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The charm of Gandhiji: An essay by Arthur Moore, from the HT archives

ByArthur Moore
Jan 25, 2025 12:18 AM IST

HT’s Republic@75 special: Gandhi was always evolving, but his belief in the power of love never wavered. We love him because he first loved us, Moore writes.

Before I ever met Gandhiji, Mrs Annie Besant, who was then staying at The Yarrows in Simla with the Law Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, described him to me as a philosophical anarchist. She did not approve of him at that period because of his non-co-operation campaign, although he himself had called it off after the terrible happenings at Chauri Chaura.

Gandhi at Noakhali (then in East Pakistan, now in Bangladesh) during the Partition riots. He would be assassinated months later, on January 30, 1948. (HT Archives) PREMIUM
Gandhi at Noakhali (then in East Pakistan, now in Bangladesh) during the Partition riots. He would be assassinated months later, on January 30, 1948. (HT Archives)

These words, coming from one who had known him from his early years in London, may have influenced me at the time, but later on I was, like most people, greatly impressed by his statement at the trial and the account of the proceedings, which did honour both to Gandhiji and to the Judge who tried him, Mr Justice Broomfield. But I did not have the good fortune to meet Gandhiji till after his release from Yervada prison; and on that first occasion in his Sabarmati Ashram admiring followers, who surrounded him and kept coming in and out, rather prevented me from realizing the charm of the man himself.

That came later, and when it did it was irresistible. The secret of it was, of course, his genuine love for everybody. We love him because he first loved us.

Defending others

Gandhiji was in constant evolution and, no doubt, his opinions on subjects changed. The very title of his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, shows in itself that he was always experimenting; and naturally he profited by his experience. But he thought nothing of confessing a mistake or pleading guilty, and sometimes would laughingly call himself a crank. Yet there was a subject on which, I think, he never changed, though it is one on which there has been most misunderstanding. That subject was the duty of defending others against an aggressor and of defending oneself only for the sake of protecting others.

Here is what he afterwards said to explain the fact that he encouraged recruitment for the army in World War I: “My opposition to and disbelief in war was as strong then as it is today. But we have to recognize that there are many things in the world which we do although we may be against doing them. I am as much opposed to taking the life of the lowest creature alive as I am to war. But I continually take such life hoping someday to attain the ability to do without this fratricide. To entitle me, in spite of it, to be called a votary of non-violence, my attempt must be honest, strenuous and unceasing. The conception of moksha, absolution from the need to have an embodied existence, is based upon the necessity of perfected men and women being completely non-violent. Possession of a body like every other possession necessitates some violence, be it ever so little. The fact is that the path of duty is not always easy to discern amidst claims seeming to conflict one with the other.”

Forgiveness vs Punishment

Arthur Moore, a British journalist, was managing editor of The Statesman in the 1930s.
Arthur Moore, a British journalist, was managing editor of The Statesman in the 1930s.

And here is what he wrote in Young India when he was launching his first non-co-operation campaign: “I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus, when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defend me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence. Hence it was that I took part in the Boer War, the so-called Zulu Rebellion and the late war. Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour. But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier. But abstinence is forgiveness only when there is the power to punish; it is meaningless when it pretends to proceed from a helpless creature.”

That is why he was so appalled at the terrible atrocities committed by the different communities in Bengal, Bihar and the Punjab in 1946 and 1947. These events finally convinced him that non-violence was as yet inherent only in a selected few, and that the non-co-operation of the multitudes that adored him as a national leader was not, as he had supposed, the non-co-operation of the strong but the passive resistance of the weak, the only effective weapon available to them, as they had not actual arms.

Power of love

Above all things he believed in the power of love and of the soft answer to turn away wrath. By means of this and through his own devotion to them he certainly revolutionized thinking in India about the Harijans. There are still many people who cannot rid themselves of their past prejudice, but a large proportion of these are secretly ashamed of it; and it is no longer popular to praise caste as a virtue.

The inspiration and encouragement that Bapu gave to that remarkable man Thakkar Bapa in his work for the Harijans was inestimable. Nor was Gandhiji’s influence on colour questions confined to India, and it is safe to say that through him there is an improved atmosphere for Negroes not only in Africa and America but all over the world. His soft words have done more for the ultimate realization of a classless society than the angry fulminations of Marxists who, professing to desire it, split the world into different camps.

Gandhiji believes in what St Paul, a convert from violence and persecutions, called a more excellent way, the way of love, without which all the rest was but sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.

[Arthur Moore (1880-1962), a British journalist, was managing editor of The Statesman in the 1930s, and served in the pre-Independence Legislative Assembly. His sustained criticism of the British government cost him his position. He returned to England in 1952. This article was originally published on January 26, 1952]

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