Historic: Walk to freedom. Photo: The Hindu Photo Library



At Dandi: The first handful of salt. Photo: The Hindu Photo Library


THE HINDU
Commemorative stamp on Dandi marchj. Photo: The Hindu



A long trek: Gandhiji and his followers. Photo: The Hindu Photo Library

One historic day in March, 85 years ago, salt was used to break the British resistance. Gandhiji had taken yet another giant step towards India’s freedom. The Dandi March proved a day of reckoning ….

A king once asked his daughters what they thought of him.

The first two were profuse with praise: “Oh, you’re the brightest jewel in the universe!”

“You’re the kindest, handsomest, most brilliant father and king that ever lived!”

The third daughter said he was like salt.

The king growled angrily and waved her away. But one day someone served him a magnificent lunch that had only one thing missing — salt! It made the king realise the startling importance of the common grainy white powder in our lives.

And that is why people who love you will say, “You’re the salt of the earth!”

Salt is so important that it even shook an empire.

Let’s go back in time and see how it happened. Eighty five years, to be exact. On March 12, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi left his Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and took a walk with his followers. As he walked, many supporters joined him and the walking crowd swelled. And swelled. He stopped now and then to explain to people what he was doing. It must have been a sight to see. The March was called the ‘white flowing river’ because of the thousands of people marching in white khadi clothes.

Battle for truth

They reached Dandi, a coastal town by the Arabian Sea, on April 5. They had walked 240 miles in all! Early next morning, there was a prayer meeting. After that, they walked down to the beach. Gandhiji bent down and picked up a handful of salt-laden mud. It was a small, ordinary act, but it shook the British Empire because it was one of the most important links in Gandhiji’s peaceful resistance against the foreign rulers of our country.

His Satyagraha, the battle for truth, was simple. “You hit me, I’ll stay quiet. I won’t hit you back, but I won’t obey you either!” That was the spirit of the Indian Independence movement.

The British had put a heavy tax on salt. The Government not only had a monopoly on the making of salt, they also required anyone who used salt to pay tax. Everyone needed salt in their food, but there were many Indians who couldn’t afford to pay the tax. It was a totally unjust law. Why should you pay the Government for something that’s freely available in Nature!

The freedom fighters seized the opportunity. Gandhiji decided to break the law openly. It would not only be a protest against the unjust Salt Law, it would also send out a message to the British and to everyone else, all over the world. When he bent down that morning and picked up salt from the beach, he was raising the flag of rebellion. Peacefully, by a great symbolic act.

The British wanted to stop him at any cost. Before he arrived they had crushed all the salt into the mud. But Gandhiji picked up salt from the mud and broke the law anyway. It was a major victory. Every day of the march was covered by American newspapers, sending the news all over the world.

About 60,000 people, including Gandhiji, were arrested. But the movement spread. A month later, the fiery poet Sarojini Naidu with 2,500 volunteers courted arrest at a salt works more than a hundred miles from Bombay. And so it went. All across the country, people were openly rising in defiance against the British and making salt. Even though Gandhiji was in jail, the Satyagrahis kept up the struggle.

There’s an interesting story behind the choice of salt for the struggle. The Indian National Congress would have preferred to fight against other laws like the land revenue laws, for example. But Gandhiji chose salt. In a warm country like India, men and women sweated it out in the sun. They needed to replace the salt in their bodies that was lost through perspiration. How could you ask them to pay for it?

It was a simple truth. Turn the mirror to the people and show them how they’re being treated. And they will rise up along with you.

Seventeen years after the symbolic Salt Satyagraha, India got her freedom from the British.

http://www.thehindu.com/features/kids/if-its-march-it-must-be-salt/article6986221.ece?homepage=true


