CONSCIENCE is the source of dissent, asserts Gandhi. When something is repugnant to our conscience we refuse to obey it. This disobedience is constituted by duty. It becomes our duty to disobey anything that is repugnant to our conscience. So doing we become satyagrahis. Disobedience as duty requires us to know ourselves, it requires us to recognise the supremacy of conscience, cultivate the art of listening to the small, still voice of the conscience and submit to its dictates. This state is described in the Gita as ‘when it is night for all other beings, the disciplined soul is awake.’

According to Gandhi one acquires the capacity to hear this voice when the ‘ego is reduced to zero’. Reducing the ego to zero for Gandhi meant an act of total surrender to Satya Narayan. This surrender required subjugation of human will, of individual autonomy. It is when a person loses autonomy that conscience emerges. Conscience is an act of obedience, not wilfulness. He said; ‘Wilfulness is not conscience… Conscience is the ripe fruit of strictest discipline…Conscience can reside only in a delicately tuned breast.’¹

He knew what a person with conscience could be like. ‘A conscientious man hesitates to assert himself, he is always humble, never boisterous, always compromising, always ready to listen, ever willing, even anxious to admit mistakes.’² A person without this tender breast delicately tuned to the working of the conscience cannot hear the inner voice or, more dangerously, may in fact hear the voice of the ego. This capacity did not belong to everyone as a natural gift or a right available in equal measure. What one required was a cultivated capacity to discern the inner voice as distinct from the voice of the ego, as ‘one cannot always recognize whether it is the voice of Rama or Ravana.’³

In Gandhi’s understanding disobedience in the ultimate sense is not an act of autonomous will but of the will being surrendered to the conscience. This surrender gives one the capacity to question and disobey the basic structure of ideas, practices and tenets. This essay examines one such act of disobedience.

Gita for him was a guide to conduct. It was something that he knew by heart; he along with the ashramites recited it daily. He refused to consider the Gita a divinely inspired scripture. He steadfastly refused to believe in the historicity of the Mahabharata. More significantly, he did not consider the Krishna of the Gita as a historical person. He did not say that the Krishna as adored by the people never lived, but the Krishna of the Gita was an incarnation, in a sense contrary to Hindu belief. Incarnation for Gandhi was an act of perfect and pure imagination. He wrote; ‘Krishna of the Gita is perfection and right knowledge personified; but the picture is imaginary.’⁴

Krishna was perfect imagination, as Gandhi could not reconcile with him doing many of the acts that the various Krishna Charitra attributed to him. Gandhi rejected them in no uncertain terms. ‘I have no knowledge that the Krishna of the Mahabharata ever lived. My Krishna has nothing to do with any historical person. I would refuse to bow my head to the Krishna who would kill because his pride is hurt, or the Krishna whom non-Hindus portray as a dissolute youth. I believe in the Krishna of my imagination as a perfect incarnation, spotless in every sense of the word, the inspirer of the Gita and the inspirer of the lives of millions of human beings. But, if it was proved to me that the Mahabharata is a history in the sense that modern historical books are, that every word of the Mahabharata is authentic and that Krishna of the Mahabharata actually did some of the acts attributed to him, even at the cost of being banished from the Hindu fold, I should not hesitate to reject that Krishna as God incarnate.’⁵

 

The scriptures according to him had to conform to what he described as ‘first principles’ of moral conduct. Anything that was inconsistent with the first principles of morality could not have for him the authority of the Shastra. Shastra, he said, ‘are designed not to supersede, but to sustain the first principles.’⁶ This opened up the scriptures to reason. A Christian visitor asked him, ‘Where do you find the seat of authority?’ Pointing to his breast Gandhi said; ‘It lies here. I exercise my judgement about every scripture, including the Gita. I cannot let scriptural text supersede my reason. Whilst I believe that the principal books are inspired... Nothing in them comes from God directly... I cannot surrender my reason whilst I subscribe to Divine revelation.’⁷

