Mahatma Gandhi: His Own Story 1930 PDF

 Theology Library SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT - CGaliteenta MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY  id Se THE MACMILLAN COMPANY WEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Lrmutzp LONDON + BOMBAY + CALCUT...

 Theology Library SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT - CGaliteenta MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY  id Se THE MACMILLAN COMPANY WEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Lrmutzp LONDON + BOMBAY + CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, Liatep TORONTO (By courtesy of the Artis t. ) MAHATMA GANDHI A draw ing by S jt Kanu Desa i MAH A T M A G A N D H I “ * 2 hdfAt, | M o> h HDsIS OWN STORY Lf f | | G3 Edited by Da C.F. ANDREWS With an Introduction by JoHn Haynes HotMEs NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1930  CopyRIcuT, 1930, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. All rights reserved—no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publishers. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1930, Reprinted November, 1930; December, 1930. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA  DEDICATED WITH MUCH AFFECTION TO DR. AND MRS. BAHADUR SINGH AND THE SETTLERS FROM INDIA IN THE WEST INDIES  PREFACE THE MATERIAL OF THIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, which Mahatma Gandhi has called “The Story of My Experiments with Truth,” was first dictated by him in his own mother-tongue to one of his fellow political prisoners during a long imprisonment in the years 1922-24. It was afterwards continued in a serial form, as a feature of his Gujarati paper, called “Navajivan,” and translated into English by his intimate friends, Mahadev Desai and Piyarelal Nair, receiving at the same time his own careful revision. Miss Slade, who is known in Mr. Gandhi’s Ashram as Mirabehn, also assisted in shaping its final Eng- lish form. The whole series of short chapters has now been published by the Navajivan Press at Ahmedabad in two large volumes, containing over twelve hundred octavo pages. These chapters have also been printed serially in America in Dr. John Haynes Holmes’ paper, “Unity.” Another book of equal importance has been used, wherein Mahatma Gandhi describes personally his own experiences in South Africa. The volume is called “Satyag- raha (Soul-force) in South Africa,” and the translation has been made by Valji Govindji Desai. This book has never been printed in America. Its Indian publisher is Mr. S. Ganesan, Triplicane, Madras, India. In using freely all these documents and making abbreviations, I would wish very warmly to express my admiration for the manner in which the spirit of the author has been kept by the translators. When we turn to the three volumes and try to gain the clue to Mahatma Gandhi’s estimate of human conduct, it will be found to centre in three cardinal virtues, recurrent 7  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY in all his writings. These are Truth, Loving-kindness, and Inner Purity." The first pair of these form together the Eternal Quest of the soul and denote its infinite yearning to pass through this mortal existence without transgressing more than can be possibly avoided the ultimate spiritual realities. The full music of life demands the harmony of Truth and Love. But so difficult is the music to master, and so complete is the renunciation required, that success can only be attained through a body and soul kept clean from all sensual passion. Therefore the constant refrain of Inner Purity runs through all his writings, wherein at one time Love is the dominant note, and at another time Truth. He believes intensely that only the pure in heart can see God; and he gives a very concrete and plain-spoken definition of what that Purity means. In his own person, it has implied the abandonment of the married life for one of entire abstinence from all sexual relations. How far he would demand this from others in their search for God will be revealed in his own words. In one part of his Autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi ‘ declares that he has continually sought the guidance of the Spirit in all that he has written. He has felt assured, he tells us, that this guidance has been granted in due measure. It is this sincere attempt, so searchingly keen, to lay bare before God and man the hidden secrets of his inner life, and to bring out into the light anything evil along with what is good, that seems to me to make these writings so vitally authentic. Two points need to be made clear to the reader before the present abridged volume is taken in hand. (1). The most prolonged and intricate of all his passive *Satya, Ahimsa, Brahmacharya.  PREFACE resistance struggles, undertaken in the Transvaal, has been reluctantly omitted from this book. The complete narra- tive could not easily be condensed, and therefore after much hesitation I have left it out with a view to later publication. The sequence of the life-story is not, however, seriously broken because I have given at some length the picture of the Natal passive resistance which was the crown of his moral achievement in South Africa. (2). Diet restriction, combined with fasting, was one of the avenues along which Mr. Gandhi tried to approach reality in human affairs. A great deal has been written by him about this. Since, however, his description of these things would have taken up too much space, I have been unable to reproduce it. Yet here again it has been a regret to me to make this omission, because his experiments tend to correct the idea that his outlook on life is altogether unscientific. They show what a daring explorer he has been, and how his mind in its own peculiar way is of that scientific order, which proceeds from hypothesis to rigid examination of facts in order to sift out Truth. The need for the present edition of the Autobiography has long been recognised both in Europe and America. Dr. Holmes had at first intended to fulfil this labor of love. His insight into Mr. Gandhi’s character made him pecu- liarly fitted for such a task. But he was summoned away from America to Palestine, at a critical moment, and it happened that at the same time my own duties called me to the West. It was therefore decided that I should be responsible. Dr. Holmes, on his part, undertook to write the Introduction; and his appreciation will be read with the deepest interest by all who recognise that he was the very first to make the name of Gandhi known and loved : 9  MAHATMA GANDHI-—HIS OWN STORY in America. What Romain Rolland has done in Europe, he himself has accomplished in the New World. In preparing this edition, the main difficulty through- out, as I have already suggested, has been the large amount of material as contrasted with the stringent limi- tation of space. Many times over, what was first selected © has been put on one side in order to insert some other portion which could not possibly be omitted. Even after what seemed a final selection had been made, the work had to be begun all over again. Yet a certain experience was gained as I went on, and at last I have a reasonable hope that the narrative will carry the reader along with it. What I have aimed at throughout is to make the book easily intelligible in the West without sacrificing any of its peculiarly Eastern setting. It is my sincere hope that those who read it will study along with it the former volume entitled “Mahatma Gandhi’s Ideas.” I would specially thank the Indian publishers, M. M. Bhatta and S. Ganesan, and also the translators, Mahadev Desai, Piyarelal Nair and Valji Desai, for the use they have allowed me to make of their work. Above all I am indebted to Mahatma Gandhi himself whose full permis- sion was granted to me to abbreviate his own writings. Along with him I would wish to devote any profits which may come from this book (as well as from the former volume) to the Pearson Memorial Hospital at Santinike- tan. This hospital has been built in memory of our mutual friend, Willie Pearson, who died by a railway accident in Italy at the end of September, 1923. Ten years earlier, in 1913, he had gone out with me to Natal to help Mr. Gandhi in his passive resistance struggle, and the bond of love thus formed has remained unbroken by death. IO  PREFACE My affectionate gratitude is due to the Indian residents in British Guiana, Trinidad and Dutch Guiana, for the inspiration which they gave me while carrying through this work during the months that I recently spent among them as their guest. It was out of the scanty leisure snatched from a protracted enquiry in those lands that the book had to be prepared. Yet no environment could have given me more encouragement than daily intercourse with warm-hearted Indian companions in those distant coun- tries. Therefore, I have ventured to dedicate this volume to them. It is an equal joy to me to record with deep affection the kindness of many friends in this New World. Along with those I have already mentioned in my former volume I would add the names of Mr. George Foster Peabody, Miss Anna Bogue and Mrs. James, Dr. Rufus Jones, Miss Cooley and Miss House, Dr. Sunderland, Lawrence Tombs, Frank Moore, Hari Govil, Murray Brooks, Nonie Gregg, E. C. Carter, S. D. Joshi and D. J. Fleming. I would wish also to thank in this same con- nection the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Guiana and Mrs. Beatrice Gregg of Trinidad for their exceeding kindness. My warmest thanks are due to the staff of the Phelps- Stokes Foundation and its Chairman; the staff and stu- dents of Hampton Institute, Virginia; and Penn School, St. Helena’s Island, where I have been able to finish this volume. The work of editing it was a far longer and more difficult task than I had anticipated and without constant acts of unselfish kindness on the part of these and other friends too numerous to mention it would have been im- possible for me to complete it in the midst of a very arduous programme of duties. May I venture to add how very deeply grateful I have , II  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY been to the people of the United States and Canada among whom I had come with some trepidation for the first time. I had heard of their great material wealth and had ex- pected to be repelled by its hardening influences upon the soul. Wherever I have seen this deterioration I have spoken plainly in warning about it. But I have found a wealth of affection that has surprised me by its generosity and simplicity, and I go away with a very grateful heart. Since this book was compiled and edited the Indian situation has become very grave indeed. A deadlock ap- pears to have been reached. Mahatma Gandhi has again been imprisoned. Yet it is well-nigh universally admitted that his influence remains one of the paramount factors in Indian affairs. Therefore a study of his character, which has documentary authority behind it, is a necessity, if the best minds in India and Great Britain are not to drift still further apart. While in my former book his thoughts and ideas were presented, in this volume the aim has been to set forward briefly in a readable form for Western readers his own life-story. In a similar manner and with the same object in view I have already published Tagore’s “Letters to a Friend”; and it is my sincere hope, if health permits, to complete the picture of Tagore in another volume just as this pres- ent book completes the picture of Gandhi. For it is my firm conviction that through the eyes of these two men the West may learn at last to appreciate the East. C. F. ANDREWS. 