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Three Portraits of Gandhi

The following three portraits of Gandhi were published at different times; the first two 60 years ago (shortly after his death), the third one more recently; the first two (translated from the French by Prof. David Braithwaite) were written for pedagogical purposes by his only Western disciple, the Italian Lanza del Vasto. The third was an academic paper by an eminent political theorist, the South Korean Sung Ho Kim; the first was written for a review about the aesthetics of fashion, and the second one aimed to bring about an understanding in the West of the nature of this extraordinary man, while that of the third one was to illustrate the theories of the great sociologist Max Weber regarding personal ethics. All three attest to the exceptional nature of Gandhi's life, about which, even seven decades after his death, academic appraisals are uncertain and often misleading, because the categories commonly used in Western culture to evaluate a historical event hinder a proper understanding of the novelty of Gandhi. It is, therefore, preferable to refer to portraits written from direct experience or indirect portraits, rather than to some current misleading appraisals, however sophisticated they might be. (Antonino Drago)


Lanza del Vasto: “Beauty of Gandhi’, French Vogue magazine, May 1948.

Does praise of the Hindu ascetic, the Father of the Pariahs, the king of poor, have its place among these pages of great elegance?

Why not? Was Gandhi not the host of a millionaire on the last day of his life? Whether he was in his mud hut or at Buckingham Palace, his poverty that he carried on him and in him, remained indubitable. Whether he was talking standing on the banks of the sacred Ganges or at a Luna-Park, as he did during his last visit to Paris, his words had the same significance, he looked on all men, beggars or princes, with the same compassion, for we all deserved it and maybe even more so those in whom the condition of human misery is more veiled.

We will speak of his beauty, not with irony or out of taste for paradox, but because this mark of perfection could not fail one who lived on truth, love and peace. It must be said first that he in no respect resembled the grimacing and disjointed puppet presented to us by his caricatures, drawings, even his photographs. He was not one of those who sit with very docile pride in front of the painter or smile complacently into the lens: on the contrary he turned his head away and defended himself against the glassy eye of publicity, which does not always give happy results on the photographic plate. He would never pose for anyone (none of his postures or spectacular manifestations were ever a pose); myself, his disciple, I drew him twice while he was working; he even consented once to remove his glasses, which he never did for anyone, and I conserve this unique image of his almond eyes and naked gaze.

His mask was extremely movable and all portraits, in capturing him, more or less lie. And then, we only know him old and toothless, the lower part of the face wrinkled and shrunk (but actually wasn’t there a reason for the loss of teeth, were they not signs of aggression and greed?). I have a photograph of him taken when he entered public life, at the beginning of this century. He is sitting on a chair with his knees close together, one hands resting on the other, wearing a white tunic and erect, his face is tilted a little forward, the protruding mouth, beautiful with goodness, two drops of light hang in his dark eyes, the eyes of a young goat ... He closely resembles the portrait of Saint Francis in the lower church of Assisi, attributed to Cimabue, the only one that had the possibility of resembling the subject - the painter having been able to see the saint with his own eyes, and besides with an overwhelming humanity.

Even as an old man, there was nothing in Gandhi's appearance and first sight of him that was not open and pleasing. He was not, as he is commonly imagined, skeletal and withered, but, though over seventy, slender and lithe like a teenager. There was something touching in the fragility of his shoulders and chest, especially when you think of the load they carried, with the great heart hidden inside. His hands and feet were long and slender as with nearly all Orientals, but virile, the hands, more than in most individuals, the slender legs gave him a natural and free allure; a dignified and modest bearing gave him, both standing and seated, the majesty of judge and chief. His majesty is what was most striking. I have frequented what remains of royal courts in Europe and elsewhere, approached dictators and redoubtable leaders of men: their majesty was part of the decor, it came from their surrounding themselves with “armed faces”, as Pascal said, it was pageantry and appearance, I never felt more timidity than before him when he leaned over me, smiling and half-naked, for his majesty was the presence of God in him which made me feel, before him, small, empty and judged...

