Mohandas Gandhi, "Indian Home Rule" (1908)
CHAPTER VI
Civilization
READER: Now you will have to explain what you mean by civilization.
EDITOR: Let us first consider what state of things is described by the word
“civilization.” Its true test lies in the fact that people living in it make
bodily welfare the object of life. We will take some examples: The people of
Europe today live in better-built houses than they did a hundred years ago. This
is considered an emblem of civilization, and this is also a matter to promote
bodily happiness. Formerly, they wore skins, and used as their weapons spears.
Now, they wear long trousers, and for embellishing their bodies they wear a
variety of clothing, and, instead of spears, they carry with them revolvers
containing five or more chambers. If people of a certain country, who have
hitherto not been in the habit of wearing much clothing, boots, etc., adopt
European clothing, they are supposed to have become civilized out of savagery.
Formerly, in Europe, people plowed their lands mainly by manual labor. Now, one
man can plow a vast tract by means of steam-engines, and can thus amass great
wealth. This is called a sign of civilization. Formerly, the fewest men wrote
books, that were most valuable. Now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes
and poisons people’s minds. Formerly, men traveled in wagons; now they fly
through the air, in trains at the rate of four hundred and more miles per day.
This is considered the height of civilization. It has been stated that, as men
progress, they shall be able to travel in airships and reach any part of the
world in a few hours. Men will not need the use of their hands and feet. They
will press a button, and they will have their clothing by their side. They will
press another button, and they will have their newspaper. A third, and a
motor-car will be in waiting for them. They will have a variety of delicately
dished up food. Everything will be done by machinery. Formerly, when people
wanted to fight with one another, they measured between them their bodily
strength; now it is possible to take away thousands of lives by one man working
behind a gun from a hill. This is civilization. Formerly, men worked in the open
air only so much as they liked. Now, thousands of workmen meet together and for
the sake of maintenance work in factories or mines. Their condition is worse
than that of beasts. They are obliged to work, at the risk of their lives, at
most dangerous occupations, for the sake of millionaires. Formerly, men were
made slaves under physical compulsion, now they are enslaved by temptation of
money and of the luxuries that money can buy. There are now diseases of which
people never dreamed before, and an army of doctors is engaged in finding out
their cures, and so hospitals have increased. This is a test of civilization.
Formerly, special messengers were required and much expense was incurred in
order to send letters; today, anyone can abuse his fellow by means of a letter
for one penny. True, at the same cost, one can send one’s thanks also. Formerly,
people had two or three meals consisting of homemade bread and vegetables; now,
they require something to eat every two hours, so that they have hardly leisure
for anything else. What more need I say? All this you can ascertain from several
authoritative books. These are all true tests of civilization. And, if any one
speaks to the contrary, know that he is ignorant. This civilization takes note
neither of morality nor of religion....
This civilization is irreligion, and it has taken such a hold on the people in
Europe that those who are in it appear to be half mad. They lack real physical
strength or courage. They keep up their energy by intoxication. They can hardly
be happy in solitude. Women, who should be the queens of households, wander in
the streets, or they slave away in factories. For the sake of a pittance, half a
million women in England alone are laboring under trying circumstances in
factories or similar institutions. This awful fact is one of the causes of the
daily growing suffragette movement.
This civilization is such that one has only to be patient and it will be
self-destroyed.
CHAPTER X
The Condition of India (Continued) The Hindus and the Muslims
READER: But I am impatient to hear your answer to my question. Has the
introduction of Islam not unmade the nation?
EDITOR: India cannot cease to be one nation because people belonging to
different religions live in it. The introduction of foreigners does not
necessarily destroy the nation, they merge in it. A country is one nation only
when such a condition obtains in it. That country must have a faculty for
assimilation. India has ever been such a country. In reality, there are as many
religions as there are individuals, but those who are conscious of the spirit of
nationality do not interfere with one another’s religion. If they do, they are
not fit to be considered a nation. If the Hindus believe that India should be
peopled only by Hindus, they are living in dreamland. The Hindus, the Muslims,
the Parsees (Followers of the Zoroastrian religion who fled India when Islamic
armies conquered Persia in the seventh century C.E.)and the Christians who have
made India their country are fellow-countrymen, and they will have to live in
unity if only for their own interest. In no part of the world are one
nationality and one religion synonymous terms; nor has it ever been so in India.
READER: But what about the inborn enmity between Hindus and Muslims?
EDITOR: That phrase has been invented by our mutual enemy. (The British.) When
the Hindus and Muslims fought against one another, they certainly spoke in that
strain. They have long since ceased to fight. How, then, can there be any inborn
enmity? Pray remember this too, that we did not cease to fight only after
British occupation. The Hindus flourished under Muslim sovereigns and Muslims
under the Hindu. Each party recognized that mutual fighting was suicidal, and
that neither party would abandon its religion by force of arms. Both parties,
therefore, decided to live in peace. With the English advent the quarrels
recommenced....