12  CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE INTRODUCTION BY JOHN HAYNES HOLMES 15 A SHORT LIST OF COMMON INDIAN WORDS 33 CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND HOME 39 II. SCHOOL DAYS 54 Hi. EARLY YOUTH 70 Iv. LIFE IN LONDON 82 V. RETURN TO INDIA o¢ VI. ARRIVAL IN NATAL 114 VII. AT PRETORIA 127 viii. MOB VIOLENCE IN DURBAN 148 Ix, THE BOER WAR 163 THE BLACK PLAGUE 171i “UNTO THIS LAST” 180 XII. THE ZULU REBELLION 190 XIII. SPIRITUAL TRAINING 203 XIV; SATYAGRAHA IN NATAL 21% Xv. THE PASSIVE RESISTERS 223 XVI. IMPRISONMENT AND VICTORY 236 XVII. HOME AT LAST 253 XVII. CHAMPARAN 273 XIX. KHAIRA 289 13  CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE xX. THE WAR CONFERENCE 302 XXI. THE ROWLATT ACT 317 XXII. THE AMRITSAR CONGRESS 334 XXII. THE KHADDAR MOVEMENT 343 XXIV. CONCLUSION 355 APPENDICES 365 BIBLIOGRAPHY 367 INDEX 369 ILLUSTRATIONS MAHATMA GANDHI Frontispiece MR. GANDHI AS A BARRISTER AT DURBAN, ABOUT 1903 Facing page 150 “EAST AND WEST” Facing page 340  INTRODUCTION THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MAHATMA GANDHI, of India, is a document of the first order of importance as the intimate revelation of the life and thought of a man who must be ranked as one of the supremely great per- sonalities not only of his own but of all time. At this critical moment in the history of India, this autobiography takes on an added significance as the “apologia pro vita su@? of the leader who holds in his hands, by virtue of his unchallenged spiritual ascendancy among his people, the destiny of his country in its relation to the great Empire from whose rule she seeks release. Here is related the story of the drama of inward conviction and outward cir- cumstance which has brought Gandhi to the center of the stage in an hour big with fate for all mankind. In the light of present events in India, and of Mahatma Gandhi’s place in these events, one turns to the pages of this autobiography with a feeling akin to awe. They have a simplicity that is almost naive, a frankness that is fre- quently startling, an integrity that is always sublime. They also had in their original form, as published serially in “Young India” (Ahmedabad) in India, and in “Unity” (Chicago) in this country, a fullness of detail that was embarrassing from the standpoint of general interest among readers far removed from the peculiar circum- stances of Indian history and life. For publication outside of India, it was evident that the book must be drastically revised. It is fortunate that this delicate and difficult task fell into the hands of the one man most competent to per- form it. Mr. C. F. Andrews, the editor of this volume, is an Englishman who has lived more than twenty-six ’ 15  M ACHAT MAG AND) ie Se ORWeN a ora Ons years in India. He is Gandhi’s most trusted and beloved friend outside the ranks of his own countrymen. He knows through long and intimate personal experience the varied elements of Gandhi’s character, and he shares through kinship of spirit the beauty of his ideals. What is essential to the understanding of the man, he has preserved in this version of the Autobiography; only what is incidental and accidental has he removed. In its present form this “Story” should become a classic of autobiographical literature in the English tongue. In a recent article in the Century Magazine,” I de- clared that if Mahatma Gandhi is to be understood by the Western mind, he must first of all be seen as the imme- diate successor to Leo Tolstoy in that unbroken line of saints and seers, running like the stitches of a golden thread through the tangled pattern of human affairs, who have insisted that man, like God, is spirit, and can achieve his ends and thus fulfil his life only by using the spiritual powers of his nature. Gandhi, in other words, like Tolstoy, Garrison, Fox, St. Francis, Jesus, Isaiah, is a “non- resistant.” This is an awkward and inaccurate word, since it ex- presses only that negative quality of refusing to meet evil with evil, violence with violence, injury with retaliation in kind, which the average man finds it so difficult to differentiate from inertia and cowardice. “Non-resistance,” as a descriptive term, neglects altogether that superbly positive, even aggressive quality, which Gandhi has defined so nobly in his famous phrase, “Soul-force,” and which Jesus has exalted in his immortal injunction—“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that | hate you.” The non-resistant should be known as one 16  INTRODUCTION who would lift man altogether above the plane of brute physical existence, where he had his origin, to that loftier _ plane of reason and the spirit, where he has his proper destiny. He would have humanity begin now to live that life of intelligence, constructive good-will, creative love _and self-sacrificing service, which distinguishes the human from the animal. Such life is the one thing which can bring God’s kingdom upon earth, to displace these in- _ numerable kingdoms of the rod and sword which have cursed man in every age, and now threaten to destroy him altogether. The phrase, “non-resistance,” expresses not at _all these ultimate and positive implications of the repudia- tion of physical force. But it is the one generally accepted phrase we have to describe the group of men whom I have named, and the phrase, therefore, that we must use to give Gandhi his proper classification. But Gandhi is not merely one among many non-re- sistants. On the contrary, he is unique among them all for a use of his essential genius on a scale and with a power never achieved or even attempted before. The non- resistant way of life has always had its pure and heroic individual exemplars. It has been adopted and practised by small groups, like the Dukhobors, as a basis of com- munity existence apart from the encompassing society of men. It has been lifted high by certain organized religious bodies, like the Moravians and the Quakers, as a guiding light amid the confusion of a world where “ignorant armies clash by night.” But never till Gandhi came along was it deliberately adopted and used by a whole people as a program of statesmanship to the great end of political and social liberation. Gandhi’s great campaign in South Africa (1894-1914) 17  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY must stand forever, I believe, not only as the first but also as the classic example of the use of non-resistance by organised masses of men for the redress of grievances. Here was a situation which was as old, and as new, as human history itself—the repression of a despised minor- ity of men by an arrogant, cruel and all-powerful ma- jority. Certain thousands of Gandhi’s fellow-countrymen, brought to South Africa to do the menial labor of the land, were outlawed from justice, tortured by discrimina- tive legislation, despised and spat upon by a so-called su- perior race, and thus visited with misery and threatened with death. In such a situation the downtrodden in other ages have either abjectly endured and died, or else have risen in mad revolt, and perished or escaped amid the horrors of struggle and slaughter. Gandhi, determined that his fellow-countrymen should not bow “like dumb, driven cattle” beneath the yoke of oppression, was equally determined that they should not plunge themselves and their oppressors into the agonies of violence and death. Out of the mystery of his own devoted and highly dis- ciplined spirit, he found a better way. With a skill, patience, and heroism well-nigh unexampled, he took these thousands of ignorant, untrained indentured laborers, sore oppressed in an alien land, and, by sheer power of personal example, welded them into a single body, and instigated a non-resistant revolt which brought them, after years of struggle, the freedom they. sought. Gandhi’s first step was to teach his followers to have no part in the life of a society which denied them the elementary rights of men (Non-co-operation). His next step was to discipline his followers to do no violence upon their op- pressors—to suffer injury themselves, but to return no 18  INTRODUCTION injury to others (Non-violence). And his last step was to lead his followers to the heroic achievement of serving their oppressors—helping them, coming to their relief and rescue, whenever they fell into need (Soul-force). Thus, when a Zulu rebellion broke out, Gandhi and his followers suspended their opposition campaign, and gave aid and comfort to their enemies. When the plague seized Johannesburg, they nursed the sick and buried the dead among their persecutors. When war engulfed the country, they marched to the battlefields of Englishmen, to serve and save the wounded. For the first time in history, a great fight for freedom was conducted on the principle of “be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” And the moral law, regnant in the universe and in the _ hearts of men, justified itself, as it always will in the long run, by bringing to Gandhi and his followers the reward of victory. Henceforward, when men doubt the efficacy of non-resistance, they have their answer in South Africa. What the Mahatma attempted and achieved in South Africa, great as it was as compared with all previous un- dertakings of the kind, shrinks into insignificance in the light of his vast non-violent non-co-operation campaign in opposition to British imperialism in India in 1919-1922. Here Gandhi became the leader of a great people, num- bering more than three hundred millions of men and women, in an uprising for national autonomy. He took his place at this hour with Bruce, Washington, Garibaldi, Sun Yat-sen, as one of the supreme patriots of human liberty. But he stands apart from and above these men, also, as one who refused to draw the sword as the neces- sary weapon of liberation. Alone among national leaders striving for the freedom of their people, he sought a 19  MAHATMA GANDHI-—HIS OWN STORY spiritual weapon; and in this search, he worked out a peaceful program of revolt which stands as a supreme achievement of world statesmanship. In this program of “non-co-operation,” as it was called, Gandhi showed him- self one of the wisest as well as bravest of men. In his success in disciplining a vast population to its performance, he looms as the most potent personal force the world has known. In one year he demonstrated the efficacy of a non-violent campaign to win liberty against odds that no sword could ever overcome. If, at the critical moment, he failed to reach his goal, it was because, in the intensity of the conflict and in the momentousness of the issue, Gandhi forgot, or ignored, what he had himself taught in South Africa: that the non-resistant method must have time to achieve its end. The sword may win or lose every- thing in one heroic moment. The soul must have years, perhaps decades,to make its slow but perfect way. This principle that non-resistance can win only when trusted and tried “in the long run,” established for all time by the twenty years of patient conflict in South Africa, Gandhi himself violated in 1921, just as Jesus violated it in his time, by promising that victory would be immediate. This inevitably rushed both expectation and effort on the part of the Indian people, and resulted in the collapse of the great movement from its own inward momentum. Gandhi, in other words, put suddenly on the masses a greater spiritual strain than they were prepared all at once, even under his leadership, to bear. But in India, as in South Africa, the principle was proved. Gandhi, no more than Jesus, is discredited by a failure that shall yet be retrieved by the law which he himself discovered and proclaimed. It is Gandhi’s greatest glory, and the surest evidence of 20.  