Behaviour in office

Mahatma Gandhi had answered these questions as guidance for behaviour of volunteers but they can also be incorporated into our daily office lives as well. I have edited the article specifically for the office scenario. The text in italics represents my edits. The complete article can be found in Vol. 28 of CWMG, starting from Pg 226.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many times we find there are a set of people in our office who have a set agenda against us. How should we behave in such a case?

l. What should we do if our co-workers of set purpose behave badly towards us, dislike us without cause and burn with envy?

I quote this and such other questions from letters which I have been receiving. We should behave correctly towards one who behaves badly towards us, should like one who dislikes us and love one who envies us. I do not know any-other way in which one can live in peace in this world. If one decides to live thus, such behaviour becomes easy and natural by and by. When we cannot behave in this straight forward manner, we should keep aloof from others.

Behaviour when there is a difference of opinion in any matter.

2. What should we do if, in an ordinary matter, there is a difference of opinion and each one wants to have his way?

That this should happen suggests lack of experience of community life. If everyone follows his own way, we should join him whose way we consider best, so that there will be two co-workers at any rate. If they are truthful, firm and humble, others will come and join them of their own accord. He who does not yield to persuasion will submit when he has no choice left.

What to do when we are sure that actions of some particular colleague are harming the organization?

3. If a worker feels convinced that a certain other worker really harms the institution, what should he do?

He should humbly point out to that worker his mistake. If the latter does not see it, he should leave that institution and save himself from being a party to the mischief. If one acts frankly in this manner, all the three—the institution, the one who harms it and the one who notices it—will benefit.

How to handle the immorality of the leader?

4. What should one do when one finds the chief worker in a locality to be immoral?

This is a delicate and serious question. A leader has the eyes of all fixed on him. Some among these may have even jaundiced eyes. An idler has no interest except to observe the faults of others. We should, therefore, never credit such rumours. If we believed everything alleged against all leaders, not one person whose company we would welcome would be left to work with us. All human beings have their weaknesses. As Tulsidas says, all physical objects and all living creatures partake of evil. The saint, discriminating like the swan, leaves aside the water, the evil, the impurity, and drinks in the milk, the virtue. But we cannot shut our eyes to what is there before us. What should we do when we have not been looking for something ourselves but, without our searching for it, we are confronted with irrefutable evidence, with ocular proof? If we have courage and humility, we should certainly speak to the leader about the matter and ask him to give up his leadership. If he refuses, we should state the fact as our reason and leave him.

[There is further text in this answer but it was specifically for the volunteer work of congress and hence not included here. If the reader wishes to read the complete article, it can be found in Vol. 28 of CWMG, Page 226]

[From Gujarati]
Navajivan, 29-6-1924

-------------------------------------------CWMG Vol. 28, Pg 226---------------------------

Statement of Mahatma Gandhi in The Great Trial after Non Co-operation movement.

The historical trial of Mahatma Gandhi and Shri. Shankarlal Ghelabhai Banker, editor, and printer and publisher respectively of Young India, on alleged seditious writing against the government was held on 18th March 1922 in District and Sessions Court in Ahemdabad. I present here Gandhiji's statement and the Judgement. As evidence, four articles from Young India titled 'Disaffection a virtue' (15-6 1921, subtitled in 'Notes' in YI), 'Tampering with loyalty'(29-09-1921, YI), 'The Puzzle and its Solution' (15-12-1921, YI) and 'Shaking the Manes' (23-02-1922).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gandhiji's Statment:

I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the public in England, to placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up, that I should explain why, from a staunch loyalist and co- operator, I have become an uncompromising disaffectionist and non-co-operator, To the Court, too, I should say why I plead guilty to the charge of promoting disaffection towards the Government established by law in India.

My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in troubled weather. My first contact with British authority in that country was not of a happy character. I discovered that as a man and an Indian I had no rights. More correctly, I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian. But I was not baffled. I thought that this treatment of Indians was an excrescence upon a system that was intrinsically and mainly good. I gave the Government my voluntary and hearty co-operation, criticizing it freely where I felt it was faulty, but never wishing its destruction. Consequently, when the existence of the Empire was threatened in 1899 by the Boer challenge, I offered my services to it1, raised a volunteer ambulance corps and served at several actions that took place for the relief of Ladysmith.2 Similarly in 1906, at the time of the Zulu revolt, I raised a stretcher-bearer party and served till the end of the rebellion.3 On both these occasions I received medals and was even mentioned in despatches. For my work in South Africa I was given by Lord Hardinge a Kaiser-i-Hind Gold Medal.4 When the war broke out in 1914 between England and Germany, I raised a volunteer ambulance corps in London consisting of the then resident Indians in London, chiefly students.5 Its work was acknowledged by the authorities to be valuable. Lastly, in India, when a special appeal was made at the War conference in Delhi in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford for recruits, I struggled at the cost of my health to raise a corps in Kheda6 and the response was being made when the hostilities ceased and orders were received that no more recruits were wanted. In all these efforts at service, I was actuated by the belief that it was possible by such services to gain a status of full equality in the Empire for my countrymen.

The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act, a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in crawling orders, public floggings and other indescribable humiliations. I discovered, too, that the plighted word of the Prime Minister to the Mussalmans of India regarding the integrity of Turkey and the holy places of Islam was not likely to be fulfilled. But, in spite of the forebodings and the grave warnings of friends, at the Amritsar Congress in 1919,7 I fought for co-operation and working the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, hoping that the Prime Minister would redeem his promise to the Indian Mussalmans, that the Punjab wound would be healed and that the reforms, inadequate and unsatisfactory though they were, marked a new era of hope in the life of India.

