January 2, 1916

You have laid me under a heavy debt by inviting me to attend this function and declare open the Arya Samaj temple and I am thankful likewise to the Samaj and to the people of Surat for asking me to preside over this celebration. Let me tell you at the outset that I am not an Aryasamajist, as members of the Samaj, and others as well, know. At the same time, I ought to say that I bear no ill-will to the Samaj either. I am not a member of this body just as I am not a member of any other body. There are numerous other bodies like the Arya Samaj in India and they all do their best by way of service, but I have especial respect for the Samaj. I have developed good relations with Munshiramji of the Gurukul at Hardwar. My sons and other friends of mine had occasion to stay in that Gurukul¹ and it is not easy to forget the love which prompted all that was done for them. The whole of India knows its work as much as I do. Swami Dayanand, the adored founder of the Samaj, was a rare man and I must acknowledge that I have come under his influence. I have had occasion to talk about the Arya Samaj at many places. In my opinion, the Samaj could do very useful work if some change was brought about in it. What needs to be changed is this—that some of the spokesmen of the Samaj seem to be only too ready to enter into violent controversy to gain their end. They could, however, achieve their purpose without recourse to controversy. I discussed this matter in Hardwar and mention it again here today. The service that the Arya Samaj renders is not different from that of the Hindu religion. If one examines different bodies like the Brahmo Samaj², the Sikh Samaj, etc., one sees that all of them express the truths of the Hindu religion. Only the names differ. Just as individual persons are mentioned by name for the purpose of a census, so are the various sects listed with some public good in view. If you examine the basic principles of all the sects, they will be found to differ in no way from those of the Hindu religion. The trend of the discussions at present going on shows unmistakably that a time will certainly come when all the sects of Hindus will be included under the single term “Hinduism”. There are different religious groups in India like Hindus, Parsis, Muslims and so on, but for purposes of national work they all get united. This will show that the spirit of religion is active in all. Let it be remembered that without this spirit, no great task was ever ventured upon or ever will be. I shall now make a few observations which I feel like making on this occasion. They will serve my own purpose and will also help me to discharge my duty. I have been given half an hour now and one hour in the evening, a total of one and a half hours, for speaking, but it is beyond me to speak so long and see that you digest all that I say. I like to have the shortest possible time for a speech and I have had good experience in the matter. I have been at a good many places during the last 30 years and I have noticed that where there is much speaking, there is little work. This charge has long been made against the whole of India. It is made by Europeans, that is, by people from the West. We deserve it. It has been remarked even at a session of the Congress that we are fed only on speeches and discourses. When shall we break free of this? We are very much at fault on this count and find ourselves in a miserable plight in consequence. As you know, there is much hunger in India, and it has always been hunger for spiritual food. If, on occasions of such celebrations, the day is spent merely in listening to speeches for seven or eight hours, when can we have time for work? If we had spent as much of our lives in work as we have in listening to speeches, how much could have been accomplished in India by now? If we had spent in doing sums in arithmetic all the time we wasted on speeches, I think India would be now on the threshold of swaraj. We shall never get swaraj by listening to speeches and discourses, sitting in pandals like this. It is to be had only through sacrifice of self and by making ourselves worthy of it. I brought up this matter for discussion in the Congress session, at Hardwar and wherever else I went and, having got his opportunity today, place it before you. Whenever I have occasion to speak, I have my say in brief and I shall continue to follow that practice. I appeal to the speakers [today] to proceed apace likewise. We arrange programmes of as many as seven hours of speeches at these gatherings. If the men who have assembled here were given a hoe and a shovel each and made to work at digging the land here for that number of hours, and the land were sown, we should certainly have a good crop next year. If I could take the leading workers of the Arya Samaj round the town and make them clean up the dirty spots, they would certainly earn the gratitude of the people of Surat. We see that the people of the West are more keen on work than on speeches. If at all you want to imitate them, imitate them in their good qualities. You will learn much therefrom. If, instead, you adopt foreign ways from them, you will invite your undoing. If we could reduce the programme of speeches today from seven to four hours and give the three hours thus saved to doing something useful, the time would be better spent. If merely listening to speeches could accomplish anything or cure our ailments, why, they arrange reading from the Bhagavat at so many places and these draw large audiences, but we shall find on several of these occasions that quite a few in the audience are dozing. If we could get everything by submitting to speeches, we need do nothing else. Only let the Brahmins go on with their readings from holy books and Puranas and our salvation would be assured. Indians, thus, enjoy speaking and hearing others speak and paying compliments to themselves. They go to extremes in these matters. If, instead, we were to hold our tongues, there is much we could learn. Speaking hinders reflection. If, on the other hand, you do something, be what it may, that will lead to a discussion and the people will be enabled to draw some lesson from it. I would, therefore, entreat you to employ every available minute in doing your duty. A great saint has said that, if at any time too many ideas rush into one’s mind, one should not lose one’s judgement. One should not act upon them immediately. One should sleep over them for a night and examine them with oneself from every point of view so as to cast out such of them as are of no value, discuss the rest with one’s wife, exchange views with her and cut out those which are found unsound. The idea that remains at the end, if one feels with all one’s soul that it is true, one may act upon it and place it before the world undeterred by any attacks that may follow. Only an idea that is held with such conviction can be translated into action, and no time will be wasted in consequence. I respectfully submit that it is very necessary to take full thought before embarking upon any course of action. It will be impudence on my part to tell you what ought to be done. By my saying so, moreover, the thing will not be done. What I have told you today is but my own experience and I would humbly request you, therefore, to accept from it only what may appeal to you as right. Rather than imitate the West, it would be far more profitable to us to reject everything that they offer us. If only you consider, they don’t have speeches in Europe as we have, for they get no time to listen to any. In order to make the progress that they are making, there are certain rights we must demand and secure from the Government. For that purpose, we must get ready for a struggle. I know that the honour people give me these days is because of the fight I gave to the Government for securing our rights and because of the suffering I went through in doing so. We have to deserve such rights. May you, therefore, read and think and learn from others in order to make yourselves so worthy and be fit to give a fight to the Government along the path of truth! If the workers of this Samaj take the lead in doing this duty, that would be more profitable. With these words, I request your permission to resume my seat.