INTRODUCTION his spiritual stature, that he himself saw the reason of his failure, and was the first to undertake the stupendous labor of its correction. Understanding came to him in the silent hours of his imprisonment at Yeravada, after his arrest on March 10, 1922, and in the long, quiet hours of his convalescence after his release. He had achieved a miracle with the people of India. He had done what had never been done, and what had been said could not be done—namely, united the whole nation in one great and sustained mass movement against imperialism in its tyran- nous form; a movement so nearly successful that it shook the British Empire to its foundations. “Gandhi’s was the most colossal experiment in world history,” said Sir George Lloyd, the English Governor of Bombay, “and it came within an inch of succeeding.” But the strain was too great; and under it the people broke. Now the work must be begun all over again. What had been done in South Africa on a small scale, he must now do in India on a large scale. He must train the Indian people for their great task of independence. He must make them inwardly worthy of what they desired, and thus spiritually capable of winning and holding it. He must cleanse India of its social abominations; end forever the political, racial and religious hatreds which divide the nation and make it im- potent; discipline the masses everywhere to self-depend- ence, outwardly in their political and economic, inwardly in their intellectual and spiritual, life. He must teach them, in other words, the law of love, and, by making them obedient to this law, fit them to be at last the masters of their destiny. It was when Gandhi, after his long convalescence, un- dertook this gigantic labor of the spiritual regeneration ’ 21  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY of a whole people, that he entered upon the greatest period of his career. He abandoned, now, the political field to other and lesser men. His was no longer the task of organizing political parties, presiding at political con- gresses, leading nationalistic political campaigns. This work might well go on—indeed, must go on! But always there was the deeper and higher task of reaching the souls of the people, and this henceforward was his task. Promptly he defined certain tests, or standards, of spirit- ual discipline which must be met as a condition of the attainment of Swaraj. Moslems and Hindus must end their age-old hate, and live together as brethren in a com- mon cause. The Untouchables must be delivered from the outer darkness of prejudice into which they had been cast, and thus restored in love and sympathy to the common life of India. Women must be raised up to a plane of political, economic and social equality with men. The liquor traffic must everywhere be prohibited. The home- weaving and home-spinning of cloth worn by patriotic ~ persons must become everywhere the national custom, and thus the token at once of inward purity and outward freedom. Above all, must every man eschew violence, banish hate and fear from out his heart, and seek de- liverance from the national enemy (Britain) by trans- forming this enemy, through the alchemy of love, into a friend. Long since had Gandhi begun this work in his own personal life. He had organized it on a modest scale at his religious school (Ashram) and fraternal community at Ahmedabad. Now he sent forth the challenge through- out the length and breadth of all the land, and set himself patiently but resolutely to the task of its fulfilment. Suddenly and sublimely Gandhi became what in es- 22  INTRODUCTION sence he had been from the beginning—a religious leader. In South Africa, he had appeared as the skilful and suc- cessful organizer of a local social revolt. In India, in 1919- 1922, he had loomed high as the patriotic leader of a far- flung nationalistic struggle for independence. In both these instances, however, Gandhi was greater than the roles which he was playing. His non-resistant program, hitherto unheard of on such a scale and to such ends, was the outward and visible sign of mightier forces inwardly at work. From the beginning, in other words, in his most practical endeavors for reform, Gandhi had been con- cerned not merely with political and social aims, but with moral and spiritual ideals. More truly than he himself realized for a time, he was moving, under the impulse of his essential nature, on the religious plane. And now, in an instant,.as it were, he became deliberately in action what he had always instinctively been in motive and idea —a seer and prophet of the soul! No longer was he to be numbered merely with political reformers and national- istic leaders. Henceforth he was to be reckoned with the supreme religious geniuses of history—those half-dozen timeless spirits who have changed the order of the world. One wonders, as this period of Gandhi’s life is recalled in the light of present events, what Britain was doing at such a moment. What a chance was this for reconciliation and readjustment between two great peoples! The Ma- hatma had never before been so powerful. In his days of political leadership, Gandhi had been beyond all compare the most potent single influence ever known. One may search the pages of history in vain to find any man in any age—teligious teacher, military conqueror, political statesman—who has held at one time so vast a power over 23  \ MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY so many millions of human beings during his own life- time. Throughout all India, Gandhi had been supreme. The great bowed before his sanctity; the learned rever- enced his wisdom; the myriad common people hailed his sacrifice and love. In a far-flung population speaking dif- ferent languages, acknowledging different traditions, wor- shipping different gods, and the vast majority of them illiterate, Gandhi’s name had been everywhere known, and his word everywhere obeyed. This personal influence of one man over more than three hundred millions of his fellow-men is a fact unparalleled in the recorded annals of the race. And now this influence was suddenly deep- ened! Not so immediate in its appeal, not so dramatic in its expression, not so definite and tangible in its character, as formerly, it yet ranged as far over the surface of so- ciety, and at the same time penetrated to central sources of thought and life. No longer sweeping like a flood that engulfed, it flowed rather as a hidden river which feeds and thus renews the landscape. Gandhi now held not merely the political allegiance but also the spiritual awe of his countrymen. By his own choice he was removed from the field of controversial political reform. He was suddenly now become a spiritual leader, concerned with the souls of his people and their dedication to great causes of brotherhood and peace. Was there no statesman in England wise enough to see this fact? Is there a doom upon our days that the Empire could not take advantage of this opportunity to join hands with Gandhi for the sal- vation of India, the Empire, and the world? What prevented this happy consummation was unques- tionably the stupidity of English Tories in interpreting Gandhi’s voluntary retirement as a sign of his loss of in- 24  INTRODUCTION fluence, and thus of the end of his activities as a popular leader. The Mahatma, they argued, is a broken reed, a shattered idol. The courage of the British administration in arresting and imprisoning him has achieved the decisive result of scattering his followers and shattering his power. His refusal, after his release and recovery, to resume the political headship of his people, is a confession of failure and defeat. His influence is gone. He no longer leads be- cause there is none to follow. What was for a few months, according to British official sources, the greatest single menace ever faced by the Empire, has now dwindled to the insignificant proportions of a naked little man sur- rounded by a few fanatical reformers in an obscure corner of the land. With the passing of this man, they continued, the danger is over, and Britain can proceed to work out in her own way, and to her own advantage, the destinies of the Indian people. So Britain went ahead—stupidly, blindly, selfishly—and repeated that earlier record of ar- rogance and oppression which had wrought such peril at the close of the Great War. Four things happened ia these years which drove the people of India into an even more furious frenzy of despair and wrath than that which led to Gandhi’s non-co-operation campaign of 1919-1922. First, the affairs of India, to quote an English Liberal, were entrusted to “hands that should never have been allowed to touch them, and India was provided with the distressing spectacle of a Gandhi confronted by a Birken- head. In that contrast, perhaps, the destiny of British power in Asia may be symbolized. Such collocations may seem trivial in themselves. They are not seldom the turn- ing-point of national and imperial destiny.” Secondly, in anticipation of a necessary revision of the o 25  MAHATMA GANDHI—HiS OWN STORY Indian constitution, the Simon Commission was appointed, with no representation of India in its membership. In all the more than three hundred millions of Indians, that is, there was found not one man—Gandhi, or anybody else— who was deemed worthy to sit with Englishmen in the determination of Indian affairs! Instantly, India ex- ploded in one vast eruption of indignation and revolt. Political and religious differences disappeared as men of all parties and all creeds united in one high resolve to boycott the Commission and repudiate its work. Wherever Sir John Simon and his associates went in India, they were met by vast uprisings of the people, armed with insulting banners, which paralyzed all efforts of the Commission to achieve results. Thirdly, and in some ways worst of all, the Simon Commission was supported not only by Tories and Lib- erals in England, but also by Laborites. With a degree of stupidity which at this date seems fairly incredible, “Mr. MacDonald not only voted for the Commission in the House of Commons, but actually allowed representa- tives of the Labor Party to serve as members of the Com- mission. When this happened, the last remnants of con- fidence in England disappeared from the hearts of Indians. From Gandhi down, all now believed that there was henceforth no Englishman in church or state, in private or public life, who could be trusted. The Labor Party had been the last hope, and in this crisis of Indian affairs the Party had gone over to the enemy. From this moment on all contacts with England were definitely and forever at an end. Lastly, as a crowning irony of