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This paper focuses on Gandhi’s emotional strength and his individual visionary perspective that was not formed through any training, through any associations with religious minded people or through particular teachings.
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Global Journal of English Language and Literature April 2013. Volume 1. Issue 2. ISSN 2320-4397 Website: https://sites.google.com/site/globaljournalofell/
Gandhi: A Phenomenon of Emotional and Moral Intelligence
Jayshree Singh
Abstract
This paper focuses on Gandhi’s emotional strength and his individual visionary perspective that was
not formed through any training, through any associations with religious minded people or through
particular teachings. Secondly paper aims to investigate his individual enterprise and efforts, that were
for the sake of existence of all and that is the real source of all civilization and progress, he meant.
Thirdly the study examines how these determinants guided the national politics of freedom i.e.
external sovereignty of the country and its inhabitants. Fourthly the research paper would highlight
how Gandhi’s sense of the social responsibility and social relationship connects its authenticity with
inter-personal and emotional sensibility.
About the Author(s):Dr. Jayshree Singh is Senior Faculty and Head of the Department of English at Bhupal Nobles P. G. College, Udaipur, India. E-mail: [email protected]/[email protected]
andhi was neither “a behavioralist who takes only a mechanical view of man being
motivated by selfish interests or ignore human values and norms nor he was a
traditionalist who acts as idle spectators, novel-gazers and essayists” (Cherniss
2000). His principles of dharma, ahimsa, karam yogi, swaraj, satyagraha, bramacharya,
satya, nishkama karma, sarvodaya, swadeshi and non-cooperation were the ways of passive
resistance and the ingredient variables of his internal sovereignty. His internal self exercised
authority over all associations, although he was not personally associated to any one because
of being a karmayogi. The society as a whole in context of its cross-section connections lays
emphasis on emotional intelligence which is described as “the aggregate or global capacity of
the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with
environment”(Wechsler 1958: 21). By the contemporary critics the emotional intelligence is
‘non-intellective’ (Wechsler 1958), that means it includes positive outlook, compassion,
goodwill and extending support, perceiving other’s emotions and praising others and
understanding them in order to have organizational productivity and individual performance.
He was impersonal and intrapersonal in his relations not only throughout India but also
globally by gaining strength from personal self-evaluation, by approaching to the pros and
cons of the actions and reactions, by undergoing through ordeals, trials, hardships of
adversity just like ordinary beings, by submitting his self, his body, his mind and his senses to
G
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the cause that can bring universal consciousness, self-emancipation and that can make him
‘human and humane’(Gandhi 2008).
Gandhi’s writings in context of this secular modern civilization based on science and its
developments do suggest and manifest that until the world is pestered with ‘Thou shalts’ and
‘Thou shall nots’, there will be no compassion, no bliss, no humanity. For him all the
industrial developments, expansions, authority, hegemony convey the offshoots of emotional
intelligence which is surmounted by inner desires; likes and dislikes; aptitude and attitude.
One of the incidents of his childhood leaves an impression on the reader’s mind when
he writes about his school days memories – he was called ‘stupid’ by his mates and by the
teachers, for he could not understand the fact that his presentation of misspelt word ‘kettle’
would spoil the inspection report of his school due to him. His stupidity of not ‘copying’ the
correct answer arouse a good amount of debate in school and at home but Mohandas Gandhi
did not get confused nor he lost any respect for his teacher, because he ‘was, by nature, blind
to the faults of the elders’( My Experiments with Truth,6; all subsequent references will be
termed as MEWT,)
Gandhi narrates another unforgettable incident of his school days when he picked up a
book named as ‘Shravana Pitribhakti Nataka’ (a play about Shravana’s devotion to his
parents) from his father’s library. Again the same story occurred before him in the form of
visual movie, then at last he couldn’t spare himself to utter “here is an example for you to
copy” as it left an indelible impression on his mind. He wrote that once his heart was
captured by the play ‘Harishchandra’ because the protagonist had undergone through ordeals
to prove himself to be truthful. It inspired him so much that whenever he thought of
Harishchandra’s sufferings, Gandhi sought pain to gain the eternal joy of truth. This story
savoured his mind with purity, beauty and divinity and made him understood:
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul (Walllace Stevens 1915)
These lines denote that emotions and perceptions are man-made whether for oneself, for
others or for nature’s beauteous objects and these possess divinity and harmony within
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themselves not outside, therefore Gandhi too found that the behaviour, the attitude that
renders tolerance, passion, boisterous devotion and quest for pleasure as a means to the
fullness of life, is the basis of heaven in life. This story of ‘Harishchandra’ purged out his
fear and pity and cleansed his mind and body of the illusory baggage. His emotional
intelligence understood the dichotomy of good versus bad; negative versus positive; real
versus fantastic; truthful versus art; essence versus existence.