Hindus and Muslims own the same ancestors, and the same blood runs through their
veins. Do people become enemies because they change their religion? Is the God
of the Muslim different from the God of the Hindu? Religions are different roads
converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads,
so long as we reach the same goal? Wherein is the cause for quarreling?
CHAPTER XIII
What Is True Civilization?
READER: You have denounced railways, lawyers and doctors. I can see that you
will discard all machinery. What, then, is civilization?
EDITOR: The answer to that question is not difficult. I believe that the
civilization India has evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can
equal the seeds sown by our ancestors. Rome went, Greece shared the same fate,
the might of the Pharaohs was broken, Japan has become westernized, of China
nothing can be said, but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the
foundation. The people of Europe learn their lessons from the writings of the
men of Greece or Rome, which exist no longer in their former glory. In trying to
learn from them, the Europeans imagine that they will avoid the mistakes of
Greece and Rome. Such is their pitiable condition. In the midst of all this,
India remains immovable, and that is her glory. It is a charge against India
that her people are so uncivilized, ignorant, and stolid, that it is not
possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our
merit. What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience, we dare
not change. Many thrust their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is
her beauty; it is the sheet-anchor of our hope.
Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty.
Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe
morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know
ourselves. The Gujarati (An Indian dialect spoken in Gujarat, in northwest
India.) equivalent for civilization means “good conduct.”
If this definition be correct, then India, as so many writers have shown, has
nothing to learn from anybody else, and this is as it should be.
CHAPTER XVII
Passive Resistance
READER: Is there any historical evidence as to the success of what you have
called soul-force or truth-force? No instance seems to have happened of any
nation having risen through soul-force. I still think that the evil-doers will
not cease doing evil without physical punishment.
EDITOR:.. . The force of love is the same as the force of the soul or truth. We
have evidence of its working at every step. The universe would disappear without
the existence of that force. But you ask for historical evidence. It is,
therefore, necessary to know what history means....
The fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is
based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love.
Therefore the greatest and most unimpeachable evidence of the success of this
force is to be found in the fact that, in spite of the wars of the world, it
still lives on.
Thousands, indeed, tens of thousands, depend for their existence on a very
active working of this force. Little quarrels of millions of families in their
daily lives disappear before the exercise of this force. Hundreds of nations
live in peace. History does not and cannot take note of this fact. History is
really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love
or of the soul. ... Soul-force, being natural, is not noted in history.
READER: According to what you say, it is plain that instances of the kind of
passive resistance are not to be found in history. It is necessary to understand
this passive resistance more fully. It will be better, therefore, if you enlarge
upon it.
EDITOR: Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering;
it is the reverse of resistance by arms. When I refuse to do a thing that is
repugnant to my conscience, I use soul- force. For instance, the government of
the day has passed a law which is applicable to me: I do not like it; if, by
using violence, I force the government to repeal the law, I am employing what
may be termed body-force. If I do not obey the law and accept the penalty for
its breach, I use soul-force. It involves sacrifice of self.
Everybody admits that sacrifice of self is infinitely superior to sacrifice of
others. Moreover, if this kind of force is used in a cause that is unjust, only
the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes.
Men have before now done many things which were subsequently found to have been
wrong. No man can claim to be absolutely in the right, or that a particular
thing is wrong, because he thinks so, but it is wrong for him so long as that is
his deliberate judgment. It is, therefore, meet [proper) that he should not do
that which he knows to be wrong, and suffer the consequence whatever it may be.
This is the key to the use of soul-force....
READER: From what you say, I deduce that passive resistance is a splendid weapon
of the weak but that, when they are strong, they may take up arms.
EDITOR: This is gross ignorance. Passive resistance, that is, soul-force, is
matchless. It is superior to the force of arms. How, then, can it be considered
only a weapon of the weak? Physical- force men are strangers to the courage that
is requisite in a passive resister. Do you believe that a coward can ever
disobey a law that he dislikes? Extremists are considered to be advocates of
brute-force. Why do they, then, talk about obeying laws? I do not blame them.
They can say nothing else. When they succeed in driving out the English, and
they themselves become governors, they will want you and me to obey their laws.
And that is a fitting thing for their constitution. But a passive resister will
say he will not obey a law that is against his conscience, even though he may be
blown to pieces at the mouth of a cannon.
What do you think? Wherein is courage required — in blowing others to pieces
from behind a cannon or with a smiling face to approach a cannon and to be blown
to pieces? Who is the true warrior — he who keeps death always as a bosom-friend
or he who controls the death of others? Believe me that a man devoid of courage
and manhood can never be a passive resister.
This, however, I will admit: that even a man, weak in body, is capable of
offering this resistance. One man can offer it just as well as millions. Both
men and women can indulge in it. It does not require the training of an army; it
needs no Jiu-jitsu. Control over the mind is alone necessary, and, when that is
attained, man is free like the king of the forest, and his very glance withers
the enemy.
Passive resistance is an all-sided sword; it can be used anyhow; it blesses him
who uses it and him against whom it is used. Without drawing a drop of blood, it
produces far-reaching results.