by William J. Jackson

Reading Gandhi’s Autobiography I get the impression that he was a very scrupulous person. Few public figures today seem to have such a self-scrutinizing philosophy as he did. People strategize, calculate, do what’s convenient and politically expedient; they often don’t seem to care very much about the fairness of tactics, the feelings of the opponent, or to consider a need for self-purification. (Perhaps that’s why noble-sounding politicians and other leaders so often crash and burn in episodes of disgrace and scandal.)

In Gandhi’s viewpoint criticizing others, without examining one’s own conscience, is hypocritical, and makes one unworthy of winning a noble goal. Fortunately, Gandhi had a playful personality and a great sense of humor, so even while making serious demands on himself; he did not become unbearably self-righteous—which can be an occupational hazard for men with an acute sense of scruples. He was not just a picky eater and a tiresome stickler for details, but a soulful explorer, a restless seeker for answers and methods who kept things in perspective by poking fun at himself.

Gandhi believed that to have access to truth, (satya, a concept with ancient roots in India, associated with that which endures) possessions and passions are often obstacles. In Indian culture the background and ethos of yoga, with practices of self-control, for many centuries has been influential. Even an ancient Sanskrit classic on statecraft and military tactics will advise kings to practice self-control: “Whatever sovereign is of perverted disposition and ungoverned senses, must quickly perish. The whole of this science has to do with a victory over the powers of perception and action.” (Kautilya, Arthasastra)

Self-control was a necessary condition for winning self-rule (swaraj) in Gandhi’s view. We find this idea of the necessity of having a clean conscience and authentic moral character to succeed in improving society elsewhere as well. Norman Mailer writing of the American protests during the Vietnam War, in Armies of the Night, self-reflectively asked if the protestors were good enough to prevail over the military powers of the Pentagon. It can be a humbling activity to try to accomplish something great and noble. It causes one to search one’s own soul and examine the depths of one’s inner resources. For masses to be convinced that a cause is righteous the leaders and their principles must be above reproach.

The Autobiography gives me the impression that Gandhi was a people person. The many people who worked with him over the decades, and the names of people he encountered in his struggles add up to a staggering number. He wrote that one of the lessons he learned was that “the salvation of the people depends on themselves.” In practicing Satyagraha, he said, the achievement is commensurate with the people’s effort, and having found the way Satyagraha worked, he felt it was the “true and infallible method for a redress of their grievances.” He was in touch with many people, and kept attuned to their thoughts and feelings and assessments.

Gandhi’s qualms—for example, his reluctance to take advantage of a situation, such as fasting against an owner during a mill strike, which he felt would be applying undue pressure at that particular moment—showed a sensitivity of conscience. He said that insistence on Truth taught him the beauty of compromise—not rigidly insisting on every ideal hoped-for change at that given moment, but adjusting to necessity. He learned Truth was “hard as adamant” and “tender as blossom.”

Service to the poor was important to him, and he became known as “the laborers’ friend.” He practiced populism in his work to uplift those who were disadvantaged, “the lowest of the low… and poorest of the poor,” as his friend Rabindranath Tagore wrote. Gandhi admitted he was unable to comprehend the mystery of how some people can feel honored by the humiliation of fellow humans, how the powerlessness and penury of others can make higher-ups feel more in control and wealthy. To get people to see that officials are not masters but servants of people was one of Gandhi’s goals, and that is still a valuable reminder for citizens relating to all governments.

In Gandhi’s philosophy, both sides of a dispute, both contenders, such as the protestors and the officials whose policies are being protested, should come out feeling better. Gandhi’s belief was that “The end of a Satyagraha campaign can be described as worthy only when it leaves the Satyagrahis stronger and more spirited than they are in the beginning.” (Autobiography; p. 396) Gandhi considered civility to be the most difficult part of Satyagraha—he had to teach participants that it was not just showing up and protesting that was required, but a conscientious concern for the feelings of those one was confronting. To love and respect the oppressor as a fellow human during acts of civil disobedience, having compassion for him, appealing to his decency, his conscience, could prevent confrontations from becoming violent.

Gandhi developed a faith in self-restraint, in not assuming that direct action could accomplish everything, and in striving to be blameless oneself of the matters one is complaining about. He used his intelligence to find ways to accomplish goals without using the force that had usually been brought to bear in revolts against colonial powers when their oppression grew too great. Sometimes it involved symbolic action—to get 10,000 signatures on a petition can represent a request from a massive number of people. Gandhi practiced karma yoga, which involves working in a dedicated way without caring about a personal reward—so, working on behalf of poor workers’ rights he did not want the community to pay for his expenses. This attitude began in his legal work in South Africa, and continued in India.

