5. Masculine reason versus feminine faith
Gandhi gave due weight to reason but also believed that where reason could not take one far, things had to be accepted on faith. Faith did not contradict reason but could transcend it. He believed that God did not merely satisfy the intellect but ruled the heart and transformed it. Rationalism had been the foundation of enlightenment leading to modern age and was considered by that age to be an attribute of masculinity. Moderates, Extremists and Revolutionary Nationalists in India also had accepted the superiority of reason. It created mental barrier around their thinking by deepening the binary between reason and faith. Such a rationalist anti-colonial approach was not successful in their struggle against colonialism. Gandhi rejected the supremacy of reason and gave hope to the people in the form of faith in the justice of the cause and God. Faith which is based on emotions has a feminine connotation. He said that faith in oneself was synonymous with faith in God. If the people of India had faith, they would cease to fear one another. Fear of the colonial power and the sense of helplessness in front of it were the main reasons behind the British dominance over India. It created the mental image of British as overpowering and masculine and of Indian men as helpless and effeminate. Mrinalini Sinha has called both notions of masculinities together colonial masculinities.[8]
Gandhi had realized the power of religion during his struggle in South Africa. In 1906, in a public meeting called to protest against a humiliating ordinance, one speaker named Haji Habib said that Indians must pass the resolution against the ordinance with God as witness and must never yield in cowardly submission to such degrading legislation. It created a sensation among the Hindus and Muslims present in that meeting. In his speech during the meeting, Gandhi said, ‘To pledge ourselves or to take an oath in the name of God or with Him as witness is not something to be trifled with. If having taken such oath, we violate our pledge, we are guilty before God and man. Personally, I hold that a man, who deliberately and intelligently takes a pledge and then breaks it, forfeits his manhood’.[9] At the end of the meeting all present, standing with upraised hands, took an oath with God as witness not to submit to the Ordinance. After many years Gandhi wrote about this incident, ‘I can never forget the scene, which is present before my mind’s eyes as I write.’[10] Later in life, as a supreme leader of Indian Freedom Struggle, Gandhi always projected the mass movement against the British colonialism as a religious duty of Indians. He understood the pulse of masses and knew the transformative effect of religion on Indians and the ability of religion to make ‘men out of straw’.
Faith in God rescued Gandhi from the dilemma of whether to follow British law or not. He considered the voice of conscience (inner voice) the most important criterion to take a decision or chart out any course of action. He called this inner voice divinely inspired, it stood above the law of the land. It liberated him mentally and physically. In 1917, when he was presented in front of magistrate for the trial for disobeying the order to leave Champaran, he said, ‘I have disregarded the order served upon me not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience.’[11] In 1930, he projected his march to Dandi to break the unjust salt act as a sacred pilgrimage. In 1942, before the passage of the Quit India Resolution, he asked members of the Congress Working Committee to take a pledge with God and one’s conscience as witness. He said that through the movement, people would appeal to the highest tribunal of justice. Human law, thus, was always in service of divine law.
[8] Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995, p. 2.
[9] Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2, translated by Valji Govindji Desai, Ahmedabad: Navjivan Publishing House, 1968, p. 114.
[10] Gandhi, The Selected Works, p. 117.
[11] Dinanath Gopal Tendulkar, Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, vol. 1, Bombay: Vithalbhai K. Jhaveri & D. G. Tendulkar, 1951, p. 250.