From Mohandas to Bapu and Kasturbai to Ba: Some Reflections on Ashram Life |
- Preeti Singh*AbstractA sincere peep into past uncovers that two very significant journeys which contributed to making of modern India started almost at the same time –‘ from Mohandas to Bapu’ and ‘ from Kasturibai to Ba’. While the former journey was highly visible and at the front, the latter was at the background constantly supporting the former, remaining largely invisible. These two journeys were integrally associated with each other, as one helped the other not by the way of total surrender but through mutual criticism, learning and understanding.. THE INSTITUTION OF Ashram was evolved by Gandhi, perhaps as the tool to convert the principles of truth and non-violence into action. Gandhi’s fight whether in South Africa or in India was not merely political — limited to win certain political rights — but rather was a crusade to establish an alternative way of life where self-control and all encompassing universal love shall be the guiding principle. The India, Gandhi was dreaming about was not only a geographical territory free from British rule rather was ‘a self ruled and a self restrained nation’ what he calls Swaraj.1 The nation Gandhi was dreaming about could not be built through mere political movements or philosophical preachings. In fact, a rigorous training of mind, body and soul was needed to make this dream of Swaraj came true and the Ashram was perhaps a ‘training academy’ for the soldiers of Swaraj. One can question how Ashram which is a hierarchical form of organization where the Guru, the leader has the decisive authority can be a model of Swaraj? How hierarchy and principles of equality and liberty can coexist? There is some weight in these questions, but when we look at the Gandhian Ashram, we find that the leadership was perhaps not authoritarian because most of the times decisions were taken after a good amount of discussion among the members of Ashram and so were the result of collective effort and reasoning. Perhaps keeping this uniqueness of the Gandhian Ashram, Rudolph and Rudolph see the Ashram as a democratic public sphere and argue that ‘the ashram was a voluntary, not a coercive organization; discipline was helped by the fact that its denizens had self-selected themselves into the ashram and its ethos of self-sacrifice and collective solidarity for a common good.’2 What is significant to note is that the training in Swaraj was consisted not only of intellectual preaching but was much wider aiming at shaping the action, thought and speech of the trainee through the examples set by the trainer. Since his early years of Satyagraha, Gandhi perhaps knew that what he is proposing is though in congruence with the real nature of human being (which is good), yet in the age of growing materialism is an attempt to set the tone against the wind; so what is needed is a full fledged training in self-discipline. Perhaps keeping this goal in mind, Gandhi founded Phoenix Settlement in 1904 as an immediate result of the deep impact of Ruskin’s ‘Unto This Last’ on him, then Tolstoy Farm in 1910 in South Africa. He continued this project of training the mind, body and soul of the Satyagrahis through founding Ashram even after his arrival in India. However, foundation of Ashram free from the barriers of caste, class and religion was highly challenging in the hierarchical caste based Indian society. Despite, knowing the challenges, Gandhi with the help of his followers founded Satyagrah Ashram in 1915 at Ahmadabad which later on shifted to Sabarmati due to sudden outbreak of plague.3 Few years later in 1933 Segaon, a small untouchables’ village, a few miles away from Wardha was chosen to lay the foundation of Sevagram. However, the foundation of Sevagram was not planned like his previous Ashrams. But perhaps the institution of Ashram had become such an integral part of his personality that wherever he went, formally or informally an Ashram came into existence. This time Gandhi’s lonely hut gradually became Ashram.4 ‘By that fall of 1937, the Mahatma’s would be hermitage looked like a small village in itself. So much so that Mohandas who still found it hard to believe he had unwittingly started another Ashram.’5 Through setting-up Ashrams both in South Africa and India, Gandhi perhaps wanted to ‘transform the world by transforming the micro-context of everyday life.’6 The Ashram transgressed the dichotomy between public and private. ‘The Ashram was and was not public, a place focused on the political vocation, even while engaging all the rounds of life.’7 The inmates of the Ashram were expected to strictly follow self disciplinary rules in every aspect of their lives, so that they can be fearless soldiers of