Civil Rights, Gandhi and the Religion of Tolerance

It is a rare household that's ignorant of the name “Gandhi.”  Equally rare, however, are those with knowledge of his life beyond trendy cliché. His life tells a complex story; it is, after all, a human story, riddled with virtue and vice.  One of the virtues Gandhi developed over his life—one which he prized and others still esteem him for—was tolerance.  He was tolerant of ignorance, political differences, and even violence committed against himself.  But the tolerance of M. K. Gandhi was limited, especially regarding many forms of religion and ethics.

Many scholars of South and Southeast Asian Studies have regarded Gandhi’s religion as the source of his tolerance. He encountered many religious traditions early in his traveling life and public career, and the Hindu culture that raised him increased his understanding of religious diversity. Although he was brought up in a Hindu household with a devout mother, Gandhi kept himself unattached to any particular sect, and he claimed that his “inner voice,” something like Socrates' daimon, guided the beliefs to which he did adhere (Gandhi, 2008). This inner voice was his chosen spiritual guru for his lifelong quest toward a religion of tolerance, non-violence and reason.

This religion, however, did not simply appear to Gandhi from nothing. He drew from a wide array of religious wells, especially the popular Hindu scriptures--the Bhagavad-Gītā (hereafter, Gītā) and the Rāmayāna--and Jesus’ "Sermon on the Mount." In the Gītā, which he regarded as “the book par excellence for the knowledge of Truth”*1 (Gandhi, 2008: 59), Gandhi found encouragement for his belief in the universality of religions. Consider this well-known line from the Gītā (here, Krishna is speaking): “In the way people offer themselves to me, in just that way I offer my love to them reciprocally. Human beings follow my path universally” (Schweig, 2007: 72).  Basically, no matter what you worship, you are actually worshiping Krishna, the deity of the Gītā.

Concerning the Rāmayāna, Gandhi said this: “The Rāmayāna of Tulsidas was the greatest book in all devotional literature.”  At an early age he began repeating the "Rāmanāma" (a mantra to praise the name of Rāma) to quell his fear of ghosts and spirits (Gandhi, 2008: 29). The god Rāma was Gandhi’s iṣṭadevāta (chosen deity), to whom his devotion grew over time, ending with the Rāmanāma on his lips when Nathuram Godsi assassinated him in 1948. Concerning the Sermon on the Mount, from this short section of the New Testament (Matthew 5-7), especially as Leo Tolstoy interpreted it in The Kingdom of God is Within You (one of Gandhi’s favorites), Gandhi garnered Christian support for his tolerant "turn the other cheek" philosophy (Parel, 2009: xlviii).

It is important to note that when it came to religious texts Gandhi’s interpretation was deductive—that is, based upon his own pre-formed feelings of right and reason: “I decline to be bound by any interpretation, however learned it may be, if it is repugnant to reason or moral sense” (Gandhi, 1946: 10). And again in 1957, “True morality consists, not in following the beaten track, but in finding out the true path for ourselves and in fearlessly following it” (Narayan, 1969: 264). In short, whenever Gandhi read a religious text he went in looking to support his existing morals, and he put into practice only those teachings that seemed reasonable to him, and only if his inner voice confirmed them. This method greatly influenced the limits of his tolerance, because he reduced the acceptable religions of all people to those teachings and actions which he saw as moral and reasonable.  This may not seem like a problem.  Indeed, don't we all consider our own morals as reasonable?

Tolerance and non-violence were the pillars of Gandhi’s universal religion.  Affirm all and do no harm.  Sound familiar?  This was possible for him because he assumed that all religions worshiped the same god, allowing practitioners of differing religions to tolerate and affirm one another.  But, problematically, this tolerance and affirmation was only possible for those who shared Gandhi's understanding.  He put it plainly in Hind Swaraj: “Is the God of the Mahomedan [Muslim] different from the God of the Hindu? Religions are different roads converging to the same point…Wherein is the cause for quarreling?” (Parel, 2009: 52). This allowed Gandhi to proceed with prayer meetings with a hope to involve followers of all religions.

He began his famous salt march with a summons to all religions, yet he opened with three Vaiṣṇava (a sect of Hinduism) devotional songs and an allusion to the Brahman (the transcendent spirit) of the Advaita Vedānta darśana (non-dualist Hindu philosophy): “The Self in us all is one and the same” (Dalton, 2000: 109).  Ironically, it was this "universal" tolerance that stopped him from achieving his goal of universal involvement. The Muslims—the only other major religious group in India at that time—nearly always refused to join the prayers (Dalton, 2000: 121).  This was due to the fact that the Hindu songs and the allusion to Hindu gods were insulting to any orthodox Muslim, who believe that Allah is the only God.  Gandhi's inclusivity was precisely his exclusivity.

Allah does not share praise.

Thus, in claiming that all religions were different forms worshipping the same God, Gandhi was rejecting primary teachings of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and he did so with no small following of supporters, many of whom were ignorant of the teachings that were being rejected. Orthodox Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claim to be worshiping very different gods than those of the Hindus.  If this is kept in mind, Gandhi’s claim, “All prayer, in whatever language or from whatever religion it was, was prayer addressed to one and the same God …” (Narayan, 1969: 265), is quite intolerant in that it excludes all major religious traditions. This claim, upon which Gandhi based his tolerance of religion, was seen by many as intolerant, insulting and altogether misleading.

