Are you a Gandhian?
Shiv Khera, whose website tells us that he has put "millions of people on the path of growth and fulfillment", emphatically says in this video that he is not.
As an influential speaker and writer, noted for books that have sold more than eight million copies, Khera presents Gandhi and Gandhian thinking in a light that does not do service to a better understanding of all that Gandhi stood for.
We present a counter view that explains why Khera is in the wrong space, and why it will take much more engagement with Gandhi and his ideas to better understand all that the Father of the Nation stood for.
See Shiv Khera present his case on 'Why I'm Not a Gandhian'
Shiv Khera is wrong.
Was Lord Ram violent? Lord Ram’s act was not directed at killing Ravana. His fight was aimed at the defense of righteousness, to restore righteousness. The struggle till the end was to redeem Ravana from his arrogant sinfulness. The mission didn’t succeed, the surgery failed, and the patient died. In a failed surgery leading to the death of the patient, the doctor is not held as a killer. Morally speaking, the death of Ravana was not an outcome of an intended deed of Lord Ram. It was indeed on account of the unrepentant incorrigible Ravana’s adherence to unrighteousness. His death was incidental in the struggle to restore righteousness, hence not intentional and to that extent the whole battle was pro-truth, pro-life.
I have heard many times Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, saying, "I am not a Gandhian". I understood later that he said so out of humility. He was conscious of his inability to live up to the standards of Mahatma Gandhi and that prompted him to say so.
When I heard that Shiv Khera had released a short video saying, "I am not a Gandhian", I thought it was a confessional statement from yet another self-realised man. Shiv Khera needs no introduction. He inspires, encourages and helps millions of individuals realise their true potential. He is taken seriously by a large band of youngsters, for he is a much sought after social educator.
When a man of such prominence speaks to the public, one naturally expects that his words be factually correct, ethically grounded and carry deeper meaning. I saw the video and was dismayed. I contacted a couple of Gandhian scholars I know. Sadly, they too found the argument of Shiv Khera ridden with many misrepresentations.
To begin with, let's see what Khera had to say in the video. His narrative goes like this: Someone in the audience asked him: "Are you a Gandhian?" And he responded: "What do you mean by a Gandhian"; "What are the criteria to be a Gandhian?" He then says: Gandhi believed in three principles: love, tolerance and non-violence.
Khera asked: Was Ram a Gandhian? Was he able to win over everybody with love everybody? The answer is ‘no’. And so the argument runs: Did Ram say, I am a very tolerant person? You kidnap my wife, it's okay and I’ll get a second one, and you’ll kidnap the second one and I’ll get a third one, you’ll kidnap the third one and I’ll get a fourth one. Ram did not do that. He instead said, I don’t tolerate kidnappers, and went to war. He had to fight, which is not non-violence, after all. And so Khera draws the conclusion: Ram would not qualify as a Gandhian since he did not tolerate the actions of Ravana, and he did commit violence.
He next turns to the life history of ten Sikh Gurus. The tenth Sikh Guru, when the Moguls were forcibly converting to Islam, was he able to win them over with love? The answer is 'no'. Did he say I tolerate your operation? The answer is 'no'. Did he have to pull out a weapon? He had to. Therefore, folks, the revered Guru Gobind Singh was not a Gandhian, either.
Khera notes then: All I can say is, when enemies are auctioning the respect and dignity of your women and children, not fighting is called cowardice, not tolerance. Good leaders take a stand for something and a stand against something. They are not neutral. If they are neutral, they are politicians. Ram did not say: I am a neutral person. He took a stand for something and took a stand against evil. If we want to learn from our scriptures and project it all over the world, then it is time to practice as written in our scriptures.
And then comes Khera's conclusion: I told them, listen carefully, I am not a Gandhian.
Khera rather quickly equates "tolerance" to a Gandhian value, and connotes it to mean "cowardice".
Anyone who has read Gandhi well enough would know that Gandhi did not advocate tolerance of injustice. He was ready to risk his life to defend what he thought was right, was pro-truth and pro-life. For Gandhi, term "evil" does not mean the "evil doer". The two are different ... evil is like a disease, afflicting the evil doer. The evil doer needs help to be free of the disease.
Gandhi, who led a 21-year long struggle for political justice for the Indian in a foreign land (South Africa) and against a government led by a military general (Gen. Jans Smuts), and then for 28 years in India for freedom against the might British imperialism, was the one who set the tone and pace for a series of liberation struggles across the world -- the Civil Rights Movement in the US, anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, to name a few. Enamoured by his struggle and leadership, Ho Chi Minh, the architect of modern Vietnam stated, “we are Gandhi’s true disciples.” And this Gandhi appears to Khera, to be a coward, and one who tolerated evil.