But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat promise was not to be redeemed. The Punjab crime was white-washed and most culprits went not only unpunished, but remained in service and some continued to draw pensions from the Indian revenue, and in some cases were even rewarded. I saw, too, that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart, but they were only a method of further draining India of her wealth and of prolonging her servitude.

I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically. A disarmed India has no power of resistance against any aggressor if she wanted to engage in an armed conflict with him. So much is this the case that some of our best men consider that India must take generations before she can achieve the Dominion status. She has become so poor that she has little power of resisting famines. Before the British advent, India spun and wove in her millions of cottages just the supplement she needed for adding to her meager agricultural resources. This cottage industry, so vital for India’s existence, has been ruined by incredibly heartless and inhuman processes as described by English witnesses. Little do town-dwellers know how the semi-starved masses of India are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for the work they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and the brokerage are sucked from the masses. Little do they realize that the Government established by law in British India is carried on for this exploitation of the masses. No sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town-dwellers of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against humanity which is perhaps unequalled in history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad1. My experience of political cases in India leads one to the conclusion that in nine out of every ten cases the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In ninetynine cases out of hundred, justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the Courts of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion, the administration of the law is thus prostituted consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter.

The greatest misfortune is that Englishmen and their Indian associates in the administration of the country do not know that theyare engaged in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many English and Indian officials honestly believe that they are administering one of the best systems devised in the world and that India is making steady though slow progress. They do not know that a subtle but effective system of terrorism and an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of all powers of retaliation or self-defence on the other, have emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation. This awful habit has added to the ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section 124 A under which I am happily charged is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system1, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote or incite to violence. But the section under which Mr. Banker and I are charged is one under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some of the cases tried under it, and I know that some of the most loved of India’s patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to be charged under it. I have endeavoured to give in their briefest outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill will against any single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection towards the King’s person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for me to be able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in evidence against me.

In fact, I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my humble opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is co-operation with good. But, in the past, non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil-doer. I am endeavouring to show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation only multiplies evil and that, as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is adeliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge, is either to resign your post and thus dissociate yourself from evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent; or to inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country and that my activity is, therefore, injurious to
the public weal

The Judgement:

Mr. Gandhi, you have made my task easy in one way by pleading guilty to the charge. nevertheless what remains, namely, the determination of a just sentence, is perhaps as difficult a proposition as a judge in this country could have to face. The law is no respecter of persons. Nevertheless, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that you are in a different category from any person I have ever tried or am likely to have to try. It would be impossible to ignore the fact that, in the eyes of millions of your countrymen, you are a great patriot and a great leader. Even those who differ from you in politics look upon you as a man of high ideals and of noble and of even saintly life. I have to deal with you in one character only. It is not my duty and I do not presume to judge or criticize you in any other character. It is my duty to judge you as a man subject to the law, who has by his own admission broken the law and committed what to an ordinary man must appear to be grave offences against the State. I do not forget that you have constantly preached against violence and that you have on many occasions, as I am willing to believe, done much to prevent violence, but having regard to the nature of your political teaching and the nature of many of those to whom it is addressed, how you could have continued to believe that violence would not be the inevitable consequence it passes my capacity to understand.

There are probably few people in India who do not sincerely regret that you should have made it impossible for any Government to leave you at liberty. But it is so. I am trying to balance what is due to you against what appears to me to be necessary in the interests of the public, and I propose, in passing sentence, to follow the precedent of a case, in many respects similar to this case, that was decided some 12 years ago, I mean the case against Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak under this same section. The sentence that was passed upon him as it finally stood was a sentence of simple imprisonment for six years. You will not consider it unreasonable, I think, that you should be classed with Mr. Tilak, and that is the sentence, two years’ simpleimprisonment on each count of the charge, i.e., six years in all, which I feel it my duty to pass upon you and I should like to say in doing so that, if the course of events in India should make it possible for the Government to reduce the period and release you, no one will be better pleased than I.

---------------------------------CWMG Vol 26 Article 168 Pg. 377------------------------

Interview on Non Co-operation to Manchester Gaurdian

In this interview Mahatma justifies the non co-operation movement. The interview also reflects his thoughts on khadi, reincarnation, god.

Italics - Questions

Normal - Answer

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTERVIEW TO “MANCHESTER GUARDIAN”
SABARMATI JAIL,
[Before March 18, 1922]1

. . . We came to the subject of non-co-operation. I asked him if--in view of the answer Christ gave in the incident of the tribute money--he did not think the policy of non-co-operation was contrary to Christ’s teaching. He replied:

Not being a Christian, I am not bound to justify my action by Christian principles. But, as a matter of fact, in this case I do not think there is any indication that Christ was against the principle of non-cooperation. I think His words show that He was for it.

“ I do not understand,” I protested. “Surely the meaning is quite clear. ‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s’ means that it is our duty to pay to the civil authorities what is their due. If it doesn’t mean that, what does it mean?”

Christ never answered a question in a simple and literal manner. He always gave in His replies more than was expected, something deeper--some general principle. It was so in this case. Here He does not mean at all whether you must or must not pay taxes. He means something far more than this. When He says “Give back to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s”, He is stating a law. It means2 ‘give back to Caesar what is his, i.e., I will have nothing to do with it.’ In this incident Christ enunciated the great law--which He exemplified all his life--of refusing to cooperate with evil. When Satan said to Him, “Bow and worship me” --i.e., co-operate with me, --then He said,
“Get thee behind me, Satan.” When the crowds round Him wanted to take Him by force and make Him a military king, He refused to cooperate with them as their method was evil; they wanted Him to rely on force. Christ’s attitude against the authorities was defiant. When
Pilate asked Him if He were king, He answered, “Thou sayest it.” Is not that treating authority with defiance? He called Herod “that fox”. Was that like co-operation with authorities? And before Herod He would not answer a word. In short, He refused to co-operate with him;
and so I refuse to co-operate with the British Government.

