Sunday, July 02, 2006

Mahatma and celibacy

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Mahatma and celibacy
Brahmacharya; Gandhi & His Women
Associates: Girja Kumar; Vitasta Publishing; pp 411; Rs
695.00

By M.V. Kamath


Name some of the great figures in world
history and one can remember a Tolstoy, a Romain
Rolland, a Ramakrishna Paramahansa and, yes, a Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi. One can think of many others like
Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo and Rabindranath Tagore
but for many reasons Gandhi stands out in any company.
He was no poet or philosopher; certainly he would be no
match to, say, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Yet, more than
anyone else, the Mahatma remains an Indian icon and
figures prominently on our currency notes. For all that
he remains, for the oddest of reasons, the most
controversial leader of our times.

The world
knows him as the champion of non-violence in India’s
struggle for freedom. It was that, more than anything
else, that raised him to Mahatma-hood in the eyes of his
beholders. But that was only one side of him. There was
the other side, namely, his struggle with himself that
he was to carry on almost till death took him away. This
struggle concerned brahmacharya (celibacy).

As
was common in his times—and we are speaking of the
fourth quarter of the nineteenth century—Mohandas Gandhi
married early; his wife was Kasturbai Kapadia and both
were married when they were 14 years old. Kasturba (as
she came to be known) was illiterate—par for her times.
The story is that her husband was making love to her
when Mohandas’ father was dying. Gandhi could possibly
have not known that his father was dying. Apparently
that left a deep mark on his psyche.

Time passed,
the Mahatma beget four sons. But some time in 1906, when
he was hardly 37 years old and at the peak of his
manhood, he took a vow to practice celibacy. What
exactly drove him to take this unusual vow remains a
mystery. Perhaps he felt he could not relate to his
illiterate wife any longer. After all he had become a
barrister-at-law and had a roaring practice in South
Africa. He was almost in daily contact with a lot of
sophisticated women and probably found their
intellectual company more rewarding. He could not
possibly give up his devoted—and strong-willed—wife. Nor
could he resist the intellectual comfort other women
gave him. Perhaps his decision to practice celibacy
arose out of this dilemma.

Mohandas Gandhi surely
is not the first or only human being who has had to
confront such a dilemma. Hundreds have faced it in the
past; some have taken mistresses, with or without the
consent of their wives. Many have taken it in their
stride, realising their limitations and concentrated
more on their jobs. Such a dilemma is not uncommon. And
Mohandas Gandhi was only human.

Sex is part of
human nature and is nothing to be ashamed of. Different
people handle it in different ways. Shri Aurobindo had
the Mother as his companion and no doubt he had
sublimated sex. There was not a whiff or scandal about
Ramana Maharshi who wore the minimal of dress. But
Mohandas Gandhi was in public life and was attracting
people by the dozens. His ashram at Sabarmati was, as
someone plaintively said, more like a dharamshala with
people living with him. Gandhi would have been wiser not
to accept single women to live in the ashram; indeed he
would have probably been of greater service to the
country if he had stayed alone with his wife and a
stenographer to attend to his vast
correspondence.

He was a compulsive letter-writer
who would write ten to fifteen letters or more a day.
Only God knows what he would have done if he had a
mobile. But Mohandas Gandhi loved the company of women
and he thought that he could treat them as “daughter,
sisters and mothers” which was deluding oneself. In the
circumstances he had more than a dozen women he became
close to in various degrees of familiarity. Five of them
were of foreign origin and one of them a Non Resident
Indian. Three of them, Millie Graham Polak, Nilla Cram
Cook and Mirabehn were an intellectual match for any
women of their times. Then there was Saraladevi
Chowdhurani whose mother Swarnakumari Devi was an elder
sister of Rabindranath Tagore. Of Gandhi’s association
with her, the author says: “Saraladevi Chowdhurani came
very close to Mohandas Karmachand Gandhi. Their
whirlwind romance lasted for barely two years but it
upset the balance of the Gandhian establishment and
shook its very roots. She is now a part of history and a
footnote in contemporary Gandhian literature. She,
however, left scars in the minds of Gandhiji for the
rest of his life.”

