Where do Ideas Come From ?

Where do Ideas come from ?....

"Little by little, I think we build a conscious understanding of what we're born already knowing: what the highest inner us wants to believe, it's true. Our conscious mind, though, isn't happy till it can explain in words. "Before I knew it, in just a few decades, I had a system of thinking that gives me answers when I ask."........

"What was the question?" I said. "Oh. Where do I get my crazy ideas?

Answer: sleep-fairy, walk-fairy, shower-fairy. Book-fairy.

------------Richard Bach in "A Bridge Across Forever

Where did Mahatma Gandhi get his unique ideas like 'Sathyagraha and civil disobedience ' from ?

I have been doing some study on Gandhi literature. The complete works of Gandhi runs in to a whopping 90 volumes. He was not a prolific writer of books / novels, but he wrote regularly for Navjeevan, Young India and Harijan. But what is amazing is that he was unusually conscientious about replying to all his correspondents from South Africa, England, India and elsewhere,writing a many as 70-100 letters per day for over four decades.

In a speech , later published in Navjeevan, he explains , where he got his ideas from. Gandhiji never accepted anyone as his religious guru. Three men have had great influence on Gandhiji's thinking. Among them he places poet Rajchandra first, followed by Count Leo Tolstoy and John Ruskin.

How many of us have heard of Poet Raj Chandra or John Ruskin ? At least I have not.

Now I am a little more knowledgeable about these gentlemen.

Raj Chandra was primarily a diamond and pearl merchant, who like a true karma-yogi, sort of renounced the worldly attachments even while actively doing business.

To Quote Gandhiji .....

"During the two years I remained in close contact with him, I felt in him every moment the spirit of 'vairagya'. One rare feature of his writings is that he always set down what he had felt in his own experience. there is in them sense of unreality......He had always a book on some religious subject by his side and a note book with blank pages. The latter, he used for noting down any thought which occurred to him....

...Whatever he was doing at the moment, whether eating or resting or lying in bed, he was invariably disinterested towards worldly things....

....I watched his daily life respectfully, and at close quarters. he accepted whatever was served at meals. His dress was simple, a dhoti and a shirt... It was the same to him whether he squatted on the ground or had a chair to sit on.

While the Poet, Rajchandra or Raichand Bhai as he was better known, influenced Gandhiji by his close association , John Ruskin and Toltoy influenced him through their writings.

To Quote from John Ruskin..,

....It is a sheer error to suppose, as is generally done, that some eduction however little or however faulty is better than no education at all. We should strive for real education alone.

.............Every human being requires three aspects of knowledge and three virtues. Anyone who fails to cultivate them does not know the secret of life. These six things should form the basis of education. Every child, whether boy or girl, should learn the properties of pure air, clean water and clean earth, and should also learn how to keep air, water and earth pure and clean and know their benefits. 'Gratitude', 'Hope' and 'charity' are the three desirable virtues........

Well, at some point Gandhiji said that all we have to do is unlearn whatever we learnt in the past 50 years ( around 1850-1900).

Some ideas from Leo Tolstoy

1. In this world, men should not accumulate wealth.

2. No matter how much evil a person does to us, we should always do good to him. Such is the commandant of God,and also his law.

3. No one should take part in fighting.

4. It is sinful to wield political power, as it leads to many of the evils in the world.

5. Man is born to do his duty to his creator; he should therefore pay more attention to his duties than to his rights .

6. Agriculture is the true occupation of man. It is therefore contrary to divine law to establish large cities, to employ hundreds of thousands of minding machines in factories so that a few can wallow in riches by exploiting the helplessness and poverty of the many.

All these ideas are reflected in Gandhiji's thoughts and in his experiments with Truth that he conducted, in his ashrams and on the larger canvas he worked on, that is "India'.

A Tale of Two Fasts

There are many comparisons being made about Anna Hazare’ fast and Gandhiji’s fast.   I don’t intend giving a sermon, but just want to share my understanding of the circumstances that led to Gandhiji’s fast unto death on different occasions.