“But” I said, “ Surely it is our duty in this imperfect world to co-operate with what is good in individuals and institutions.” The Mahatma said:

As a man. I would gladly co-operate and be friends with Lord Reading; but I could not co-operate with him as the Viceroy, being a part of corrupt Government.

Protesting further, I said “Granted the Government has made mistakes, yet you cannot surely say it is wholly bad; if there is miscarriage of justice here and there, the broad fact remains that the 300 millions of India are kept in a condition of law and order. Are you against governments in general? Can you point out to me any government on earth that is faultless and would satisfy you?” He replied at once:

Yes, look at the Government of Denmark. I should be satisfied with such a Government. It represents the people; it does not exploit a conquered nation; it is efficient; the people under it are cultured, intellectual, manly, contented and happy; it supports no large army and navy to keep others in imperial subjection.

“But,” I asked, “do you think empires are inherently bad? Surely the Roman Empire was a benefit to civilization. Christ never said a word against it as far as we know”

Quite so, but it was not His business to inveigh against imperialism. Every great reformer has to struggle against the special evil of his age. Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and, in a lesser way, Luther had their own evils and difficulties to contend with, peculiar to their age. So have we. Now it is imperialism that is the great Satan of our times.

“So you are out to destroy the Empire?” I asked.

I would not put it that way. I only wish to destroy the Empire by creating a commonwealth. I do not wish for complete separation from England; we have no right to wish for it. “What is your definition of this commonwealth to which India shall belong, what is to be its structure?”
It is to be a fellowship of free nations joined together by the “silver cords of love”. (I think it is Lord Salisbury’s phrase.) Such a fellowship already exists for many parts of the Empire. Look at South Africa, what fine fellows they are there! Australia--fine fellows! And New Zealand--splendid land and a fine people! I would have India enter freely into such a fellowship and with the same rights of equality for Indians as for other members of the commonwealth.

“ But surely that is just the very aim that the Government has for India: to become a self-governing unit in the Empire as soon as she is ready for the responsibility. Is not this the whole meaning of the Montagu reforms?” The Mahatma shook his head.

Ah, I am afraid I do not believe in those reforms. When they were first introduced, I rejoiced and said to myself, “Here at last is a small ray of light in the darkness, just a small chink¾but I will go forward to meet it.” I welcomed it; I fought against my own people to give it a fair chance. I said this was a sign of true repentance on the part of the Government. When the War broke out, I went about speaking at recruiting meetings because I thought the Government did really mean to give us what it promised. It is only a small beginning, I thought, but I will wait and see. I will humble myself, make myself small to go through this narrow opening. But events have changed
me. Then came the Punjab atrocities, then the Khilafat question, and finally, all the repressive actions of the Government, and now I can believe in the reforms no longer. They were a mere blind, a camouflage to prolong the agony. That is why I call the Government Satanic and why I refuse to co-operate with it in any way.

From the subject of non-co-operation, the conversation passed naturally enough to the question of the boycott of foreign goods and the great khadi (homespun) campaign. Here the Mahatma’s face lit up, his eyes shone with enthusiasm.

Of all my plans and foibles, of all my weaknesses and fanaticisms, or whatever you like to call them, khadi is my pet one. Touching the rough homespun shawl over his shoulder, he said:
This is sacred cloth. Think what it means. Imagine the thousands and hundreds of thousands of home in the famine areas. When the famine comes they are stricken down; they are helpless. They do nothing in their homes--can do nothing--they wait and die. If I can introduce the spinning-wheel into these homes, their lives are assured; them over the famine. This coarse stuff is dearer and finer to me than the softest silks of Japan. Through it I am bound nearer to millions of my humble and starving countrymen. Look at the cloth you are wearing. When you buy that, you put one or two annas into the hands of the workman and six or seven into the pocket of the capitalist. Now look at mine. All the money I spend on this goes straight into the hands of the poor¾to the weaver, the spinner, and the carder, and not a pice into the hands of the rich man. To know this fills me with a heavenly joy. If I can act thus, if I can introduce the spinning-wheel into every cottage in India, then I shall be satisfied for this life; I could go on with my other schemes in my next if it pleased God.

“What do you mean?” I asked, not quite sure of the drift of his last remarks. “You think we come back again to this earth?” He replied:

Yes. I think we all come back here again if we are not pure enough to go to heaven. You see, it is the same principle we were talking about before. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s--the body must give back to the earth the things that are of the earth before the soul can give itself absolutely to God; or, rather, the soul must refuse to co-operate with the things of this earth; it must become quite free from any earthly desires and entanglements.

“And do you believe animals have soul too?”

Of course. It is the same with them; they, too, must learn to give back to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s. That is why as Hindus we do not kill animals; we leave them free to work out their own destinies.

“Then you think it is wrong to kill even such things as snakes, scorpions, and centipedes?”

Yes, we never kill them at our Ashram. It is a high stage in the development of the soul to feel a love for all humanity, but it is a higher stage still to have a heart of love for every living thing. I
confess that I have not reached this stage. I still feel afraid when I actually see these creatures come near me. If we have no fear at all, I do not think they will harm us.
(I might mention here an incident related to me by one of Gandhiji’s followers. At evening prayer one day at his Ashram, a cobra came through the dusk and crawled right on to Mr. Gandhi, raising its head in front of him. His followers were going to catch it, but he signed to them to be still. He remained motionless himself and the reptile slid over his knees and went back into the garden.) The Mahatma, still on the subject of our relation to the animal world, continued:

I met an Englishman once. He was a veterinary surgeon and had a wonderful way with animals. We were visiting a house together, and suddenly a gigantic brute of a dog rushed towards us, fierce as a lion, and raised himself up almost to the height of a man as he flung himself at us. I was petrified with fear, but this Englishman went forward to meet it as it charged, and embraced it without a trace of fear. Its anger evaporated at once and it began wagging its tail. It impressed me very much. That is the true way of meeting animals by non-resistance.

