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Title: Third class in Indian railways
Author: Mahatma Gandhi
Release Date: January 31, 2008 [EBook #24461]
Language: English
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THIRD CLASS IN INDIAN RAILWAYS
BY
M. K. GANDHI
GANDHI PUBLICATIONS LEAGUE
BHADARKALI-LAHORE
THIRD CLASS IN INDIAN RAILWAYS[1]
I have now been in India for over two years and a half after my return
from South Africa. Over one quarter of that time I have passed on the
Indian trains travelling third class by choice. I have travelled up
north as far as Lahore, down south up to Tranquebar, and from Karachi to
Calcutta. Having resorted to third class travelling, among other
reasons, for the purpose of studying the conditions under which this
class of passengers travel, I have naturally made as critical
observations as I could. I have fairly covered the majority of railway
systems during this period. Now and then I have entered into
correspondence with the management of the different railways about the
defects that have come under my notice. But I think that the time has
come when I should invite the press and the public to join in a crusade
against a grievance which has too long remained unredressed, though much
of it is capable of redress without great difficulty.
On the 12th instant I booked at Bombay for Madras by the mail train and
paid Rs. 13-9. It was labelled to carry 22 passengers. These could only
have seating accommodation. There were no bunks in this carriage whereon
passengers could lie with any degree of safety or comfort. There were
two nights to be passed in this train before reaching Madras. If not
more than 22 passengers found their way into my carriage before we
reached Poona, it was because the bolder ones kept the others at bay.
With the exception of two or three insistent passengers, all had to find
their sleep being seated all the time. After reaching Raichur the
pressure became unbearable. The rush of passengers could not be stayed.
The fighters among us found the task almost beyond them. The guards or
other railway servants came in only to push in more passengers.
A defiant Memon merchant protested against this packing of passengers
like sardines. In vain did he say that this was his fifth night on the
train. The guard insulted him and referred him to the management at the
terminus. There were during this night as many as 35 passengers in the
carriage during the greater part of it. Some lay on the floor in the
midst of dirt and some had to keep standing. A free fight was, at one
time, avoided only by the intervention of some of the older passengers
who did not want to add to the discomfort by an exhibition of temper.
On the way passengers got for tea tannin water with filthy sugar and a
whitish looking liquid mis-called milk which gave this water a muddy
appearance. I can vouch for the appearance, but I cite the testimony of
the passengers as to the taste.
Not during the whole of the journey was the compartment once swept or
cleaned. The result was that every time you walked on the floor or
rather cut your way through the passengers seated on the floor, you
waded through dirt.
The closet was also not cleaned during the journey and there was no
water in the water tank.
Refreshments sold to the passengers were dirty-looking, handed by
dirtier hands, coming out of filthy receptacles and weighed in equally
unattractive scales. These were previously sampled by millions of flies.
I asked some of the passengers who went in for these dainties to give
their opinion. Many of them used choice expressions as to the quality
but were satisfied to state that they were helpless in the matter; they
had to take things as they came.
On reaching the station I found that the ghari-wala would not take me
unless I paid the fare he wanted. I mildly protested and told him I
would pay him the authorised fare. I had to turn passive resister
before I could be taken. I simply told him he would have to pull me out
of the ghari or call the policeman.
The return journey was performed in no better manner. The carriage was
packed already and but for a friend's intervention I could not have been
able to secure even a seat. My admission was certainly beyond the
authorised number. This compartment was constructed to carry 9
passengers but it had constantly 12 in it. At one place an important
railway servant swore at a protestant, threatened to strike him and
locked the door over the passengers whom he had with difficulty squeezed
in. To this compartment there was a closet falsely so called. It was
designed as a European closet but could hardly be used as such. There
was a pipe in it but no water, and I say without fear of challenge that
it was pestilentially dirty.
The compartment itself was evil looking. Dirt was lying thick upon the
wood work and I do not know that it had ever seen soap or water.
The compartment had an exceptional assortment of passengers. There were
three stalwart Punjabi Mahomedans, two refined Tamilians and two
Mahomedan merchants who joined us later. The merchants related the
bribes they had to give to procure comfort. One of the Punjabis had
already travelled three nights and was weary and fatigued. But he could
not stretch himself. He said he had sat the whole day at the Central
Station watching passengers giving bribe to procure their tickets.
Another said he had himself to pay Rs. 5 before he could get his ticket
and his seat. These three men were bound for Ludhiana and had still more
nights of travel in store for them.
What I have described is not exceptional but normal. I have got down at
Raichur, Dhond, Sonepur, Chakradharpur, Purulia, Asansol and other
junction stations and been at the 'Mosafirkhanas' attached to these
stations. They are discreditable-looking places where there is no
order, no cleanliness but utter confusion and horrible din and noise.
Passengers have no benches or not enough to sit on. They squat on dirty
floors and eat dirty food. They are permitted to throw the leavings of
their food and spit where they like, sit how they like and smoke
everywhere. The closets attached to these places defy description. I
have not the power adequately to describe them without committing a
breach of the laws of decent speech. Disinfecting powder, ashes, or
disinfecting fluids are unknown. The army of flies buzzing about them
warns you against their use. But a third-class traveller is dumb and
helpless. He does not want to complain even though to go to these places
may be to court death. I know passengers who fast while they are
travelling just in order to lessen the misery of their life in the
trains. At Sonepur flies having failed, wasps have come forth to warn
the public and the authorities, but yet to no purpose. At the Imperial
Capital a certain third class booking-office is a Black-Hole fit only to
be destroyed.
