The Essential Gandhi (43 page)

 … The distinguishing characteristic of modern civilization is an infinite multiplicity of human wants.… The modern or Western insatiableness arises really from want of a living faith in a future state, and therefore also in Divinity. The restraint of ancient
or Eastern civilization arises from a belief, often in spite of ourselves, in a future state and the existence of A Divine Power.…
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If we are to make progress we must not repeat history but make new history.…
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[Though mankind] is not all of the same age, the same height, the same skin and the same intellect, these inequalities are temporary and superficial, the soul that is hidden beneath this earthly crust is one and the same for all men and women belonging to all climes. [There] is a real and substantial unity in all the variety that we see around us. The word “inequality” has a bad odor about it, and it has led to arrogance and inhumanities, both in the East and the West. What is true about men is also true about nations, which are but groups of men.…

[There] is no such thing as a literal complete revival of ancient tradition possible, even if it were desirable.… And I am humble enough to admit that there is much we can profitably assimilate from the West. Wisdom is no monopoly of one continent or one race. My resistance to Western civilization is really a resistance to its indiscriminate and thoughtless imitation based on the assumption that Asiatics are fit only to copy everything that comes from the West. I do believe that if India has patience enough to go through the fire of suffering and to resist any unlawful encroachment upon its own civilization, which imperfect though it undoubtedly is, has hitherto stood the ravages of time, she can make a lasting contribution to the peace and solid progress of the world.
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 … There is nothing to prevent me from profiting by the light that may come out of the West. Only I must take care that I am not overpowered by the glamor of the West. I must not mistake the glamor for true light.
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 … The political domination of England is bad enough. The cultural is infinitely worse. For whilst we resent and therefore endeavor to resist the political domination, we hug the cultural, not
realizing in our infatuation that when the cultural domination is complete the political will defy resistance.…
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Mere withdrawal of the English is not independence. It means the consciousness in the average villager that he is the maker of his own destiny, he is his own legislator through his chosen representative.
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India became impoverished when our cities became foreign markets and began to drain the villages dry by dumping cheap and shoddy goods from foreign lands.
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When I succeed in ridding the villages of their poverty, I have won [Independence].
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I would say if the village perishes India will perish too. India will be no more India.… The revival of the village is possible only when it is no more exploited. Industrialization on a mass scale will necessarily lead to passive or active exploitation of the villagers as the problems of competition and marketing come in. Therefore we have to concentrate on the village being self-contained, manufacturing mainly for use. Provided this character of the village industry is maintained there would be no objection to villagers using even the modern machines and tools they can make and can afford to use. Only they should not be used as a means of exploitation of others.
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What I object to is the “craze” for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for what they call labor-saving machinery. Men go on “saving labor” till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. I want to save time and labor not for a fraction of mankind but for all, I want the concentration of wealth not in the hands of a few but in the hands of all. Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not the philanthropy to save labor but greed. It is against this constitution of things that I am fighting with all my might.

 … The supreme consideration is man. The machine should not tend to make atrophied the limbs of man. For instance, I would make intelligent exceptions. Take the case of the Singer Sewing Machine. It is one of the few useful things ever invented and there is a romance about the device itself. Singer saw his wife laboring over the tedious process of sewing and seaming with her own hands and simply out of his love for her he devised the sewing machine in order to save her from unnecessary labor. He, however, saved not only her labor but also the labor of everyone who could purchase a sewing machine.

 … This mad rush for wealth must cease, and the laborer must be assured not only of a living wage but of a daily task that is not a mere drudgery. The machine will, under these conditions, be as much a help to the man working it as to the State or the man who owns it.… The sewing machine had love at its back.… The saving of labor of the individual should be the object and the honest humanitarian consideration, and not greed the motive. Replace greed by love and everything will come right.
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Pandit Nehru wants industrialization because he thinks that if it is socialized, it would be free from the evils of capitalism. My own view is that the evils are inherent in industrialism, and no amount of socialization can eradicate them.
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As a moderately intelligent man, I know man cannot live without industry. Therefore, I cannot be opposed to industrialization. But I have a great concern about introducing machine industry. The machine produces too much too fast, and brings with it a sort of economic system which I cannot grasp. I do not want to accept something when I see its evil effects, which out-weigh whatever good it brings with it. I want the dumb millions of our land to be healthy and happy, and I want them to grow spiritually. As yet, for this purpose we do not need the machine. There are many, too many, idle hands. But as we grow in understanding, if we feel the need of machines, we certainly will have them. We want industry, let us become industrious. Let us become more self-dependent, then we will not follow the other people’s lead so much. We shall introduce machines if and when we need them. Once we have
shaped our life on [Nonviolence], we shall know how to control the machine.
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 … Your “mass production” is … production by the fewest possible number through the aid of highly complicated machinery.… My machinery must be of the most elementary type, which I can put in the homes of the millions.
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There is a difference between the civilization of the East—the civilization of India—and that of the West. It is not generally realized wherein the difference lies. Our geography is different, our history is different, our ways of living are different. Our continent, though vast, is a speck of the globe, but it is the most thickly populated, barring China. Well, now, the economics and civilization of a country where the pressure of population on land is greatest are and must be different from those of a country where the pressure is least. Sparsely populated, America may have need of machinery. India may not need it at all. Where there are millions and millions of units of idle labor, it is no use thinking of labor-saving devices.…

Not that there is not enough land.… It is absurd to say India is overpopulated and the surplus population must die.… Only we have got to be industrious and make two blades of grass grow where one grows today.

