Vegetarianism
As a child, Gandhi experimented with meat-eating. This was due partially to his inherent curiosity as well as his rather persuasive peer and friend Sheikh Mehtab. The idea of vegetarianism is deeply ingrained in Hindu and Jain traditions in India, and, in his native land ofGujarat, most Hindus are vegetarian and so are almost all Jains.[76][77] The Gandhi family was no exception. Before leaving for his studies in London, Gandhi made a promise to his mother, Putlibai and his uncle, Becharji Swami that he would abstain from eating meat, taking alcohol, and engaging in promiscuity. He held fast to his promise and gained more than a diet: he gained a basis for his life-long philosophies. As Gandhi grew into adulthood, he became a strict vegetarian. He wrote the book The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism[78] and several articles on the subject, some of which were published in the London Vegetarian Society's publication, The Vegetarian.[79] During this period, the young Gandhi became inspired by many great minds and was befriended by the chairman of the London Vegetarian Society, Dr. Josiah Oldfield.
Having also read and admired the work of Henry Stephens Salt, the young Mohandas met and often corresponded with the vegetarian campaigner. Gandhi spent much time advocating vegetarianism during and after his time in London. To Gandhi, a vegetarian diet would not only satisfy the requirements of the body, it would also serve an economic purpose as meat was, and still is, generally more expensive than grains, vegetables, and fruits. Also, many Indians of the time struggled with low income, thus vegetarianism was seen not only as a spiritual practice but also a practical one. He abstained from eating for long periods, using fasting as a form of political protest. He refused to eat until his death or his demands were met. Gandhi noted in his autobiography that vegetarianism was the beginning of his deep commitment to Brahmacharya; without total control of the palate, his success in Bramacharya would likely falter.
Gandhi also experimented with fruitarianism, stating in his autobiography, "I decided to live on a pure fruit diet, and that too composed of the cheapest fruit possible ... Raw groundnuts, bananas, dates, lemons and olive oil composed our usual diet."[80] However, late in life he broke his discipline and started taking goat's milk on the advice of his doctor. This lapse of discipline bothered him to his dying day, and he wrote, "The memory of this action even now rankles my breast and fills me with remorse, and I am constantly thinking how to give up goat's milk." He never took dairy products obtained from cows because of his view initially that milk is not the natural diet of man, disgust for cow blowing,[81] and, specifically, because of a vow to his late mother.
Nai Talim, Basic Education
Main article: Nai Talim
Nai Talim is a spiritual principle which states that knowledge and work are not separate. Gandhi promoted an educational curriculum with the same name based on this pedagogical principle.[82]
It can be translated with the phrase 'Basic Education for all'.[83] However, the concept has several layers of meaning. It developed out of Gandhi's experience with the English educational system and with colonialism in general. In that system, he saw that Indian children would be alienated and 'career-based thinking' would become dominant. In addition, it embodied a series of negative outcomes: the disdain for manual work, the development of a new elite class, and the increasing problems of industrialisation and urbanisation.
The three pillars of Gandhi's pedagogy were its focus on the life-long character of education, its social character and its form as aholistic process. For Gandhi, education is 'the moral development of the person', a process that is by definition 'life-long'.[84]
Brahmacharya, sexuality
When Gandhi was 16 his father became very ill. Being very devoted to his parents, he attended to his father at all times during his illness. However, one night, Gandhi's uncle came to relieve Gandhi for a while. Gandhi retired to his bedroom and had sex with his wife. Shortly afterward a servant came to report that Gandhi's father had just died. Gandhi felt tremendous guilt and never could forgive himself. He came to refer to this event as "double shame." The incident had significant influence in Gandhi becoming celibate at the age of 36, while still married.[85]
This decision was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Brahmacharya — spiritual and practical purity — largely associated with celibacy and asceticism. Gandhi saw Brahmacharya as a means of becoming close with God and as a primary foundation for self-realisation. In his autobiography he tells of his battle against lustful urges and fits of jealousy with his childhood bride, Kasturba. He felt it his personal obligation to remain celibate so that he could learn to love, rather than lust. For Gandhi, Brahmacharya meant "control of the senses in thought, word and deed.".[86]
Within a year of his chastity vow, Gandhi's newspaper, the Indian Opinion, wrote "It is the duty of every thoughtful Indian not to marry. In case he is helpless in regard to marriage, he should abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife". Gandhi also conducted sexual experiments in his ashrams. In these ashrams, boys and girls bathed together, slept in the same beds, but were punished for any sexual talk. Men and women were segregated. Gandhi also advised that husbands should not be alone with their wives, and, when they felt sexual desire, should take a cold bath.[87]
