Gandhi and the Romantics

Mahatma Gandhi, in his day, was a great moral force operating on many levels. The moral essence of his personality cannot be adequately described by a single conceptual epithet. He avowedly wished to be thought of as a “saint” amongst politicians. A saint, undoubtedly he was. He was also a reformer, a social worker, a revolutionary, and above all a Satyagrahi. His was a multifaceted personality–a personality that does not easily lend itself to a systematic and thorough-going analysis. Yet we might, with some effort, discern a single principle running through the tangled skein of his utterances and actions. There are apparent contradictions in his views; but such contradictions are not uncommon in the work of a genius. “I have” says Gandhi, “never made a fetish of consistency. I am a votary of Truth and I must say what I feel and think at a given moment on the question without regard to what I may have said before on it.” (Harijan, Sept. 28, 1934) He was a mystic and yet his approach to political and social problems was extremely pragmatic; he was a practical and shrewd politician and yet was always guided by a deep religious spirit. However, despite these contradictions, it would not be difficult to understand the vital aspect of his thought and philosophy so long as we try to read them in the context of his mind and his personality.

Gandhi was essentially a political romantic in search of Truth and love which together comprised the essential article of his faith. His personality and thought betray a strain that is unmistakably romantic. It is this strain that makes him a kindred spirit to Rousseau, and a host of romantics like Blake, Wordsworth and Shelley. Gandhi chose social and political action as the plane of his operation while Blake, Wordsworth and Shelley chose to write poetry which is also, ultimately, a moral action. This difference of the choice of the field of operation is bound to reflect a seeming divergence as far as practical assessment of situations and consequential reactions are concerned. But inwardly a poet and a politician may have a common feel or attitude towards life. I do not intend to suggest that Gandhi was a romantic as Shelley was. Yet the romantic spirit seems to have been the main inspiration for Gandhi as well as Shelley. It is, I think, necessary to emphasise at this stage that romantics were not mere aesthetes living in a world of dreams haunted by the spirit of Beauty. In fact, a fierce moral urgency seems to have always operated in the lives of these poets changing their utterances with a prophetic ardour. The romantics constantly, show an extraordinary moral and social concern which, for instance, is clearly discernible in Shelley’s identification of poetry with moral action.

Gandhism lends itself to a definition in terms of its objectives while romanticism which inspired Rousseau and English poets of the 19th century would defy any effort towards a precise definition. Yet romanticism manifested itself in a uniform reaction of these poets and philosophers. While the philosophic attitude of the romantics was an outcome of their reaction against the scientific rationalism of the previous century trying to settle the issues in terms of human intellect and reason (in a very restricted sense) their social concern was mainly determined by their reaction to great change that was taking place in the first half of the 19th century, namely the transformation of the feudal into the industrial society. The consequences resulting out of this change in moral and cultural values impinged on their sensibilities stirring them to a quick reaction, a revolt.

Rousseau was the philosopher and the guide of the romantic movement. His views on man, society and religion are widely known. Briefly stated, Rousseau elevated conscience and feeling over reason and intellect. He believed in the innate goodness of man and reacted sharply against the materialism and the cultural changes it brought about. He advanced persistently the principle that man is naturally good. Why was he, then, miserable? This was on account of the diabolical aggression of the industrial culture spreading over the face of the nature like a virus, draining the rural areas of its sturdy peasantry and converting cities into slums. At deeper level there was a discord between the moral man and the immoral society, that is, the materialistic society. Rousseau demanded moral freedom which, ultimately, consisted in obedience to the moral laws within us.

In some aspects Gandhi’s ideas are so much alike to Rousseau of the 20th century. He reacted against the tyranny of the intellect and the scientific rationalism, believed in the innate goodness of man and (even in the 20th century) opposed industrialisation vehemently. “Rationalists,” Gandhi said, “are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence.” (Young India, Oct. 14, 1926) Reacting to Bishop Heber’s comments on India, Gandhi said he did not find man to be vile. “He is no vile. He is as much a seeker after truth as you and I are, possibly more so.” (Young India, Aug. 4, 1925) In fact this innate goodness of man, this natural goodness is the inseparable quality of human soul that responds to love and therefore to non-violence. “Belief in non-violence is based on the assumption that human nature in essence is one and therefore unfailingly responds to the advance of love.” (Harijan, Dec. 24, 1938.)