“But do you not think a man’s life is worth more than an animal’s? Take yourself now. You are the leader of a great movement which you believe to be for the good of your country. Supposing you were confronted by a crocodile and you could only escape by injuring it, would you not think your duty and responsibility as a leader were more important than the life of that reptile?”

No, I should say--or at least I ought to say--o this crocodile, “Your need is greater than mine”, and let it devour me. You see, our life does not finish with the death of the body. God knows all about it. We none of us know what will happen next. If I escaped the crocodile, I could not escape the flash of lightning that might come next minute.

“But surely,” I urged, “ a man’s soul is different from that of a crocodile¾ if it has one at all. You remember what Chesterton says about it, ‘when a man is taking his sixth whiskey and soda, and is beginning to lose control over himself, you come up to him and give him a friendly tap on the shoulder and say, ‘Be a man’. But when the crocodile is finishing his sixth missionary, you do not step up to it and tap it on the back and say. ‘Be a crocodile’. Doesn’t this show a man has an ideal in him to strive after in a way no animal has?” The Mahatma laughed and said:

True, there is a difference between the souls of men and of animals. Animals live in a sort of perpetual trance; but man can wake up and become conscious of God. God says, as it were, to man, “Look up and worship Me; you are made in My image.”

“And the souls of animals, where do they come from?” I queried. “Do you think
the soul of a man can become the soul of an animal?”

Yes, I think all these horrible and evil creatures are inhabited by the souls of men who have gone wrong--snakish men, greedy, unmerciful crocodile men, and so on.

“But look at the infinite number of animals, the countless millions upon millions of insects, to mention only one group of the animal kingdom; are they all souls¾the mosquitos, the sandflies, the microbe?”

Who are we, to set a limit to God’s sphere of action? Are there not countless other suns and planets in this universe?

It was time for me to go, for I had another appointment, so at this point I rose to take my leave. I went to the edge of the little carpet on the verandah where we had been sitting and began to put on my shoes (for I had removed them, eastern fashion, being in a manner his guest). As I lifted one shoe, I saw a spider in it. “See,” I said to him, laughing, as I shook out the loathsome thing, and resisting the impulse to crush it, let it run away. “Look; it has been sent to me as a temptation, to try if I have profited by your sermon.” He laughed—he has an infectious and hearty laugh—and said:

Yes, a spider may be a great matter. Don’t you remember the story of Mohammed and the spider?

I confessed my ignorance, wondering vaguely if he had got the story muddled up with Robert Bruce.

Yes, one day Mohammed was fleeing from his enemies in great danger. In desperation he turned into a sort of cave in the rock. A few hours afterwards the pursuers came along. “Ah,” said one,“let’s look in here; this is a likely place.” “No” replied the other, “he couldn’t be in here, for, see, there is a spider’s web across the entrance.” Not realizing how recently it had been spun, they passed on, and so Mohammed escaped by the help of the spider and the will of Allah.3

The Hindu, 15-8-1922

1 The interview must have taken place before Gandhiji was tried and sentenced
on March 18; vide “The Great Trial” 18-3-1922.

2 Here Gandhiji waved his hand as though putting something away from him.

3The following are the concluding remarks of the reporter:
While he had been telling this, his friend and fellow-prisoner, Mr. Banker,
had brought him his charkha or spinning-wheel. As I bade good-bye to the Mahatma,
he was just settling down to the daily duty, shared by all his followers (in theory if
not in practice), of spinning or weaving a certain amount each day.
As I reached the end of the verandah, I turned for a last look. There was this
unassuming-looking little man, dressed with less ceremony than the meanest coollie,
squatting cross-legged in front of his charkha, spinning away as contentedly as
Mohammed’s spider. Was he, I wondered, spinning a web that was to save the Indian
peasant from the menace of an industrial system, untinged with even a veneer of
Christian ethics; or was he himself caught in the centre of a vast web of illusions,
spun from his own extraordinary brain, into which he had drawn hundreds and
thousands of his ignorant and emotional countrymen?

--------------CWMG Vol 26 Article 166 Pg 371--------------------------------------------

Application of Satyagraha

It is a force that may be used by individuals as well as by communities. It may be used as well in political as in domestic affairs. Its universal applicability is a demonstration of its permanence and invincibility. It can be used alike by men, women and children.It is totally untrue to say that it is a force to be used only by the weak so long as they are not capable of meeting violence by violence....

This force is to violence and, therefore, to all tyranny, all injustice, what light is to darkness. In politics, its use is based upon the immutable maxim that government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed. (Young India, 3-11-1927, 369)

Daily Mission of a Satyagrahi

This is just an extract I produce from the Satyagraha Leaflet no. 14 released on 4 - 5 - 1919 in my own edited version.
----------------------------------
Let, then, our first act every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:
1] I shall not fear any one on earth.
2] I shall fear God only.
3] I shall not bear ill-will towards any one.
4] I shall not submit to injustice from any one.
5] I shall conquer untruth by truth and in resisting untruth I shall put up with all suffering
----------------------------------

Prize Winning Essay - The Ethics of Passive Resistance

During the days of the Transvaal campaign, Indian Opinion invited [entries for a prize] essay on the ethics of passive resistance. They had offered a prize of £10 for it. There were only four competitors—two whites and two Indians. The decision as to who among them deserved the prize was left to Mr. Doke. He did not know the names [of the competitors] when he read the essays. He decided in favour of Mr. Maurice. Accordingly, a sum of £10 has been sent to him.