Gandhi’s method of fighting called Satyagraha was civil, humane and quite unconventionally inclusive. For, he believed that civilisation had taught us enough to surpass the era of brutality and primitive methods of fighting. And there is enough in humans to believe that we are all essentially pro-life people, and to that extent pro-righteous; hence, we are all amenable to reason and to the truth.
Gandhi did not advocate tolerance. He was ready to risk his life to defend what he thought was right, was pro-truth and was pro-life.
Khera overlooked a few essential distinctions. First, Khera uses the term ‘evil’ to mean the ‘evil doer’. For Gandhi, they are not the same. They are two different entities. Evil is like a disease, afflicting the evil doer. It has to be cured and it can be cured.
Whereas, evil-doer, for Gandhi, is "my fellow human", he or she has to be salvaged. Religion believes that we are all children of God, endowed with divine potential. Everyone, including the wrong doer, is "my brother". The wrongdoer too is a human, capable of redemption. We don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Doctors don’t kill patients to eliminate disease. Even a doctor with minimum common sense would not do. Doing so amounts to defying the very purpose of the "fight". Khera wants to defy and throw the baby out, oblivious of the distinction.
It is strange that a man who fought against General Smuts and the imperial powers and succeeded in gaining the rights and dignity of his people appears to Khera to be a cowardly submissive bovine.
Khera uses the term ‘evil’ to mean the ‘evil doer’. For Gandhi, they are not the same. They are two different entities. Evil is like a disease, afflicting the evil doer. It has to be cured and it can be cured.
Second, nonviolence. Was Ram violent? Khera says he was. That amounts to attributing hypocrisy to Lord Ram. He was never violent. An incarnation cannot violate the fundamental principles of life. He was non-violent to the core. If you understand that the surgical approach we adopt to cure diseases is not violence, but a studied aggression to save life, then a 'dharm-yudh' too is similarly an aggressive effort to defend life, and life-sustaining righteousness. In both cases, the moving spirit was not hatred, enmity, exclusive tendencies but, one of compassion, empathy and inclusive pro-life intentions.
Lord Ram’s act was not directed to kill Ravana. His fight was aimed at the defense of righteousness, to restore righteousness. The struggle till the end was to redeem Ravana from his arrogant sinfulness. The mission didn’t succeed, the surgery failed, and the patient died. In a failed surgery leading to the death of the patient, the doctor is not held as a killer. Morally speaking, the death of Ravana was not an outcome of an intended deed of Lord Ram. It was indeed on account of the unrepentant incorrigible Ravana’s adherence to unrighteousness. His death was incidental in the struggle to restore righteousness, hence not intentional and to that extent the whole battle was pro-truth, pro-life.
Gandhi's fight was aimed at the defense of righteousness, to restore righteousness. The struggle till the end was to redeem Ravana from his arrogant sinfulness. The mission didn’t succeed, the surgery failed, and the patient died. In a failed surgery leading to the death of the patient, the doctor is not held as a killer.
We are all born with the mandate to live. To defend one’s life and the life of one’s dependents, is one’s God-given duty; its nature’s law to struggle for life. For that purpose, nature has given us a physiological energy called aggression; an energy that springs up in one who faces insecurity, deprivation and denial of life. Fighting for the defense of life therefore is in obedience to that law, in compliance with the will of nature, and therefore it is a non-violative conduct.
Gandhi said to his people, in the defense of the honour of our people, one must be ready to fight till the end, even if it means giving one’s life. He asked the women, "why did nature give you nails and teeth?" Gandhi made his point very clear. Nonviolence is "paramodharma", a far superior principle. Those who believe in it must fight for their life non-violently in all conditions. However if someone is not convinced of the supremacy of non-violence, one must nevertheless fight in defense of one’s life, violently or otherwise. For, mute surrender to evil is cowardice, and cowardice is a crime worse than violence.
It would be intellectual dishonesty to attribute a particular value to a person and give to it our own connotation only to discredit it and the person. Khera attributed the wrong connotation to Gandhian values and slaughtered Gandhi’s persona for that. There is a Godse-like propensity in doing so.
Such an act of defense is considered "non-violative aggression". It is non-violative because it is done in compliance with the will of nature. We call the act of Lord Ram as "non-violative aggression" similar to that of a doctor conducting surgery. Can anyone say, that Lord Ram did not have compassion, an attribute of love, for his antagonist Ravana? Was Lord Ram’s fight against Ravana driven by anger, hatred, and enmity?
