, a moral one. I am not to tell you as I see and wander about the world, that vegetarian, on the whole, enjoy much better health than meat-eaters. I belong to a country which is predominantly vegetarian by habit or necessity. Therefore I cannot testify that shows much greater endurance, much greater courage, or much greater exemption from disease. Because it is a peculiar, personal thing. It requires obedience, and scrupulous obedience, to all the laws of hygiene. Therefore, I think that what vegetarians should do is not to emphasize the physical consequences of vegetarianism, but to explore the moral consequences. While we have not yet forgotten that we share many things in common with the beast, we do not sufficiently realize that there are certain things which differentiate us from the beast. Of course, we have vegetarians in the cow and the bull which are better vegetarians than we are but there is something much higher which calls us to vegetarianism. Therefore, I thought that, during the few minutes which I give myself the privilege of addressing you. I would just emphasize the moral basis of vegetarianism. And I would say that I have found from my own experience, and the experience of thousands of friends and companions, that they find satisfaction, so far as vegetarianism is concerned, from the moral basis they have chosen for sustaining vegetarianism. In conclusion, I think you all for coming here and allowing me to see vegetarian face to face. I cannot say I used to meet you forty or forty-two years ago. I suppose the faces of the London Vegetarian Society have changed. There are very few members who, like Mr. Salt, can claim association with the Society extending over forty years. Lastly, I would like you, if you wan to, to ask me any questions, for I am a your disposal for a few minutes. The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 22 (Gandhiji was then asked to give his reasons for limiting his daily diet to five articles only, and he replied:) That has no connection with vegetarianism. There was another reason. I had been a pampered child of nature. I had acquired then that notoriety that when I was invited to friends, they placed before me ample dishes of food. I told them I had come there to serve, and, personally, I should find myself dying by inches if I allowed myself to be pampered like that. So, in limiting myself to five ingredients of food, I served a double purpose. And I must finish all my eating before sundown. I have been saved many pitfalls by that. There are many discoveries about that in regard to health reasons. Dietists are saying that we are more and more tending towards simplifying diet, and that if one must live for health one must have one thing at a time and avoid harmful combination. I like the process of exclusion better than that of inclusion, because no two doctors have the same opinion. Then, I think the restriction to five articles of food has helped me morally and materially materially because, in a poor country like India it is not always possible to procure goat’s milk, and it is a hard thing to produce fruit and grapes. Then, I go to visit poor people, and if I expected hot-house grapes, they would banish me. So, by restricting myself to five articles o ffood, it also serves the law of economy. Harijan, 20-2-1919 *During his student days in England Gandhiji had become a member of this society and had been elected subsequently as its Secretary. Dr. Oldfield was president, In 1931, when Gandhiji was in England for the Round Table Conference on India, he was invited to address the society. The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 23 07. OUR DAILY DIET Rice Whole, unpolished rice is unprocurable in the bazaars. It is beautiful to look at and rich and sweet to the taste. Mills can never compete with this unpolished rice. It is husked in a simple manner. Most of the paddy can be husked in alight chakki without difficulty. There are some varieties the husk of which is not separated by grinding. The best way of treating such paddy is to boil it first and then separate the chaff from the grain. This rice, it is said is most nutritious and , naturally, the cheapest. In the villages, if they husk their own paddy, it must always be cheaper for the peasants than the corresponding mill husked rice, whether polished or unpolished. The majority of rice found in ordinarily in the bazaars is always more or less polished, whether hand-husked or mill husked. Wholly unpolished rice is always hand husked and is every time cheaper than the mill-husked rice, the variety being the same. Harijan, 25-1-1935 Wheat The branless (wheat) flour is as bad as polished rice is the universal testimony of medical men. Whole –wheat flour ground in one’s chakki is any day superior to, and cheaper because the cost of grinding is saved. Again, in the whole-wheat there is no loss of weight. In fine flour there is loss of wheat. The richest part of wheat is contained in its bran. There is a terrible loss of nutrition when the bran of whet is removed. The villagers and others who eat whole-wheat flour ground in their own chakki save their money and, what is more important their health. A large part of the millions that flour-mills make will remain in and circulate among the deserving poor when village grinding is revived. Harijan, 1-2-1935 The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 24 Cereals Another physician quotes a text against the use of sprouted pulses but he too lacks actual experience for supporting his text. And this has been my complaint against many Ayurvedic physicians. I have no doubt that there is abundant ancient wisdom buried in the Sanskrit medical works. Our physicians appear to be too lazy to unearth that wisdom in the real sense of the term. They are satisfied with merely repeating the printed formula. Even as a layman I know many virtues are claimed for several Ayurvedic preparations. But where is their use, of they cannot be demonstrated today? I plead for the sake of this ancient science for a spirit of genuine search among our Ayurvedic physicians. I am as anxious as the tallest among them can be to free ourselves from the tyranny of Western medicines which are ruinously expensive and the preparation of which takes no count of the higher humanities Young India, 8-8-1929 Milk It is my firm conviction that man need take no milk at all, beyond the mother’s milk that he takes as a baby. His diet should consist of nothing but sunbaked fruits and nuts. He can secure enough nourishment both for the tissues and the nerves from fruits like grapes and nuts like almonds. Restraint of the sexual and other passions becomes easy for a man who lives on such food. My co-workers and I have seen by experience that there is much truth in the Indian proverb that as a man eats, so shall he become. Autobiography, p. 200, Edn. 1958 Honey My own experience of taking honey mixed with hot water extends to more than four years. I have experienced no ill-effect what so ever. Objection has also been raised against has, I admit, considerable force though the western method of gathering honey is cleaner and less I should have to cut down many things I take or use. But life is not governed by strict logic. It is an organic growth, seemingly irregular, growth following its own law and logic. Western doctors bestrow high praise upon it. The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 25 Most of them who condemn the use of sugar in unmeasured terms speak highly of honey which they say does not irritate as refined sugar or even gur does. Young India, 8-8-1929 Gur According to medical testimony gur is any day superior to refined sugar in food value, and if the villagers cease to make gur as they are beginning to do, they will be deprived of an important food adjunct for their children. They may do without gur themselves, but their children cannot without undermining their stamina. Retention of gur and its use by the people in general mean several crores of rupees retained by the villagers. Harijan, 1-2-1935 Fruits No one perhaps, as far as I know, has eaten as much fruit as I have, having lived for six years on entirely fruits and nuts and always having has a liberal supply of fruit as part of my ordinary diet. But I had in my mind, when writing, the special conditions of India. Its people should have, by reason of its extent and variety of climate, a most liberal supply of fruits, vegetables and milk. Yet it is the poorest country in this respect. I therefore suggested what seemed to me to be feasible. But I heartily endorse the proposition that for retaining health fresh fruit and fresh vegetables should form the main part of our diet. It is for their medical profession to study the peculiar condition of India and suggest the list of vegetables and villages for local consumption. Wild berries , for instance, sale but can be used for the picking. This is a vast field for research. It can bring neither money nor perhaps fame. But it may earn the gratitude of dumb millions. Harijan, 15-3-1942 I had introduced to me the leaves of sarsav, suwa, turnip-tops, carrot-tops, radishtops and pea-nut leaves. Besides these, it is hardly necessary to state that the The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 26 radish, turnip and carrot tubers are also known to be edible in their raw state. It is waste of money and ‘good’ taste, to cook these leaves or tubers. The vitamins contained in these vegetables are wholly or partially lost in cooking. I have called cooking these waste of ‘good’ taste because the uncooked vegetables have a natural good taste of their own which is destroyed by cooking. Harijan, 15-2-1935 Condiments Common salt may be rightly counted as the king among condiments. Many people cannot eat their food without it. The body requires certain salts and common salt is one of them. These salts occur naturally in the various foodstuffs but when food is cooked in an unscientific way, e.g. throwing away the water in which rice, potatoes or other vegetables have been boiled, the supply becomes inadequate. The deficiency then has to be made up by a separate addition of salts. As common salt is one of the most essential salts for the body. It might be supplemented in small quantities. But several condiments are not required by the body as a general rule, e.g. chilies fresh or dry, peper, turmeric, coriander, caraway, mustard, methi, asafotida etc. These are taken for the satisfaction of the palate. My opinion based on my personal experience of fifty years, is that not one of these is needed to keep perfectly healthy. Those whose digestion has become very feeble might take these things as medicines for a certain length of time, if considered necessary. But one should make it a point to avoid their use for the satisfaction of the palate. All condiments, even salt, destroy the natural flavor of vegetables and cereals. etc. Those whose palate has not become vitiated enjoy the natural flavor of the foodstuffs much more than after the addition of salt should be taken when necessary as an adjunct. As for chilies, they burn the mouth and irritate the stomach. Those who are not in habit of taking chilies cannot bear them in the beginning. I have seen several cases of sore mouth caused by the taking of chilies. I know of one case who was very fond of chilies, and an excessive use resulted in his premature death. Key to Health, pp. 27-29, Edn. 1956 The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism www.mkgandhi.org Page 27 08. MINIMUM DIET Use one grain at a time. Chapati, rice and pulses, milk, ghee, gur and oil are used in ordinary households besides vegetables and fruit. I regard this as an unhealthy combination. Those who get animal protein in the shape of milk, cheese, eggs or meat need not use pulses at all. The poor people get only vegetable protein. I the well-to-do give up pulses and oils, they set free these two essentials for the poor who get neither animal protein nor animal fat. Then the grain eaten should not be sloppy. Half the quantity suffices when it is eaten dry and not be sloppy. Half the quantity suffices when it with raw salads such as onion, carrot, radish, salad leaves, tomatoes. An ounce or two of salads serve the purpose of eight ounces of cooked vegetables. Chapatis or bread should not be eaten with milk. To begin with, one meal may be raw vegetables and chapatti or bread, and the other cooked vegetables with milk or curds. Sweet dishes should be eliminated altogether. Instead gur in small quantities may be taken with milk or bread or by itself. Fresh fruit is god to eat, but only a little is necessary to give tone to the system. It is an expensive article, and an over-indulgence by the well-to-do has deprived the poor and the ailing of an article which they need much more than the well-to-do. Any medical man who has studied the science of dietetics will certify that what I have suggested can do no harm to the body, on the contrary it must conduce to better health. Harijan, 25-1-1942

READ COMPLETE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GANDHI BABA TO KNOW ABOUT HIM IN REAL SENSE

Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons By : K. D. Gangrade Published by : Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti Rajghat, New Delhi 11000Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 2 FOREWORD MAHATMA Gandhi's autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, has attracted worldwide attention as a classic of modern times for the remarkable insights it offers into the progression of human soul in its resolute march to relate itself to the ever-changing ethos in the course of life's journey. Over the years, this record of Gandhi's perception of a part of his own life has become a masterpiece winning universal acclaim for the honesty with which the author interprets his life upto the first quarter of this century. Surprisingly, Gandhi did not conceive it to be an elaborate treatise. He described it as "My Experiments with Truth". The big question is: Do the experiments conducted by Gandhi hold out any message or lesson to the present generation or to the generations to come? Were they not personal, about himself?, critics might ask. Is Gandhi, who tried to look at men and matters from an ethical, moral and spiritual angle, relevant in an age conditioned to a large extent by materialistic and consumeristic considerations and by a generation who is nurtured in the invincibility of the power of money? The contemporary decay of vital human institutions such as religions and the callous indifference with which morality and ethics are viewed by the protagonists of unlimited growth are taking humanity to a cliff of what promise and consequence, nobody knows. The computer boys are promising humanity such wonders that would set even the most balanced brain on fire. In this jungle of madness and frenzied rush, which in a different way reminds us of the initial stages of colonialism, what is the relevance of Jesus, the Buddha, Prophet Mohammad or for that matter any of the teachers of humanity? We measure all of them on the basis of our own needs, which are now by and large material and physical. Ethics, morality and spirituality all seem to have become things of the past. Still we gloat over such endearing concepts such as 'global human family', 'global village', 'warless world' and a 'world without boundaries'. Yes, physical boundaries we have been able to Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 3 dismantle, but what about the mental and psychic boundaries which still prevent the rich nations from sharing their excess wealth with the less privileged humanity? It is estimated that with the diversion of one-third of what the rich nations spend on armaments, malnutrition could be wiped out in several Afro-Asian countries and safe drinking water could be provided. But who listens? Gandhi never took refuge in any scriptures or shastras blindly and those who approach him with closed minds would see only their own visages and would miss the essential Gandhi who was an uncompromising experimenter. To experiment requires great courage, conviction and clear perception and a readiness to court inconvenience or even failure. The arm-chair critic does not have or require any of these attributes. Gandhi described himself to be lost in the ivory-tower of contemplation. Like an inspired experimenter he tested his ideas in the laboratory of his own life in order to gain insights and knowledge by living it and not repeating what others said or copying from others. The freshness of his ideas inspired millions and even those who came to scoff at him became lifelong associates and admirers. He called his autobiography "The Story of My Experiments with Truth". This reveals his readiness to subject his own life as the testing ground and his approach is that of a scientist who will neither compromise truth nor forsake his efforts to arrive at the truth he is searching for, whatever be the other temptations. He looked at the vast vicissitude of philosophy not from the conventional angles of contemplation but on the hard realities and challenges of everyday life, with man at the centre and man as the prime concern. Philosophy for him, as in the Indian tradition, is not a set of formulations, it is transformation of the spirit, soul and the whole life-style which will elevate humankind in order to live happily and shed rays and lights of happiness around. It surely does not mean anything to those who want to flourish in human misery and to whom individual contribution to better human life does not mean anything. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 4 "What I want to achieve — and what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years — is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing, and all my ventures in the political field, are directed to this same end. But as I have all along believed that what is possible for one is possible for all, my experiments have not been conducted in the closet, but in the open; and I do not think that this fact detracts from their spiritual value. There are some things which are known only to oneself and one's Maker. These are clearly incommunicable. The experiments I am about to relate are not such. But they are spiritual, or rather moral; for the essence of religion is morality", Gandhi stated in his autobiography. While there is some substance in the argument that one has to be a Gandhi to understand Gandhi, it is an over-simplification and an effort to miss the obvious. No major concept or practices of Gandhi could be understood fully unless they are internalized in the crucible of human life. For instance, the concepts of 'Swaraj' as used by Gandhi has many layers of meaning. Political independence could be described to be what it is only at a very superficial level. It means mastery over oneself, one's thought and action. There cannot be any type of freedom so long as a person or a society is unable to get rid of fear. The 'inner voice' about which Gandhi often talked about and which many of even his closest friends and disciples could not comprehend has to be the sole guide and consultant in the progression of both mind and soul. Besides mustering sufficient courage to stand up and fight for what the inner voice dictates as Gandhi demonstrated with convincing success one has to be ready to 'walk alone'. This will not be possible if our approach is through our conditioned minds. Would it be possible for us to uncondition our minds and try to look at the achievements of leaders like Gandhi dispassionately? Just as the attempts to look at Gandhi infallible and god-like is reprehensible, the attempt to describe him in the fashionable parlance 'an enigma', just because some people are not able to comprehend the full import of what he symbolized or what he achieved is beyond their understanding, betrays a type of intellectual hypocrisy or a laboured effort to eminence by dissecting the life of popular icons. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 5 Gandhi wrote, "I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. But I shall not mind, if every page of it speaks only of my experiments. I believe, or at any rate flatter myself with the belief, that a connected account of all these experiments will not be without benefits to the reader. My experiments in the political field are now known, not only to India, but to a certain extent to the 'civilized' world. For me, they have not much value; and the title of 'Mahatma' that they have won for me has, therefore, even less. Often the title has deeply pained me; and there is not a moment I can recall when it may be said to have tickled me. But I should certainly like to narrate my experiments in the spiritual field which are known only to myself, and from which I have derived such- power as I possess for working in the political field. If the experiments are really spiritual, then there can be no room for self-praise. They can only add to my humility. The more I reflect and look back on the past, the more vividly do I feel my limitations." Many detractors of Gandhi did not find anything unusual or great in the work. Such iconoclastic efforts did not prevent the Autobiography from becoming one of the most sought after books which is still being read with interest in almost all continents. A comforting thought that would come to anyone in this connection is the simple truth that many of the reformers of humanity from Aristotle to Martin Luther King, Jr. who were either ridiculed, scoffed at, crucified, burned or stoned to death or assassinated, exiled or excommunicated for the 'sins' of speaking out truth, did not live and die in vain. These 'rebels' as they were called are the torch-bearers of human civilization and no amount of intolerance, jealousy, ignorance and arrogance could efface their importance in any manner. These men and women dared the powers that be to raise human life to lofty levels and helped others who did not allow themselves to be blinded by the idiosyncrasies of their times. These great souls, by whatever name you may call them, fearlessly held aloft the lamps of reason and never Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 6 allowed to blind their reason and it was for this defiance they had to pay dearly. And Gandhi was no exception to this. His martyrdom at the hands of a fanatic further illustrates this running streak of lunacy which surfaces periodically and unabated. Gandhi loved life and looked at life as something precious. His life offers valuable lessons to each one of us who desperately looks for suitable anchors in our bid to survive in the mad rush for wealth and power which alone appear to be the guiding principles of contemporary society. It is here the significance of what Gandhi narrates assumes importance. It has been pointed out that each line in the Autobiography is a gem of infinite wisdom. The personal experiences of Gandhi ceases to be his own travails and one could see that most of the incidents narrated in the book have universal application and undoubtedly it emerges as the undiluted and honest record of one of the most sensitive humanists who in turn becomes the Universal Man, notwithstanding the other titles such as Mahatma, Saint, Martyr for Peace, and so on. Professor K.D. Gangrade, one of India's widely acclaimed professional social work educators and sociologists, and scholar of considerable repute, looks at the autobiography of Gandhi from a refreshingly new angle to identify the lessons Gandhi's experiments offer to each individual in the moral reconstruction of our society along Gandhian lines. If Gandhi looked at his own life like a scientist, Professor Gangrade analyses the autobiography here from the angle of an inspired social scientist who is very much aware of the fact that at no stage all the teachings of any of the great men and women of any age would have perennial value. Yet the core of their teachings constitute the fulcrum around which human life revolves. Professor Gangrade does not look at the autobiography as a sacred text. His approach is essentially that of a social scientist He finds the autobiography as an ocean of infinite importance in shaping one's life. Never before has any scholar or admirer of Gandhi looked at the autobiography from this refreshingly original angle and it is hoped that this work of Professor Gangrade would encourage readers, particularly the young, to look at the achievements of Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 7 Gandhi beyond the stereotyped image of the Father of the Nation and the champion of nonviolence and a few other concepts and practices associated with Gandhi. The present work stands out in many respects as a significant contribution to Gandhiana and is a reliable handbook and a text-book to rediscover Gandhi through his autobiography. The Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti has great pleasure in presenting this work of immense significance as a tribute during the Fiftieth Anniversary of Gandhiji's martyrdom and it is hoped that this will help the young readers to discover the Revolutionary Gandhi who offered a healthy alternative vision of life and a creative blue-print for the emergence of a new social order. We thank Professor Gangrade for undertaking this work on our behalf. Dr B.N. Pande, Vice-Chairman of Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, encouraged us at every stage of this work and we thank him for his guidance. Sri N. Vasudevan, Director of the Gandhi Media Centre, offered valuable help in making this book available in the present format. N. Radhakrishnan Director Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti New DelhiGandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 8 I INTRODUCTION WE GENERALLY BELIEVE that it is beyond us to practice Gandhian values and principles in our thoughts, speeches and deeds in the contemporary world in general and India in particular. Gandhi in his Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth writes : "I have all along believed that what is possible for one is possible for all, my experiments have not been conducted in the closet, but in the open; and I do not think that this fact detracts from their spiritual value. ... The experiments I am about to relate [in the Autobiography] are. . . spiritual, or rather moral... I claim for them nothing more than does a scientist who, though he conducts his experiments with the utmost accuracy, forethought and minuteness, never claims any finality about his conclusions, but keeps an open mind regarding them One claim I do indeed make and it is this. For me they appear to be absolutely correct, and seem for the time being final. ... So long as my acts satisfy my reason and my heart, I must firmly adhere to my original conclusions." The story includes experiments with nonviolence, celibacy and other principles of conduct believed to be distinct from Truth. But for Gandhi Truth is the sovereign principle, which includes other principles. This Truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative Truth of our conception but the absolute Truth, the eternal principle, that is God. "... I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after him, I am prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in pursuit of this quest Even if the sacrifice demanded be my life, I hope I may be prepared to give it I have faint glimpses of the absolute Truth, God and the daily conviction is growing upon me [Gandhi] that he alone is real and all else is unreal. The farther conviction growing. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 9 Gandhi also said:"... whatever is possible for me is possible even for a child, and I have a sound reason for saying so. . . . They may appear impossible to an arrogant person. . . . The seeker after truth should be humble than the dust The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should be so humble himself that even the dust could crush him..." Thus it has been made abundantly clear by Gandhi that we must give up our ego to achieve ultimate Truth. That is to see God face to face in the service of people. Are our present-day leaders ready to sacrifice and shed their narrow self-interest and loyalties for the good of larger goal of development and building of the nation to wipe out tears from every eye of poor and downtrodden people? The assessment of fifty years of our Independence reveal that the fruits of political independence have not reached all the huts of people in India specially those living in urban slums and rural hutments. The rise and fall of the country essentially depends on the calibre of leaders who are trust-worthy in all respects and honoured by almost all the citizens of the nation. The leaders must cultivate and imbibe the values and principles pronounced by Gandhi in his autobiography. In the present book these values and principles have been distinctly and clearly distilled for ready reference for everybody who is in search of Truth. The lessons deduced from each Chapter from the experiments of Gandhi if adopted and followed will provide a clean administration; create a social order in which everybody gets social justice; prevent exploitation of poor and weak by the dominant and powerful; and stop corruption and scams in high, middle and low places. In India of today there is nexus and collusion for corruption and exploitation of people between bureaucrats-businessmen-politician to an unimaginable degree. India finds a place in the top most ten corrupt countries in the world. People have lost faith and confidence in their political leaders in whose hands their destiny lie. The question therefore arises — and has to be answered — as to what kind of values the present generation will focus on and transmit to the Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 10 future generation. The coming generation do not find any model either in their parents or teachers or leaders to follow and emulate. In the words of Gandhi, "role models should be pure as a crystal, meek as a lamb, brave as a lion and chivalrous to a fault." There is a growing intolerance at all levels — in the family, society and country. Families are breaking up and its effect would be felt by the future generations, who will not pardon us. I hope and trust the fragrance of the lessons drawn and deduced from Gandhi's autobiography will spread far and wide and will bring solidarity, tranquillity and lasting peace in the world as we march towards the twenty-first century. Objective and Purpose of Gandhi's Autobiography The objective of writing this Autobiography in the words of Gandhi is: "I am not writing the autobiography to please critics. Writing it is itself one of the experiments with Truth. One of its objects is certainly to provide some comfort and food for reflection for my co-workers. “. . . It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. But I shall not mind, if every page of it speaks only of my experiments. I believe, or at any rate flatter myself with the belief that a connected account of all these experiments will not be without benefit to the reader. My experiments in the political field are now known, not only to India, but to a certain extent to the 'civilized' world. But I should certainly like to narrate my experiments in the spiritual field which are known only to myself, and from whom I have derived such power as I possess for working in the political field. If the experiments are really spiritual, then there can be no room for self-praise. The more I reflect and look back on the past the more vividly do I feel my limitations. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 11 My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth. And if every page of these chapters does not proclaim to the reader that the only sources for realization of Truth is Ahimsa, I shall deem all my labour in writing these chapters to have been in vain. And, even though my efforts in this behalf may prove fruitless, let the readers know that the vehicle, not the great principle is at fault. After all, however sincere my striving after Ahimsa may have been, they have still been imperfect and inadequate. The little fleeting glimpses, therefore, that I have been able to have of Truth can broadly convey are idea of the indescribable lustre of Truth, a million times more - intense than that of the sun we daily see with our eyes. In fact what I have caught is only the faintest glimmer of that mighty effulgence. But this much I can say with assurance, as a result that all my experiments, that a perfect vision of Truth can only follow a complete realization of Ahimsa." Emphasis on fundamental Duties We are currently observing the fiftieth Puniya Tithi — Martyrdom Day — of Mahatma Gandhi. He was shot dead on 30 January 1948 while on his way to his daily communion with the Creator. Godse shot Gandhi dead, the godly or so he thought But he could only liquidate the messiah's mortal coils — 'worn-out. garments' — Jeernani Vasamsi, in the language of the Gita. He is Mahatma, whose thoughts, words and deeds are in perfect harmony with each other. According to Gandhi, instead only talking of fundamental rights, we should lay stress on fundamental duties and obligations. The true source of right is duty. If we discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek. What we can do and what we must do is to imbibe the spirit of Gandhi's view of life. The Gandhian spark should glow in every Indian soul. The Gandhian ideals should believed up to by each one of us in our individual family and institutional life, irrespective of what others do or fail to do. This will usher in transparency, purity and probity in public life, which are the basic ingredients of clean, efficient and democratic governance. [S. Ramakrishnan, "Attend to Fundamental Duties and Obligations," The Hindustan Times, 25 January 1998, New Delhi, p. 13.] Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 12 It is only when the paramount duties are performed that the individual and society can exist and flourish. Duties and the performance of duties create the conditions in which rights can be exercised. Rights also imply an external authority or power that assures them. In the absence of such a power that assures or ensures, rights will remain notional and aspirational. So the assuring power and its viability have to be first created or sustained and that can be done only by the performance of the paramount duties. In this sense, therefore, rights flow from the performance of duties. It is the performance of duties that creates the pool and the power on which rights depend. Moreover, for the performance of one's duties one is not dependent on others. For the assurance of one's rights, one is dependent. Gandhi, therefore, believed that the performance of one's duty in conformity with the Higher Law is one of the basics on which society depends. No society can survive or ascend to higher levels of achievements if self-indulgence becomes its motto. (Ravindra Varma, "Gandhian Perception of the Ethical Foundation of Society," Gandhi Marg, October- December 1997, pp. 285-86.) National Flag and Truth Indian tricolour is symbolic of the three universal concepts of Satyam (Truth), Sivam (Godness) Sundaram (Beauty). The motto of free India is Satyameva Jayate (Truth Alone Triumphs). Thus the ideal of India and Indian society is Truth and Righteousness. The National Flag has three colours — scarlet, white and green. WithDhartna Chakra inscribed in the middle is in blue colour. The flag represents the idealism of the country. The French conjured up the ideals of Equality, Fraternity and Liberty with their tri-colour banner. In India and perhaps everywhere else in the world, the white colour is associated with purity, knowledge and light. The green connotes prosperity and plenty. The red signifies smartness and sacrifice and brother hood. The wheel denotes the concept of Time-Destiny- Existence. The wheel also signifies Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 13 comprehensive movement and progress, spiritual as well as secular. Thus, the Dharma Chakra is the symbolic epitome of Indian aspirations and ideals. The significance of the Flag lies in giving Truth central place in the total and holistic approach to reach the cherished goal of Sarvodya (development and welfare of all). Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 14 II LESSONS FROM GANDHI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY I have drawn some lessons from the Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi. I feel these lessons are highly relevant and universal and worth following as we enter the twenty-first century. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 15 INTRODUCTION 1. What is possible for one is possible for all. 2. Truth is the Sovereign Principle. 3. The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should be so simple that even the dust could crush him. PART I Chapter I: Birth and Parentage 1. Gandhi's father was incorruptible and impartial in family as well as outside matters. 2. Mother was deeply religious and of saintly qualities. She would take the hardest vows and keep them unflinchingly. Gandhi had model parents. He had imbibed good qualities from them. Chapter II: Childhood 1. Teacher prompted young Mohan to copy correct spelling of 'Kettle' from his neighbour's slate. But he would not be prompted. He thought the teacher was there to supervise against copying. He could not learn the art of copying. Elders' wrong advice need not be followed. However, this did not in the least diminish his respect for the teacher. He was by nature blind to the fault of elders. 2. The book Shravana Pitrubhakti Natak (a play about Sharavana's devotion to his parents) made an indelible impression on his mind. That is, to respect and serve parents. One has to sacrifice all happiness and pleasure to serve parents. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 16 3. Similarly, another play — Harish Chandra — had inspired him to go through the ordeal, as Harish Chandra did, for upholding the ideal of Truth. One must be ready to face difficulties to follow the path of Truth. Chapter III: Child Marriage 1. Marriage among Hindus is no simple matter. It brings parents of both the parties almost to the verge of ruin. 2. Child marriage for child does not mean anything more than the prospect of good clothes, rich dinners and a strange girl or boy to play with. 3. But boys in general immediately assumes authority over the wives as husbands. This shows male's superiority over female. Chapter TV: Playing the Husband 1. Nothing is impossible for pure love. 2. Jealousy does not wait for reasons. Chapter V: At the High School 1. Early marriage generally results in wasting a year in education (Gandhi and his immediate elder brother wasted a year. His brother gave up studies altogether. One does not know how many youth are in the same plight as he.) Child marriage must be avoided at all cost. 2. Physical and mental training should have equal importance in the curriculum. 3. A man of Truth must also be a man of care. (Gandhi's desire to dislike gymnastics was because of his keen desire to serve as nurse to his ailing father. As soon as the school closed, he would rush home and begin serving / ministering him. Compulsory exercise came directly in the way of this service. Now it happened that one day Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 17 (Saturday), when school was held in the morning, he had to go from home to the school for gymnastics at four O'clock in the afternoon. He had no watch and the clouds deceived him. Before he reached the school the boys (students) had all left The next day Mr Gimi — the gymnastic teacher — examined the roll, found him marked absent. On being asked the reason for absence, he (Gandhi) told him what had happened. He (Gimi) refused to believe him and ordered Gandhi to pay fine. He was convicted for lying. That pained him deeply. How was he to prove his innocence. There was no way. He cried in deep anguish. He saw that a man of Truth must also be a man of care. This was the first and last instance of his carelessness in school.) 4. Good handwriting is a necessary part of education. Bad handwriting should be regarded as a sign of an imperfect education. 5. Children should first be taught the art of drawing before learning how to write. 6. Every Hindu boy and girl should possess sound knowledge of Sanskrit language. 7. In all-India curricula of higher education there should be place for Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and English, besides of course, the vernacular. Chapter VI: A Tragedy 1. A reformer cannot afford to have close intimacy with him whom he seeks to reform. 2. True friendship is an identity of souls rarely to be found in the world. 3. In friendship there is very little scope for reform. 4. Man takes to vice far more readily than virtue. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 18 Chapter VII: A Tragedy Continued 1. Women is an incarnation of tolerance. 2. Man, as soon as he gets his consciousness of right should be thankful to the Divine mercy for the escape. (A friend once took Gandhi to a brothel. He sent him in with the necessary instructions. Gandhi went into the jaws of sin, but God in his infinite mercy protected him against himself. Gandhi was almost struck blind and dumb in this den of vice. He sat near the woman on her bed, but he was tongue-tied. She naturally lost patience with him and showed him the door, with abuse and insults. He could recall four similar incidents in his life, and in most of them his good fortune, rather than any effort on his part, saved him. From a strict ethical point of view, all these occasions must be regarded as moral lapses, for the carnal desire was there, and it was as good as the act. But from an ordinary point of view, a man who is saved from physically committing sin is regarded as saved.) Chapter VIII: Stealing And Atonement 1. A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance. 2. Don't allow lust to overpower you. Chapter IX: My Father's Death and My Double Shame 1. When death is imminent, who can think of the right remedy? The inevitable has to be accepted. (Every night his hands were busy nursing his father's legs, but his mind was hovering about the bed-room and that too at a time when religion, medical science and conscience alike forbade sexual intercourse with a Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 19 pregnant woman. He was always glad to be relieved from his duty, and went straight to the bedroom. The dreadful night came. But Gandhi was with his wife. The servant knocked the door. "Get up", he said, "Father is very ill." Gandhi guessed what 'very ill7 meant at that moment. He sprang out of bed. "What is the matter? Do tell me!" "Father is no more!" The grip of lust did not allow Gandhi at the critical hour to be with his father so that his father could have died in his arms. This was a blot he had never been able to efface or forget.) Chapter X: Glimpses of Religion 1. Impressions formed at childhood strike roots deep down into one's nature. 2. Morality is the basis of things and that Truth is the substance of all morality* 3. Return good for evil. Chapter XI: Preparation For England 1. Blessings of mothers and elders are really matters for Godspeed. Chapter XII: Outcaste 1. Solemn promises made to mother to abstain from wine, women and meat will keep one safe from various temptations and lust (A general meeting of the caste was called and Gandhi was summoned to appear before it He was told "In the opinion of the caste, your proposal to go to England is not proper. Our religion forbids voyage abroad. We have also heard that one is obliged to eat and drink with Europeans!" To which Gandhi replied: "I do not think it is at all against our religion to go to England. I intend going there for further studies. And I have solemnly Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 20 promised my mother to abstain from three things you fear most (wine, women and meat), I am sure the vow will keep me safe! I cannot alter my resolve to go to England.") Chapter XIII: In London At Last 1. Lawyers should have a long tongue. 2. If the word of lawyer is not to be trusted, where is the use of possessing a certificate in the matter. 3. Don't touch other people's things. 4. Don't ask questions in first acquaintance. 5. Don't talk loudly. Chapter XIV: My Choice 1. A vow is a vow. It cannot be broken. Chapter XV: Playing the English Gentleman 1. A student ought to go on with studies. Character makes a gentleman and not dress. Chapter XVI: Changes 1. Make it a point and habit to account for every pie and for everything that comes into and goes out of your pocket. 2. Long walks may practically free oneself from illness and give a fairly strong body. 3. Latin is very useful to lawyers. 4. Knowing and understanding Latin means greater command over the English language. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 21 5. Plain living will save plenty of time. 6. Change should harmonize inward and outward life. Chapter XVII: Experiments in Dietetics 1. Ethically man's supremacy over the lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man. 2. Man should eat not for enjoyment but to live. 3. A vegetarian diet is the least expensive. 4. The real seat of taste is not the tongue but the mind. 5. Nobody can dare do harm a person whom God protects. 6. Despite pledge may be very explicit, people will turn and twist the text to suit their own purposes. This should not be done and people must adhere to the pledge taken by them. 7. Selfishness burns people who take pledge blindly, and by a use of ambiguous interpretation; they deceive themselves and seek to deceive the world and God. One golden rule is to accept the interpretation honestly put on the pledge by the party administering it. 8. A convert's enthusiasm for his new religion is greater than that of a person born in it. Chapter XVIII: Shyness My Shield 1. One should not be drone. The bees are very busy, the drone is a thorough idler. 2. Silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of Truth. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 22 Chapter XIX: The Canker of Untruth 1. It is never too late to mend. Chapter XX: Acquaintance with Religions 1. Renunciation is the greatest religion. 2. Sermon on the mount: The verses say that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man take away thy coat let him have thy cloak too. 3. For a bowl of water, give goodly meal. Chapter XXI: Nirbal Ke Bala Rama 1. Prayer is an unfailing means of cleansing the heart of passions. Prayer needs no speech. It is in itself independent of any serious effort. 2. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal. (In England even in respectable households in play of rubber bridge every player indulged in innocent jokes with the landlady as a matter of course, but Gandhi's companion and their hostess began to make indecent ones as well. Gandhi did not know that his friend was an adept in the art. It captured Gandhi and he also joined in. Just when Gandhi was about to go beyond the limit, leaving the cards and the game to themselves, God through the good companion uttered the blessed warning: "Whence this devil is in you, my boy! Be off quick!" Gandhi was ashamed. He took the warning, and expressed within himself gratefulness to his friend. Remembering the vow he had taken before his mother, he fled the scene.) Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 23 Chapter XXII: Narayatt Hertichandra 1. Civilized fellows are generally cowards. Great men never look at a person's exterior. They think of his heart. Chapter XXIII: The Great Exhibition 1. The Eiffel Tower (Paris) was a monument of man's folly, not of his wisdom. 2. Tobacco is the worst of all intoxication inasmuch as a man addicted to it is tempted to crime which a drunkard never dared to do. Liquor made a man mad but tobacco clouded his intellect and made him build castles in the air. Chapter XXIV : "Called" - But Then? 1. The curriculum of study to the bar is easy, barrister being humorously known as 'dinner barristers'! Everyone knew that examination has no value. (There are two conditions which had to be fulfilled before a student was formally called to the bar: 'Keeping terms; twelve terms equivalent to about three years; and passing examinations. 'Keeping terms' means eating one's terms, i.e., attending at least six out of about twenty-four diners in a term. Eating did not mean actually partaking of the dinner, it meant reporting oneself at the fixed hour and remaining present throughout the dinner.) Chapter XXV: My Helplessness 1. It is easy to be called to the bar but it is difficult to practise. Legal maxims, "use your property in such a way as not to damage that of others", is one of them, but Gandhi was at a loss to know how one could employ this maxim for the benefit of one's client. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 24 2. A Vakil should know human nature. He should be able to read a man's character from his face. And every Indian ought to know Indian history. This has no connection with the practice of law, but you ought to have that knowledge. 3. Honesty and industry are enough to become a successful lawyer. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 25 PART II Chapter I : Raychandbhai 1. The outer storm must be considered as a symbol of the inner. 2. There is a great deal of Truth in the doctrine that true knowledge is impossible without a "Guru". (An imperfect teacher may be tolerable in mundane matters, but not in spiritual matters). 3. Only a perfect Gnani (a knowing one, a seer) deserves to be enthroned as a Guru. There must be ceaseless striving after perfection. For one gets the Guru that one deserves. Infinite striving after perfection is one's right It is its own reward. The rest is in the hands of God. Chapter II: How I began Life 1. The barrister's profession is a bad job — much show and little knowledge. Chapter III: The First Case 1. For a barrister to vegetate for five to seven years is not unusual. 2. Make a virtue of necessity. Chapter IV: The First Shock 1. Don't compromise principle by any means. 2. Selfishness is blind. Chapter V: Preparing For South Africa 1. Power intoxicates to an inordinate extent. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 26 2. Petty intrigues between states and intrigues of officers for power were and are the order of the day. Chapter VI: Arrival In Natal 1. Chess is a game in which there is plenty of scope for the exercise of one's intelligence. 2. Many a youth, must have fallen into sin by a false sense of shame. This must be avoided. Chapter VII: Some Experiences 1. Man may be practically unlettered, but he may have rich fund of experiences. He has to be respected and one must learn from his vast experiences. Chapter VIII: On The Way To Pretoria 1. It is cowardice to run away without fulfilling obligation and resolving problem. 2. Root out the disease and suffer hardship in the process. 3. Redress for wrongs should only be to the extent that would be necessary for the removal of the prejudice. Chapter IX : More Hardships 1. Don't pocket insults for making money. Chapter X: First Day in Pretoria 1. Some people believe: Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 27 a) It is impossible to find eternal peace, unless one accepts Jesus as the only Son of God and Saviour of mankind; b) The book of books is the Holy Bible. 2. One should learn to respect all religions. 3. One should not embrace another religion unless one understands his own. Chapter XI: Christian Contacts 1. The prayers are supplications to God for various things, according to each person's desire. The prayer for God are to open the doors of heart. Chapter XII: Seeking Touch With Indians 1. Truth is inconsistent with business. Business is a very practical affair, and Truth is a matter of religion. (The merchants or businessmen must be awakened from this fallacy. Their responsibility to be truthful is all the greater in a foreign land because the conduct of a few Indians is the measure of that of millions of their fellow countrymen.) 2. Don't lose patience with pupils. Chapter XIII: What It Is To Be A 'Coolie' 1. Don't go to Court in respect of any personal grievance. Chapter XIV: Preparation for The Case 1. Facts are three-fourths of the law. 2. If we take care of the facts of a case the law will take care of itself. 3. Facts mean Truth, and once we adhere to Truth, the law comes to our aid naturally. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 28 4. True functioning of a lawyer is to unite parties. Chapter XV: Religious Ferment 1. God could not but listen to prayer fervently offered. (For example, George Muller of Bristol of England depended entirely on prayer even for his temporal needs.) 2. One must learn to follow the inner voice. (The Kingdom of God is within you.) Chapter XVI: Man Proposes and God Disposes 1. There can be no fee for public work. Chapter XVII: Settled In Natal 1. One must not accept any salary for public work. Chapter XVIII: Colour Bar 1. When at Rome do as Romans do. (Gandhi while practising in the court of Natal did not wear the turban to obey the law of the country as it would have been ill becoming of him to disregard a custom of the court in the province of Natal.) 2. The very insistence of Truth required that one must appreciate the beauty of truth. This is an essential part of Satyagraha. Chapter XIX: Natal Indian Congress 1. Sustained agitation is essential for making an impression on the authority. 2. Not to carry public work with borrowed money. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 29 3. One could rely in people's promises in most matters except in respect of money. 4. Carefully kept accounts are sine qua non for any organization. Chapter XX: Balasundram 1. Indentured labour is generally considered the property of his master. Chapter XXI: The £3 Tax 1. The indentured labour could be tolerated as - independent agriculturists, but their competition in trade could not be brooked. 2. Truth will ultimately triumph in the end. Chapter XXII: Comparative Study Of Religions 1. God can be realized through service. Chapter XXIII: As A Householder 1. Howsoever one may want to repair, a rift is a rift Chapter XXIV: Homeward 1. Religion and morality were/ are synonymous. Chapter XXV: In India 1. The authors of Smriti's have laid the greatest emphasis on cleanliness both — inward and outward. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 30 Chapter XXVI: Two Passions 1. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the worker nor the served. Chapter XXVII: The Bombay Meeting 1. A patriot cannot afford to ignore any branch of service to the motherland. Chapter XXVIII: Poona And Bombay 1. Leaders should be like river Ganges. (Gandhi regarded Sir Pherozeshah Mehta like the Himalaya, the Lokmanya Tilak like the Ocean, and Gokhale as the Ganges. One could have a refreshing bath in the holy river. The Himalaya was unscaleable, and one could not easily launch forth on the sea, but the Ganges invited one to its bosom.) 2. There is no barrier that love cannot break. Chapter XXIX: ‘Return Soon' 1. The aggrieved party imagines that the editor of a newspaper or a magazine is a power in the land. Only he knows that his powers can hardly travel beyond the threshold of his office. 2. We win justice quickest by rendering justice to others. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 31 PART III Chapter I: Rumblings of The Storm 1. A Hindu wife regards implicit obedience to her husband as the highest religion. A Hindu husband regards himself as lord and master of his wife, who must ever dance attendance upon him. This type of attitude must stop. The women must be given right place and status in the Hindu society. 2. All become one in face of the common danger. They forget their differences and begin to think of the one and only one God — Mussalmans, Hindus, Christians and all. 3. The name of God disappears from the lips of people with the disappearance of danger. (The momentary mood of earnest prayer gives place to maya as soon as fear of death disappears.) Chapter II: The Storm 1. Western civilization, unlike the Eastern is predominantly based on force. (I [Gandhi] said: "I hope God will give me the courage and the sense to forgive whites for their violent threats and acts and refrain from bringing them to law. I have no anger against them. I am only sorry for their ignorance and their narrowness. I know that they sincerely believe that what they are doing today is right and proper. I have, therefore, no reason to be angry with them. When truth becomes known they will be sorry for their conduct.") Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 32 Chapter III: The Test 1. It is idle to adjudicate upon the right and wrong of incidents that have already happened. It is useful to understand them and, if possible, to learn a lesson from them for the future. Chapter IV: The Calm After The Storm 1. It is not good to run public institutions on permanent funds. A permanent fund carries in itself the seed of the moral fall of the institution. A public institution means an institution conducted with the approval, and from the funds of the public. When such an institution ceases to have public support, it forfeits its right to exist 2. The ideal for public institutions is to live, like nature, from day to day. The institution that fails to win public support has no right to exist as such. Chapter V: Education Of Children 1. The young children should not be separated from their parents. The education that children imbibe in a well ordered household is impossible to obtain in hostels. The children should not be deprived of the training that can be had from contact with the parents. 2. A choice has to be made between liberty and learning, who will not say that former has to be preferred a thousand times to the latter. (The youth whom I [Gandhi] called out in 1920 from those citadels of slavery — their school and colleges — and whom I [Gandhi] advised that it was better to remain unlettered and break stones for the sake of liberty than to go for a literary education in the chains of slavery will probably be able now to trace my [Gandhi] advice to its source.) Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 33 Chapter VI: Spirit Of Service 1. A careful study of any subject is in estimable help. 2. In order to the proper upbringing of children, the f parents ought to have a general knowledge of the care and nursing of babies. 3. The education of the child begins with conception. The physical and mental states of the parents at the moment of conception are reproduced in the baby. Then during the period of pregnancy it continues to be affected by the mother's moods and temperament, as also by her way of life. After birth the child imitates the parents and for a considerable number of years entirely depends on them for its growth. 4. We labour under a sort of superstition that the child has nothing to learn during the first five years of its life. On the contrary, the fact is that the child never learns in after life what it does in its five years. 5. It is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function like sleeping or eating. The world depends for its existence on the act of generation, and as the world is the playground of God, and a reflection of his glory, the act of generation should be controlled for the ordered growth of the world. He who realizes this controls his lust at any cost, equip himself with knowledge necessary for the physical, mental and spiritual well being of his progeny and give the benefits of that knowledge to posterity. Chapter VII: Bhrahmacharya I 1. The devotion of a servant is a thousand times more praise-worthy than that of a wife to her husband. 2. It should be important conviction with the public man that procreation and consequent care of children are inconsistent with public service. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 34 (In order to devote myself [Gandhi] to the service of community I decided to relinquish the desire for children and wealth and live the life of a vanaprastha — of one retired from household cares.) Chapter VIII: Brahmacharya II 1. The vow is a sure shield against temptations. 2. In Brahmacharaya lies the protection of the body, the mind and the soul. 3. The Brahmachari's food should be limited, simple, spiceless and if possible uncooked. His ideal food is fresh fruit and nuts. 4. The Brahmachari must control his mind as it (mind) is at the root of sexuality. Brahmacharaya means control of the senses in thought, word and deed. Chapter IX: Simple Life 1. It is difficult to make friends and people to appreciate the beauty of selfhelp. Chapter X: The Boer War 1. The average Englishman believed that the Indian was (and is) a coward, incapable of taking risks of working beyond his immediate self-interest (This is evident from the current scams and scandals prevalent in the country. Corruption has become all pervasive. Indians must rise in the twenty-first century and prove to the world that nobody can match their honesty and integrity.) 2. Human nature shows itself at its best in moments of trial and crisis. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 35 Chapter XI: Sanitary Reform And Famine Relief 1. Indians are not good in keeping their houses and surroundings clean. Habit of cleanliness must be inculcated in people. 2. It is very difficult to help the community in getting to do its own duty as against claiming for its rights. 3. One has to have infinite patience to get the people to do any work. 4. It is the reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even moral persecution. 5. Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it The deeper the search in the mine of Truth, the richer the discovery of the gems buried there, in the shape of opening for an ever greater variety of service. Chapter XII; Return to India 1. The voice of the people is the voice of God. 2. Service has its own reward. 3. A public worker should not accept costly gifts. 4. For gifts a trust may be created in favour of the community. Chapter XIII: In India Again 1. Service is no mushroom growth. It presupposes the will first and then experience. There is no lack of will on the part of good simple hearted young men, but they lack experience. 2. The National Congress before the entry of Gandhi would meet three days every year and then go to sleep. The organization should remain active rather than just have a Conference or meeting for three days or so in a year. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 36 Chapter XIV: Clerk and Bearer 1. Always respect elders. 2. Work of an organization must be properly rationalized. (The Congress secretary in those days was so busy that he had no time even to button his shirt. There was little regard for economy of energy. More than one did the work of one, and many of an important thing was no one's business at all. The work of an organization must be properly rationalized and distributed amongst various functionaries.) Chapter XV: In the Congress 1. Resolution(s) moved by an important leader generally get unanimously passed without understanding or discussing them. Chapter XVI: Lord Curzon's Darbar 1. Heavy is the toll of sins and wrongs that wealth, power and prestige exact from man. Chapter XVII: A Month With Gokhale I 1. Some leaders private relations and friendship are all for public good. (Gokhale's private relations and friendship are all for public good. All his talks has reference only to the good of the country and are absolutely free from any trace of untruth or insincerity. India's poverty and subjection are matters of constant and intense concern for him. He is a person whose example needs to be emulated.) 2. There are some leaders who will spend very little from the salary on themselves and spend the rest on public purposes. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 37 (Prof. P. C. Ray (now Sir), who having a monthly salary of Rs 800, keeps just Rs 40 for himself and devotes the balance to public purposes. He is not, and does not want to get married.) 3. Attend court in the interest of client(s). (There is an example of Mandlik. He once, having missed the train, engaged a special train so as to be able to attend the court in the interest of his client.) 4. There is no reason to suppose that everything what the leaders do is with a view to personal comfort. (Gokhale used to have a horse-carriage in those days. Gandhi remonstrated him, "Can't you make use of the tram-car for going about from place to place? Is it derogatory to a leader's dignity?" Slightly pained he (Gokhale) said, "So you also have failed to understand me! I do not use my council amount for my personal comforts. I envy your liberty to go about in tram-car, but I am sorry I cannot do likewise. When you are the victim of as wide a publicity as I am, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for you to go about in tram-car.) 5. No matter, what amount of work one has, one should always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one's meals. It does not take away from one's capacity for work, it adds to it. Chapter XVIII: A Month with Gokhale II 1. One must oppose giving alms to sturdy beggars. 2. All places are equally good for us. The people are like a flock of sheep, following where leaders lead them. 3. The killing of animal(s) as a part of religious worship is very cruel. 4. The life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. 5. The more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 38 Chapter XIX: A Month with Gokhale III 1. There should be an intense desire to know life of people to understand and work with them. This is possible by living with them. Chapter XX: In Benaras 1. Third class passengers, in railways, are treated like sheep and their comforts are sheep's comforts. (We have abolished third class, but situation has not changed much.) 2. The indifference of the railway authorities to the comfort of the third class [now second class] passengers, combined with the dirty and inconsiderate habits of the passengers themselves make third class travelling a trial for a passenger of cleanly ways. 3. One remedy for awful state of things — that educated men should make it a point of travelling third class and reform the habits of the people, as also never letting the railway authorities rest in peace, sending in complaints wherever necessary, never resorting to bribes or unlawful means for obtaining their own comforts, and never putting up with infringement of rules on the part of anyone concerned. 4. The surroundings of Kashi Vishwanath Temple are full of the dirt and the noise. Gandhi went in search for God but failed to find Him. He was not in a particularly good mood. He had no mind to give any dakshina. So he offered a pie. The panda incharge got angry and threw away the pie. "Go away," he replied. "I (Maharaj) don't care for your pie." And then followed a volley of abuse. "I [Gandhi] took the pie and went away my way, flattering myself that the Brahmin had lost a pie and I had saved one." But Maharaj was hardly the man to let the pie go. He called me back and said, "All right, leave the pie here. I would rather not be as you are. If I refuse your pie, it will be bad for you." I silently gave him the pie and, with a Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 39 sigh, went away. If anyone doubts the infinite mercy of God, let him look at these sacred places. 5. God (Sri Krishna) in Gita had proclaimed long ago: "Whatever a man sows, that shall he reap! The law of Karma is inexorable and impossible of evasion. Chapter XXI: Settled In Bombay 1. One should hate as poisonous the use of flattery for getting briefs. 2. As the elephant is powerless to think in terms of the ant, in spite of best intentions in the world, even so is the Englishman powerless to think in the terms of, or legislate for, the Indian. Chapter XXII: Faith on Its Trial 1. It is only during events of crisis that a man's faith is truly tested. One must face the crisis boldly and adhere to one's faith. (Gandhi was advised by the doctor to give eggs and other non-vegetarian diet, to his ailing son to pick up his health. Gandhi was in a great dilemma because he could not ascertain his son's wish as he (son) was not grown up to decide for himself. Gandhi decided against the advice of the doctor. He felt that there should be a limit even to the means of keeping ourselves alive. Even for life itself we cannot to do certain things. Religion, as he understood did not permit him to use meat, eggs and the like.) 2. The thread of life is in the hands of God. Why worry and let us entrust it to Him, and in His name go on with the treatment one has thought is as the right treatment. Chapter XXIII: To South Africa Again 1. Enterprising youth may immigrate to other countries if they could not find an opening in their own country. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 40 2. It is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God, that Truth, is an uncertainty. The quest for Truth is the summum bonum of life. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 41 PART IV Chapter I : 'Love's Labour Lost?' 1. The rule of might being right or the law of sword. Chapter II: Autocrats from Asia 1. Public departments are maintained for the good of the people and should be responsive to public opinion. Chapter III: Pocketed the Insult 1. One may not look forward to any reward for one's labours, but one should be certain that a good action is bound to bear the fruit in the end. Chapter TV: Quickened Spirit Of Sacrifice 1. Some people go for life insurance due to fear of death and want of faith in God. 2. The spirit of sacrifice is tempered by the desire to lay by something for the future. 3. The chief thing about theosophy is to cultivate and promote the ideas of brotherhood. Chapter V: Result Of Introspection 1. The Gita can become an infallible guide of conduct and dictionary of daily reference. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 42 (Gandhi turned to this dictionary of conduct for a ready solution of all his troubles and trials. Words like aparigraha [non-possession] and samabhava [equability] gripped him.) 2. The Gita's teaching of non-possession to mean that those who desire salvation should act like Trustee, who though having control over great possession, regards not an iota of the possession as his. Chapter VI: A Sacrifice To Vegetarianism 1. One most important way of carrying out missionary work is by personal example and discussion with searchers for knowledge. 2. A man's reforming zeal ought not to make him exceed his limits. Chapter VII: Experiments In Earth And Water Treatment 1. Fresh fruit and nuts are the natural diet of man. 2. A writer almost always presents one aspect of a case, whereas every case can be seen from no less than seven points of view, all of which are probably correct by them. Chapter VIII: A Warning 1. In the legal profession, the Indian proverb says that as a man eats, so shall he become. 2. For the seeker of truth who lives on fear of God and who will see him face to face, restraint in diet both as to quality and quantity is as essential as restraint in thought and speech. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 43 Chapter IX: A Tussle With Power 1. In the legal profession, the very intellect sometimes becomes an abomination to one inasmuch as it could be prostituted for screening crime. 2. Hate the sin and not the sinner. 3. It is quite proper to resist and attack a system and not its author. Chapter X: A Sacred Recollection and Penanace 1. One should not make any distinction between relatives and strangers, countrymen and foreigners, white and coloured, Hindu and Indians of other faiths, whether Mussalmans, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians, Dalits and Jews. 2. One should not use husband's authority to harass one's wife out of one's blind love for her. 3. One should not use taunting language or words which may pierce wife's ears like an arrow. 4. A woman having matchless powers of endurance will always be the victor. 5. One should think that the wife is a helpmate, a comrade and a partner in the husband's joys and sorrows. Giving her equal respect will make domestic life more and more graceful, sweet and happy. Chapter XI: Intimate European Contacts 1. It is extremely difficult to describe and characterize one's belief in God. 2. One should follow the sage maxim that nothing once begun should be abandoned unless it is proved to be morally wrong. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 44 Chapter XII: European Contacts (continued) 1. A person's character should be as clear as crystal and courage that would shame a warrior. 2. One knows neither night nor day in toiling for a cause. Chapter XIII: 'Indian Opinion' 1. The sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper press (media) is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countryside and devastates crops, even so uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercising control from within. 2. Satyagraha would probably have been impossible without Indian Opinion [a journal]. 3. The aim of the editor has to be to establish intimate and clear bond between him and the readers. Chapter XIV: Coolie Locations or Ghettoes 1. People usually migrate abroad in search of wealth and trade. (But the bulk of the Indians who went to South Africa were ignorant, pauper and agriculturists. The traders and educated Indians who followed them were very few.) Chapter XV: The Black Plague I 1. If one's heart is pure, calamity brings in its train men and measures to fight it. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 45 2. The indefatigable zeal and fearlessness with which youth work will rejoice everyone beyond measure. Chapter XVI: The Black Plague II 1. Once awakened to a sense of their duty, the official(s) of any government or non-official body will not delay in taking prompt measure(s). Chapter XVII: Location in Flames 1. When people are in a terrible fright, the leader's constant presence is a great consolation to them. Chapter XVIII: The Magic Spell Of A Book 1. Anything that appeals to intellect must be translated into practice. 2. A public worker should not make statements of which he has not made sure of their authenticity. 3. A book's influence can be so much upon the reader that it can change his life in accordance with the ideals contained in it 4. The limited reading may help thoroughly to digest what one reads. 5. A poet is one who can call forth the good talent in the human breast Poets don't influence all alike, for everyone is not evolved in an equal measure. The teachings of Unto This Last made Gandhi realize: a) That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all. b) That a lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's, inasmuch as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work. c) That a life of labour, that is, the life of the tiller of the soil and craftsman, is the life worth living. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 46 Chapter XIX: Phoenix Settlement 1. Followers, co-workers follow the leader in his ethical experiments without much argument and discussion. Chapter XX: The First Night 1. No use of shedding tears if the things don't work the way we like. We should do whatever is humanly possible. 2. People cooperate and do respond in an emergency. Chapter XXI: Polak Takes the Plunge 1. It is found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but at the same time where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man's plans are frustrated, the issue is never injurious and often better than anticipated. 2. There are some persons who are not conscious of their own capacities. They need be awakened to their capacities. 3. There are some who by their sociability win the hearts of all and soon become the members of the family. They take to hard work like duck takes to water. Chapter XXII: Whom God Protects 1. Experience has shown that all experiments involve obvious risks. 2. He who will go in for novel experiments must begin with himself. This will lead to quicker discovery of truth, and God always protects the honest experimenter(s). 3. Common religion is the religion of ethics. 4. The distinction between heterogeneous and homogeneous is discovered to be merely imaginary. We are all one family. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 47 5. True beauty consists in purity of heart. Chapter XXIII: A Peep into The Household 1. Character building is the bounden duty of every parent 2. Children inherit the qualities of the parents no less than their physical features. Environment does play an important part, but the original capital on which a child starts in life is inherited from its ancestors. 3. The Indian parents who train children to think and talk in English from their infancy betray their children and their country. They deprive them of the spiritual and social heritage of the nation and render them to that extent unfit for the service of the country. Chapter XXIV: The Zulu Rebellion 1. British and some of their subjects believed that the British Empire existed for the welfare of the world. (The Zulu rebellion was against the new rule and the tax imposed on them.) Chapter XXV: Heart Searching 1. Brahmacharaya is necessary for one who aspires to serve humanity with his whole soul. 2. Life without Brahmacharaya appears to be insipid and animal-like. The man, brute by nature, knows no self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only is so far as he exercises self-restraint Brahmacharaya, which is so full of wonderful potency, is by no means an easy affair, and certainly not a mere matter of the body. It begins with bodily restraint, but does not end there. The perfection of it precludes even an impure thought A true Brahmachari will not even dream of satisfying the fleshly Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 48 appetite, and until he is in that condition, he has great deal of ground to cover. 3. There is a key to lock out undesirable thoughts, but everyone has to find it out for himself. Saints and seers have left their experiences for us, but they have given us no infallible and universal prescription. Chapter XXVI: The Birth of Satyagraha 1. Satyagraha (sat: truth, agraha : firmness) is a form of nonviolent struggle against exploitation, oppression, subjugation and repression. It is an ethical value. It is of moral pressure, where the volunteers or activists submit to discomfort, suffering, or punishment as an expression of their position and depth of their conviction. (Examples will include fasting, lying down in front of a bulldozer to halt or prevent an unwanted project, or blocking a street or engaging in other illegal activities likely to lead to police action.) This approach emphasizes goodwill rather than hostility towards the opponents. Chapter XXVII: More Experiments In Dietetics 1. Passion in man is generally co-existence with a hankering after the pleasures of the palate. One should eat not in order to please the palate, but just to keep the body going. When each organ of sense sub-serves the body and through the body the soul, its special relish disappears, and then alone does it begin to function in the way nature intended it to. Chapter XXVIII: Kasturba's Courage 1. Kasturba refused to take beef tea despite the advice of the doctor. This shows women's determination. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 49 (She gave a resolute reply: "I will not take beef tea. It is a rare thing in this world to be born as a human being, and I would rather die in your [Gandhi] arms than pollute my body with such abominations.") Chapter XXIX: Domestic Satyagraha 1. Inhibition imposed from without rarely succeed, but when they are selfimposed, they have decidedly salutary effect. 2. Salt is not a necessary diet for man, that on the contrary saltless diet is better for the health. 3. Self-denial is good for the soul. The diet of a man of self-restraint must be different from that of the man of pleasure, just as their ways of life must be different. Chapter XXX: Towards Self-restraint 1. Milk stimulates animal passion. 2. There is an intimate connection between the mind and the body, and the carnal mind always lusts for delicacies and luxuries. 3. Those whose minds are working towards self- restraint, dietic restrictions and fasting are very helpful. In fact without their help concupiscence cannot be completely rooted out of the mind. Chapter XXXI: Fasting 1. It is better to have always one's co-worker's cooperation in anything that appeals to one as being good. 2. Fasting and similar discipline is one of the means to the end of selfrestraint, but it is not all, and if physical fasting is not accompanied by mental fasting, it is bound to end in hypocrisy and disaster. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 50 Chapter XXXII: As School Teacher 1. Under ideal conditions, 'true education' can be imparted only by parents and that there should be the minimum of outside help.’ (The Tolstoy Farm in South Africa was a family, in which Gandhi occupied the place of father. He therefore assumed so far as possible the responsibility for the training of the young.) 2. Character building is the proper foundation for the education of children. If the foundation is firmly laid, the children could and would learn all other things themselves or with the assistance of friends. 3. Building body should not be underrated as such physical labour should become an integral part of education system. 4. Every youngster must learn at least some useful vocation. 