Thinking about Gandhi
The Life and Death of
Mahatma
Gandhi
by Robert Payne, E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc.,
New York, 1969, 703 pages.
I have just
finished
reading and making notes on Robert Payne's book, The Life and Death
of
Mahatma
Gandhi. This is a
progressive,
supportive, yet somewhat critical account of Gandhi's life. There is
documentation
from Gandhi's writings to support
the
portrait being presented by Payne.
Gandhi was
born
in 1869 and was assassinated in 1948. This is the first time that I
have
read an extensive
account of his life and ideas. So
it
has been a good opportunity for me to assess where I stand on Gandhi.
Also,
this has enabled me to try to put
forth
a tentative position for discussion - that is, where Gandhi might fit
philosophically into a left
biocentric/ecocentric
position. A concern for some of us is working out what a "left"
focus for deep ecology means -
and
what such a focus means for deep ecology and for a way out of industrial
society. "Left" as used in this
context,
means anti-industrial and anti-capitalist and does not necessarily imply
socialist.
I found it of
interest
that Barbara Noske, who was in the Halifax area from November 22-26,
1997,
to promote
her book Beyond Boundaries:
Humans
and Animals, and where she gave a number of talks, did not refer at
all
to Gandhi or his philosophy. Yet
one
main theme of her visit was the relationship between the animal rights
(she
uses the term integrity, not
rights) and
environmental movements. Barbara also stayed two nights with us in
Saltsprings. Overall her visit
went well and made
for considerable intellectual upwelling. Also, I came in contact
and had discussions with people
from Gandhi
Farm in Nova Scotia, who attended several of Barbara's public talks.
Their hand-written journal, which
I found
a nice example of daring to follow convictions, is called Ahimsa: a
Journal of Gandhi Farm.
Ahimsa means non-violence.
Arne Naess'
take
on Gandhi, on non-violence, and what this all means for organizing
environmental
campaigns
is, I feel, important to try to
understand.
"It is a central norm of the Gandhian approach to 'maximise contact with
your opponent!'", or "Trust your
opponent
as you trust yourself!", etc. can be seen in his book Ecology,
Community
and Lifestyle.
(These comments, and similar ones by Naess, I disagree with and find
totally
naive.)
Gandhi is important to Naess'
thinking
as a philosopher and his life as an activist.
After reading
Payne's
book, it seems to me that the concept of Self-realization in deep
ecology
(also not part
of the Platform), should perhaps
be
seen as flowing from Gandhi's philosophy. For Gandhi, one turns inward
for
spiritual purity before turning
to
an outward path. With Self-realization, one strives for an expansion of
individual
consciousness which then can come
to
include the natural world. Thus one is part of the forests or the
oceans,
or
part of the coyote or snake, with
full
self-realization.
There has been
some
discussion of Gandhi on the discussion group left bio. Many will
remember
on this list,
the discussion of Green Web
Bulletin
#60, which helped give rise to the current network. At that time I made
the
comment that "There needs to
be
much more discussion about Gandhi's contribution and limitations."
I
hope this posting contributes and
that
others will join in.
A final spur
for
myself to have a view on Gandhi, and to wind up this "introduction" to Thinking
About
Gandhi, is that the Selected
Works Of Arne
Naess (10 Volumes) are in preparation, to be published by
the Foundation for Deep Ecology.
Harold Glasser is
Series Editor.
Because of the
forthcoming
publication of the Selected Works, I have been thinking
particularly
about how a
philosophy or theoretical outlook
can
remain an evolving life force and not be reduced to a catechism. What
is
the
room for variance? How do ideas
like
those, say of Marx, Gandhi, Naess, etc., evolve? Who then decides the
content? Who "owns" the
eight-point
Platform, originally drafted by Naess and George Sessions, after it
becomes
embedded in the radical
environmental
movement? How can future changes to the Platform come about? What can
one reject or accept in deep
ecology,
and still be considered a follower of a philosophical position? Is
acceptance,
say of Gandhi's non-violence,
which
is part of Naess' thinking, (but is not in the Platform), necessary to
be
considered a deep ecology
supporter?
How do we
avoid
'contributing' to sainthood and slavishness? Do university-based deep
ecology
academics
enforce an imperial control over
deep
ecology through basically controlling what is published? Is there not,
a
distinction to be made between
practising
or applying deep ecology, and "following" the philosophy of Arne
Naess?
Possible left biocentric
agreements
with Gandhi
1. The first
level
of agreement with Gandhi, is a deep respect for what one might call his
"moral
authority" or
spiritual power and his courage.
This
came from his willingness for self sacrifice, the simple way he lived,
and
his
preparedness to die if necessary
for
his beliefs in the various struggles he took part in, both in South
Africa
and
India. He defined for all of us
what
"voluntary simplicity" could mean for a person with extraordinary
social
status.
Inspiring countless others to
themselves
become agents of social change, he led by example. Fasting (there were
fifteen fasts) was one way he
projected
his inner strength.
As Payne puts
it
in his book, for Gandhi
The strength of the soul grew in proportion as the flesh was
subdued,
and from the absolutely pure
soul there flowed out in ever-widening circles a power that was
ultimately
invincible... p.557
2. While a
deeply
religious Hindu, he was totally non-sectarian in his personal and
political
life, with friends
and colleagues from all religious
backgrounds.