Is it any wonder that plague has become endemic in India? Any other
result is impossible where passengers always leave some dirt where they
go and take more on leaving.
On Indian trains alone passengers smoke with impunity in all carriages
irrespective of the presence of the fair sex and irrespective of the
protest of non-smokers. And this, notwithstanding a bye-law which
prevents a passenger from smoking without the permission of his fellows
in the compartment which is not allotted to smokers.
The existence of the awful war cannot be allowed to stand in the way of
the removal of this gigantic evil. War can be no warrant for tolerating
dirt and overcrowding. One could understand an entire stoppage of
passenger traffic in a crisis like this, but never a continuation or
accentuation of insanitation and conditions that must undermine health
and morality.
Compare the lot of the first class passengers with that of the third
class. In the Madras case the first class fare is over five times as
much as the third class fare. Does the third class passenger get
one-fifth, even one-tenth, of the comforts of his first class fellow? It
is but simple justice to claim that some relative proportion be observed
between the cost and comfort.
It is a known fact that the third class traffic pays for the
ever-increasing luxuries of first and second class travelling. Surely a
third class passenger is entitled at least to the bare necessities of
life.
In neglecting the third class passengers, opportunity of giving a
splendid education to millions in orderliness, sanitation, decent
composite life and cultivation of simple and clean tastes is being lost.
Instead of receiving an object lesson in these matters third class
passengers have their sense of decency and cleanliness blunted during
their travelling experience.
Among the many suggestions that can be made for dealing with the evil
here described, I would respectfully include this: let the people in
high places, the Viceroy, the Commander-in-Chief, the Rajas, Maharajas,
the Imperial Councillors and others, who generally travel in superior
classes, without previous warning, go through the experiences now and
then of third class travelling. We would then soon see a remarkable
change in the conditions of third class travelling and the uncomplaining
millions will get some return for the fares they pay under the
expectation of being carried from place to place with ordinary creature
comforts.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Ranchi, September 25, 1917.
VERNACULARS AS MEDIA OF INSTRUCTION[2]
It is to be hoped that Dr. Mehta's labour of love will receive the
serious attention of English-educated India. The following pages were
written by him for the _Vedanta Kesari_ of Madras and are now printed in
their present form for circulation throughout India. The question of
vernaculars as media of instruction is of national importance; neglect
of the vernaculars means national suicide. One hears many protagonists
of the English language being continued as the medium of instruction
pointing to the fact that English-educated Indians are the sole
custodians of public and patriotic work. It would be monstrous if it
were not so. For the only education given in this country is through the
English language. The fact, however, is that the results are not all
proportionate to the time we give to our education. We have not reacted
on the masses. But I must not anticipate Dr. Mehta. He is in earnest. He
writes feelingly. He has examined the pros and cons and collected a mass
of evidence in support of his arguments. The latest pronouncement on the
subject is that of the Viceroy. Whilst His Excellency is unable to offer
a solution, he is keenly alive to the necessity of imparting instruction
in our schools through the vernaculars. The Jews of Middle and Eastern
Europe, who are scattered in all parts of the world, finding it
necessary to have a common tongue for mutual intercourse, have raised
Yiddish to the status of a language, and have succeeded in translating
into Yiddish the best books to be found in the world's literature. Even
they could not satisfy the soul's yearning through the many foreign
tongues of which they are masters; nor did the learned few among them
wish to tax the masses of the Jewish population with having to learn a
foreign language before they could realise their dignity. So they have
enriched what was at one time looked upon as a mere jargon--but what the
Jewish children learnt from their mothers--by taking special pains to
translate into it the best thought of the world. This is a truly
marvellous work. It has been done during the present generation, and
Webster's Dictionary defines it as a polyglot jargon used for
inter-communication by Jews from different nations.
But a Jew of Middle and Eastern Europe would feel insulted if his mother
tongue were now so described. If these Jewish scholars have succeeded,
within a generation, in giving their masses a language of which they may
feel proud, surely it should be an easy task for us to supply the needs
of our own vernaculars which are cultured languages. South Africa
teaches us the same lesson. There was a duel there between the Taal, a
corrupt form of Dutch, and English. The Boer mothers and the Boer
fathers were determined that they would not let their children, with
whom they in their infancy talked in the Taal, be weighed down with
having to receive instruction through English. The case for English here
was a strong one. It had able pleaders for it. But English had to yield
before Boer patriotism. It may be observed that they rejected even the
High Dutch. The school masters, therefore, who are accustomed to speak
the published Dutch of Europe, are compelled to teach the easier Taal.
And literature of an excellent character is at the present moment
growing up in South Africa in the Taal, which was only a few years ago,
the common medium of speech between simple but brave rustics. If we have
lost faith in our vernaculars, it is a sign of want of faith in
ourselves; it is the surest sign of decay. And no scheme of
self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed
upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no
respect for the languages our mothers speak.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Introduction to Dr. Mehta's "Self-Government Series".