His denunciation of industrialism was without reservation. He considered it as a growing cancer in the body of human life. Moreover, it was on account of industrialism that exploitation became possible. “Industrialism is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind...Industrialism depends entirely on your capacity to exploit...To change to Industrialism is to court disaster.”

“It might fairly be said,” says Middleton Murry, “that Rousseau’s doctrine is vision and not politics.” (M. Murry: Selected Criticism. P. 223) This can be said of Gandhi with the same propriety, for Gandhi was essentially and primarily a visionary.

“The literature of the nineteenth century,” says Prof. Whitehead, “especially its English poetic literature, is a witness to the discord between the aesthetic intuitions of mankind and the scientific mechanism.” (A. N. Whitehead: Science and the Modern World. P. 83) For Rousseau as much as for Wordsworth the honor lay in the change of values they considered to be the basic organising principles of life. Both had a common distaste for the luxurious and artificial life to which the reacted very violently. In his famous sonnet “The World is Too Much With Us” Wordsworth condemns, in no uncertain terms, the Mammon worship and the materialistic attitudes prevailing in his times:

“Getting and spending, we lay waste our power
Little we see in Nature that is ours.”
(Poems of Wordsworth.P. 214)
In “October 1803” the denunciation of luxurious life became more marked.

These times touch monied worldlings with dismay
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair.
(Ibid. P. 216)

Wordsworth felt that riches are akin to fear and would lend no stability in contexts of crisis. What is far more valuable to moral poise and happiness of man in the spirit–“the faculties within.” Noble virtues are allied to Hope and Life.

The position of Rousseau or Wordsworth in the 19th century in the face of spiritually, emasculating impact of the new materialistic society is similar to that of Gandhi in the twentieth century. Talking of “Hind Swaraj” Middleton Murry rightly observes: “The place of Rousseau’s natural man, uncorrupted by civilization is taken in Gandhi’s mind by the Indian peasant who has the advantage over Rousscau’s conception of being a reality.” (M. Murry, in The Challenge of Gandhi, p. 424.) For Gandhi, the Western civilization working out its way in India through the urban area was an outcome or a rejection of spiritual truth and unrelenting pursuit after material trivial which cannot be but disastrous to the entire time-tested fabric of an ancient civilization. Gandhi’s moral task in India was, therefore, the task of spiritual reconquest. Rousseau and Wordsworth awakened the consciousness of nature; Gandhi tried to awaken the consciousness of the traditional life in India which would powerfully resist the corrupting influence of materialism. “We notice”, says Gandhi in Hind Swaraj (P. 53) “that the mind is a restless bird, the more it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions the more unbridled they become.”

Gandhi acknowledged his profound indebtedness to Tolstoy and Emerson through Ruskin. He talked of Rousseau and Shelley. He did not appear to have mentioned Wordsworth in whose poetry he could have found many echoes of his own spirit. The change indirectly wrought by the new scientific temper was condemned by both Rousseau and Wordsworth. Gandhi in 20th century was deeply concerned about the discord between the moral intuitions and the scientific mechanism. Horrified by the artificialities and luxuries of modern life, Gandhi, like Rousseau and Wordsworth, turned to the rural culture for its stark simplicity and vitality. “When we have become village-minded we will not want imitations of the west or machine-made products, but we will develop a true national taste in keeping with vision of a new India in which pauperism, starvation and idleness will be unknown.” (M. K. Gandhi: Constructive Programme. P. 111)

Another notable feature of Wordsworth’s, attitude was his deep and living sympathy with animals. The beautiful poem “Hartleap Well” (P. 39) describes the dying anguish of a dumb creature. Wordsworth looks upon the Hart as a member of the great family in Nature, with whose suffering the poet as well as the spirit of Nature are in deep sympathy. Wordsworth’s moral:

“Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest things that feels.”

pulsates with the Gandhian feel. No better and more artistically effective expression of a plea for non-violence can be thought of. “I see.” says Gandhi, “there is an instinctive horror of killing living beings under any circumstances whatever. I cannot for a moment bear to see a dog, or for that matter any other living being, helplessly suffering the torture of a slow death” and further “I do not want to live at the cost of the life even of a snake.” (Young India, Nov. 18. 1926)

It would not be wrong to say that the poetry of Wordsworth and politics of Gandhi were nurtured by the same undercurrent of religious sympathy for living beings. There was also the common reaction against the influence of materialistic values dissipating the modern life, driving the poet and the politician in search of elemental simplicity and innocence. Added to this there was the romantic faith in the dignity of the individual and love for children.

If Wordsworth’s attachment to Nature and his preference for natural ways of living represent one aspect of Romantic temper, Shelley’s moral idealism represents the other aspect of it. In fact Gandhi’s thoughts and outlook show a closer affinity to Shelley’s. He was fond of Shelley’s poetry and would quote Shelley’s great poem “Mask of Anarchy” to explain his view of Satyagraha. Hoyland recal1s how Gandhi enthusiastically quoted Shelley while discussing with him the fundamentals of his philosophy. “Mr. Gandhi,” says Hoyland, “then quoted Shelley’s great lines from the Mask of Anarchy,” lines which should be far better known than they are:

Stand ye calm and resolute
Like forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war
With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay,
Till their rage has died away.

Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishbable number
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep has fallen on you
You are many, they are few.

(Hoyland: Mahatma Gandhi’s Essays and Reflections P. 197)

Gandhi’s ideal of self-suffering and passive resistance is nowhere better expressed. These lines of Shelley were dear to Gandhi because they embody the fundamental tenets of his philosophy. Similar in spirit are the famous closing lines in “Prometheus Unbound”:

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy power, which seems omnipotent
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wretch the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent.
(Shelley: Complete Poetical Works. P. 12)
If Gandhi has known Shelley more intimately, he would have un-hesitatingly quoted him as the best ideal of his Satyagrahi. Shelley would have been more than gratified to know that the 20th century could finally see the Prometheus of his vision becoming a reality in Asia. Gandhi said, “But I believe non-violence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable will. A definite forgiveness would, therefore, mean a definite recognition of our strength. (Young India, Aug. 11 1920) The movement of non-violent, non-cooperation, according to him, is unique in the sense that it eschews hostility and hatred. “It  is not based on brute force or hatred. It does not aim at destroying the tyrant. It is a movement ofself-purification. It therefore seeks to convert the tyrant.” (Young India, Feb. 11, 1926) His belief in non-violent resistance was so complete and undaunted that he went to the extent of exhorting the German Jews to try it against the atrocities of the Nazis. “The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity.” (Harijan, Nov. 26, 1938) In Shelley’s words:

“Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came.”

Gandhi and Shelley alike emphasise the idea of personal suffering as an instrument of securing victory which would conquer the opponent by love. This is what Gandhi called soul-force and Shelley, love. Gandhi thought that it should be possible for India to transmit a message–not  of physical might but of love to the entire world. “And then, it will be your privilege to conquer the conquerors not by shedding blood but by sheer force of spiritual predominance.” (M. K. Gandbi: To the Students. P. 12) He maintained that the Hindu religion is based upon Ahimsa “which in its active form is nothing but love, not only to your neigbbours, not only to your friends; but love even to those who may be your enemies.” (Ibid)