I present the essay below, it is a a must read.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE ETHICS OF PASSIVE RESISTANCE
PRIZE ESSAY
M. S. Maurice
I

Nineteen centuries ago one of the greatest moralists of the world laid down his life in passive resistance to constituted authority in what was then a great centre of spiritual activity. The ground for the resistance was unquestionably valid, as it has continued down to this day a memorable and living example of loyal submission to human law, where such submission was not in direct conflict with the higher law of conscience. The resistance had reference to an injunction that a living faith in a superhuman or divine power was to be abjured, and a claim to spiritual kingship over a certain race of people was to be renounced in favour of the temporal power then existing. “We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a King.” To Pilate’s question, after asking him whether he put the question of himself, Jesus said: “My Kingdom is not of this world: if My Kingdom were of this world then would My servants fight.” His death on the cross has ever been a unique episode in the world’s history—a magnificent example of what disobedience to the law really meant. There was no question as to the doubtful character of the authority which sought to enforce the decree of death by crucifixion. The illegal nature of the punishment was not in itself a matter of dispute. It was harsh; it was unjust; it was rigorous in the extreme; it was wholly unmerited. But he who found himself placed in subjection to the law as it then operated, and to the authority which asserted itself in carrying out that law, deemed it within his right, in obedience to his conscience, to resist both, but in a passive manner: there was no idea of resisting it by force. A combination of his servants and followers against the law would have been a direct condemnation of his faith. A concerted action to enforce his claim by physical means would have been derogatory to his moral character and to his high mission. And so the man who had the most powerful force behind him, by virtue of his transcendent moral sway—a force irresistible in its inherent strength, and overwhelming in its ultimate result, if put into effect—preferred to resist the law by submitting to the dread decree pronounced against him for breaking the laws’ (to him) unlawful demand.

During the same epoch of Christian history, and but a few months after the consummation of Christ, a holy man met martyrdom at the hands of his adversaries.
His offence was “speaking blasphemous words against Moses and against God”. He, however, proved a passive resister. His detractors proceeded to open violence. He was dragged out of the city and stoned to death. Upon the removal of Stephen a general persecution was raised against the Church people at Jerusalem. Men and women were haled and committed to prison. Thus passive resistance obtained Divine sanction, and men had recourse to it as the only effective weapon against tyranny and injustice and oppression. As martyrdom was a penalty of self-consciousness, born of the deepest convictions in religious life, so in civil life those whose minds and whose consciences revolt against oppressive laws, against laws which seek to take away the best of manhood and to degrade humanity, adopt passive resistance as the most effectual salve to their outraged consciences

II
What kind of Society is it which, at this period, has for its base, in equality and injustice? The hell of the poor makes the paradise of the rich. Not only has happiness not come, but honour has fled.

We should be sorry to think with Victor Hugo that this is so. And yet Tolstoy and Hugo shine as two of the greatest minds which have probed into the deeps of humanity in our time. Thoreau, one of the greatest of American moralists, the author of The Duty of Civil Disobedience, was a martyr to his principles—principles dictated by the highest sense of duty to the State, as well as obedience to conscience. Human convictions may be right or wrong, but there is always a limit to human endurance in the fulfilment of human law. No man today will pretend to deny to a modern Japanese the highest form of personal courage and the severest form of moral rectitude. They have been apparent to us of late years in many ways. To us his “Bushido” may seem a blind fetish, but its true meaning, its deep significance, is understood and appreciated by the deepest thinkers of our day. They know it touches the deep chords of humanity. When we have grasped the true moral side of Japanese ethics, and realize to ourselves what a changed being a cultured Japanese has become under the law of evolution, it will be easy for us to understand why at moments of great trial when the spirit of patriotism and family relationship is in the ascendant— he passively resists the admonitions of the inner monitor, refuses to save his life, and creates for himself a moral injunction as it were for physical extinction so as to reach up to a spiritual life of national redemption and regeneration.

Passive resistance as a political weapon and a moral action has, therefore, the fullest possible justification behind it. To offer physical force against recognized authority which seeks to enforce any law, good or bad, would be morally wrong. When you however resist the law, not actively but passively, you thereby imply that what is good and just law to some may be bad to others. While human institutions continue, imperfect men of strong conscience and rational ideas will adopt this mode of expressing their protest against iniquitous ordinances.

Under any form of government power is relegated to a group of men to judge in righteousness and to rule with equity and justice. It does not follow that, because men are called to power and are invested with authority to enact laws, they must be considered immaculate or infallible. Too often the best men—the most humane, the most just, the most practical, the most considerate—remain subjects, and do not become rulers or framers of laws for their fellow-men. Similarly, too often those who attain to power are inconsiderate, tyrannical, unjust. If proof were needed, it will be found ready to hand from almost every country and from every age. To take a recent case in point from a nation in the front rank, I would cite the passive resistance offered by a large section of highly educated people in England against the last Education Act. Here we have a form of government which has undergone a purifying process during centuries of civilization—a government which, by common admission, has reached almost the highest limit of advanced democracy, in which power is attained by a just and equitable process—by sheer force of intellect and reason—a government which bears on the face of it every element of moral right and expediency. Yet we see a law promulgated apparently in the best interests of the whole community, but which proves in its operation, directly antagonistic to, and unacceptable by a large, intelligent and otherwise obedient section of that community. Numerous laws are in operation to which it gives willing and unquestioned obedience, but, owing to reasons which have swayed humanity in all ages, it finds that its conscience revolts against the new measure. The new enactment caused a serious conflict in their minds: it warred against their sense of right. It therefore simply declined to do the law’s bidding and accepted the consequent penalties.

