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Gandhi's religious thought
Margaret Chatterjee
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan; New edition (1985)
Language : English
Paperback : 208 pages
3.50
6 ratings3 reviews
194 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
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3.50
6 ratings3 reviews
Kisalaya Singh
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January 31, 2021
Personally, I think the world as a whole will never have, and need not have, a single religion.
The book begins with the quotation above, written by Gandhi, still in South Africa, when he had not yet arrived on the Indian political scene. He reached this conclusion, around which the book develops, not merely through the study of different religious texts, but through observing the way those texts shaped the way men lived and interacted with each other.
The religious thought of Gandhi has invited diverse opinions. While he is popularly seen as a "universalist" or a "syncretist", the distinct "Hinduness" of his thought has also been recognized by those like the Muslim League, who highlighted it in their polemics against him, or the Hindu revivalists (Ram Swarup and Sitaram Goel), or the Gandhians (Vinoba Bhave, Jayaprakash Narayan and Dharampal). This work of Margaret Chatterjee is, perhaps, the earliest to deal with his religious thought in its totality, covering all its dimensions for which he has both been loved and despised.
Perhaps Wittgenstein meant something else when he said "I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view", but in the literal sense, it aptly describes the way Gandhi saw the world. I think Margaret Chatterjee beautifully encapsulates what being religious really meant for Gandhi in this paragraph of the book:
"The unity of mankind, Gandhi thought, was based first of all on the common imperfections which all men have. To realise that others can be jealous, acquisitive, selfish and so on, and that we have these same weaknesses in ourselves, is a step along the path of understanding. Next, Gandhi believed that all men have within them certain positive powers for good, a heritage of non-violent strength, fearlessness and nobility, which needs activating through a discipline of self-purification and practical training in constructive work. This introduces the element of hope within the human condition. Thirdly, all are subject to the same laws of growth, a sense of expansion which informs us when we are on the right track, a capacity (almost in the Aristotelian manner) for habits of virtue to become second nature, confirming good resolution and enabling man to progress. The laws of growth involve both a deepening of faith, a rooting in the tradition to which we belong, and a broadening of sympathies which sets no limit to man's reaching out to his fellows and which for Gandhi was founded on the ability to put oneself in the other man's place."
Overall, this highly engaging book made me reflect upon the possibilities of a kind of religious pluralism which would not undermine the genuine, complex and subtle, metaphysical and practical differences among the great religious traditions of the world.
Yognik1789
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March 21, 2015
Margaret Chatterjee has divided the book into broad theme-based chapters. These themes are ideas and concepts which Gandhi believed in. I have tried to divide the review into these themes and also separate them under different headings for convenience. These are Dharma, Inner Voice, Truth, Suffering and Secularism. Her research covers Gandhi’s correspondence with several peers, his written works and his dialogues with interviewers, his public speeches, Indian National Congress’ addresses so on and so forth. The tract written, by and large to understand Gandhi from a religious perspective is a multidimensional endeavour. It is rich with anecdotes from Gandhi’s life which stem out several sub-themes and often lead the discussion in unrequited directions. Chatterjee confesses herself that to put Gandhi into a religious perspective inside some limited calculated pages is not a very good idea. To give an example to this would be to mention chapter 4 where Chatterjee discusses Gandhi’s experimentation with truth. She starts with talking about the ontological presence of truth in the Indian school of thought, goes on to talk about truth from the perspective of dharma as present in Mahabharata. However, after that she talks about the way Gandhi looks at the relationship between man and nature which digresses the discussion on truth for some pages.
There is a lot of content that Chatterjee wants to talk about. She has also included commentaries and responses of Gandhi’s peers and critics to give a multi-sided view of several issues. This is not to say that she is neutral in her approach towards Gandhi. After reading the chapters, one realizes that Chatterjee has endeavoured to understand Gandhi from a religious perspective rather point out fallacies in his complex and often misunderstood scheme of things.
DHARMA
Chatterjee believes that Dharma is the central religious concept of Hinduism. Its understanding is very important in order to understand various other concepts that stem out of it. However before moving in that direction, Chatterjee want us to understand the basis of Gandhi’s religion. Gandhi believed it was pity, daya. He also mentioned that is was necessary to revive Hinduism of its pity and compassion. Gandhi linked pity for his fellow beings in the same way as Hanuman held devotion for Lord Rama. For Gandhi finds the reflection of his God in people, he showed the same dedication to them as Hanuman showed it to his God. He said that Hanuman tore his heart to show that there was nothing inside but Ramnama and that although he did not have same power but if someone would feel the need to do so, he would only find love for Ram whom he saw in the faces of the starving millions of India.