non-violence, who can go through the ordeals of suffering for truth with love for the opponents. Actually, Gandhi’s main motive behind insistence on self- discipline was preparation for that stage where external authority would not be needed at all for maintaining discipline. It must be understood that Gandhi’s Ashram was actually a model of ‘India of his dreams’ and so a ‘nation in making’. The way of life followed by the ashramites and incidences of Ashram were conveyed to the people regularly through the newspapers and writings of Gandhi. Perhaps, one of the purposes was to convey to his countrymen that the way of life he is advocating was not utopian, rather practically proven. Through the example of Ashram he was giving concrete form to India of his dreams. Ashram was a space ‘signifying the asceticism of the religions seeker, an abjuring of private self-indulgence in favour of the public interest, identification with the least and a strike at the hierarchical and exclusivist feature of Indian culture. These forms of simplicity were the visible weapon against social injustice… As volunteers among the poor, the ashram-dwellers saw enactment of simplicity both as a moral obligation and as a strategy for transforming the society.’8 Explaining his idea of Swaraj in his book India of My Dreams, Gandhi perhaps had made it clear that the nation he is dreaming about would be actually an extended form of the Ashram. ‘The Swaraj of my… our … dream recognizes no race or religious distinctions. Nor is it to be the monopoly of the lettered persons nor yet of moneyed men. Swaraj is to be for all… it is as much for the prince as for the peasant, as much for the rich landowner as for the landless tiller of the soil, as much for Parsees and Christians as for the Jains, Jews and Sikhs irrespective of any distinction of caste or creed or status in life.’9 The Ashram as the experimented model of multi-religiosity, cross- caste mingling, and multiculturality was actually a preparation for building a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, non-violent, truthful and peaceful Indian nation. It can be argued that Gandhi’s efforts in the direction of nation- building cannot be and should not be understood without understanding Ashram which was ‘evolved by [Gandhi] as a tool of ‘transformation of inner selves, of the will and intent of human actors, that is the path of social change.’10 What is significant to note is that if Gandhi’s concept of nation-building cannot be understood without referring to the Ashram, the Ashram cannot be understood without referring to the unique role of Kasturba in creating this ‘decolonized public space’ in the era of colonization. If the Ashram was the brainchild of Gandhi, it reached the stage of excellence with the enormous sacrifices, unconditional maternal affection and critical guardianship of Kasturba. IIA peep into the Ashram life unveils the fact that Gandhi’s role in the Ashram was of guiding leadership while Kasturba was there as the link between the leader and ashramites. In the absence of Gandhi in the Ashram during his political tours and imprisonment, which were very frequent, it was Kasturba who, informally, used to take the whole responsibility of the Ashram. In Phoenix Settlement in 1908, when Gandhi was arrested, Kasturba took the charge of Phoenix Settlement like a ‘matriarch’ and tried her level best to run it smoothly on Gandhian lines. Arun Gandhi sees this change in her role from Gandhi’s wife to the care taker or manager of the Ashram as a turning point in Kasturba’s life. He writes: It was at Phoenix Settlement, working with the diverse, multiracial group of residents of that original Gandhian Ashram that she first began to exert the gentle but unquestioned authority which later became so familiar to all who knew her. I have often contemplated how difficult it must have been initially, for her to establish this enlarged role for herself. All of the men and a number of the women at Phoenix were more knowledgeable, more educated than she; she was unable to converse in their language with several of them. Nevertheless, Kasturba made her wishes understood and she could be firmly persuasive. She won the respect, cooperation and affection of her colleagues – just as she would in future Ashrams not because of her position as Mohandas’ wife, nor because of their shared dedication to his cause, but because of her unassuming natural dignity, her unshakeable belief in herself.11 An incidence of Phoenix Settlement is indicative of how quickly Kasturba managed with her changed role and gave utmost priority to her responsibility towards the Phoenix Settlement. After Gandhi’s release from jail in 1908, she got the news that Gandhi was assaulted near his office