Laws are said to be made for the safety, the security and the protection of the interests of the people: they are not made to chastise and oppress. They must be guided by reason, necessity, expediency in the interests of all. They must injure none: they must not remorselessly override the domain of reason and conscience. They must act with justice and circumspection. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” does not mean that men should resign themselves body and soul to the law, at the law’s bidding. Three times within my knowledge has a high-minded, law-abiding and intelligent citizen met the laws’ injunctions by paying the required fine instead of complying with the law which demanded that he should have his child vaccinated. On moral grounds he was right not to set aside his conscientious scruples. To salve his conscience he became a passive resister. In the words of Thoreau, this man was a man first and a subject afterwards. He obeyed the law of conscience before blindly complying with the alternative of man-made law. “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”

III

Passive resistance is indeed an extreme course with an honest man; he is generally driven to that course by the stress of physical power, and hence his action is not unjustifiable on moral grounds. If passive resistance on the part of a minority in a state becomes an imperative necessity, then the majority cannot continue strong for long; it is bound to weaken and become effete as to its action in the matter of enforcing its power or its authority against that minority. And passive resistance of subjects, who are not even legal units of a lawful or legally constituted Government, has all the more reason for its action, in a given case, since such a Government cannot justly impose burdens or restrictions on units which had no voice in its creation. Such imposition of burdens on one particular section of a community would be tyrannical, and must ultimately tend to endanger the political fabric of that community. The very raison d’etre of the Government would, in these circumstances, become open to question.

There is so much force in what Thoreau has written on the ethics of passive resistance that I make no apology for introducing here some of the relevant passages bearing on the subject of civil disobedience.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavour to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, (United States) think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have [by] them?

Action from principle, the perception and performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families: ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.

Speaking of the inconsistent side of the aggregate intelligence placed in authority and power, he says:

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, not because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a Government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.
Again:
I think that it is enough if they have God on their side without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbours constitutes a majority of one already. . . Under a government which imprisons any unjustly the true place for a just man is also prison.

Modern conditions have altered the whole face of State administration. The voting system under a party government often, however, places an illiberal group of men in place and power. To meet conditions of this kind, Thoreau exhorts all honest men in this wise:

Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.

IV

Upwards of four centuries before the advent of Christ, Socrates, of’ Greece, was reputed to be the wisest moralist of his age. His unflinching integrity made him many enemies. The State, or rather those in power in the State, accused him of corrupting the Athenian youth and of despising the national gods. He was indicted in a regular manner. His chief offence consisted in his heeding the divine voice or inward monitor, which people in those times did not comprehend as clearly as he did. He declared that his demon rebuked him for misconduct, and commended him for every good word and work. He was in advance of his times. And for his originality, integrity and wisdom be was condemned to death. When one of his disciples exclaimed “How shameful to condemn a man so innocent!” Socrates asked if his friends would think it less shameful if he were guilty. Here was a man who, abandoning all speculations as regards the material world, fearlessly taught “that the proper study of mankind was man”, was derided, reviled and then condemned to undergo the extreme penalty of the law. The law of conscience was accounted nothing in those days as it is still considered of little account in reference to human laws and administrative enactments, under our present forms of civilized government. The Delphic Oracle pronounced Socrates the wisest of men. To this he made a characteristic declaration: “Whereas other men thought they knew something, he alone had attained to this element of true knowledge, he knew that he knew nothing.”

Passive resistance is emphatically submission to physical force under protest. “Resist not evil,” said Jesus of Nazareth, and Socrates, by drinking the poison, refrained from resisting what he had adjudged in his own mind as evil. How far this consorts with the philosophy of Plato, another brilliant heathen sage, will be apparent from the following prophetic picture of the Man of Sorrows whom the western world has defined:
A man perfectly good, virtuous and just; not one who wishes to appear so before his fellows, but one who is really and sincerely so. We strip him of his good name . . . deprive him of everything except his intrinsic goodness. Without doing wrong, we will suppose him to be accounted an evil doer, that his virtue may be tried so as by fire. . . . Neither infamy nor ill usage, neither poverty nor distress, neither the malignity of persecution nor the pain of cruel torture can make him swerve from the path of duty. Death stares him in the face, but he remains unshaken; branded as a sinner, he is still a saint . . . . To complete the picture, we will suppose this godly man to be beaten with bats, scourged with whips, put to the torture, laden with chains, nailed to a cross, numbered with transgressors, and yet without sin.

Plato wrote thus, three centuries before the advent of Christ. His further definition of a modern passive resister is almost inspired:
A bad man is wretched amidst every earthly advantage; a good man—troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.

Most men of our day account Count Tolstoy a paradox. By common admission, however, he is a great thinker, if not quite a seer. He has certainly probed into the deeps of humanity. He has laid bare many of the human follies and foibles. Upon war as upon capital punishment, he looks with the deepest horror. An extremist he may be, yet he is a realist—a rationalist. Passive resistance is almost a fetish with him.

We can suffer, we might not break the law. Men do far more harm and inflict far more injury on one another by attempting to prevent evil by violence than if they endured evil patiently. Besides, have you ever considered that it is only by suffering pain, torture, misery and death that you are able to convert men? Do you think Christianity made its way in the world by preaching? Bah! No such thing. No one was ever converted by preaching. What converts men is not preaching but martyrdom. It is only when men see other men—weak, sensitive, comfort-loving men like themselves—taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods, rejoicing in persecution, and going gladly to death for their faith, that they begin to believe there is something in it. No one ever believes in the truth of anything till he sees that someone is willing to die for it. The prison, the stake, the gallows—these are the great arguments which convince men. And if you refuse to submit to these punishments, you destroy your only chance of converting men to your faith.
Count Tolstoy explicitly lays it down that all punishments are in their nature persecution.

