S. Gurumurthy
The seeming difference between Gandhiji and Guruji was because Gandhiji – wrongly as it proved later – continued to perceive himself as the leader of both Hindus and Muslims even after the Muslims were swayed by the Muslim League. While Guruji spoke for Hindus, in whom he identified the core national society, Gandhiji stood neutral between Hindus and Muslims with, being a Hindu, the added burden prove to Muslims that he was neutral to them after all. The increasing need to prove neutrality ended up in conceding undeserving space to communal Muslim demands at the cost of the nation. Another aspect is that Gandhji’s immediate objective was to win freedom, but, Guruji’s mission was to re-build the nation by uniting the core society namely the Hindu society, to sustain the freedom which was a long term agenda. This also contributed to their different perceptions. Otherwise there was broad and even intense ideological convergence between Gandhiji and Guruji.
Convergence on cow and cow protection
Gandhiji’s views on cow and cow protection were from the perspective of both a practicing Hindu who worships cow and a nationalist Hindu who called upon the nation as a whole, including the state, to institutionalise cow protection. How intensely sentimental and nationalistic was Gandhiji about cow protection is self evidence from his well known views. Gandhiji says: The cow to me is a sermon on pity; the cow is the purest type of sub-human life; Mother cow is as useful dead as when she is alive; Mother cow expects from us nothing but grass and grain; Mother cow is in many ways better than the mother who gave us birth; Man through the cow is enjoined to realise his identity with all that lives; cow protection is the gift of Hinduism to the world; cow protection to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in the human evolution; cow protection means protection of the weak, the helpless, the dumb and the deaf; cow protection to me is infinitely more than mere protection of the cow; the central fact of Hinduism is cow protection; cow preservation is an article of faith in Hinduism; the only way Hindus can convert the whole world to cow protection is by giving an object-lesson in cow protection and all it means; when I see a cow, it is not an animal to eat; it is a poem of pity for me and I worship it and I shall defend its worship against the whole world; cow-slaughter and man-slaughter are in my opinion the two sides of the same coin; nowhere in the world you find such skeletons of cows and bullocks as you do in our cow-worshipping India.(1) How convergent was Guruji with Gandhiji maybe seen from how Guruji castigates those Hindus who seek cow protection not because they revere them but because Muslims kill them! Guruji says: To give an example, our workers once approached a prominent Hindu leader during the signature collection campaign demanding ban on the slaughter of cows. But they were greatly shocked to hear him saying, “What is the use of preventing the slaughter of useless cattle? Let them die. What does it matter? After all, one animal is as good as the other. But, since the Muslims are bent upon cow-slaughter, we should make this an issue. And so, I give you my signature.” What does this show? We are to protect the cow not because the cow has been for ages an emblem of Hindu devotion but because the Muslims kill it! This is Hinduism born out of reaction, a kind of ‘negative Hinduism’.
(2)
And now on to Gandhiji again. In Young India [7.7.1927] he says that the Hindu State should bear the responsibility to maintain the cow. He adds: the state should buy every cow offered for sale on the open market by out-bidding every other buyer; the state should run dairies in all principal towns ensuring a cheap, consistent supply of milk; the state should keep model cattle farms (goshallas) and instruct people in the art of breeding and keeping cattle; the state should make a liberal provision for pasture land; there should be a separate department created for this purpose; the foregoing scheme pre-supposes the state maintains all old, maimed and diseased cattle. This no doubt constitutes a heavy burden, but it is a burden which all states, but above all, a Hindu state, should gladly bear(3) So Gandhiji saw no conflict between secularism and even a Hindu state rearing cows.
