Friday, July 20, 2012

Aurobindo on Mahatma Gandhi's non violence

I generally don't like to do posts of these types, but I just couldn't resist myself this time.


source: (click) hat-tip @projectdharma on twitter


“Many educated Indians consider Gandhi a spiritual man. Yes, because the Europeans call him spiritual. But what he preaches is not Indian spirituality but something derived from Russian Christianity,non-violence, suffering, etc. The gospel of suffering that he is preaching has its root in Russia as nowhere else in Europe—other Christian nations don"t believe in it.”
“Purification can come by the transformation of the impulse of violence. In that respect the old system in India was much better: the man who had the fighting spirit became the Kshatriya and then the fighting spirit was raised above the ordinary vital influence. The attempt was to spiritualize it. It succeeded in doing what passive resistance cannot and will not achieve. The Kshatriya was the man who would not allow any oppression, who would fight it out and he was the man who would not oppress anybody. That was the ideal. Gandhi"s position is that he does not care to remove violence from others; he wants to observe non-violence himself.”


P.S.: We will hopefully see more of the above mentioned Kshatriya spirit when I read some books on my reading list on it (War in Ancient India, The wrestler's body: Identity and ideology in North India (which you can find in the link list under books in the right hand side bar of the blog) and a book on Vajramushti). Regular programming on Hindu economics needs more reading and will return next week.

4 comments:

Dirt Digger said...

Not sure if my earlier comment was received. to summarize Gandhi's views were based on Tolstoy's 'The Kingdom of God is within you'.
He probably saw some similarities between the fight of Tolstoy with the Russian Orthodox church.
Probably add this to the books to read sometime in the future.

Karmasura said...

This was the only comment from you that I received.

Yeah, I've read about Gandhi getting inspired from Tolstoy. Probably, I have a good idea for the future, deconstructing popular political heroes and reviving some unknown figures of the past. Earnestly want this blog to be different from the 1000s of hindu blogs out there.

Dirt Digger said...

Karmasura,
I'm looking forward to reading some of your deconstructions.
This particular issue is quite fascinating. The fight Tostloy had with the Russian Orthodox Church is well documented as to who was really following the path of Jesus.
The Church which usually follows a heavy handed approach or the Christian Anarchists who believed in non-violence and that Jesus stood for the poor.
Fortunately or unfortunately for the Russians both got kicked out when the Reds came to power.

Tusar Nath Mohapatra said...

[Doctrine of Passive Resistance III. Its Necessity: Bande Mataram, 13 April, 1907 by Sri Aurobindo]http://aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/01/0023_e.htm