SWADESHI[3]
It was not without great diffidence that I undertook to speak to you at
all. And I was hard put to it in the selection of my subject. I have
chosen a very delicate and difficult subject. It is delicate because of
the peculiar views I hold upon Swadeshi, and it is difficult because I
have not that command of language which is necessary for giving adequate
expression to my thoughts. I know that I may rely upon your indulgence
for the many shortcomings you will no doubt find in my address, the more
so when I tell you that there is nothing in what I am about to say that
I am not either already practising or am not preparing to practise to
the best of my ability. It encourages me to observe that last month you
devoted a week to prayer in the place of an address. I have earnestly
prayed that what I am about to say may bear fruit and I know that you
will bless my word with a similar prayer.
After much thinking I have arrived at a definition of Swadeshi that,
perhaps, best illustrates my meaning. Swadeshi is that spirit in us
which restricts us to the use and service of our immediate surroundings
to the exclusion of the more remote. Thus, as for religion, in order to
satisfy the requirements of the definition, I must restrict myself to my
ancestral religion. That is the use of my immediate religious
surrounding. If I find it defective, I should serve it by purging it of
its defects. In the domain of politics I should make use of the
indigenous institutions and serve them by curing them of their proved
defects. In that of economics I should use only things that are produced
by my immediate neighbours and serve those industries by making them
efficient and complete where they might be found wanting. It is
suggested that such Swadeshi, if reduced to practice, will lead to the
millennium. And, as we do not abandon our pursuit after the millennium,
because we do not expect quite to reach it within our times, so may we
not abandon Swadeshi even though it may not be fully attained for
generations to come.
Let us briefly examine the three branches of Swadeshi as sketched above.
Hinduism has become a conservative religion and, therefore, a mighty
force because of the Swadeshi spirit underlying it. It is the most
tolerant because it is non-proselytising, and it is as capable of
expansion today as it has been found to be in the past. It has succeeded
not in driving out, as I think it has been erroneously held, but in
absorbing Buddhism. By reason of the Swadeshi spirit, a Hindu refuses to
change his religion, not necessarily because he considers it to be the
best, but because he knows that he can complement it by introducing
reforms. And what I have said about Hinduism is, I suppose, true of the
other great faiths of the world, only it is held that it is specially so
in the case of Hinduism. But here comes the point I am labouring to
reach. If there is any substance in what I have said, will not the great
missionary bodies of India, to whom she owes a deep debt of gratitude
for what they have done and are doing, do still better and serve the
spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytising
while continuing their philanthropic work? I hope you will not consider
this to be an impertinence on my part. I make the suggestion in all
sincerity and with due humility. Moreover I have some claim upon your
attention. I have endeavoured to study the Bible. I consider it as part
of my scriptures. The spirit of the Sermon on the Mount competes almost
on equal terms with the Bhagavad Gita for the domination of my heart. I
yield to no Christian in the strength of devotion with which I sing
"Lead kindly light" and several other inspired hymns of a similar
nature. I have come under the influence of noted Christian missionaries
belonging to different denominations. And enjoy to this day the
privilege of friendship with some of them. You will perhaps, therefore,
allow that I have offered the above suggestion not as a biased Hindu,
but as a humble and impartial student of religion with great leanings
towards Christianity. May it not be that "Go ye unto all the world"
message has been somewhat narrowly interpreted and the spirit of it
missed? It will not be denied, I speak from experience, that many of the
conversions are only so-called. In some cases the appeal has gone not to
the heart but to the stomach. And in every case a conversion leaves a
sore behind it which, I venture to think, is avoidable. Quoting again
from experience, a new birth, a change of heart, is perfectly possible
in every one of the great faiths. I know I am now treading upon thin
ice. But I do not apologise in closing this part of my subject, for
saying that the frightful outrage that is just going on in Europe,
perhaps shows that the message of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Peace,
had been little understood in Europe, and that light upon it may have to
be thrown from the East.
I have sought your help in religious matters, which it is yours to give
in a special sense. But I make bold to seek it even in political
matters. I do not believe that religion has nothing to do with politics.
The latter divorced from religion is like a corpse only fit to be
buried. As a matter of fact, in your own silent manner, you influence
politics not a little. And I feel that, if the attempt to separate
politics from religion had not been made as it is even now made, they
would not have degenerated as they often appear to have done. No one
considers that the political life of the country is in a happy state.
Following out the Swadeshi spirit, I observe the indigenous institutions
and the village panchayats hold me. India is really a republican
country, and it is because it is that, that it has survived every shock
hitherto delivered. Princes and potentates, whether they were Indian
born or foreigners, have hardly touched the vast masses except for
collecting revenue. The latter in their turn seem to have rendered unto
Caesar what was Caesar's and for the rest have done much as they have
liked. The vast organisation of caste answered not only the religious
wants of the community, but it answered to its political needs. The
villagers managed their internal affairs through the caste system, and
through it they dealt with any oppression from the ruling power or
powers. It is not possible to deny of a nation that was capable of
producing the caste system its wonderful power of organisation. One had
but to attend the great Kumbha Mela at Hardwar last year to know how
skilful that organisation must have been, which without any seeming
effort was able effectively to cater for more than a million pilgrims.
