Lessons from Gandhi

At the recent Indian festival, a series of lectures on Mahatma Gandhi was given by Ambassador (ret.) P.A. Nazareth from which our officials and special leaders can derive valuable lessons particularly because of similarities existing between India and the Philippines. Excerpts hereunder are from a lecture delivered at the Ateneo U.

On mass poverty: Before Independence, India was a land of maharajas, rajahs and paupers. The former (about 565 in all) lived in incredible splendor while for most other Indians abject poverty and premature death became their lot. The national awakening which Gandhi’s focus on the poor and oppressed brought about, created widespread antipathy for regal lifestyles.

Speaking at the inauguration of Benares U. in 1916, at which many Indian rulers were present, Gandhi said: "His Highness the Maharaja of Benares spoke about the poverty of India. Other speakers too laid great stress upon it. But what did we witness in this great pandal? An exhibition of jewelry which made a splendid feast for the eyes of even the greatest Paris jeweler. I compare these richly bedecked noblemen with the millions of the poor and say to them, there is no salvation in India unless you strip yourselves of this jewelry and hold it in trust for your countrymen in India."

Though several rulers resented this speech, some were moved by it and began to support the national struggle. Even those rulers who were unmoved soon discovered that Gandhi’s satyagraha movement (confrontation with truth) had engendered strong nationalist fervor among their subjects. This constrained most of them to change their attitudes. Thus, the Indian government was able to peacefully integrated all except three of the princely states into the Indian Union. This smooth, bloodless ending of India’s feudal lifestyles is another significant outcome of Gandhi’s nonviolent national movement.

He urged simple living, avoidance of pomp and waste, economy of every resource and respect for all life. His aphorism "The world has enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed" is now the prime slogan of the UN’s environmental program.

On protecting the economy: Gandhi argued that India’s poverty was partly the result of its own making, since it willingly produced the cotton for Britain’s textile mills and then purchased the imported high-priced cloth made by these mills; the difference was what produced the profit which financed and motivated Britain’s colonial presence in India.

It also created mass unemployment among Indian weavers. If Indians would spin and weave their own cotton and refuse to buy British cloth, they could undermine colonial rule and bring new hope to India’s unemployed. With this simple argument, he persuaded India’s nationalists, many of whom had studied abroad and had never touched a spinning wheel, to make the daily spinning of cotton and to wear only handspun and handwoven clothes an essential element in the national struggle.

This was the initial stimulus for the revival of India’s traditional cottage industries which today are providing employment to over 30 million spinners, weavers and artisans and annually earning India over ten billion dollars in exports. Gandhi’s maxim, "The cure for unemployment is not an unemployment dole but the provision of employment", has been amply validated.

On women’s rights. India has traditionally been a man’s country par excellence. The woman’s role had been strictly confined to the family and home. Besides, until 1829, she was widely expected to immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.

The only women’s organizations at the turn of the century were composed of aristocratic women who maintained close connections with the British and focused their activities mainly on "charities". It was Gandhi who first brought middle class and rural Indian women out of their homes and into the public domain, affirming, "Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities. She has the right to participate in the minutest detail in the activities of man."

Initially, the women were mainly volunteers but by the time of Gandhi’s anti-foreign cloth and salt satygrahas, thousands become active participants. At Gandhi’s gentle urging, many donated their jewelry to the national cause, marched in processions, picketed liquor and foreign cloth shops, sold handspun cloth at street corners and provided sanctuary in their homes.

In 1930 the Congress Working Committee adopted a resolution paying "tribute to the women of India for the noble part they were progressively playing in the struggle for national freedom, and their readiness to brave assaults, abuses, charges and imprisonment".

When the 1942 Quit India Movement was launched and Gandhi and other important leaders were arrested, a brave young woman named Aruna Asaf Ali unfurled the Indian flag. Another such woman, Usha Mehta, along with three others, set up and operated a secret "Congress Radio from somewhere in India". All these activities boosted morale and enabled Indian women to liberate themselves from age-old taboos. Through Gandhi’s non-violent movement, Indian women for the first time combined their roles as wives and mothers with their new roles as "non-violent warriors". When Independence came, they were accorded full legal equality with men as also some high public offices, In 1949, Mme. Pandit (sister of PM Nehru) was elected President of the UN General Assembly; 20 years later, Indira Gandhi became PM of India.