By
Mahatma Gandhi
BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
When I was walking around in Noakhali I saw that people were very frightened. And frightened people cannot think of God. Then we had to pass through villages and find our way along narrow tracks round the fields—something which few men and women in Noakhali ever did. But the experience I gained from this walking tour I could not have gained otherwise. We had to pass through the fields owned by both Hindus and Muslims. So we uttered both names of God as we walked.
When God is here, there and everywhere God must be one. If then we call Him by different names and are intolerant of other people’s names for God it would be nothing but madness. That is why I had posed the question whether those calling God Rahim would have to leave Hindustan—of course now we must give up calling the country Hindustan—and whether in the part described as Pakistan Rama as the name of God would be forbidden. Would someone who called God Krishna be turned out of Pakistan? Whatever be the case there this cannot be permitted here. We shall worship God both as Krishna and Karim and show the world that we refuse to go mad.
A friend has sent me a harsh letter asking me if I must still persist in my madness. “In a few days you will be leaving this world,” he says, “Will you never learn? If Purushottamdas Tandon¹ says that everyone should take up the sword, become a soldier and defend himself, why do you feel hurt? You are a votary of the Gita. You should be beyond dualism. You should not feel grief or joy over every little thing. You talk like the foolish sadhu who again and again tried to save a scorpion from drowning while it went on stinging him. If you cannot give up your refrain of ahimsa you can at least allow others to take the path of their choosing. Why do you become a hindrance?”
If I have the steadfast intellect of the Gita I am going to live a hundred and twenty-five years and not a day less. If all of us cultivate steadfastness of intellect there is no reason why even one person should not live to 125 years. Of course if God so wills it He may remove me today, but I am not going to die in a hurry. I have to live and work yet. Purushottamdas Tandon is an old co-worker. We have worked together for years. Like me he is devoted to God. When I heard that he was saying the things he did I was grieved. Were we going to lose what we had learned from thirty years of experience and what we had been so assiduously cultivating? Self-defence is invoked for taking up the sword. But I have never known a man who has not passed from defence to attack. It is inherent in the idea of defence. Now, for my feeling hurt. If I had perfect steadfastness of intellect I would never have felt hurt. Even as it is I am trying not to feel hurt. But each day I advance a little further. Otherwise I should be a hypocrite for reciting the sthitaprajna verses of the Gita every day. Of course mere recital of the verses cannot make one a sthitaprajna in a day.
If I utter Ramanama and it does not spontaneously come out of the heart in a single day, should I give up? I had a Punjabi friend, Rambhaj Datt Chowdhary, who is now no more. Sometimes he composed poems. When he came out of jail he brought along a poem he had composed, and since he himself could not sing he asked his wife Sarla to sing it. In her melodious voice Sarla sang: “Never admit defeat even if you should lose your life.” And I told myself that I would never accept defeat. If I regularly recite the sthitaprajna verse every day I must one day achieve steadfastness of intellect. Then nothing that Tandonji or anyone else can say will make me laugh or cry. I shall then leave the laughing and crying to God and give up grieving.
The example of the sadhu and the scorpion is a good one. When some person without faith asked him why he was so set on saving the scorpion, whose very nature it was to sting, he answered: “If it is in the nature of the scorpion to sting it is in the nature of man to put up with the sting. If the scorpion cannot give up its nature, how can I give up mine? Do I have to become a scorpion that stings and kill it?”
In the end the learned friend has counselled me that if I cannot give up being stubborn and must persist in ahimsa I should at least not stand in the way of others. Shall I then become a hypocrite? Shall I deceive the world? The world then will only say that there is a so-called Mahatma in India who mouths sweet phrases about ahimsa while his co-workers indulge in killing.
Something regrettable has happened. I have been a friend of the Princes, and their servant too. I have been a servant also of the rich. I have been dragging the Rajas and the rich people to the Bhangi Colony to secure their help. Where was the occasion otherwise for them to visit the Bhangi quarter? But I am a Bhangi and they come there.