કસ્તૂરબા મહાત્માથી આશરે છ મહિના મોટાં હતા ! ઇ.સ.૧૮૬૯માં જન્મેલાં અને ઇ.સ.૧૮૮૨માં તેર વર્ષની વયે લગ્નગ્રંથિથી જોડાયેલાં, બા-બાપુનું દાંપત્ય-જીવન બાસઠ વર્ષનું હતું. જેલનિવાસી કસ્તૂરબાનું અવસાન આગાખાન મહેલ, પૂના મુકામે ૨૨-૦૨-૧૯૪૪ના રોજ સંધ્યા-સમયે ૭-૩૫ કલાકે થયું. તેઓ લગભગ પંચોતેર વર્ષની વયે, મહાશિવરાત્રીની પાવન તિથિએ, જેલમાંથી અને મહેલમાંથી મહાનિર્વાણ પામ્યાં! મનુબહેન ગાંધી દ્વારા લખાયેલા અને નવજીવન પ્રકાશન મંદિર દ્વારા ઇ.સ. ૧૯૫૨માં પ્રગટ થયેલા, ‘બા બાપુની શીળી છાયામાં’ નામના પુસ્તકમાં કસ્તૂરબાના ઓલવાતા જીવનદીપનું જીવંત વર્ણન છે. લેખિકા મનુબહેન એટલે ગાંધીજીના પિતરાઈ ભાઈના દીકરા જયસુખલાલનાં દીકરી.

જીવનના આખરી દિવસની સવારે કસ્તૂરબાનું પહેલું વાક્ય હતું : ‘મને બાપુજીના ઓરડામાં લઈ જાઓ.’ પોતાની તબિયતને ગમે તેટલું અસુખ હોય તો પણ, ગાંધીજીને દરરોજ ફરવા જવાની કસ્તૂરબા ક્યારે ય ના કહેતાં નહીં. પરંતુ આજે ગાંધીજીએ પોતે ફરવા જવાની વાત કરી કે તરત કસ્તૂરબાએ ના કહી. આથી ગાંધીજી ત્યાં બેઠા. રામધૂન ઇત્યાદિની વચ્ચે પણ કસ્તૂરબાએ ગાંધીજીના ખોળામાં થોડી વાર શાંતિ લીધી. છેવટે દસેક વાગ્યે ગાંધીજીને ફરવાની રજા મળી. ગાંધીજીએ કહ્યું કે, ‘સાવ નહીં ફરું તો માંદો પડીશ, એટલે થોડુંક ફરવું જરૂરી છે.’


મનુબહેનના જણાવ્યા અનુસાર, ફરતી વખતે બાપુએ કહ્યું : “‘બા હવે થોડા વખતની મહેમાન છે. માંડ ચોવીસ કલાક કાઢે તો. કોના ખોળામાં એની આખરી નિદ્રા થશે તે જોવાનું છે.’ દાક્તર ગિલ્ડર થોડી થોડી વારે આવીને કસ્તૂરબાને જોઈ-તપાસી જતા હતા. ગાંધીજી સાડા બાર વાગ્યે કસ્તૂરબા પાસે ગયા. દેવદાસ ગાંધી, જયસુખલાલ ગાંધી ઉપરાંત હરિલાલ ગાંધીની દીકરીઓનું પણ આગમન થયું. દોઢેક વાગ્યે કનુ ગાંધીએ કસ્તૂરબાની કેટલીક તસવીરો લીધી. દેવદાસ ગાંધીએ ગીતાપાઠ કર્યો. સાડા ત્રણે દેવદાસ ગાંધી ગંગાજળ અને તુળસીપત્ર લઈ આવ્યા. તેમણે અને ગાંધીજીએ કસ્તૂરબાને થોડું ગંગાજળ પાયું. લગભગ સાડા ચાર વાગ્યે, બાપુ તરફ જોઈને બા બોલ્યાં : ‘મારી પાછળ તો લાડવા ઉડાડવાના હોય. દુઃખ હોય? હે ઈશ્વર, મને માફ કરજે; તારી ભક્તિ આપજે.’ આવેલાં અન્ય સગાંઓને પણ કસ્તૂરબાએ કહ્યું : ‘કોઈ દુઃખ ન કરશો.’


સાંજના પાંચેક વાગ્યા પછી બાએ મનુને બાપુ માટે ગોળ કરવા કહ્યું. કારણ કે ગાંધીજી માટે બાટલીમાં રાખેલો ગોળ થઈ રહ્યો છે એ બાબત કસ્તૂરબાની નજરમાંથી કેવી રીતે છટકી શકે! વળી, તેમણે મનુને બાપુના ભોજન સારુ દૂધ-ગોળ બરાબર આપવાનું અને મનુને પણ જમી લેવા કહ્યું. આ ઘટના અંગે મનુબહેન નોંધે છે : ‘આખી જિંદગી પૂજ્ય બાપુજીની બધી સેવામાં રહેવાનું અને મુખ્યત્વે એમના બંને વખતના ભોજનની બારીક તપાસ રાખવાનું એમણે કદી નહોતું છોડ્યું. આજે છેલ્લે દિવસે પણ દર્દની ને ભગવાનની સામે યુદ્ધ કરતાં કરતાં ય એમણે એકાએક મને ચેતાવી.’