circumstance, came the publication of Katherine Mayo’s “Mother India.” This 26  INTRODUCTION curious and wicked book may seem to be a trivial phe- nomenon in the perspective of the tremendous events of this present hour. But in relation to the situation which pertained when it was published, the volume was a dis- aster of the first magnitude. Into a problem of utmost difficulty and delicacy, needing for its solution every in- fluence of moderation and goodwill, there was suddenly precipitated this work which held up India to the ridicule and contempt of men. Nobody in India will ever believe that this vicious slander, which spared not even such men as Gandhi and Tagore from libellous attack, was not in- spired by British influences. Whether or not this be true, “Mother India” was one of the central influences of the time which made co-operation between Englishmen and Indians impossible. Thus wasdisillusionment renewed and severance com- pleted. Again, as in 1919, Britain had lost its opportunity and driven all India to revolt. Gandhi in his retirement, preaching the regeneration of his people and their inner spiritual preparation for the fulfilment of their national- istic dreams, watched the drift of the times, and noted its steady progress towards disaster. On the one hand was an England which was obdurate, stubborn, stupid, stead- fastly resolved to rely in the last resort upon that sheer brute force of arms and men which had sustained the Empire hitherto. On the other hand was an India aflame with wrath, and, worst of all, beginning to turn away, in sheer loss of patience and self-control, from that ideal of non-resistance which had been the moving passion of the Mahatma’s life. The new generation of Indians seemed no longer to be with him in his program of non-violent non-co-operation, but, like young blood everywhere, was ’ 27  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY dallying with the quick and easy way of striking at the foe and delivering themselves by force from the bondage in which they suffered. Was it possible for him, in such a situation of seething unrest and disturbance, to continue that basic work of social and spiritual change to which he had deliberately set his hand? Could he retain any in- fluence, or serve any useful or effective end, if he stayed aloof from his people in such an hour of national humilia- tion and distress? Was he not an Indian, and did he not feel at this time, as in 1919, the duty to act in concert with all Indians in defense of their dignity and rights as men? Above all, must he not strive again, as in 1919, to turn the tide of violence which seemed sweeping upon the land, and guide it into safe channels of protest and re- volt? He was old and feeble, but his power was still as great as ever. Did there not remain for him one last effort to save the situation from the final cataclysm of ruin, and by some supreme demonstration of non-resistant love, achieve an emancipation of India which would not be inconsistent with a reconciliation with England? It was some such line of thought as this which per- suaded Gandhi to emerge from his retirement, and assume again the active leadership of India in her revolt against the British crown. At the All-India Congress of 1928, the great Mahatma entered upon the third, and in all probability the last period of his heroic service of the cause of India. Exercising his old mastery of his people, even of the younger men and women who still reverenced him as their country’s saint and savior, Gandhi served upon Britain an ultimatum that Swaraj must be granted to India within the period of the next year—i.e., before January 1, 1930. On the other hand, the Mahatma gave 28  INTRODUCTION solemn pledge to his people that, if Britain did not act within the period named, he would again organize and personally lead a nation-wide non-resistant movement for independence. , It is this pledge which Gandhi is fulfilling at this hour. In this return to public life, and this new organization of a great non-co-operative campaign against the Empire, certain critics see a repudiation of the Mahatma’s convic- tion that the Indian people must learn to master them- selves before they undertake the mastery of their govern- ment—that preparation must precede attainment. But have not events since January demonstrated that prepara- tion is attained? Have not Gandhi’s spiritual labors already produced their fruit? How otherwise explain that sub- lime spectacle of discipline, patience, forbearance, forti- tude, non-resistant sacrificial suffering on the part of millions of humble beings, which is to-day writing in India a new chapter of human history? Furthermore, the Indian leader seems suddenly to have come to a new revelation of his “Soul-truth.” He sees at last that struggle is itself attainment—that the very suffering incident to the battle for independence is the sure and perfect preparation for such independence! The present campaign, said Gandhi, in a recent issue of his paper, Young India, is designed “not to establish independence, but to arm the people with the power to do so.” We must deliberately seek wounds, and even death itself, he now declares, that by the dis- cipline of sacrifice we may conquer our enemies and at the same time fit ourselves for emancipation from their rule. This is the new Gandhi—a Gandhi more profound, more rigorous, more terrible than before. He has at last ’ 29  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY become, like Jesus, one of “the terrible meek”—the meek who “inherit the earth.” What may well be the last days of his life Gandhi is dedicating to the herculean task of winning for India the recovery of her ancient dignity and power—the liberation of the most august and venerable of civilizations to new and greater life. At the same time, and by the same proc- ess, is he seeking to save India and Britain, in their final struggle, from the unnecessary horrors of violence, bloodshed, and destruction. It is this which justifies Gandhi’s claim that he is acting on Britain’s behalf to-day quite as much as on behalf of his own land. And on the world’s behalf as well! For Gandhi’s influence is spread- ing from India to all the East, and from the East to the distracted West. The Mahatma is to-day a universal figure. No man, to be sure, more Oriental than he! A hundred ideas, native to his very life, must forever be alien to the imagination of other men. But his spirit, like a star, shines down through darkness. Wherever men struggle and falter, they hail his light. His name has become a symbol of dedication, his life a program of salvation. What men everywhere are at first dimly, and then ever more clearly, coming to see, is that we have on the earth to-day, in the person of Mahatma Gandhi, the latest in the august suc- cession of the supreme spiritual geniuses of all time— Lao-tsze, Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Isaiah, Jesus. The comparison with Jesus in inevitable, and not merely from the standpoint of the non-resistant ideal which binds the two in perpetual fellowship. Long before the War the Mahatma was compared with the Christ for the sheer beauty and sanctity of his inner life. Now this compari- son is immeasurably clarified and strengthened by the 30  INTRODUCTION spectacle of what Gandhi is seeking to do for India and for the world. If we would know what Jesus was as a saint, and also what he did, or tried to do, as a savior, we have only to look across the seas to this greatest man in the world to-day. To discover the secret of Gandhi, we must “behold the man.” In no leader of the race has the power of the spirit ever come to such utter singleness of expression as in this Indian. Nothing else avails to explain the matchless char- acter of his influence. His person is stripped as naked of grace as his body of clothes. His physical presence is com- pletely insignificant. His intellectual capacity, as com- pared with Tolstoy’s, is meagre. Unlike Jesus, he com- mands no magic of words. Unlike Mohammed, he has no consuming passion of temperament and will. Among re- ligious leaders, he comes nearer to St. Francis, perhaps, than to any other; but even here he lacks that lovely esthetic sensibility, that native instinct of poetry and - song, which blossoms with such immortal fragrance in the Assisian’s “Little Flowers.” A frail, puny, utterly un- important-looking man is the Mahatma. But in this trivial lantern of the flesh, there burns a light that “never was on land or sea.” His deep and lustrous eyes, his lovely smile, his utter clarity of mind, his gentleness and peace and unfailing compassion—these reveal at once the inner glory. The poverty of Gandhi’s personality in every other _ respect serves but to isolate and thus make plain his essen- tial quality of life. Other men can be explained by gifts of birth, or education, or personality, or intellect, or speech. Gandhi knows none of these things. Clothed upon with the frailest garment of fleshly incarnation ever known, the Mahatma walks among us as pure spirit. 41 ,  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY It is this fact which makes so formidable Mahatma Gandhi’s return to active political leadership. The inherent spiritual power of the man, coupled with his control of the people in matters of fundamental human relation- ships, makes him a factor of overwhelming importance in the life of India and of the world. If they had been wise, the English administrators would have welcomed his new assumption of active leadership, and used it as a construc- tive influence for peace. Nor is it now too late! It is never too late to do the one thing needful. For it is Gandhi, and Gandhi alone, “now as always,” to quote C. F. Andrews, “the central driving force in Indian political life,” who has it within his power to save the existing situation. Failing his intervention by the glad accord of all good men, India will not subside again in meek submission, but flame into a revolt which may consume the world. Gandhi has for India, the Empire and mankind, “the way of life.” Will men refuse this now again, as they refused it once before? JouHn Haynes Houmgs, New York City, June 15, 1930. 