Gandhi places on record the marital truths of his life, when he was too pre-occupied
with the carnal desires of marriage. He writes: “I was devoted to my parents. But no less was
I devoted to the passions that flesh is heir to. (MEWT, 9) Further he says that: -‘I had to make
good my authority as a husband!’” (MEWT: 11) So he tried another way to control her and
he asked her to take lessons from him, as he did not want her to remain illiterate any longer.
But he himself was so fond of her that he was in tight corner between his passion and duty.
Later he regretted in his confession that “I am sure that, had my love for her been absolutely
untainted with lust; she would be a learned lady today.”(MEWT: 12) This emotional lyricism
of Gandhi states that he used to consider himself as the absolute authority in place of being
relative in his nature. He was not a flowing being. He cared for his wife but with a sense of
possession and obsession not with nurturing relationship. He realised that emotions are
transitory and behaviour vis-à-vis emotions is too impressionistic. If he had not done this
mistake, his wife would be literate then. Hence the repentance on his part is emotional
intelligence to convey his regrets and his intentions and later to accept his mistake. This
manifests his well-being, others need to learn from his mistakes.
Symbolically Gandhi’s image is projected as potential mystic by investing his
memories and mistakes in his confessional writing and builds an infrastructure to explore his
pragmatic self through many dimensions. Gandhi had valued emotional optimism to work out
“his ability to manage feelings and handle stress that is another aspect of emotional
intelligence that has been formed to be important for success.”(Newman 2008). He was too
intelligent to emotionally play the relevance of his action over the reactions of others. When
English friends tried to persuade Gandhi to eat meat, (one of them read to him from
Bentham’s Theory of Utility. Gandhi replied to their request or recommendation: ‘These
abstruse things are beyond me, Gandhi pleaded; he would not break the vow he had given to
his mother’ (MEWT). Gandhi might appear to be adamant on his act, but it was his secret
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way to beautifully nurture his relationship with his origin, with his self, with his dear ones
and he established the fact that gratification do pleases the temptations but it wrecks the soul
because fulfilling the physical urge is unlimited and it stifles happiness.
The book ‘Hind Swaraj’ confronts with human reality in relation to situations, the
origin and the nature of value. It means that if Indians wished to be recognized or to be
projected as being-for –itself, then they have to determine their choice, anguish, freedom and
its consequences in context of moral self- existence. There is interplay of existence and
essence. The ethical meaning of human consciousness, human projection of emotional
optimism is represented in human conduct. If these are the percepts of human outlook,
naturally the bliss of existence is achieved and the essence gets its goal of eternal actions that
may benefit mankind. These are the thoughts that Gandhi tried to imbibe through his seminal
work ‘Hind Swaraj’. He expressed his dissent about the jobs of lawyers. Lawyers in India,
whose profession opposes Indian values and tradition of Svadharma have been described by
Gandhiji as an editor in answer to the question;
Reader: Who would have protected the poor, who would have shown us the road to
independence, who would have protected the poor?