There was no need for Gandhi
to “experiment” with brahmacharya. As Vinobha Bhave, a
true brahmachari put it correctly, “In case Gandhi was
perfect brahmachari, he did not require his brahmacharya
to be tested; and if he was an imperfect brahmachari, he
should have avoided the experiments on
principle.”

Gandhiji would not listen to wise
advice. He brought misery to every around one, including
his wife Kasturba, his secretaries Mahadev Desai and
Pyarelal, his medical attendant and secretary Sushila
Nayar. He insisted that those living with him must also
practice celibacy and that led to at one least one,
Prabhavati Devi (wife of Jayaprakash Narayan) often
getting hysterical.

Of her the author writes:
“Prabhavati became so obssessed with Gandhi that she
would not tolerate separation from him even for a
day...Her hysteria was highest manifestation of her
desperation. She would remain unconscious for hours
together...” In his own way, without, obviously meaning
it, the Mahatma ruined many lives. It was only when he
was jailed at the Agha Khan Palace that he came to be
reconciled with Kasturba. And it was only after Gandhi
died that Prabhavati came to live a normal life with her
husband, until she died a premature death. Many detested
Gandhi’s so-called ‘experiments’ with
celibacy.

Mirabehn spread gossip about his
‘special relation’ with Sushila Nayar. Sardar Vallabbhai
Patel was furious and called Gandhi’s practices as
‘adharma’. His own son Devadas wrote a strong letter of
protest to his father. Gandhi was boycotted by
Kishorelal Mashruwala who, along with Narahari Parekh,
Swami Anand and Kedarnath Kulkarni, all his closest
associates and disciples. It is a pathetic
story.

Girja Kumar took eight years to work on
this book which is thoroughly researched. The author
does not take sides and deals respectfully with the
subject of his study, and that is to his credit. It is
now almost six decades since Gandhiji passed away. He
will always remain a Mahatma. But he will make an
excellent case for a psychiatric study. Many Gandhians
may object to this work. Some of the passages are
revolting indeed. The truth, however, must be faced. As
Gandhiji once said: “Truth is God”.

(Vitasta
Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 2/15, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New
Delhi-110 002.)

Detoxify the youth of India

Issue

Detoxify the youth of India

By Bulbul Roy
Mishra


Our secular
education system simply weighs the learning and does not
teach its value. Students are told that degrees are
required to get a job and higher degrees will fetch
higher income. The thought of service to the poor, the
nation or the humanity is summarily dismissed as
Platonic and nonsensical.


“The ass carrying the load of
sandalwood” so says an ancient Sanskrit proverb, “knows
only the weight and not the value of the sandalwood.”
Its animalistic instinct nevertheless helps it find out
the equation—heavier the weight larger the meal. I am
tempted to draw a parallel of the above to our current
education system, which teaches students to bear the
load of studies with the refrain—better the performances
higher the return. Like in the case of the ass, our
secular education system simply weighs the learning and
does not teach its value. Students are told that degrees
are required to get a job, and higher degrees will fetch
higher income. The thought of service to the poor, the
nation or the humanity is summarily dismissed as
Platonic and nonsensical.

I am, therefore, not
surprised that our education system has produced errant
and arrogant kids like Manu Sharma, Jagat Singh, Vikas
Yadav, Amit Jogi, Sanjeev Nanda, Fardeen Khan and many
others, all of whom got the best of education—thanks to
their parental affluence and influence—but were not
taught humility and dedication, which were fundamental
to our traditional education system. It is not that only
the scions of celebrities and the affluent freak out and
the rest are okay. As a matter of fact, the alma mater
that discriminates the poor from the rich, the powerful
from the commoner, sows the seeds of arrogance, hatred
and complexes in impressionable minds, thereby causing
distortion in the society.

