Villages and Congress / Voluntary Workers |
"I
realize the truth of these words everywhere here in Bengal. It is only
recently that we thought of going into the villages. At first, we wanted
things from the village people. It is only now that we are going to the
villages in order to give the people something. How can we expect to win
their confidence in such a short time? It often happens that a father takes
years to win his son's confidence. We have to win back our honoured place
among the village people, and will get nothing through impatience. Some
persons serve their own interests under the guise of service. What other
means do the village people have, except experience to distinguish between
such persons and genuine workers? Public workers, therefore, must cultivate
patience, forbearance, selflessness and such other virtues. The masses can
have no other knowledge but experience to guide them."
(Navajivan,
28-6-1925; 27:310.)
"One
quality is essential in such a worker and that is purity of character. If he
is a slave of his eleven senses he will be able to do no work. These eleven
senses are the five of perception, the five of action and the mind. If the
mind is pure, then the ten senses automatically remain pure. If the mind is
impure, then everything else will be impure. The senses of action are the
arms, the legs, the mouth, and two private organs. The senses of knowledge
are the skin, the sense of touch, the palate, the ear for hearing, the nose
for smelling and the eyes for sight. Anyone who cannot control these should
humbly refuse to become a volunteer. If he has become one and then later on
finds that he is unable to control his senses, he should humbly resign. This
is the right way if we want work to be done.
"Some
might say that this programme cannot be completed in a hundred years and we
want swaraj just now. This objection has no force. We shall not have an
abundance of workers when we get swaraj. Those who are workers now will run
the country under swaraj. It is true that those who run the administration
at present will be there when its control is handed over to the people. If,
however, the Congress does not have the type of volunteers that I have
suggested, then we shall lose control of the administration or it will
become corrupt and there will be anarchy in the country. There is no reason
to suppose that those who are hated now will become godlike overnight as
soon as the control of the administration changes hands. Hence, as we sow
now, so shall we reap. If we get sincere workers, the programme that I have
chalked out can begin today. Let us first have seventy thousand volunteers
and map out the country into blocks of ten miles each and then we shall see
what work to take up. This is not the right way to start work. If we
approach the task thus, we shall succeed in doing nothing."
(Navajivan,
7-6-1931; 46:338.)
"Although schemes for industrialization of the country might be put forth,
the goal that the Congress has set before it today is not industrialization
of the country. Its goal is, according to a resolution passed by the
National Congress at Bombay, revival of village industries. You cannot have
mass awakening through any elaborate scheme of industrialization that you
may put before the kisans. It would not add a farthing to their
income. But the A.I.S.A. and A.I.V.I.A. will put lakhs into their pockets
within the course of a year. Whatever happens to the Working Committee or
the ministries, personally I do not sense any danger to the constructive
activities of the Congress.
(A.I.S.A. - All India Spinner's Association)
(A.I.V.I.A. - All India Village Industries Association)
(Harijan,
18-2-1939; 68:371.)
"...
I am in no hurry to precipitate civil disobedience. My prescription to
Congressmen, for the time being, is to consolidate the organization by
purging it of all weaknesses. I swear by the old constructive programme of
communal unity, removal of untouchability and the charkha. It is quite clear
that non-violence is impossible without the first two. If India's villages
are to live and prosper, the charkha must become universal. Rural
civilization is impossible without the charkha and all it implies, i.e.,
revival of village crafts. Thus the charkha is the symbol par excellence
of non-violence. And it can occupy the whole of the time of all
Congressmen. If it makes no appeal to them, either they have no non-violence
in them or I do not know the A.B.C. of non-violence. If my love of the
charkha is a weakness in me, it is so radical as to make me unfit as a
general. The wheel is bound up with my scheme of swaraj, indeed with life
itself. All India should know my credentials on the eve of what can become
the last and decisive battle for swaraj."
(Harijan,
4-11-1939; 70:316.)
"You
will have economic equality in the country only along the road I have
pointed out. Perhaps you will not understand this today; but note my words
and remember them when I am dead and you will say that what this old man of
seventy-five said was true. This is not a prophecy I am making; I am saying
this on the basis of my lifelong experience. A time will surely come when
nobody will listen to your long speeches; nobody will even attend your
meetings, for preaching sermons to the people without following those
principles in your own lives does not work long in society. The people will
ask you for an account of your own work, will ask you what you yourselves
are doing, before they listen to you."
(Talk
with socialists, 27-5-1947; 88:18.)
"This
is my analysis of the situation. There should be rapport between the
constructive workers and the institution. We must first purify ourselves.
The Congress has always had the constructive programme. Now it has the
power. Why is it then that our work is not progressing? It may be th£t we
have no heart. Because if we were endowed with a heart \ve would have been
sensitive to the pain of others. Moreover, a person may be in sympathy with
one in distress and still may not be of any help to him. But our minds have
not opened. Many eminent people who are in politics have had this
experience. I have had a hand in the formation of all these various
institutions, and I can say that things are in such a state because our
hearts are not pure. A current was generated. The people caught on to th£
idea that that was the way to overcome the British. Villagers toe) flocked
to us in ever larger numbers. It gladdened us that there was such awakening
in the country. But in the forefront were intellectuals. And the result was
that the freedom that came was not true freedom. The fight being over, our
interest in the constructive programme waned. Constructive work is not a
strategy or a technique of fighting. Constructive work connotes a way of
life. It can be carried on only by men who have adopted it by the heart as
well as by the intellect. . .
"Today politics has become corrupt. Anybody who goes into politics gets
contaminated. Let us keep out of it altogether. Our influence will grow
thereby. The greater our inner purity, the greater shall be our hold on the
people, without any effort on our part."
(Mahatma Gandhi - The Last Phase,
Vol. II, PP- 661-66; 90:216-17.)
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