Replying to some observations of the speakers who followed him, Gandhiji said:

It is not enough that today, acting upon a hint from me, you did not indulge in long speeches to make things easy for me. It will make me happier to know that you will never do so. Pandit Ramchandraji put me an important question in the course of his speech. He asked me to say how the work of the Arya Samaj could be made more useful and popular. It is not only here that the question has come up. It was also discussed when I was at Hardwar. I have no time just now to answer it. I shall argue with Panditshri about it if he visits me at Ahmedabad. It will also be necessary to take into account the views of those who have different ideas on the subject. I was asked by my guru, the late Mr. Gokhale, not to get involved in such controversies and hence I avoid them. This is not a controversy, however, with people not one’s own. I look upon members of this Samaj as my friends and I owe it to them to offer my advice. I have been tested on the anvil and have stood the test; it is my duty, therefore, to share my experience with my friends. We must strive every day for India’s progress.³

In reply to one Balkrishna who argued against Gandhiji’s advice to refrain from controversies, he said:

Following the advice of my guru, Mr. Gokhale, I do not enter into argument with anyone. With the new year, I must remind myself of this and, since the issue has come up, I shall say that it is a very delicate one and the question cannot therefore be answered without some discussion. I am not partial to anyone. If I feel that I can serve India better by becoming a member of the Samaj, I will become one and when I feel that way, I shall immediately say so in public. At the moment, I cannot give any reply to Mr. Balkrishna. However, if he comes to Ahmedabad any time, I shall discuss the matter with him and satisfy him.⁴
[From Gujarati]
Gujarat Mitra ane Gujarat Darpan, 9-1-1916 and Gujarati, 9-1-1916

February 14, 1916

It was not without much 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 words 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 surroundings. 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 time, so may we not abandon swadeshi even though it may not be fully attained for generations to come.