32  A SHORT LIST OF COMMON INDIAN WORDS Tirtes oF REVERENCE AND RESPECT Word Meaning Mahatma.._ A title of Gandhi meaning “Great Soul” Gurudeva.. A title of Tagore meaning “Revered Teacher” Deshbandhu.._ A title of the late C. R. Das meaning “Friend of the Country” Lokamanya.._ A title of the late B. G. Tilak meaning “Beloved by the People” Srijut (Sjt).. Acommon title equivalent to Esquire Reuicious InstrruTions Sabarmati Ashram The religious institution of Mahatma Gandhi near Ahmedabad Santiniketan.. The religious institution of Rabindranath i Tagore near Calcutta Gurukula |.. The religious institution of Mahatma Munshi Ram near Hardwar ‘Terms Usep 1n Passive REsIsTANCE Ahimsa... Non-violence Sivas ats. - ruth Satyagraha.. ‘Truth-force or Soul-force Satyagrahi.. One who practises Soul-force Brahmacharya. The practice of Chastity Manatma Ganpui’s HAND-sPINNING MovEMENT Charka... The spinning-wheel -Khaddar... - Khadi eee } Home-spun cloth MuHammMapan RE:Icious TERMS Islam... The religion of the Prophet Muhammad Muslim... Belonging to Islam ; 33  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY Word Meaning Musalman.. Follower of Islam Khilafat... The office of Caliph Maulana... _ Religious Teacher SACRED SANSKRIT Books Vedas... The Earliest religious hymns of India Upanishad.. The earliest religious philosophy Puranss... The Sacred Hindu Legends Hinpu REtIcIon Dharma..._ Religion or religious duty Varnashrama Dharma Religion of Caste Sanatana Dharma Orthodox Hindu religion Sanatani... An orthodox Hindu Tue Four Castres Brahman... The first Caste (knowledge) Kshattriya.. The second Caste (rule) Vaishya... ‘The third Caste (trade, agriculture) Shudra... ‘The fourth Caste (labour) THE Four ReEtxicious STAGEs Brahmacharya. ‘The first stage of the religious life (chastity) Grihastha.. The second stage of the religious life (householder) Vanaprastha.. ‘The third stage of the religious life (gradual retirement) Sanyas... ‘The fourth stage of the religious life (complete retirement) THe Two Great Epics Mahabharata.. The National Epic wherein Krishna is the 34  INDIAN WORDS Word Meaning Divine Hero. The Bhagavad Gita is © part of this Epic Ramayana.. ‘The Sacred Epic of North India wherein Rama is the Divine Hero PoxiricaAL ‘TERMS Swadeshi... Belonging to, or made in, one’s own country Swaraj... Self-government InpIAN CoINAGE Anna - - «+ Very slightly more than two cents 16 annas=1 rupee Rupee... About thirty-two cents Lakh - « » About thirty-seven thousand five hundred | dollars Crore. 2 «~ About three million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars } aS n aeio)b  CHAPE RI BIRTH AND HOME THE GANDHIs belong to the Bania caste’ and seem to have been originally retail traders. But for three gen- erations they had been Prime Ministers in several Kathia- war * States. Uttamchand Gandhi, called Ota Gandhi, my grandfather, must have been a man of principles. State intrigues compelled him to leave Porbandar, where he was Diwan, and to seek refuge in Junagadh. There he saluted the Nawab with the left hand. Some one noticing the ap- parent discourtesy asked for an explanation which was thus given: “The right hand is already pledged to Por- bandar.” Ota Gandhi married a second time, having lost his first wife. He had four sons by his first wife and two by his second wife. In my childhood I do not think I ever felt or knew that these sons of Ota Gandhi were not all of the same mother. The fifth of these six brothers was Karamchand Gandhi, who was called Kaba Gandhi; the sixth was Tulsidas Gandhi. Both these brothers were Prime Ministers in Porbandar one after the other. Kaba Gandhi was my father. He was for some time the Prime Minister in Rajkot and then in Vankaner. He was a pensioner of the Rajkot State when he died. Kaba Gandhi married four times in succession, having lost his wife each time by death. He had two daughters 1The Modh Bania is a sub-division of the Vaishya Caste. Its original occupation was that of trade or agriculture. See “Mahatma Gandhi’s Ideas,” page 28. ® Kathiawar is a small peninsula on the extreme west of India. It is divided into a large number of Indian States which have their centre at Rajkot. The chief minister in each state is called Diwan. ’ oi,  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY by his first and second marriages. His last wife, Putlibai, bore him a daughter and three sons, of whom I was the youngest. My father was a lover of his clan, truthful, brave and generous, but short-tempered. To a certain extent he may have been even given to carnal pleasures. For he married for the fourth time when he was over forty. But he was incorruptible and had earned a name for strict impar- tiality in his own family as well as outside. His loyalty to the state was well known. An Assistant Political Agent spoke insultingly of his prince, and he stood up to the insult. The agent was angry and asked Kaba Gandhi to apologise. This he refused to do and was therefore kept under detention for a few hours. But when the agent saw that Kaba Gandhi was adamant he ordered him to be released. My father never had any ambition to accumulate riches and left us very little property. He had no education, save that of practical life. Of history and geography he was ignorant. But his rich experience in practical affairs helped him towards the solution of the most intricate questions and enabled him to manage hundreds of men. He had very little religious training, but he possessed that culture which comes from the frequent visiting of temples and listening to discourses on Hindu religion. In his last days, he began reading the Gita at the instance of a learned Brahman friend of the family, and he used to repeat aloud some verses every day at the time of worship. The outstanding impression that my mother has left on my memory is one of saintliness. She was deeply re- ligious and would never think of taking her meals without her daily prayers. Her visit to the temple was one of her 40  BL RE AN DHOOM E daily duties. As far as my memory can go back, I do not remember her having ever missed her religious fasts. She would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. Illness was no excuse for relaxing them. I can recall her once falling ill when she was observing a special vow of fasting; but the illness was not allowed to interrupt the religious discipline. To keep two or three consecutive fasts was nothing to her. Living on one meal a day during her fasts was a habit with her. Not content with that, she fasted completely on each alternate day during one such period. At another time, she vowed not to take food without seeing the sun. We children on those days would stand, staring at the sky, waiting to announce to our mother the sun’s appearance. At the height of the rainy season the sun not seldom remains invisible throughout the day; and I can recall days when, at the sun’s sudden appearance after the rain, we would rush in and announce it to her. She would come out to see with her own eyes; but by that time perhaps the fugitive sun would be gone, thus depriving her of her meal. “That does not matter,” she would say cheerfully. “God did not want me to eat to-day.” Then she would return to her round of duties. My mother had strong common sense. She was well informed about all matters of State, and ladies of the Court thought highly of her intelligence. Often I would accompany her, exercising the privilege of childhood; and I still remember many lively discussions she had with the widowed mother of the Thakor Sahib. It was from these parents that I was born at Porbandar on October 2, 1869. There I passed my childhood and went for the first time to school. It was with some dif- 4I ’  MAHATMA GANDHI-—HIS OWN STORY ficulty that I got through the multiplication tables. The fact that I recollect nothing more of those days than of having learnt, in company with other boys, to abuse our teacher, would strongly suggest that my intellect must have been sluggish at that time and my memory raw. I must have been about seven years old when my father left Porbandar for Rajkot to become a member of the Court. There I was put to a primary school, and I can well remember those days, including the names and other particulars of the teachers who taught me. As at Por- bandar, so at Rajkot, there is hardly anything special to note about my studies, and I could only have been a mediocre student. From this school I went to the suburban school and thence to the high school, having already reached my twelfth year. I do not remember having ever told a lie, during this short period of my life, either to my teachers or to my schoolmates. I used to be very shy and avoided all company. Books and lessons were my sole companions. It was my daily habit to be in school at the stroke of the hour and to run back home as soon _as the school was over.'Literally I ran back, because I could not bear to talk to anybody and was even afraid Test anyone should poke fun at me. ~ There is an incident which occurred at the examination during my first year at the high school, which is worth recording. Mr. Giles, the Educational Inspector, had come on a visit of inspection. He had set us five words to write as a spelling exercise. One of the words was “kettle.” I had misspelt it. The teacher tried to prompt me with the point of his boot, but I would not be prompted. It was beyond me to see that he wanted me to copy the spelling from my neighbour’s slate; for I had thought that the 42  BORD He VANsDt” HOME teacher was there to supervise us against copying. The result was that all the boys, except myself, were found to have spelt each word correctly. Only I had been stupid. The teacher tried later to bring this stupidity home to me, but without effect; for copying was something I could never learn to do. Yet the incident did not in the least diminish my respect for my teacher. I was by nature blind to the faults of elders. Later, I came to know of many other failings of this teacher; but my regard for him remained the same. For I had learnt to carry out the orders of elders, not to scan their actions. Two other incidents belonging to the same period have always clung to my memory. As a rule I had a distaste for any reading that went beyond my school books. The daily lesson had to be done, because I disliked being taken to task by myteacher as much as I disliked deceiving him. ‘Therefore I would do the lessons, but often without my mind in them. Thus when even the lessons could not be done properly, there was of course no question of any extra reading. But somehow my eyes fell on a book pur- chased by my father. It was a play about Shravana’s de- votion to his parents and I read it with intense interest. There came to our house about the same time some itin- erant showmen. One of the pictures that was shown by them was Shravana carrying, by means of slings fitted he ed Le. for his shoulders, his blind parents on a pilgrimage. The book and the picture left an indelible impression on my mind. “Here is an example for you to copy,” I said to _ myself. The agonised lament of the parents over Shra- vana’s death is still fresh in my memory. The melting tune moved me deeply and I played it on a concertina which my father had purchased for me. 3 43  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY There was a similar incident connected with another play. Just about this time, I had secured my father’s permission to see a play performed by a certain dramatic company, called ‘“Harishchandra.” It captured my heart and I could never be tired of seeing it. But how often should I be permitted to go? It haunted me, and I must have acted “Harishchandra” to myself times without number. “Why should not all persons be truth- ful like Harishchandra?” was the question I asked my- _ self day and night. To follow truth and to go through \ all the ordeals that Harishchandra went through was the one thought that this play inspired in me. Quite literally I believed in the story of Harishchandra. The memory of it all often made me weep. My common sense tells me to-day that Harishchandra could not have been a his- torical character. But for me, both Harishchandra and Shravana are living realities; and I am sure I should be deeply touched as before if I were to read those plays again to-day. » G ANID HE—~ HOS? OWEN 5 120, Ray. my elders, to have all this bother over once and for all. For in this way there would be less expense and greater display. For money could freely be spent, if the expense had not to be repeated three times