5. As a rule the youngsters should not be asked to do what the teachers did not do. Chapter XXXIII: Literacy Training 1. As far as possible mornings should be devoted to physical work and domestic duties, so school hours must be kept after the mid-day meals. 2. One should never attempt to disguise one's ignorance from one's pupils. 3. It is not necessary to load the boys and girls with the quantities of books. 4. The true text book for the pupil is his/her teacher. 5. Children learn or take in much more without labour through their ears than through their eyes. Reading is a task for them, but listening is pleasure. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 51 Chapter XXXIV: Training Of the Spirit 1. All training without culture of the spirit is of no use and may be even harmful. 2. The training of the spirit is a thing by itself. 3. To develop the spirit is to build character and to enable one to work towards a knowledge of God and self-realization. 4. It is a matter of common knowledge that those who defer preparation for this invaluable experience until the last stage of life attain not selfrealization but old-age amounting to a second and pitiable childhood, living as a burden on this earth. 5. It is not through books that one can impart training of the spirit Just as physical training is to be done through physical exercise, the intellectual through intellectual exercise, even so the training of the spirit is possible only through the exercise of the spirit. And the exercise of the spirit entirely depends on the life and character of the teacher. It is possible for a teacher situated miles away to affect the spirit of the pupils by his way of living. A teacher has to be an eternal object-lesson to the boys and girls. Chapter XXXV: Tares among The Wheat 1. One should not make one's own children feel that they are superior to other boys and girls. To put that sense of superiority into their heads will be to lead them astray. The association with other boys and girls will be a good discipline for them. They will, of their own accord, learn to discriminate between good and evil. 2. Children wrapped up in cotton wool are not always proof against all temptation or contamination. It is true, however, that, when boys and girls of all kinds of upbringing are kept and taught together, the parents Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 52 and teachers are put to the severest test. They have constantly to be on the alert. Chapter XXXVI: Fasting As Penance 1. It is very difficult to bring up and educate boys and girls in the right way. If one wants to be their real teacher and guardian, one must touch their hearts. One must share their joys and sorrows, one must help them to solve their problems that faced them, and must take along the right channel the surging aspirations of their youth. 2. The guardian or teacher is responsible, to some extent at least, for the lapse of his ward or pupil. Teacher may have to take to penance for the guilt of his boys and girls. 3. The guilty party or parties can be made to realize their sin by inflicting some penance on the teacher or the guardian. (So I imposed on myself a fast of seven days and a vow to have only one meal a day for a period of four months and a half. I felt greatly relieved, for the decision meant a heavy load off my mind. The anger against the guilty parties subsided and gave place to the purest pity for them. My penance pained everybody, but it cleared the atmosphere. Everyone came to realize what a terrible thing it was to be sinful and the bond that bound me to the boys and girls became stronger and truer.) 4. Where there is no true love between the teacher and the pupils, where the pupils delinquency has not touched the very being of the teacher and where the pupils have no respect for the teacher, fasting is out of place and may even be harmful. Chapter XXXVII: To Meet Gokhale 1. In the march towards Truth, anger, selfishness, hatred, etc., naturally give way, for otherwise, Truth would be impossible to attain. A man who is Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 53 swayed by passion may have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word, but he will never find the Truth. A successful search for truth means complete deliverance from the dual throng such as of love and hate, happiness and misery. 2. A man emerging from a long fast should not be in a hurry to regain lost strength, and should also put a curb on his appetite. More caution and perhaps more restraint are necessary in breaking a fast than in keeping it. Chapter XXXVIII: My Part in the War 1. There is a world of difference between Indians and the English. We are slaves and they are masters. How could a slave cooperate with the master in the hour of the tatter's need? However, England's need should not be turned into our opportunity. That is, one's misery should not become other's opportunity. (London in those days was a sight worth seeing. There was no panic, but all were busy keeping to the best of their ability. Able bodied adults began training as combatants, but what were the old, the infirm and the women to do? There was enough work for them, if they wanted. So they employed themselves in cutting and making clothes and dressings for the wounded. One can draw a good lesson from the experiences of London people to face the situation boldly.) Chapter XXXIX: A Spiritual Dilemma 1. A votary of Truth is often obliged to grope in dark. 2. Ahimsa is a comprehensive principle and the unity of all life. 3. When two nations are fighting, the duty of a votary of Ahimsa is to stop the war. He who is not equal to that duty, he who has no power of resisting war, he who is not qualified to resist war, may take part in war, Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 54 and yet wholeheartedly try to free himself, his nation and the world from war. 4. A votary of Truth may not do anything in defence to convention. He must always hold himself open to correction, and whenever he discovers himself to be wrong he must confess it at all costs and atone for it. Chapter XL: Miniature Satyagraha 1. A Satyagrahi is born to be deceived. But ultimately a deceiver only deceives himself. 2. One should not be surprised if one of these days one has to go to the gallows for the sake of truth. Chapter XLI : Gokhale’s Charity 1. One should decide for oneself according to the dictates of one's inner voice. Chapter XLII: Treatment Of Pleurisy 1. The treatment of pleurisy [Gandhi suffered from this disease] and cure lay not in taking medicine internally but in dietetic changes assisted by external remedies. Chaptter XLIII: Homeward 1. There is always a difference between the ruler and the subject or ruled. 2. It is a joy to get back to the homeland after an exile of long years. Chapter XLIV: Some Reminiscences of The Bar 1. It is generally believed that the lawyer's profession is a liar's profession. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 55 (This had no influence on Gandhi. He had no intention of earning either position or money by lying. He warned every client at the outset that he would not take up a false case or coach the witnesses. The result was that no false case used to come to him.) Chapter XLV: Sharp Practice 1. It is important to practice law without compromising truth. 2. Do not vitiate truthfulness. Chapter XL VI: Clients Turned Co-workers 1. One's devotion to truth enhances one's reputation among the members of the legal profession. 2. The object of all professions should be service to the community and not conspiracy against laity. For this purpose winning the confidence of the people is an indispensable condition. (In South Africa hundreds of Gandhi's clients became his friends and real co-workers in public life.) Chapter XLVII: How a Client Was Saved 1. To save or not to save anybody from the wrong done by one can be saved by means of confession. 2. The shame lies not so much in going to jail as in committing the offence. (The deed of the shame has already been done. Imprisonment should be regarded as penance. The real penance lies in resolving never to do wrong or commit crime again.) Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 56 PART V Chapter I: The First Experience 1. The reception given to strangers in foreign land by local people make them at home. 2. It is necessary to enter protest against established practices to make people conscious of their mistakes. Chapter II: With Gokhale In Poona 1. As a rule, as a Satyagrahi, one must understand the view-point of the party he proposes to deal with. 2. It is faith in people that sustains the Satyagrahi. 3. In order that workers concentrate on work they must be made free from financial responsibility. 4. One may commence work from one's familiar place. Chapter III: Was It A Threat? 1. There are some youths who do not think before speaking. 2. No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor. 3. A nation that wants to come into its own ought to know all the ways and means to freedom. Usually they include violence as the last remedy. Satyagraha, on the one hand, is an absolutely nonviolent weapon. It is the duty of the leader to explain to people its practice and its limitations. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 57 Chapter IV: Shantiniketan 1. Self-help experiment contains the key to Swaraj. 2. Before understanding and gaining experience, one must not express opinion on public questions. Chapter V: Woes Of Third Class Passengers 1. The face of truth is hidden behind the golden vein of maya. Chapter VI: Wooing 1. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul. Chapter VII: Kumbha Mela 1. Life based on disciplinary resolutions will add a few years to life and will save one from many an illness. Chapter VIII: Lakshman Jhula 1. Hinduism must purge itself of untouchability. 2. So long as there are different religions, everyone of them may need some outward distinctive symbol. But when the symbol is made into a fetish and an instrument of proving the superiority of one's religion over others', it is fit only to be discarded. 3. One will be charmed with the natural scenery about Rishikesh and the Lakshman Jhula, and one's head will bow in reverence to ancestors for their sense of the beautiful nature, and for their foresight in investing beautiful manifestations of nature with a religious significance. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 58 Chapter IX: Founding Of the Ashram 1. Our creed is devotion to truth, and our business is the search for and insistence on truth. 2. Service without humility is selfishness and egotism. Chapter X: On the Anvil 1. Do not return abuse with abuse. The man showering abuses will become ashamed and will cease to bother. 2. Trust in management and good work will bring money. Chapter XI: Abolition of Indentured Emigration 1. People tolerate the wrong system through sheer negligence. They must be awakened to agitate and fight the system. 2. Patience is rewarded. 3. God does send help when needed. Chapter XII: The Stain of Indigo 1. Leader must take the rein in his own hands rather than expect guidance from elsewhere. Chapter XIII: The Gentle Bihari 1. Where the ryots are so crushed and fear-stricken, law courts are useless. The real relief for them is to be free from fear. Chapter XIV: Face To Face With Ahimsa 1. People yield obedience to the power of love. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 59 2. One should aim at work and not name, substance and not shadow. Chapter XV: Case Withdrawn 1. The disinterested service of the people in any sphere ultimately helps the country politically. (This has been amply proved by the Champran struggle.) Chapter XVI: Methods of Work 1. Method of inquiring must be a bold experiment with Truth and Ahimsa. Each peasant (case) must be closely cross-examined, and whoever failed to satisfy the test may be rejected. Chapter XVII : Companions 1. One must have capacity — specially an outsider to merge oneself in the province (state) of his adoption. 2. Work of a permanent nature is impossible without proper village education. 3. In order to involve villagers and to get their active participation in education they (villagers) must provide teachers with board and lodging. 4. Don't entrust children to commonplace teachers. Their literacy qualifications is not so essential as their moral fibre. 5. Teacher is expected to teach the children not grammar and the three Rs so much as cleanliness and good manners. 6. Villagers must be made conscious and aware of cleanliness and sanitary work. 7. One must penetrate in every department of villagers' lives. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 60 Chapter XVIII: Penetrating the Villages 1. Sanitation is a difficult affair. Even in the field labourers are not ready to do their own scavenging. 2. Sanitation must be made integral part of all works in villages. Chapter XIX: When A Governor Is Good 1. The recommendations of the committee cannot be accepted and implemented without the cooperation and firmness of a person of the status of Governor. Chapter XX: In Touch with Labour 1. One must not dare to give advice on any issue or problem without proper inquiry on the spot. 2. Conditions for a successful strikes are: a) Never to resort to violence. b) Never to molest black legs. c) Never to depend upon alms. d) To remain firm, no matter how long the strike continues, and to earn bread during the strike period, by another honest labour. 3. One must recognize the principle of arbitration in a dispute between two parties. Chapter XXI: A Peep into The Ashram 1. Human language can imperfectly describe God's ways. They are indescribable and inscrutable. 2. As a rule one should not kill snakes. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 61 Chapter XXII: The Fast 1. The fast can touch the hearts of people in authority. They may set about discovering some means to settle the strike. (The fast by Gandhi touched the hearts of mill owners. They set about discovering some means for a settlement to call off the strike.) 2. The grinding poverty and starvation with which our country is afflicted is such that it drives men and women every year into the ranks of the beggars, whose desperate struggle for bread renders them insensible, to all feelings of decency and self-respect And our philanthropists, authorities, instead of providing work for them and insisting on their working for bread, give them alms. Chapter XXIII: The Kheda Satyagraha 1. One has to suspend or give up splendid and growing practice at the bar to join the struggle. (This was done by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to join the Kheda Satyagraha.) Chapter XXIV: The Onion Thief 1. The Gujaratis are deeply interested in the fight. They are ready to pour forth their riches for the success of the cause. It is not easy for them to see that Satyagraha cannot be conducted simply by means of money. Money is the thing that it least needs. The Satyagrahi has to learn the new lesson of simplicity. 2. The main thing is to rid the agriculturists of their fear by making them realize that the officials are not the masters but the servants of people, inasmuch as they receive their salaries from the tax payers. 3. The most difficult part in Satyagraha is to fully learn the lesson of civility. Civility does not mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 62 for the occasion, but an inborn quietness and desire to do the opponent good. 4. When the fear of jail disappears, repression puts heart into the people. Chapter XXV : End Of Kheda Satyagraha 1. It is the people's right to determine who is poor. 2. The end of a Satyagraha campaign can be described as worthy, only when, it leaves the Satyagrahi stronger and more spirited than he was in the beginning. 3. The Kheda Satyagraha marks the beginning of an awakening among the peasants of Gujarat and the beginning of their true political education. 4. The successful completion of Kheda Satyagraha indelibly imprinted on the public mind that the salvation of the people depend upon themselves, upon their capacity for suffering and sacrifice. 5. The people have found Satyagraha the true and infallible method for redressal of their grievances. Chapter XXVI: Passion for Unity 1. One should not miss a single opportunity to remove obstacle in the HinduMuslim unity. 2. The young men and women have to be ready to become fakirs for the service of the motherland. 3. In matters of religion beliefs differ, and each one's is supreme for himself. (If all will have the same belief about all matters of religion, there will be only one religion in the world.) Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 63 Chapter XXVII: Recruiting Campaign 1. There is no trust between the government and the people. 2. There are times when optimism may receive rude shock. 3. Distress may disappear by rendering voluntary help to government in the hour of its trial. 4. No government can afford to disregard the leaders, who represent the large masses of the people. 5. Educated classes do influence the masses. 6. Disappointment of hope means disillusion. Chapter XVIII: Near Death's Door 1. To eat too much butter is to injure one's health. 2. One loses interest in living when one is in that helpless state, doing nothing, receiving the service of friends and co-workers and watching the body slowly wearing away. 3. One should not be hasty in arriving at certain conclusions. 4. Some people believe eggs are as harmless as milk. Chapter XXIX: The Rowlatt Bills and My Dilemma 1. Some people are liked and admired for the instantaneous capacity to take decisions. 2. The ideal of truth requires that vows taken should be fulfilled in letter and spirit. Chapter XXX: That Wonderful Spectacle 1. One can wake a man if he is really asleep; no effort will produce any effect upon a man who is pretending to be asleep. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 64 2. Satyagraha is a process of self-purification. Chapter XXXI: That Memorable Week I 1. Civil disobedience can be offered in respect of such laws as easily lent themselves to being disobeyed by the masses. 2. All is not gold that glitters. 3. One should not worry much about paucity of attendance in meetings. Chapter XXXII: That Memorable Week II 1. People by nature are peaceful and not violent. 2. Satyagraha is essentially a weapon of truthful. A Satyagrahi is pledged to nonviolence and unless people observe it in thought, word and deed one cannot offer mass Satyagraha. 3. One must suspend Satyagraha so long as people have not learnt the lesson of peace. 4. Those leaders who want to lead the people to Satyagraha ought to be able to keep the people within the limited nonviolence expected of them. Chapter XXXIII: 'A Himalayan Miscalculation' 1. Ideally it is only when one sees one's mistakes with a convex lens and does just the reverse in the case of others, that one is able to arrive at a just relative estimate of the two. A scrupulous and conscientious observation of this rule is necessary for one who wants to be a Satyagrahi. 2. A Satyagrahi obeys the laws of society intelligently and of his own free will, because he considers it to be his sacred duty to do so. It is only when a person has thus obeyed the laws of the society scrupulously that he is in a position to judge as to which particular rules are good and just and Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 65 which are unjust and iniquitous. Only then does the right accrue to him of the civil disobedience of certain laws in well defined circumstances. Chapter XXXIV: 'Navajivan' and 'Young India' 1. The journals will help to expound the inner meaning of Satyagraha to the reading pubic. Chapter XXXV: In the Punjab 1. One's self-confidence must be infectious. 2. In inquiry reports there should not be a single conscious exaggeration in it anywhere, and every statement made in it must be substantiated by evidence. The aim of a report should be solely with a view to bringing out the truth and nothing but the truth. Chapter XXXVI: Die Khilafat against Cow Protection? 1. Non-cooperation or to withhold cooperation from government is inalienable right of the people. Chapter XXXVII: The Amritsar Congress 1. The reforms, though may be defective, may still be acceptable as a strategy. 2. One will find it extremely difficult, out of respect, to differ from seasoned, well tried and universally revered leaders. In such case(s) one must hear the inner voice. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 66 Chapter XXXVIII: Congress Initiation 1. One's capacity as a draftsman and a faculty for condensed expression will be generally found useful in seminars and conferences for drafting resolutions and writing proceedings. 2. One may have to be satisfied in the work of committees with the nominated members of the leaders for want of time at their disposal. Chapter XXXIX: The Birth of Khadi 1. The objective of Khadi set before all Indians is to be able to clothe ourselves entirely in cloth manufactured by our own hands. (We should forthwith discard the use of mill- woven cloth, and all the Indians should wear hand-woven cloth made from Indian yarn only.) Chapter XL: Found At Last 1. One becomes so much self-possessed of the spinning wheel that one gets lost in it and it is difficult to distract one's attention, and even much more difficult to draw one's eyes from one's beloved charkha (spinning wheel). Chapter XLI: An Instructive Dialogue 1. The price of an article is governed by the demand for it. Who can check the law of demand and supply? 2. Khadi can provide work to semi-starved women of India and to clothe the people of India with Khadi woven out of it. 3. One has to think very hard and ask a question as to whether the spinning wheel can weave its way in the age of power-driven machines. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 67 Chapter XLII: It’s Rising Tide 1. Once people are convinced and are able to overcome their scepticism they throw themselves heart and soul into the movement or any task. 2. Death of an esteemed leader leaves a deep void as people are deprived of his wise counsel very much needed in that hour of crisis in the nation's history. Chapter XLIII: At Nagpur 1. We should not be obsessed with numbers. The participants in a conference should be manageable to get better output. 2. The goal of the Congress was the attainment of Swaraj within the British Empire if possible and without if necessary. 3. The means for attainment have to be peaceful and legitimate. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 68 FAREWELL 1. One must know and understand that there is no other God than Truth. The only means for realization of Truth is Ahimsa. 2. To see the universal and all pervading spirit of Truth face to face must be able to love the meanest of creatures as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. 3. People who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means. 4. Identification with everything that lives is impossible without selfpurification; without self-purification the observance of the law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self- purification, therefore, must mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one's surroundings. (The path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. One must reduce oneself to zero. So long as a man does not of his free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility.) 5. One must pray to the God of Truth that He may grant us the boon of Ahimsa in mind, word and deed.Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 69 III GIST OF LESSONS The lessons scattered in different Chapters have been brought together at one place as Gist of Lessons under the following four broad sections: Section I : Workers and Public Service Section II : Education Section III: Legal Profession and Practice Section IV : Parents Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 70 Section I Workers and Public Service 1. Workers working with people have to be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet. But the worker has to be so simple that even the dust could crush him. 2. There can be no fee or charge for public work. 3. One must not accept any salary for public work. 4. Not to carry public work with borrowed money. 5. Carefully kept accounts are sine qua non for any organization. 6. Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the worker nor the served. 7. It is not good to run public institutions on permanent funds. A permanent fund carries in itself the seed of the moral fall of the institution. 8. It is difficult to make friends and people to appreciate the beauty of selfhelp. 9. The voice of the people is the voice of God. 10. Public service has its own reward. 11. A public worker should not accept costly gifts. 12. For gifts a trust may be created by the public worker. 13. The work of public institutions must be properly rationalized and duties and responsibilities be distributed amongst various functionaries. 14. One most important way of carrying out public work is by personal example and discussion with searchers for knowledge. 15. A worker's reforming zeal ought not make him exceed his limits. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 71 16. A worker should not make any distinction between relatives and strangers, countrymen and foreigners, white and coloured, Hindu or of other faiths — whether Mussalmans, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians, Dalits or Jews. 17. A worker's character should be as clear as crystal and courage that would shame a warrior. 18. A worker knows neither day nor night in toiling for the cause. 19. If a worker's heart is pure, calamity brings in its train men and measures to fight it. 20. A worker's constant presence with people when they are in a terrible fright is a real consolation to them. 21. A public worker should not make statements without getting proof of their authenticity. 22. In order that worker(s) concentrate on work they must be made free from financial responsibility. 23. Worker may commence work from one's familiar place. 24. Service without humility is selfishness. 25. Trust in management and good work will bring money. 26. Worker should aim at work and not name, substance and not shadow. 27. A worker—specially an outsider—must have capacity to identify with people. 28. A worker(s) should not worry about thin attendance in meetings. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 72 Section II Education 1. Physical and mental training should have equal importance in the curriculum. 2. Good hand-writing is a necessary part of education. 3. Children should first be taught the art of drawing before learning how to write. 4. Every Hindu boy and girl should possess sound knowledge of Sanskrit language. 5. In all India curricula of higher education there should be place for Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and English, besides of course, the vernacular. 6. Don't lose patience with pupils. 7. The education that children imbibe in a well- ordered household is impossible to obtain in hostel(s). 8. The education of the child begins with conception. 9. One should not remain under the impression that the child has nothing to learn during the first five years of its life. On the contrary, the fact is that the child never learns in after life what it does in its first five years. 10. Character building is the proper foundation for the education of children. If the foundation is firmly laid, the children could and would learn all other things themselves or with the assistance of friends. 11. Building body should not be underrated as such, physical labour (education) should become an integral part of education system. 12. Every youngster must learn at least some useful vocation. 13. As a rule the youngsters should not be asked to do what the teachers cannot do. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 73 14. As far as possible mornings should be devoted to physical work and domestic duties, so school hours must be kept after the mid-day meals. 15. One should never attempt to disguise one's ignorance from one's pupils. 16. It is not necessary to load the boys and girls with the quantities of books. 17. The true text-book for the pupil is his / her teacher. 18. Children learn or take in much more without labour through their ears than through their eyes. Reading is a task for them, but listening is pleasure. 19. All training without culture of the spirit is of no use and may be even harmful. 20. The training of the spirit is a thing by itself. 21. To develop the spirit is to build character and to enable one to work towards a knowledge of God and Self-realization. 22. It is not through books that one can impart training of the spirit Just as physical training is to be done through physical exercise, the intellectual through intellectual exercise, even so the training of the spirit is possible only through the exercise of the spirit. And the exercise of the spirit entirely depends on the life and character of the teacher. It is possible for a teacher situated miles away to affect the spirit of the pupils by his way of living. A teacher has to be an eternal object-lesson to the boys and girls. 23. It is true that when boys and girls of all kinds of upbringing are kept and taught together, the parents and teachers are put to the severest test. They have constantly to be on the alert. 24. It is very difficult to bring up and educate boys and girls in the right way. If one wants to be their real teacher and guardian, one must touch their hearts. One must share their joys and sorrows, one must help them to solve their problems that faced them, and must take along the right channel the surging aspirations of their youth. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 74 25. The teacher or guardian is responsible, to some extent at least, for the lapse of his pupil or ward. 26. Where there is no true love between the teacher and the pupils, where the pupils' delinquency has not touched the very being of the teacher and where the pupils have no respect for the teacher, fasting is out of place and may even be harmful. 27. Don't entrust children to commonplace teachers. Their literacy qualification is not so essential as their moral fibre. 28. Teacher is expected to teach the children not grammar and the three Rs so much as good manner and cleanliness. 29. In order to involve villagers and to get their active participation in education they must provide teachers with board and lodging. 30. Education system must meet the needs of the society, family, pupil and teacher. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 75 Section III Legal Profession and Practice 1. Lawyers should have a long tongue. 2. If the word of Lawyer is not to be trusted, where is the use of possessing a certificate in the matter. 3. Latin is very useful to lawyers. 4. The curriculum of study to the bar is easy. (Jokingly barristers are called 'dinner barristers'! Everyone knew that examination has no value). 5. It is easy to read the law, but it is difficult to practise at the Bar. 6. A lawyer should know, human nature. He should be able to read a man's character from his face. And every lawyer ought to know Indian history. 7. Honesty and industry are enough to become a successful lawyer. 8. The barrister's profession is a bad job — much show and little knowledge. 9. For a barrister to vegetate for five to seven years is not unusual. 10. Don't compromise principle by any means. 11. Selfishness is blind. 12. Facts are three-fourths of the law. 13. If we take care of the facts of a case the law will take care of itself. 14. Facts mean Truth, and once we adhere to Truth, the law comes to our aid naturally. 15. True functioning of a lawyer is to unite parties. 16. The very intellect of a lawyer sometimes becomes an abomination to one inasmuch as it could be prostituted for screening crime. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 76 17. The value of lawyers' work is the same as that of the barber's, inasmuch as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work. 18. It is generally believed that the lawyer's profession is a liar's profession. 19. It is important to practice law without compromising truth. 20. One s devotion to truth enhances one's reputation among the members of the legal profession as well as in clients. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 77 Section IV Parents 1. Character building is the bounden duty of every parent. 2. Children inherit the qualities of the parents no less than their physical features. Environment does play an important part, but the original capital on which a child starts in life is inherited from its ancestors. 3. The Indian parents who train children to think and talk in English from their infancy betray their children and their country. They deprive them of the spiritual and social heritage of the nation and render them to that extent unfit for the service of the country. 4. Under ideal conditions, 'true education' can be imparted only by parents and that there should be the minimum of outside help. 5. Education must encompass relationship between the school and the society, and between the teachers and the parents. 6. Unless parents step forward and regularly interact with teachers, the endproduct — the development of the child as a citizen — would be pretty lopsided. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 78 IV MORAL INTEGRATION (Plea for a Peaceful Society in the Twenty-first Century) The Tribute Among the tributes received in New Delhi within hours of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination on 30 January 1948 was one from Sarojini Naidu who said: "May the soul of my master, my leader, my father, rest not in peace. Not in peace — my father — do not rest. Keep us to our pledge. Give us strength to fulfill our promises — to our heirs, your descendants, guardians of your dreams, fulfillers of India's destiny." The force of her words reminds us that we should not rest till we are able to internalize in ourselves the twin principles of Truth and Nonviolence in our thought and action. We should be optimistic and hope that we would be able to overcome the present crises facing the world. This chapter has been divided into six sections. The first deals with the present malaise in the international community. The second is devoted to the Gandhian concept of human behaviour. The third is devoted to the Indian scenario related to some of the specific cases of moral degeneration. Though only one section has been devoted to India, the chapter as a whole mostly draws from the Indian situation. The fourth section examines some of the problems of communal harmony and integration. The fifth gives a multiple-factor theory of integration to bring unity in diversity. And the sixth section critically evaluates the politician's role which he can play in moving his own self from the 'ego-centre' to the 'decentre' level in order to make him feel concern for others and to develop an ideal society to keep peace and tranquillity in the national and international community. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 79 Contemporary Social Data The contemporary social data of the international community indicates increasingly a decline in its ability to hold and maintain its order and stability. The charismatic nonviolent integrative clan of the founding fathers of modern society, which had remarkably succeeded in welding varieties of heterogeneous groups, communities and ethnic groups together into a single humanity of indifferent countries, is under a serious process of erosion. The unifying moral imperatives of social and cultural values are being replaced by division and disintegrative forces in almost all countries of the world. Something vital is missing today. There seems to have emerged a great divide within social settings such as family, village, town, ethnic groups, and communities, creating splits in them despite liberalization and globalisation of economy. Collectivities are being individualized, and jointness and communal values are getting broken and privatised. Such a social divide tends to place individual against individual, group against group. Such horizontal and vertical cleavages are further enhanced and accentuated by the monopoly of all the resources enjoyed by the so- called "elite" who show a tendency to amass wealth and power at the cost of ethics and morality. A thinker once said that truth is a scarce commodity but its supply has always outstripped its demand. While truth does not seem to be triumphing all around us — somehow, somewhere, some way, something is working which is bringing the human race to say about truth and nonviolence : "Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of Time. Nonviolence is the law of our species, as violence is the law of the brute. Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by man." The present political and development processes are acting as a catalyst of a collective decadence. A society, which lays emphasis more on the accumulation of power than on the restraints, on wealth than on morality, on knowledge than on humanism, and on demagogy rather than on authentic Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 80 sharing and participation in the process of change and development, is bound to pay a heavy price for its lack of collective wisdom. The disturbing social data of violence all over the world do not make the earth worth living despite man's ability to conquer space. The recent assassination of the Sri Lankan President, Rupasinghe Premadasa, and the recent suicide committed by the former Prime Minister of France, Mr Pierre Beregovo who felt anguished by an attack on his integrity and propriety over an interest- free loan taken from a friend businessman and the consequent collapse of his socialist party in the general election are no insignificant developments. The aftermath of the developments in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992 engulfed the whole country in communal riots. The country also witnessed an unprecedented series of brutal blasts in March 1993 in Bombay. These series of violence and unrest show decadence of higher moral and ethical values. The lack of spirit, of trust, faith, and interpersonal and intergroup involvement and concerns for each other is suggestive of the fact that the tested path of tolerance, justice, morality, and trusteeship shown by the former leaders has forsaken by the present leaders all over the world. According to Gandhi, real democracy should have meaning not for a few but for all including the poorest and even for the maimed, the blind, and the deaf. He did not believe in mere lip sympathy for the ideal which comes so easily to most present day politicians and leaders. The entire social order should be such that this ideal should be achieved in practice. A genuine democracy calls for a higher degree of seriousness of purpose and a sense of urgency. Gandhi realized that once people are awakened, they would become a revolutionary force. Their minimum expectations would have to be satisfied, otherwise they would explode. This explosion could take many unpleasant and ugly forms. Today one of the basic questions is whether the 'rulers and political parties have a high level of seriousness or a sense of urgency. The answer is obviously "no" Despite many laws, the whole electoral process and system in India is becoming less and less an honest mirror of public opinion. [Sadiq Ali, "A Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 81 Gandhian Approach to Current Problems", Gandhi Marg, Vol. 14, No. 4, January-March 1993, p. 550]. This is true of all other parts of the world as well. Even criminals are acquiring political respectability. This power is assuming more and more credible forms. The situation in other countries is not bright either. The voters are bribed and often elections are rigged. The candidates are merchandised rather than elected. One of the saddest aspects of election times is that politics overrides all human considerations. Of course, in order to come out of the present malaise and dilemma, the only remedy lies is in adopting Gandhian path to resolve conflicts. Arnold Toynbee has rightly observed: "At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way — Emperor Ashok's and Mahatma Gandhi's principles of non-violence and Sri Ramakrishna's testimony to the harmony of religions. Here we have an attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single family — and in the Atomic Age this is the only alternative to destroying ourselves." [Arnold Toynbee, Quoted by N. A. Palkhivala in his book, We, the People, Bombay: Strand Book Stall, 1986]. Nonviolent Behaviour The nonviolent behaviour on the part of humanity requires the highest from of civilization. Civilization is an act of the spirit. Ancient India was far more civilized than modern India with its satellites in space. The recurrent looting of banks in broad daylight