Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and
martyrdom. The papers were full of ads marking the day and reverently remembering Bapu. There was a really good piece in The Hindustan Times called “His faith, our faith” by historian Ramachandra Guha author of the book “India after Gandhi“. In the article Mr. Guha makes the case that those who have tried to secularise Gandhi’s lessons, that is to separate them from his faith, have done so to the detriment of their understanding of what Gandhiji stood for.
About Gandhi’s faith, Guha says,
From the scattered clues, it appears that Gandhi’s faith had five core components.
First, Gandhi rejected the idea that there was one privileged path to God. Second, he believed that all religious traditions were an unstable mixture of truth and error. From these two beliefs followed the third, which was that Gandhi rejected conversion and missionary work. Fourth, Gandhi advocated that a human being should stick to the religion that he or she was born into and seek to improve its ‘truth and content’. Fifth, Gandhi encouraged inter-religious dialogue, so that individuals could see their faith in the critical reflection of another.
I think one could say that in the end, Gandhi’s professed tolerance for all religions led to his martyrdom. The irony of this can be lost on no one, but in these times of growing religious intolerance and tension between so-called Muslims and so-called Christians, we could all stand to review his thoughts. Ramachandra quotes Gandhi from a 1919 encyclical,
With God as witness we Hindus and Mahomendans declare that we shall behave towards one another as children of the same parents, that we shall have no differences, that the sorrows of each will be the sorrows of the other and that each shall help the other in removing them. We shall respect each other’s religion and religious feelings and shall not stand in the way of our respective religious practices. We shall always refrain from violence to each other in the name of religion.
Guha’s article really resonated with me. I’m now reading one of the currently popular books that explains how God does not exist and how people of faith are stupid and superstitious (my next blog will be dedicated to my comments and thoughts on this book, stay tuned). As I read this book it strikes me how little that author understands of faith and perhaps this is why he seems so angry. Mr. Guha’s point in his article is spot-on, to try and separate anyone’s words and deeds from his deeply held beliefs is foolish. It is very clear to me that Gandhiji had much to teach us about all three, words, actions and faith.
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