She proceeds to explain the meaning of Dharma. It is an ethico-religious concept which is perhaps also closer to the Judaic idea of righteousness. Etymologically, it stood to hold an ideal society where each person would do his designated work and it in turn had to be held by the society. Another related term called Swadharma stems out from Dharma, which mean self-Dharma. This idea means doing what is one’s proper business to do and setting up limits to ambitions enabling a man to develop his potentialities. Gandhi believed in the notion of hereditary occupation for which he gave dual reasoning. One, an ideal one that if everyone did their designated jobs communities will become self-sufficient and second, that industrialisation would erode traditional hereditary occupations leading to unemployment. For these reasons, he supported the Varna-ashram dharmas or the caste duties. He however was completely against the abhorrent activity of untouchability or throwing people out of the system of four castes, the outcastes.
Gandhi’s understanding of Dharma lies on a categorical path. This is to say that there is a near-Kantian element in his belief that man must know how to differentiate between dharma and its anti-thesis.
Gandhi, Chatterjee says, was never guilty of academic verbiage. He was a man of people and not a professional philosopher of theologian. If he would speak in a formal language which the people would not understand, his motive would fail. His understanding of dharma was something like complete categorical dedication to the God with a humble heart. This has to be done with a sense of duty, nishkam-karma, with a certain sense of detachment and without the expectation of fruits. The humility stems from Anasakti – selfless action and bhakti of the God.
INNER VOICE
Chatterjee has dedicated one complete chapter to talk about Gandhi’s view of spirituality. From Indian perspective, it is hard to talk about religion and spirituality in rigid terms like what it means to the west. These terms have no exact counterpart in either Hinduism or Indian languages which would mean and express the same sentiments that these terms express. Hinduism is centred on the concept of Dharma where questions of God’s existence become ancillary. For Gandhi, God is Truth and his spiritual and physical endeavours are directed towards the search of the latter. Chatterjee mentions how Gandhi has digressed from traditional Hindu practices of YajnA and PUjA and has replaced them with soul-force and prayer respectively. This is where Chatterjee embarks upon understanding an important concept in Gandhi’s scheme of things, the inner voice. She says that the link between the soul-force and prayer is the inner voice. It is the power which is released through self-sacrificing acts especially when embarked upon collectively.
Her efforts are to understand this inner voice and Gandhi’s experience of prayer. She starts by understanding Gandhi’s attitude towards rituals and sacraments. It is important over here to mention his views on this topic. He said that works done without faith and prayers were like artificial flowers without fragrance. Nevertheless, Gandhi was sensitive to the presence of symbolism in religious life. He thought symbolism was instrumental to give shape to what was invisible to the human eye but clearly visible to the eye of human imagination.
Chatterjee pays special attention to digging deep in Gandhi’s inner voice. For Gandhi, the inner voice could mean a message from either God or Devil since both wrestle in the human breast. Act determine the nature of voice. This is his attempt at ultimately making the man responsible for his acts done out of responding to the inner voice. The purity of the final act would determine if it was the God or the Devil who spoke initially. This is similar to saying that everything is pre-defined however we can still shape our destiny. Whatever shape we give to it, it was pre-destined to receive that shape.
Gandhi clarifies his position on inner voice, for those to whom it sounded obstructionist in current form, as it simply being the dictates of reason. He said that these dictates contained both authority and power but revealed themselves only to those men who had undergone purificatory discipline of a Satyagrahi and have faith in God. Gandhi held the view that if one listened to his inner voice then he would come in tune with the universe which will gives the power to stand alone in the harshest of the harsh conditions. He was very fond of a song that Tagore wrote during independence movement. ‘Ekla Cholo’- the song motivates the lone worker to struggle for freedom even when no one responds to the call in dark.
As the chapter closes, Chatterjee explores that important conduit through which the inner voice is approached- prayer. For Gandhi, prayer was a means of self-purification. It arose from the hunger of the soul. When he prayed for an ailing friend, we also see his rational outlook towards prayer. He said that he didn’t know if prayer would add even a single second to the life for which he prayed. But it definitely comforted those who were prayed for and elevated those who prayed. Gandhi paid special attention to congregational prayers. These were accompanied not by a sermon or homily but a public address which dealt with very practical day to day matters of the ashram, the political events of the day and social challenges needed to be met. These mass prayer sessions were also a lesson in self-discipline. Even when no idols and images were used in his prayer gatherings, even when they were held under open skies, hundreds of thousands flocked. Gandhi was training them to listen to their inner voice.