Gandiji has undertook fasting many times as a religious exercise or moral exercise, but only thrice it has been ‘Fast unto Death’ for achieving a ‘socio-political objective’.

These occasions were :-


1.    To stop all revolutionary activities after the Chauri Chaura Incident of 1922;


2.    Against the 1934 communal award giving separate electorates to Untouchable Hindus.


3.    In 1947, when he wanted to stop the bloodshed between Hindus and Muslims in Bengal and Delhi.


 In all three cases,Gandhi succeeded in achieving his aims.

The first time, he fasted to stop the jaggarnaut of Indian Freedom movement, when he felt the movement had strayed away from his principle of non-violence. In other words he fasted till violence stopped even if it meant the freedom movement losing its momentum. The fast was against violence.

The second time was when he felt that the British were resorting to ‘dividing ‘ India into Harijan India, Hindu India and Muslim India. The British left it to the Indian leaders to mutually resolve the issue and come to an understanding. So the fast was not against the British, not against Upper caste Hindus, not against Harijans /Dalits. What was it against?  It was against polarization based on castes. 

The third time , it was in Kolkata, in an independent India when the entire population was facing terrible hardships due to  Hindu -Muslim  riots. The fast was obviously against all forms of violence.

It is the 1932 fast, also called as the epic fast, that is much criticized for Gandhi's 'pressure tactics' against 'Dr Ambedkar'

  If the pressure was on Dr Ambedkar to give up his demand for a separate electorate, the pressure was on the entire Hindu community to be more inclusive, to breakaway from the practices , in vogue for centuries. Let us see the positive fall out of the fast towards social change.

At the very beginning of the fast week, the famous Kalighat temple of Kolkata and Ram Mandir of Benares, citadel of Hindu Orthodoxy, were thrown open to untouchables. In Delhi, cast Hindus and Harijans demonstratively fraternized in streets and temples. In Mumbai, a nationalist women's organization organized a poll in front of seven big temples. Ballot boxes, watched by volunteers, were placed outside the gates, and worshipers were asked to cast their votes on the admission of untouchables. The tally was 24, 797 for and 445 against. As a result, temples in which no Harijan foot had ever trod were opened to all.

In villages, small towns and big cities, congregations , organizations and citzens unions adopted resolutions to stop discriminating against untouchables; copies of these resolutions formed a man high heap in Gandhi's prison-yard.

A spirit of reform, penance and self-purification swept the land.During the six fast days, most Hindus refrained from going to cinemas, theatre, or restaurants. Weddings were postponed.

A description of the scene in Yeravada Prison, in the words of Louis Fischer goes like this;

"Gandhi lay on a white Iron cot in the shade of a low mango tree in the quiet prison yard. Patel and Mahadev Desai sat near him. Mrs Naidu had been transferred from the women's ward to nurse and guard him against excessive exertion. On a stool were some books, writing paper, bottles of water, salt and sodium bicarbonate.

Outside, the negotiators were racing with death........"


The major differences between then and now;

1.    Then, there was no Us and Them.....everyone was with Gandhi. Nobody vilified anybody, nor anyone gloated over the discomfort of another. Dr Ambedkar  and the Hindu leaders bargained hard and the public did everything to prove that there was  an earnest effort to abolish untouchability; and all were aware that they had to find a lasting solution to a national problem  or be prepared to lose Mahatma Gandhi for ever.  There was no sabre rattling from any quarters, you did not see anyone, bragging of his capacity to fast, or boasting about brownie  points scored.

2.       Every one of Gandhiji's  supporters at any point of time would have been only too happy to see him breaking his fast. There was no crowd to applaud with every 'hour' on the score board as if it was a T-20 match.

3.      It was an occasion for the entire public for self-purification . There was no  festive air that we see today.  

Tail-piece 
There was a news item today that there is heavy betting by bookies on how many days the fast would last and as to what would be the outcome.