‘Yet he was an attentive, affable and courteous host, and as soon as one joined his entourage, like an affectionate father, at table (or rather on the floor because there was no table) he served us himself and took care that no one lacked anything; he, famous for his fasts, it spared us too heavy tasks and dissuaded us from excessive austerities. He always left us free to choose our way, but if we had chosen to obey him, his orders were not long in reaching us, short, clear, irresistible: “Do this, and this again, and then this, go.”

His gestures were spontaneous, simple, noble and restrained, his laughter cordial and communicative. He was very talkative and spoke willingly at length although each week he reserved a day of silence when he would not have opened his mouth even to shout “Fire!”.

He never departed from the primary refinement which is scrupulous cleanliness, like all pious Hindus, since it is an obligatory condition of the ritual of daily life. He only wore immaculate linen, hand-spun and home-woven. His loincloth closed over his left hip spread out in a stream of harmonious folds. His hut was swept every day and the dirt floor scrubbed with cow dung whose purifying virtue is well known. He observed a perfect purity in his diet, composed of milk, fruit, vegetables, rice and whole wheat.

He was not black in complexion but a dull white, like ancient ivory; his eyes were slightly almond-shaped. I have never heard that he was related to people of the Far East, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it was the case.

All the races of the earth meet and recognize each other in him, as do Hindu asceticism, Chinese wisdom and Christian charity in his doctrine. From him emanated a sovereign peace that extended to animals, plants, to the surrounding plains. With the silent step of their bare feet men in white robes passed through the room and women in light saris along the outside verandas. A white cow grazed in the meadow, a bird entered through the door on the right, jumped, nodding its head, flew out through the left door, merged into the immense light. Sitting on the ground in his shaded corner, the master leafed through his papers, or, with an even and musical gesture, drew the thread of his spinning wheel.

The ancients say that beauty is the splendor of true. Form that is equal to itself in all its parts and transparent, i.e. equal to the meaning that it bears, is beautiful. The life and the figure of Gandhi shine with that beauty, without lies, without illusion, without vanity, without frivolity, without artifice, shine with true beauty.

From the song of the morning prayer to the thread of his clothing, from the great gestures of public life down to the small acts of everyday life, from the high principles of philosophy and mysticism to the obscure practices of the kitchen and the toilet, everything derives from the same sources with a logical precision and musical simplicity. This man’s destiny is like the composition of a celestial stained-glass window, like a song in eternity. And death too has just added the right note at the summit of age and glory, and the blessing, his response to the murderer, and the red rose of blood on the offered breast of the Hero of Peace.


Lanza del Vasto: “Gandhi's Lesson” (Nouvelles de I’Arche, 1948)

Since Our Lord Jesus Christ, there has been no man more powerful in holiness; there have more mighty men, there have been holier men, there have been none more powerful in holiness. None had the power not only to transform the spiritual life and exterior attitude of those who approached and followed him, but also to suspend wars, stop revolutions, tame infuriated crowds, erase age-old prejudices, tear down consecrated institutions, raise up millions of oppressed, drive out a powerful and victorious empire without arms, impose laws, change the mores of a continent: none has compelled, as he did, the admiration of even his enemies; no death has been mourned by the whole of humanity like his. And yet, what does he say about himself? “Anyone,” he said, “could have done what I did. This is not a formula of false modesty, is a great lesson for us all. Indeed, Gandhi was no different from the common people either by birth, or fortune, or culture, or even by intelligence. He had no special gifts, there are no miracles in the legend of this saint. The lesson is even more powerful for us, because it is proof that his greatness is open to us. It is proof that, if we do not imitate him, it is not because we cannot, but because we don’t know what power is in us, and do not want to use this power.

To say that Gandhi is an Asian phenomenon is meaningless; to wonder whether what he did would have been possible in West is pointless. It is not possible in West for the sole reason that no one believes it possible and never try it. Ignorance, however, is no longer permissible today, since Gandhi's life is before our eyes like a marked path.

There is nothing miraculous, mysterious, or magic in his astonishing successes; there is only logic and humanity; everything he teaches and demonstrates, we knew it from the beginning, no Christian could ignore it.

