Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One With the Universal Being

by Romain Rolland

India's economic life must first be freed from foreign domination. But the next step is to liberate the mind, create a real, independent Indian spirit. Gandhi wants his people to shake off the yoke of European culture, and one of his proudest achievements is the laying of the groundwork of a truly Indian education.

Under English rule the smoldering embers of Asiatic culture had lain dormant in various colleges and universities. For more than forty-five years Aligarh had remained a Hindu-Mussulman university, a center of Islamic culture in India. Khalsa College was the center of Sikh culture, while the Hindus had the University of Benares. But these institutions, more or less antiquated, were dependent on the Government, which subventioned them, and Gandhi longed to see them replaced by purer hearths of Asiatic culture. In November, 1920, he founded the national University of Gujarat at Ahmedabad. Its ideal was that of a united India. The Dharma of the Hindus and the Islam of the Mohammedans were its two religious pillars. Its object was to preserve the dialects of India and to use them as sources of national regeneration.[78] Gandhi felt, with full justice, that a "systematic study of Asiatic culture is no less essential than the study of Western sciences. The vast treasures of Sanskrit and Arabic, Persian and Pali and Magadhi, have to be ransacked to discover wherein lies the source of strength for the nation. The ideal is not merely to feed on or repeat the ancient cultures, but to build a new culture based on the traditions of the past and enriched by the experiences of later times. The ideal is a synthesis of the different cultures that have to come to stay in India, that have influenced Indian life, and that, in their turn, have themselves been influenced by the spirit of the soil. This synthesis will naturally be of the Swadeshi type, where each culture is assured its legitimate place, and not of the American pattern, where one dominant culture absorbs the rest and where the aim is not toward harmony, but toward an artificial and forced unity." All Indian religions were to be taught. The Hindus were to have an opportunity of studying the Koran and the Mussulmans the Shastras. The national university excludes nothing except a spirit of exclusion. It believes that there is nothing "untouchable" in humanity. Hindustani is made compulsory, because it is the national blend of Sanskrit, Hindi, and Persianized Urdu.[79] A spirit of independence was to be fostered, not only by the methods of study, but by a careful vocational training.

Gandhi hopes to organize, gradually, higher schools that will spread education broadcast throughout the towns and "filter it down to the masses, so that ... ere long the suicidal cleavage between the educated and the uneducated will be bridged. And as an effect of giving an industrial education to the genteel folks and a literary education to the industrial classes, the unequal distribution of wealth and social discontent will be considerably checked."

In opposition to European educational methods, which neglect manual proficiency and develop the brain only, Gandhi wants manual work to he part of the curriculum of all the schools from the lowest grades up. He believes it would be excellent for children to pay for their tuition by a certain amount of spinning. In this way they would learn to earn their living and become independent. As for education of the heart, which Europe neglects absolutely, Gandhi would have stress laid upon it from the very first. But before the pupils can be properly trained, the right sort of teachers must be provided.

The object of the higher institutions which Gandhi seems to look upon as the keystones of the new education is to train teachers. These institutions will be more than schools or colleges; they might rather be called convents, where the sacred fire of India will be concentrated in order afterward to radiate throughout the world, just as in former days great religious pioneers radiated from the Benedictine monasteries in the West, conquering souls and territory.

The rules which Gandhi prescribes for the school of Satyagrah Ashram,[80] or place of discipline, at Ahmedabad, his model institution, concern the teachers more than the pupils, and bind the former by monastic vows. Whereas these vows in ordinary religious orders have a purely negative character, here they throb with an active spirit of sacrifice and with the pure love that inspires the saints. The teachers are bound by the following vows:

1. The vow of truth. It is not enough not to resort ordinarily to untruth. No deception may be practised even for the good of the country. Truth may require opposition to parents and elders.

2. The vow of Ahimsa (non-killing). It is not enough not to take the life of any living being. One may not even hurt those whom he believes to be unjust; he may not be angry with them, he must love them. Oppose tyranny but never hurt the tyrant. Conquer him by love. Suffer punishment even unto death for disobeying his will.

3. The vow of celibacy. Without it the two foregoing are almost impossible to observe. It is not enough not to look upon woman with a lustful eye. Animal passions must be controlled, so that they will not be moved even in thought. If a man is married, he will consider his wife a lifelong friend and establish with her the relationship of perfect purity.

4. The control of the palate. Regulate and purify the diet. Leave off such foods as may tend to stimulate animal passions or are otherwise unnecessary.