Gandhiana-27: AHIMSA TOWARDS ENEMIES

A correspondent says in substance:

Individual ahimsa I can understand. Corporate ahimsa between friends is also intelligible. But you talk of ahimsa towards avowed enemies. This is like a mirage. It will be a mercy if you give up this obstinacy of yours. If you do not, you will forfeit the esteem you enjoy. What is worse, you, being considered a Mahatma, mislead many credulous persons to their own and society’s harm.

Gandhiji’s Reply:

That non-violence which only an individual can use is not of much use in terms of society. Man is a social being. His accomplishments to be of use must be such as any person with sufficient diligence can attain. That which can be exercised only among friends is of value only as a spark of non-violence. It cannot merit the appellation of ahimsa. “Enmity vanishes before ahimsa”, is a great aphorism. It means that the greatest enmity requires an equal measure of ahimsa for its abatement. Cultivation of this virtue may need long practice, even extending to several births. It does not become useless on that account. Travelling along the route, the pilgrim will meet richer experiences from day to day so that he may have a glimpse of the beauty he is destined to see at the top. This will add to his zest. No one is entitled to infer from this that the path will be a continuous carpet of roses without thorns. A poet (Pritam ) has sung that the way to reach God accrues only to the very brave, never to the fainthearted. The atmosphere today is so much saturated with poison that one refuses to recollect the wisdom of the ancients and to perceive the varied little experiences of ahimsa in action. “A bad turn is neutralized by a good”, is a wise saying of daily experience in practice. Why can we not see that if the sum-total of the world’s activities was destructive, it would have come to an end long ago? Love, otherwise ahimsa, sustains this planet of ours.

This much must be admitted. The precious grace of life has to be strenuously cultivated, naturally so because it is uplifting. Descent is easy, not so ascent. A large majority of us being undisciplined, our daily experience is that of fighting or swearing at one another on the slightest pretext.

This, the richest grace of ahimsa, will descend easily upon the owner of hard discipline.

NEW DELHI, December 8, 1947
Harijan, 14-12-l947
Collected Works of Gandhiji, Vol.98