Convergence of India as a nation and assimilation of Muslims into Hindu society
Even as late as on July 13, 1938, referring to Hind Swaraj, Gandhiji had said that “after thirty stormy years though which I have since passed, I have seen nothing to make me alter the views expounded in it.”(3) Hind Swaraj, the famous work of Mahatma Gandhi in the year 1909, was regarded as, as late as in 1969 [the year of his centenary] as Mahatma Gandhi’s fundamental work.(4) Hind Swaraj is Gandhiji’s monologue in the form of his own questions which he answers himself. Asking whether it was the Railways that saw the emergence of one nation and nationalism in India, Gandhiji responded: “The English men have taught us that we were not one nation before and that it will take centuries before we become one nation. This is without foundation. We were one nation before they came to India. One thought inspired us. Our mode of life was the same. It was because we were one nation that they were able to establish one kingdom. Subsequently they divided us.(5) And referring to the British divisive propaganda that India was not one nation,(6) and that it was thanks to them that a sense of common Indian nationality emerged(7), Guruji, like Gandhiji, said precisely the same thing as Gandhiji had said in 1909, namely, “the thread of inherent unity has never snapped in spite of apparent distinctions and dissensions among castes, creeds, sects and even political dissensions”(8); that we are ‘One Country, One People, and One Nation’.(9) Gandhiji alluded to the religious and cultural unity of India to emphasise the national unity of our people and said, “Our men travelled throughout the India either on foot or in bullock carts. The learned one another’s languages and there was no aloofness between them. What do you think could have been the intention of those farseeing ancestors of who established Setubandha [Rameshwar] in the South, Jagganath in the East and Hardwar in the North as places of pilgrimage? You will admit they were no fools. They knew that worship of God could well have been performed at home. They taught us that those whose hearts were aglow with righteousness had Ganges in their homes. But they saw that India was one undivided land so made by nature. They, therefore, argued it must be one nation. Arguing thus, they established holy places in various parts of India and fired the people with an idea of nationality in a manner unknown in other parts of the world.”
(10)The religious and cultural unity emphasised by Gandhiji is precisely what Guruji expounds.(11) Says Guruji “The worshipper of Shiva goes from Kashi to Rameshwaram, and the devotee of Vishnu in His various forms and incarnations travels through the length and breadth of this country. If he is an Advaiti, the four ashrams of Sankaracharya standing as sentinels beckon him to the four corners of the country. If he a Shakta, the worshipper of Shakti – the divine Mother of the Universe – fifty two are the places of his pilgrimage spreading from Himalayas to Baluchistan to Kamakhya in Assam and Jwalamukhi in Himachal to Kanyakumari in the South.”(12) When, pointing out the differences between Hindus and Muslims, and asking himself whether the introduction of Mohammedans had not unmade the nation, Gandhiji said: “India cannot cease to be one nation because those belonging to different religions live in it. The introduction of foreigners does not necessarily destroy a nation; they merge in it. A country is a nation only when such a situation obtains in it. That country must have a faculty of assimilation. India has ever been such a country….. those who are conscious of the spirit of nationality do not interfere with one another’s religion. If they do they are not fit to be considered a nation.”(13) Is it not almost in Guruji’s words? Asserting the Hindu tradition to assimilate different religionists Guruji states that “mere common residence in a particular territory cannot forge a unified national society with common character and qualities”(14) and calls for assimilation of the minorities which he explains in detail(15), adding that the Muslims and Christians should “merge” in the common stream of our national life [16].
So Guruji speaks of merger of the minorities in the common national stream and Gandhiji speaks of their merger in the nation – both of them assuring that there would be no interference with the religious rights of minorities. Guruji says that without assimilation a national society with common character and qualities cannot emerge and Gandhiji says that without the faculty of assimilation there cannot be a country. The identity of minds between Gandhiji and Guruji on critical national issues thus seem complete.
References:
[1] http://www.mkgandhi.org/epigrams/c.htm#]
[2] Bunch of Thoughts 1980 Ed p79
[3] http://www.puripada.com/mahacow.htm]
[4] Hind Swaraj Navajivan Publishing House 2009 ISBN 81-7229-404-2; p289
[5] MK Gandhi Hind Swaraj and Other writings. Centenary Edition. Edited by Antony J Parel University of Calgary Canada; Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-19703-8 [Cambridge]
[6] Ibid [4] p95
[7] Bunch of Thoughts [1980Ed] p292
[8] Ibid p293-94
[9] Ibid p217
[10] Ibid p298
[11] Hind Swaraj p96
[12] Bunch of Thoughts [1980Ed] p107-118
[13] Ibid p115-16
[14] Hind Swaraj p97
[15] Bunch of Thoughts [1980Ed] p168
[16] Ibid p171-174
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