It would be interesting to know what Gandhi really meant by his passive resistance and how the soul-force or love and self-suffering played an important part in it. In his Hind Swaraj (Chapter 17) he explains at length as to what he means by passive resistance. Passive resistance, according to Gandhi, is soul-force and is matchless. It is superior to the force of army Gandhi quotes with approval what Tulsi has said about love and pity and comments, “The force oflove is the same as the force of the soul or truth.” (Ibid. P. 56) Gandhi identified love with a force because be was deeply involved in a political struggle, aimed at deliverance of a race. Shelley looked upon it as blissfu1 unifying principle governing creation. But Gandhi was equally emphatic about the feeling ofsympatby and the power oflove. “Love” he said, “is the strongest force the world possesses and “Love”is the humblest i9maginable. Who has not seen strong-bodied bullies surrendering helpless to their mothers?” (Young India, Aug. 1925) Elsewhere Gandhi described true Ahimsa as “a complete freedom from ill-will and anger and hate and an overflowing love for all.” This comes very close to Shelley’s: (Hellas. P. 533)

“Oh, cease! must hate and death return?
cease! must men kill and die?

Blake, Wordsworth and Shelley show certain common features as a reaction against sophistication and urbanisation, against violence and tyranny of traditions, against established values and morals. The romantic mind tends towards freedom, love, pity and sympathy; advocates a life saintly and simple, free from hatred and greed. But what is the source of its strength, and what is its ultimate motivating power, its guiding light? In case of a moral crisis the classicist would fall on standards of conduct evolved by con­ventions and traditions. In religion, he is catholic; in politics, he is conservative. Middleton Murry rightly remarked, “Catholicism stands for the principle of unquestioned authority outside the individual; that is also the principle of classicism in literature.” The romanticist, on the other hand, is averse to the set of established values. The final authority for him is his conscience. “The romantic”, as Murry puts it, “in the last resort must depend upon the inner voice, a self that is universal.” This explains the romantic bent of Gandhi’s mind. His faith in free-will, conscience and the inner voice is well-known. The nineteenth century romantics for their poetry and Gandhiji for his politics drew on “the dark waters of spring” within the soul. This makes them appear, as it made Gandhi appear absurd, unacceptable and often intolerable; but this is the way of those who believe that the kingdom of God is within us. “The Only Tyrant I accept,” said Gandhi, “is the still small voice within me.” (Young India, Sept. 20, 1928) It is this faith in the soul which ultimately is the expression ofthe universal soul, that links up Gandhi with the great romantics of the world.           .

And yet Gandhi, like all romantics, was a mystic. The romantic poetry of Shelley or Wordsworth and the politics of Gandhi reveal a deep religious vein. Even Shelley who was avowedly an atheist was profoundly religious without adhering to any specific creed. Gandhi was a firm believer and considered the Divine Light shining in the temple of conscience as the sole guiding force in life. Shelley, not unlike Wordsworth, was a pantheist believing the Supreme and the Eternal Reality revealing itself in evanescent expressions. In his famous image comparing life with a dome of many-coloured glass he gives expression to his metaphysical faith. Again in “Cloud” he reiterated his faith in the immortality ofthe Spirit behind the Reality. The spirit tells us “I can change, but I cannot die.” Gandhi echoes the same idea when he says, “Whilst everything around me is ever-dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds together, that creates, dissolves and recreates.” (Young India. Oct, 11, 1928) This power was identified by him as Love, the one cohesive force in the Universe.

The romantics were mystics, but they had also a sense of mystery in life or beyond life which often made them restless. Wordsworth’s poetry often gave expression to this feeling. One of the beautiful fragments left by Shelley (Fragment, P. 703) is perhaps the best expression of this sense of mystery.

I loved–oh, no, I mean not one of ye,
Or any earthly one, though you were dear
As human hearts to human heart may be,
I loved I know not what; but this low sphere,
And all that it contains, contains not thee,
Though whom seen nowhere, I feel everywhere.

This is basically a mystic experience. Not only in moral inter­pretations of life did Gandhi have similar ideas but in myslic experience and in the feeling of mystery of life as well, he held, a concord with Shelley.

“There is an indefinable mysterious Power” says Gandhi, “that pervades everything. I feel it, though I do not see it. It is the unseen Power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. (M. K. Gandhi. Essays and Reflections. P. 520)