Yet it is the fashion to say that we lack organising ability. This is
true, I fear, to a certain extent, of those who have been nurtured in
the new traditions. We have laboured under a terrible handicap owing to
an almost fatal departure from the Swadeshi spirit. We, the educated
classes, have received our education through a foreign tongue. We have
therefore not reacted upon the masses. We want to represent the masses,
but we fail. They recognise us not much more than they recognise the
English officers. Their hearts are an open book to neither. Their
aspirations are not ours. Hence there is a break. And you witness not in
reality failure to organise but want of correspondence between the
representatives and the represented. If during the last fifty years we
had been educated through the vernaculars, our elders and our servants
and our neighbours would have partaken of our knowledge; the discoveries
of a Bose or a Ray would have been household treasures as are the
Ramayan and the Mahabharat. As it is, so far as the masses are
concerned, those great discoveries might as well have been made by
foreigners. Had instruction in all the branches of learning been given
through the vernaculars, I make bold to say that they would have been
enriched wonderfully. The question of village sanitation, etc., would
have been solved long ago. The village panchayats would be now a living
force in a special way, and India would almost be enjoying
self-government suited to its requirements and would have been spared
the humiliating spectacle of organised assassination on its sacred soil.
It is not too late to mend. And you can help if you will, as no other
body or bodies can.
And now for the last division of Swadeshi, much of the deep poverty of
the masses is due to the ruinous departure from Swadeshi in the economic
and industrial life. If not an article of commerce had been brought from
outside India, she would be today a land flowing with milk and honey.
But that was not to be. We were greedy and so was England. The
connection between England and India was based clearly upon an error.
But she does not remain in India in error. It is her declared policy
that India is to be held in trust for her people. If this be true,
Lancashire must stand aside. And if the Swadeshi doctrine is a sound
doctrine, Lancashire can stand aside without hurt, though it may sustain
a shock for the time being. I think of Swadeshi not as a boycott
movement undertaken by way of revenge. I conceive it as religious
principle to be followed by all. I am no economist, but I have read some
treatises which show that England could easily become a self-sustained
country, growing all the produce she needs. This may be an utterly
ridiculous proposition, and perhaps the best proof that it cannot be
true, is that England is one of the largest importers in the world. But
India cannot live for Lancashire or any other country before she is able
to live for herself. And she can live for herself only if she produces
and is helped to produce everything for her requirements within her own
borders. She need not be, she ought not to be, drawn into the vertex of
mad and ruinous competition which breeds fratricide, jealousy and many
other evils. But who is to stop her great millionaires from entering
into the world competition? Certainly not legislation. Force of public
opinion, proper education, however, can do a great deal in the desired
direction. The hand-loom industry is in a dying condition. I took
special care during my wanderings last year to see as many weavers as
possible, and my heart ached to find how they had lost, how families had
retired from this once flourishing and honourable occupation. If we
follow the Swadeshi doctrine, it would be your duty and mine to find out
neighbours who can supply our wants and to teach them to supply them
where they do not know how to proceed, assuming that there are
neighbours who are in want of healthy occupation. Then every village of
India will almost be a self-supporting and self-contained unit,
exchanging only such necessary commodities with other villages where
they are not locally producible. This may all sound nonsensical. Well,
India is a country of nonsense. It is nonsensical to parch one's throat
with thirst when a kindly Mahomedan is ready to offer pure water to
drink. And yet thousands of Hindus would rather die of thirst than drink
water from a Mahomedan household. These nonsensical men can also, once
they are convinced that their religion demands that they should wear
garments manufactured in India only and eat food only grown in India,
decline to wear any other clothing or eat any other food. Lord Curzon
set the fashion for tea-drinking. And that pernicious drug now bids fair
to overwhelm the nation. It has already undermined the digestive
apparatus of hundreds of thousands of men and women and constitutes an
additional tax upon their slender purses. Lord Hardinge can set the
fashion for Swadeshi, and almost the whole of India forswear foreign
goods. There is a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, which, freely rendered,
means, masses follow the classes. It is easy to undo the evil if the
thinking portion of the community were to take the Swadeshi vow even
though it may, for a time, cause considerable inconvenience. I hate
legislative interference, in any department of life. At best it is the
lesser evil. But I would tolerate, welcome, indeed, plead for a stiff
protective duty upon foreign goods. Natal, a British colony, protected
its sugar by taxing the sugar that came from another British colony,
Mauritius. England has sinned against India by forcing free trade upon
her. It may have been food for her, but it has been poison for this
country.
It has often been urged that India cannot adopt Swadeshi in the economic
life at any rate. Those who advance this objection do not look upon
Swadeshi as a rule of life. With them it is a mere patriotic effort not
to be made if it involved any self-denial. Swadeshi, as defined here, is
a religious discipline to be undergone in utter disregard of the
physical discomfort it may cause to individuals. Under its spell the
deprivation of a pin or a needle, because these are not manufactured in
India, need cause no terror. A Swadeshist will learn to do without
hundreds of things which today he considers necessary. Moreover, those
who dismiss Swadeshi from their minds by arguing the impossible, forget
that Swadeshi, after all, is a goal to be reached by steady effort. And
we would be making for the goal even if we confined Swadeshi to a given
set of articles allowing ourselves as a temporary measure to use such
things as might not be procurable in the country.
There now remains for me to consider one more objection that has been
raised against Swadeshi. The objectors consider it to be a most selfish
doctrine without any warrant in the civilised code of morality. With
them to practise Swadeshi is to revert to barbarism. I cannot enter into
a detailed analysis of the position. But I would urge that Swadeshi is
the only doctrine consistent with the law of humility and love. It is
arrogance to think of launching out to serve the whole of India when I
am hardly able to serve even my own family. It were better to
concentrate my effort upon the family and consider that through them I
was serving the whole nation and, if you will, the whole of humanity.
