XXXIX. A SPIRITUAL
DILEMMA
As soon as the news reached South Africa that I along
with other Indians had offered my services in the war, I
received two cables. One of these was from Mr. Polak who
questioned the consistency of my action with my
profession of ahimsa .
I had to a certain extent anticipated this objection,
for I had discussed the question in my Hind Swaraj or
Indian Home Rule , and used to discuss it day in and day
out with friends in South Africa. All of us recognized
the immorality of war.If I was not prepared to prosecute
my assailant, much less should I be willing to
participate in a war, especially when I knew nothing of
the justice or otherwise of the cause of the combatants.
Friends of course knew that I had previously served in
the Boer War, but they assumed that my views had since
undergone a change.
As a matter of fact the very same line of argument
that persuaded me to take part in the Boer War had
weighed with me on this occasion. It was quite clear to
me that participation in war could never be consistent
with ahimsa . But it is not always given to one to be
equally clear about one's duty. A votary of truth is
often obliged to grope in the dark.
Ahimsa is a comprehensive principle. We are helpless
mortals caught in the conflagration of himsa . The saying
that life lives on life has a deep meaning in it. Man
cannot for a moment live without consciously or
unconsciously committing outward himsa . The very fact of
his living eating, drinking and moving about necessarily
involves some himsa , destruction of life, be it ever so
minute. A votary of ahimsa therefore remains true to his
faith if the spring of all his actions is compassion, if
he shuns to the best of his ability the destruction of
the tiniest creature, tries to save it, and thus
incessantly strives to be free from the deadly coil of
himsa . He will be constantly growing in self-restraint
and compassion, but he can never become entirely free
from outward himsa .
Then again, because underlying ahimsa is the unity of
all life, the error of one cannot but affect all, and
hence man cannot be wholly free from himsa . So long as
he continues to be a social being, he cannot but
participate in the himsa that the very existence of
society involves. When two nations are fighting, the duty
of a votary of ahimsa is to stop the war. He who is not
equal to that duty, he who has no power of resisting war,
he who is not qualified to resist war, may take part in
war, and yet whole-heartedly try to free himself, his
nation and the world from war.
I had hoped to improve status and that of my people
through the British Empire. Whilst in England I was
enjoying the protection of the British Fleet, and taking
shelter as I did under its armed might, I was directly
participating in its potential violence. Therefore if I
desired to retain my connection with the Empire and to
live under its banner, one of three courses was open to
me: I could declare open resistance to the war and, in
accordance with the law of Satyagraha, boycott the Empire
until it changed its military policy; or I could seek
imprisonment by civil disobedience of such of its laws as
were fit to be disobeyed; or I could participate in the
war on the side of the Empire and thereby acquire the
capacity and fitness for resisting the violence of war. I
lacked this capacity and fitness, as I thought there was
nothing for it but to serve in the war.
I make no distinction, from the point of view of
ahimsa , between combatants and non-combatants. He who
volunteers to serve a band of dacoits, by working as
their carrier, or their watchman while they are about
their business, or their nurse when they are wounded, is
as much guilty of dacoity as the dacoits themselves. In
the same way those who confine themselves to attending to
the wounded in battle cannot be absolved from the guilt
of war.
I had argued the whole thing out to myself in this
manner, before I received Polak's cable, and soon after
its receipt, I discussed these views with several friends
and concluded that it was my duty to offer to serve in
the war. Even today I see no flaw in that line of
argument, nor am I sorry for my action, holding, as I
then did, views favourable to the British connection.
I know that even then I could not carry conviction
with all my friends about the correctness of my position.
The question is subtle. It admits of differences of
opinion, and therefore I have submitted my argument as
clearly as possible to those who believe in ahimsa and
who are making serious efforts to practise it in every
walk of life. A devotee of Truth may not do anything in
deference to convention. He must always hold himself open
to correction, and whenever he discovers himself to be
wrong he must confess it at all costs and atone for it.
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