 

Sometime between 25 and 30 September 1928, in the presence of Gandhi and at his insistence, a doctor administered a quietus by means of a poison injection to a terminally ill calf at the Satyagraha Ashram in Ahmedabad. Gandhi, borrowing a line from eighteenth century Gujarati poet Pritam (1718-1798) wrote in the Navajivan a confession ‘Pavak ni Jwala’,⁸ which Pyarelal translated in Young India as ‘Fiery Ordeal’.⁹ Gandhi begun by stating that moral dilemmas occur in life at the ashram due to the keenness to realize the ‘Ashram ideal of seeking Truth through the exclusive means of Ahimsa.’¹⁰

Gandhi described the condition of the calf. It had been maimed and lay in agony for days. The surgeon who treated it declared the condition past any help and past hope. Whatever care, nursing and treatment could be provided was given to the calf. The suffering was so great, Gandhi narrated, that it could not be turned to its side without excruciating pain. ‘In these circumstances I felt that humanity demanded that the agony should be ended by ending life itself.’¹¹

The term ‘humanity’ seeks to render two terms far more significant than their English rendering. In Gujarati original he had used ‘dharma’ and ‘ahimsa’; the term humanity does not capture adequately the ideas of duty and ahimsa. The term ‘humanity’ provides the human person, in this case Gandhi, with agency. While the idea of duty makes the performance obligatory, reducing for someone like Gandhi the possibility of acting contrary to it. The term ahimsa remains opaque when rendered as ‘humanity’. In fact, the appropriate rendering in English of ahimsa would be love and not just non-violence. When rendered and understood as ‘duty’ and ‘love’ the argument that Gandhi makes becomes comprehensible.

 

The matter was placed before the entire ashram community, wherein one member opposed to the idea of killing the calf even to end the pain offered, along with some ashram women, to nurse the calf. The nursing included keeping a vigil to ward off the flies and attempts at feeding the calf. The principle objection was that one cannot take the life which one cannot create. The argument appeared pointless to Gandhi, who ‘in all humility but with the clearest convictions I got in my presence a doctor to administer the calf a quietus.’¹²

Gandhi termed the objections of the ashramite as ‘pointless’. ‘It would have point if the taking of life was actuated by self-interest.’¹³ Gandhi introduced the idea of intent, motive, and the nature of the action as the arbiter. If the action were to be devoid of self-interest, that is detached, nishkama, the act of taking the life of the calf would be an act of duty and love, of boundless ahimsa, in its absence it would be a violent act. As an act of ahimsa it would be a correct act.

Gandhi knew that public opinion would not approve of his action and would see in it nothing but himsa, pure violence. The performance of duty cannot be contingent upon public opinion, even if the act were to in hindsight appear to be wrong, not only to others but to oneself also. An act of conscience has to be independent of public opinion: ‘…if a man fails to follow the light within for fear of public opinion or any other similar reason, he would never be able to know right from wrong and in the end lose all sense of distinction between the two.’¹⁴

 

A question could legitimately be put to him if he would apply the principle enunciated in connection with the calf to a human being. Would he like it to be applied in his case? ‘My reply is yes; the same law holds good in both the cases. The law Yatha Pindethatha Brahimande (as with one so with all) admits of no exception, or the killing of the calf was wrong and violent… in case of an ailing friend I am unable to render any aid whatever and recovery is out of the question and the patient is lying in an unconscious state in the throes of fearful agony, then I would not see any himsa in putting an end to his suffering by death.’¹⁵

Gandhi argued that one may find it necessary under certain imperative circumstances to sever life from the body in the interest of the sufferer. He contended that this is not generally recognized as an act of ahimsa because the votaries of ahimsa have made a blind fetish of non-killing and in so doing ‘put the greatest obstacle in the way of the spread of true ahimsa in our midst.’¹⁶