TRUTH
Chatterjee mentions how truth had always an important role to play in various Indian systems of thoughts like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. It was used as a blanket cover for several spiritual pursuits, yogic practices and meditative techniques. In such a backdrop, Gandhi’s experiments with truths become interesting because he had his own ways of ascesis. She mentions how at a later stage in his life he discovers that God is Truth. He is not substituting Truth for God but is in fact trying to elucidate what God means for him. Gandhi has very peculiar views on religion. As Chatterjee mentions, he believes in idolatry and is also an iconoclast, which means his God does not have a perceptible image, but at the same time he is reflected in the faces of starving millions. Gandhi mentions verses from the holy Koran, reads passages from the Sermon on the Mount. Several times he has received criticism for such ventures and so many times he was taken to task by his fellow Hindus. How can we forget that a fellow radical Hindu took his life? But the point nevertheless remains that he borrowed and absorbed from wherever he could look. He educated himself into developing a religious-ethical creed. A theory which is humanistic and practical first and anything else later. Gandhi was also close to atheists and Chatterjee recounts the incident when he attended the funeral of Charles Bradlaugh whom he admired very much. Gandhi saw in atheists, a will to enquire and search for truth. They rejected sentimental and metaphysical arguments on rational grounds and he saw a thrust for search of truth in them.
Another reason, on similar lines, why Gandhi preferred to see his God in the absolute truth is because time had proved that in every religion, the mere word God appeared as the biggest stumbling block. The word itself weaves debates around it and very often the essence of religion is lost in these debates. Gandhi didn’t want to engage in this God-talk and was rather impatient with those who were only interested in talking religion and not acting. Truth solved such problems.
This calls for understanding the meaning of Truth. Gandhi’s understanding finds its resonance in the Upanishads. The TaittirIya Upanishad says that ‘Brahman is truth eternal.’ For Gandhi, Truth was the absolute Brahman. In the Sabarmati Ashram evening prayers would include the BhajanAvalI and one of the hymns said: ‘Early in the morning I call to mind that Being which is felt in the heart, which is sat (the eternal), chit (the knowledge) and ananda (the joy). Truth was sat existing beyond and unconditioned by space and time. Gandhi once quoted from Mahabharata: ‘There is no dharma other than Truth.’ Satyam Eva Jayate nanRtam means Truth is victory, not falsehood. For Gandhi Truth was not the path to salvation, it was salvation. He saw the whole Hindu tradition was a relentless pursuit after truth.
His methods of this pursuit were interesting. There’s a distinct element of Advaita in it. He understands the whole species of humans, animals and nature as one. Moreover as Chatterjee observes later that this is actually one and the only inconsistency that we can observe in Gandhi- he is a believer in one world one people and at the same time he’s a nationalist fighting for independence and sovereignty. He believed that men should rationalize their needs so that everyone receive his due share. The needs had to be decreased when so many people slept at night without even one morsel of bread in their stomachs. He called for vegetarianism because eating non-veg was an act of ahimsa towards animals. Similarly, water must be saved because at some places women had to walk miles to get just one bucket of not very clean water. His self-discipline was actually an inculcation of God-ward proclivities. This was a certain kind of ethical behaviour true to the Atman inside.
In Gandhi’s mArg of truth, the tapasya, a series of disciplines is necessary. This mArg overlaps very considerably with the Jain list of vratas or resolutions. These are Ahimsa (non-violence), Nidarta (fearlessness, truth), Brahmacharya (chastity), Asteya (non-stealing) and Aparigraha (non-possession). He also paid a lot of attention to means rather than ends and often quoted a famous adage ‘as you sow so shall you reap.’ Gandhi advocated a strict steadfastness in their enforcement upon the people he led. He borrowed the scrupulous discipline present in nature like the sequence of day and night, cycle of seasons and saw them not as mechanical but as a model for human activity. He was of the view that before being send on campaigns, the satyagrahis had to be trained in the above-mentioned resolution with the same steadfastness as shown by nature. Gandhi believed that discipline was utmost important and that the vows were important not so much to control the tempest raging within us, but more so as they were a sign of strength. It was not a formalistic framework to keep oneself on rails but a way of entering more deeply into the truth.