It is no body’s case
that the aim of a sound education system is to create
perfect equality among students or to raise their merit
to even height. As a matter of fact, the Vedantic
philosophy that envisions the ultimate unity in Tat tvam
asi (Thou art that) does not also envisage perfect
equality in a phenomenal world. According to it, when
the three gunas (sattva, raja and tama) get into the
position of perfect equilibrium, involution results and
creativity comes to an end. The universe evolves as a
result of disturbance in this balance when any of the
three gunas becomes predominant. The above philosophy
applies to human life as well, as the key to liberation
is stated to be perfect equanimity.

Both Swami
Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi stressed on spiritual
education simultaneously with secular education. In the
words of Vivekananda, “Our life blood is spirituality.”
If it flows clear, no disease germ can possess it. The
spirituality does not mean worship of a particular god,
but selfless concern for welfare of all beings. Totally
rejecting the colonial education system, Gandhiji echoed
Vivekananda when he wrote in True Education: “We assess
the value of education in the same manner as we assess
the value of land or of shares in the stock exchange
market. We want to provide only such education as would
enable the student to earn more… As long as such ideas
persist there is no hope of our ever knowing the true
value of education.” Gandhiji was totally against state
interference in educational sphere.

A
materialistic thinker may snigger at the idea of
injecting spirituality in secular education, as he is
unable to segregate spirituality from religion. Once
convinced that spirituality has nothing to do with any
particular religion, I am sure, even the staunchest
materialist will see merits in the proposition that
students must be taught to think more for the suffering
multitude, the nation and the humanity, than for
self-promotion.

The reason why Indian
civilisation survived despite the fall of the empires
and kingdoms in the face of foreign invasions was its
impregnable education system. Its foundation was laid by
gurukuls in numerous hermitages as mentioned in the
Mahabharata, where pupils from distant parts gathered
for instruction. It is pertinent to mention that the Rig
Veda named 23 women sages for their contribution and a
hermitage near Kurukshetra produced two noted women
hermits, thus establishing that women were considered
eligible for studying the Vedas and also running
gurukuls.

By the 9th century BC, university
education almost on modern lines was founded in
Takshasila (Taxila), the capital of Gandhara, followed
by Ujjain, Nalanda, Benares, Ballavi, Ajanta, Madura and
Vikramsila. Panini, the famous grammarian of the 7th
century BC, Jibaka, the noted physician of the 6th
century BC and Kautilya, the author of Arthasastra of
the 4th century BC were students of Takshasila. We find
mention of women’s hostel called chhatrisala in some of
those universities.

Even though the University of
Takshasila was destroyed by the barbaric Huns in the 5th
century AD and that of Nalanda by the Khilji invaders in
the 12th century AD, the Indian education system
survived owing to resilience of the scholars who took it
as their mission to impart what they learnt to the
posterity. It is no wonder that Sir Monier Williams
found Indian education system unparalleled in history.
In his words: “Invader after invader ravaged the country
with fire and sword but the simple self-contained
township had preserved its constitution intact, its
customs, precedents and peculiar institutions unchanged
and unchangeable amid all other changes.” (Brahmanism
and Hinduism). India survived because Indian
educationists never treated material progress as the end
in itself but as a means to the end that was spiritual
growth.

The overdose of self-centric materialism
sans spirituality, borrowed from colonial and alien
thoughts, commenced the process of transformation from
man-making into money-making education. The blame, in
the first place, goes to successive governments which,
contrary to Gandhiji’s prescription, relentlessly
interferred with the governance of universities and
academic institutions. The blame also goes to the
political parties, which strived to impose their
political thoughts or ideology on students. The
socio-religious organisations also share the blame for
doing precious little to arrest the rot.

I am,
however, incurably optimistic, being a firm believer in
what Swami Vivekananda said over a century back: “A
mighty tree produces a beautiful ripe fruit. The fruit
falls on the ground, it decays and rots, and out of that
decay springs the root and the future tree, perhaps
mightier than the first one.” (Refer: The Complete
Works, vol. 3, pp. 286).

Saturday, July 01, 2006

history of islam

This article describes about the history of Islam right from its origin.

http://muhammadandtheriseofislam.blogspot.com/2005/08/from-mecca-to-911.html