Gandhiji's view on "Ahinsa"

(From the book, "Mahatma-Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi" by D.G.Tendulkar, Vol.2, page 421-423.)

"Some days back a calf having been maimed lay in agony in the ashram. Whatever treatment and nursing was possible was given to it. The surgeon whose advice was sought in the matter declared the case to be past help and past hope. The suffering of the animal was so great that it could not even turn its side without excruciating pain. In these circumstances I felt that humanity demanded that the agony should be ended by ending life itself. The matter was placed before the whole ashram. At the discussion, a worthy neighbour vehemently opposed the idea of killing even to end pain. The ground of his opposition was that one has no right to take life which one cannot create. His argument seemed to me to be pointless here. It would have point, if the taking of life was actuated by self-interest. Finally in all humility but with the clearest of convictions I got in my presence a doctor kindly to administer the calf a quietus by means of a poison injection. The whole thing was over in less than two minutes.I knew that public opinion especially in Ahmedabad would not approve of my action and that it would read nothing but hinsa in it. But I know too that performance of one's duty should be independent of public opinion. I have all along held that one is bound to act according to what to one appears to be right, though it may appear wrong to others. And experience has shown that that is the only correct course. That is why the poet has sung:"The pathway of love is the ordeal of fire, the shriekers turn away from it." The pathway of ahinsa, that is, of love, one has often to tread all alone.

The question may legitimately be put to me: Would I apply to human beings the principle I have enunciated in connexion with the calf? Would I like it to be applied in my own case? My reply is 'Yes'; the same law holds good in both the cases. The law, 'as with one so with all', admits of no exceptions, or the killing of the calf was wrong and violent. In practice, however, we do not cut short the sufferings of our ailing dear ones by death because, as a rule, we have always means at our disposal to help them and they have the capacity to think and decide for themselves. But supposing that in the case of an ailing friend, I am unable to render any aid and recovery is out of the question and the patient is lying in an unconscious state in the throes of agony, then I would not see any hinsa in putting an end to his suffering by death. Just as a surgeon does not commit hinsa but practises the purest ahinsa when he wields his knife, one may find it necessary, under certain imperative circumstances, to go a step further and severe life from the body in the interest of the sufferer. It may be objected that whereas the surgeon performs his operation to save the life of the patient, in the other case we do just the reverse. But on a deeper analysis it will be found that the ultimate object sought to be served in both the cases is the same, namely, to relieve the suffering soul within from pain. In the one case you do it by severing the diseased portion from the body, in the other you do it by severing from the soul the body that has become an instrument of torture to it. In either case it is the relief of the soul from pain that is aimed at, the body without life within being incapable of feeling either pleasure or pain. Other circumstances can be imagined in which not to kill would spell hinsa, while killing would be ahinsa. Suppose, for instance, that I find my daughter, whose wish at the moment I have no means of ascertaining, is threatened with violation and there is no way by which I can save her, to put an end to her life and surrender myself to the fury of the incensed ruffian.

The trouble with our votaries of ahinsa is that they have made of ahinsa a blind fetish and put the greatest obstacle in the way of the spread of true ahinsa in our midst. The current-and, in my opinion, mistaken- view of ahinsa has drugged our conscience and rendered us insensible to a host of other and more insidious forms of hinsa like harsh words, harsh judgements, ill will, anger, spite and lust of cruelty; it has made us forget that there may be far more hinsa in the slow torture of men and animals, the starvation and exploitation to which they are subjected out of selfish greed, the wanton humiliation and oppression of the weak and the killing of their self-respect that we witness all around us today than in mere benevolent taking of life. Does any one doubt for a moment that it would have been far more humane to have summarily put to death those who in the infamous lane of Amritsar were made by their tortures to crawl on their bellies like worms? If anyone desires to retort by saying that these people themselves today feel otherwise, that they are none the worse for crawling, I shall have no hesitation in telling him that he does not know even the elements of ahinsa. There arise occasions in a man's life when it becomes his imperative duty to meet them by laying down his life; not to appreciate this fundamental fact of man's estate is to betray an ignorance of the foundation of ahinsa. For instance, a votary of truth would pray to God to give him death to save him from a life of falsehood, similarly a votary of ahinsa would on bent knees implore his enemy to put him to death rather than humiliate him or make him do things unbecoming the dignity of a human being. As the poet has sung:' The way of the Lord is meant for heroes, not for cowards.' It is the fundamental misconception about the nature and the scope of ahinsa, this confusion about the relative values, that is responsible for our mistaking mere non-killing for ahinsa and for the fearful amount of hinsa that goes on in the name of ahinsa in our country."