Editor: All I am concerned with is to show you that the profession teaches
immortality; It is exposed to temptations from which few are saved.7 (Hind Swaraj
1997: 58)
The above mentioned dialogue portrays Gandhi as an idealist, moralist, ethical and didactic
but this did not happen to him when he joined or practiced the job of law in South Africa
from 1894 until 1914. He used to earn ‘five to six thousand pounds’ a year’ (Fischer 1951,
74). He was disbarred from inner Temple in 1922 for he was hired as legal counsel to Indian
Muslim Trading Firm operating in South Africa. Then again he was posthumously reinstated
in 1928. Thus we can observe that he too was creatively successful due to his emotional
intelligence, yet inside his soul the inner voice haunted his living possession and he found
that he lacks compatibility between existence-for-itself and being –in–itself. This objective
existential attitude of Gandhi could have won him laurels and could have made him reach to
the stage of being-in-itself, but his human emotions still could not convince him his eternal
success. This self-evident intuition legitimizes his empirical investigation that the lawyer’s
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profession is to be practiced for the comprehension of other’s predicament and that is the best
choice of moral description of salvation by means of others. He writes, “in South Africa he
discovered that when we go to court of law, some of us are only concerned how to win the
case at any cost and not how truth may prevail”(CW. Vol.10: 147-8). He writes further that,
“during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer I was occupied in bringing about private
compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby – not even money, certainly not my
soul. (CW. Vol.39: 111)
Through these comments Gandhi meant the moral integrity of human mind, body and
soul as true, fair, and faithful to attain eternal goals of humanity and immortality. These are
the underlying values in order to be priori good. In this context of Gandhi it is apt to state a
French philosopher who writes: There is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else than
his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than
the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.11 Gandhi’s life and actions were far away
from any dogma, doctrine, ideology, theory and thought. The significant aspect of his
conduct was that he derived knowledge out of his daily circumstances; he gained the ability
to discriminate the good activity and bad activity. This knowledge he attained when he
engaged his mind constantly in search of truth and confession even though his body drove
him to the worldly temptations. Instead of being frustrated, depressed he sought the path of
bliss, learning wisdom and restored his self to renounce desires so that it might not bring
satiety and astray him from the path of ‘Svadharma’, and on account of the practice of this
vision, he was able to be analytical. He narrates this experience in these words: Whenever
there was an occasion for the expression of loyalty without fuss or ostentation, I readily took
part in it---------.Never in my life I exploit this loyalty, never did I seek to gain a selfish end
by its means. It was for me more in the nature of an obligation, and I rendered it without
expecting a reward. (MEWT: 158)
Gandhi motivated his countrymen, his disciples and followers with this mindset:
Please do not carry unnecessarily on your head the burden of emancipating India.’
Emancipate your own self. Even that burden is very great. Apply everything to
yourself. Nobility of soul consists in realizing that you are yourself India. In your
emancipation is the emancipation of India. All else is make-believe” (CW. Vol.10:
206-7).
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Gandhi presents here his own experiment that he tested on himself. He taught self-
involvement in the crisis of others, self-practice of those percepts that we wish others to
follow and in this reference he quotes his feelings that occurred between him and Dr. Booth
on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebration and everybody was to sing
British National Anthem at Rajkot in India. As my conception of ahimsa went on maturing, I
became more vigilant about my thought and speech. The lines in the Anthem were:
‘Scatter her enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their politics
Frustrate their knavish tricks’(MEWT: 159)
Gandhi says that these lyrics of Anthem particularly jarred upon his sentiment of
ahimsa. These incidents narrated by Gandhiji reflect upon the influences that he sought in
good readings and good companies of the fellow beings. He found ‘the kingdom of God
within him’ by propounding the fact that ‘for the achievement of good ends, good means are
essential’ (Sartre 1957: 32). Gandhi believed that moral values and emotional willingness
stand at cross-roads, do have cross-counters, do go through cross-examination, if there is ‘the
capacity to resist the unjust laws of the State, if they are repugnant to the individual’s moral
conviction and if people are to be trained that they are in a position to balance and control the
authority’ (Agarwal 2003: 518-521)
The political front Gandhi enunciated the thoughtful discourse on moral intelligence
in order to practice equipoise against foreign colonial power. Indeed ‘His Autobiography’, his
seminal work ‘Hind Swaraj’ reveal the outward impression of his character to the readers, but
at the same time his expressions, his emotions, his feelings, his thoughts are a medium of his
man in action and imitation. We find Gandhi’s meditative and argumentative attitude that
effaced him to vindicate the difference of the moral values as against society norms and
emotional conflicts/desires. His self-inner expression communicated dialogue with people
through passive resistance, non-cooperation, civil disobedience, annihilation of internal
instincts of impurities, attainment of self- developed economic means of livelihood,
performance of one’s duty to the nation and to the fellowmen, relocating the unity among the
polarised binaries of Indian culture, history and civilization during pre-colonial era.