If you say a man is a trouble and a nuisance to his neighbours, remember that the best of men have been so regarded. Do you think that Christ was not considered as a great nuisance and a trouble by his brothers? The household went on quietly until he began to make a stir.

Tolstoy and Thoreau appear to agree in the matter of civil disobedience: they seem to be at one in regard to the claim of conscience on the individual soul. Yet far be it from me to claim human perfection for either of them: they are merely men of advanced thought in the domain of reason; their intellectual pre-eminence claims respect from us for their ideas. Tolstoy holds peculiar views with regard to Christianity. There is much in them which we may discard as inconsistent with his own writings. Still we must admit that there is wisdom in most things he has said.Christianity to him is a broad humanitarianism: Christ a supreme Rationalist; he subordinated everything to the inner light “the light that is in you” that is, the light of reason. This is the deduction upon which all philosophers and moralists base their passive resistance to constituted authority—the conflict of reason with the surrender of conscience.

I think I have now made it clear that passive resistance, as an honourable weapon in extremis to those who are subject to physical force, has high, if not divine, sanction for its exercise. Its ethics in governments and communities of men are plain and unmistakable. I have referred to Socrates and Plato, to Christ and to modern morality. Going further back to antiquity we find Confucius indicating in his moral code the dividing line between active disobedience and passive resistance in simple and homely words:

At first my way with men was to hear their words and give them credit for their conduct. Now my way is to hear their words and look at their conduct.
. . . To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.

I will conclude in the words of Macaulay, so eloquent and so pregnant with meaning:
The sceptre may pass away from us. Unforeseen accidents may derange our most profound schemes of policy. Victory may be inconstant to our arms. But there are triumphs which are followed by no reverse. There is an empire exempt from all natural causes of decay. Those triumphs are the pacific triumphs of reason over barbarism; that empire is the imperishable empire of our arts and our morals, our literature and our laws. . . But let not us, mistaking her character and her interests, fight the battle of truth with the weapons of error and endeavour to support by oppression that religion which first taught the human race the great lesson of universal charity.

Indian Opinion, 18-4-1908

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Women

Mahatma Gandhi was raising funds for non co-operation movement and it was his practice to give seperate speeches for women, students and the general public. In the article below he gives tribute to women, after he saw the amount of funds donated in the form of jewellary. It shows the trust the people had in him for the purpose of Swarajya.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

16. TO WOMEN
I started begging for money at Dakor and, fortunately, I made a beginning with women.1 Among them, the sister who first gave me a piece of jewellery made a living by grinding flour for others. When she took off her earring and handed it over to me, that same moment I was convinced that India’s women had understood the holy nature of peaceful non-co-operation. The experiences which followed were marvellous indeed. Girls in Ahmedabad parted with their bangles, rings and chains. In Poona, they literally showered jewellery on me. There were similar scenes in Belgaum, Dharwar and Hubli. Muslim women in Delhi, from behind their purdah, gave jewellery, currency notes and cash.

When the women in the country have woken up, who can hinder swaraj? Dharma has always been preserved through women. Nations have won their independence because women had brave men for sons. By preserving purity of character, they have kept dharma alive. There have been women who sacrificed their all and saved the people. When women, who have done all this, have become alive to the suffering of the country, how long can that suffering last?

The women among whom I see this awakening cannot be described as educated, but they have understanding. They fully understand the obligations of dharma. What the educated classes take a long time to see, the women, with their gift of intuition, have understood at a mere hint. They have not taken long to realize that swaraj means Ramarajya.

Everything has been put clearly before them. The nature of the [country’s] suffering has been explained. They have also been toldthat the remedy for this suffering is non-co-operation, and also what non-co-operation means. They have realized their duty in helping to preserve Hindu-Muslim unity, while everyone understands and remains faithful to her own religion. If women keep up what they have so wisely begun, I am sure we can provide education for the whole country with the help of the jewellery which they can spare. The women who have offered their
ornaments have done so on the understanding that they will not ask them to be replaced before we have got swaraj, but will do without them. Thus, with a little sacrifice of jewellery on women’s part, we can arrange for the country’s education and promote swadeshi. I hope, therefore, that they will continue the great yajna1 which commenced at Dakor and that the husbands or other relatives will not restrain any of them in this sacred effort.
[From Gujarati]
Navajivan, 28-11-1920

1 A centre of pilgrimage in Gujarat. The reference is to Gandhiji’s visit to it; vide “Speech at women’s meeting, Dakor”, 27-10-1920

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CWMG Vol 22.

'The Theory And Practice Of Passive Resistance'

From the “Golden Number” of the journal "Indian Opinion", dealing with the Indian struggle in South Africa, which was released on December 1, 1914.

