Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches/Confession of Faith
GANDHI'S CONFESSION OF FAITH
[The following is an extract from a letter addressed by Mr. Gandhi to a friend in India]:—
(1) There is no impassable barrier between East and West.
(2) There is no such thing as Western or European civilization but there is a modern civilization, which is purely material.
(3) The people of Europe, before they were touched by modern civilization had much in common with the people of the East; anyhow the people of India, and even to-day Europeans who are not touched by Modern civilization are far better able to mix with Indians than the offspring of that civilization.
(4) It is not the British people who are ruling India, but it is modern civilisation, through its railways, telegraph, telephone, and almost every invention which has been claimed to be a triumph of civilization.
(5) Bombay, Calcutta, and the other chief cities of India are the real plague spots.
(6) If British rule was replaced to-morrow by Indian rule based on modern methods, India would be no better, except that she would be able then to retain some of the money that is drained away to England; but then India would only become a second or fifth edition of Europe or America.
(7) East and West can only and really meet when the West has thrown overboard modern civilization, almost in its entirety. They can also seemingly meet when East has also adopted modern civilization, but that meeting would be an armed truce, even as it is between, say, Germany and England, both of which nations are living in the Hall of Death in order to avoid being devoured the one by the other.
(8) It is simply impertinence for any man or any body of men to begin or contemplate reform of the whole world. To attempt to do so by means of highly artificial and speedy locomotion, is to attempt the impossible.
(9) Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.
(10) Medical Science is the concentrated essence of Black Magic. Quackery is infinitely preferable to what passes for high medical skill.
(11) Hospitals are the instruments that the Devil has been using for his own purpose, in order to keep his hold on his Kingdom. They perpetuate vice, misery, and degradation and real slavery. I was entirely off the track when I considered that I should receive a medical training. It would be sinful for me in any way whatsoever to take part in the abominations that go on in the hospitals. If there were no hospitals for venereal diseases, or even for consumptives, we should have less consumption, and less sexual vice amongst us.
(12) India's salvation consists in unlearning what she has learnt during the past fifty years. The railways, telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors, and such like have all to go, and the so-called upper classes have to learn to live consciously and religiously and deliberately the simple peasant life, knowing it to be a life-giving, true happiness.
(13) India should wear no machine-made clothing, whether it comes out of European mills or Indian mills.
(14) England can help India to do this, and then she will have justified her hold on India. There seem to be many in England to-day who think likewise.
(15) There was true wisdom in the sages of old having so regulated society as to limit the material condition of the people; the rude plough of perhaps five thousand years ago is the plough of the husbandman to-day. Therein lies salvation. People live long under such conditions, in comparative peace much greater than Europe has enjoyed after having taken up modern activity, and I feel that every enlightened man, certainly every Englishman, may, if he chooses learn this truth and act according to it.
It is the true spirit of passive resistance that has brought me to the above almost definite conclusions. As a passive resister, I am unconcerned whether such a gigantic, reformation, shall I call it, can be brought about among people who find their satisfaction from the present mad rush. If I realize the truth of it, I should rejoice in following it, and therefore I could not wait until the whole body of people had commenced. All of us who think likewise have to take the necessary step, and the rest, if we are in the right, must follow. The theory is there: our practice will have to approach it as much as possible. Living in the midst of the rush, we may not be able to shake ourselves free from all taint. Every time I get into a railway car or use a motor-bus, I know that I am doing violence to my sense of what is right. I do not fear the logical result on that basis. The visiting of England is bad, and any communication between South Africa and India by means of ocean-grey-hounds is also bad, and so on. You and I can, and may outgrow these things in our present bodies, but the chief thing is to put our theory right. You will be seeing there all sorts and conditions of men. I therefore feel that I should no longer withold from you what I call the progressive step I have taken mentally. If you agree with me, then it will be your duty to tell the revolutionaries and every body else that the freedom they want, or they think they want, is not to be obtained by killing people or doing violence, but by setting themselves right, and by becoming and remaining truly Indian. Then the British rulers will be servants and not masters. They will be trustees, and not tyrants, and they will live in perfect peace with the whole of the inhabitants of India. The future, Therefore, lies not with the British race, but with the Indians themselves, and if they have sufficient self-abnegation and abstemiousness, they can make themselves free this very moment, and when we have arrived in India at the simplicity which is still ours largely and which was ours entirely until a few years ago, it will still be possible for the best Indians and the best Europeans to see one another throughout the length and breadth of India, and act as the leaven. When there was no rapid locomotion, teachers and preachers went on foot, from one end of the country to the other, braving all dangers, not for pleasure, not for recruiting their health, (though all that followed from their tramps) but for the sake of humanity. Then were Benares and other places of pilgrimage holy cities, whereas to-day they are an abomination.
You will recollect you used to hate me for talking to my children in Gujarati. I now feel more and more convinced that I was absolutely right in refusing to talk to them in English. Fancy a Gujarati writing to another Gujarati in English! Which, as you would properly say, he mispronounces, and writes ungrammatically. I should certainly never commit the ludicrous blunders in writing in Guzerati that I do in writing or speaking in English. I think that when I speak in English to an Indian or a Foreigner I in a measure un-learn the language. If I want to learn it well, and if I want to attune my ear to it, I can only do so by talking to an Englishman and by listening to an Englishman speaking.