in Johannesburg, she got panic but refusing the suggestion that she should go to visit Gandhi she gave ‘priority to Phoenix and replied firmly that ‘Phoenix is short of money as it is. I cannot spend what little we have for my selfish needs. There is really no need. He has many friends there to take good care of him.’12 One point becomes quite clear from the above account that if she could mange things so courageously and efficiently in a foreign land among those people who were belonging to different cultural background and that also on her, perhaps, the first encounter with such a big public responsibility, how easy it would have been for her to shoulder the responsibilities of Ashram situated in her own homeland. In Satyagraha Ashram and Sevagram, Kasturba served in different capacities: as the informal manager of the Ashram; as the representative of Ashramites before Gandhi and as the affectionate trainer of the inmates of Ashram. Referring to her unique managerial capability Arun Gandhi writes that ‘while Ba’s attitude was never dictatorial, she was a demanding taskmaster. In South Africa and later in India, I have heard veteran residents of Gandhian Ashrams recount stories of how my grandfather always noticed minute details others might miss or ignore, but they all invariably agreed that my grandmother was even sharper. She always saw what needed to be done. Words like ‘forget’ or ‘overlook’ were just not part of her working vocabulary – not for herself, not for those around her. My grandparents long time friends liked to recall how meticulous Bapu was in his daily financial accounting, but they always pointed out that Ba was equally as painstaking.’13 Similarly, like the true representative of the Ashramites, whenever Kasturba found that Gandhi – the perfectionist – the idealist – under his belief that all human beings have immense potential to attain the highest level of ‘indriyanigrahata’ with the tool of self-restraint is imposing extreme rules on Ashramites , she came with her ‘ethics of care’ for their rescue. Here one very interesting incidence related to Satyagraha Ashram needs mention. In Satyagraha Ashram Gandhi carried on several experiments in food. It was the rule that all should have food from the community kitchen, the vegetables being supplied from the Ashram garden. Once there was a large supply of pumpkins. Like all other vegetables pumpkin was also served boiled and saltless (though whoever wanted could have salt). Maniben, Durgaben and few other inmates found it difficult to digest boiled pumpkin. But none had the courage to complain against the rule made by Gandhi. Somehow, this issue reached Kasturba and then as the voice of Ashramites she spoke to Gandhi regarding the flaws of his rule of boiled pumpkin. She argued as the diet expert: ‘The pumpkin, in order to be digestible, has to be seasoned with some spices. It is never taken boiled. That is why Durgaben and the others have been feeling sick.’ Gandhi listened to her argument and slightly agreed to relax the rule and asked for names of those inmates who would not like to have boiled pumpkin, so that they can be exempted from the diet of boiled pumpkin. But again Kasturba, the representative of inmates, came forward and declared: “we simply refuse to give our names; we womenfolk shall decide the matter for ourselves.”14 There are ample such incidences of mild confrontation of Kasturba with Gandhi, where the former was there as the shield for the Ashramaites. But it must be clear that such kind of opposition was not at the level of basic principles rather only at the level of application of the principles. However, acceptance of the ideas of Gandhi from the side of Kasturba was never uncritical but once she got convinced with the idea, she became the most firm follower and then the trainer who trained the trainees in those ideas through informal and formal methods. To illustrate, the Khadi vow of Gandhi, which made it compulsory for all inmates to wear only Khadi was also gone through critical review of Kasturba. Gandhi expressed his difficulty in convincing Kasturba for Khadi: It took a lot of coaxing on my part to persuade Ba to take to socks and boots in South Africa, and a little less of coaxing when years afterwards, I tried to dissuade her from using them. But it appears, I shall have to do a lot more of cajoling this time to persuade Ba to take to the Khadi saari.15 But after initial mild opposition to Khadi , Kasturba not only accepted Khadi but also observed the vrata of khadi unconditionally till her death. Once she got an injury in her toe and was suggested by an inmate to use fine mill cloth for bandage, Kasturba replied firmly that ‘no, I will use only the Khadi bandage and even if it is extremely