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THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF NON-VIOLENCE
(3) Gandhi might have been made aware of the exploitationist character of the modern state and the industrial civilization as also of the oppressions perpetrated by the landlords upon peasants by his very close study of the writings of Tolstoy. This awareness he might have eceived from What Then Must We Do ?
Gandhi had the spirit of the Crusader and the martyr and he took the moral and religious teachings of the scriptures far more seriously than Tolstoy the artist and litterateur ever did. With all my great reverence for Tolstoy, I cannot help feeling that the latter's protests against the evils of contemporary Russian govern ment and society were mainly at the intellectual level. Gandhi, on the other hand, manifested more of the divine spirit in action and hence suffered all kinds of privations, imprisonments and miseries for his principles to an extent far greater than Tolstoy ever did.
Furthermore, the gentle Hindu Gandhi had more of the spirit of tolerance and an inclusive appreciation of the teachings of the other religions of the world than Tolstoy, the Christian aristocrat. For example, Gandhi appreciated and practised the teachings of Jesus Christ to an extent far greater than Tolstoy, with regard to the teachings of Krishna.
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2 Foundations and thory of Non-Violence
Gandhi's greatness as a leader and thinker lay in bis transformation of the individualistic message of non-violence into a successful technic for direct mass action. Mahavira, Buddha, Nagasena, Ashvaghosha and Santideva had conceived of Ahimsa as a tenet of personal action and mo ivation. But Gandhi transformed it also into a social and political technic. He, thus, attempted to apply the theory of Ahimsa enunciated by the old Indian teachers and prophets on a social and political plane.
5. Albert Schweitzer, Indian Thought and Its Development, p. 231, has
made a subtle distinction between the ancient Indian concept of Abimsa rooted in the background of world-and-life-negation and Gandhian Ahimsa The former “sets before it no aims that are to be realised in the world, but is simply the most profound effort to attain to the state of keeping completely pure from the world.” Since Gandhi accep's the philosophy of world-and-life affirmation and service, "with him Ahimsa engages in activity within the world and in this way it ceases to be what in essence it is.” Thus, in Gandhi, Ahimsa "is freed from the principle of non-activity in which it origi nated and becomes a commandment to exercise full activity" (p. 231). But while appreciating the subtleness of Dr. Schweitzer's approach, I would like to state that from the historical and philological stand. points his basic thesis that the notion of Ahimsa had its origin in the animistic desire to keep oneself free from worldly "defilements” is without substantiation,
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| SR No. | 522603 |
| Book Title | Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 3 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | R P Poddar |
| Publisher | Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur |
| Publication Year | 1982 |
| Total Pages | 294 |
| Language | English, Hindi |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin, & India |
| File Size | 6 MB |