Thoreau wrote that, “What is once done well is done forever.” Doing something well means doing it once and for all, because it will live on as a fait accompli. Do Gandhi’s gains still exist in today’s world? We can affirm that in the nonviolent success stories they do. But allow me to play the devil’s advocate for a moment. If something done well is done forever, what shall we say of cases where there is a loss of faith in Gandhi’s way? Isn’t there a pendulum swing of moods? Aren’t people sometimes uninformed about the efficacy of methods? For example gun advocates may dismiss non-violent principles out of hand, claiming they are useless and that only owning more firearms can deter oppression. Sometimes there is a suppression of learning, an enforced forgetfulness, a denial of research on a topic, even a brainwashing by means of repetition. In those cases, can’t the gain made by someone’s well done accomplishment vanish from a region of earth?

There was a lot of fear stirred up after 9/11—by the terrorists, and by politicians who stirred up hysteria and anxiety for their own purposes, and perhaps because they unconsciously were insecure and trying to act tough in public despite their own uncertainties. Our national fears and anxieties may have changed public opinion about violence and revenge, and caused a loss in the ability to even have a real discussion about matters such as the morality of torture and remote control assassinations.

From studying Gandhi’s philosophy in his writings we can know how his thinking informed his actions in the previous century. Further, I believe we can extrapolate his values and apply them to new situations. We can say with confidence, for example, he would not have felt good about torture and drone attacks. He might point out that seeking revenge and generating a massive supply of weapons has not really brought a wounded and beleaguered America the desired security and wholeness it seeks. Gandhi started each day with devotional songs and prayers, and had great faith in the “panacea” of reciting the name of God as a mantra that calms the mind. That form of yoga was his support. In the age of terrorism, relying on beefed-up security is the way most people try to calm their fears.

Acharya Kripalani, a leader in the struggle for independence, once asked Gandhi point blank: “You are a student of history; has there been any occasion when an empire was defeated through a Satyagraha type of protest? Isn’t it foolish to follow the impossible as proved through history?” Gandhi is said to have answered: “History is first created before it is repeated.” In other words a new method takes time, but if it works it is accepted as a possible alternative. “Paths are created by walking,” as the saying goes. We create some things with our repeated actions in daily life. Gandhi had faith in Satyagraha, which he pieced together from wisdom found around the world. He had patience and he paced himself; he did not expect overnight results. As jazz drummer and band leader Art Blakey said, “Anything that truth falls on it grinds into powder; it just takes time.”

Gandhi had already renounced the use of violence early in his life. Violence leaves many modern people still uncertain. How do we deal with it? The discussions of matters which disturb our age, like torture and drone strikes, have mostly been about the utilitarian aspects, such as: Does torture really work to get information? Do drone strikes generate more terrorists when innocent victims are killed by accident? Gandhi had a more scrupulous conscience. I sometimes wonder if fear is allowing America to become a more bloodthirsty and brutal country than it was 50 years ago? Or should I say “numb to scruples of conscience”? There seems to be a numbness—lack of sensitivity in the modern psyche where Gandhi had well-developed feelings of humanity and the possibility of exploring non-violent solutions. But I wonder if numbness is the right metaphor? There are also signs in culture that suggest bloodthirsty cravings.

The term “bloodthirsty” may seem inflammatory, so perhaps a term like “addiction to spectacles of violence” would be better. As one film critic put it, a spate of popular films made by Americans in recent years has been devoted to expressing “violation and vengeance,” and the sheer number of brutally violent payback-by-bloodshed films has made that same critic wonder if this is evidence of an addiction, which is developing. (See David Edelstein’s March 22, 2013 review of  “Olympus Has Fallen.”) The films of Quinton Tarantino, to name just one filmmaker, may serve as examples.

Do audiences crave to consume vivid images of vengeful bloodbaths? And the more they watch them; do they desire another fix, more and more? The large number of TV, movie and literary vampire movies may also symbolize the thirst for blood. But it’s the blockbuster revenge fantasies, visually destroying the bad guys blamed for beleaguered America’s problems, which the critic is talking about. In such sanguine confections of anxiety and bloodletting we have the chance to see dramatic horrific fights and imagine great victories of violent reprisal. All the while, we are currently unable to cooperate in politics, which requires using subtle intelligence and creative problem-solving to accomplish real work on practical matters.

