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| Gandhi with textile workers at Darwen,Lancashire, 26 September 1931. |
Truth
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| "God is truth. The way to truth lies through ahimsa (non-violence)" – Sabarmati13 March 1927 |
He tried to achieve this by learning from his own mistakes and conducting
experiments on himself. He called his autobiography
Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming
his own demons, fears, and insecurities. Gandhi summarised his beliefs first when he said "God is Truth". He would later change this statement to "Truth is God". Thus, Satya (Truth) in Gandhi's philosophy is "God".
Nonviolence
Although Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of non-violence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a large scale.
The concept of nonviolence (ahimsa) and nonresistancehas a long history in Indian religious thought and has had many revivals in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Jewish and Christian contexts. Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiographyThe Story of My Experiments with Truth. He was quoted as saying:
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always."
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."
Vegetarianism
As a child, Gandhi experimented with meat-eating.
This was due partially to his inherent curiosity as well as his rather persuasive peer and friend Sheikh Mehtab.
The idea of vegetarianism is deeply ingrained in Hindu and Jain traditions in India, and, in his native land of Gujarat, most Hindus are vegetarian and so are almost all Jains.
The Gandhi family was no exception.
Before leaving for his studies in London, Gandhi made a promise to his mother, Putlibai and his uncle, Becharji Swami that he would abstain from eating meat, taking alcohol, and engaging in promiscuity.
He held fast to his promise and gained more than a diet: he gained a basis for his life-long philosophies. As Gandhi grew into adulthood, he became a strict vegetarian. He wrote the book The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism and several articles on the subject, some of which were published in the London Vegetarian Society's publication, The Vegetarian.
During this period, the young Gandhi became inspired by many great minds and was befriended by the chairman of the London Vegetarian Society, Dr. Josiah Oldfield.
Having also read and admired the work of Henry Stephens Salt, the young Mohandas met and often corresponded with the vegetarian campaigner. Gandhi spent much time advocating vegetarianism during and after his time in London.
To Gandhi, a vegetarian diet would not only satisfy the requirements of the body, it would also serve an economic purpose as meat was, and still is, generally more expensive than grains, vegetables, and fruits.
Gandhi also experimented with fruitarianism, stating in his autobiography, "I decided to live on a pure fruit diet, and that too composed of the cheapest fruit possible ... Raw groundnuts, bananas, dates, lemons and olive oil composed our usual diet ".
However, late in life he broke his discipline and started taking goat's milk on the advice of his doctor.
This lapse of discipline bothered him to his dying day, and he wrote, "The memory of this action even now rankles my breast and fills me with remorse, and I am constantly thinking how to give up goat's milk." He never took dairy products obtained from cows because of his view initially that milk is not the natural diet of man, disgust for cow blowing, and, specifically, because of a vow to his late mother.
Simplicity
Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in public service should
lead a simple life.
He first displayed this principle when he gave up wearing western-style
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| Mahatma Gandhi spinning charkha |
clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. When he returned to
India he renounced the western lifestyle he led in South Africa, where
he had enjoyed a successful legal practice.
Gandhi dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India, advocating
the use of homespun cloth (khadi).
He and his followers adopted the practice of weaving their own clothes from thread they themselves spun on a charkha, and encouraged others to do so. While Indian workers were often idle due to unemployment, they had often bought their clothing from industrial manufacturers owned by British interests.
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| Gandhi having tea with Lord Mountbatten |
The Swadeshi movement held that if Indians made their own clothes,
it would deal an economic blow to the British establishment in India.
Gandhian simplicity was a sign and expression of swadeshi principles.
Consequently, the charkha was later incorporated into the flag of the Indian National Congress. He subsequently wore a dhoti for the rest of his life to express the simplicity of his life.
The practice of giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes, Gandhi called "reducing himself to zero"
Faith
Gandhi Smriti (The house Gandhi lodged in the last
4 months of his life has
now become a monument, New Delhi)
Gandhi was born a Hindu and practised Hinduism all his life. As a common Hindu, he believed all religions to be equal, and rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith. He was an avid theologian and read extensively about all major religions. He had the following to say about Hinduism:Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being...
When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face,
and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow.
My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
4 months of his life has
now become a monument, New Delhi)
Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being...
When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face,
and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow.
My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
Swaraj
Gandhi was a self-described philosophical anarchist,and his vision of India meant
India without an underlying government.
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| Gandhi with Rabindranath Tagore, 1940 |
He once said that "the ideally nonviolent state would be an ordered anarchy.
" While political systems are largely hierarchical, with each layer of
authority from the individual to the central government have increasing
levels of authority over the layer below, Gandhi believed that society should
be the exact opposite, where nothing is done without the consent of
anyone, down to the individual.
His idea was that true self-rule in a country means that every
person rules his or herself and that there is no state which enforces laws
upon the people. This would be achieved
over time with nonviolent conflict mediation, as power is divested from layers of
hierarchical authorities, ultimately to the individual, which would come to embody the ethic of nonviolence.
Rather than a system where rights are enforced by a higher authority, people are self-governed by mutual responsibilities.
On returning from South Africa, when Gandhi received a letter asking for his participation in writing a world charter for human rights, he responded saying, "in my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties."
