Gandhi a European!

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Here are excerpts from a book India's Rebirth which happens to be on my site

under the section Great men of India.

June 22, 1926 Gandhi a European!

(A disciple:) Are Indians more spiritual than other people?

No, it is not so. No nation is entirely spiritual. Indians are not more

spiritual than other people. But behind the Indian race there lives the past

spiritual influence.

Some prominent national workers in India seem to me to be incarnations of some European force here.

They may not be incarnations, but they may be strongly influenced by European

thought. For instance Gandhi is a European-truly, a Russian Christian in an

Indian body. And there are some Indians in European bodies! Gandhi a European!

Yes. When the Europeans say that he is more Christian than many Christians (some

even say that he is "Christ of the modern times") they are perfectly right. All

his preaching is derived from Christianity, and thought the garb is Indian the

essential spirit is Christian. He may not be Christ, but at any rate he comes

in continuation of the same impulsion. He is largely influenced by Tolstoy, the

Bible, and has a strong Jain tinge in his teachings; at any rate more than by

the Indian scriptures-the Upanishads or the Gita, which he interprets in the

light of his own ideas.

Many educated Indians consider him a spiritual man.

Yes, because the Europeans call spiritual. But what he preaches is not Indian

spirituality but something derived from Russian Christianity, non-violence,

suffering, etc….

The Russians are a queer mixture of strength and weakness. They have got a

passion in their intellect, say a passionate intellect. They have a distracted

and restless emotional being, but there is something behind it, which is very

fine and psychic, though their soul is not very healthy. And therefore I am not

right in saying that Gandhi is a Russian Christian, because he is so very dry.

He has got the intellectual passion and a great moral will-force, but he is

more dry than the Russians. The gospel of suffering that he is preaching has

its root in Russia as nowhere else in Europe-other Christian nations

don’t believe in it. At the most they have it in the mind, but the

Russians have got it in their very blood. They commit a mistake in preaching

the gospel of suffering, but we also commit in India a mistake in preaching the

idea of vairagya [disgust with the world].

December 24, 1936 Gandhi’s Christian view

The view taken by the Mahatma in these matters is Christian rather than

Hindu-for the Christian, self-abasement, humility, the acceptance of a low

status to serve humanity or the Divine are things which are highly spiritual

and the noblest privilege of the soul.

This view does not admit any hierarchy of caste; the Mahatma accepts castes but

on the basis that all are equal before the Divine; a Bhangi [scavenger] doing

his dharma is as good as the Brahmin doing his, there is division of function

but no hierarchy of functions. That is one view of things and the hierarchic

view is another, both having a standpoint and logic of their own which the mind

takes as wholly valid but which only corresponds to a part of the reality. All

kinds of work are equal before the Divine and all men have the same Brahman

within is one truth, but that development is not equal in all is another.

The idea that it needs a special punya to be born as a Bhangi is, of course, one

of those forceful exaggerations of an idea, which are common with the Mahatma

and impress greatly the mind of his hearers. The idea behind is that his

function is an indispensable service to the society, quite as much as the

Brahmin’s but, that being disagreeable, it would need a special moral

heroism to choose it voluntarily and he thinks as if the soul freely chose it

as such a heroic service as reward of righteous acts-but that is hardly likely

the service of the scavenger is indispensable under certain conditions of

society, it is one of those primary necessities without which society can

hardly exist and the culture development of which the Brahmin life is part

could not have taken place.

But obviously the cultural development is more valuable than the service of the

physical needs for the progress of humanity as opposed to its first static

condition, and that development can even lead to the minimizing and perhaps the

entire disappearance by scientific inventions of the need for the functions of

the scavenger. But that, I suppose, the Mahatma would not approve of, as it

would come by machinery and would be a departure from the simple life. In any

case it is not true that the Bhangi life is superior to the Brahmin life and

reward of a special righteousness. On the other hand, the traditional

conception that a man is superior to other because he is born a Brahmin is not

rational or justifiable. A spiritual or cultured man of pariah birth is

superior in the divine values to an unspiritual and worldly-minded or a crude

and uncultured Brahmin. Birth counts, but the basic value is in the man

himself, in the soul behind and the degree to which it manifests itself in his

nature.

(A disciple:) What is your idea of an ideal government for India?

My idea is like what Tagore once wrote. There may be one Rashtrapati at the top

with considerable powers so as to secure a continuity of policy, and an

assembly representative of the nation. The provinces will combine into a

federation united at the top, leaving ample scope to local bodies to make laws

according to their local problems ..

The Congress at the present stage-what is it but a fascist organization? Gandhi

is the dictator like Stalin, I won’t say like Hitler: what Gandhi says

they accept and even the Working Committee follows him; then it goes to the

All-India Congress Committee which adopts it, and then the Congress. (I must

mention that in 1920-21 Gandhi started the Khilafat agitation without

consulting the Congress Working Committee, a decision that most of us will

realize was a blunder and sowed the seeds for Pakistan. His dictatorial

attitude was again proved in 1947 when he nominated Nehru although the

Committee wanted Sardar Patel to be India’s first PM.)

January 8, 1939, Gandhi’s non-violence in Germany success or!

(A disciple:) Gandhi writes that non-violence tried by some people in Germany

has failed because it has not been so strong as to generate sufficient heat to

melt Hitler’s heart.

I am afraid it would require quite a furnace!… The trouble with Gandhi is

that he had to deal only with Englishmen, and the English want to have their

conscience at ease. Besides the Englishman wants to satisfy his self-esteem and

wants world-esteem But if Gandhi had had to deal with the Russians or the German

Nazis, they would have long ago put him out of their way.

May 28, 1940 Gandhi’s attitude to Muslims

Have you read what Gandhi has said in answer to a correspondent? He says that if

eight crores of Muslims demand a separate State, what else are the twenty-five

crores of Hindus to do but surrender? Otherwise there will be civil war.

(A disciple:) I hope that is not the type of conciliation he is thinking of.

Not thinking of it, you say? He has actually said that and almost yielded. If

you yield to the opposite party beforehand, naturally they will stick strongly

to their claims. It means that the minority will rule and the majority must

submit. The minority is allowed its say, "We shall be the ruler and you our

servants. Our hard [word] will be law; you will have to obey." This shows a

peculiar mind I think this kind of people are a little cracked.

May 17, 1936 Gandhi secrecy

There is no necessity to reveal one’s plans and movements to those who

have no business to know it, who are incapable of understanding or who would

act as enemies or spoil all as a result of their knowledge….No moral or

spiritual law commands us to make ourselves naked to the world or open up our

hearts and minds for public inspection. Gandhi talked about secrecy being a sin

but that is one of his many extravagances.

August 17, 1924 Gandhi - Ahimsa

A few months earlier, Gandhi sent his son Devdas to Pondicherry to see Aurobindo.

He asked my views about non-violence. I told him, "Suppose there is an invasion

of India by the Afghans, how are you going to meet it with non-violence?" That

is all I remember. I do not think he put me any other question.

love and om

sanjeev

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