His doctrine, which is all one with his life and forms a whole. Anyone who understands it must accept it as a whole. We cannot exalt one article and reject another.

When we consider his life, we find there from childhood the search for three things: strength, truth, charity. As he matures the man at a certain moment discovers that these three things become one, and immediately he begins to act.

The search for strength and efficacy, since this peaceful man is strong, because peace is an effect of power, because courage is the first of the virtues, it is virtue itself. ” I see, he said, how can I teach non-violence to those who are ready for death, but to cowards I cannot. Gandhi can say in the sense that crucified Jesus said, “I have conquered the world” How did he conquer the world? By overcoming cowardice, laziness, the appetites of his body, because the body is the summary of the world and the key to everything; by probing, trying, possessing all the resources of his body in order to give them without reserve and without calculation, but not without method and without conscience. And it is thus that, giving himself entirely with all his strength, he erased his own limits and found the inexhaustible source of strength that is Living Truth.

Truth was for him before everything else: “The Truth is God,” he said. He also said: “The Truth and the Non-Violence are the reverse and obverse of a medal without thickness.” It is clear that for him the Truth is not locked up in a verbal formula, in a theoretical system, in a combination of the intellect, it is a state, a penetration and a dwelling in Being. And once established in Being, how would one do violence to the law of things? We are introduced simultaneously to non-violence, to charity which is the knowledge of this identity: I and you we are the same. This is the simple truth from which charity flows, from which non-violence cannot but flow.

The saints and the wise all knew that personal non-violence derives from that; but Gandhi adds this to their teaching: that this charity can and must to expand socially, nationally, economically and even (of which the many seems to have been unaware) on a religious level, through sincere and profound respect for the religion of others.

He teaches us that non-violence is the most effective revolutionary weapon for redressing social injustices, that it is the wisest tactic, the safest appraisal, the straightest direction, and the shortest path to achieve the renewal of peoples, the recovery of national institutions, liberation and dignity, and finally economic wisdom and stability.

Men of good will, why do you all sing his praises and continue to turn your back on him? There is only one praise worthy of this man of action and meaning: it is to follow him.

Will you continue to rot in your offices, your factories and your schools? To struggle in your petty concern with the evening meal, to bear the weight of the horrible machine to which you find yourself chained, pushing the wheel while the abyss opens three steps away? to tolerate being shown with what learned calculations and exquisite care the disintegration and annihilation of tomorrow is being prepared? What is required to wrest you from the nightmare, to get from you a courageous “no”, an active and considered refusal to remain complicit in the great public crime? Is the experience of these last two world wars not enough to open your eyes? Is the threat of the third perhaps not rather clear? Haven’t you been shaken enough, warned enough to wake up from your slumber?

The remedy that Gandhi offers to our evil is practicable, immediately achievable, at hand, within the reach of the humblest intelligence, it is valid and good for all men, the remedy that consists in simplifying everything, in returning everything to human and reasonable proportions. Do yourselves, with your own hands, what is necessary to feed and clothe yourselves, and throw overboard the machines and the machinations, the disputes and the lies, ambition and servitude.

Is it possible? Yes, it is possible. It isn’t even very difficult. If you cannot do it alone, come together fraternally and you will achieve it without difficulty and without wasting time. We no longer have the right to say we would like our deliverance, but that we do not know how to go about it: because Gandhi left his example and his teaching; he sent his disciples around the world to guide you on the new path, to prepare for resistance like that against Nazism, to establish and defend peace. What are you waiting for to join them? The time is running out.


Sung Ho Kim: “Max Weber”, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weber/

The author was questioned whether he had in mind Gandhi when he wrote this illustration of the possible reconciliation of the two responsibilities envisaged by Max Weber. He answered in the following way:

“My answer to your query will be a (short) no and (long) yes. No, because the Gandhi connection did not dawn on me back when I wrote the Weber piece. Yes, however, because my doctoral mentor, the late Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, was a great expert (with her husband Lloyd) on Indian politics as well as on Weber. The Rudolphs are famous for their first book, Modernity of Tradition, in which they argued that traditional values and communities played positive roles in modern Indian democracy. Another book of theirs, In Pursuit of Lakshmi, is also a classic in the field of Indian political studies. My reading of Weber could have been indirectly and unwittingly influenced by their expertise on Indian affairs, which by the way includes a book on Gandhi. I will also have to go back and take a second look at Postmodern Gandhi. This is a long and roundabout way of establishing the provenance, for sure, but my answer to your query would be a cautious yes for this reason! Many thanks for reminding me of this fascinating connection to Gandhi.”

