GANDHI'S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION General Editor: John Hick formerly H. G. Wood Professor of Theology, University of Birmingham This series ofbooks explores contemporary religious understandings of man and the universe. The books contribute to various aspects of the continuing dialogues between religion and philosophy, between scepticism and faith, and between the different religions and ideologies. The authors represent a correspondingly wide range of viewpoints. Some of the books in the series are written for the general educated public and others for a more specialised philosophical or theological readership. Already published William H. Austin THE RELEVANCE OF NATURAL SCIENCE TO THEOLOGY Paul Badham CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH Paul and Linda Badham IMMORTALITY OR EXTINCTION? Patrick Burke THE FRAGILE UNIVERSE Margaret Chatterjee GANDHI'S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT William Lane Craig THE KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FROM PLATO TO LEIBNIZ Stephen T. Davis LOGIC AND THE NATURE OF GOD Lynn A. de Silva THE PROBLEM OF THE SELF IN BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY Padmasiri de Silva AN INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY Ramchandra Gandhi THE AVAILABILITY OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS J. C. A. Gaskin HUME'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION H. A. Hodges GOD BEYOND KNOWLEDGE Hywel D. Lewis PERSONS AND LIFE AFTER DEATH Eric Lott VEDANTIC APPROACHES TO GOD Geddes MacGregor REINCARNATION AS A CHRISTIAN HOPE Hugo A. Meynell AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERNARD LONERGAN F. C. T. Moore THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF MORALITY Dennis Nineham THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE BIBLE Bernard M. G. Reardon HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION John J. Shepherd EXPERIENCE, INFERENCE AND GOD Patrick Sherry RELIGION, TRUTH AND LANGUAGE GAMES SPIRIT, SAINTS AND IMMORTALITY Wilfred Cantwell Smith TOWARDS A WORLD THEOLOGY Shivesh Chandra Thakur RELIGION AND RATIONAL CHOICE Robert Young FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY AND GOD Further titles in preparation GANDHI'S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Margaret Chatterjee Foreword by John Hick © Margaret Chatterjee 1983 So ftc over reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1983 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1¢3 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-05367-4 ISBN 978-1-349-05365-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-05365-0 'Personally, I think the world as a whole will never have, and need not have, a single religion.' The Collected Works qf Mahatma Gandhi, vol. xn Publications Division, Government of India, Delhi, 30 May 1913, p. 94 'True religion ... is faith in God, and living in the presence ofGod, it means faith in a future life, in truth and Ahimsa.' roung India, 30 Aug. 1928, p. 291 ' ... if we are imperfect ourselves, religion as conceived by us must also be imperfect. ... Religion of our conception, being thus imperfect, is always subject to a process of evolution and re­ interpretation'. reravda Mandir, Navajivan Press, Ahmedabad, 1930, chs X & XI ' . I can clearly see the time coming when people belonging to different faiths will have the same regard for other faiths that they have for their own'. Harijan, 2 Feb. 1934, p. 8 'For me all the principal religions are equal in the sense that they are all true. They are supplying a felt want in the spiritual progress of humanity.' Hari.Jan, 6 Apr. 1934, p. 59 'Every living faith must have within itself the power of rejuvenation if it is to live.' Harijan, 28 Sept. 1935, p. 260 Contents Foreword by John Hick ix Preface Xlll 1 Introduction 1 2 Gandhi's Religious Thought and Indian Traditions 14 3 The Impact of Christianity on Gandhi 41 4 Experiments with Truth 58 5 The Non-Violent Weapon of Suffering 75 6 Waiting On God 94 7 Diversities of Gifts 114 8 The Vision Splendid 136 9 Mo~a Rethought 155 10 Epilogue 174 Notes 182 Select Bibliography 1 go Index 191 vii Foreword The figure of Gandhi is being increasingly recognised as a significant source oflight and hope in a world threatened by many kinds of violence, by the erosion of the human environment, and by widespread despair of the future. There are innumerable biographies of Gandhi: indeed his is possibly the most minutely recorded and scrutinised life that has ever been lived. There are also numerous books on his political, economic and moral teachings. But, surprisingly, whilst there are studies of Gandhi's relationship to Christianity, there are none (known to me) devoted to his religious thought as a whole. Here Margaret Chatterjee presents to the west, in a splendidly balanced way, Gandhi's religious message. Not that his life and thought can ever be separated; for what made