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The New Courage: An Essay on Gandhi's Psychology*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Susanne Hoeber Rudolph
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph
Affiliation:
Lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard
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Extract

In an era that takes matters of religious faith lightly, it becomes difficult to consider thoughtfully a man who is suspected of saintliness. The task is particularly vexing for Americans, who have no feudal historic memories to remind them that saints were once important people. The obvious solution is to avoid the issue of saintliness altogether—to avoid, for example, questions about whether Gandhi's political shrewdness was compatible with the essential innocence of heart that one asks of saints; above all, to avoid trying to satisfy a generation of ambivalent skeptics who in one breath deny that saints exist and in the next maintain that Gandhi could not have been one because he did not meet such and such criterion of saintliness. The issue of saintliness is a diversion from a serious consideration of Gandhi's contribution.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , October 1963 , pp. 98 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1963

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References

1 Nehru, Jawaharlal, The Discovery of India, ed. by Crane, Robert (New York 1959), 274–75Google Scholar.

2 Schumpeter, Joseph, “The Sociology of Imperialism,” in Imperialism and Social Classes (New York 1951), 65–98Google Scholar.

3 Woodruff's, Philip two-volume work, The Men That Ruled India (London 1953–1954)Google Scholar, admirably develops this picture.

4 Spear, T. G. P., The Nabobs (London 1932), 198–99Google Scholar, lists twenty-six quotations expressing European sentiments about Indians in the eighteenth century. Of these, ten include some allusion to weakness or feminine qualities, like the following: “Indians are a very sober People and effeminate…” (Luillier, Sieur, A Voyage to the East Indies, 1702, 285)Google Scholar; or the more perceptive: “'Tis a mistake to conclude that the natives of Hindustan want courage. … With respect to passive courage the Inhabitants of these Countries are perhaps possessed of a much larger share of it than those of our own” (Rennell, Major, Diary, January 20, 1768, 182)Google Scholar.

Basham, A. L. has pointed out in The Wonder That Was India (London 1954)Google Scholar that homosexuality was rare in ancient India, and certainly never assumed the status it had in Greece or Rome.

5 Strachey, John, India: Its Administration and Progress (London 1888)Google Scholar.

6 Macaulay, T. B., “Warren Hastings,” in Critical and Historical Essays (Boston 1900), V, 130Google Scholar.

7 Strachey, 335–36.

8 From The Vegetarian, February 28, 1891, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Delhi 1958—), I, 30.

9 Vivekananda, Swami, “Lectures from Colombo to Almora,” in The Complete Worlds of Swami Vivekananda, 3rd ed. (Almora 1922), III, 242Google Scholar.

10 Gandhi, , An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated from the Gujerati by Desai, Mahadev (London 1949)Google Scholar.

11 Gandhi, Prabhudas, My Childhood with Gandhi (Ahmedabad 1957), chap. 2Google Scholar.

12 Tendulkar, D. G., Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karatnchand Gandhi (Bombay 1951—), 1, 28Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., 31.

14 Autobiography, 23. Gandhi's sister Raliatbchn, on the other hand, recalls that Gandhi was quite nervous about the prospect of a beating for this offense (P. Gandhi, My Childhood, 22).

15 Ibid.

16 Autobiography, 17.

17 Ibid., 5. Gandhi's relations with companions of his own age may have been affected by the fact that he would not fall in with the usual rough and tumble of youthful life. He could not be relied upon to tell white lies to cover up group pranks and would not strike back in any encounter. Whatever moral precocity was involved in these deviations received some positive recognition from his schoolmates, who used him regularly as a referee in games. These recollections are Gandhi's sister's (P. Gandhi, My Childhood, 27–28); they were recalled after Gandhi became “Mahatma” and may deserve a little caution.

18 Autobiography, 13–14.

19 “… she could not go anywhere without my permission. … And Kasturbai was not the girl to brook any such thing. She made it a point to go out whenever and wherever she liked. More restraint on my part resulted in more liberty being taken by her …” (ibid., 10).

20 “The first three children of Kaba Kaka and Putlibai gave them little trouble, but young Mohan was a bit of a problem. Not that he was mischievous or one to annoy his elders. He was not a difficult child but he was exceedingly active and energetic. He was never at one place for long. As soon as he was able to walk about, it became difficult to keep track of him” (P. Gandhi, My Childhood, 25).

21 Fischer, Louis, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (London 1951), 75Google Scholar.

22 Autobiography, 16.

23 Ibid., 17.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., 18.

26 Ibid., 20.

27 “The opposition and abhorrence of meat-eating that existed in Gujerat among the Jains and Vaishnavas were to be seen nowhere else in India or outside in such strength” (ibid., 18).

28 Ibid., 34–35. The account which he gave to an interviewer from The Vegetarian on June 13, 1891, is slightly different. There he says he asked the senior Patel, who told him crossing the waters was against caste rules: “… if our brethren can go as far as Aden, why could not I go to England?” (Collected Works, 1, 59).

29 Autobiography, 43–44. Gandhi in London wore “… a high silk top hat burnished bright, a Gladstonian collar, stiff and starched; a rather flashy tie displaying almost all the colours of the rainbow under which there was a fine striped silk shirt. He wore as his outer clothes a morning coat, a double-breasted vest, and dark striped trousers to match, and not only patent leather boots but spats over them. He carried leather gloves and a silver-mounted stick, but wore no spectacles. He was, to use the contemporary slang, a nut, a masher, a blood—a student more interested in fashion and frivolities than in his studies.” (Quoted in Nanda, B. R., Mahatma Gandhi: A Biography [London 1958], 28.Google Scholar)

30 Fischer says Gandhi earned from five to six thousand pounds a year (Life, 74).

31 See, e.g., “The Grievances of the British Indians in South Africa—The Green Pamphlet,” written in 1896 (Collected Works, 11, 1–52).

32 I am indebted for this point to Professor Chandran Devanesan's manuscript of a forthcoming work on Gandhi.

33 Autobiography, 47.

34 Ibid., 41.

35 Ibid., 45.

36 Ibid., 58.

37 Ibid., 68.

38 Ibid., 52.

39 Ibid., 53.

40 Ibid., 79.

41 Ibid., 81.

42 Ibid., 83.

43 Ibid., 85.

44 Ibid., 91–98.

45 Gandhi's first South African client told him: “What can we understand in these matters? We can only understand things that affect our trade. … We are after all lame men, being unlettered. We generally take in newspapers simply to ascertain the daily market rates, etc. What can we know of legislation? Our eyes and ears are the European attorneys here” (ibid., 115).

46 Ibid., 105.

47 A contributing factor in the success of the first speech may have been that Gandhi spoke in Gujerati. His audience consisted mainly of Memon Muslims and very few among them knew English (Tendulkar, 1, 46). It is interesting that when Gandhi returned to India in 1896, with three years of South African successes behind him, he failed once again to manage a public speech before a large Bombay audience (Autobiography, 146).

48 These issues are developed at some length in my article, “Conflict and Consensus in Indian Politics,” World Politics, XIII (April 1961), 385–99Google Scholar.

49 Autobiography, 112.

50 Ibid., III.

51 Gandhi, M. K., Woman's Role in Society, compiled by Prabhu, R. K. (Ahmedabad 1959)Google Scholar, in the chapter, “Woman not the Weaker Sex,” p. 8.

52 Nehru, Jawaharlal, Freedom from Fear: Reflections on the Personality and Teachings of Gandhi (Delhi 1960), 12Google Scholar.