The Modern Review/Volume 29/Number 5/The Problem of Ahimsa
THE MODERN REVIEW
No. 5
No. 173
THE PROBLEM OF AHIMSA
There is a problem before the modern world, in the East and West alike, which cannot be laid aside. We have to discover, in the government of nations, the moral equivalent for War. If humanity is not to sink back into the beast, a substitute in political action must be found, which shall keep intact the courage and the daring of man, that has been associated with War in the past. We must take away from the ultimate political struggle the cruelty, the intolerance, the violence, the murder, the hate which war produces. All that has shone out in the past in martial deeds, all that has been sung in legend and epic about heroes and warriors and knights, must be preserved, but its objective must be changed from the slaying of men to the slaying of evil, from hatred of men to the hatred of evil systems.
I well remember how, in a recent visit to Japan, the Poet Rabindranath Tagore was asked to commemorate in a poem, which should be carved upon the rocks, the martial deeds of two Samurai, who fought in mortal combat against each other and perished side by side at a certain spot on a lonely mountain road. At the time this request was made, I was with the Poet, and I can well recollect the look of pain, which came over his face, as he listened to the story. He went out silently to his own room and after a while he came back with these lines written —
They hated and killed, and men
praised them
But God, in shame, hastens to hide its
memory under the green grass
As the Poet showed me the lines he had composed he said nothing, but there was something in his pained silence, that I saw, which could never be forgotten. It reminded me of the Buddha, or the Christ.
The years that have passed since August, 1914, have caused a revulsion of mind about war which lends a ray of hope to the future. It is now recognised even by the generals themselves, who were the principal actors in the struggle, that another such conflict would mean the end of western civilisation. The shelling of Louvain and Ypres, of Arras and Rheims, the devastation of one of the fairest lands on God’s earth, the northern land of France, the infinite torture of human lives in hundreds of miles of trenches on the Eastern and Western fronts, the inhuman outrages of poison gas, the bombs, growing ever larger and larger, hurled down upon non-combatants from aeroplanes, the Zeppelin raids, the barbed wire entanglements heaped with mangled dead, the submarines and their victims, the underground mines which dynamited away whole mountain sides like a volcanic eruption, the lying and persecuting press propaganda, the epidemics of moral degeneracy which ran like a plague through the great cities,— these are some of the things, that we have now learnt to associate with War.
But even this is not all. We have experienced, also, the aftermath of War. We have seen the Law of Karma being fulfilled in all its terrible exactness, proving the truth of Christ’s words,—“They that take the sword, shall perish with the sword.” We have lived to know the treacheries of the Armistice and of the Treaties of Versailles and Sevres which followed. We have lived through the horrors which were inflicted on Russia and the Central Powers by the economic blockade,—the deliberate and calculated starvation of mothers and their little children. We have witnessed, nearer our own Indian shores, the insensate greed for plunder in Mesopotamia and the Middle East. We have known also the incessant fomenting of internecine strife in Russia by the Allied Powers, with its deadly effect of hardening into a new militarism the Russian revolutionary Soviet movement. Those who have lived through all this,—the War itself and its after effects,—have now no illusions left. War, to them, is Hell. The one prayer that rises from their lips is this,—“Give Peace, in our time, O Lord.”
Such a prayer to-day is almost universal. Thus far we are nearly all agreed. But the whole problem is not settled by a merely negative conclusion. We have to find out, as I have said, the ultimate moral equivalent for war. Wrong-doing cannot remain unchecked and unredressed. Bullying and lying, treachery and hypocrisy, deceit and violence, cannot go on unresisted. What is needed is, that the resistance shall take a spiritual form, which shall be all the more effective and potent because it is spiritual. St Paul said of a struggle which he himself was called upon to wage against evil,—“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty to the pulling down of the strongholds of Satan.” We must find out what those weapons are,—those weapons which are spiritual and not carnal.
While painfully engaged in puzzling over this problem, it was with intense interest that I came across a new writing of Tolstoy, for it dealt with the theory of violent revolution in the clearest possible manner. It is from the account of an eye witness, who wrote down Tolstoy’s own words at a memorable interview, which he had in 1908 with the Russian Revolutionary Party. A translation is given in the ‘Living Age’ of January 15, 1921, and my material is entirely taken from that source.
Tolstoy had read beforehand the programme of the Revolutionary Party, which contained the following words, “Inspire hatred in the hearts of men. This is a holy duty.” These words had shocked him inexpressibly, and he called four of the leading revolutionaries into his presence.
“Isn’t that outrageous?”, he cried. “The Love of one’s fellow man has, ever since the creation of the world, been regarded as the primary distinctive human instinct,—by the Hindus, by the Chinese, by Christians and now people are to be taught, that the very antithesis of love,—hatred,—is to be cultivated as a holy duty! This proves to me that the men who write such things are in the very lowest depths of moral error. Do you ask me to retract what I have said? No, I will not take back my words!”
