Human dimensions of Gandhi

Press, 25 June 1983, Page 18

Human dimensions of Gandhi

Gandhi’s Truth. By Erik H. Erikson. Whitehall Books/H. W. Norton, 1983. 448 pp. Notes and index. $9.15 (paperback).

(Reviewed by

Jim Wilson)

Would that all who see the film read this book. It is a fine antidote. The film is very oversimplified, though not without power because of its subject. This book is realistically complex, doing justice to the power of its subject by presenting Gandhi as human and believable. Erikson says: “This book describes a Westerner’s and a psychoanalyst’s search for the historical presence of Mahatma Gandhi and for the meaning of what he called Truth.” It focuses on Gandhi’s second satyagraha experiment in India, aimed at settling an industrial dispute at Ahmedabad in 1918, and leads up to this by examining Gandhi’s earlier life. Erikson thinks Gandhi’s teachings and example could inspire a shift of almost evolutionary significance in methods of settling disputes between human groups. So his psychoanalysis of the Mahatma has two aims. He hopes to throw light on the psychological roots of Gandhi’s extraordinary energy and bravery in struggling against oppression and injustice. And he hopes to separate those aspects of his “Truth” which are applicable to all humans from those aspects peculiar to this particular one — especially from Gandhi’s very strong views on sexual chastity. Erikson’s style is diffuse and wordy, and his structure meandering. He justifies this on the grounds that he is adopting the free-association method of psychoanalysis. It frustrates the reader at times; but maybe it is better for his purposes than being too clear-cut and explicit. It emphasises that his historical psychoanalysis is suggestive only, and does not pretend to explain Gandhi completely. It forces the reader to wrestle with the suggestions and their supporting data, relating them to herself or himself, in order to assess their plausibility. His suggestions, which I find fascinating, may fail to convince when stated baldly in a review. For

example, he thinks much of Gandhi’s drive for leadership was fuelled by desire to excel his father, but in a different type of leadership so as not directly to compete. He suggests that lack of individual attention from his mother in their large semi-communal joint family resulted in Gandhi attempting to compensate by taking on the role of mother to everybody in need. Erikson, however, explores such suggestions on the basis of a mass of information about and quotations from Gandhi. He succeeds in giving them power and plausibility for anyone seeking human explanations; though presumably not for those to whom Gandhi is a saint, his power explicable only in metaphysical terms. A general motif underlying the detailed suggestions is also of interest. Even in concerns and acts for others we humans are acting also for ourselves. We are seeking solutions to internalised parent-child conflicts and attempting to satisfy or sublimate unrequited cravings of childhood or youth. Put bluntly — Erikson does not — there is self-interest even in

“unselfish” acts, even in the case of an exceptionally “unselfish” person like Gandhi. It is interesting that Gandhi himself does say this bluntly. But he goes on to make distinctions between different types of self-interest. "... every act is motivated by some kind of self-interest ... in the service which I render to a friend ... it lies in the inner happiness which I seek . . . self-interest, if of the best kind. If I did it so that my friend might love me more, that would also be self-interest, albeit of a lower kind . . . ” Erikson does not quote this, but it is further evidence for his contention that Gandhi was psychoanalytically self-aware, and might well have agreed with much of Erikson’s psychoanalysis of him. So there are ways of satisfying our inner needs and resolving our inner conflicts which help others as well as ourselves; and there are ways which harm others. Gandhi’s ways, to an extent rarely rivalled, led him to strive with amazing persistence to help others deprived of rights or livelihood. Erikson’s study makes this more understandable without reducing our admiration for Gandhi. Nonetheless, such a study does raise the question, in what way may we now admire him? — as we might a mountain, a product of natural forces not itself responsible for its beautiful shape? Should we admire Gandhi as the remarkable product of his genes and his childhood experiences, but not as himself responsible for his moral stature? Erikson does not say this, and this is another merit of his refusal to oversimplify. The complexities of human motivation are over-ridden if, too simply, we say either that we are inevitable products of our genes and our environment, or -that we determine our own character and actions. Erikson does not present Gandhi as driven willy-nilly by childhood events, but as triumphing over them by channelling their energy into goals he chose. Of course why he chose those goals . . . ? — further questions suggested by this book go on and on, a mark of how stimulating it is.