The English of Mahatma Gandhi: A note

THE ENGLISH OF MAHATMA GANDHI
A Note on his Style

The period between the two world wars and including both of them has been described as “Gandhian Age in India” by K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar in “Indian Writing in English”. With Gandhiji the curtain has rung down on the old Macaulean style marked by ornamental, scholastic and involved sentences with several clauses telescoping into each other. The following is an excerpt from Ambika Charan Mazumdar’s presidential address before the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress (1916).

“There are however those who say ‘not yet’, ‘not yet’. Then ‘when’? – asks the Indian nationalist. But here the oracle is dumb and echo only answers – ‘when’. Edwin Bevan’s parallel of the ‘Patient and the steel frame’ is cited and the people are strictly enjoined to be in peace and possess their souls in patience until their political Nirvana is accomplished.”

This was typical of the old liberal school where the speaker was addressing the educated who were expected to follow the theme and recognize the quotations.

Gandhiji’s approach to language was mainly utilitarian. “He used language as a necessary tool just as he used his spectacles, his walking stick or his safety razor. Writing with him was not for writing’s sake, nor speaking for speaking’s sake, but rather for achieving communication, for conveying information, for converting people to his point of view ... Gandhi had neither the time nor the inclination to cultivate the so ­called art of writing or speaking. He merely wrote or spoke straight on, and when we read his English today, the words often seem to be insipid or anaemic, with no straining after emphasis, no colour, no irradiating brilliance, yet they are Gandhi’s words and their very bareness constitutes their strength. Words by themselves are nothing, unless we know where the decimal point is placed, the decimal point is the personality of the writer or speaker.” (Prof. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar in Indian Writing in English)

Gandhiji’s style of writing reflected his character and personality. His main ideal was the realisation of Truth and all his writings have a moral strength. They were written with the purpose of raising the ethical standards of the people as Gandhiji had felt that a strong ethical and moral foundation would keep the social, economic and political values closer to Truth. For Gandhi Truth was synonymous with God or the force behind our creation.

What Gandhi wrote and spoke spanning over a period of four decades has set a new tone in communicating with the masses – service won over selfishness and simplicity over complexity. He started a new style of writing, “His writing reflects his life and is devoid of artificialities. His style is simple, precise and clear. He never used flowery and ornamental language. His utterances went straight into the hearts of the audience.” (Sashi Ahluwalia in Gandhi the Writer). The following extract from the Harijan (26-3-1936) illustrates the point.

“There is nothing in our society today which would conduce to self-control. Our very upbringing is against it. The primary concern of parents is to marry their children anyhow, so that they may breed like rabbits. If they are girls, they are married at as early an age as they conveniently can be, irrespective of their moral welfare. The marriage ceremony is one long drawn out agony of feasting and frivolity. The householder’s life is in keeping with the past life. It is a prolongation of self-indulgence. Holidays and social enjoyments are so arranged, as to how one gets the greatest latitude for sensuous living. The literature that is almost thrust on one generally panders to the animal passion. The most modern literature almost teaches that indulgence in it is a duty, and total abstinence a sin.”

Gandhiji was very methodical in whatever subject he laid his hands on. He converted his newspapers into views papers. His ideas – social, political, economic – as well as the plan of action to achieve those were clearly enunciated in his journals. He wrote on a great variety of topics connected with the lives of the common people. He had a great knack for selecting the most apt titles for his articles that have a rare evocative quality about them. “Tempering with loyalty”, “The puzzle and its solution”, “Turning the searchlight inward”, “The fiery ordeal” are a few examples in this respect.

Gandhiji’s literary achievement is more remarkable because of the fact that he was never a literary man, seldom in his writings did he rise to the height of eloquence and beauty. His interests were more pragmatic than aesthetic. He had no desire or ambition nor even the time to become an artist. His main thought and preoccupation was about his countrymen and his struggle to free them from the foreign yoke. So he wrote with a disciplined simplicity seeking only to make himself understood. The result was one most important quality of literary art, viz., clarity. In all his works Gandhiji never wrote a sentence which failed to express with utmost precision, the thought he had in mind to convey. Gandhiji mastered his medium. He evolved a style which was perfect for his purpose of communication. To read his writings is to think of content and not of style, which means a triumph in the adoption of means to ends.