over. My father and my uncle were both old men, and we were the last chil- dren they had. It is likely that they wanted to have this last best time of their lives before they died. In view of all these considerations, a triple wedding was decided upon; and as I have said before, months were© taken up in preparations for it. It was only through these preparations that we got warning of the coming event. I do not think it meant to me anything more than the prospect of good clothes to wear, drum beating, marriage processions, rich dinners, and a strange girl to play with. The carnal desire came later. I propose to draw the curtain over my shame, ex- cept for a few things worth recording. To these I shall come later. My brother and I were taken back from Rajkot to Porbandar. My father was a Diwan, but a servant of the State and all the more so because he was in favour with the Thakor Sahib. The latter would not let him go until the last moment. When he did so, he ordered my father special stage coaches, reducing the journey by two days. But the fates had willed otherwise. Porbandar is one hundred and twenty miles from Rajkot, which means a cart journey of five days. My father was to complete the distance in three, but the coach toppled over during the third stage, and he sustained severe injuries. He arrived bandaged all over. Both his and our interest in the com- ing event was half destroyed, but the ceremony had to be gone through. For how could the marriage dates be 46  BIRTH AND HOME changed? Yet I forgot to grieve over my father’s in- juries in the childish amusement at the wedding. To both my parents I was a devoted son, but none the less was I devoted to the passions of the flesh. I had to learn that all happiness should be sacrificed in devoted service to my parents. And yet, as though by way of punishment for my desire for pleasure, an incident hap- pened, which will be told later on, that has ever since rankled in my mind. Nishkulanand sings: “Renunciation of objects, without the renunciation of desires, is short- lived, however hard one may try.” Whenever I sing this song, or hear it sung, this bitter untoward incident rushes to my memory and fills me with shame. My father had put on a brave face in spite of his in- juries, and took full part in the wedding. As I think of it, I can even to-day call before my mind’s eye the places where he sat as he went through the different details of the ceremony. Little did I dream then, that I should have to criticise my father in later life for having married me as a child; for everything on that day seemed to me right and proper and pleasant. There was also my own eagerness to get married; and as everything that my father did then struck me as beyond reproach, the recol- lection of these things is still fresh in my memory. I can picture to myself how we sat on our wedding seat; how we performed the “seven steps”;* how the newly wedded husband and wife put the sweetmeat into each other’s mouth; how we began to live together. Two innocent children were all unwittingly hurling themselves into * The “seven steps,” called “Saptapada,” are taken together by a Hindu bride and bridegroom while they make promises of mutual fidelity and devotion, after which the marriage becomes irrevocable. The sweetmeat, called “Kansar,” is a prepara- tion of wheat, which the pair eat together after the completion of the ceremony. , 47  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY the ocean of life. My brother’s wife had thoroughly coached me about my behaviour on the first night. I do not know who had coached my wife. I have never asked her about it, nor am I inclined to do so now. The reader may be sure that we were too nervous to face each other. We were certainly too shy. How was I to talk to her. and what was I to say? The coaching could not carry me far. But no coaching is really necessary in such matters. The impressions of the former birth are potent enough to make all coaching superfluous. We gradually began to know each other, and to speak freely together. We were the same age. But I took no time in assuming the authority of a husband. It has already been explained that I was a pupil at the high school at the time when I was married. We three brothers were learning at the same school. My eldest brother was in a much higher class, and the brother who was married at the same time as I was only one class ahead of me. Marriage resulted in both of us wasting a year. Indeed, the result was worse tor my second brother; for he gave up his studies altogether. Heaven knows how many youths suffer the same plight as he. Only in our present Hindu Society do school and marriage go thus hand in hand together. My own studies were continued. I was not regarded as a dunce at the high school but always enjoyed the affection of my teachers. Certificates of progress and char- acter used to be sent to our parents every year and mine | were always good. As far as I can recollect I had not any high regard for my own intellectual ability, but I very jealously regarded my character. The least little blemish drew tears from my eyes. When I merited (or 48  BIRTH AND HOME seemed to the teacher to merit) a rebuke, it was quite un- bearable for me. Once I received corporal punishment. The punishment itself did not affect me so much as the |fact that it was considered my desert. When it happened I wept piteously. That was when I was in the first or second standard. There was another similar incident dur- ing the time when I was in the seventh standard. Dorabji Edulji Gimi was the headmaster. He was popular among the boys, as he was a disciplinarian, a man of method and a good teacher. He had made gymnastics and cricket com- pulsory for boys in the upper standards, I disliked school ‘sports and had never taken part in any exercise such as football or cricket before they were made compulsory. My shyness was one of the reasons for this aloofness, which I now see was wrong. But at that time I had the ‘false notion that gymnastics and school games had noth- ing to do with education. To-day I know that physical training should have as much place in the curriculum as mental training. I may mention, however, that I was none the worse for abstaining from exercise, because I had read in books about the benefits of long walks in the open air; and having liked the advice I had formed a habit of taking walks. This habit has remained with me ever since, and these walks have given me a fairly hardy constitution. The reason of my dislike for gymnastics was my keen desire to serve as a nurse to my father. As soon as the school was over, I would hurry home and begin serving him. Compulsory exercise came directly in the way of this service and therefore I requested Mr. Gimi to exempt me from gymnastics so that I might be free to serve my father. But he would not listen to me. Now it so hap- pened that one Saturday, when we had our school in the ; 49  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY morning, I had to go from home to the school for gym- nastics at four o’clock in the afternoon. I had no watch, and the cloudy weather deceived me. Before I reached the school the boys had all left. The next day Mr. Gimi examining the roll found me marked absent. Being asked the reason for absence, I told him what had occurred, but he refused to believe me and ordered me to pay a small fine. I was convicted of lying! That deeply pained me. How was I to prove my innocence? There was no way. I cried in deep anguish. I saw that a man of truth must also be a man of care. This was the first and last instance of my carelessness in school. I have a faint recollection of finally succeeding in getting the fine remitted. The exemption from exercise was of course obtained, as my father wrote himself to the headmaster saying that he wanted me at home after school. But though I was none the worse for having neglected exercise, I am still paying the penalty of another neglect. The notion came to me somehow that good handwriting was not a neces- sary part of education, and I retained it until I went to England. When later, in South Africa, I saw the beau- tiful handwriting of lawyers and young men who were born and educated in that country I was ashamed of my- self and repented of my neglect. I saw that bad hand- writing should be regarded as a sign of imperfect educa- tion. I tried later to improve mine, but it was too late. The negligence of my youth could never be repaired. It is now my opinion that children should first be taught the art of drawing before learning how to write. Let the child learn his letters by observation just as he draws different objects, such as flowers and birds. Let him learn 50  BIRTH AND HOME handwriting only after he has learnt to draw objects. He will then write a beautifully formed hand. Two more reminiscences of my school days are worth recording. I had lost one year because of my marriage, and the teacher wanted me to make good the loss by skip- ping a class, which was a privilege usually allowed to in- dustrious boys. I therefore had only six months in the third standard and was promoted to the fourth after the examinations. English became the medium of instruction in most subjects from the fourth standard onward, and at first I found myself completely at sea. Geometry was a new subject in which I was not particularly strong, and the English medium of instruction made it still more difficult for me. The teacher taught the subject well, but I could not follow him. Often I would lose heart and think of going back to the third standard, feeling that the packing of two years’ studies into a single year was too ambitious. Yet this would not only discredit me, but also the teacher; because counting on my industry he had recommended my promotion. So the fear of the double discredit kept me to my post. When, however, with much effort I reached the thirteenth proposition of Euclid, the utter simplicity of it all was suddenly revealed to me. A subject which only required the simple use of one’s rea- soning powers could not be difficult. Ever since that time geometry has been both easy and interesting for me. Sanskrit however proved a harder task. In geometry, there was nothing to memorise; whereas in Sanskrit everything. had to be learnt by heart. This subject also ‘was commenced from the fourth standard. As soon as I entered the sixth I became disheartened. The teacher was a hard taskmaster anxious, as I thought, to force the 51  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY boys. There was a sort of rivalry going on between the Sanskrit and the Persian teachers. The Persian teacher was lenient. The boys used to talk among themselves that Persian was very easy and that the teacher was very good and considerate to the students. This “easiness” of Per- sian tempted me and one day I sat in the Persian class. The Sanskrit teacher was grieved. He called me to his side and said: “How can you forget that you are the son of a Vaishnava father? * Won’t you learn the language of your own religion? If you have any difficulty, why not come to me? I want to teach you students Sanskrit to the best of my ability. As you proceed further, you will find in it things of absorbing interest. You should not lose heart. Come and sit again in the Sanskrit class.” This kindness put me to shame. I could not disregard my teacher’s affection. To-day, I cannot but think with gratitude of Krishnashankar Pandya. For if I had not ac- quired the little Sanskrit that I learnt then, I should have found it difficult to take any interest in our sacred books. In fact, I deeply regret that I was not able to acquire a more thorough knowledge of the language because I have since realised that every Hindu boy and girl should pos- sess sound Sanskrit learning. It is now my opinion that in all Indian curricula of higher education there should be a place for Hindi, San- skrit, Persian, Arabic and English, besides of course the vernacular. This list need not frighten any one. If our education were more systematic, and the boys free from “The followers of Vishnu, as the One Supreme God, are called by the name “Vaishnava.” The Vaishnavas have a repugnance against taking the life of any animal and are usually strict vegetarians. The appeal of love and compassion is very strong among them. 52  BIRTH AND HOME the burden of having to learn their subjects through a foreign medium, I am sure learning all these languages would not be an irksome task, but a perfect pleasure. A scientific knowledge of one language makes a knowledge of other languages comparatively easy.  