Part 7 (1/2)
Let us proceed a little further. That a well-armed man has stolen your property, you have harboured the thought, you are filled with anger; you argue that you want to punish that rogue, not for your own sake, but for the good of your neighbours; you have collected a number of armed men, you want to take his house by a.s.sault, he is duly informed of it, he runs away; he too, is incensed. He collects his brother-robbers, and sends you a defiant message that he will commit robbery in broad day-light. You are strong, you do not fear him, you are prepared to receive him. Meanwhile, the robber pesters your neighbours. They complain before you, you reply that you are doing all for their sake; you do not mind that your own goods have been stolen. Your neighbours reply that the robber never pestered them before, and that he commenced his depredations only after you declared hostilities against him. You are between Sylla and Charybdis. You are full of pity for the poor men.
What they say is true. What are you to do? You will be disgraced if you now leave the robber alone. You, therefore, tell the poor men: ”Never mind. Come, my wealth is yours, I will give you arms, I will teach you how to use them; you should belabour the rogue; don't you leave him alone.” And so the battle grows; the robbers increase in number; your neighbours have deliberately put themselves to inconvenience. Thus the result of wanting to take revenge upon the robber is that you have disturbed your own peace; you are in perpetual fear of being robbed and a.s.saulted; your courage has given place to cowardice. If you will patiently examine the argument, you will see that I have not overdrawn the picture. This is one of the means. Now let us examine the other. You set this armed robber down as an ignorant brother; you intend to reason with him at a suitable opportunity; you argue that he is, after all, a fellow-man; you do not know what prompted him to steal. You, therefore, decide that, when you can, you will destroy the man's motive for stealing. Whilst you are thus reasoning with yourself, the man comes again to steal. Instead of being angry with him, you take pity on him.
You think that this stealing habit must be a disease with him.
Henceforth you, therefore, keep your doors and windows open; you change your sleeping-place, and you keep your things in a manner most accessible to him. The robber comes again, and is confused, as all this is new to him; nevertheless, he takes away your things. But his mind is agitated. He inquires about you in the village, he comes to learn about your broad and loving heart, he repents, he begs your pardon, returns you your things, and leaves off the stealing habit. He becomes your servant, and you find for him honourable employment. This is the second method. Thus, you see different means have brought about totally different results. I do not wish to deduce from this that robbers will act in the above manner or that all will have the same pity and love like you; but I wish only to show that only fair means can produce fair results, and that, at least in the majority of cases, if not, indeed, in all, the force of love and pity is infinitely greater than the force of arms. There is harm in the exercise of brute-force, never in that of pity.
Now we will take the question of pet.i.tioning. It is a fact beyond dispute that a pet.i.tion, without the backing of force, is useless.
However, the late Justice Ranade used to say that pet.i.tions served a useful purpose because they were a means of educating people. They give the latter an idea of their condition, and warn the rulers. From this point of view, they are not altogether useless. A pet.i.tion of an equal is a sign of courtesy; a pet.i.tion from a slave is a symbol of his slavery. A pet.i.tion backed by force is a pet.i.tion from an equal and, when he transmits his demand in the form of a pet.i.tion, it testifies to his n.o.bility. Two kinds of force can back pet.i.tions. ”We will hurt you if you do not give this” is one kind of force; it is the force of arms, whose evil results we have already examined. The second kind of force can thus be stated: ”If you do not concede our demand, we will be no longer your pet.i.tioners. You can govern us only so long as we remain the governed; we shall no longer have any dealings with you.” The force implied in this may be described as love-force, soul-force, or, more popularly but less accurately, pa.s.sive resistance. This force is indestructible. He who uses it perfectly understands his position. We have an ancient proverb which literally means ”One negative cures thirty-six diseases.” The force of arms is powerless when matched against the force of love or the soul.
Now we shall take your last ill.u.s.tration, that of the child thrusting its foot into fire. It will not avail you. What do you really do to the child? Supposing that it can exert so much physical force that it renders you powerless and rushes into fire, then you cannot prevent it.
There are only two remedies open to you--either you must kill it in order to prevent it from peris.h.i.+ng in the flames, or you must give your own life, because you do not wish to see it perish before your very eyes. You will not kill it. If your heart is not quite full of pity, it is possible that you will not surrender yourself by preceding the child and going into the fire yourself. You, therefore, helplessly allow it to go into the flames. Thus, at any rate, you are not using physical force.
I hope you will not consider that it is still physical-force, though of a low order, when you would forcibly prevent the child from rus.h.i.+ng towards the fire if you could. That force is of a different order, and we have to understand what it is.
Remember that, in thus preventing the child, you are minding entirely its own interest, you are exercising authority for its sole benefit.
Your example does not apply to the English. In using brute-force against the English, you consult entirely your own, that is the national interest. There is no question here either of pity or of love. If you say that the actions of the English, being evil, represent fire, and that they proceed to their actions through ignorance, and that, therefore, they occupy the position of a child, and that you want to protect such a child, then you will have to overtake every such evil action by whomsoever committed, and, as in the case of the child, you will have to sacrifice yourself. If you are capable of such immeasurable pity, I wish you well in its exercise.