A recent biography of Gandhi, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India by Joseph Lelyveld, has led to claims that he was "a sexual weirdo".[37] The controversy surround's Gandhi's relationship with Hermann Kallenbach, a "German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder". Andrew Roberts for The Wall Street Journal says that Gandhi left his wife for Kallenbach in 1908. The pair continued to send letters after they were separated by Gandhi's return to India in 1914. Lelyveld has stated that the press coverage "grossly distort[s]" the overall message of the book.[88] However, this did not prevent the government of the Indian state Gujarat, Gandhi's birth state, from banning the book.[89]
Towards the end of his life, it became public knowledge that Gandhi had been sharing his bed for a number of years with young women.[90][91] He explained that he did this for bodily warmth at night and termed his actions as "nature cure". Later in his life he started experimenting with brahmacharya in order to test his self-control. His letter to Birla in April 1945 referring to 'women or girls who have been naked with me' indicates that several women were part of his experiments.[92] He wrote five editorials in Harijan discussing the practice of brahmacharya.[93]
As part of these experiments, he initially slept with his women associates in the same room but at a distance. Afterwards he started to lie in the same bed with his women disciples and later took to sleeping naked alongside them.[92] According to Gandhi active-celibacy meant perfect self-control in the presence of the opposite sex. Gandhi conducted his experiments with a number of women such as Abha, the sixteen-year-old wife of his grandnephew Kanu Gandhi.[94] Gandhi acknowledged "that this experiment is very dangerous indeed", but thought "that it was capable of yielding great results".[95] His nineteen-year-old grandniece, Manu Gandhi, too was part of his experiments. Gandhi had earlier written to her father, Jaisukhlal Gandhi, that Manu had started to share his bed so that he may "correct her sleeping posture".[95] Gandhi saw himself as a mother to these women and would refer to Abha and Manu as "my walking sticks".
Gandhi called Sarladevi, a married woman with children and a devout follower, his "spiritual wife". He later said that he had come close to having sexual relations with her.[96] He had told a correspondent in March, 1945 that "sleeping together came with my taking up of bramhacharya or even before that"; he said he had experimented with his wife "but that was not enough".[95] Gandhi felt satisfied with his experiments and wrote to Manu that "I have successfully practised the eleven vows taken by me. This is the culmination of my striving for last thirty-six years. In this yajna I got a glimpse of the ideal truth and purity for which I have been striving".[97]
According to Gandhi's letters, some of his "experiments" included stripteases and other non-contact sexual activity. Explicit material has been found in his letters, although much of it was destroyed, with one reading "Vina's sleeping with me might be called an accident. All that can be said is that she slept close to me".[87]
Gandhi complained of experiencing "involuntary discharges" more frequently since his return to India. He believed, however, that semenheld special power, saying "one who conserves his vital fluid acquires unfailing power".[87]
Gandhi had to take criticism for his experiments by many of his followers and opponents. His stenographer, R. P. Parasuram, resigned when he saw Gandhi sleeping naked with Manu.[98] Gandhi insisted that he never felt aroused while he slept beside her, or with Sushila Nayar or Abha. "I am sorry" Gandhi said to Parasuram, "you are at liberty to leave me today." Nirmal Kumar Bose, leading anthropologist and close associate of Gandhi, parted company with him in April, 1947 post Gandhi's tour of Noakhali, where some sort of altercation had taken place between Gandhi and Sushila in his bedroom at midnight that caused Gandhi to slap his forehead. Bose said, "there was no immorality on part of Gandhi. Moreover Gandhi tried to conquer the feeling of sex by consciously endeavouring to convert himself into a mother of those who were under his case, whether men or women". This maternal emphasis has also been pointed out by Dattatreya Balkrushna Kalelkar, a revolutionary turned disciple of Gandhi.[99]
Simplicity
Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in public service should lead a simple life. He first displayed this principle when he gave up wearing western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. When he returned to India he renounced the western lifestyle he led in South Africa, where he had enjoyed a successful legal practice.
Gandhi dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India, advocating the use of homespun cloth (khadi). He and his followers adopted the practice of weaving their own clothes from thread they themselves spun on a charkha, and encouraged others to do so. While Indian workers were often idle due to unemployment, they had often bought their clothing from industrial manufacturers owned by British interests. The Swadeshi movementheld that if Indians made their own clothes, it would deal an economic blow to the British establishment in India. Gandhian simplicity was a sign and expression of swadeshi principles. Consequently, the charkha was later incorporated into the flag of the Indian National Congress. He subsequently wore a dhoti for the rest of his life to express the simplicity of his life.
