Gandhi-the Inescapable

This weekend people in many countries celebrate the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi who was born October 2, 1869. He was never a hero of mine. I was a teenager when my mother suggested him as a potential role model to me. I laughed. "The world doesn't need another stereotypical Indian joining his hands in a namaste and saying, `together let us walk the path of peace,"' I said. "Nah, I want to be cool like Jimmi Hendrix or Jean Paul Sartre." "You don't know what you're talking about," said my mother. "Even God probably wishes he were Gandhi."

The statement was not far-fetched, judging from the list of Gandhi's followers and admirers. Albert Einstein said about him, "generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." "If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable," said Rev. Martin Luther King, who had at first rejected Gandhi as impractical but later on went on to be the second Gandhi of this century. Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Cesar Chavez, Alec Walesa, Shimon Perez, Stanley Jones the Christian missionary, E. F. Schumacher the economist, many of the leaders of the US peace movement and women's movement, not to mention one fifth of the human race who owe their freedom to Gandhi--all looking up in awe at a shy little brown man who never held a public office or received any great honors. No wonder he was never my hero. I always wanted to get the Nobel Prize, until Ronald Reagan got it, of course.

What could I tell you about Gandhi that all those books, movies, and websites about him do not? Maybe just this: we call people who don't believe in God atheists, but we have no name for people who don't believe in Satan. I suggest we call them Gandhians. Gandhi didn't believe in the existence of Satan, and by Satan, I mean, pure evil. Those who believe in the existence of pure evil (and many of them come from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition) tend to see evil in people too quickly. Any one who strongly disagrees with them gets cast into the role of Satan and becomes the target of hate and violence. Thus, in fundamentalist Islamic circles the US becomes the great Satan, and America responds by creating its own Satans in Saddam Hussein, Mumar KhadafB, and more recently, Ossama Bin Laden. This justifies our bombing dirt-poor villagers in Sudan and Afghanistan with million-dollar cruise missiles. Violence begets violence. Gandhi would even see a connection between the wars we wage abroad and our school shootings and rising incidents of domestic violence. We cannot compartmentalize violence. These chickens have a way of coming home to roost.

Gandhi's approach is different. He told his fellow-Indians--and Africans when he was in South Africa--that the white Europeans who'd sucked their life blood for three centuries and still had the gall to consider themselves superior to people of color were bad but not evil. He would not hate them but "match his capacity to suffer against ... [their] capacity to inflict suffering... his soul force against [their] physical force." His goal was not the defeat of his opponents but the conquest of their hearts through his stubborn belief in their humanity. This, by the way, is the high moral ground that Rev. King gained for the American Civil Rights movement through Gandhian practices. White people became not the devils that they were to Malcolm X, but fellow-marchers on the way to the mountain top. Let's face it, there are no Satans, not Ossama Bin Laden, not your ex, no, not even the crazy driver in front of you on the highway. Only when we steadfastly believe in the inherent goodness of humanity can we say as Gandhi did, "non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed."

Come to think of it, he should have been my hero. Stereotype or no stereotype, there's no greater message I could bring to you than to say, "Together let us walk the path of peace. Namaste."

(Oct. 4, 1998)