arouses as little public attention as the going down of the sun in the evening. Our legal system has made life too easy for criminals and too difficult for law-abiding citizens. The country has forgotten that crime is not a problem to be handled by the police only but by the whole society. The two basic lessons which we are to learn from Indian history and from the Gita are: (i) Indian people have always taken their moral standards from their rulers and people have risen to great heights whenever they have followed in the glow of noble kings or leaders; and (ii) regions and kingdoms have been Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 82 destroyed not by adversity but by abasement, and corruption is the greatest solvent of public institutions, and poverty poses a far smaller threat [Ibid., p. 45-50.] Politicians in India, instead of giving moral leadership for which people are yearning and waiting, are only occupied in maintaining a system which is poisoned by collective bad faith and polluted by individual self-interest People are served by deception and craftiness instead of by vision and imagination. The duty of a citizen is not merely to vote but to vote wisely. He must be guided by reason and by reason alone. He must vote for the best man, irrespective of any other consideration and irrespective of the party label. The right man in the wrong party is any day preferable to the wrong man in the right party. Time has gone when 'Congress' was a word to conjure with. [Ibid., p. 51-52.] Late N. G. Goray, a socialist leader, was fond of saying that reason was more important to him than emotion and action more important than thought. That is why he considered Shivaji greater than Ramdas, Jyotibai Phule greater than Justice Ranade, and Mother Teresa greater than J. Krishnamurti. [Vidyadhar Date, "N.G. Goray: A True Humanist's Obituary", The Sunday Times, New Delhi, 2 May 1993, p. 2.] Indians by and large, are "low arousal" people. They tolerate injustice and unfairness with feudalistic servility and fatalistic resignation. On 15 August 1947 India achieved Independence. But Gandhi was not present in New Delhi. At that time, he was working among the poor people of Bengal. The reason for his absence was simple. He had two dreams in his life. The first dream was liberation of India from the British rule, while the second was liberation of Indians from oppression and injustice, from inequity and inequality, from discord and disharmony. [N. A. Palkhivala, We, the People, p. 268.] To quote his own words: "I shall work for an India in which the poorest feel that it is their country in whose making they have effective voice, an India in which there should be no rich class and no poor class of people, and an India in Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 83 which all communities shall live in perfect harmony. This is the India of my dream." [Ibid., p. 268.] His first dream was fulfilled but the second was not. According to the Mahatma, the true time for celebration would be when the second dream is fulfilled. Gandhi was a leader of his people, unsupported by any authority; a politician whose success rested, not upon craft or guile, but simply upon the moral grandeur of his soul; a fighter who pushed back the mightiest empire on earth without the use of force; a spirit of profound wisdom and captivating humility, armed with only an iron will and inflexible resolve; and a frail man who confronted the brutality of military strength with the dignity of a simple human being. [Ibid., p. 269.] To the Mahatma, Truth was God and non-violence was religion. At his memorable trial for sedition in 1922, he said: "Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also, the last article of my creed. In non-violence bravery consists of dying, not in killing" His compassion and humanity were as boundless as the universe. "Gather together," He said, "under one banner all men from all religions and races of India and infuse into them the spirit of solidarity and oneness to the utter exclusion of all communal and parochial sentiments." And again: "My Hinduism is not secularism. It includes all that I know to the best of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism. Truth is my religion and ahimsa (the principle of nonviolence) is the only way of its realization." [Ibid., p. 270]. Gandhi held the view that the life of a good citizen was the life of Karma — action in the service of the country. "My writings should be cremated with my body," he said. "What I have done will endure, not what I have said or written." [Ibid., p. 271.] The hatred and fanaticism which consumed the body of the Mahatma did not touch his great soul. Indian systems and ideologies may be relevant at one time and irrelevant at others. But teaching of this great and benign lamp of wisdom Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 84 and humanity are for endless time. He gave us the priceless gift of self-respect and the sense of dignity as a nation. [Ibid., p. 272.] The last interview which the Mahatma gave was in the early afternoon of 30 January 1948 to Margaret Bourke — an American from the Life Magazine. She asked him whether he would persist in his theory of nonviolence in the event of a nuclear attack on a city. The Mahatma's reply was that if the defenceless citizens died in a spirit of nonviolence, their sacrifice would not go in vain. They might well pray for the soul of the pilot who thoughtlessly sprayed death on the city. This was his last message of compassion to mankind. [Ibid., p. 275.] He completely identified himself with the Indian masses. He observed: "We must first come in living touch with them by working with them and in their midst, we must share their sorrows, understand their difficulties and anticipate their wants. With the pariahs we must be pariahs and see how we feel to clean the closets of the upper classes and have the remains of theirs to be thrown at us. We must see how we like being in the boxes, miscalled houses, of the labourers of Bombay. We must identify with the villagers who toil under the hot sun beating on their bent back and see how we would like to drink water from the pool in which the villagers bathe, wash their clothes and pots, and in which their cattle drink and roll. Then and not till then shall we truly represent the masses and they will, as surely as I am writing this, respond to every call." [Ibid., p. 278.] The Indian masses responded to the Mahatma's call in a spirit of total surrender. He said to them that "real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused." [Ibid., p. 279.] He repeatedly used to mention that through realization of freedom for India, we would try to carry on and fulfill the mission of the universal brotherhood. He was really involved in achieving the broadest good of humanity at large. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 85 Indeed in India Indeed in India, the manner in which intolerance has begun to manifest itself is obvious. Disagreement is no longer reflected in a mere angry letter to the editor or a cross-table debate, violence has become the fashionable way to settle "disputes" and "conflicts". So, Narmada Bachao Andolan activists are beaten up in Gujarat, B. D. Sharma (a retired IAS officer, who was Commissioner of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Vice-Chancellor of an Indian University as well as Secretary in the Government of Madhya Pradesh) is assaulted in Madhya Pradesh, theatres are stormed and journalists are attacked all over the country. The ruthless constriction of the liberal temper and its replacement by authoritarianism has not occurred overnight It is apparent that with the euphoria guaranteed by religious mobilization of the majority community, a more violent from of physical and psychological intimidation is upon us. [Rajdeep Sardesai, "The New Vigilants Breed Intolerance", The Times of India, 5 May 1993.] The rising tide of tolerance has forced even those committed to free speech to look over their shoulders every time they say or write anything. The intolerant streak is not confined to the Hindus as is evident from a recent incident in which an attempt was made to burn down the office of a newspaper, Urdu Times, because it had carried an article critical of a few local Muslim leaders. The nation appears gripped by the worst cynicism when the nexus between criminals and politicians is dismissed as a global phenomenon. The Union and the State governments are not called upon to account for communal carnage nor do voter exercise their right to recall defecting politicians. A Member of Parliament splitting a party with alleged forged signature and hoodwinking the anti-defection law receives the indirect blessings of the highest placed people. Hypocrisy, the hated sign of a morally drained society, is still the trademark of India's political parties. [Ibid.] Insincerity and sycophancy are the hallmark of Indian politics. Is there any political party which can claim steadfastness to its politics. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 86 The Basic Difficulty The basic difficulty has been that people have not yet integrated themselves with either local, regional, or international community. The ruthless competition and globalisation has made everybody compete with each other rather than cooperate. This has often led to violence to eliminate the competitor rather than to improve over his technology, goods and services or skills. Communal harmony and community integration are essentially two aspects of the same process to develop among each member love and affection for each other. These two essential aspects of working together at various levels are inseparable parts of one and the same process — in fact, one can say that only when these aspects are interlocked and merged with one process, we will have a community at various levels which ultimately must become a global community to resolve conflicts, not by violence but by peaceful methods. This, however, does not mean that it is a community in which all norms, beliefs, values, and ways of life are standardized. What it means is that community should be viewed as "common life" of some kind and that there is value in identifying oneself with and sharing in this common life. Implicit in this has also been the assumption that association with, and feeling "part of", the common life is not an experience. It provides the individual certain psychological security. It gives his life certain meaning which it might not otherwise have. It makes a community capable of dealing common problems which, if they were not solved, would lead to deterioration of physical or social community or both. It may be well to stress that this process should not lead to eradication of differences among sub-groups and sub-cultures in the community. What is important is an understanding of these differences, acceptance of them by all in the community, but at the same time, development of common frame of reference within which all can work, together for common ends. This is very much evident from the "concern" of the Union of Concerned Scientists, comprising about 1,600 scientists including a majority of Nobel Laureates who recently signed a "Global Warning to Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 87 Humanity" which describes the damage done to the Earth as "too great if warnings go unheeded in which case no nation can escape injury." Continued environmental and economic instabilities would cause mass migration that would be unsustainable. In fact, there is no single factor which, by itself, makes for a community. It is a complex whole, all parts of which are related, interact, and influence one another. To select one part of this whole and to identify it as the primary cause of integration or disintegration is not possible. The greater the mixture of races, ethnic groups, and nationalities, the more difficult is the task of integration. The economic factor is unimportant for integration. The mobility score increases as the integration score falls. Social problems tend to multiply not only absolutely but relatively, with the size of the community increasing all the time. We have to recognize that while there are many factors which make for or prevent community integration, we can only generalize loosely about these and can say only in specific situations, and after careful study, which of the forces in a given situation at local, regional, national, ( international level is more important than another. There are clusters of factors that interlock and reinforce one another and influence the degree of community integration. Thus an economic system may stimulate great differences in terms of rigid class and caste structure. A particular kind of educational system may also cause disparity amongst members of a community. It is difficult to separate linked factors in a community. All these factors are so inextricably linked together that change in one will affect the other. [Ibid.] The problem of identifying forces which will work for community integration at the global level is one of considerable complexity. The global community divided into developed and underdeveloped communities must learn to live together on the principle of interdependence. There are many Third World countries which are in no position to pursue an independent path of development They do not have the necessary capital and skills nor, for that matter, the appropriate political environment Many are already involved in debt trap. Quite a few have been ruined by civil wars. The Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 88 poor can never hope to catch up. The technological lag grows bigger every year. The poor are expected to provide sites for polluting industries, markets for surplus goods and arms. The Present Problems The present problems, according to former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao, can be traced to a single source: the near complete alienation between the political establishment, the bureaucracy, and the money elite on the one hand and civil society on the other. The former seeks self-aggrandizement: the politician through the electoral system and the bureaucrat through manipulating rules, regulations and procedures, and the moneyed elite, thanks to a promiscuous relationship it built up with former in the exploitative system. Citizens find the state has progressively abandoned its writ to goons and hoodlums. The district collector, the corporator, the MLA, the MP, and the minister no longer command the respect they once did. In the eyes of the common citizen, courts and Parliament serve merely to lend a measure of legitimacy to fraud and crookedness and profligate wheeling-dealing. [Srilekha Bose, "Moral Dilemma", A Letter to Editor, The Times of India, 5 May 1993.] The leaders of the ruling as well as of other parties, out of their self-interest, fail to understand the basic fact that no party in the country can survive, let alone thrive, if politics is merely a matter of vote banks. In India the political situation has become so grave that politics has been criminalised to such an extent that crime is becoming politicized. [Robert C. Angele, "The Moral Integration of American Cities", American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 5, No. 1, July 1951, pp. 15-21.] There are three factors responsible which have distorted a rational development of citizenship in India. One is poverty, creating the need for economic security at any price and its corollary, the widening gap between the rich and the poor; the second is the galloping population growth; and the third Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 89 is the conflict between ethnicity and the doctrine of unity. In reconciling the implications of these pressures upon the public psyche, a self-centered society has emerged. This society seems unable to look farther than narrow selfinterest, self- promotion, and selfish ambition. This is the rule rather than the exception which leaves a particularly heavy burden on all disinterested citizens who are acutely aware that we shall have no nation worth the name in the near future unless we can do something to restore the confidence of the people in a life-style that shows concern for others. [Shamlal, "Life and Letters: Where do We Go from Here?" (a review article based on Social Register 1992, edited by Leo Panitch, Merlin Press, The Times of India, 8 May 1993.] A moral person is one who is concerned with the welfare and happiness of his or her fellow beings. He subordinates his individual goals in the larger interest of society. He is expected to move from the ego-centric self to a decentering activity, leading to the formation of a harmonious and reciprocal relationship. These ideals and values are inculcated and transmitted into an individual by the society in which he lives. [Dileep Padgaonkar, "A Review About Rao: Knowing Where He Stops", The Times of India, 15 May 1993.] There is not a single one of us that is not enriched by our composite culture, whether it be in music, food, or dress, to take a few everyday examples. For example, the image of the unseen thread in the garland is an excellent metaphor for what nationality or inter- nationality can be linked to. If the thread is cut at one point, the garland ceases to exist How is the thread to be safeguarded? I suggest that we need to shift to a language of a different kind in order to answer this question. The nation of world can only survive if there is a new socio-economic order where the biggest gulf of all, that is, the one between the rich and poor, is removed to cease the yawning gap between one citizen and another. [Ibid, and see K D. Gangrade, "Our Preset Malaise" in P. C. Charterjee (ed.) Self-images, Identity and Nationality, Indian Institute of Advance Study in association with Allied Publishers, New Delhi, pp. 1-4 and p. 262.] Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 90 The defeat of the impeachment motion against former Mr Justice Ramaswami not very long ago was the defeat of the last vestige of ethics in India's public life. We have systematically devalued and debased our noble Constitution. In fact, we have abused and debased it beyond recognition. The motion was lost because the Congress party issued an oral whip that its members should abstain from voting. This amounted to a travesty of the Constitutional mandate, inasmuch as MPs were prevented from discharging their quasi- juridical function of adjudication. [Tara Ali Baig, "Essence of Citizenship: Social and Moral Values in India", in S. R. Gupta, Urs Schottli, and Jurgen Axer, eds., Citizen, Development Society (Friedrich-Naumann Stiftung, Mandira, 1990), pp. 4-5.] We must have moral courage to take action based on our individual and collective conscience. Peace, stability, and unity cannot be bought. They have to be nurtured by promoting a sensitivity to human needs and respect for the rights and opinions of others. And when attitudes have been allowed to harden to the point that otherness becomes a sufficient reason for nullifying person to be treated as a fellow human being, the tapering of modern civilization crumbles with a frightening speed. As the twentieth century draws to a close, it has become obvious that material yardsticks alone cannot serve as an adequate index of human, well- being. [K. D. Gangrade, "Youth in Conflict with Society in Citizenship in India", S. R. Gupta et al, Citizen Development Society, p. 66.] If what happened in the Ramaswami case is repeated, it is clear that the politicians will find soon that they are living on a borrowed time. The venality of the political class is now so transparent that no attempt to camouflage it under high moral principles will work anymore. [Margaret Chatterjee, "Epilogue", in P. C Chatterjee, ed., Self-images, Identity and Nationality, Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, in association with Allied Publishers, New Delhi, 1989, p. 262.] The moral authority of most of the politicians has almost disappeared, since they are seen as opportunists, in league with criminals and crooked Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 91 businessmen. It is, therefore, not possible for politicians to impose discipline in a society which sees them as examples of indiscipline. The common man is alarmed at the moral sickness that is enveloping the world and lowering our ethical standards. Money power seems to have an all- pervasive effect. One hopes that we do not reach a level where indifference by contagion or where lassitude slowly engulfs the nation and after a certain point of conditioning violence becomes acceptable, scandal becomes routine, and militant resistance turns into a film script. Education must be shaped as a potent weapon to reverse the process from seeking pleasure, acquisition, and violence to self-control, sharing, and compassion. [Aung San Suu Kyi, "What Economies Cannot Provide: Light for a Troubled World", The Titties of India, 20 May 1993.] We Indians must first integrate ourselves to achieve our ultimate motto of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family). Political parties ought to work for the unity and integrity of India. Unfortunately, all parties with rare exception have used caste, religion and language to their electoral advantage. If the Congress fomented the Punjab problem, the BJP was responsible for large scale communal violence and V. P. Singh and his JD minions sowed the seeds of caste antagonism. The allocation of Rs 5 million by V. P. Singh government for Jama Masjid was described by the BJP as Muslim appeasement. But a grant of Rs 67 million to the Dargah of Ajmer by the BJP government in Rajasthan was hailed as proof of secularism. The administration should not be a monastic practice but a temporal exercise holding the scales even between all men to whichever persuasion they may belong. Charles Krauthmamer quotes "statistics to show that since 1960 the incidence of single parenthood has more than tripled in America, and that almost more than 30 per cent of all American children are now born to unmarried mothers. We have become totally inured to levels of criminality that would have been considered intolerable years ago. In America, child abuse is nineteen times more prevalent today than it was 30 years ago. Forty seven per cent of women Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 92 are victims of rape. [Krauthmamer Charles, "Defining Deviancy Up: The New Assault on Bourgeois Life", in The New Republic, Vol. 209, p. 20, November 22, 1993. Quoted by Haldar Dipak in his article "Will Deviance Overgrow Development", IASSl Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1, July-September 1997, p. 154.] Unfortunately, during the last five years or more, a situation has emerged, particularly in India, wherein it is difficult to say whether a particular offence or misdemeanour is opposed or tolerated. The space of economic offenders and scamsters opposed now, — but the very fact that they had been allowed to accumulate over the years proves that they were not only tolerated, but perhaps encouraged as well. [Haldar Dipak in his article "Will Deviance Overgrow Development", IASSI Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1, July-September 1997, pp. 155-57.] According to a study in South Africa, a woman is raped every 83 seconds and in the United States every three minutes. It is well known that a large number of such cases go unreported because of the social stigma associated with it and also threat to the victim's life. Furthermore, worse is the growing trend of child rape (paedophilia) in the country. An average of two such cases are reported everyday in the country. Child rape victims accounted for 5.4 per cent of the total rape victims in 1995. At the national level, the number of rape victims has soared from 10,425 to 13,774 between 1991-95. There has been 4.2 per cent growth over 1994 with 13,218 cases. About 7,752 victims of rape were in the age group of 16-30 years, accounting for 56.3 per cent of the total victims in 1995. [Shailendra, "Soaring Rape Graph, Blot on Human Dignity", The Times of India, 23 February 1998.] Though the problem of marital rape is serious in India as in many other countries in the world, there is no state law to protect women. In the 1990s, several countries had enacted legislations so that spousal and non-spousal rapes are differentiated. These states are Australia, Canada, Israel, Italy, Holland, the United States, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. [Ibid.] Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 93 In West Bengal, which the leftists claim to be a bastion of peace and lawfulness, the following incidents occurred last June among many others, as reported by The Statesman on 6 June 1997. 1. In early June, a woman and her child were murdered in Free School Street Hotel in Calcutta. 2. In the same week of June, four armed men robbed a New C. I. T. Road house in Calcutta of ornaments and cash amounting to Rs. 37 lakhs. 3. The same week, a 62 year- old women was murdered at her Lansdown Terrace home. 4. In the middle of June, a girl was raped and strangled in an engineering college campus. 5. In the third week of June, passengers of a city minibus were robbed by armed men in the afternoon. 6. In the last week of June, a Maruti Car was stopped in Calcutta and Rs 27 lakhs snatched. 7. On 30 June, a gang robbed an oil godown of almost Rs 45,000. In Calcutta again, on June 29, a young women coming to join her new assignment was raped by her would be employer within her office itself at revolver point, in broad daylight. He has been arrested, of course, and has been medically examined. But does that deter future rapists? These are only a few zonal incidents. Collected nationwise, their number as already stated is a hundred times or even thousand times more. But what is the reason of the abnormal rise in the level of present-day crime and its tolerance. The reason is simple. It is the increase of population, coupled with the increase of wealth, — which reduces fellow-feeling and group-wise single-mindedness, as individual selfishness increases. In the present circumstances, there is no adequate remedy immediately visible, unless one goes in for drastic changes in the legal system, providing ways and Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 94 means of certainty of detection and severity of punishment, or both, and removing the legal lacunae. The other factor which is responsible for the malaise quite obviously is that of rapid economic growth which alters 'social equations'. When those close to the bottom of the social hierarchy benefit from the growth, they threatened those who dominated the traditional hierarchy. Once the conflict has broken out, it is easy to point fingers at politicians, particularly, since each of them is pointing a finger at the other. But the cynical politicians can only exploit opportunities that are presented to them. The primary remedy lies in paying attention to "character building" in the education system and adopting Gandhian values of life. Failed Social Order We must understand that we have now reached the end of our resources in speech making, and it is not enough that our ears and eyes are feasted with these speeches and declarations but it is necessary that our hands and acts have got to move towards a society which will really feed, clothe and provide shelter to everybody and treat everybody in the world as equal and pave the way to live in peace. We should move towards a society where everyone will live in harmony with his neighbour, where everyone will be treated with equal respect, will feel secure, self-respect and self-confidence and feels he/she is wanted. Everyone realizes that it is the global peace that makes the human race feel safe and happy. In the new social order human race will not be determined and divided by caste, class, religion, race, colour, and the rich and the poor. Towards that social order, we have to march through in a peaceful way without hating and without killing anybody. This society will then have sustainable economy. People will participate in planning and executing. It is from the bottom to the top and people to government, not top to bottom. This is the nonviolent approach to achieve a new social order. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 95 This should be the cherished goal of International Community to march towards the twenty-first-century. Three Great Leaders The twentieth century has seen three great leaders — Mahatma Gandhi of India in the East, Martin Luther King in the United States, and President Nelson Mandela in Africa — who advocated and followed the nonviolent method to attain freedom. Anything attained through nonviolent means will have permanency and will sustain forever, not when attained through force. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. Gandhi believed that nonviolence was not a resignation from all real fighting against wickedness. On the contrary non-violence is more active and more real fighting against wickedness or evil that retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness. It will not be a nonviolent approach if we merely love those who love us. It is nonviolent only when we love those who hate us. Nonviolence is not only a personal virtue but also a social virtue. Nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence. Nonviolence springs from love and it always suffers, whereas cowardice springs from hate and it always inflicts suffering. Love is synonymous with nonviolence, but the nonviolence is not the same as pacifism. Gandhi was inspired by Thoreau's civil disobedience and King was inspired by Gandhi's action of civil disobedience which created a revolution in India without guns. By using love, the Indians did not defeat the British. Instead, they changed them from their evil ways and saved them. Fighting hatred will make hatred stronger. We should never be bitter to our enemies. Nelson Mandela had to suffer in jail for almost twenty-seven years to get civil rights for the citizens of in South Africa. This long suffering and nonviolent struggle could get them their rights as India did from British after a prolonged nonviolent struggle. King won the right of the African-American to sit anywhere in the bus, secured their right to vote, and to start and invest their own business through the civil rights movements. King's steps to nonviolent Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 96 campaigns were: (i) collection of facts to determine whether injustice exists; (ii) negotiation; (iii) self-purification; and (iv) direct action. Gandhi believed, as Ruskin has putin his book Unto This Last, that "good of the individual is contained in the good of all." The only real and dignified human doctrine is the greatest good of all and this can be achieved by uttermost selfsacrifice. Inequality is evil but to eradicate an evil from the human breast by force or violence does not bring permanent results. What is gained by the sword will also be lost by the sword. Means and ends are convertible. If he takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself. Trusteeship is the answer to the issue of classless society where the wealth of an individual is shared by all. He is a trustee to preserve the wealth and willing to share with others who need it. 'Million Men March' This is exactly what was expressed by the young people of the United State who participated in the 'million men march' — a march towards the twenty-first century. They reaffirmed that the sense of materialism in the United States should be killed. A community living in a state of chronic poverty does itself no good lusting after a luxury car that families cannot afford. It is actually killing the people. We need to persuade each other not to put value into a pair of 125 sneakers as a measure of our worth. We need to think in new ways. If we think of a suit and see our brother sleeping in the open even without a blanket, then we have failed. We should not go for a second set of dress or costly suit until the day everyone can have a suit or a dress to wear. Money spent on war anywhere in the globe should be spent to relieve poverty at home and elsewhere. Scientists should realize their social responsibility. They should focus on the global issues threatening mankind like population explosion, the environment, and control of biological chemical and conventional weapons, and should stop the race against human race. Peace does not mean absence of wars. To millions of people it means satisfaction of these basic needs — food, shelter, Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 97 health, education, and a place to live. It means that there is justice, freedom of opportunity for education, employment, recreation. We need to have a dynamic, democratic leader who could guide the people towards this new social order. We need a living and vibrant leader who is fearless. There is a story of the drowning boy and the philosopher. When the philosopher was lecturing him, the boy cried "take me out of the water first". Similarly, our people and of the world cry: "We have had lectures enough, societies enough, papers and books enough; where is the man who will lend us a hand to drag us out? Where is the man who really loves us? Where is the man who has sympathy for us?" Ah! That man is wanted. To Sum Up The generalizations which are examined in various sections of this chapter can be seen as diagnosis of conflict or of social peace. If conflict arises from divergence and opposition, accommodation and cooperation arise from complementary, balance of power, and consensus. Complementarity means the possibility of mutual advantage and cooperative interdependence is likely to be highly advantageous. The more integrated into the society are the parties to conflict, the less likely will be the chances of conflict being violent. This is the Gandhian way to create a peaceful society. Power can be political or economic in its nature, it may emerge from the sword or the pen, or from the common voice of a collective people. Power can also come out of faith, one's conviction that one's way is the right or righteous way. It is this belief in oneself that we see at work in the mission of Mahatma Gandhi, in his practice of satyagraha — satyaagraha, insistence on truth. Ethical values, however sound they are, must have a backing of samarthya, power; otherwise they are like a bow and arrow without an archer to use them. The weapon has neither strength, nor accuracy, nor purpose by itself. A leader of the nation has the responsibility of uniting the people. He must constantly remind himself of his responsibilities as a ruler. He should not be Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 98 engrossed in his own life and in the pursuit of self-gratification. He must not become an uncaring and callous leader towards citizens. He must turn power from a gratification into a responsibility. This is expected of all leaders from top to bottom, or bottom to top, to serve people and build the nation to achieve world peace. At a Washington meeting some years ago, Peter Drucker, the Management Guru, was asked who would make an ideal Chief Executive Officer. Several possibilities had been suggested, by earlier speakers. Why not an accountant, said one; and what about a marketing expert, asked another. What corporation needs is an efficient manager, said a third. Drucker disagreed with them all. His vote went for a Doctor of Divinity. A man such as that, argued Drucker, would stand for values. We need a man of values at the head of a government. We need a philosopher king, whose head is clear and whose heart is in the right place. The twenty-first century is coming with this challenge before voter(s) and people of India. If right type of leaders or representatives come to powder they will be able to accept the challenge and lead the nation. If India accepts the challenge as a nation to give a lead, it will emerge as a world leader of peace. Gandhi had set for himself two objectives. First, proximate or immediate objective was to get political independence of India following the path of ahimsa and satyagraha. Second, ultimate or long-term objective was economic independence of teeming millions based on social, economic, environmental, equity and ethical considerations. While we have achieved the former in his life time, the latter is still a dream after 50 years of Independence of the country. Khoshoo, T. N. writes: "According to Gandhi the ethical commandments relating to human behaviour in relation to other humans and living creatures and nonliving Resources are the five: 1. Nonviolence (ahimsa) towards animals and inanimate creations; Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 99 2. Truth (satya); 3. Shunning the materials obtained by illegitimately means and avoiding destruction and vandalism (asatya); 4. Celibacy (brahmacharya) because human needs keep the numbers in check, otherwise demand on resources will increase; and 5. Not converting or amassing material and wealth beyond requirements (aparigraha). The five principles enunciated by him are self-based codes of conduct. These prescribe what a human being should do, and relate to cleanliness, sanitation (shaucha) of one's mind, body and the surroundings. Human being is essentially a dirty animal which unlike other animals generates considerable waste and garbage, often non-biodegradable in character and as such pollutes the environment. Shaucha also includes ridding oneself of undue lust including sexual desire (karna), anger (krodha), greed (lobha), undue attachment (moh), and conceit and vanity (ahankar). Gandhi believed that there is divinity in all life, and that there is thus fundamental unity in diversity. The Gandhian model envisaged that development and governance should be bottom-up and not top- down; goal should be self-defined and not stranger- defined; production should be aimed at basic goods to fulfill basic needs with use values, and not at non-basic and greed-oriented luxury goods; the process of production should be by masses and not through mass production; and the whole approach should be holistic and not sectoral. The Nehruvian (Western) Model of industrial development is relevant primarily to the industrial economic sector. This model needs refinement and has to be made sustainable. The Gandhian Model in the words of J. C. Kumarappa, leads to decentralized economic planing and actually 'Economy of Permanence', while in the Nehruvian or Western Model of industrial economy there is the danger that the rich becomes richer, and poor becomes poorer. India's success will be measured not by homogenizing a heterogeneous situation, but by the success with which diverse societies can be harmonized Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 100 and co-exist and become mutually reinforcing and supportive. Where traditions and modernity are appropriately blended, and where man-made capital does not become destructive of the natural capital. Both models have their specific constituencies in India. Thus, following a democratic path, there is a need for a creative synthesis of the Gandhian and the Nehruvian Models (see the Table). The leaders of the ruling as well as other parties, out of their self-interest, fail to understand that no party can survive, let alone, thrive, if politics is merely a matter of getting into the driver's seat and running after material wealth. The moral authority of most of the politicians has almost disappeared since they are seen as opportunists. Gandhi's Autobiography : Moral Lessons www.mkgandhi.org Page 101 Table : The Two Models The Gandhian Model The Nehruvian or Western Model 1. Intensification and Diversification of agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry, i.e. bio- mass production, processing and utilization, i.e. Renewable Resources. 2. Photo-synthetic /Solar Model: Use of solar energy and some nonrenewable energy. 3. Labour Intensive. 4. Caters to over 76 per cent of the population. 5. Poverty alleviation at subsistence level. 6. Governance at village level through Panchayat: Bottom -up Approach. 7. Economy of Permanence : Sustainable. 8. Rural Development 2. 1. Intensification and Diversification of industrial development using mostly nonrenewable resources. 2. Man-made Industrial Economic System: Use of nonrenewable resources and energy. This model should not be accepted without Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Management Plan. 3. Labour Displacing 4. Cover hardly 10 per cent of the population. 5. Gap between rich and poor widening: rich become richer and poor become poorer. 6. Government Centralization: Topdown Approach. 7. Economy of Impermanence: Unsustainable. 8. Industrial Development. Source: T.N. Khoshoo, "Gandhian Environmentalist! — An Unfinished Task", IAS SI, Quarterly, Vol. 16, July-Sept. 1997, pp. 1-16.