Gandhi's Pilgrimage of Faith: From Darkness to Light

11. From Death to Immortality

From Death to Immortality We now approach the grand finale of Gandhi’s faith journey, the death of his ego self as well as his physical death by assassination—his ultimate selfsacrifice for nonviolence and the brotherhood of mankind. The world admires Gandhi as a martyr for peace, whose death was the very affirmation of his life and faith in the ultimate triumph of Truth. Of more interest than Gandhi’s martyrdom, however, are the inroads and alleyways to his martyrdom—his inner struggles and the radical choices he had to make to be true to his larger-than-life vision of Truth. While battling with the British for India’s freedom, Gandhi battled with himself to get rid of all his impurities. In the midst of World War II, the Hindu–Muslim violence, and escalating Muslim demand for a separate state of Pakistan, Gandhi conducted his last most rigorous spiritual experiments in brahmacharya; he also fasted frequently—twice unto death, seeking his own radical remedies to cure the spiritually bankrupt outer world. Now is Gandhi’s transition from Stage 5 Conjunctive Faith to the final, more radical Stage 6 Universalizing Faith. This last stage of Gandhi’s life is not only marked by his imperviousness to his personal comfort, health, and happiness but also by his solemn resolve to sacrifice his life at the altar of Truth, nonviolence, and peace. Previously, Gandhi has demonstrated radical traits and tendencies in his statements (at Benares), in his actions (accepting Untouchables in his Ahmedabad Ashram), and in his decisions (sudden withdrawal of the Non-cooperation Movement in 1921). From now on, however, these traits magnify into extreme forms and take on a martyrlike spirit of “do or die” forTruth and nonviolence in the larger interests of all. 11 197 To continue from the last chapter, because of his astounding success in leading the salt satyagraha, Gandhi’s name spread across the world as a moral and political genius. As far as India was concerned, Gandhi had accomplished two major tasks by this satyagraha. First, he set the Indians free from their fear of the British. Second, he brought the British down from their high citadels of power to confer with Indians on equal terms about the future of India. Dharasana Salt Raid Before Gandhi was imprisoned from the salt satyagraha, he had contemplated another salt raid in Dharasana (150 miles north of Bombay). In spite of his absence, his fellow satyagrahis carried out his plans under the leadership of a fiery female patriot and poet named Mrs. Sarojini Naidu.1 Mrs. Naidu successfully led twenty-five hundred satyagrahis, dressed in the Gandhian-style, homespun, coarse cotton dhotis and triangular white caps, to raid the government-controlled salt works at Dharasana. In the spirit of her mentor, Mrs. Naidu held a huge prayer meeting before leading the march and exhorted them: “Gandhi’s body is in jail, but his soul is with you. India’s prestige is in your hands. You must not use any violence under any circumstances. You will be beaten but you must not resist; you must not even raise a hand to ward off blows” (Homer 1956, 248). True to her command, the satyagrahis demonstrated exemplary self-restraint and nonviolent courage under fire; Web Miller of the United Press provided a moving eyewitness account of the British brutality and Indian forbearance , which shamed the British and enhanced Indians’ prestige around the world. Jails were overflowing with more than one hundred thousand Indian nationalists, including the elderly Motilal Nehru, his son Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Mrs. Naidu, Khansaheb Abdul Gaffar Khan or the “Frontier Gandhi,” 2 and many other Congress leaders. The soul of India was astir, England was embarrassed, and the whole world was watching. The crisis in India and the world uproar put extraordinary pressure on the newly elected Labor team of the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and the Viceroy of India Lord Irwin; both MacDonald and Irwin thought, “Gandhi in jail was as much a nuisance as Gandhi on the march or at the beach or in the ashram” (Fischer 1950, 276). Therefore, in keeping with MacDonald’s conciliatory gesture, Irwin released Gandhi and other leaders from jail. 198 Gandhi’s Pilgrimage of Faith The Gandhi-Irwin Pact or the Delhi Pact In appreciation, Gandhi wrote a letter to Irwin asking to meet with him not so much as “the Viceroy of India” but...