Mohandas Gandhi: Spiritual Activist

Mohandas Gandhi was one of India’s greatest political and spiritual leaders of the last two hundred years. His wise words about non-violence, the value of all individuals regardless of sex or class, and animal welfare are still quoted today. As to be expected, some of his words have been misquoted. His most popular misquote is “Be the change you want to see in the world.” In truth, Gandhi never said that. The closest verifiable words he said to those are:

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him…We need not wait to see what others do.”

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the fourth child born to Karamchand Gandhi and his fourth wife, Putlibai in 1869 in Porbandar, India. His mother was interested in world events and was a woman of devout faith and good works. Each day her four children accompanied her to the Vaishnava Hindu temple next door to look after the lower castes and sick people.

Like his mother, Gandhi also married at age 13. He lorded his role of husband over Kasturba, his wife, who was not having it. She used fasting as a weapon of passive resistance. Gandhi was inspired by this method and copied it later in his resistance against British oppression. He learned much from his wife and mother and held women in the highest regard throughout his adult life and his marriage became a happy one.

As a schoolboy, Gandhi was taught that the power of their British rulers came from eating meat, so he began sneaking it secretly until the shame of deceiving his strictly vegetarian family got the best of him. After completing his studies, 19-year-old Mohandas readied himself for the eight-week sea journey to London to study law. His mother, fearing for his soul, made him promise to abstain from alcohol, extra-marital sex, and meat. Although he was not particularly interested in spiritual matters at this time, he complied to appease his mother. He kept his promise, but his reasons for keeping it soon changed. One day, while dining alone in a small vegetarian restaurant, he read a handbill titled: “A Plea for Vegetarianism” by Henry Stephens Salt.  Young Gandhi developed a friendship with Salt and became involved in the Vegetarian Society where he enjoyed deep intellectual conversations with Simple Lifers, Esoteric Christians, and English Theosophists about God, life purpose and personal responsibility toward our fellow man and fellow creatures. He became convinced of the guiding virtues of self-sacrifice, discipline, spirituality, and vegetarianism which he chose to follow for the rest of his life.

While living in South Africa and after his return to India, Gandhi continued to refine his views and activism. He is most remembered for his non-violent struggle for freedom from British rule and for speaking out on behalf of India’s lowest social class. His position of uplifting “untouchables” and women led to dislike and violent push back by his fellow Hindus, as did his amicable relations with Muslims and other non-Hindus. Despite being a devout Hindu, Gandhi disavowed the hypocrisy evident in organized religions. He held the eclectic views that all are One in God, all religions are equal, and men and women are equal. He blessed inter-caste marriages, especially with untouchables.

Gandhi believed that good intentions and ideals were only of value when acted upon. He was committed to non-violent passive resistant action against oppressive forces. He undertook 17 fasts lasting from 1-21 days to gain attention for his causes. As the world watched him grow weaker, the pressure to give into his righteous demands grew. He understood that although one person could make a positive impact on society, it takes large numbers of people working together with discipline and perseverance to overturn unjust, corrupt authorities. To this end, he rallied people to take a non-violent stand and march against wrongs, including the British monopoly of salt and taxation for this required mineral on India’s poor. In 1930, he was jailed for leading a march of tens of thousands to the sea to make salt as an act of civil disobedience.

Gandhi and Animals

The doctrine of ahimsa (nonviolence) was important to Gandhi, yet he admitted that he could not be consistent in living up to it as well as the Jains, with whom he was familiar and held in high esteem, especially when feral animals were a threat to man. He said:

My non-violence is not merely kindness to all living creatures. The emphasis laid on the sacredness of subhuman life in Jainism is understandable. But that can never mean that one is to be kind to this life in preference to human life. (Volume 91 Collected Works page 61)

The context of the following letter is about a farm that seems to be endangered by a wild wolf on the prowl.

Is there a wolf at large? A search should be made for it. Someone should be on the watch. Now I consider it our dharma [i.e. teaching] to destroy such animals. It will be a different thing if we discover an alternative.(Letter from Gandhi to Y. M. Parnerkar, August 20, 1945.

He considered it permissable to kill wild wolves that endangered farm residents and a necessity to kill rabid stray dogs that were a threat to humans. He believed the answer to the rabies problem was instantaneous, painless culling of homeless dogs and the importance of learning the science of dog-keeping from Westerners to prevent the problem.

Gandhi also spoke on behalf of animals and the value of their lives.

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.

I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth.

As a schoolboy, Gandhi started sneaking meat after being told that the British became robust by eating meat. Before heading to England for his studies, his mother made him promise to adhere to vegetarianism. He agreed, first out of respect for his mother, and later due to his own convictions which he maintained for the rest of his life. Gandhi noted that the most thoughtful and cultured men are partisans of a pure vegetable diet. On the subjects of vegetarianism and meat-eating, he said:

It is necessary to correct the error that vegetarianism has made us weak in mind, or passive or inert in action. I do not regard flesh-food as necessary at any stage.

I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it.

I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.

Gandhi believed that humans have the responsibility to protect “all that lives and is helpless and weak in the world” and to refrain from harming them. He considered it wrong even to harm “noxious insects and beasts” because “they have not been created to feed our destructive propensities.” Rather, the Creator made them for His purposes. He abhorred vivisection and considered “all scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood” to be of no worth.

Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man’s supremacy over lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and a man.

I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to the protection by man from the cruelty of man.

I still believe that man, not having been given the power of creation, does not posses the right of destroying the meanest creature that lives. The prerogative of destruction belongs solely to the Creator of all that lives.

On refraining from violence toward animals is the highest dharma [teaching], Gandhi said:

Although I myself refrain from violence toward animals I must admit that I am not fit enough to dissuade others from it. I know that we have a duty towards animals, but cannot make others feel it. For that, I need to have far greater purity, compassion, and self-control in me. Without these, I cannot have deep spiritual knowledge and, in the absence of such knowledge, I cannot find the proper language. Without this kind of knowledge, one cannot have self-confidence. I do not believe that I have the strength to persuade others to refrain from violence towards animals … I have surrendered all my powers to Lord Krishna. If therefore, I ever acquire the strength to stop violence to animals, I will not let it remain unused. … and explain why I do not at present engage myself in this highest dharma of ending cruelty to animals.(Vol 31 Collected Works pages 474-475,476; written in 1925).

India earned her independence from Great Britain in August of 1947. Six months later Gandhi, revered by many as “Father of India” was assassinated in the sixth attempt on his life by a Hindu extremist.

References

• Hamilton, Lynn M. (Wyatt North Publishing LLC, 2015) Gandhi: A Life Inspired.
• Morton, Brian (2011, August 29) Falser words were never spoken. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/opinion/falser-words-were-never-spoken.html
• Patel, Vibuti,Dr. (Accessed 2017) Ganhiji and Empowerment of Women. Retrieved from http://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/womenempowerment.htm
• Johnson, Phillip (2013, September 13) Mahatma Gandhi Hoax Quote Greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way that its animals are treated. Retrieved from https://animalsmattertogod.com/2013/09/13/mahatma-gandhi-hoax-quote-greatness-of-a-nation-and-its-moral-progress-can-be-judged-by-the-way-that-its-animals-are-treated/
• Who were the parents of Mahatma Gandhi? (Accessed 2017) Retrieved from https://www.reference.com/history/were-parents-mahatma-gandhi-c192e96b64353d4b#
• Mohandas Gandhi Quotations Archive From all-creatures.org.(Accessed 2017) Retrieved from http://www.all-creatures.org/quotes/gandhi_mohandas.html