CH APLE Re ia SCHOOL DAYS AMONGST MY FEW FRIENDS atthehigh school I had, at different times, two who might be called inti- mate. One of these friendships did not last long, though I never forsook my friend. He gave me up, because I made friends with the other. This latter friendship I re- gard as a tragedy in my life. It lasted a long time and I began it in the spirit of a reformer. This companion was originally my elder brother’s friend. They were class- mates together. I knew his weaknesses, but I regarded him as a faithful friend. My mother, my eldest brother, and my wife warned me that I was in bad company. I was too proud a husband to heed my wife’s warning. But I did not dare at first to go against the opinion of my mother and my eldest brother. Nevertheless I pleaded with them, saying, “I know he has the weaknesses you attribute to him, but you do not know his virtues. He can- not lead me astray, because my association with him is meant to lead him right. For I am sure if he mends his ways, he will be a splendid man. I beg you not to be anxious on my account.” I do not think this satisfied them, but they accepted my explanation and let me go my way. Since then, I have seen that I had calculated wrongly. One who tries to reform another cannot afford to have close intimacy with him during the process. True friendship is an identity of souls rarely to be found in this world. Only between like natures can friendship be altogether worthy and en- during. Friends react on one another. Hence, in friend- 54  SiC OO: Ts. DA, Yes ship, there is very little scope for the reformation of a friend. I am of opinion that all exclusive intimacies are to be avoided; for man far more readily takes in vice than virtue. And he who would be friends with God must remain alone, or make the whole world his friend. I may be wrong, but my effort to cultivate an intimate friend- ship proved a failure. A wave of “reform” in other directions was sweeping over Rajkot at the time when I first came across this friend. He told me that many of our teachers were secretly taking meat and wine. He also named many well known people of Rajkot as belonging to the same com- pany. There were also some high school boys among them. When I heard this, I was painfully surprised and asked my friend the reason. He explained it to me in this way. “We are a weak people,” he said, “because we do not eat meat. The English are able to rule over us, be- cause they are meat-eaters. You know how hardy I am, and a great runner, too. It is because I am a meat-eater. Meat-eaters do not have boils or tumours; and even if they sometimes happen to have any, they heal quickly. Our teachers and other distinguished people who eat meat are no fools. They know its virtues. You should do like- wise. There is nothing like trying. Try and see what strength it gives.” All these pleas on behalf of meat-eating were not ad- vanced at a single sitting. They were the substance of a long and elaborate argument which my friend was trying to impress upon me from time to time. My elder brother had already fallen. He therefore supported him. I cer- tainly looked feeble-bodied by the side of my brother and this friend. Both of them were hardier, stronger, and 55  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY more daring than I was. This friend’s exploits cast a spell over me. He could run long distances with extraordinary speed and excelled in high and long jumping. He could put up with any amount of corporal punishment. He would often display his exploits to me; and as one is al- ways dazzled when he sees in others the qualities that he lacks himself, I was also dazzled by my friend’s exploits. This was accompanied by a strong desire to be like him. I could hardly jump or run. Why should not I also be as strong as he?. Again I was a coward. I used to be haunted by the fear _ of thieves, ghosts, and serpents. I did not dare to stir out of doors at night. Darkness was a terror to me. It was ' almost impossible for me to sleep in the dark, since I _ would imagine ghosts coming from one direction, thieves from another, and serpents from a third. I could not ~ therefore bear to sleep without a light in the room. How could I disclose my fears to my wife sleeping by my side, now at the threshold of youth? I knew that she had more courage than I, and this made me ashamed of myself. She knew no fear of serpents and ghosts. She could go out anywhere in the dark. My friend knew all these weak- nesses of mine. He would tell me that he could hold in his hand live serpents, could defy thieves and did not be- lieve in ghosts. And all this was, of course, the result of eating meat. A doggerel of Narmad’s was in vogue amongst us schoolboys as follows: Behold the mighty Englishman; He rules the Indian small, Because being a meat-eater He is five cubits tall. 56  SCHOOL DAYS All this had its due effect upon me, and I was at last defeated. It began to grow on me that meat-eating was good; that it would make me strong and daring; that if the whole country took to it the English could be over- come. A day was thereupon fixed for beginning the experi- ment. It had to be conducted in secret. The Gandhis were Vaishnavas. My parents were particularly staunch in their ( faith. The family had even its own temples. Jainism* "was strong in Gujarat, and its influence was felt every- _ where and on all occasions. The opposition to and abhor- | rence of meat-eating that existed in Gujarat among the Jains and Vaishnavas was to be seen nowhere else either in India or outside India in such strength. These were the religious traditions in which I was born, and I was extremely devoted to my parents. The moment that they would come to know of my having eaten meat they would be shocked to death. Moreover, my love of truth made me especially reluctant. It is not possible for me to say that I did not know that I should have to deceive my parents if I began eating meat. But my mind was bent on “re- form.” It was not a question of pleasing the palate. There was no thought in my mind that meat had a particularly good relish. It was simply that I wished to be strong and daring and desired my countrymen also to be the same, so that we might be able to defeat the English and make India free. The word “Swaraj” (self-government) I had not yet heard. But I knew what freedom meant. The 1The Jain religion was established in India during the same epoch as the Buddhist religion. One of its chief tenets is the strict abstention from taking the life of any living creature. It was owing partly to the influence of the Jain faith that the doctrine of Ahimsa obtained such a hold of the religious consciousness of ~ India. In western India Vaishnavas sometimes retain, along with their own faith, the Jain philosophy of life. This was the practice in the Gandhi family. ,  + MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY frenzy of “reform” blinded me. And having ensured secrecy, I persuaded myself that mere hiding the deed from my parents was no departure from truth. So the day came. It is difficult fully to describe my condition. There was, on the one hand, the zeal for “re- form” together with the novelty of making a momentous departure in life. There was on the other hand the shame of hiding like a thief in order to do this very thing. Which of the two swayed me most it would be impossible to say. We went in search of a lonely spot by the river, and there I saw meat for the first time in my life. We had also bread baked in English fashion. Neither gave me any relish. The goat’s meat was as tough as leather and I simply could not eat it. Indeed, I became so sick that I had to leave off in disgust. Afterwards I passed a very bad night. A horrible night- mare haunted me. Every time I dropped off to sleep, it would seem as though a live goat were bleating inside me; and I would jump up full of remorse. But then I would remind myself that what I had done was a duty, and so I would become more cheerful. My friend was ‘not one to give in easily. He now began to cook various delicacies along with the meat and dress them neatly. And for our place of dining, no longer the secluded spot on the river was chosen, but a State house, with its dining hall and tables and chairs, about which my friend had made arrangements in collusion with the chief cook there. This bait had its effect. I got over my dislike for English bread; forswore my compassion for the goats, and be- came a relisher of meat dishes, if not of meat itself. This went on for about a year. But not more than half a dozen of such dinners were enjoyed in all; because the State 58  SCHOOL DAYS house was not available every day, and there was the difficulty about preparing frequently expensive savoury meat dishes. I had no money to pay for this “reform.” My friend had therefore always to find the wherewithal and I had no knowledge from whence he found it. But find it he did, because he was bent on turning me into a meat-eater. But even his means must have been limited, and hence these dinners had necessarily to be few and far between. Whenever I had occasion to indulge in these surrepti- tious meals, dinner at home was out of the question. My mother would naturally ask me to come and take my food and want to know the reason why I did not wish to eat. “I have no appetite to-day,” I would say, “there is some- thing wrong with my digestion.” It was not without com- punction that I devised these pretexts. I knew I was lying, and lying to my mother. Also I was aware that if my mother and father came to hear of my having become a meat-eater, they would be shocked beyond words. This knowledge was gnawing at my heart. Therefore I said to myself: “Though it is essential to eat meat, and also to take up food ‘reform,’ yet deceiving and lying to one’s father and mother are worse than abstinence from meat. In my parents’ lifetime, therefore, such things must be out of the question. When my parents have passed away and I have found my freedom, then I will eat meat openly. But until that moment arrives I will abstain from it.” This decision I communicated to my friend, and I have never since gone back