M. Chalapati Rau (M. C. ) writes in The Press in India as follows:

“There was not only character but strength of personality in whatever he wrote. To read him was to learn how to use words correctly, with scrupulous regard for their exact meaning. He scorned ornamentation and avoided rhetorical devices. Yet there was eloquence in all that he wrote, compelling clarity and persuasiveness. There was something Biblical in the solemn, little sentences, and those brave words which breathed and burned and sang.”

When Gandhiji launched the non-cooperation movement in the ’Twenties he had to clash with many, including Rabindranath Tagore. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar in his Indian Writing in English rates Gandhiji’s reply to Tagore “The great sentinel” as one of the classics of English prose. Iyengar observes, “There is not one unsure sentence or inapt word from beginning to end. How dignified is the exordium!...The nimble steer flashes and swirls its strength and brilliance, and one is transfixed as in a trance.”

Here is an extract:

“I do indeed ask the poet and the sage to spin the wheel as a sacrament. When there is a war, the poet lays down his lyre, the lawyer his law reports, the school boy his books. The poet will sing the true not after the war is over, the lawyer will have occasion to go to his law books when people have time to fight among themselves. When a house is on fire, all inmates go out, and each one takes up a bucket to quench the fire. When all about me are dying for want of food, the only occupation permissible to me is to feed the hungry....Our cities are ‘not’ India. India lives in her seven and a half lakhs of villages, and the cities live upon the villages. They do not bring their wealth from other countries. The cities are brokers and commission agents for the big houses of Europe, America and Japan......India is daily growing poorer. The circulation about her feet and legs has almost stopped. And if we do not care, she will collapse altogether.......The human bird under the Indian sky gets up weaker than when he pretended to retire. For millions it is an eternal vigil or an eternal trance. It is an indescribably painful state which has to be experienced to be realized. I have found it impossible to soothe suffering patients with a song from Kabir. The hungry millions ask for one poem – invigorating food. They cannot be given it. They must earn it. And they can earn it only by the sweat of their brow.”

In the above sample it can be observed that certain sentence patterns are used in a repeated manner. There are about 19 sentences in the passage. In these sentences 5 subordinate clauses begin with “when” (a conjunction indicating time). Likewise 3 coordinate clauses begin with “and”. On the basis of clause structure and the frequency of conjunctions, it is possible to make some observations on the style of this passage:

1. Gandhiji prefers simple sentences (i. e., sentences each with one finite clause) whenever he introduces a new idea.
2. Then he uses complex or compound sentences to elaborate or illustrate the ideas so introduced.
3. In this passage the organisation of the complex and compound sentences reflects the author’s method of dealing with dimensions of time and space. The Temporal Conjunction which occurs with the highest frequency indicates that the author is trying to come to grips with the contemporary situation obtaining in India. Secondly, the author’s concern with time is inseparably associated with his concern with space which of course is his country India. This is attested to by his use of “and” and which establishes a link between time and space. That is, Gandhiji successfully communicates his express concern with his country at his time, his “now” and his “here”. Thus the passage illustrates the ability of the author to combine two crucial dimensions of human existence, time and space and to relate them to the contemporary situation. That is why his style is sincere, effective and highly communicative.

It was said Gandhiji’s sentences had bareness which of course constitutes their strength. Gandhi himself acknowledged his fallibility with humility. But bareness does not mean lack of grace. Again M. C. says, “Yet in his best moments he was a master of prose, because he combined feeling with argument and matched his mood to the moment. He could write, ‘The cow is a poem on pity’, ‘Prayer is the key to the morning and the bolt of the evening’, ‘To the hungry, God appears in the shape of bread’. There was grace in whatever he wrote, there was also masculinity. He could be as wise and simple as Solomon, he was as artless as Thoreau; always he had the power of kings and prophets.”