Nonviolence or "ahimsa" is "paramodharma", says the Ved. Gandhi agreed with the Ved, for he found great sense in it. For Gandhi-ji, family was the prototype from which he inducted the idea of welfare-of-all of the human community. If "love" remains the foremost value in binding us with our family; and if the whole human community is regarded as "vasudaiva kutumbakam", it is only logical, that it is love alone that would bind this larger family called humanity.
Gandhi held that mute surrender to evil is cowardice, and cowardice is a crime worse than violence.
Ask yourself, if you are in a family and if you are the head, what would be the most desirable value you choose to employ to keep the family together? Even when we admonish children, the motive behind it is the child’s welfare, our loving care for the child.
While tolerance is a virtue, Gandhiji was not dogmatic about it. He tolerated the person, and not his misdeed. For, the person, so to say any person, is worthy of unconditional love, as much as his/her misdeeds are worthy of one’s contempt.
Gandhi believed that life lives by the force of attraction, not repulsion. So, there must be a greater force that governs the world than violence. And he called that as non-violence. It is non-violative adherence to the law of life. Killing is violence because it defies the will of the creation.
Some of us are unable to understand the veracity of love in the larger human context. It is only because of our inability to comprehend the vasudaiva kutumbakam, which is an empirical reality in the 21st century global village, and not because "love" ceases to be a value beyond the political fence of ‘our’ness.
Listen to Gandhi: In Young India on September 19, 1921, entitled ‘Tampering with Loyalty', Gandhiji wrote: While I have no ill-will against any Britisher, I have no hesitation in saying that it is sinful for anyone, either soldier or civilian, to serve this government— sedition has become the creed of Congress ... non-co-operation, though a religious and strictly moral movement, deliberately aims at the overthrow of the government, and is therefore legally seditious ... we ask for no quarter; we expect none from the government.
In Ahmedabad, on March 18, 1922, before Mr. Justice C. N. Broomfield, District and Sessions judge, Gandhi who appeared with no lawyer to his aid spoke: “It is very true and I have no desire whatsoever to conceal from this court the fact that to preach disaffection towards the existing system of government has become almost a passion with me.” Indeed, he had preached sedition long before the prosecution said he had. "I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenuating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty a citizen."
On the occasion of the opening of the Banaras Hindu University on February 04, 1916, Gandhiji delivered a speech on the dais in the very presence of the Maharaja and the Viceroy. “India had never heard such a forthright, unvarnished speech. Gandhi spared no one, least of all those present,” wrote the American biographer Louis Fischer. Gandhiji stated in that speech: "His Highness, the Maharaja, who presided yesterday over our deliberations, spoke about the poverty of India. Other speakers laid great stress upon it. But what did we witness in the great "pandal" in which the foundation ceremony was performed by the Viceroy (Lord Hardinge)? Certainly, a most gorgeous show, an exhibition of jewelry which made a splendid feast for the eyes of the greatest jeweler… There is no salvation for India unless you strip yourselves of this jewellery and hold it in trust for your countrymen in India." He reminded them that “it is the money that has come from the agriculturists.”
Gandhi had preached sedition long before the prosecution said he had. He said: "I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenuating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty a citizen."
"It is my bounden duty," Gandhi asserted, "to refer to what agitated our minds these two or three days. All of us have had many anxieties while the Viceroy was going through the streets of Benares. There were detectives stationed in many places. We were horrified ... We asked ourselves, Why this distrust? Is it not better that even Lord Hardinge should die than live a living death?"
Think of these words, speaking truth to power that is rarely spoken even today in independent India and you wonder which nauseating idea of "tolerance" Khera ascribed to Gandhi.
It would be intellectual dishonesty to attribute a particular value to a person and give to it our own connotation only to discredit it and the person. Khera attributed the wrong connotation to Gandhian values and slaughtered Gandhi’s persona for that. There is a Godse-like propensity in doing so.
The Vedas and the Upanishads are holy books; so are incarnations like Lord Ram and leaders like Yudhishtira. They represent the all-encompassing reality. The messages of such holy books have to be taken for the widest possible meanings and not any less. Whereas Khera has taken the side of those who stoop blasphemously low to attribute the narrowest possible meaning to its message, for, the intention is less of seeking truth, more of maligning a human he chooses to hate.
I agree, Shiv Khera is not a Gandhian.