Gandhiji's Sarvodaya Ideal and Ruskin’s “Unto this Last”

GANDHIJI’S SARVODAYA IDEAL AND
RUSKIN’S “UNTO THIS LAST”

A constant seeker of truth all his life, Gandhiji always kept his mind open to new thoughts and fresh ideas from whichever direction they came. Continuing to be essentially Indian, he constantly tried to mould Indian thought and society in a progressive way towards a better age. He was, however, not a mere revivalist, nor a revolutionary in the ordinary sense of the term. As R. R. Diwakar has rightly pointed out, Gandhiji “was an ‘evolutionary’, if one can use the word, in the sense that he tried and succeeded to a great extent in some matters, and to a small extent in others, to change for the better Indian life–social, political and economical–by his moral power and in a non-violent way”.¹

During the days of his education Gandhiji had read practically nothing outside the text-books prescribed for study. And, after he launched into active life, he had very little time for reading. But what he did read he digested and assimilated thoroughly. Of these books that he read, the one that brought about an in­stantaneous and practical transformation in his life was Ruskin’s, Unto This Last.

While on his way from Johannesburg to Durban in South Africa in 1904, Unto This Last was given to Gandhiji at the railway station by his friend Mr. Henry Polak with the assurance that he would find it greatly interesting. This was the first book of Ruskin Gandhiji read. It was so captivating that he could not put it aside till he completed it. As Gandhiji himself says:

The book was impossible to lay aside once I had begun it. It gripped me...I could not get any sleep that night. ­I determined to change my life in accordance with the ideals of the book. ²

By and large, people in the West hold that the whole duty of man is to promote the happiness of the majority of mankind. Happiness to them normally means only physical happiness and economic prosperity. In the conquest of this happiness, it does not matter much for them if the laws of morality are broken. Also, the Westerners do not think there is any harm if this happi­ness is secured by sacrificing a minority, for the object sought to be attained is the happiness of the majority. The consequences of this line of thinking are, as we know, writ large on the face of Europe.

Nevertheless, some worthy wise men in the West have shown that this exclusive search for physical and economic well-being prosecuted in disregard of morality is contrary to divine law. One of such worthies is Ruskin who contends in his monumental work Unto This Last that men can be happy only if they obey the moral law, and that the good of the individual is contained in the good of all.

Ruskin saw the non-competitive welfare state he sought for exquisitely exemplified in the famous parable of the Vineyard in the Bible (St. Matthew XX: 1-14) ending with the lines “I will give Unto This Last even as unto thee.” Ruskin found in this parable a solution for all the pressing problems of the contemporary society. He set it forth in Unto This Last bringing the whole content of his mind to bear upon this book which, in his own words, is the truest, rightest-worded and most serviceable words I have ever written. ³

Ruskin’s lectures on the political economy of art, delivered at Manchester (1857) and published as A Joy for Ever heralded Unto This Last – the political economy of wealth. Ruskin defines wealth in terms of an integrated personality and the greatest wealth in terms of the largest number of such personalities:

The final consummation of wealth is in the producing of as many as possible of full-breathed, bright-eyed, happy-hearted men...that country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings. ⁴

Ruskin envisages social integration through personal integra­tion:

That man is the richest who, having perfected the function of his life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence both by personal and by means of his possession over the lives of others. ⁵

Ruskin is equally emphatic about being ethical in regard to the means of the acquisition of wealth:

Acquisition of wealth is finally possible under certain conditions of society, of which quite the first was a belief in the existence and even, for practical purposes, in the attainability of honesty. ⁶

Thus Ruskin asserts his belief in the inherent honesty of human nature as well as in its practicability.

Ruskin’s views on production, distribution and consumption of wealth are also marked by their moral values. To him everything that is “suitable for happy and noble human being” comes under production. Distribution too becomes something more than mere arithmetic. Ruskin does not approve of catering to the limitless appetites of a few. To him distribution is of the right thing to the right man at the right time. ⁷

He is of the view that consumption is the crown of production and that the wealth of a nation is to be estimated by what it consumes. Hence according to Ruskin whatever is wisely produced has to be carefully preserved, seasonably distributed and nobly consumed.

