E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s Pancha Mahavrat… 57and action are in tune with the cosmic law of truth. In the lastphase of his life, this is what he was experimenting and evendemonstrating his spiritual prowess in Noakhali, Calcutta andDelhi by moving millions.IIGandhi’s Non-violence: Theory and PracticeNon-violence (ahimsa) is another key concept inGandhian thought. For him, it existed both as a corollary oftruth and an independent idea as well. He took truth as the endand non-violence as the means. Gandhi asserts ‘as the means sothe end’. Hence, non-violence never occupied a subsidiaryplace in his thinking.It is true that Hinduism, and more particularly Jainism,had earlier propagated non-violence as one of the cardinalprinciples of human life. However, earlier preachers andprophets of non-violence had underlined it primarily as a tenetof individual action. Besides, they took it primarily in the formof ‘non-injury’ and non-killing. Moreover, earlier thinkers likeBhishma, Kautilya, and Manu had never ruled out the use ofviolence as a part of the statecrafts. Consequently, non-violencewas supposed to be professed and practised only by saint andsages working primarily in the spiritual field. It was Gandhiwho transformed it as an effective weapon of mass actioncovering even the field of politics and statecraft. Not only that,he brought it down to the reach and domain of the commonman covering his day to day life, as much as his dealings withthe state and other organisations. Thus, Gandhi’s perspectivecame to be posited against the Machiavellian perspective onpolitics and statecraft.Meaning and Dimensions of Non-violenceIn earlier days non-violence was primarily taken in thesense of not causing any physical injury to the other living