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He presents arguments in his autobiography-‘My Experiments with Truth’ and ‘Hind
Swaraj to state that moral progress is possible if the goals of British civilization is
collaborated and assimilated with an attitude of innovation in the inviolable Indian
civilization ideals of selfless duty, non-violence, truth, cleanliness, freedom from malice,
absence of cruelty and forgiveness. He writes in the chapter ‘Polak Takes the Plunge’:
It has always been my regret that, although I started the Settlement at Phoenix, I could
stay there only for brief periods. My original idea had been gradually to retire from
practice, go and live at the settlement, earn my livelihood by manual work there, and
find the joy of service in the fulfillment of Phoenix. But it was not to be. (MEWT:
279)
He propounded for his own self-development five principles derived from ‘Gita’ i.e. self-
duty, self-dignity, self-reliance, self-restraint and self-capacity and self-discipline. Louis
Fischer writes for Gandhi in this context: the salt treatise made him a vegetarian by choice. In
the beginning was the act, and only then the conviction (LMG: 39).
Mahatma Gandhi submerged completely his interpretations of visual images/
perceptions into the vastness of universal consciousness. His emotional sensibility severed
connections to overcome his illusions, which was one of the qualities that inspired persons
like Shri Vinoba Bhave, Dr, Rajendra Prasad, Shri. J.B.Kriplani, Shri Thakkar Bappa, Shri.
Ravishankar Maharaj, Shri. Jamnalal Bajaj, Shri. Nanabhai Bhatt, Shri. J.C.Kumarappa,
Shrimati Sarojini Naidu, Shri. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Shri. Sushila Nayar, Shri
AshadeviAryanayakam, Mirabehn and many others from all walks of life and with an
astonishing richness of head and heart. His teachings reflected the Kantian ethics as regards
the other fellow beings’ ideals / targets that says, ‘never treat any person as a means but as an
end.’ ( Pandya 1994: 34-36).
One of the disciples of Gandhiji was Maganlal Gandhi who was a hard taskmaster and
as such earned resentment from many of his co-dwellers at Kheda, in Rajkot, where a feeling
of unrest was born in the inmates of the Phoenix Ashram. Gandhiji sensed the feeling of
discontent and called a meeting on 17 Feb. 1919 and said:
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The inmates are satisfied with nothing in the Ashram. The reason? Dissatisfaction
over Maganlal’s ideas and conduct over his manner of speaking and over a certain
partiality in his actions. Lack of faith in the Ashram on the part of others, those in the
school. What is my position in these circumstances? (Mahadevbhaini Diary
(Gujarati), Vol.V )
Here Mahatma’s attachment for the ‘Nishkamkarmayoga’ and care engender the sense of
defense as regards perception of the subject-object rapport. According to Gandhi, moral
intelligence lies in inner transformation when one’s body is not vassal to external and internal
likes and dislikes for they represent disillusionments out of the illusions. It is apt to quote
John Milton to evaluate Gandhi’s approach to dwell upon his concepts and ideas:
Coercive efforts to establish uniformity in morals and opinions, because they are then
sure to fail. He felt that man has a natural right to be free in matters of opinion and
private morals; and peace and happiness flow from a policy of toleration. These can
be possible if we make no rigid discrimination between acts that concern the doer and
those that concern others (1993: 385).
Even J. S. Mill is of the opinion that:
Restraint hampers the intellectual and moral development of the individual restrained,
it deprives society of an indispensable means for discovering truth and securing
its widest and the most effective acceptance; and it makes popular government
impossible (385).
These authors are quoted to explicate Gandhi who with his disciples did strenuous,
rewardless, relentless labours to reap the seeds of progress and prosperity. Interaction,
information, elimination of caste, class, creed, gender and sect discrimination, devotion for
the ideal goals expanded. His efforts just like a huge tree were laden with the fruit of
liberation of India from slavery, subjugation and surrender. It is said that:
Society gains in sanity, health and security by suffering each man to speak his mind
freely, to follow his own feeling, tastes, sentiments to plan his life as best he can
according to his own notion rather than by coercing him into a life approved by his
fellow ( Bent 1928: 142).