Let us briefly examine 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, 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 but 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 I 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 the “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, has 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 do. 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 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 too 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 is it 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 treasure 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 (England) 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 a religious principle to be allowed 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 vortex 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 handloom 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, 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 will foreswear 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 interference in any department of life. At best, it is the lesser evil. But I would tolerate, welcome, indeed plead for, 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 swadeshi will learn to do without hundreds of things which to-day 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 civilized code of morality. With them, to practise Swadeshi is to revert to barbarism. I cannot enter into a detailed analysis of the proposition. 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 would 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 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 laedas⁶ 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”.
The Hindu, 28-2-1916

February 16, 1916

MR. CHAIRMAN AND DEAR FRIENDS,

I have so often said that I am not myself fond of hearing my own voice and I assure you that this morning also I retained the same position. It was only, if you will believe me, my great regard for the students, whom I love, whom I respect and who I consider are the hope of future India that moved me to accept this invitation to speak to you this morning. I did not know what subject to choose. A friend has handed me a slip here asking me whether I would enlighten the students on the Benares incident. (“Hear, hear”.) I fear I shall have to disappoint that friend and those of you who associate yourselves with that view. I don’t think that you need lay any stress upon that incident. These are the passing waves which will also come and go. I should therefore this morning fear rather if I can possibly do so and pour my soul out to you with reference to something which I treasure so much above everything else.⁸

To many of the students who came here last year to converse with me, I said⁹ I was about to establish an institution—an Ashram—somewhere in India, and it is about that place that I am going to talk to you this morning. I feel and I have felt during the whole of my public life that what we need, what any nation needs, but we perhaps of all the nations of the world need just now, is nothing else and nothing less than character-building. And this is the view propounded by that great patriot, Mr. Gokhale. (Cheers.) As you know, in many of his speeches, he used to say that we would get nothing, we would deserve nothing unless we had character to back what we wished for. Hence his founding of that great body, the Servants of India Society. And as you know, in the prospectus that has been issued in connection with the Society, Mr. Gokhale has deliberately stated that it was necessary to spiritualise the political life of the country. You know also that he used to say so often that our average was less than the average of so many European nations. I do not know whether that statement by him, whom, with pride, I consider to be my political guru, has really foundation in fact, but I do believe that there is much to be said to justify it in so far as educated India is concerned; not because we, the educated portion of the community, have blundered, but because we have been creatures of circumstances. Be that as it may, this is the maxim of life which I have accepted, namely, that no work done by any man, no matter how great he is, will really prosper unless he¹⁰ has a religious backing. But what is religion? the question will be immediately asked. I, for one, would answer, not the religion which you will get after reading all the scriptures of the world; it is not really a grasp by the brain, but it is a heart-grasp. It is a thing which is not alien to us, but it is a thing which has to be evolved out of us. It is always within us, with some consciously so; with others, quite unconsciously. But it is there; and whether we wake up this religious instinct in us through outside assistance or by inward growth, no matter how it is done, it has got to be done if we want to do anything in the right manner and anything that is going to persist.

Our scriptures have laid down certain rules as maxims of life and as axioms which we have to take for granted as self-demonstrated truths. The shastras tell us that without living according to those maxims, we are incapable even of having a reasonable perception of religion. Believing in these implicitly for all these long years and having actually endeavoured to reduce to practice these injunctions of the shastras, I have deemed it necessary to seek the association of those who think with me in founding this institution. And I shall venture this morning to place before you the rules that have been drawn up and that have to be observed by everyone who seeks to be a member of that Ashram.