This leads Ruskin to the most vital aspect of political economy–the organisation of labour and payment of just wages. He brings out the enduring beauty and dignity of labour conducive to human felicity. He reiterates that toil is a necessary condition of life. He is of the opinion that useful labour is an integrating force in regard to both the individual and society. It is through useful labour that the different aspects of one’s personality are brought together to form a unified whole, and as a result the “Fatherhood of God” and “Brotherhood of man” are properly recognised,

Disapproving of Ricardo’s theory of “natural rate of wages,” Ruskin pleads forfixed rate of wages for the workman as in the army and navy because

fixed salary is more salutary than high wages...
Moreover, fixed wages would lead the workman into
regular habits oflabour and life. ⁸

Ruskin strongly pleads for the payment of just wages to the workers. He says that the money we give the worker as wages must necessarily procure him at least the equivalent of his labour, as justice consists in absolute exchange. In his own words

Just price is its equivalent of the productive labour of mankind. ⁹

In Ruskin’s economy, it must be noted, none is superior, none inferior. So long as one earns one’s bread, one is entitled to just payment, irrespective of the kind of work one does. He longs for a day when assuredly, more pence will be paid to Peter the Fisherman, and fewer to Peter the Pope; Ploughman a little more and our lawyer a little less and so on; at least we may even now take care that whatever work is done shall be fully paid for; and the man who does it paid for it, not somebody else. ¹⁰

A proper organisation of labour should take into account the dignity and moral destiny of the labourer as a human being. Hence Ruskin’s fervent plea for a disciplined education for all , wholesome means of recreation, proper hours of rest and living conditions for all, a living wage for all, and amenities of life for all.

It is not for nothing that Unto This Last had such a tremendous hold on Gandhiji. It gave on organic unity to the long-maturing ideas in Gandhiji’s own mind. He declares:

I believe that I discovered some of my deepest convictions reflected in this great book of Ruskin, and that is why it is so captured me and made me transform my life. ¹¹

In a chapter in The Story of My Experiments with Truth entitled ‘The Magic Spell of a Book’ Gandhiji tells us how avidly he read Unto This Last and how he translated it later into Gujarati entitling ‘Sarvodaya.’ At the end of the chapter Gandhiji us a summary of the teachings of Unto This Last as he understood it.

1.      The good of the individual is contained in the good of all.
2.      A lawyer’s work has the same value as the barber’s as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work.
3.      A life of labour, i. e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman isthe life worth-living. ¹²

In these profound teachings of Ruskin lies the seed of the whole concept of Gandhiji’s ‘Sarvodaya’ ideal. In other words, he found in Unto This Last “the blueprint, for what he most wished to do.” “Sarvodaya” is a Sanskrit word coined by Gandhiji to express what Ruskin wanted to communicate through his Unto This Last.

Of course, the proper rendering of Unto This Last would be “Antyodya” (uplift of the last) rather than “Sarvodaya” (total uplift). But, it should be noted that the last one’s uplift is included in the uplift of all. In emphasizing the last, the object is that work should begin from that end. For instance, the “Bhangi” (sweeper) should be our first concern. None the less, as Vinobaji rightly puts it:

The word “Sarvodaya” should stand; for it is not that all others have been uplifted and only the “Bhangi” remains. In this unfortunate world of ours, we are all fallen and everyone needs to rise. The rich are fallen long since, and the poor have not risen at all. The result is that both need to be uplifted.

In one of his hymns Tulsidas says:

Lord, Thou alone knowest the right method of Grace. Thou takest away the smallness of the small and the greatness of the great.

Even as preached by the Gita, the idea of “Sarvodaya” is to merge oneself in the good of all.

We may say that ‘Sarvodaya’ is only another name for the Gandhian way. Right from the days when he wrote his ‘Hind Swaraj’, ‘Sarvodaya’ has been the basic idea of Gandhiji’s philosophy of life.

Putting into practice whatever appealed to him was a habit withGandhiji. He was par excellence a man of action, a ‘Karmayogi.’ Therefore, whatever philosophy was taking shape. In his mind had not much value for him unless it took a concrete form of action in life. He lost no time in translating into action the teachings of Unto This Last. He says

I arose with the dawn, ready to reduce these principles to practice.

Phoenix, the place in the vicinity of Durban Gandhiji purchased, was the first deliberate experiment in ‘Sarvodaya.’ The very next day after finishing Unto This Last Gandhiji described to Mr. Alfred West the effect the book had produced on his mind. And in two days he fixed up the plan with his own men that ‘Indian Opinion’, the paper he was running, should be removed to a farm on which everyone should labour, drawing the same living wage.

Accordingly ‘Indian Opinion’ was shifted to Phoenix.

Difficulties arose in the initial stages, but the workers, though less than ten in number, were undaunted. The oil engine failed on the eve of the day scheduled for the appearance of the paper. But the carpenters who happened to be on the spot volunteered to work on the hand-wheel along with the Phoenix settlers. It was an ‘unforgettable’ night of voluntary co-operation and the paper came out on the due date. Gandhiji considered obstacles as acid tests and they strengthened his conviction in the new way of life. He gratefully refers to those days as
“of the highest moral uplift for Phoenix”.

Started with its ideal of simplicity, self-sufficiency and corporate feeling, Phoenix became a welfare state in miniature.