Gandhi the centre ofso powerful a field of spiritual force was the fact that his ideas were always incarnated in his actions. And so although Professor Chatterjee does not retell the familiar story of Gandhi's life, she does constantly relate his ideas to the Indian culture and the world history of which he was a part. What we witness above all in the phenomenon of Gandhi is religion becoming creative in human life. The function of religion, as man's response to ultimate Reality, is to transform human existence from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness. We see this transformation in Gandhi with a clarity which both uplifts and challenges us. His life was a continuous growth in which he became increasingly dedicated to the service of the higher Reality which he thought of as Truth or God. In response to the claim of Reality upon him he renounced the interests of his private ego and became a servant of mankind, transparent to Truth. He loved Truth, or God, with all his heart and mind and soul, and his neighbour as himself; and he did so amidst the pressures, disturbances, ambiguities and confusions of historic liberation struggles, first in South Africa and then in India. There are at least four areas in which this phenomenon of Gandhi lX X Foreword is importantly relevant today, more than thirty years after his death. One is religious pluralism. Christian theologians are much concerned today with the relationship between Christianity and other religions, with their apparently competing gospels. In this context Gandhi poses a challenge: how could one who lived and died a Hindu have taught so many people, including the great Christian missionary to India, E. Stanley Jones, 'more of the spirit of Christ than perhaps any other man in East or West'. (E. Stanley Jones, Mahatma Gandhi: An Interpretation, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1948, p. 76). It has often been assumed that Gandhi learned of non-violence and self-giving love from Christianity. But in fact he responded so positively to the teachings ofJesus because he found in them a confirmation of what he had already received from his own tradition. He often quoted the verse of a Hindu poet, 'The truly noble know all men as one, and return with gladness good for evil done' (p. 91 ), and he cherished the traditional Gujarati saying, 'If a man gives you a drink of water and you give him a drink in return, that is nothing. Real beauty consists in doing good against evil' (p. 74). Indeed the Hinduism which provided the supporting framework ofGandhi's life of service affirmed the underlying unity of all mankind, as all being individuations of the same atman or soul; from which Gandhi derived the call to renounce egoism and to act in the interests of the whole human community. Gandhi's own solution to the problem of religious pluralism was learned from the ancient Jain tradition of his native Gujarat. This held that all religious awareness is inevitably partial and incomplete, so that different traditions can complement and enrich one another rather than being mutually exclusive rivals. This world-ecumenical outlook is more widespread today than it was fifty years ago, and we can now proceed with the complex task of working out its epistemological, metaphysical and doctrinal implications. A second relevance of Gandhi today is to the liberation movements in Southern Mrica, South America and elsewhere. Gandhi was perhaps the first practitioner ofliberation theology. For he heard the voice of God, which was to him the insistent voice of Truth, calling him to fight, non-violently, for the liberation of the oppressed-in his case, Asians in South Mrica, outcastes and the poor in India, and the Indian people as a whole in their struggle for political freedom. This revolutionary activity, rather than any cult Foreword Xl or creed, was to him true religion. He said, 'To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare to appear is work and promise offood as wages' (p. 229). Gandhi's challenge to the liberation movements of today lies in his profound belief in the ultimate unity of all human beings, including the oppressors, and his consequent absolute commitment to non-violence. A study of Gandhi's life shows that ahimsa is not mere passivity but a living organism of intense educational activity (or as we say today, conscientisation), highly organised economic and political pressure, and moving symbolic acts. His life and thought should be studied afresh by all who seek to work for human liberation in our contemporary world. A third area of relevance is the deepening ecological crisis. Although Gandhi was no doubt mistaken in opposing the inevitable industrialisation of India, he was surely right in advocating the production of basic food and clothing rather than wasteful luxuries, and in stressing the dignity of physical labour, th beauty of smallness, the importance of self-sufficiency, and the values of village life.