The Essential Gandhi (44 page)

[Gandhi believed the only method of achieving independence was work—welfare work—among the people, which he called “constructive work” or “constructive program.”]

[For] such an indefinable thing as Swaraj [Self-Rule] people must have previous training in doing things of [national] interest. Such work must throw together the people and their leaders, whom they would trust implicitly. Trust begotten in the pursuit of
continuous constructive work becomes a tremendous asset at the critical moment.… Individual Civil Disobedience among an unprepared people and by leaders not known to or trusted by them is of no avail, and mass Civil Disobedience is an impossibility.…
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[The] Constructive Program is the truthful and non-violent way of winning Poorna Swaraj [Complete Independence].…

Civil Disobedience, mass or individual, is an aid to Constructive effort and is a full substitute for armed revolt. Training is necessary as well for Civil Disobedience as for armed revolt. Only the ways are different.… Training for military revolt means learning the use of arms, ending perhaps in the atomic bomb. For Civil Disobedience it means the Constructive Program.

 … Political pacts, we know, have been and can be [broken], but personal friendship with individuals cannot be.… Such friendships, selfless and genuine, must be the basis for political pacts.… [The] men composing the Government are not to be regarded as enemies. To regard them as such will be contrary to the non-violent spirit. Part we must, but as friends.

[The Constructive Program] should prove as absorbing as politics, so called, and platform oratory, and certainly more important and useful.
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[It] is necessary to know the place of Civil Disobedience in a nation-wide non-violent effort.

It has three definite functions:

[When] Civil Disobedience is itself devised for the attainment of Independence, previous preparation is necessary, and it has to
be backed by the visible and conscious effort of those who are engaged in the battle. Civil Disobedience is thus a stimulation for the fighters and a challenge to the opponent.… Civil Disobedience in terms of Independence without the coöperation of the millions by way of constructive effort is mere bravado and worse than useless.
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[Gandhi intended the members of the Congress Party, who took the lead in the independence movement, to carry on the Constructive Program.]

 … In our country there has been a divorce between labor and intelligence. The result has been stagnation.…

[One] ought to learn how to handle and make simple tools. Imagine the unifying and educative effect of the whole nation simultaneously taking part in the processes up to spinning! Consider the levelling effect of the bond of common labor between the rich and the poor.
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[Home-spun cloth] to me is the symbol of the unity of Indian humanity, of its economic freedom and equality, and therefore, ultimately, in the poetic expression of Jawaharlal Nehru, “the livery of India’s freedom.”
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Divorce between intelligence and labor has resulted in criminal neglect of the villages. And so, instead of having graceful hamlets dotting the land, we have dung-heaps. The approach to many villages is not a refreshing experience.…
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 … Village economy cannot be complete without the essential village industries such as hand-grinding, hand-pounding, soap-making, paper-making, match-making, tanning, oil-pressing, etc. Congressmen can interest themselves in these and, if they are villagers or will settle down in the village, they will give these industries a new life and a new dress. All should make it a point of honor to use only village articles whenever and wherever available. Given the demand, there is no doubt that most of our wants can be supplied
from our villages. When we have become village-minded, we will not want imitations of the West or machine-made products, but we will develop a true national taste in keeping with the vision of a new India, in which pauperism, starvation and idleness will be unknown.
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 … If India was pulsating with new life, if we were all in earnest about winning independence in the quickest manner possible by truthful and non-violent means, there would not be a leper or beggar in India uncared for and unaccounted for.…
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[So] far as the Harijans [Children of God—Gandhi’s name for the untouchables] are concerned, every Hindu should make common cause with them and befriend them in their awful isolation—such isolation as perhaps the world has never seen in the monstrous immensity one witnesses in India. I know from experience how difficult the task is. But it is part of the task of building the edifice of [Home-rule].…
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 … If we are to reach our goal through non-violent effort, we may not leave to the future government the fate of thousands of men and women who are laboring under the curse of intoxicants and narcotics.

Medical men can make a most effective contribution toward the removal of this evil. They have to discover ways of weaning the drunkard and the opium addict from the curse.

Women and students have a special opportunity in advancing this reform. By many acts of loving service they can acquire on addicts a hold which will compel them to listen to the appeal to give up the evil habit.

Congress [Party] committees can open recreation booths where the tired laborer will rest his limbs, get healthy and cheap refreshments, and find suitable games. All this work is fascinating and uplifting. The non-violent approach to [Self-Rule] is a novel approach. In it old values give place to new. In the violent way such reforms may find no place. Believers in that way, in their impatience and, shall I say, ignorance, put off such things to the day of deliverance.
They forget that lasting and healthy deliverance comes from within—from self-purification.…
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 … Congressmen who want to build up the structure of [Self-Rule] from its very foundation dare not neglect the children. Foreign rule has unconsciously, though none the less surely, begun with the children in the field of education. Primary education is a farce designed without regard to the wants of the India of the villages, and for that matter, even of the cities. Basic education links the children, whether of the cities or the villages, to all that is best and lasting in India. It develops both the body and the mind, and keeps the child rooted to the soil with a glorious vision of the future in the realization of which he or she begins to take his or her share from the very commencement of his or her career in school.…
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[Adult education] has been woefully neglected by Congressmen. Where they have not neglected it, they have been satisfied with teaching illiterates to read and write. If I had charge of adult education, I should begin with opening the minds of the adult pupils to the greatness and vastness of their country. The villager’s India is contained in his village.… We have no notion of the ignorance prevailing in the villages. The villagers know nothing of foreign rule and its evils. What little knowledge they have picked up fills them with the awe the foreigner inspires. The result is the dread and hatred of the foreigner and his rule. They do not know how to get rid of it. They do not know that the foreigner’s presence is due to their own weaknesses and their ignorance of the power they possess to rid themselves of the foreign rule. My adult education means, therefore, first, true political education of the adult by word of mouth.… Side by side with the education by mouth will be the literary education.…
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Congressmen have not felt the call to see that women became equal partners in the fight for [Self-Rule]. They have not realized that woman must be the true helpmate of man in the mission of service. Woman has been suppressed under custom and law, for which man was responsible, and in the shaping of which she had
no hand.… But as every right in a non-violent society proceeds from the previous performance of a duty, it follows that rules of social conduct must be framed by mutual coöperation and consultation. They can never be imposed from outside. Men have not realized this truth in its fullness in their behavior toward women. They have considered themselves to be lords and masters … instead of … friends and co-workers.…

 … Wives should not be dolls and objects of indulgence, but should be treated as honored comrades in common service. To this end, those who have not received a liberal education should receive such instruction as is possible from their husbands.…
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This is … the outcome of conversations I had with some co-workers in Sevagram.…

 … Many people do many things, big and small, without connecting them with Non-violence or Independence. They have then their limited value, as expected. The same man appearing as a civilian may be of no consequence, but appearing in his capacity as General he is a big personage, holding the lives of millions at his mercy. Similarly, the [spinning wheel] in the hands of a poor widow brings a paltry [penny] to her, in the hands of a Jawaharlal it is an instrument of India’s freedom. It is the office which gives the [spinning wheel] its dignity. It is the office assigned to the Constructive Program which gives it an irresistible prestige and power.

Such at least is my view. It may be that of a mad man. If it makes no appeal to the Congressman, I must be rejected. For my handling of Civil Disobedience without the Constructive Program will be like a paralyzed hand attempting to lift a spoon.
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