ગાંધીજી, તેમનાં કુટુંબીજનો અને સહકાર્યકરો, દાક્તરો અને જેલ-અધિકારીઓ ખાસ વિમાન મારફતે આવેલું પેનિસિલિનનું ઇન્જેક્શન કસ્તૂરબાને આપવું કે નહીં એની ચર્ચા કરતાં હતાં. જેમને જમવાનું હતું તે લોકોએ લગભગ સાડા છ સુધીમાં ખીચડી, કઢી, રોટલી વગેરેનું વાળુ કર્યું તો શિવરાત્રીના ઉપવાસીઓએ ફરાળ કર્યું. જમતાં જમતાં પણ એ જ વાતો ચાલી કે પેનિસિલિનથી કદાચ ફાયદો થઈ જાય. અંતે આશરે સાતેક વાગ્યે દાક્તર સુશીલાબહેન નય્યરે મનુબહેન ગાંધીને ઇન્જેક્શનની સોયો ઉકાળવા આપી. મનુએ ઇલેક્ટ્રિક ચૂલા ઉપર વાસણમાં તે ગરમ કરવા મૂકી. જો કે, ઇન્જેક્શન દેવાની ગાંધીજીએ ના કહી એટલે સુશીલાબહેને ઇલેક્ટ્રિક ચૂલો ઠારી નાખ્યો. દરમ્યાનમાં મનુના કાને ગાંધીજીના આટલા જ શબ્દો પડ્યા કે, ‘હવે તારી મરતી માતાને શા માટે સોંય ભોંકવી?’ આ શબ્દો કાને સાંભળ્યા ન સાંભળ્યા અને મનુબહેન સંધ્યાટાણે તુળસીજી આગળ ધૂપ-દીવો કરવાની ઉતાવળમાં ત્યાંથી ચાલ્યાં ગયાં.


મનુબહેને દીવો કર્યો. કસ્તૂરબાએ સહુને ‘જયશ્રીકૃષ્ણ’ કહ્યા. એવામાં કસ્તૂરબાના ભાઈ માધવદાસ આવ્યા. તેમને જોયા છતાં કસ્તૂરબા કંઈ બોલી ન શક્યાં. એકાએક તેમણે કહ્યું : ‘બાપુજી!’ એટલામાં ગાંધીજી હસતા હસતા આવ્યા. તેમણે કહ્યું : ‘તને એમ થાય છે ને આટલાં બધાં સગાંઓ આવ્યાં એટલે મેં તને છોડી દીધી?’ એમ કહીને ગાંધીજી ત્યાં બેઠા. જીવનની આખરી ક્ષણો વખતે કસ્તૂરબાનું ખોળિયું ગાંધીબાપુના ખોળામાં હતું. બાપુએ બાના માથે હાથ ફેરવ્યો ત્યારે બાએ બાપુને કહ્યું : ‘હવે હું જાઉં છું. આપણે ઘણાં સુખદુઃખ ભોગવ્યાં. મારી પાછળ કોઈ રડશો મા. હવે મને શાંતિ છે.’ આટલું બોલ્યાં ત્યાં તો બાનો શ્વાસ રૂંધાયો. કસ્તૂરબાની તસવીરો લઈ રહેલા કનુ ગાંધીને બાપુએ અટકાવ્યા અને રામધૂન ગાવા કહ્યું. સહુ લોકો ‘રાજા રામ રામ રામ, સીતા રામ રામ રામ’ ગાવા લાગ્યાં. મનુબહેન લખે છે : ‘એ રામનામના છેલ્લા સ્વરો સાંભળ્યા ન સાંભળ્યા ત્યાં તો બે મિનિટમાં બાપુજીના ખભા ઉપર મોટીબાએ માથું મૂકી કાયમની નિદ્રા લીધી!’ મનુએ વધુમાં નોધ્યું છે તે મુજબ, ગાંધીજીની આંખમાંથી આંસુનાં બે ટીપાં પડી ગયાં. તેમણે ચશ્માં કાઢી નાખ્યાં. તેઓ બે જ મિનિટમાં સ્વસ્થ થઈ ગયા, પરંતુ પુત્ર દેવદાસ સદ્દગત માતાના પગ પકડીને કરુણ આક્રંદ કરવા લાગ્યા.