SUFFERING
Suffering plays a very important role in Gandhi’s scheme of things. Before proceeding to Gandhi’s views, Chatterjee has explained the traditional Indian outlook attached to the idea of suffering – dukkha. In the Indian metaphysics as well as religions, dukkha has always been considered as a chief practical problem. Hinduism holds the concept of rebirth where the endless cycle of birth and death with ceaseless dukkha appears as a horrifying prospect. However, Gandhi held an innovative view on suffering, which he considered to be the richest treasure of life. He did not see dukkha from a Hindu cosmic point of view but from a very human and practical point of view. He saw suffering in the form of the injustices inflicted upon the weak and the wickedness present in the human heart such as the emotions of anger, greed, lust etc. However, he was not talking about this form of suffering only. More importantly he was concerned about the suffering which was self-inflicted- known as tapasya. Tapasya was the marg for tackling the above-mentioned miseries.
Gandhi focused on two things. First, tapasya should not be a method which only the spiritually strong sannyasins can adopt but it should also be achievable by all. Second, while it would enable the common man to build up a good life it must also be an effective weapon against the prevalent suffering. Gandhi looked for a method through which the constructive energies of all men could be released. He believed non-violence to be that method, the tapasya. The moral equivalent of warfare. Gandhi believed that the reality must be changed but non-violently otherwise the total burden of suffering in the world would increase. Non-violence was voluntary adoption of suffering by an individual and a group as a self-purificatory act to set up an example for others and convert the heart of the oppressor. He puts self-sacrifice in the place of ancient YagNas. This sacrifice was not the individual suffering undertaken through austerities in quest for self-perfection. Instead, this was the combined heroism of groups of satyagrahis.
Regardless of all, Gandhi repeatedly said that this method was new and yet to be tested. He believed that the suffering undertaken through the path of non-violence was not just to rectify the injustices inflicted upon common people or only making the authority concede to righteous demands but also to win the heart of the opponent and establish with him a new human relationship.
In matters of training Satyagrahis Gandhi paid utmost importance to discipline. To those, he led, he commanded with the wisdom of a spiritual dictator. Non-violence was not just to be observed in physical terms but also in terms of thought. Gandhi knew that the teachings of self-suffering can be put to use only after necessary preliminary training and he had the knack for sensing the readiness of Satyagrahis for embarking on a particular campaign.
Chatterjee goes on to argue that independent observers might not find Gandhi’s strategy of using suffering that effective a tool. It might simply appear as a kind of political blackmail. However, she clarifies this doubt by invoking the images of violent struggles of history which include assassinations, hostages, guerrilla strategies, isolated acts of terrorism and innocent people getting killed. Gandhi’s strategy of non-violent suffering was not political blackmail because he made sure that proper preliminary training of self-purification was given to the satyagrahis before they would be embarked on a campaign. The self-suffering was eventually supposed to move the heart of the oppressor, hridaya-parivartana. If it could not be done then it was better to get killed than kill, apparently to fail than to submit to tyranny. Such a method were satyagrahis were ready to lay their lives for the truth was not political blackmail.
Chatterjee explains that the method of self-suffering would not always be useful and effective unless the parallel constructive works are also run. Gandhi was extraordinarily sensitive to timings of campaigns because he believed that the voluntary assumption of suffering cannot be justified in the absence of supporting constructive work.
SECULARISM
As Chatterjee talks about religion, inner voice and Gandhi’s spiritual pursuits to train satyagrahis, she does not miss the important problem of religion getting mixed with public life and the response that Gandhi’s critics give to it. For Gandhi, secularism was never a problem neither was the presence of more than one religion. He saw similar ethical and human concerns in all religions. Pluralism was never an intellectual problem for Gandhi. Moreover, anyone with a Jain background and training in Syadvad would take this plurality for granted.
In India, public and social lives have been different. There was never an Indian parallel to the proletarian pop culture in the west that accompanied along with it secularization. In India, Chatterjee mentions, there was a continuity between beliefs and religious practices in India’s villages for hundreds of years. Politics for Gandhi was a mission, not any art, business or a game as Tilak one put it and Gandhi would use all his religious knowledge no matter where it came from to purge out the dirt. He also believed that Gita has shown that there are multiple paths to attain the highest truth of all. Politics was also a human activity which is built into man’s community and there was nothing wrong to walk on it and purifying it by infusing a non-violent spirit into it. Gandhi thought that activism of religion, when it is purged of obscurantism, superstition and doctrinal barriers, was to bring about conflict resolution as it had in itself the seed of sensitivity to social injustice. This quality made religion an integral part of politics.
Although Secularism was not a serious issue for Gandhi, and he involved cross religion thoughts freely in the field of politics, he also received a lot of flak for it. Occasionally he read passages from the holy Koran as in 1947 which brought a shower of criticism on his head. He was called a slave of Jinnah-Saheb and a fifth columnist. He was also taken to task by students of Gujarat National College when he read some passa