After a short silence, one of the revolutionaries spoke,—“Either we must die of hunger, before we have done anything or we must at once strike our blow and shake off this hated yoke.”
Tolstoy argued and reasoned with them, and showed them, that there was, in truth, an alternative course. “There is,” he said, “only one sensible thing to do. Refuse to take part in the existing unjust social system The only way to attain your end is to refuse to participate in the injustice and violence of the government, which has ruined your life,—to keep out of it entirely.”
One of the revolutionists replied to Tolstoy, that, if he were to do this, then he and his children would starve. He was not in a position to so without employment, because he was married and had a family. This at once brought Tolstoy to the very centre of his own teaching, and he grew excited.
“Then the question of your family,” he said, “is more important to you than the question of morality! Yet Christ said, that those who would follow him must leave their father and mother and all that they possessed. Men of your opinion are ready to employ force against force, and violence against violence, in order to gain your ends, but you are not ready to sacrifice your family at the command of your conscience.”
One of the revolutionists broke out and said,—“Truly, these landowners, these usurpers of the soil, deserve nothing but our hatred. We hate them, and would kill them, if we got the chance.”
At this Tolstoy could only with great difficulty restrain himself. “Hatred,” he cried, “is the most bestial thing. It is the lowest sentiment which exists! Whenever a man is conscious of moral elevation, he inevitably finds, associated with it, a consciousness of love, love to God, love to his neighbour, love to all men without exception. But you appeal to Hate. If I have the right to say, that men should hate landlords, then landlords have the same right to say, that men should hate revolutionaries.”
“But if we are unable,” the revolutionist broke in, “to endure their injustice, is it improper to bring pressure upon men in order to convince them that they must cease from injustice?”
“It is right,” said Tolstoy, “to teach and persuade men. That is always right and good. But is it possible to dispense with the human virtues of reason and love and compel a person to be just?”
One of the revolutionists answered, “We agree with you that it would be possible to pursue a different policy from that of violence, in order to seek our end. But would it bring results? For instance, if we were to practise your doctrine, of refusing to take part in government, for conscience sake, we should be thrown into prison. Thus we should be destroyed, and the whole revolutionary movement would collapse.”
“Take the example of Christ,” Tolstoy replied. “He was crucified, and it might have seemed as though his life amounted to nothing. But the result has been, that I and millions of men are trying to live as followers of his teaching. At the same time it is very doubtful whether he succeeded in converting Pontius Pilate.”
“But it is questionable,” said the revolutionist, “whether, in our own case, we can get any improvement at all by your principle of passive goodness. History does not show it.”
“Quite the contrary,” said Tolstoy, with great animation, “the course of history teaches us one thing, namely, that humanity exists for the sake of moral progress. That is humanity’s special function, without which it has no meaning, no purpose. If we are merely to debate, whether violence has ever achieved results, and if I take one side and you take the other, we shall get no further. But I have on my side something more than an historical demonstration. By acting according to my principle, I am conscious of acting in accordance with the eternal laws of reason and love, which all the wise men of the world have proclaimed and which I feel in my own heart. You can have no such satisfying conscience. My inner guide, my private conscience, tells me that violence and murder are revolting, that sacrifice and love are a blessing. This itself is the final proof, that my position is right and yours is wrong.”
Then the revolutionists asked Tolstoy to state briefly, so that they might remember them, his three points against a violent revolution.
Tolstoy replied as follows —
“First of all, I think violent revolution immoral, because it violates the highest law of human conduct, which is, Love for all our fellow men without exception.
“Secondly, I believe that violence never accomplishes its object, but only leads to fresh violence.
“Thirdly, the thing that impelled me to invite you to see me was this, that if you were to sacrifice yourself for a moral law, like those who, for conscience sake, refuse military service, I should envy you, but now I can only pity you in your blindness.”
One of the revolutionists then said scoffingly, “You compare us with those Dukhobors, who were forced to emigrate to Canada! What did they accomplish?”
Then Tolstoy could hardly keep his patience any longer. He was hurt to the quick, because he had spent his life for the Dukhobors. “Ah!” he cried, “so you have settled everything and know everything. You think you know that the Dukhobors accomplished nothing, and that they might have done much more, if they had only been as clever as you! You are the only ones with vision, are you? Pardon me, pardon me, and let me tell you plainly that this self-confidence is due to your fixed ideas which blind you. You must get rid of these errors which betray you.”
The revolutionaries asked Tolstoy to give them time to think over the matter, and Tolstoy bade them farewell, with every mark of tenderness, saying, “I shall be very happy if our talk has not been in vain.” All his excitement had vanished, and he was like a little child.