મનુબહેનની રોજનીશીના આધારે રાષ્ટ્રમાતા કસ્તૂરબાના જીવનના અંતિમ દિવસનો ઘટનાક્રમ જોઈ શકાય છે. વળી, બદલાતાં દૃશ્યો સાથે કસ્તૂરબાના ગાંધીજી સાથેના સંવાદો સાંભળી શકાય છે. આ વિગતોથી તેમની વચ્ચેના સંબંધોની અનુભૂતિ થાય છે. પતિ મોહનદાસના ખભા ઉપર માથું મૂકીને કાયમ માટે સૂઈ જવાનું અહોભાગ્ય પત્ની કસ્તૂરને મળ્યું. કારણ કે ગાંધીજી સદ્દભાગી હતા કે, તેમને જીવનસાથી સ્વરૂપે કસ્તૂરબા મળ્યાં હતાં. કાં પતિ આદર્શ હોઈ શકે, કાં પત્ની આદર્શ હોઈ શકે. પતિ-પત્ની બન્ને આદર્શ હોઈ શકે અને તેમનું દાંપત્ય-જીવન પણ આદર્શ હોઈ શકે, એવું જોડું તો આપણાં સૌનાં બા-બાપુનું જ !


e.mail : ashwinkumar.phd@gmail.com

સૌજન્ય : ‘રાષ્ટ્રમાતા કસ્તૂરબા : આખરી વિદાયવેળાએ‘; વિગત-વિશેષ; “દિવ્ય ભાસ્કર” દૈનિક, ૨૨-૦૨-૨૦૧૫, રવિવાર, 'સનડે' પૂર્તિ, પૃષ્ઠ : ૦૨

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Why was Gandhi compared so frequently to Socrates? This is what Nehru said in 1953 : "I remember once I was reading Plato's Dialogues and someone was describing the effect that Socrates had on him. As I read this Dialogues, I was astonished because it was almost a description of the effect that Gandhiji had on me."

Scholars as different as Raghavan Iyer and Gilbert Murray also made the comparison between Gandhi and the ancient philosopher. Perhaps the comparison took hold because there were some similarities between the two men.

Both were influential thinkers, both attracted political followers in their own lifetimes, and both met with violent ends.  But one of the many interesting features of the comparison is that Gandhi himself appears to have identified with Socrates and even translated a work of Plato into Gujarati.

Gandhi first began to identify with Socrates when he was living as a foreigner in South Africa and he wrote his Gujarati version of Plato's Apology in 1908. The translation began to appear in April of that year, a few months after he adopted the term "satyagraha" and had begun to agitate against the Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act. Gandhi's speeches and rallies on behalf of the Transvaal Asians had resulted in a trial, and, in January 1908, he was sentenced to jail for two months. It was while he was serving his prison sentence that he read the Apology in an English translation, and he prepared his own version while in jail or soon after his release. The Gujarati rendition of the Apology appeared in installments in Indian Opinion, the newspaper that he edited in South Africa.

The Apology is a text by Plato that purports to be the speech given by Socrates when he was put on trial in Athens in 399 BC.  Gandhi was drawn to Socrates' sense of duty, self-sacrifice, and moral conviction; he thought of the Athenian as a principled figure who was ready to defend (the word apologia means "defence" in classical Greek) his philosophy in all situations, and who did not back down even when faced with the death penalty.

This was a moment when Gandhi was fighting the government over the unequal treatment of Asians and was exhorting the members of his community to persevere in their efforts against the authorities.  As Gandhi wrote in 1908, "We have much to struggle for, not only in South Africa but in India as well.  Only when we succeed in these [tasks] can India be rid of its many afflictions.  We must learn to live and die like Socrates.  He was, moreover, a great satyagrahi."

Socrates affirmed to Gandhi the importance of self-sacrifice at a time when the latter was developing his ideas of satyagraha and Indian nationalism.

The title that Gandhi used in his serialization was Ek satyavirni katha, which can be translated as "Story of a true soldier" or "Story of a soldier of truth", the second being the form employed in the English edition of the Collected Works.  "True soldier" is arguably more martial than "soldier of truth", but in any case the association of Socrates with "soldier" in Gandhi's version suggests that he thought of Socrates as a figure who was ready to wage war for the truth.  Gandhi's Socrates was religious and pious, a man who said he believed in God, and a philosopher who had a soldier's toughness to withstand the hostility that he encountered in many quarters.