This is humility and it is love. The motive will determine the quality
of the act. I may serve my family regardless of the sufferings I may
cause to others. As for instance, I may accept an employment which
enables me to extort money from people, I enrich myself thereby and then
satisfy many unlawful demands of the family. Here I am neither serving
the family nor the State. Or I may recognise that God has given me hands
and feet only to work with for my sustenance and for that of those who
may be dependent upon me. I would then at once simplify my life and that
of those whom I can directly reach. In this instance I would have served
the family without causing injury to anyone else. Supposing that
everyone followed this mode of life, we should have at once an ideal
state. All will not reach that state at the same time. But those of us
who, realising its truth, enforce it in practice will clearly anticipate
and accelerate the coming of that happy day. Under this plan of life, in
seeming to serve India to the exclusion of every other country I do not
harm any other country. My patriotism is both exclusive and inclusive.
It is exclusive in the sense that in all humility I confine my attention
to the land of my birth, but it is inclusive in the sense that my
service is not of a competitive or antagonistic nature. _Sic utere tuo
ut alienum non la_ is not merely a legal maxim, but it is a grand
doctrine of life. It is the key to a proper practice of Ahimsa or love.
It is for you, the custodians of a great faith, to set the fashion and
show, by your preaching, sanctified by practice, that patriotism based
on hatred "killeth" and that patriotism based on love "giveth life."
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Address delivered before the Missionary Conference on February 14,
1916.
AHIMSA[4]
There seems to be no historical warrant for the belief that an
exaggerated practice of Ahimsa synchronises with our becoming bereft of
manly virtues. During the past 1,500 years we have, as a nation, given
ample proof of physical courage, but we have been torn by internal
dissensions and have been dominated by love of self instead of love of
country. We have, that is to say, been swayed by the spirit of
irreligion rather than of religion.
I do not know how far the charge of unmanliness can be made good against
the Jains. I hold no brief for them. By birth I am a Vaishnavite, and
was taught Ahimsa in my childhood. I have derived much religious benefit
from Jain religious works as I have from scriptures of the other great
faiths of the world. I owe much to the living company of the deceased
philosopher, Rajachand Kavi, who was a Jain by birth. Thus, though my
views on Ahimsa are a result of my study of most of the faiths of the
world, they are now no longer dependent upon the authority of these
works. They are a part of my life, and, if I suddenly discovered that
the religious books read by me bore a different interpretation from the
one I had learnt to give them, I should still hold to the view of Ahimsa
as I am about to set forth here.
Our Shastras seem to teach that a man who really practises Ahimsa in its
fulness has the world at his feet; he so affects his surroundings that
even the snakes and other venomous reptiles do him no harm. This is said
to have been the experience of St. Francis of Assisi.
In its negative form it means not injuring any living being whether by
body or mind. It may not, therefore, hurt the person of any wrong-doer,
or bear any ill-will to him and so cause him mental suffering. This
statement does not cover suffering caused to the wrong-doer by natural
acts of mine which do not proceed from ill-will. It, therefore, does not
prevent me from withdrawing from his presence a child whom he, we shall
imagine, is about to strike. Indeed, the proper practice of Ahimsa
_requires_ me to withdraw the intended victim from the wrong-doer, if I
am, in any way whatsoever, the guardian of such a child. It was,
therefore, most proper for the passive resisters of South Africa to have
resisted the evil that the Union Government sought to do to them. They
bore no ill-will to it. They showed this by helping the Government
whenever it needed their help. _Their resistance consisted of
disobedience of the orders of the Government, even to the extent of
suffering death at their hands._ Ahimsa requires deliberate
self-suffering, not a deliberate injuring of the supposed wrong-doer.
In its positive form, Ahimsa means the largest love, the greatest
charity. If I am a follower of Ahimsa, I _must love_ my enemy. I must
apply the same rules to the wrong-doer who is my enemy or a stranger to
me, as I would to my wrong-doing father or son. This active Ahimsa
necessarily includes truth and fearlessness. As man cannot deceive the
loved one, he does not fear or frighten him or her. Gift of life is the
greatest of all gifts; a man who gives it in reality, disarms all
hostility. He has paved the way for an honourable understanding. And
none who is himself subject to fear can bestow that gift. He must,
therefore, be himself fearless. A man cannot then practice Ahimsa and be
a coward at the same time. The practice of Ahimsa calls forth the
greatest courage. It is the most soldierly of a soldier's virtues.
General Gordon has been represented in a famous statue as bearing only a
stick. This takes us far on the road to Ahimsa. But a soldier, who needs
the protection of even a stick, is to that extent so much the less a
soldier. He is the true soldier who knows how to die and stand his
ground in the midst of a hail of bullets. Such a one was Ambarisha, who
stood his ground without lifting a finger though Duryasa did his worst.
The Moors who were being pounded by the French gunners and who rushed to
the guns' mouths with 'Allah' on their lips, showed much the same type
of courage. Only theirs was the courage of desperation. Ambarisha's was
due to love. Yet the Moorish valour, readiness to die, conquered the
gunners. They frantically waved their hats, ceased firing, and greeted
their erstwhile enemies as comrades. And so the South African passive
resisters in their thousands were ready to die rather than sell their
honour for a little personal ease. This was Ahimsa in its active form.
