The religion of humanity
VIVEK PINTO
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Can religion be a source of positive values in political life, rather than a convenient weapon for mobilising the passions of the mob?
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OF SUBSTANCE: The Mahatma's religion is about adherence to non-violence, truth and industry. PHOTO: AFP
"For me, every, the tiniest, activity is governed by what I consider to be my religion."
Mohandas K. Gandhi, "A Letter," Mahadevbhaini Diary, Vol. 1, May 30, 1932
THE question of religion informing one's politics in a secular society is viewed with grave apprehension. To some, being religious is "a form of psychological immaturity." For others, religion is "a fundamental source of radical discord." Whatever be the reasoning, existence of this primordial, and powerful, force isn't easily negated. In India it is common for intellectuals, politicians, public servants, teachers, and others to don a religious garb and employ virtuous language to use or misuse religion. How does one probe the honesty of such individuals and fathom their intentions? A brief exploration of the moral and political thought of Mahatma Gandhi, perhaps the keenest exponent of intentionally interpolating politics with religious values, may be instructive.
What, however, is Gandhi's `religion' and `politics'? Gandhi was first and foremost a deeply religious person. This fact cannot be over emphasised. In 1936, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975), a philosopher and statesman, asked Gandhi: "(1) What is your Religion? (2) How are you led to it? (3) What is its bearing on social life?"
The Mahatma's reply
In reply, Gandhi wrote:
My religion is Hinduism which, for me, is Religion of humanity . . . I am being led to my religion through Truth and Non-violence, i.e., love in the broadest sense. I often describe my religion as Religion of Truth . . . . We are all sparks of Truth. I am being led nearer to It by constant prayer ... . To be true to such religion, one has to lose oneself in continuous and continuing service to all life. Realisation of truth is impossible without a complete merging of oneself in, and identification with, this limitless ocean of life. Hence, for me, there is no escape from social service.
Gandhi's responses show that his understanding of religion varies from the usual. Gandhi's religion was bereft of dogma, rituals, superstition, and bigotry. Hence, there was no temple at his ashrams at Sabarmati or Wardha, and yet there was ample evidence of religion and moral values.
Is this credible? Yes. At these ashrams, satyagrahis [those who held to the truth] were trained in non-violence, truth, compassion, freedom, love of the opponent, politics, ethics, service to community, and secularism. It was the religion of Truth, not Hinduism, that every satyagrahi affirmed. Why? Because Gandhi believed and taught that all religions were true. Satyagrahis put their religio-political training into awe-inspiring effect in Gandhi's powerful moral, political, social, and economic campaigns, as witnessed in, the heroic Bardoli satyagraha against taxation in 1928, or the epic Salt March to Dandi in 1930 breaking unjust salt laws, or the momentous `Quit India' Movement in 1942. In all these struggles, satyagrahis adhered to the ashram's religious vows, such as: strict adherence to truth, non-violence, chastity, industry, resolution, fearless opposition to injustice, and poverty. These vows were the warp and woof of Gandhi's religion. This doesn't reduce Gandhi's religion to mere ethics.
Undoubtedly, organised religion dismayed Gandhi. The absence of a temple, however, did not prevent the varied, ashram congregants from gathering daily for prayer, recitation of scriptures, and singing bhajans or hymns. The role of the bhajan was of "constantly attun[ing] with truth ... different hymns speak of only one thing — the vision of God — in order to make our centrifugal mind pinpointed on him." One Gujarati bhajan which Gandhi cherished was "Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye (The True Vaishnav"). The ecumenical depth of Gandhi's religion came through publicly when his other favourite English hymns: `Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated" and "Lead, Kindly Light" were regularly sung. Thus, Gandhi a self-described Hindu went far beyond Hinduism's religio-philosophical confines to truly embrace other religions and seek close fellowship with Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians, even atheists and agnostics, as they were equally "all sparks of Truth." Margaret Chatterjee in Gandhi's Religious Thought (1983) writes that a function of religion is "man's response to ultimate Reality ... to transform human existence from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness." ... .