The remedy is to identify ourselves with the poor villager and to help him make the land yield its plenty, help him produce what we need and confine ourselves to use what he produces, live as he lives and persuade him to take to more rational ways of diet and living.
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Let not capitalists and other entrenched personages range themselves against the poor villagers and prevent them from bettering their hard lot by dignified labor.
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[“What would happen in a free India?” asked Louis Fischer of Gandhi, visiting him for a week in June, 1942. “What is your program for the improvement of the lot of the peasantry?”]

The peasants would take the land. We would not have to tell them to take it. They would take it.

[“Would the landlords be compensated?” Fischer asked.]

No. That would be fiscally impossible. You see, [Gandhi smiled] our gratitude to our millionaire friends [who supported Gandhi’s ashrams and works] does not prevent us from saying such things. The village would become a self-governing unit living its own life.

[“But there would of course be a national government,” Fischer said.]

No.

[“But surely you need a national administration to direct the railroads, the telegraphs and so on.”]

I would not shed a tear if there were no railroads in India.

[“But that would bring suffering to the peasant, he needs city goods and he must sell his produce in other parts of the country and abroad. The village needs electricity and irrigation. No single village could build a hydro-electric power station or an irrigation system like the Sukkhar barrage in Sind.”]

And that has been a big disappointment [Gandhi interjected]. It has put the whole province in debt.

[“I know, but it has brought much new land under cultivation, and it is a boon to the people.”]

I realize [Gandhi said shaking his head] that despite my views there will be a central government administration. However, I do not believe in the accepted Western form of democracy with its universal voting for parliamentary representatives.

[“What would you have India do?”]

There are seven hundred thousand villages in India. Each would be organized according to the will of its citizens, all of them voting. Then there would be seven hundred thousand votes and not four hundred million. Each village, in other words, would have one vote. The villages would elect their district administrations, and the district administrations would elect the provincial administrations, and these in turn would elect a president who would be the national chief executive.

[“That is very much like the Soviet system.”]

I did not know that [Gandhi admitted]. I don’t mind.
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An ideal Indian village will be so constructed as to lend itself to perfect sanitation. It will have cottages with sufficient light and ventilation built of material obtainable within a radius of five miles of it. The cottages will have courtyards enabling householders to plant vegetables for domestic use and to house their cattle. The village lanes and streets will be free of all avoidable dust. It will have wells according to its needs and accessible to all. It will have houses of worship for all, also a common meeting place, a village common for grazing its cattle, a coöperative dairy, primary and secondary schools in which industrial education will be the central fact, and it will have panchayats [village councils of five persons elected by the people] for settling disputes. It will produce its own grains, vegetables and fruit, and its own [homespun material]. This is roughly my idea of a model village.… Given … coöperation among the people, almost the whole of the program other than model cottages can be worked out at an expenditure within the means of the villagers … without Government assistance.… The greatest tragedy is the hopeless unwillingness of the villagers to better their lot.
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 … There will be a compulsory service of village guards who will be selected by rotation from the register maintained by the village.… Since there will be no system of punishments in the accepted sense, this panchayat will be the legislature, judiciary and executive combined to operate for its year of office.… Here there is perfect democracy based upon individual freedom. The individual is the architect of his own government.… He and his village are able to defy the might of a world. For the law governing every villager is that he will suffer death in the defence of his and his village’s honor.
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We have long been accustomed to think that power comes only through legislative assemblies. I have regarded this belief as a grave error brought about by inertia or hypnotism. A superficial study of British history has made us think that all power percolates to the people from parliaments. The truth is that power resides in the people, and it is entrusted for the time being to those whom they may choose as their representatives. Parliaments have no power or
even existence independently of the people.… Civil Disobedience is the storehouse of power. Imagine a whole people unwilling to conform to the laws of the legislature, and prepared to suffer the consequences of non-compliance! They will bring the whole legislative and executive machinery to a standstill. The police and the military are of use to coerce minorities, however powerful they may be. But no police or military coercion can bend the resolute will of a people who are out for suffering to the uttermost.
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 … Simple homes from which there is nothing to take away require no policing, the palaces of the rich must have strong guards to protect them.… So must huge factories. Rurally organized India will run less risk of foreign invasion than urbanized India, well-equipped with military, naval and air forces.
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[If] India is to attain true freedom, and through India the whole world also, then sooner or later the fact must be recognized that people will have to live in villages, not in towns, in huts, not in palaces. [The millions] of people will never be able to live at peace with each other in towns and palaces. They will then have no recourse but to resort to both violence and untruth.

[Without] truth and non-violence there can be nothing but destruction for humanity. We can realize truth and non-violence only in the simplicity of village life … I must not fear if the world today is going the wrong way. It may be that India too will go that way and like the proverbial moth, burn itself eventually in the flame round which it dances more and more fiercely. But it is my bounden duty up to my last breath to try to protect India and through India, the entire world from such a doom.
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