It _never_ barters away honour. A helpless girl in the hands of a
follower of Ahimsa finds better and surer protection than in the hands
of one who is prepared to defend her only to the point to which his
weapons would carry him. The tyrant, in the first instance, will have to
walk to his victim over the dead body of her defender; in the second, he
has but to overpower the defender; for it is assumed that the cannon of
propriety in the second instance will be satisfied when the defender has
fought to the extent of his physical valour. In the first instance, as
the defender has matched his very soul against the mere body of the
tyrant, the odds are that the soul in the latter will be awakened, and
the girl would stand an infinitely greater chance of her honour being
protected than in any other conceivable circumstance, barring of course,
that of her own personal courage.
If we are unmanly today, we are so, not because we do not know how to
strike, but because we fear to die. He is no follower of Mahavira, the
apostle of Jainism, or of Buddha or of the Vedas, who being afraid to
die, takes flight before any danger, real or imaginary, all the while
wishing that somebody else would remove the danger by destroying the
person causing it. He is no follower of Ahimsa who does not care a straw
if he kills a man by inches by deceiving him in trade, or who would
protect by force of arms a few cows and make away with the butcher or
who, in order to do a supposed good to his country, does not mind
killing off a few officials. All these are actuated by hatred, cowardice
and fear. Here the love of the cow or the country is a vague thing
intended to satisfy one's vanity, or soothe a stinging conscience.
Ahimsa truly understood is in my humble opinion a panacea for all evils
mundane and extra-mundane. We can never overdo it. Just at present we
are not doing it at all. Ahimsa does not displace the practice of other
virtues, but renders their practice imperatively necessary before it can
be practised even in its rudiments. Mahavira and Buddha were soldiers,
and so was Tolstoy. Only they saw deeper and truer into their
profession, and found the secret of a true, happy, honourable and godly
life. Let us be joint sharers with these teachers, and this land of ours
will once more be the abode of gods.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] The _Modern Review_, October, 1916.
THE MORAL BASIS OF CO-OPERATION[5]
The only claim I have on your indulgence is that some months ago I
attended with Mr. Ewbank a meeting of mill-hands to whom he wanted to
explain the principles of co-operation. The chawl in which they were
living was as filthy as it well could be. Recent rains had made matters
worse. And I must frankly confess that, had it not been for Mr. Ewbank's
great zeal for the cause he has made his own, I should have shirked the
task. But there we were, seated on a fairly worn-out _charpai_,
surrounded by men, women and children. Mr. Ewbank opened fire on a man
who had put himself forward and who wore not a particularly innocent
countenance. After he had engaged him and the other people about him in
Gujrati conversation, he wanted me to speak to the people. Owing to the
suspicious looks of the man who was first spoken to, I naturally pressed
home the moralities of co-operation. I fancy that Mr. Ewbank rather
liked the manner in which I handled the subject. Hence, I believe, his
kind invitation to me to tax your patience for a few moments upon a
consideration of co-operation from a moral standpoint.
My knowledge of the technicality of co-operation is next to nothing. My
brother, Devadhar, has made the subject his own. Whatever he does,
naturally attracts me and predisposes me to think that there must be
something good in it and the handling of it must be fairly difficult.
Mr. Ewbank very kindly placed at my disposal some literature too on the
subject. And I have had a unique opportunity of watching the effect of
some co-operative effort in Champaran. I have gone through Mr. Ewbank's
ten main points which are like the Commandments, and I have gone through
the twelve points of Mr. Collins of Behar, which remind me of the law of
the Twelve Tables. There are so-called agricultural banks in Champaran.
They were to me disappointing efforts, if they were meant to be
demonstrations of the success of co-operation. On the other hand, there
is quiet work in the same direction being done by Mr. Hodge, a
missionary whose efforts are leaving their impress on those who come in
contact with him. Mr. Hodge is a co-operative enthusiast and probably
considers that the result which he sees flowing from his efforts are due
to the working of co-operation. I, who was able to watch the efforts,
had no hesitation in inferring that the personal equation counted for
success in the one and failure in the other instance.
I am an enthusiast myself, but twenty-five years of experimenting and
experience have made me a cautious and discriminating enthusiast.
Workers in a cause necessarily, though quite unconsciously, exaggerate
its merits and often succeed in turning its very defects into
advantages. In spite of my caution I consider the little institution I
am conducting in Ahmedabad as the finest thing in the world. It alone
gives me sufficient inspiration. Critics tell me that it represents a
soulless soul-force and that its severe discipline has made it merely
mechanical. I suppose both--the critics and I--are wrong. It is, at
best, a humble attempt to place at the disposal of the nation a home
where men and women may have scope for free and unfettered development
of character, in keeping with the national genius, and, if its
controllers do not take care, the discipline that is the foundation of
character may frustrate the very end in view. I would venture,
therefore, to warn enthusiasts in co-operation against entertaining
false hopes.
