Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 3

Author(s): R P Poddar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 23

14
VAISHALI RES ARCH BULLETIN NO.3
will earn the gratitude of the community and be regarded as a benevolent man."97 Therefore, although categorically firm in the pursuit of Ahimsa in his personal life he made certain concessions to the absolutism of Ahimsa in applying it on a group scale in political life. He said that even after India had won her independence there will be the need for fighters to defend the country but he stressed that India should have the smallest army imaginable.28
Gandhi was also ready to recognize the use of police force against those who run counter to or violate the mechanism and apparatus of law.20 He wrote: “I have conceded that even in a non-violent state a police force may be necessary. This I admit is a sign of my imperfect Ahimsa.”30 But the police would act as the servants and not as the masters of the people. They will rarely resort to arms. The police in a non-violent state will rely on the strength of collaboration and coopera. tion. He was also willing to permit the use of a police-force on behalf of a future world-government.
He also recommended punishment to wrong-doers, in the present state of society. He prescribed that thieves and robbers should be confincd. He, however, advocated the use of prisons more as reformatories than as places of punishment. As a spiritual doctor Gandhi wanted to apply the psychological and moral approach to crimes by treating them as a species of disease but he did never say that the police should cease taking cognization of public crimes. Gandhi thus makes these concessions to the absolutism of non-violence. The absolute application of nonviolence would not favor the punishment even of thieves, robbers and murderers. But Gandhi was realistic enough to make certain concessions to the structure of our imperfect world for the present.
Although, as a prophet of non-violence, Gandhi did not approve of the military action of the Indian government in Kashmir, in 1947, he admired the resourcefulness of the defenders, He said :
27. Young India, November 4, 1926. 28. H. T. Majumdar, Mahatma Gandhi, p. 102. Gandhi wrote: "For under
Swaraj too, I would not hesitate to advise those who would bear arms. to do so and fight for the country." His argument was that he personally was a believer in absolute Ahimsa bnt others did not and it was the duty of these latter to render help to the organized government of the day. Jawaharlal Nehru, Discovery of India, pp. 389–90, categorically states that the Indian National Congress had accepted non-violence only for the fight for freedom and for national unity. “At no time had it gone beyond that position or applied the principle to defence from external aggression or internal danger." Hence the
Congress was keenly Interested in the Indianization of the army. 22. George Catlin, In the path of Mahatma Gandhi, p. 308, 30. Harijan, September 1, 1940,