upon it. My parents never knew what an offence two of their sons had committed. Thus meat was abjured by me at last out of the purity of my ‘ 59  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY desire not to lie to my parents; but I did not abjure the company of my friend. My zeal for setting him right had proved disastrous for me, and all the time I was com- pletely unconscious of the fact. The same company would have led me into faithless- ness to my wife. But I was saved by a narrow margin. My friend once took me to a brothel. He sent me in with the necessary instructions. It was all prearranged. The bill had already been paid. I went into the jaws of sin, but God in ‘his infinite mercy protected me against my- self. I was almost struck blind and dumb in this den of vice and came away without committing the deed for which my friend had taken me. I felt as though my man- hood had been injured, and wished to sink into the ground for shame. But I have ever since given thanks to God for having saved me. I can recall four more similar in- cidents in my life; and in most of them my good fortune rather than any effort on my part saved me. From a strictly ethical point of view, all these occasions must be regarded as moral lapses; for the carnal passion was there, and this was as bad as the act. But from the ordinary point of view, a man who is preserved from physically committing sin is regarded as saved. And I was kept from sin only in that sense. There are some actions from which an escape is a godsend both for the man who escapes and for those about him. Man, as soon as he gets back his consciousness of right, is thankful to the divine mercy for the escape. As we know that a human being often suc- cumbs to temptation, however much he may resist it, we also know that divine providence often intercedes and saves him in spite of himself. How all this happens; how far man’s will is free; to what extent he is a creature 60  SCHOOL DAYS of circumstances; how far fate enters on the scene—all this is a mystery and will remain a mystery. But to go on with the story. Even this was far from opening my eyes to the viciousness of my friend’s com- pany. Therefore I had many more bitter draughts in store until my eyes were actually opened by an ocular demon- stration of some of his lapses quite unexpected by me. These will come later. One thing, however, I must men- tion now, as it pertains to the same period. One of the reasons of my differences with my wife was undoubtedly the company of this friend. I was both a devoted and _ jealous husband, and this friend fanned the flame of my suspicions about my wife. I never could doubt his verac- ity. And I have never forgiven myself the violence of which I have been guilty in often having pained my wife by acting on his information. Only a Hindu wife tolerates these hardships, and that is why I have always regarded woman as an incarnation of tolerance. A servant wrongly suspected may throw up his job; a son in the same case may leave his father’s roof; a friend may put an end to the friendship. A wife, even if she suspects her husband, will keep quiet. But if the husband suspects her, she is ruined. Where can she go? A Hindu wife may not seek divorce in a law court. Law has no redress for her. And I can never forget or forgive myself for having driven my wife to that desperation. ‘Y The canker of suspicion was rooted out only when I understood Ahimsa? in all its bearings. I saw then the 4 | glory of Brahmacharya ° and realised that the wife is not u ~ 2 Ahimsa means literally innocence, non-violence. In its positive aspect, it has the equivalence of love. : ®Brahmacharya means, literally, conduct that leads one to God. Its technical meaning is self-restraint, particularly continence. o 61  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY the husband’s bondslave but his companion and his help- mate, and an equal partner in all his joys and sorrows— as free as the husband to choose her own path. Whenever I think of those dark days of doubt and suspicion, I am filled with loathing at my folly and my lustful cruelty, and I deplore my blind devotion to my friend. I have still to relate some of my failings during this period and also previous to it, which date from before my marriage or soon after. A relative and I became fond of smoking. Not that we saw any good in smoking, or were enamoured of the smell of a cigarette. We simply imagined a sort of pleasure in emitting clouds of smoke from our mouths. My uncle had the habit; and when we saw him smoking, we thought we should copy his ex- ample. But we had no money. So we began pilfering stumps of cigarettes which had been thrown away by my uncle. The stumps, however, were not always available, and could not give much smoke either. So we began to steal coppers from the servant’s pocket money in order to pur- chase Indian cigarettes. But the question was where to keep them. We could not, of course, smoke in the pres- ence of our elders. Somehow we managed for a few weeks with these stolen coppers to get Indian cigarettes. In the meantime, we heard that the stalks of a certain plant were porous and could be smoked. So we got them and began this kind of smoking. But we were far from being satisfied with such things as these. Our want of independence began to hurt us. It was unbearable that we should be unable to do anything without the permission of our elders. At last, in sheer disgust, we decided to commit suicide! 62  SCHOOL DAYS But how were we to do it? From what place were we to get the poison? We heard that Datura seeds were an effective poison. Off we went to the jungle in search of these seeds, and obtained them. Evening was thought to be the auspicious hour. We went to Kedarji Mandir,* put melted butter in the temple-lamp, paid a visit to the shrine and then looked for a lonely corner. But our cour- age failed us. Supposing we were not instantly killed? And what was the good of killing ourselves after all? Why not rather put up with the lack of independence? Nevertheless, we swallowed two or three seeds. We did not dare to take more. Both of us now fought shy of death. We decided to go to Ramji Mandir to compose ourselves and to dismiss the thought of suicide. Thus I realised that it’ was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it. Since that evening, whenever I have heard of someone threatening to commit suicide, it has had little effect on me. | The thought of suicide ultimately resulted in both of us abandoning the habit of smoking stumps of cigarettes and of stealing the servant’s coppers for the purpose of smoking. From that time onward, ever since I have reached manhood, I have never desired to smoke. The habit of smoking has come to appear to me barbarous, dirty and harmful. I have never understood why there is such a rage for smoking throughout the world. It is almost unbearable to me to travel in a compartment full of tobacco smoke and I become choked for want of fresh air. But much more serious than this theft was the one | was guilty of a little later. This other theft was com- ‘Temple. } | 63  MA HCA‘I'M A> GzA ND EE = ees) OW N Sse OR mitted when I was fifteen. In this case, I stole a bit of gold out of my meat-eating brother’s armlet. This brother had run into a debt of about twenty-five rupees. He had on his arm an armlet of solid gold. It was not difficult to clip a bit out of it. Well, it was done, and the debt cleared. But this be- came more than I could bear. I resolved never to steal again. I also made up my mind to confess it to my father. But I did not dare to speak. Not that I was afraid of my father beating me; for I do not recall his ever having beaten any of us. No, I was afraid of the pain I should cause him. But I felt that the risk must be taken; that there could not be a cleansing without a clean confession. At last I decided to write out the confession and then sub- mit it to my father and ask his forgiveness. So I wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to him myself. In this note, not only was my guilt confessed but I also asked adequate punishment for it. The note was ended with& request to him not to punish himself for my offence, and also a pledge that I would never steal again.. I was trembling all over as I handed the confession to my father. He was then suffering from fistula and was confined to bed. His bed was a bare plank of wood. I handed him the note and sat opposite. As he read it through, tears like pearl drops trickled down his cheeks, wetting the paper. For a moment he closed his eyes in thought and then tore up the note. He had sat up to read it. He again lay down. I also shed tears when I saw my father’s agony. If I were a painter I could draw a picture of the whole scene to-day. It is still so vivid in my mind. Those pearl drops of love cleansed my heart, and washed 64.  SCHOOL DAYS my sin away. Only he who has experienced such love can know what it is. As the hymn says: Only he Who is smitten with the arrows of love, Knows its power. This was, for me, an object lesson in Ahimsa. Then ] | could read in it nothing more than a father’s affection. | But to-day I know that it was pure Ahimsa. When such. Ahimsa becomes all-embracing, it transforms everything _ it touches. There is no limit to its powers.’ This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought that he would be angry, say hard things, and strike his forehead. But he was wonderfully quiet; and I believe this was due to my clean confession. A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance. I know that my confession made my father feel absolutely safe about me, and increased his affection for me beyond measure.. \ i The time about which I am now writing was my six- { teenth year. My father was bedridden, suffering from fistula. My mother along with an old servant of the house and myself were his principal attendants. The duties of a nurse devolved upon me. These mainly consisted in dressing the wound, giving my father his medicine, and compounding drugs whenever they had to be made up at home. Every night I massaged his legs and retired only when he asked me to do so or after he had fallen asleep. Such service was dear to me. I do not remember ever having neglected it. All the time at my disposal, 65  MAHATMA GANDHI—HIS OWN STORY after the performance of the daily toilet, was divided between school and attending on my father. I would only go out for an evening walk when he permitted me or when he was feeling better. This was also the time when my wife was expecting a baby. Such a circumstance, as I can see to-day, meant a double shame for me. First of all, I did not restrain myself, as I should have done, whilst I was yet a student. And secondly, this carnal desire had got the better of what I regarded as my duty as a student, and of what was even a greater duty, my devotion to my parents. Every night, while my hands were busy massaging my father’s legs, my mind was hovering about the bedroom, and that too at a time when religion, medical science, and common sense alike forbade sexual intercourse. I was al- ways glad to be relieved from my duty, and went straight to the bedroom after doing obeisance to my father. At the same time my father was getting worse every day. Ayurvedic physicians had tried all their ointments, Hakims * their plasters, and local quacks their remedies. An