Five of these are known as Yamas, and the first and the foremost is, the

Not truth simply as we ordinarily understand it, that as far as possible we ought not to resort to a lie, that is to say, not truth which merely answers the saying, “Honesty is the best policy”—implying that if it is not the best policy, we may depart from it. But here Truth, as it is conceived, means that we have to rule our life by this law of Truth at any cost. And in order to satisfy the definition, I have drawn upon the celebrated illustration of the life of Prahlad¹¹. For the sake of Truth, he dared to oppose his own father, and he defended himself, not by retaliation by paying his father back in his own coin, but in defence of Truth, as he knew it, he was prepared to die without caring to return the blows that he had received from his father or from those who were charged with his father’s instructions. Not only that: he would not in any way even parry the blows. On the contrary, with a smile on his lips, he underwent the innumerable tortures to which he was subjected, with the result that at last, Truth rose triumphant, not that Prahlad suffered the tortures because he knew that some day or other in his very life-time he would be able to demonstrate the infallibility of the law of Truth. That fact was there; but if he had died in the midst of torture, he would still have adhered to Truth. That is the Truth that I would like us to follow. There was an incident I noticed yesterday. It was a trifling incident, but I think these trifling incidents are like straws which show which way the wind is blowing. The incident was this: I was talking to a friend who wanted to talk to me aside, and we were engaged in a private conversation. A third friend dropped in and he politely asked whether he was intruding. The friend to whom I was talking said: “Oh, no, there is nothing private here.” I felt taken aback a little, because, as I was taken aside, I knew that so far as this friend was concerned, the conversation was private. But he immediately, out of politeness, I would call it over-politeness, said there was no private conversation and that he (the third friend) could join. I suggest to you that this is a departure from my definition of Truth. I think that the friend should have, in the gentlest manner possible, but still openly and frankly, said: “Yes, just now, as you properly say, you would be intruding” without giving the slightest offence to the person if he was himself a gentleman—and we are bound to consider everybody to be a gentleman unless he proves to be otherwise. But I may be told that the incident, after all, proves the gentility of the nation. I think that it is over-proving the case. If we continue to say these things out of politeness, we really become a nation of hypocrites. I recall a conversation I had with an English friend. He was comparatively a stranger. He is a Principal of a College and has been in India for several years. He was comparing notes with me, and he asked me whether I would admit that we, unlike most Englishmen, would not dare to say “No” when it was “No” that we meant. And I must admit that I immediately said “Yes”. I agree with that statement. We do hesitate to say “No”, frankly and boldly, when we want to pay due regard to the sentiments of the person whom we are addressing. In this Ashram, we make it a rule that we must say “No” when we mean “No”, regardless of consequences. This, then, is the first rule. Then we come to the

Literally speaking, ahimsa means non-killing. But to me it has a world of meaning and takes me into realms much higher, infinitely higher, than the realm to which I would go, if I merely understood by ahimsa non-killing. Ahimsa really means that you may not offend anybody, you may not harbour an uncharitable thought even in connection with one who may consider himself to be your enemy. Pray notice the guarded nature of this thought; I do not say “whom you consider to be your enemy”, but “who may consider himself to be your enemy”. For one who follows the doctrine of ahimsa, there is no room for an enemy; he denies the existence of an enemy. But there are people who consider themselves to be his enemies, and he cannot help that circumstance. So, it is held that we may not harbour an evil thought even in connection with such persons. If we return blow for blow, we depart from the doctrine of ahimsa. But I go further. If we resent a friend’s action or the so-called enemy’s action, we still fall short of this doctrine. But when I say we should not resent, I do not say that we should acquiesce; but by resenting I mean wishing that some harm should be done to the enemy, or that he should be put out of the way, not even by an action of ours, but by the action of somebody else, or, say, by Divine agency. If we harbour even this thought, we depart from this doctrine of ahimsa. Those who join the Ashram have to literally accept that meaning. That does not mean that we practise that doctrine in its entirety. Far from it. It is an ideal which we have to reach, and it is an ideal to be reached even at this very moment, if we are capable of doing so. But it is not a proposition in geometry to be learnt by heart: it is not even like solving difficult problems in higher mathematics; it is infinitely more difficult than solving those problems. Many of you have burnt the midnight oil in solving those problems. If you want to follow out this doctrine, you will have to do much more than burn the midnight oil. You will have to pass many a sleepless night, and go through many a mental torture and agony before you can reach, before you can even be within measurable distance of this goal. It is the goal, and nothing less than that, you and I have to reach if we want to understand what a religious life means. I will not say much more on this doctrine than this: that a man who believes in the efficacy of this doctrine finds in the ultimate stage, when he is about to reach the goal, the whole world at his feet, not that he wants the whole world at his feet, but it must be so. If you express your love—ahimsa—in such a manner that it impresses itself indelibly upon your so-called enemy, he must return that love. Another thought which comes out if this is that, under this rule, there is no room for organised assassinations, and there is no room for murders even openly committed, and there is no room for any violence even for the sake of your country, and even for guarding the honour of precious ones that may be under your charge. After all, that would be a poor defence of honour. This doctrine of ahimsa tells us that we may guard the honour of those who are under our charge by delivering ourselves into the hands of the man who would commit the sacrilege. And that requires far greater physical and mental courage than the delivering of blows. You may have some degree of physical power—I do not say courage—and you may use that power. But after that is expended, what happens? The other man is filled with wrath and indignation, and you have made him more angry by matching your violence against his; and when he has done you to death, the rest of his violence is delivered against your charge. But if you do not retaliate, but stand your ground, between your charge and the opponent, simply receiving the blows without retaliating, what happens? I give you my promise that the whole of the violence will be expended on you, and your charge will be left unscathed. Under this plan of life, there is no conception of patriotism which justifies such wars as you witness today in Europe. Then there is the