"Without Passive Resistance, there would have been no richly illustrated and important special issue of Indian Opinion, which has, for the last eleven years, in an unpretentious and humble manner, endeavoured to serve my countrymen and South Africa, a period covering the most critical stage that they will, perhaps, ever have to pass through. It marks the rise and growth of Passive Resistance, which has attracted world-wide attention. The term does not fit the activity of the Indian community during the past eight years. Its equivalent in the vernacular rendered into English, means Truth-Force. I think Tolstoy called it also Soul-Force or Love-Force, and so it is. Carried out to its utmost limit, this force is independent of pecuniary or other material assistance; certainly, even in its elementary form, of physical force or violence. Indeed, violence is the negation of this great spiritual force, which can only be cultivated or wielded by those who will entirely eschew violence. It is a force that may be used by individuals as well as by communities. It may be used as well in political as in domestic affairs. Its universal applicability is a demonstration of its permanence and invincibility. It can be used alike by men, women, and children. It is totally untrue to say that it is a force to be used only by the weak so long as they are not capable of meeting violence by violence. This superstition arises from the incompleteness of the English expression. It is impossible for those who consider themselves to be weak to apply this force. Only those who realise that there is something in man which is superior to the brute nature in him, and that the latter always yields to it, can effectively be Passive Resisters. This force is to violence and, therefore, to all tyranny, all injustice, what light is to darkness. In politics, its use is based upon the immutable maxim that government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed. We did not want to be governed by the Asiatic Act of 1907 of the Transvaal, and it had to go before this mighty force. Two courses were open to us—to use violence when we were called upon to submit to the Act, or to suffer the penalties prescribed under the Act, and thus to draw out and exhibit the force of the soul within us for a period long enough to appeal to the sympathetic chord in the governors or the law-makers. We have taken long to achieve what we set about striving for. That was because our Passive Resistance was not of the most complete type. All Passive Resisters do not understand the full value of the force, nor have we men who always from conviction refrain from violence. The use of this force requires the adoption of poverty, in the sense that we must be indifferent whether we have the wherewithal to feed or clothe ourselves. During the past struggle, all Passive Resisters, if any at all, were not prepared to go that length. Some again were only Passive Resisters so-called. They came without any conviction, often with mixed motives, less often with impure motives. Some even, whilst engaged in the struggle, would gladly have resorted to violence but for most vigilant supervision. Thus it was that the struggle became prolonged; for the exercise of the purest soul-force, in its perfect form, brings about instantaneous relief. For this exercise, prolonged training of the individual soul is an absolute necessity, so that a perfect Passive Resister has to be almost, if not entirely, a perfect man. We cannot all suddenly become such men, but, if my proposition is correct—as I know it to be correct—the greater the spirit of Passive Resistance in us, the better men we will become. Its use, therefore, is, I think; indisputable, and it is a force which, if it became universal, would revolutionise social ideals and do away with despotisms and the ever-growing militarism under which the nations of the West are groaning and are being almost crushed to death, and which fairly promises to overwhelm even the nations of the East. If the past struggle has produced even a few Indians who would dedicate themselves to the task of becoming Passive Resisters as nearly perfect as possible, they would not only have served themselves in the truest sense of the term, they would also have served humanity at large. Thus viewed, Passive Resistance is the noblest and the best education. It should come, not after the ordinary education in letters of children, but it should precede it. It will not be denied that a child, before it begins to write its alphabet and to gain worldly knowledge, should know what the soul is, what truth is, what love is, what powers are latent in the soul. It should be an essential of real education that a child should learn that, in the struggle of life, it can easily conquer hate by love, untruth by truth, violence by self-suffering. It was because I felt the force of this truth, that, during the latter part of the struggle, I endeavoured, as much as I could, to train the children at Tolstoy Farm and then at Phoenix along these lines, and one of the reasons for my departure to India is still further to realise, as I already do in part, my own imperfection as a Passive Resister, and then to try to perfect myself, for I believe that it is in India that the nearest approach to perfection is most possible."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CWMG Vol 14.

Ethical Religion

"Ethical Religion" by Mahatma Gandhi.

This book comprises of a series of articles by the Mahatma which were published in 'Indian Opinion' every week from 05-01-1907.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTRODUCTION.

Hypocrisy has nowadays increased in the world. Whatever a man's religion, he thinks of only its outward form and fails in his real duty. In our crazy pursuit of wealth, we seldom think of the harm we cause, or are likely to cause, to others. Women in Europe do not hesitate in the least to wear soft [kid] gloves even though these are made by killing young and tender animals. It is known the world over how Mr. Rockefeller, said to be the richest man in the world, violated many rules of morality in amassing his fortune. It is because such conditions prevail around them that many people in Europe and America have turned against religion. They argue that, if any religion worth the name existed in the world, the inordinate wickedness that is rampant all round would not be there. This is a mistaken view. As it is common for a workman to quarrel with his tools and not try to look for his own faults, so instead of thinking of the wickedness in themselves, men brand religion itself as humbug and go on acting and living as they please.

Observing this trend and fearing that, if all religions are destroyed, a great calamity may befall the world and people may forsake the moral path altogether, many Americans and European have come forward to try, in a variety of ways, to bring the people back to that path.

A Society (The Society for Ethical Culture, Chicago) has been founded which has shown, after an investigation of all religions, that not only do all of them teach morality but they are based for the most part on ethical principles; that it is one's duty to obey the laws of ethics whether or not one professes a religion; and that men who would not obey them could do no good either to themselves or to others, in this world or the next. The object of these societies is to influence those who have been led to look down upon all religions because of the prevailing hypocrisy. They find out the fundamentals of all religions, discuss and write about the ethical principles common to them and live up to them. This creed they call Ethical Religion. It is not among the aim of these societies to criticize any religion. Men professing all religions can, and do, join these societies. The advantage of such societies is that members adhere to their own faith more strictly and pay greater attention to its moral teaching. They firmly believe that man ought to abide by the laws of morality and that if he does not, it will mean an end to all order in the world and ultimate destruction.

Mr. Salter, a learned American, has published a book on the subject, which is excellent. Though is does not deal with any religion as such, it contains teachings of universal application. We shall publish the substance of these teachings every week. All that needs to be said about the author is that he practices whatever he advises others to do. We would only appeal to the reader to try to live up to those moral precepts that appeal to him. Then only may we regard our efforts as having been fruitful.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The book can be found online at http://www.mkgandhi.org/ethical/ethical_religion.htm

The articles can be found in CWMG Vol 006.