Furthermore, Gandhi did not merely hold his own private religious views and tolerantly accept those of others.  No.  He spoke out forcefully about the superiority of his own "universal" religious views. For, let us not forget the cause of his failure to bind together the Hindus and Muslims at his prayer meetings: “The first part [of the prayer meetings] served to set an example of tolerance: verses from the Koran and the Bible were read aloud along with those from Hindu texts, unless, that is, a member of the audience objected. In that case, Gandhi would omit the prayers, and, with consummate skill, take as his text for the ‘post-prayer message’ the very example of intolerance that the objector had shown …” (Dalton, 2000; 163). Gandhi would make a public spectacle out of the faithful objector from another faith. He felt that Christianity and Islam and Hinduism ought to be practiced together, and that people ought to worship side by side with a sort of blended religion. But what about Islam’s foundational "Prayer of Faith" (Arabic, Shahada): La ilaha illa Allah wa-Muhammad rasul Allah (“There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah”), or the much-heralded words of Jesus Christ, “ἐγὼ εἰμὶ ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζώη· οὐδεὶς ἒρχεται πρὸς τὸν πατέρα εἰ μὴ δι’ ἐμοῦ” (“I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me”)? Both of these statements are pillars for a large percentage of the adherents to the respective traditions.  Gandhi was not merely asking for tolerance.  He was asking for a whole new religion.

Gandhi saw it as his duty to purify his own spirit as well as the spirits of the rest of mankind, and therefore a tolerance that simply understood and "let live" the religions of others would not be enough. That is, Gandhi thought that his own particular interpretation of the religions of others, as well as his zeal to spread the resulting religion of tolerance, was assisting mankind by cleansing them of their religious misinterpretation. For, in Gandhi’s eyes, those who followed “immoral” or “unreasonable” religions needed to be purified.  They needed him. Gandhi saw himself as the attendant of an ailing nation and he would not leave her side.

Now, granted, many Christians see themselves as having a similar goal--to save humanity from sin and death through the person of Jesus.  The difference is that Christians do not claim to be "tolerating" all religions.  In fact, one primary command of Jesus tells his followers to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  While Christianity is accepting of all, it does not leave those whom it accepts as they are.  You cannot be a Muslim and a Christian.  And though he will act with selfless love toward him, a Christian will not be content with his Muslim friend remaining a Muslim.

He spoke in the same strain as Swami Vivekananda did in his famous speech at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893: “We [Hindus] believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true” (Vivekananda, Welcome Address, 1893). Within this strain of thought rests a hint of the self-contradiction of absolute relativism.  That is, what if a primary truth within Islam or Christianity calls Hinduism a demonic lie? Would Vivekananda and Gandhi accept that truth as true?  And if they did, wouldn't that mean they would necessarily believe their own tradition to be a demonic lie?

Gandhi did accomplish some amazing feats of national solidarity for India and South Africa.  His non-violent agenda was remarkably successful and inspiring.  He brought the Indian people together like none imagined possible. But he rejected the Muslims in many of his speeches, and his naïve assumptions of the sameness of all religions crippled his impact in both politics and religion.  Just a few months before his assassination in January of 1948 Pakistan split off from India, primarily because the Muslims and Hindus could not get along.  Due to this split, Gandhi considered his life a failure.

So what does this have to do with us today? There is a wildly popular religion of tolerance in this country at the moment. But this religion is more than one of tolerance. It is one that says in order to love someone you must agree with them. It is one that says it is hateful to have views which do not affirm the views of others. Problematically, though, like Gandi’s religion of tolerance, this one of affirmation is circular. It says, “If you disagree with anyone’s lifestyle you are condescending and absurd.” But does that include the speaker herself? Isn't she condescending and absurd for disagreeing with the lifestyle of anyone who disagrees with her? Does this automatically mean that if I disagree with her lifestyle that I’m condescending and absurd?  Can I love the one I disagree with?  Jesus didn't affirm the lifestyle of the woman caught in adultery, nor did he affirm the lifestyle of the woman at the well.  But he loved them radically and called them to wholeness and joy.


Thoughts?

Note: As a Christian I'm not called to be tolerant.  I'm called to much more than that.  I'm called to love my enemies and pray for those who call me names and hate me.  Jesus didn't tolerate people.  He died for them so that they might be free to live as one with the Artist of Beauty and Grace and Justice and Love--the one we call God.  I might not agree with you, but I will love you with the power of the living God.

In the following Facebook comment, the author betrays the results of a sort of "Gandhian tolerance."  She is attacking the lifestyle of people who disagree with lifestyles.  Seems like she's doing the very thing she says she doesn't like.

1. In Gandhi’s writings, “Truth” was presented as synonymous with God, which, although he was vague and fluid with his definitions of god, resembled the advaita Hindu concept of Brahman.

Bibliography
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Dalton, Dennis. (2000) Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power In Action. New York: Columbia University Press.

Erikson, Erik H. (1969) Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Fischer, Louis. (1950) The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. (2008) Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. USA: BN Publishing.

————. (1946) The Gospel of Selfless Action: or The Gita according to Gandhi. Trans. Desai, Mahadev.

Narayan, Shriman, ed. (1969) The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 6. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Trust.

Parel, Anthony J., ed. (2009) ‘Hind Swaraj’ and Other Writings. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Schweig, Graham M. (2007) Bhagavad Gita. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.