Those who want to perform national service, or those who want to have a glimpse of the real religious life, must lead a celibate life, no matter if married or unmarried. Marriage but brings a woman closer together [sic] with the man, and they become friends in a special sense, never to be parted either in this life or in the lives that are to come. But I do not think that, in our conception of marriage, our lusts should necessarily enter. Be that as it may, this is what is placed before those who come to the Ashram. I do not deal with that at any length. Then we have the

A man who wants to control his animal passions easily does so if he control his palate. I fear this is one of the most difficult vows to follow. I am just now coming after having inspected the Victoria Hostel. I saw there, not to my dismay, though it should be to my dismay, but I am used to it now, that there are so many kitchens, not kitchens that are established in order to serve caste restrictions, but kitchens that have become necessary in order that people can have the condiments, and the exact weight of the condiments, to which they are used in the respective places from which they come. And therefore we find that for the Brahmins themselves there are different compartments and different kitchens catering for the delicate tastes of all these different groups. I suggest to you that this is simply slavery to the palate, rather than mastery over it. I may say this: Unless we take our minds off from this habit, and unless we shut our eyes to the tea shops and coffee shops and all these kitchens, and unless we are satisfied with foods that are necessary for the proper maintenance of our physical health, and unless we are prepared to rid ourselves of stimulating, heating and exciting condiments that we mix with our food, we will certainly not be able to control the over-abundant, unnecessary, exciting stimulation that we may have. If we do not do that, the result naturally is, that we abuse ourselves and we abuse even the sacred trust given to us, and we become less than animals and brutes. Eating, drinking and indulging passions we share in common with the animals, but have you ever seen a horse or a cow indulging in the abuse of the palate as we do? Do you suppose that it is a sign of civilization, a sign of real life that we should multiply our eatables so far that we do not even know where we are; and seek dish after dish until at last we have become absolutely mad and run after the newspaper sheets which give us advertisements about these dishes? Then we have the

I suggest that we are thieves in a way. If I take anything that I do not need for my own immediate use, and keep it, I thieve it from somebody else. I venture to suggest that it is the fundamental law of Nature, without exception, that Nature produces enough for our wants from day to day, and if only everybody took enough for himself and nothing more, there would be no pauperism in this world, there would be no man dying of starvation in this world. But so long as we have got this inequality, so long we are thieving. I am no socialist and I do not want to dispossess those who have got possessions; but I do say that, personally, those of us who want to see light out of darkness have to follow the rule. I do not want to dispossess anybody. I should then be departing from the rule of ahimsa. If somebody else possesses more than I do, let him. But so far as my own life has to be regulated, I do say that I dare not possess anything which I do not want. In India we have got three millions of people having to be satisfied with one meal a day, and that meal consisting of a chapati containing no fat in it, and a pinch of salt. You and I have no right to anything that we really have until these three million are clothed and fed better. You and I, who ought to know better, must adjust our wants, and even undergo voluntary starvation in order that they may be nursed, fed and clothed. Then there is the vow of non-possession which follows as a matter of course. Then I go to the