In opposition to the concept of "untouchability", he personally
showed a way forward for India
with
respect to religious tolerance and against caste distinctions. This
unfortunately was not to be, with
the
Partition in 1947. There was the murder of, according to Payne, four
million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims.
3. Gandhi
rejected
modern industrialism. Modern civilization had brought nothing to India.
For
him, the
social model was the village as
the
center of Indian society, with the peasant's life to be aspired to. He
put
this rejection into practice by
establishing
Ashrams (communal farms or retreats for communal living) in South
Africa and in India for himself
and
close followers. He made use of the village spinning wheel part of his
daily
routine. In a document called Confession
of Faith, written in 1909 by Gandhi, and quoted in Payne ,
he said
If British rule were replaced tomorrow by Indian rule based on
modern
methods, India would
be none the better, except that she would be able then to retain some
of
the money which is
drained away to England. pp.215-217
For Payne,
Gandhi's
view of the old India was a "reactionary" one:
Gandhi permitted no change in the relationship between the feudal
lord
and his peasant servants,
the rich and the poor. p.222
He was not a
socialist.
As Payne says, Gandhi "regarded the rich as trustees of their
wealth,
and thought
it no sin to be poor." p.577
So his stand against industrialism needs to be placed in context.
4. Gandhi
obviously
had a deep sense of social justice and his life shows this. This is
conveyed
in the following
quotation, cited in Payne, from a
document called Young
India and written in 1931:
I shall work for an India in which the poorest shall feel it is
their
country in whose making they
have an effective voice; an India in which there will be no high class
or
low class of people; an
India in which all communities shall live in perfect harmony. There can
be
no room in such an
India for the curse of untouchability or the curse of the intoxicating
drinks
and drugs. Women
will enjoy the same rights as men. Since we shall be at peace with all
the
rest of the world,
neither exploiting, nor being exploited, we should have the smallest
army
imaginable. All
interests not in conflict with the interests of the dumb millions will
be
scrupulously respected,
whether foreign or indigenous. This is the India of my dreams.
p.605
Non-Violence,
Passive Resistance and Other Comments
Gandhi had an
enormous
influence on India but the India he wanted is not the India of today.
He
was a person
who influenced others by his
moral
authority. As Payne noted, quoting Gandhi,
Non-violence is not and never has been the weapon of the weak. It is
the
weapon of the stoutest
heart. p.423
Gandhi had no
position
in the Indian Congress Party and he held no high state office. There
seemed
to be no
organization to implement his
philosophy
of non-violence and passive resistance. Whatever his successes, his
belief in non-violence was
overwhelmed
by British Partition policies and those forces within Indian society,
both
Muslim and Hindu, who wanted a
divided
not united India.
Gandhi's
belief
in non-violence did not preclude recruitment for the British army. In
South
Africa, he urged
Indians living in that country,
to
take part on the side of the British during the Zulu rebellion and in
the
Boer War.
He himself organized the Indian
Ambulance
Corps. Gandhi was given the rank of Sergeant Major. In the First
World War Indians were asked by
him
to serve. Payne says of Gandhi
For fifty years he showed his enduring respect for the duly
constituted
authority of the British Raj,
turning defiantly against it only in 1919 after the Amritsar massacre.
p.56
With his
compassionate
belief that no one is unredeemable, "everyone has part of the truth",
Gandhi
wrote two
letters to Hitler, neither of
which
was delivered, but quoted in Payne's book. In 1940, Gandhi wrote an
astonishing
appeal "To Every Briton":
He called upon them to abandon the struggle, lay down their arms, and
quietly
accept whatever
fate Hitler had reserved for them. 'You will invite Herr Hitler and
Signor
Mussolini to take what
they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take
possession
of your beautiful
island with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but
neither
your souls, nor your
minds.' p.490
Does
non-violence
have any relevance for left biocentrism, is of course the question
which
any examination of
Gandhi brings to the foreground.
Given
that any State, no matter under which ideological banner it is
organized,
reserves to itself the use of
force,
and defines as seditious any challenge to this, questioning
non-violence
has to be
done in a circumspect manner. I
think
most of us prefer non-violence, and this certainly is the moral high
ground.
But opposing increasing economic
growth
and consumerism and the destruction of the natural world, will
ultimately be considered
seditious activity and
violence will be used against us, no matter how non-violent we are
in our actions.
Gandhi's
ecological
credentials are difficult to assess. He was a vegetarian and lived
lightly
upon this Earth. His
opposition to industrialism and
the
steady-state village as social model are environmentally friendly. But
the
world
view seems human-centered.
Payne admires
Gandhi
but he does point out his negative side. While proclaiming his
humility,
he did not
tolerate criticism and was very
authoritarian.
He was against birth control and felt that sexual activity, except for
purposes of procreation, was
sinful.
For myself, I
want
to reserve a final view on Gandhi because it would be presumptuous
based
on reading only
one book. What has surprised me
though
is the general eulogistic appraisal of Gandhi in the environmental
movement and deep ecology
circles,
without showing his dark side. I feel this 'normal' one-sided
presentation
of
Gandhi is compatible with the
preservation
of industrial capitalist interests.
David
Orton - November 30, 1997
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