Rather than choose words or terms that might connect Socrates simply or uniquely to a philosophical, spiritual, or religious tradition, Gandhi referred to the Athenian as a satyavir and by that expression emphasized his willingness to fight unto death for his cause.

This dimension of Gandhi's homage to Socrates may surprise those of us who are accustomed to think of him as an advocate of non-violence.  But we might see Gandhi's reframing of the Apology as an attempt to reclaim the figure of the warrior from the sphere of violent conflict, and to redeploy the warrior in the service of ahimsa and satyagraha.  It is not only soldiers who are calm in the face of death, Gandhi appears to be saying, but also moral heroes and philosophers such as Socrates. The militarization of the title can be interpreted as a strategy on the part of Gandhi to show that moral philosophers are no less courageous than soldiers in the face of life-threatening danger.

This sentiment, incidentally, is not entirely alien to Plato's Apology where Socrates uses military language to describe his commitment to philosophy.  In his speech, Socrates likens himself to a soldier at his post and implies that he would not disobey God, just as a soldier would not disobey his commander.

Gandhi soon published his version of Socrates' speech as a pamphlet, and the pamphlet was sufficiently alarming to the British authorities in Bombay that they responded by banning it. According to a notice in The Bombay Government Gazette, the translation of the Apology was seized by officers since it deployed "words which are likely to bring into hatred and contempt the Government established by law in British India and to excite disaffection to the said Government." These expressions were formulaic and evoked the strictures of the Press Act of 1910.  Yet clearly it was not Socrates or Plato who troubled the British administration, and what was vexing to administrators was the knowledge that the author of the pamphlet was Gandhi.  

In fact, three other works were banned at the same time by the government, namely, Hind Swaraj, Sarvodaya, and a copy of a speech delivered by Mustafa Kamal Pasha, and all happened to be published by Gandhi.  Of the items on this list, Hind Swaraj (which appeared in the year after Ek satyavirni katha) is the most celebrated, and it's worth pointing out that this text, too, resembles a Platonic work and takes the form of a dialogue.

There was a particular irony to the ban placed on Gandhi's translation of Plato. Plato had occupied a central place in the British educational system for many decades before Gandhi decided to try his hand at a version.  Benjamin Jowett used to liken his students in Oxford to the guardians of Plato's Republic and remarked that they ran the Empire if not the world.  It was in a Victorian English translation that Gandhi himself had first encountered the text of the Apology in South Africa.  In a very real sense, therefore, Gandhi's approach to Socrates in South Africa was made possible by the circulation of books in the British Empire, and by the admiration for Plato that flourished in nineteenth-century Britain.

The irony of the ban is compounded by the circumstance that, in Gandhi's lifetime, the British administrator Frank Lugard Brayne wrote Socrates in an Indian Village and a series of related titles as part of his programme of rural development in the Punjab.  In 1931, more strikingly, Sir John Gilbert Laithwaite, a British civil servant and later private secretary to the Viceroy, wrote a pseudo-Platonic dialogue between Socrates and Gandhi, for the entertainment of another civil servant, Sir (Samuel) Findlater Stewart, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India. The transcript of the "dialogue" can be found in the India Office Records at the British Library in London.

Gandhi was an eclectic and insatiable reader and was influenced by a variety of texts, Indian and non-Indian, so it is not altogether surprising that he discovered Socrates, Plato, and the Apology, or even that he invoked them against colonial forces.  Socrates, of course, has had a rich and complicated afterlife in many ethical and political movements: in the nineteenth century and earlier, he was compared to Jesus Christ, another figure with whom Gandhi also has been linked.  Yet, there is something revealing in seeing the level of praise that Gandhi heaps upon Socrates and the manner in which he turns him into a soldier of truth.  

Gandhi correctly observes in his preface that it was not just outsiders and foreigners to whom Socrates directed his teachings but also, and mainly, the inhabitants of his city.  Gandhi writes, "Socrates was a great satyagrahi."  And then adds: "He adopted satyagraha against his own people."  That is the struggle which made him, in Gandhi's words, "a great soul".

Phiroze Vasunia is Professor of Greek at University College London and the author, most recently, of  – The Classics and Colonial India (Oxford, 2013).

Story First Published: February 11, 2015 00:27 IST

courtesy : http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/how-gandhi-used-socrates-738600