Probably reflecting honestly on this soul-searching question is too uncomfortable an exercise, because it seems to show us in an unflattering light. If we admit faults, we fear we are making ourselves more vulnerable. As T.S. Eliot said, humans can’t take much reality. Put starkly the worst case scenario goes like this: we often lack patience and cooperation to take realistic steps to solve practical problems, but we like to see enemies destroyed in momentary fiery explosions. We watch fantasy infernos, while experiencing gridlock stagnation and the failure of bankrupt ideas to resolve difficult issues. So I suppose it’s natural that it makes us feel good to see celluloid American heroes killing off enemies, because it distracts us from our feelings of powerlessness and fear of decline. Oliver Stone has observed that fear of weakness is America’s greatest fear. Hollywood is better at depicting a bloodlusty nation battling strong foes with overpowering violence, rather than analyzing and depicting real underminers of the nation’s well being, such as weaknesses, faults and decay within. “The bigger we come the harder we fall.”

But honestly, I can’t say who exactly loves the bloodbath films so much, and how they satisfy a need in psyches. I’ve never taken a survey of movie audiences or Netflix customers. I’ve often avoided those kinds of extremely violent films, to avoid the unpleasant impressions that linger in memory. But I can say I like action movies with scary chases, close calls, crime- solving apprehensions. I know this because I once spent a month at a research center (The Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Lake Como) where there was no TV, and after some time I began to crave stories of danger and adventure, pursuits and escapes. Having seen them regularly on TV series for years I felt a lack. It seemed as if they served a purpose in symbolically representing my own daily uncertainties, challenges and little triumphs—close calls and arriving home safely.

Great stories are initiations into life’s situations. They show characters struggling, hopeful with graceful agility, under pressure. For millennia the stories of the great traditions have given listeners initiations into life’s struggles. Gilgamesh, Ulysses, David and Goliath, for example, are stories that can be initiatory. So are epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Epics are often stories of war, detailing violent clashes. But hearing words describing scenes is not exactly the same as experiencing video games in which the player kills off random strangers along the way, or uses a trigger to cause bloodbaths splashed repeatedly on high definition screens, the latest technology unleashing powerful effects of blood and gore, with no reflections on ethics or psychology. Immersed in the thrills of berserk serial murders performed by proxy, decimating others for the hell of it or the thrill of it is not the same as calling to mind the stories of classical battles, their causes and consequences.

Thinkers who are turned off to religion because of religious leaders’ betrayals and various politicians’ exploitation of religion might otherwise have considered the reflections on morality found in religions. Gandhi gathered his moral ideals from the world religions. He learned from the hard demands made by Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He gathered good ideas wherever he found them and made use of them. Gandhi invented himself, through dedicated action, piecing together a way that had roots in the past, but was not readymade, not accomplished as a simple one-size-fits-all solution. If Gandhi had lived beyond 1947 he would have gone on figuring out ways to deal with crisis, adapting to new times. Paradoxically, by Gandhi’s self-initiation and selfless giving of himself, experimenting with truth and making himself a “zero,” as he put it, he found fulfillment, became the father of a modern nation, a worldwide hero. His life still teaches us a lot if we are able to reflect on it in light of the world we live in today.

This is a time which favors what Taoist thought calls “Yangism”—dominant macho values, rampant militarism, beefed-up security and solutions which rely on weaponry and force. Traveling around the world (or at least in four continents) I notice that army-type camouflage patterning has been in style for several years now in high fashion and pop culture. So are the uses of skeleton imagery, skull and crossbones, and other emblems of death. Sadomasochism seems to be trending on bestseller lists. And the popularity of assault rifles seems more apparent now than ever. In films, jock bravado and the blare of power and the drama of explosions are big attractions at the box office. Hollywood can cater to anxieties and reap huge rewards, but like some politicians’ speeches, violent films can exploit panic and stir further hysteria and obsession with force, exciting more paranoia and diminishing clear thought.

In an essay written many decades ago, Rabindranath Tagore noted that India never venerated heroes who were simply successful in wiping out enemies in brutal wars. Traditionally India has taken to heart the memories of some warrior figures, but they were complex heroes of dharma, not just victors of clashes that were massacres. India venerated heroes who were driven by dharmic consciences.

It is obvious that Gandhi was not a macho man’s man, like Rambo or Iron Man, but a great-souled problem-solver for the ages, an exemplar for the long haul of human evolution. Unfortunately, his actual writings and utterances are not as well known as his over-simplified image. I worry that too many people today may see him as too simple to inspire answers to crises in our complicated helter-skelter world. Only familiarity with his writings and actions can give people today a sense of his conscience and his philosophy of Satyagraha as a dynamic outlook adaptable to our times.

EDITOR’S NOTE: William J. Jackson is our Literary Editor, and a regular contributor to this site. For biographical information please click here, or on any of his earlier articles.