With Sir Daniel Hamilton it has become a religion. On the 13th January
last, he addressed the students of the Scottish Churches College and,
in order to point a moral, he instanced Scotland's poverty of two
hundred years ago and showed how that great country was raised from a
condition of poverty to plenty. "There were two powers, which raised
her--the Scottish Church and the Scottish banks. The Church manufactured
the men and the banks manufactured the money to give the men a start in
life.... The Church disciplined the nation in the fear of God which is
the beginning of wisdom and in the parish schools of the Church the
children learned that the chief end of man's life was to glorify God and
to enjoy Him for ever. Men were trained to believe in God and in
themselves, and on the trustworthy character so created the Scottish
banking system was built." Sir Daniel then shows that it was possible to
build up the marvellous Scottish banking system only on the character so
built. So far there can only be perfect agreement with Sir Daniel, for
that 'without character there is no co-operation' is a sound maxim. But
he would have us go much further. He thus waxes eloquent on
co-operation: "Whatever may be your daydreams of India's future, never
forget this that it is to weld India into one, and so enable her to take
her rightful place in the world, that the British Government is here;
and the welding hammer in the hand of the Government is the co-operative
movement." In his opinion it is the panacea of all the evils that
afflict India at the present moment. In its extended sense it can
justify the claim on one condition which need not be mentioned here; in
the limited sense in which Sir Daniel has used it, I venture to think,
it is an enthusiast's exaggeration. Mark his peroration: "Credit, which
is only Trust and Faith, is becoming more and more the money power of
the world, and in the parchment bullet into which is impressed the faith
which removes mountains, India will find victory and peace." Here there
is evident confusion of thought. The credit which is becoming the money
power of the world has little moral basis and is not a synonym for
Trust or Faith, which are purely moral qualities. After twenty years'
experience of hundreds of men, who had dealings with banks in South
Africa, the opinion I had so often heard expressed has become firmly
rooted in me, that the greater the rascal the greater the credit he
enjoys with his banks. The banks do not pry into his moral character:
they are satisfied that he meets his overdrafts and promissory notes
punctually. The credit system has encircled this beautiful globe of ours
like a serpent's coil, and if we do not mind, it bids fair to crush us
out of breath. I have witnessed the ruin of many a home through the
system, and it has made no difference whether the credit was labelled
co-operative or otherwise. The deadly coil has made possible the
devastating spectacle in Europe, which we are helplessly looking on. It
was perhaps never so true as it is today that, as in law so in war, the
longest purse finally wins. I have ventured to give prominence to the
current belief about credit system in order to emphasise the point that
the co-operative movement will be a blessing to India only to the extent
that it is a moral movement strictly directed by men fired with
religious fervour. It follows, therefore, that co-operation should be
confined to men wishing to be morally right, but failing to do so,
because of grinding poverty or of the grip of the Mahajan. Facility for
obtaining loans at fair rates will not make immoral men moral. But the
wisdom of the Estate or philanthropists demands that they should help on
the onward path, men struggling to be good.
Too often do we believe that material prosperity means moral growth. It
is necessary that a movement which is fraught with so much good to India
should not degenerate into one for merely advancing cheap loans. I was
therefore delighted to read the recommendation in the Report of the
Committee on Co-operation in India, that "they wish clearly to express
their opinion that it is to true co-operation alone, that is, to a
co-operation which recognises the moral aspect of the question that
Government must look for the amelioration of the masses and not to a
pseudo-co-operative edifice, however imposing, which is built in
ignorance of co-operative principles." With this standard before us, we
will not measure the success of the movement by the number of
co-operative societies formed, but by the moral condition of the
co-operators. The registrars will, in that event, ensure the moral
growth of existing societies before multiplying them. And the Government
will make their promotion conditional, not upon the number of societies
they have registered, but the moral success of the existing
institutions. This will mean tracing the course of every pie lent to the
members. Those responsible for the proper conduct of co-operative
societies will see to it that the money advanced does not find its way
into the toddy-seller's bill or into the pockets of the keepers of
gambling dens. I would excuse the rapacity of the Mahajan if it has
succeeded in keeping the gambling die or toddy from the ryot's home.
A word perhaps about the Mahajan will not be out of place. Co-operation
is not a new device. The ryots co-operate to drum out monkeys or birds
that destroy their crops. They co-operate to use a common thrashing
floor. I have found them co-operate to protect their cattle to the
extent of their devoting the best land for the grazing of their cattle.
And they have been found co-operating against a particular rapacious
Mahajan. Doubts have been expressed as to the success of co-operation
because of the tightness of the Mahajan's hold on the ryots. I do not
share the fears. The mightiest Mahajan must, if he represent an evil
force, bend before co-operation, conceived as an essentially moral
movement. But my limited experience of the Mahajan of Champaran has made
me revise the accepted opinion about his 'blighting influence.' I have
found him to be not always relentless, not always exacting of the last
pie. He sometimes serves his clients in many ways and even comes to
their rescue in the hour of their distress. My observation is so limited
that I dare not draw any conclusions from it, but I respectfully enquire
whether it is not possible to make a serious effort to draw out the good
in the Mahajan and help him or induce him to throw out the evil in him.
May he not be induced to join the army of co-operation, or has
experience proved that he is past praying for?
I note that the movement takes note of all indigenous industries. I beg
publicly to express my gratitude to Government for helping me in my
humble effort to improve the lot of the weaver. The experiment I am
conducting shows that there is a vast field for work in this direction.
