Manipulation of Gandhi by the Indian State

Mischievous advertisement issued by the Department of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti day (2-10-2003).
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The Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India issued a advertisement on 2nd October 2003, in all most all News Paper in which it states "I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should in cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour."- Mahatma Gandhi.

We were horrified to see the advertisement issued by the Department of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti, quoting Gandhi on the need to take up arms rather than suffer dishonour. The mischievous intent of the advertisement is obvious. Given its preoccupation with reinventing histories to suit its agendas, and the discomfort of living with the internationally-famed Gandhian legacy of non-violence, it is no surprise that the present government would choose to select a line from Gandhis writings, totally removed from its context, to prove that even the great Apostle of Peace endorsed violence in the name of nationalism.

The quote used in the advertisement is a line from Gandhis article in Young India dated 11 August 1920, titled The Doctrine of the Sword. The article was written by Gandhi in the wake of country-wide violence following the passing of the Rowlatt Bills and the Jallianwallah Baug massacre in 1919, and centred on the call for non-cooperation from 1st August 1920. It sought to explain his concept of non-violent non-cooperation, and the spirit of non-violence itself. The article, unlike its misrepresentation by the line used in the advertisement, is devoted to the real possibility of non-violence as a political strategy, and its moral significance. The opening sentence of the article reads: In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute force.Gandhi goes on to explain how violence can be resorted to where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence. However, the real intent of the article is made clear in the sections following the line quoted in the advertisement issued by the Government on Gandhi Jayanti: But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence. Gandhi goes on to explain how violence is resorted to by the helpless, whereas the people of India should not see themselves as being helpless. The advertisement could just as well have quoted his other famous lines in this article: I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law to the strength of the spirit; or: I am not pleading for India to practise non-violence because it is weak. I want her to practise non-violence being conscious of her strength and power. No training in arms is required for realization of her strength. We seem to need it because we seem to think that we are but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize that she has a soul that cannot perish and that can rise triumphant above every physical weakness and defy the physical combination of whole world.

Perhaps the most apt quotation that could have been used to honour Gandhi in these conflict-ridden times would have been one of the closing lines from the same article: Indias acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be the hour of my trial.More than eighty years later, this is precisely what is coming about: we seem to be accepting the doctrine of the sword, subverting Gandhis ideals to legitimate an agenda of violence. That this is now being done even through an official agency of the Government like the Department of I & B, is a shame and a tragedy. Gandhi could only have grieved if he were alive today.

Human Right Activists
Rohit Prajapati Nandini Manjrekar
Anand Mazgaonkar Johannes Manjrekar
Trupti Shah Deeptha Achar
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Young India, 11-8-1920
VOL. 21 : 1 JULY, 1920 - 21 NOVEMBER, 1920

In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute force. And so I receive anonymous letters advising me that I must not interfere with the progress of non-co-operation even though popular violence may break out. Others come to me and assuming that secretly I must be plotting violence, inquire when the happy moment for declaring open violence will arrive. They assure me that the English will never yield to anything but violence secret or open. Yet others, I am informed, believe that I am the most rascally person living in India because I never give out my real intention and that they have not a shadow of a doubt that I believe in violence just as much as most people do.
Such being the hold that the doctrine of the sword has on the majority of mankind, and as success of non-co-operation depends principally on absence of violence during its pendency and as my views in this matter affect the conduct of a large number of people, I am anxious to state them as clearly as possible.
I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been resent when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908,1 whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence. Hence it was that I took part in the Boer War, the so-called Zulu rebellion and the late War. Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.
But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier. But abstinence is forgiveness only when proceed from a helpless creature. A mouse hardly forgives a cat when it allows itself to be torn to pieces by her. I, therefore, appreciate the sentiment of those who cry out for the condign punishment of General Dyer and his like. They would tear him to pieces if they could. But I do not believe India to be helpless. I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature. Only I want to use Indias and my strength for a better purpose.

Let me not be misunderstood. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. An average Zulu is any way more than a match for an average Englishman in bodily capacity. But he flees from an English boy, because he fears the boys revolver or those who will use it for him. He fears death and is nerveless in spite of his burly figure. We in India may in a moment realize that one hundred thousand Englishmen need not frighten three hundred million human beings. A definite forgiveness would therefore mean a definite recognition of our strength. With enlightened forgiveness must come a mighty wave of strength in us, which would make it impossible for a Dyer and a Frank Johnson to heap affront upon Indias devoted head. It matters little to me that for the moment I do not drive my point home. We feel too downtrodden not to be angry and revengeful. But I must not refrain from saying that India can gain more by waiving the right of punishment. We have better work to do, a better mission to deliver to the world.

I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law to the strength of the spirit.

I have therefore ventured to place before India the ancient law of self-sacrifice. For satyagraha and its off-shoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering. The rishis, who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton. They were themselves greater warriors than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms, they realized their uselessness and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not through violence but through non-violence.

Non-violence in its dynamic condition eans conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evildoer, but it means the putting of ones soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honour, his religion, his soul and lay the foundation for that empires fall or its regeneration.

And so I am not pleading for India to practise non-violence because it is weak. I want her to practise non-violence being conscious of her strength and power. No training in arms is required for realization of her strength. We seem to need it because we seem to think that we are but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize that she has a soul that cannot perish and that can rise triumphant above every physical weak- ness and defy the physical combination of whole world. What is the meaning of Rama, a mere human being, with his host of monkeys, pitting himself against the insolent strength of ten-headed Ravana surrounded in supposed safety by the raging waters on all sides of Lanka? Does it not mean the conquest of physical might by spiritual strength? However, being a practical man, I do not wait till India recognizes the practicability of the spiritual life in the political world. India considers herself to be powerless and paralysed before the machineguns, the tanks and the aeroplanes of the English. And she takes up non-co-operation out of her weakness. It must still serve the same purpose, namely, bring her delivery from the crushing weight of British injustice if a sufficient number of people practise it.
I isolate this non-co-operation from Sinn Feinism, for, it is so conceived as to be incapable of being offered side by side with violence. But I invite even the school of violence to give this peaceful non-co-operation a trial. It will not fail through its inherent weakness. It may fail because of poverty of response. Then will be the time for real danger. The high-souled men, who are unable to suffer national humiliation any longer, will want to vent their wrath. They will take to violence. So far as I know, they must perish without delivering themselves or their country from the wrong. If India takes up the doctrine of the sword, she may gain momentary victory. Then India will cease to be pride of my heart. I am wedded to India because I owe my all to her. I believe absolutely that she has a mission for the world. She is not to copy Europe blindly. Indias acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be the hour of my trial. I hope I shall not be found wanting. My religion has no geographical Limits. If I have a living faith in it, it will transcend my love for India herself. My life is dedicated to service of India through the religion of non-violence which I believe to be the root of Hinduism.
Meanwhile I urge those who distrust me, not to disturb the even working of the struggle that has just commenced, by inciting to violence in the belief that I want violence. I detest secrecy as a sin. Let them give non-violent non-co-operation a trial and they will find that I had no mental reservation whatsoever.

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Rohit Prajapati / Trupti Shah
37, Patrakar Colony, Tandalja Road,
Post-Akota, Vadodara - 390 020
GUJARAT, INDIA
Phone No. PARYAVARAN SURAKSHA SAMITI (O) + 91-265-2412499 / (R) 2334461
Email No: (1) [email protected] (2) [email protected]
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