rough, it will not hurt me.’16 Thus, the silent opponent of Khadi became the firm practitioner of Khadi and later on became the trainer who explained the importance of Khadi to the inmates and observed that vrata of Khadi should be strictly followed in the Ashram. Here again, one incidence of Ashram needs mention. In the Ashram, use of mill cotton was not allowed and Khadi cloth was to be used for all purposes. Once when Meeraben was sick, Manuben without understanding the gravity of the matter, used a piece of mill cotton for straining milk. In between Kasturba came and saw that in the Ashram, Manuben is using mill cotton. She objected to it and very affectionately explained to Manuben the vrata of Khadi: How can we use mill cloth? If any of our work can be completed only by using mill cloth better we stop that work but cannot compromise with our vow of Khadi. You might have thought that you are using it for only straining milk and there is nothing wrong in that because actual objection is in wearing Khadi. But you are wrong because today you strained milk with mill cloth tomorrow you may feel that it is so soft and there is nothing wrong in wearing it. Thus the small act of today would actually weaken your conviction. We have taken the vow of Swadeshi and the vow should be observed completely and minutely only then the vow is genuine.” Manuben writes that after this motherly lecture, Kasturba instructed her to again strain the milk using Khadi cloth and in this way taught her ‘how to observe a vow?17 It is really very interesting that Kasturba the so-called ‘illiterate’ wife of Mohandas is lecturing on the philosophy of Khadi, actually whom we see here is not ‘wife of Gandhi’ but a committed solider of Swadeshi who has deeply imbibed the principle of Swadeshi. IIIIn this journey of Kasturbai from wife of Mohandas, daughter-in- law of Gandhis and mother of Harilal, Manilal, Devadas and Ramdas to Ba of Ashram, Gandhi was her instructor/trainer and facilitator who helped her in broadening the horizon of her life from Gandhian household to the Ashram. But this transformation was gradual and self-chosen, not a result of imposition of the will of the trainer. In Satyagraha Ashram, once Kasturba reached late in Gandhi’s room as she was preparing food for Ramdas, her son, who had to go on a journey. When Gandhi asked her the reason for being late, she told him the reason. Gandhi suggested her that she should not overwork herself as she is already taking care of a number of Ashram responsibilities. He said that everyday one or the other member of the Ashram will go on journey, how can she cater to the special needs of all of them. Then ‘the Mahatma’ got a very innocent and truthful reply from the mother of Ramdas: “It will not be possible for me to cater to everyone’s special requirements. But you are no doubt a Mahatma and all here are like your sons to you. However, I am not yet a Mahatma. This does not mean that I love the others any less. But truth to tell is that they are not like Ramdas to me. So can I not occasionally prepare some special food for him? You are indeed very hard on me, even in such small matters.”18 Then ‘Mahatma’ tried to explain to her that since they have chosen Ashram life, where all inmates love them as their parents, they cannot limit their love, affection and care to few of them and finally told her that she should always be aware of the fact that she has chosen to be a part of a big mission: ‘Remember, the whole world is watching us and is expecting great things from us.’19 Kasturba was listening to the whole lecture silently without saying anything. Actually, the case was not that she did not know that she had chosen a bigger goal than family, because when Gandhi asked her why are we in Satyagraha Ashram she replied without any doubt ‘so that we all brothers and sisters, may together serve our country.’20 Perhaps, the mother needed sometime to fully accept this change in her role from within and, therefore, said that she is not ‘yet a Mahatma’. Finally, this unique disciple of Mahatma, who herself used to decide when to learn and when not to learn, gradually reached to that level where she could transgress the boundary of mine and thine and fully became Ba of the Ashram. When she was reaching near death in Aga Khan Palace, one day she said to Dr. Gilder that ‘I shall very soon be on the funeral pyre’. Doctor tried to console her by saying that ‘why do you say like this? Today your sons, Ramdas and Davdas are coming to see you; would you not like to meet them?’ The Ba of all ashramites replied with firmness: ‘Why are you calling them, you all are like sons, so if I die, all of you would together cremate me.’21 The transformation in Kasturba has many aspects. Another most significant aspect is her journey from orthodox Hindu Kasturbai to an advocate of ‘Vasudhav Kutumbakam’. Initially, Kathiyawadi Gujrati, Hindu, Vashnavite Kasturbai found it difficult to match with and accept the egalitarian ideals of ‘the Mahatma’. She was socialized in Hindu customs and practices some of which were not in congruence with the ‘Mahatma’s’ philosophy of universal love for all being transgressing the human created boundaries of caste, religion and so on. Few silent fights between the two throw light on this difference of perspectives between the two. After the widely quoted and debated incidence of South Africa,22 Kasturba gradually tried to rise above the boundaries of caste and religion. But there is an old saying that childhood samsakars do not go so easily and this is applicable in ease of Kasturba also. Arun Gandhi rightly comments that in ‘South Africa, where the Indian community had been united in single purpose, it had been easy for her, as a good wife supporting her husband, to forget all differences of religion, region and caste. But back among her own people in India, it was almost impossible not to slip into the old ways of living – of knowing.’23 While laying down the rules in Satyagraha Ashram, Gandhi made it clear to his friends that ‘I should take the first opportunity of admitting an untouchable candidate to the Ashram if he was otherwise worthy.’24 His friends wrongly assumed it as the rare of the rarest possibility and argued ‘where is the untouchable who will satisfy your condition.’25 But few months later Gandhi found a worthy untouchable family and a new test of Ashramaites and Kasturba started. Dudabhai, his wife Daniben and their daughter Lakshmi came to the Ashram and expressed their firm will to follow Ashram rules. This episode of coming of an untouchable family in Ashram was widely opposed outside Ashram and quite surprisingly also within the Ashram. Gandhi perhaps thought that Kasturba had got rid of the ill of untouchability. But he was proved wrong because Kasturba and other women though not openly opposed or could not oppose entry of untouchable family in the Ashram but they ‘did not seem quite to relish the admission in the Ashram of the untouchable friends.’26 This incidence speaks of the fact that how deeply Kasturba was under influence of orthodox Hindu beliefs. But again gradually change occurred and she could free herself from the bondage of orthodox Hindu beliefs and could accept from within the teaching of universal love. A solid proof of this change is that finally Dudhabhai’s daughter Lakshmi became Kasturba’s daughter; her love for her adopted daughter was so pure that Sushila Nayer during her initial stay in the Satyagrah Ashram could not know that Lakshmi is not Kasturba’s own daughter but a Harijan girl.27 Not only this, the woman who was once under the mental bondage of caste taboos gradually became a strong preacher against untouchability. During her stay in Aga Khan Palace, whenever there was a discussion on this topic this disciple of the Mahatma used to remark: ‘After all, God has made us all. How can there be any high or low? It is wrong to entertain such feelings.’28 On the basis of the above account of Ashram life it can be argued that while journey of Gandhi from Mohan to Mahatma is widely discussed, debated and analyzed but at the same time one point somewhere got missed or not properly looked upon that when Gandhi was on his journey from Mohan to Mahatma another traveller was also on her journey, it was the journey of a Kathiyawadi, unlettered Kasturbai from wife of Mohan, mother of Mohandas’s son to Ba of Ashram. In this journey both the travellers opposed each other, learnt from each other and ultimately accepted each other and this all for a greater cause that was the nation which for both of them was nothing but extension of their family. IVFinally, it can be argued that if Gandhi was the ideologue, Kasturba was the exemplar. Gandhi’s ideas became Kasturba’s action and that not merely as a mark of wifely obedience rather as a self-chosen move. Arun Gandhi rightly remarks that ‘while Mohandas experimented with truth, Kasturba experienced it.’29 Gandhi’s ideas, once they appeared convincing to her, became life of Kasturba. To illustrate, Gandhi’s idea of simple living is perhaps most efficiently executed by Kasturba in her life. Gandhi once commented; ‘Even I, who have always been so keenly intent on observing uttermost simplicity, have twice over what Ba possesses.’30 Gandhi’s idea of simplicity was so deeply imbibed by Kasturba that she could not tolerate mention of luxury even in narratives. Remembering her days with Kasturba in Aga Khan Palace, Sushila Nayar writes: ‘In Aga Khan Palace, we used to recite two stanzas from