The vow of swadeshi is a necessary vow. But you are conversant with the swadeshi life and the swadeshi spirit. I suggest to you we are departing from one of the sacred laws of our being when we leave our neighbour and go out somewhere else in order to satisfy our wants. If a man comes from Bombay here and offers you wares, you are not justified in supporting the Bombay merchant or trader so long as you have got a merchant at your very door, born and bred in Madras. That is my view of swadeshi. In your village, so long as you have got your village-barber, you are bound to support him to the exclusion of the finished barber who may come to you from Madras. If you find it necessary that your village-barber should reach the attainment of the barber from Madras, you may train him to that. Send him to Madras by all means, if you wish, in order that he may learn his calling. Until you do that, you are not justified in going to another barber. That is swadeshi. So, when we find that there are many things that we cannot get in India, we must try to do without them. We may have to do without many things which we many consider necessary, but believe me, when you have that frame of mind, you will find a great burden taken off your shoulders, even as the Pilgrim did in that inimitable book, Pilgrim’s Progress: There came a time when the mighty burden that the Pilgrim was carrying on his shoulders unconsciously dropped from him, and he felt a freer man than he was when he started on the journey. So will you feel freer men than you are now, immediately you adopt this swadeshi life. We have also the

I found, throughout my wanderings in India, that India, educated India, is seized with a paralysing fear. We may not open our lips in public; we may not declare our confirmed opinion in public; we may hold those opinions; we may talk about them secretly; and we may do anything we like within the four walls of our house,—but those are not for public consumption. If we had taken a vow of silence, I would have nothing to say. When we open our lips in public, we say things which we do not really believe in. I do not know whether this is not the experience of almost every public man who speaks in India. I then suggest to you that there is only one Being, if Being is the proper term to be used, Whom we have to fear, and that is God. When we fear God, we shall fear no man, no matter how high-placed he may be. And if you want to follow the vow of truth in any shape or form, fearlessness is the necessary consequence. And so you find, in the Bhagavad Gita, fearlessness is declared as the first essential quality of a Brahmin We fear consequences, and therefore we are afraid to tell the truth. A man who fears God will certainly not fear any earthly consequence. Before we can aspire to the position of understanding what religion is, and before we can aspire to the position of guiding the destinies of India, do you not see that we should adopt this habit of fearlessness? Or shall we over-awe our countrymen even as we are over-awed? We thus see how important this “fearlessness vow” is. And we have also the

There is an ineffaceable blot that Hinduism today carries with it. I have declined to believe that it has been handed to us from immemorial times. I think that this miserable, wretched, enslaving spirit of “untouchableness” must have come to us when we were in the cycle of our lives, at our lowest ebb, and that evil has still stuck to us and it still remains with us. It is, to my mind, a curse that has come to us, so long I think we are bound to consider that every affliction that we labour under in this sacred land is a fit and proper punishment for this great and indelible crime that we are committing. That any person should be considered untouchable because of his calling passes one’s comprehension; and you, the student world, who receive all this modern education, if you become a party to this crime, it were better that you received no education whatsoever.

Of course, we are labouring under a very heavy handicap. Although you may realise that there cannot be a single human being on this earth who should be considered to be untouchable, you cannot react upon your families, you cannot react upon your surroundings, because all your thought is conceived in a foreign tongue, and all your energy is devoted to that. And so we have also introduced a rule in this Ashram that we shall receive our

In Europe, every cultured man learns, not only his language, but also other languages, certainly three or four. And even as they do in Europe, in order to solve the problem of language in India, we, in this Ashram, make it a point to learn as many Indian vernaculars as we possibly can. And I assure you that the trouble of learning these languages is nothing compared to the trouble that we have to take in mastering the English language. We never master the English language; with some exceptions, it has not been possible for us to do so; we can never express ourselves as clearly as we can in our own mother tongue. How dare we rub out of our memory all the years of our infancy? But that is precisely what we do when we commence our higher life, as we call it, through the medium of a foreign tongue. This creates a breach in our life for bridging which we shall have to pay dearly and heavily. And you will see now the connection between these two things—education and untouchableness—this persistence of the spirit of untouchableness even at this time of the day in spite of the spread of knowledge and education. Education has enabled us to see the horrible crime. But we are seized with fear also and, therefore, we cannot take this doctrine to our homes. And we have got a superstitious veneration for our family traditions and for the members of our family. You say, “My parents will die if I tell them that I, at least, can no longer partake of this crime.” I say that Prahlad never considered that his father would die if he pronounced the sacred syllables of the name of Vishnu¹². On the contrary, he made the whole of that household ring, from one corner to another, by repeating that name even in the sacred presence of his father. And so you and I may do this thing in the sacred presence of our parents. If, after receiving this rude shock, some of them expire, I think that would be no calamity. It may be that some rude shocks of the kind might have to be delivered. So long as we persist in these things which have been handed down to us for generations, these incidents may happen. But there is a higher law of Nature, and in due obedience to that higher law, my parents and myself should make that sacrifice, and then we follow