WHAT was that Reality? For Gandhi, it was two-fold: First, we were all children of God. Second, we should all join hands in ameliorating the human condition. Gandhi pithily expressed his deep yearning in 1936 to Maurice Frydman, a Polish engineer, while discussing the village reconstruction movement:
The immediate service of all people becomes a necessary part of the endeavour simply because the only way to find God is to see him in His creation and be one with it.
Gandhiji's perception
Gandhi's perception of politics resulted from his indictment of modern civilisation, which morally was "satanic." He outlined this in Hind Swaraj (1909) whose principal theme was the moral inadequacy of civilisation, especially so-called modernisation and present day globalisation, which was closely connected with "soullessness" of politics. As Raghavan Iyer comments: "[For] Gandhi, all political institutions become merely instruments for the pursuit of power, whether directly or by the indirect manner in which they maintain and foster ownership of property and provide the psychological incentives that are connected with power." Such power was invariably detached from ethics, morality, non-violence, selflessness, truth, and God and was offensive to Gandhi.
The bridge between Gandhi's religion and politics rested on the conceptual pillars of dharma or selfless service for the welfare of all; karma meant adherence to a path of action that particularly empowered the poorest sections; and holism — as all life is one. An invariable theme at prayer meetings and in Gandhi's voluminous writings was the urgency to bring devotion in accord with conduct. For Gandhi, a dharmik was a master of controlling passions, fears, untruth, and, most importantly, gave practical witness of profound love for others. How many dharmiks in India today can truthfully call someone from another religion or caste a friend, or a sister, or a brother and be present to serve/protect them selflessly?
The question whether Gandhi's religious values subserved his politics is contemporarily clarified by Stephen Carter, an American public intellectual and Professor of Law at Yale, in The Culture of Disbelief (1993). Carter writes: There is nothing wrong and much right with letting religious faith be the wellspring of a citizen's public action. At the same time, one whose moral judgments are driven by religious devotion must be ever careful to discern whether God's word or human politics is doing the work. For there is a vast difference between a political inspiration that is fired by one's deepest religious beliefs and a claim of religious belief that is fired by a pre-existing political commitment. It is the job of the religiously devout citizen to understand and preserve this distinction, one that unfortunately is blurred, and perhaps disbelieved, by our political rhetoric, as well as by our mass media.
Gandhi's politics was driven by his faith and morality to the point where it exasperated even his closest comrades. Yet, Gandhi neither relented nor harboured any feelings of hatred. Summarising the imperative of bringing religious values into politics, Gandhi said:
I could not be leading a religious life unless I identified myself with the whole of mankind and that I could not do unless I took part in politics. The whole gamut of man's activities today constitutes an indivisible whole.
Ethical question
Gandhi's pervasive challenge to every raj is predicated on the moral values of: swadeshi, aparigraha (non-possession), sarvodaya, ahimsa, bread labour, trusteeship, non-exploitation, and equality. This necessarily involves the ethical question of means and ends — "as the means so the end."
Could it yet be said that Gandhi joined religion and politics as a matter of convenience? Carter, again, explicates this query: "If the role of the religionist is first to make up her mind about which political position to take and next to search for religious arguments to support the already selected view, the idea of faith as the source [emphasis original] of moral inspiration is trivialised." Gandhi's life and writings reveal that he was primarily a moral philosopher-activist. Through this prism of moral thought Gandhi viewed, reflected, and acted in the political arena. Most of Gandhi's political campaigns were planned at his ashrams in days of solitude, prayer, fasting, self-examination, and rigorous self-control.
And, yet, Gandhi refused to wear an ochre loin-cloth or tour the country in an arrogant rath (chariot), but on humble pad (feet) to awaken and unite all Indians in the marathon march for swaraj. Perhaps, then, it was all of a piece that for 33 years, ever since his return from South Africa in 1915 until his assassination by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member at a prayer meeting, he "rose at 4:00 a.m." from "4:15 to 4:45 a.m. [said his] morning prayer"; from "6:30 to 7:00 a.m. [attended] women's prayer class"; and concluded his day by attending "Common worship [from] 7:00 to 7:30 p.m." Would you say that it was convenience or convergence?
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