the Tulsi Ramayan at the evening prayers… But with all her reverence for Ramayan, she had not lost her critical faculty… when we came to long accounts of the grandeur of king Dasaratha or Janaka’s court, and of the beauty and decorations of the place of Sita and Ram’s wedding, she would remark. ‘Tulsidas seems to have had plenty of leisure to have spent so much time on these accounts.’31 However, it is not always the case that Gandhi’s idea shaped Kasturba’s life. In few cases action of the exemplar shaped the idea of ideologue. To illustrate, it can be argued that Gandhi’s notion of ‘strishakti’ was a reflection of Kasturba who was a true embodiment of strishakti who cooperates but not compromises; accepts but not submits and opposes but not disrespects. Gandhi himself accepted Kasturba’s influence on him: “I learnt the lesson of non-violence from my wife when I tried to bend her to my will. Her determined resistance to my will on one hand, and her quiet submission to the suffering of all that, ultimately made me ashamed and cured me of my stupidity in thinking that I was born to rule over her; and in the end she became my teacher in non-violence.” This relation between the ideologue and exemplar has one more very significant dimension. Some of the ideas which originated in Gandhi’s mind became exemplary because of unconditional acceptance by Kasturba. Gandhi’s widely discussed and debated vow of celibacy could set an example, perhaps, due to Kasturba’s unimaginable response to it. Initially, Gandhi did not share his thought with Kasturba regarding his vow of celibacy but before taking the vow he informed her and got the reply that ‘she did not have any objection’. The biographers of Gandhi and researchers have interpreted Kasturba’s this response from diverse perspectives. Referring to the account presented by B.R. Nanda on this matter, Arun Gandhi suggests that it is Kasturba’s response which made Gandhi’s vow of celibacy exemplary. To quote Arun Gandhi: “Count Leo Tolstoy, whose thinking often foreshadowed or paralleled that of my grandfather declared late in his life that the Christian ideals of loving God and serving one’s fellow men were incompatible with sexual love or marriage which amounted to serving oneself. Nanda discusses how this ‘shattered the already weekend vessel’ of Tolstoy’s marriage; how Tolstoy’s wife became hysterical, threatened to kill herself; how their life became a round of recriminations; how ‘the Countess was totally unable to appreciate, much less adopt, the ideals of her husband: [In contrast to this] Kasturba [who] was sustained by the faith of a Hindu wife followed in the ‘footsteps of her husband’, however much it went against the grain… The changed attitude to sex did not introduce a discordant note into the life of Gandhi; Gandhi himself has no doubt that it sweetened and enriched it.”32 However, since it is nowhere documented that what was Kasturba’s inner feeling on this matter, it is difficult to say a last word on this matter, but it cannot be denied that it was Kasturba’s acceptance and co- operation which made Gandhi’s vow exemplary. In fact, he could move in this direction, perhaps, due to Kasturba’s inborn quality of celibacy as he accepted in his autobiography that ‘to be fair to my wife, I must say that she was never the temptress. It was therefore the easiest thing for me to take the vow of brahmachrya.”33 Thus, the ideal of celibacy which has often celebrated, since the ancient times, as emancipation of the individual from the bonds of physical needs, can become the ideal of strong marital bond in Gandhi’s life because of Kasturba. As Gandhi accepted: “What developed self-abnegation in her to the highest level was our Brahmacharya. The latter turned out to be more natural for her than for me. She was not aware of it at first. I made a resolve… Thenceforth we became true friends. From 1906, really speaking from 1901, Ba had no other interest in staying with me except to help me in my work. She could not live away from me. She would have has no difficulty, if she had wished, in staying away from me.”34 To sum up, when we talk about making of ‘Mahatma’ the ideologue and exemplar, contribution of Kasturba cannot be ignored. In fact, these two personalities were so integrally interwoven with each other that questions like who influenced whom; who made whom and who dictated and who submitted appear quite superficial and irrelevant. It was a relation of mutual learning, mutual influence, mutual making and mutual acceptance. Therefore, this couple appears to me a beautiful combination of ideologue and exemplar. Notes and References:
* Principal (Retd.), Kamarajar Govts. Arts College, Surandai, Tirunelveli Dist., Tamil Nadu. Email: eraponnu@gmail.com |