Sect. 6.4 The Ethics of Conviction and Responsibility

Weber suggested two sets of ethical virtues that a proper political education should cultivate — the ethic of conviction (Gesinnungsethik) and the ethic of responsibility (Verantwortungsethik). According to the ethic of responsibility, on the one hand, an action is given meaning only as a cause of an effect, that is, only in terms of its causal relationship to the empirical world. The virtue lies in an objective understanding of the possible causal effect of an action and the calculated reorientation of the elements of an action in such a way as to achieve a desired consequence. An ethical question is thereby reduced to a question of technically correct procedure, and free action consists of choosing the correct means. By emphasizing the causality to which a free agent subscribes, in short, Weber prescribes an ethical integrity between action and consequences, instead of a Kantian emphasis on that between action and intention.

According to the ethic of conviction, on the other hand, a free agent should be able to choose autonomously not only the means, but also the end; “this concept of personality finds its ‘essence’ in the constancy of its inner relation to certain ultimate ‘values’ and ‘meanings’ of life” [Weber 1903-06/1975, 192]. In this respect, Weber’s problem hinges on the recognition that the kind of rationality applied in choosing a means cannot be used in choosing an end. These two kinds of reasoning represent categorically distinct modes of rationality, a boundary further reinforced by modern value fragmentation. With no objectively ascertainable ground of choice provided, then, a free agent has to create a purpose ex nihilo: “ultimately life as a whole, if it is not to be permitted to run on as an event in nature but is instead to be consciously guided, is a series of ultimate decisions through which the soul – as in Plato – chooses its own fate” [Weber 1917/1949, 18]. This ultimate decision and the Kantian integrity between intention and action constitute the essence of what Weber calls an ethic of conviction.

It is often held that the gulf between these two types of ethics is unbridgeable for Weber. Demanding an unmitigated integrity between one’s ultimate value and political action, that is to say, the deontological ethic of conviction cannot be reconciled with that of responsibility which is consequentialist in essence. In fact, Weber himself admitted the “abysmal contrast” that separates the two. This frank admission, nevertheless, cannot be taken to mean that he privileged the latter over the former as far as political education is concerned.

Weber clearly understood the deep tension between consequentialism and deontology, but he still insisted that they should be forcefully brought together. The former recognition only lends urgency to the latter agenda. Resolving this analytical inconsistency in terms of certain “ethical decrees” did not interest Weber at all. Instead, he sought for a moral character that can produce this “combination” with a sheer force of will. He called such a character a “politician with a sense of vocation” (Berufspolitiker) who combines a passionate conviction in supra-mundane ideals that politics has to serve and a sober rational calculation of its realizability in this mundane world. Weber thus concluded: “the ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility are not absolute opposites. They are complementary to one another, and only in combination do they produce the true human being who is capable of having a ‘vocation for politics’” [Weber 1919/1994, 368].

In the end, Weber's ethical project is not about formal analysis of moral maxims, nor is it about substantive virtues that reflect some kind of ontic telos. It is too formal to be an Aristotelean virtue ethics, and it is too concerned with moral character to be a Kantian deontology narrowly understood. The goal of Weber’s ethical project, rather, aims at cultivating a character who can willfully bring together these conflicting formal virtues to create what he calls “total personality” (Gesamtpersinlichkeit). It culminates in an ethical characterology or philosophical anthropology in which passion and reason are properly ordered by sheer force of individual volition. In this light, Weber’s political virtue resides not simply in a subjective intensity of value commitment nor in a detached intellectual integrity, but in their wilful combination in a unified soul.


Courtesy: The article has been adapted from Gandhi Marg, Volume 44 Number 1, April-June 2022.