E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s Pancha Mahavrat… 55to the Indian intellectual tradition wherein the faith and reasonwere taken in continuum rather than in a dichotomousrelationship. As he put ‘Attribution of omnipotence to reason isalso bad as a piece of idolatry, as at is in the world of stock andstone believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression ofthat in us which sanctifies reason’! 10A similar critical point could be raised against Gandhi’sconcept of relative truth. The nitty-gritty of the critics’ point isthat if every body starts perceiving and pursuing truth in hisown light, the possibility of perpetual conflict could not beruled out. In such a situation, the need for a final arbiter wouldalways arise and one would not find it in the Gandhian schemeof things, at least in the secular plane. Even Gandhianprescription of the stringent pre-qualification for the seeker oftruth may not ultimately turn out to be of much practicaluse.Because, who could ultimately decide whose truth amongadversaries is based on sadhana and whose truth is based onpure self-interest? In this scheme , it has to be left ultimately tothe conscience of the individuals involved. However, twopoints could be made in favour of Gandhi’s concept of relativetruth. First, one could go a long way with Gandhi, when heasserts that the world is ultimately governed by the eternalprinciple of truth. Therefore, one whose relative truth would befound in consonance with that eternal principle wouldultimately prevail. Two, at a more mundane level, it could bereasonably concluded that civil society would work as the finalarbiter. In fact, the traditional concept of Panch Prameshwarhas a lot of substance because social conscience could not bebased on untruth. Thus any one who pursues truth for the sakeof loksangraha would find wider social acceptance and not onewho is working for the lokvigraha. This is so because no civilsociety would afford to allow untruth to prevail as that wouldultimately endanger its own existence. And that is the meaning