The process of the growth of the ‘Sarvodaya’ ideal was a continuous one. The ‘Satyagraha’ movements conducted by Gandhiji in South Africa and India are landmarks in its growth. ‘Satyagraha’ implies the total eschewing of physical force, of hatred, of harassing the adversary, preparedness for any kind of suffering, the belief in one’s own strength...self-purification amounting to redemptive suffering.

Nobly conceived and rightly applied, ‘Satyagraha’ illuminated every sphere of human activity. If it consisted in opposing unjust laws and unjust behaviour in the political field, in the moral field it consisted in the course of physical and spiritual discipline. The result is that the wrong doer wearies of wrong doing in the absence of resistance and he is

“converted by its persuasive appeal to his head and heart”.

Like the qualifications prescribed by Ruskin for the members of the Guild of St. George, those prescribed by Gandhiji for ‘Sarvodaya’ workers imply a course of spiritual discipline. As pointed out and stressed by Gandhiji, a ‘Sarvodaya’ worker must have  a living faith in God...faith in the inherent goodness of human nature...in Truth and Non-violence, and in a life of service.

Gandhiji became the exponent of the ‘Sarvodaya’ way in every field of human activity. Like Ruskin, Gandhiji defines wealth and the means thereof in terms of life and human felicity. He builds his economy on the lines of social justice. He unequivocally declares:

My socialism is even unto this last.

Considering all property as Gopal’s, and our own relation to it as that of a Trustee, Gandhiji makes an improvement on the House-law of Ruskin. In ‘Trusteeship’ Gandhiji finds the solution for all labour problems–economic equality, equitable distribution and a just wage:

The rich man will be left in possession of his wealth, of which he will use what he reasonably requires for his personal needs and will act as a trustee for the remainder to be used for the society. In this argument, honesty on the part of the trustee is assumed.

If, however, in spite of the utmost effort, the rich do not act as trustees, Gandhiji suggests non-violent non-co-operation and civil disobedience as the right and infallible means to solve the problem, because the rich cannot accumulate wealth without the co-operation of the poor in society. Only through this way, then, the poor could free themselves from the crushing inequalities which have brought them to the verge of starvation.

Like Thoreau, Gandhiji pleads for the economic self-sufficiency and contentment by way of minimising wants. Because the starvation of people in several parts of the world is due to many of us seizing very much more than we need. As Gandhiji puts it,

God never creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment, with the result that if anyone appropriates more than he really needs, he reduces his neighbour to destitution.

Therefore, one should reduce one’s wants to a minimum, bearing in mind the economic conditions of one’s country. There should be self-restraint exercised in every sphere of life.

Gandhiji also believes with Tolstoy, Ruskin and Bondaref bread-labour purges man of his inordinate desire and leads to the minimising of his wants:

Obedience to the law of bread-labour will bring about a silent revolution in the structure of society.

“In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread” says the Bible. The same principle has been set forth in the third chapter of the Gita–“He who eats without performing this sacrifice eats stolen bread.” Sacrifice here means bread-labour. So everyone is expected to perform sufficient body-labour in order to entitle him to his living. Gandhiji says that if this principle is observed everywhere, all men would be equal, none would starve and the world would be saved from a sin.

Thus, bread-labour would go a long way in curbing one of one’s ego, and paves the way for human fellowship and equality of all.

This brief study of the deep impact of Ruskin’s Unto This Last on Gandhiji’s conception of the ‘Sarvodaya’ ideal reveals the intimate kinship of their thought and feeling. Both nourished the same conviction that morality is the basis of things in life, and that truth is the substance of all morality. Both were conscientious teachers who put into practice what they sincerely believed in. “Both strove to drive home into the minds of the people their two-fold conviction that the shifting of the centre of gravity from time to time in accordance with the accidentals leads man along a blind alley and creates in him a sense of uprootedness, whereas the transcendental concept of human wholeness, suggestive of the divinity in man, is valid for all time and place.” We hear in Ruskin and Gandhiji a prophetic voice not of foretelling the exact shape of things to come, but of firmly grasping the eternal values shaping them.

References

¹ Gandhiji’s Life, Thought and Philosophy (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1963), p. 35.
² The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Vol. II, (Navjivan, 1929), p. 106.
³ Unto This Last, Ed. Monfries and Hallingworth (London University, Undated), p. 1.
⁴ Ibid., p. 83.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid., p.2
⁷ Ibid., p. 8.
⁸ Ibid., p. 18.
⁹ Ibid., p. 45.
¹⁰ Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive, Ed. Gokak (The Educational Publishing Co.), p. 43.
¹¹ The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Navjivan, 1927), Vol. II. p. 107.
¹² Ibid.