He went on to argue that the mistaken view of ahimsa which looked at killing as a primary form of himsa had drugged the conscience of people and made them insensitive to other, more insidious, forms of violence. He argued that there was a fundamental misconception about the nature and scope of ahimsa. This misconception was rooted in the relative value attached to killing and non-killing. The inability to recognise this was for him a sign of lack of moral courage. ‘It is our spiritual inertia, lack of moral courage, the courage to think boldly and look facts squarely in the face, that is responsible for this deplorable state of affairs.’¹⁷

 

This confession and his insistence that his act should be perceived as pure ahimsa perturbed many. He received many angry and hurt letters, to which he responded in a series of articles published in Navajivan. Many of the letters that he received poured upon him ‘the lava of their unmeasured and acrimonious criticism.’¹⁸ These acrimonious letters, Gandhi wryly remarked, could only serve one purpose, that of giving him exercise in forbearance and non-violence. There were those who were deeply aggrieved and saddened by this aberration on Gandhi’s part. The Jain community was deeply perturbed by both Gandhi’s act as also his insistence upon calling it ahimsa. They sent him a series of posers which he dealt with separately in an essay called ‘Jain Ahimsa?’

The first poser dealt with the interpretation of ahimsa. In an ordinary sense the term himsa means to sever life from the body, and the prohibition on injury or pain is an extension of this meaning. The correspondent stated that he did not consider taking life in every possible instance as wrong, but its characterization as ahimsa was faulty. His argument was that no ethical principle could be regarded as absolute and admitting of no exception whatsoever. ‘The maxim, "Ahimsa is the highest or the supreme duty" embodies a great and cardinal truth but it does not cover the entire sum of human duties. Whilst therefore what you have termed "non-violent killing" may be a right thing, it cannot be described as ahimsa.’¹⁹

Gandhi argued that just as life is subject to change, so are the meanings attached to terms. Therefore, if we wish to fully realize the implications of ahimsa, we should be open to discovery of fresh implications for the doctrine. Commenting upon the maxim, ‘Ahimsa is the highest or the supreme duty’, he said that we cannot improve upon it, but if we wanted to retain our spiritual inheritance we must explore the implications of the maxim. He was willing to concede to the Jains that they need not regard his act as one of non-violence, so long as they accept it as duty-bound and righteous. ‘I am not particular about names. I do not mind whether the taking of life in the circumstances I have mentioned is called ahimsa or not, so long as its correctness is conceded.’²⁰ This appears to be a concession that Gandhi made. And yet it may not be so. The word ‘correctness’ seeks to render the term ‘dharmya’,²¹ duty-bound and righteous.

 

Disobedience or dissent thus viewed renders dissent a category and practice that is deeply personal. Its politics originates from its character as ‘dharmya’. It demands obligatory obedience to a principal that is higher than self, politics, authority – scriptural and temporal. This kind of dissent has no pedagogy, in the sense of something capable of being taught by others. Dharmya disobedience is a practice. Despite its public nature it remains within a deeply held and conserved private domain. As something that has origins in the conscience it can be beyond reason and hence dialogue in the ultimate instance. A non-dialogic and yet duty-bound and righteous act has the potential to command authority and the tendency to be authoritarian.

 

Footnotes:

1. CWMG, vol. 25, Publications Division, Government of India, New Delhi, pp. 23-24.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid, vol. 52, p. 130.

4. Ibid, p. 128.

5. Ibid., vol. 33, p. 32.

6. Ibid,, vol. 58, p. 9.

7. Ibid., vol. 70, p. 116.

8. ‘Gandhi Ji No Aksherdeha’, vol. 37, pp. 293-296, henceforth Aksherdeha.

9. CWMG, vol. 37, pp. 310-315.

10. Ibid., vol. 37, p. 310.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid., vol. 37, p. 310.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid., p. 311.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., p. 312.

17. Ibid., p. 313

18. Ibid., vol. 37, p. 338.

19. Ibid., p. 382.

20. Ibid.

21. Aksherdeha, vol. 37, p. 361.