Man who Sways Millions of Indians

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 916, 8 March 1930, Page 18

Man who Sways Millions of Indians

HR West, -which dotes on personality, is again j reminded that a unique j s *- ut * y exists in M. P. ■ [Siajy iSß*] Gandhi, a product of j that East which has not j even invented a word by which to j Translate “personality” in our popular j jargon sense. If picturesqueness be an indication of personality, Gandhi can well supply this. For years Europeans in India tried to frown him out of existence because he wore no clothes. They have discovered that eveu a naked man in this twentieth century can be a menace to an empire (writes Upton Close in the New York “Times”). Gandhi is picturesque—so picturesque that an average Westerner must see him many times before he can convince himself that he exists. A gnome cf a man, with emaciated, crooked limbs, lower legs that fold up like the legs of a folding chair, elbows sharp as pointed sticks, a hairy breast with protruding ribs, a mouth which has now only three or four teeth covered by long sensitive lips, a long tongue which always gestures when he speaks, huge high cheek bones, sparse hair, furrowed brow that, moves eloquently over his peaked forehead, and piles in billows above his eyes when he concludes his sentences; dark, deep eyes with snapping lights—there is a picture of his body. A picture of his soul would be just as original and paradoxical. Get us begin with his voice, for the voice of a man is half-way between his body and his soul. Gandhi's voice is high-pitched, smooth and musical, rolling out the vowels of the English language with full Oxford flavour or shaping the consonants of his native Gujratl with knife-like

An Impression of Mahatma Gandhi

precision. I have seen men after listening to his clipped sentences depart as bullets shot out of guns. The most fascinating thing about him is his great crooked smile, his tiukliug laugh. He has an unfailing sense of humour, and one's impulse is to say anything for the privilege of hearing that laugh once again. There is never any time to be lost, however, when one interviews Mahatma Gandhi. He sees every one, but he does not see anyone long They may continue to “sit in his presence, or even 101 l over his pallet, but he uo longer sees them. With the self-preserving instinct of all Indian great men, he requires to be left in

absolute solitude for a certain period each day. Such personality is a shock to the world. One can well appreciate the outburst of an efficient, commercialminded American Consul to me: “I knew Gandhi when he was a dapper, clever young Oxford lawyer in South Africa, well on his way to making a fortune through his court-room oratory. Then he suddenly went crazy, began dressing in a loin cloth, giving away everything he owned and marching thousands of silly Indians up and down the roads of South Africa, demanding the privilege of dying for something or other.” One is reminded of the good, sensible Athenians who used to tell Socrates that, he was crazy. Ghandi first shocked Christendom and particularly the British Empire by Insisting that the doctrine of love of Jesus Christ was an argument which could be used in politics. Gandhi embarrassed the Empire so much that he won freedom for his people in South Africa. Incidentallv he won the respect and affection of his enemy, General Jan Smuts. He has not stopped embarrassing people since, and his paramount power in India today is due to the extreme embarrassment into which he has thrown all communities, and their necessity of leaning upon him. greatly as they may dislike him, in their embarrassment. The various antagonistic communities of native Indians are as embarrassed by being compelled to accept Gandhi’s aid as are the British rulers. The orthodox Hindus, with whom the old-fashioned Mohammedans rapidly are being forced to affiliate, hate Gandhi, knowing that he is the heretic prophet proclaiming the end of India’s mediaeval age during which they have dominated thought and cramped action. Yet they dare not break with him or denounce him. The masses worship him as a god, and the professors of theology dare not scandalise the masses, nor can they afford to lose Gandhi’s support of them in a few things in order to eliminate his destructiveness of them in the many. Nor do they care to force him completely into the ranks of their ene-

mies, the radical young reform elements. Gandhi was one of the early and most drastic supporters of marriage reform. He is, his supporters say, the greatest influence in India toward the breakdown of caste. He has enraged the orthodox by declaring unreservedly for the complete abolition of untouchability, and has maddened them to many riots by taking untouchables into temples and schools. Yet Gandhi is the only powerful supporter of the caste system in India. He maintains that the four great castes should treat one another with kindness, enjoy social equality, but remain distinct, and supports the theory that the Brahmin is the high-est-grade incarnation of life in this human form. So in the face of the score of Western radicals and agnostics, the orthodox supporters of caste must treat with Gandhi. “Old” India hates Gandhi, but avows him. Young India adores the Mahatma, but rebels against him. and also obeys him, for where would young India’s radical social programme get with-

out the life-giving; push of India’s living saint? And how eagerly the old ! orthodoxist would array the docile I masses against these young reformers if these masses did not listen first for j the voice of Gandhi! They are not in sympathy with j Gandhi’s other worldly patience, and they are not full spiritual converts to his principles of love, non-violence and turning the other cheek; but they are unable to gainsay the practical victories won by these weapons, or to suggest any weapons more potent in the hands of a disarmed people. If they see the time has come, they will not, I think, hesitate to sacrifice their prophet Gandhi. Gandhi knows this as well as they do, and he goes on, unvarying from his declaration that as much as he would like to see India free he would rather she remain eternally enslaved than wilfully shed one drop of blood, and he knows that young India has to follow him—as yet. Should the time come for him to lay down his life he could do so as easily and willingly as he went to gaol, knowing that his

dying would embarrass the enemies of his cause as greatly as his lifework, and knowing that the impatient India which must first repudiate him will eventually make his principle its ideal and him its Messiah. “Pity you Westerners who have to get everything done in a life time; I can wait 40 or 400 years,” he once said to me. Thus Gandhi, unique among modern men, with a mind that spans the gulf from mediaeval mysticism to social rationalism, a mind that never shifts to accommodate itself to a group, even of its own creatures, finds himself today out of tune with every contemporary group. Yet exactly because of this splendid isolation, he may hold the fate of every group in the hollow of his hand. The marvel of Gandhi Is that he has attained such power in spite of what might be called a divine surliness. He never puts forth effort to “get. in on” anything. Things come to him. He has attained power not by manipulation but through aweinspiring exhibitions of self-sacrifice. Ultimately men can harden their

hearts to such personalities and crush them —only to have them rise up to become gods. But for the present Gandhi’s career demonstrates what he teaches, that love can be the greatest practical force in the world—even the modern world. His is the only contemporary career founded upon suffering and non-retaliation. The masses, who do not understand theories but do appreciate self-sacrifice, sympathy and humbleness, are therefore Gandhi’s. Among intellectuals, Gandhi picks out the men his cause needs, goes out and wins them. Rarely does he fail. Eventually many leave him, but still loving him. With those who will not be won, such as the poet Tagore, he ceases intercourse, but remains friendly. He demands unquestioning acceptance of his creed and decisions from those who would be with him, but he admits the right and even desirability of anyone not using his name to have his own creed. Humblest of men, happiest not when called Mahatma tNoble Soul), or religious guru or political chief, but during his daily play hour with village

children who call him “Daddy, Gandhi yet possesses self-confidence that in the man who does net feel himself agent of a “divine cause would seem arrogance. But all the foregoing has not revealed to us the secret of Gandhis place in India and this age. He is paramount because the “people love him.” He lives a faultless, ascetic life, but there are thousands of ascetics of impeccable lives in India and some outside. He has been made by his nation pre-eminent from among scores of patriots and saints, from among hundreds of personalities with which the subcontinent abounds. What is his secret? I think my wife discovered it ior me. She said: “In his presence I felt a new* capability and power in myself rather than a consciousness of his power. I felt equal, confident, good for anything—an assurance 1 had never known before, as if some consciousness within me had newly awakened.” A man who can do this to peopi# can mould his age.