No well-wisher of India, no patriot dare look upon the impending
destruction of the hand-loom weaver with equanimity. As Dr. Mann has
stated, this industry used to supply the peasant with an additional
source of livelihood and an insurance against famine. Every registrar
who will nurse back to life this important and graceful industry will
earn the gratitude of India. My humble effort consists firstly in making
researches as to the possibilities of simple reforms in the orthodox
hand-looms, secondly, in weaning the educated youth from the craving for
Government or other services and the feeling that education renders him
unfit for independent occupation and inducing him to take to weaving as
a calling as honourable as that of a barrister or a doctor, and thirdly
by helping those weavers who have abandoned their occupation to revert
to it. I will not weary the audience with any statement on the first two
parts of the experiment. The third may be allowed a few sentences as it
has a direct bearing upon the subject before us. I was able to enter
upon it only six months ago. Five families that had left off the calling
have reverted to it and they are doing a prosperous business. The Ashram
supplies them at their door with the yarn they need; its volunteers
take delivery of the cloth woven, paying them cash at the market rate.
The Ashram merely loses interest on the loan advanced for the yarn. It
has as yet suffered no loss and is able to restrict its loss to a
minimum by limiting the loan to a particular figure. All future
transactions are strictly cash. We are able to command a ready sale for
the cloth received. The loss of interest, therefore, on the transaction
is negligible. I would like the audience to note its purely moral
character from start to finish. The Ashram depends for its existence on
such help as _friends_ render it. We, therefore, can have no warrant for
charging interest. The weavers could not be saddled with it. Whole
families that were breaking to pieces are put together again. The use of
the loan is pre-determined. And we, the middlemen, being volunteers,
obtain the privilege of entering into the lives of these families, I
hope, for their and our betterment. We cannot lift them without being
lifted ourselves. This last relationship has not yet been developed, but
we hope, at an early date, to take in hand the education too of these
families and not rest satisfied till we have touched them at every
point. This is not too ambitious a dream. God willing, it will be a
reality some day. I have ventured to dilate upon the small experiment to
illustrate what I mean by co-operation to present it to others for
imitation. Let us be sure of our ideal. We shall ever fail to realise
it, but we should never cease to strive for it. Then there need be no
fear of "co-operation of scoundrels" that Ruskin so rightly dreaded.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Paper contributed to the Bombay Provincial Co-operative Conference,
September 17, 1917.
NATIONAL DRESS[6]
I have hitherto successfully resisted to temptation of either answering
your or Mr. Irwin's criticism of the humble work I am doing in
Champaran. Nor am I going to succumb now except with regard to a matter
which Mr. Irwin has thought fit to dwell upon and about which he has not
even taken the trouble of being correctly informed. I refer to his
remarks on my manner of dressing.
My "familiarity with the minor amenities of Western civilisation" has
taught me to respect my national costume, and it may interest Mr. Irwin
to know that the dress I wear in Champaran is the dress I have always
worn in India except that for a very short period in India I fell an
easy prey in common with the rest of my countrymen to the wearing of
semi-European dress in the courts and elsewhere outside Kathiawar. I
appeared before the Kathiawar courts now 21 years ago in precisely the
dress I wear in Champaran.
One change I have made and it is that, having taken to the occupation of
weaving and agriculture and having taken the vow of Swadeshi, my
clothing is now entirely hand-woven and hand-sewn and made by me or my
fellow workers. Mr. Irwin's letter suggests that I appear before the
ryots in a dress I have temporarily and specially adopted in Champaran
to produce an effect. The fact is that I wear the national dress because
it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian. I believe
that our copying of the European dress is a sign of our degradation,
humiliation and our weakness, and that we are committing a national sin
in discarding a dress which is best suited to the Indian climate and
which, for its simplicity, art and cheapness, is not to be beaten on the
face of the earth and which answers hygienic requirements. Had it not
been for a false pride and equally false notions of prestige, Englishmen
here would long ago have adopted the Indian costume. I may mention
incidentally that I do not go about Champaran bare headed. I do avoid
shoes for sacred reasons. But I find too that it is more natural and
healthier to avoid them whenever possible.
I am sorry to inform Mr. Irwin and your readers that my esteemed friend
Babu Brijakishore Prasad, the "ex-Hon. Member of Council," still remains
unregenerate and retains the provincial cap and never walks barefoot and
"kicks up" a terrible noise even in the house we are living in by
wearing wooden sandals. He has still not the courage, in spite of most
admirable contact with me, to discard his semi-anglicised dress and
whenever he goes to see officials he puts his legs into the bifurcated
garment and on his own admission tortures himself by cramping his feet
in inelastic shoes. I cannot induce him to believe that his clients
won't desert him and the courts won't punish him if he wore his more
becoming and less expensive dhoti. I invite you and Mr. Irwin not to
believe the "stories" that the latter hears about me and my friends, but
to join me in the crusade against educated Indians abandoning their
manners, habits and customs which are not proved to be bad or harmful.
Finally I venture to warn you and Mr. Irwin that you and he will
ill-serve the cause both of you consider is in danger by reason of my
presence in Champaran if you continue, as you have done, to base your
strictures on unproved facts. I ask you to accept my assurance that I
should deem myself unworthy of the friendship and confidence of hundreds
of my English friends and associates--not all of them fellow cranks--if
in similar circumstances I acted towards them differently from my own
countrymen.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] Reply to Mr. Irwin's criticism of his dress in the _Pioneer_.
_Printed by K. R. Sondhi at the Allied Press, Lahore, and published by
R. P. Soni for Gandhi Publications League, Lahore._
* * * * *
_Gandhi Series_
BEHIND THE BARS
*
THIRD CLASS IN
INDIAN RAILWAYS
*
IN ROUND TABLE
CONFERENCE
*
Price Six Annas Each
AT ALL
RAILWAY AND OTHER BOOKSTALLS
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