You may ask: “Why should we use our hands?” and say “the manual work has got to be done by those who are illiterate. I can only occupy myself with reading literature and political essays.” I think that we have to realise the dignity of labour. If a barber or shoe-maker attends a college, he ought not to abandon the profession of a barber or shoe-maker. I consider that a barber’s profession is just as good as the profession of medicine.

Last of all, when you have conformed to these rules, I think then, and not till then, you may come to

And dabble in them to your heart’s content, and certainly you will then never go wrong. Politics, divorced of religion, have absolutely no meaning. If the student-world crowd the political platforms of this country, to my mind it is not necessarily a healthy sign of national growth; but that does not mean that you, in your student-life, ought not to study politics. Politics are a part of our being; we ought to understand our national institutions, and we ought to understand our national growth and all those things. We may do it from our infancy. So, in our Ashram, every child is taught to understand the political institutions of our country, and to know how the country is vibrating with new emotions, with new aspirations, with a new life. But we want also the steady light, the infallible light, of religious faith, not a faith which merely appeals to the intelligence, but a faith which is indelibly inscribed on the heart. First, we want to realise that religious consciousness, and immediately we have done that, I think the whole department of life is open to us, and it should then be a sacred privilege of students and everybody to partake of that whole life, so that, when they grow to manhood, and when they leave their colleges, they may do as men properly equipped to battle with life. Today what happens is this: much of the political life is confined to student life; immediately the students leave their colleges and cease to be students, they sink into oblivion, they seek miserable employments, carrying miserable emoluments, rising no higher in their aspirations, knowing nothing of God, knowing nothing of fresh air or bright light, and nothing of that real vigorous independence that comes out of obedience to these laws that I have ventured to place before you.

I am not here asking you to crowd into the Ashram, there is no room there. But I say that every one of you may enact that Ashram life individually and collectively. I shall be satisfied with anything that you may choose from the rules I have ventured to place before you and act up to it. But if you think that these are the outpourings of a mad man, you will not hesitate to tell me that it is so, and I shall take that judgment from you undismayed. (Loud cheers.)¹³
The Indian Review, February, 1916

¹ The Phoenix party had stayed at Gurukul for some time and, in 1915 at the Kumbha Mela at Hardwar, it assisted the Volunteer Corps of the Servants of India Society. Later, Gandhiji also joined the party.

² A socio-religious reform movement started by Raja Ram Mohan Roy

³ From Gujarat Mitra ane Gujarat Darpan

⁴ From Gujarati

⁵ Text of the paper read by Gandhiji. It was reprinted in Young India, 21-6-1919.

⁶ This Latin legal maxim means: “Use your property in such a way as not to damage that of others.” Vide also An Autobiography, Part I, Ch. XXV.

⁷ With Rev. George Pittendrigh of the Madras Christian College in the chair. This was published with the following note by the Editor, Indian Review:

We have received several enquiries from our readers regarding Mr. Gandhi’s new organization, the Satyagrashram. We are glad to be able to give the following account of the Ashram from a special report of the speech that Mr. Gandhi delivered sometime ago in Madras. The report has since had the benefit of Mr. Gandhi’s revision and may, therefore, be taken as an authoritative exposition of the aims and objects of Mr. Gandhi’s Satyagrahashram.

⁸ This paragraph is from The Hindu, 16-2-1916.

⁹ Vide “Speech at Gokhale Club, Madras”, 20-4-1915.

¹⁰ “it” in New India

¹¹ Prahlad was a devotee of God persecuted by his unbelieving father, the demon-king, Hiranyakashipu. Gandhiji often spoke of him as an ideal satyagrahi.

¹² One of the Hindu trinity, regarded as Preserver of the Universe

¹³ This paragraph is from New India, 16-2-1916.