The practice of giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes, Gandhi called "reducing himself to zero".[100] On one occasion he returned the gifts bestowed to him from the Natals for his diligent service to the community.[101]
Gandhi spent one day of each week in silence. He believed that abstaining from speaking brought him inner peace and made him a better listener. This influence was drawn from the Hindu principles of mauna (Sanskrit:मौनं — silence) and shanti (Sanskrit:शांति — peace). On such days he communicated with others by writing on paper. For three and a half years, from the age of 37, Gandhi refused to read newspapers, claiming that the tumultuous state of world affairs caused him more confusion than his own inner unrest.
After reading John Ruskin's Unto This Last, he decided to change his lifestyle and create a commune called Phoenix Settlement.
Faith
Gandhi was born a Hindu and practised Hinduism all his life. As a common Hindu, he believed all religions to be equal, and rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith. He was an avid theologian and read extensively about all major religions. He had the following to say about Hinduism:
Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being...When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
Gandhi wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita in Gujarati. The Gujarati manuscript was translated into English by Mahadev Desai, who provided an additional introduction and commentary. It was published with a Foreword by Gandhi in 1946.[102][103]
Gandhi believed that at the core of every religion was truth and love (compassion, nonviolence and the Golden Rule). He also questioned what he saw as hypocrisy, malpractices, and dogma in all religions, including his own, and he was a tireless advocate for social reform in religion. Some of his comments on various religions are:
Thus if I could not accept Christianity either as a perfect, or the greatest religion, neither was I then convinced of Hinduism being such. Hindu defects were pressingly visible to me. If untouchability could be a part of Hinduism, it could but be a rotten part or an excrescence. I could not understand the raison d'être of a multitude of sects and castes. What was the meaning of saying that the Vedas were the inspired Word of God? If they were inspired, why not also the Bible and the Koran? As Christian friends were endeavouring to convert me, so were Muslim friends. Abdullah Seth had kept on inducing me to study Islam, and of course he had always something to say regarding its beauty.
As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side.
The sayings of Muhammad are a treasure of wisdom, not only for Muslims but for all of mankind.
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
God has no religion.
Later in his life, when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied, "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew."
Gandhi met the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba aboard the S.S. Rajputana on his way to the second Round Table Conference in London in 1931, saying that he was very happy to meet Baba and asking him to break his silence.[104]
In spite of their deep reverence to each other, Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore engaged in protracted debates more than once. These debates exemplify the philosophical differences between the two most famous Indians at the time. On 15 January 1934, an earthquake hit Bihar and caused extensive damage and loss of life. Gandhi maintained this was because of the sin committed by upper caste Hindus by not letting untouchables in their temples (Gandhi was committed to the cause of improving the fate of untouchables, referring to them as Harijans). Tagore vehemently opposed Gandhi's stance, maintaining that an earthquake can only be caused by natural forces, not moral reasons, however repugnant the practice of untouchability may be.[105]
Gandhi took a keen interest in theosophy. He empathised with theosophy's message of "universal brotherhood and consequent toleration", as he put it in 1926.[106]
Swaraj, Self-Rule
Main article: Swaraj
Gandhi was a self-described philosophical anarchist,[107][108] and his vision of India meant India without an underlying government.[109] He once said that "the ideally nonviolent state would be an ordered anarchy."[110] While political systems are largely hierarchical, with each layer of authority from the individual to the central government have increasing levels of authority over the layer below, Gandhi believed that society should be the exact opposite, where nothing is done without the consent of anyone, down to the individual. His idea was that true self-rule in a country means that every person rules his or herself and that there is no state which enforces laws upon the people.[111] This would be achieved over time with nonviolent conflict mediation, as power is divested from layers of hierarchical authorities, ultimately to the individual, which would come to embody the ethic of nonviolence. Rather than a system where rights are enforced by a higher authority, people are self-governed by mutual responsibilities. On returning from South Africa, when Gandhi received a letter asking for his participation in writing a world charter for human rights, he responded saying, "in my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties."[112] A free India for him meant the existence of thousands of self-sufficient small communities (an idea possibly from Tolstoy) who rule themselves without hindering others. It did not mean merely transferring a British established administrative structure into Indian hands which he said was just making Hindustan into Englistan.[113] He wanted to ultimately dissolve the Congress Party after independence and establish a system of direct democracy in India,[114] having no faith in the British styled parliamentary system.[113]
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