I have seen Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer’s statement in the Press. He is a learned man. He has been a disciple of Annie Besant. On my Harijan tour² I went to Travancore on his invitation and I stayed there as his guest. I had gone there not to quarrel but to work together with him. I find his statement jarring. If he has been misreported he must forgive me but if the report is true he should give thought to what I have to say. He says that on August 15 when India gains freedom Travancore will be declared independent. And the independence he has in mind is of such a nature that already the Travancore Congress has been forbidden to hold meetings. According to a report Sir C. P. has declared that all those who are opposed to the idea of independence should quit Travancore. This order comes from a man who himself belongs not to Travancore but to Madras. How can he say such a thing?
While there was British Raj Travancore was required to pay homage to the British. Now that India will be a free democracy how can it do what it likes? The State now is ours, that is, it is part of democratic India. As I have often said, in a democratic India a raja and a scavenger will have the same status. As human beings they will be equal. They may well be different in their intellectual endowments. If the Maharaja of Travancore is gifted with a greater intellectual calibre he should use it in the service of the people. If he uses his intellectual gifts to suppress the people it is a worthless thing. If he suppresses or annihilates the people of Travancore, does he propose to rule over the bare land?
I am told Hyderabad is going to follow suit. They have not yet stated their position very clearly. They say for the time being they will watch without joining either Dominion. But of whom will the Nizam become independent? Ninety per cent of the population of Hyderabad consists of Hindus and they include among them some well-known figures. If the independence contemplated by either Hyderabad or Travancore is not such as can make the people feel that they are free, then these States cannot survive. The times have changed and they should realize the fact.
Is this what the Englishmen, who have come here to do good, will in the end bring about? I cannot understand the English. People say I am mad because I trust everybody—yes, while I am called mad because I do not give up my insistence on ahimsa I am also called mad because I trust the British. Why do I listen to Mountbatten ?—they ask. If he is an honest man, can’t he—a competent commander—see that to allow some six hundred Princes, who were not able to make the slightest move without permission before, to do as they like, is to make a mockery of freedom? It is a blessing that quite a number of Princes have already expressed themselves in favour of joining India.
The British say that they are going, that they will not doublecross us. Let us then pray that God may grant wisdom to the British and their representatives. May they be brave and truthful so that after they leave no one can call them names and say that they caused harm to India.
So far as I am concerned they may leave right now without waiting two months. We could then all come together and settle things between us. I even go so far as to say that even if we have to indulge in mutual slaughter, we should be left to ourselves. Only the English should go.
To the two States I shall say they may stay but they must stay only to serve the people. Even the Congress will not survive if it does not serve the people.
Let the Princes not question the right of the Congress to say anything in the matter. The Congress has rendered much service to them. I remember when I was at school something had gone wrong with the succession in Mysore and the Congress had helped to secure the throne for the Prince. Something similar once happened in Kashmir and the Congress helped. Then Baroda had once been in disgrace and the Congress made not a little effort to rehabilitate the Prince. The Congress always considered the Princes as its own countrymen. What harm could they do? In time, it was thought, they would co-operate. If the Princes now stand up and say, ’Well, we are the rulers’, it would not be proper. They ought to come into the Constituent Assembly, rather they should send popular representatives there.
If they do not do so then it seems that strife is going to be India’s lot. We are hardly out of the Hindu-Muslim quarrel and we are faced with this new conflict with the Princes. Then there will be the I. C. S. I hope the Civil Service will conduct itself decently and no occasion for a quarrel will arise. But if there must be quarrels there are innumerable little groups who will advance their claims to this bit of the country or that. But what will become of India then? There will be nothing left for anybody. The country will be destroyed.
My fate has ever been to be involved in conflict. I want that conflict should now cease. But I cannot see the country lose its freedom while petty factions fight.
In the end I shall say that we must go on uttering the names: Rama—Rahim, Krishna—Karim. We may not abuse the Princes, but we must tell them that they should be the servants of their people; they can be masters no more.
[From Hindi]
Prarthana Pravachan—I, pp. 154-60
Notes
- 1. 1882-1961, Congress leader; president of the Congress in 1923; actively associated with Servants of the People Society, Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and Rashtra Bhasha Prachar Sabha
- 2. In 1934
Notes
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