CHAPTER XVII
Pa.s.sIVE RESISTANCE
READER: Is there any historical evidence as to the success of what you have called soul-force or truth-force? No instance seems to have happened of any nation having risen through soul-force. I still think that the evil-doers will not cease doing evil without physical punishment.
EDITOR: The poet Tulsidas has said: ”Of religion, pity or love is the root, as egotism of the body. Therefore, we should not abandon pity so long as we are alive.” This appears to me to be a scientific truth. I believe in it as much as I believe in two and two being four. The force of love is the same as the force of the soul or truth. We have evidence of its working at every step. The universe would disappear without the existence of that force. But you ask for historical evidence. It is, therefore, necessary to know what history means. The Gujarati equivalent means: ”It so happened.” If that is the meaning of history, it is possible to give copious evidence. But if it means the doings of kings and emperors, there can be no evidence of soul-force or pa.s.sive resistance in such history. You cannot expect silver-ore in a tin-mine.
History, as we know it, is a record of the wars of the world, and so there is a proverb among Englishmen that a nation which has no history, that is, no wars, is a happy nation. How kings played how they become enemies of one another and how they murdered one another is found accurately recorded in history and, if this were all that had happened in the world, it would have been ended long ago. If the story of the universe had commenced with wars, not a man would have been found alive to-day. Those people who have been warred against have disappeared, as, for instance, the natives of Australia, of whom hardly a man was left alive by the intruders. Mark, please, that these natives did not use soul-force in self-defence, and it does not require much foresight to know that the Australians will share the same fate as their victims.
”Those that wield the sword shall perish by the sword.” With us, the proverb is that professional swimmers will find a watery grave.
The fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love.
Therefore the greatest and most unimpeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in spite of the wars of the world, it still lives on.
Thousands, indeed, tens of thousands, depend for their existence on a very active working of this force. Little quarrels of millions of families in their daily lives disappear before the exercise of this force. Hundreds of nations live in peace. History does not and cannot take note of this fact. History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul. Two brothers quarrel: one of them repents and re-awakens the love that was lying dormant in him; the two again begin to live in peace: n.o.body takes note of this. But if the two brothers, through the intervention of solicitors or some other reason, take up arms or go to law--which is another form of the exhibition of brute-force--their doings would be immediately noticed in the press, they would be the talk of their neighbours, and would probably go down to history. And what is true of families and communities is true of nations. There is no reason, to believe that there is one law for families, and another for nations. History, then, is a record of an interruption of the course of nature. Soul-force, being natural, is not noted in history.
READER: According to what you say, it is plain that instances of the kind of pa.s.sive resistance are not to be found in history. It is necessary to understand this pa.s.sive resistance more fully. It will be better, therefore, if you enlarge upon it.
EDITOR: Pa.s.sive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms. When I refuse to do a thing that is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the government of the day has pa.s.sed a law which is applicable to me: I do not like it, if, by using violence, I force the government to repeal the law, I am employing what may be termed body-force. If I do not obey the law and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul-force. It involves sacrifice of self.
Everybody admits that sacrifice of self is infinitely superior to sacrifice of others. Moreover, if this kind of force is used in a cause that is unjust only the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes. Men have before now done many things which were subsequently found to have been wrong. No man can claim to be absolutely in the right, or that a particular thing is wrong, because he thinks so, but it is wrong for him so long as that is his deliberate judgment. It is, therefore, meet that he should not do that which he knows to be wrong, and suffer the consequence whatever it may be. This is the key to the use of soul-force.
READER: You would then disregard laws--this is rank disloyalty. We have always been considered a law-abiding nation. You seem to be going even beyond the extremists. They say that we must obey the laws that have been pa.s.sed, but that, if the laws be bad, we must drive out the law-givers even by force.
EDITOR: Whether I go beyond them or whether I do not, is a matter of no consequence to either of us. We simply want to find out what is right, and to act accordingly. The real meaning of the statement that we are a law-abiding nation is that we are pa.s.sive resisters. When we do not like certain laws, we do not break the heads of law-givers, but we suffer and do not submit to the laws. That we should obey laws whether good or bad is a new-fangled notion. There was no such thing in former days. The people disregarded those laws they did not like, and suffered the penalties for their breach. It is contrary to our manhood, if we obey laws repugnant to our conscience. Such teaching is opposed to religion and means slavery. If the government were to ask us to go about without any clothing, should we do so? If I were a pa.s.sive resister, I would say to them that I would have nothing to do with their law. But we have so forgotten ourselves and become so compliant, that we do not mind any degrading law.
A man who has realised his manhood, who fears only G.o.d, will fear no one else. Man-made laws are not necessarily binding on him. Even the government do not expect any such thing from us. They do not say: ”You must do such and such a thing,” but they say: ”If you do not do it, we will punish you.” We are sunk so low, that we fancy that it is our duty and our religion to do what the law lays down. If man will only realise that it is unmanly to obey laws that are unjust, no man's tyranny will enslave him. This is the key to self-rule or home-rule.