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Gandhi had never read Gita or had chanted / memorized till one day he was told by
two theosophists in London to recite the verses which were the translated version of the
‘Gita’ by Edwind Arnold. Those lines were:
If one ponders on objects of sense, there springs attraction, grows desire, desire
flames to fierce passion, passion breeds recklessness: then the memory – all betrayed
– Lets noble purpose go and saps the mind, till purpose, mind and man are all undone
(MEWT).
These lines caused a deep impact on his mind that his journey of quest for the truth and
renunciation started from that onwards indelibly. His comparative analysis of Bible, Gita and
Old Testament led him to understand religion, ethics, and morals in an applied sense and to
him all manifest that one should not consider oneself as an end in himself but he is a means
towards something, for the sake of self, nation or state.
It is very apt to quote Kautiliya’s concept of ethics and polity in context of Gandhi’s
spiritualization of politics, which can be in other way understood as one of the ways to handle
the circumstances and crisis through moral ideals of life. Kautiliya writes:
Paritranaya Sadhunam Vinashayam Ch Dushkritam
Dharmsansthanathay Sambhavami Yuge Yuge ( Jha. 1999: 36)
These lines explain that wherever and whenever the evil dwells, it ends in catastrophe
because there is incarnation of God in human form to destroy the evil, so that the religion and
faith thrive. These lines were spoken to Arjuna by Lord Krishna in the context of the
existence of devilish deeds of Duryodhana. Arjun was to fight to protect the side of truth. The
lord Krishna then does his counseling why he is to fight against his own cousins. These same
epigrammatic lines are repeated by Kautiliya, the prime minister, before Chandragupta
Maurya, the great king of India in the fourth century B.C. Kautiliya too guided his king that
any action that is evil in its design results in death and disaster, and there is somebody in
human form to protest against that evil design and to set the truth.. The account of how
Gandhi came to coin Satyagrah is given in Collected Works 8:131. Indian Opinion called for
submission of a suitable word for the new movement Gandhi had introduced. Among the
words submitted were pratupaya (counter-measure); kashtadhin parivartan (resistance
through submission to hardship); dridha paripaksha (firmness in resistance); sadagrah
(firmness in a good cause) and satya (truth).
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Gandhi had no great incarnation of God to guide him, no great Machiavellian
Kautiliya to check him, but he had read that above mentioned sense in the book Unto This
Last that also speaks of the soul and its force:
But he (the worker) being , on the contrary, an engine whose motive power is a Soul,
the force of this very peculiar agent, as an unknown quantity, enters into all the
political economist’s equations….’(Ruskin 1978: 30-1).
Gandhi got reminded of it when he read Gita later. This he applied in his experience during
World War I in 1914. He writes:
I knew the difference of status between an Indian and an Englishman, but I did not
believe that we had been quite reduced to slavery. I felt then that it was more the fault
of individual British officials than of the British system and that we could convert
them by love. If we would improve our status through the help and cooperation of
British, it was our duty to win their help by standing by them in their hour of need.
(XXXVIII My Part in the War. MEWT: 319)
Gandhi wished to abolish dis-alienation. He practically believed that man’s action
should bring him closer to the community, to the society, to the nation; this is possible if
there is freedom, non-violence, kingdom of happiness in place of necessity. His moral
intelligence connects with the idea of Swaraj “Gandhi says that the physical expulsion of the
British from India is not of the essence of Swaraj: self-transformation is , Gandhi the
assimilationist is prepared to welcome ‘Indianised’ Britons as true Indians” ( Hind Swaraj,
1997: 72; all subsequent references will be termed as HS). Gandhi practiced the highest
repository of reality and power, which is described by a writer in this way: “For him power
need not be violent, and could be won through non-violent action…..Gandhi insisted that
lasting power can be built only on the goodwill of the people and needs to be supported by
them” (Jain 2001: 249).
For Gandhi –the true law is Sathyam Prtyapi Shatyam (Vidvans: 284) (truth even to
the cunning) Suffering and sword are two variables just as ahimsa and himsa are.
He narrates an incident that can motivate us all to look into the endeavours, struggles, and
sufferings from this point of view. During the World War II, when Hitler overran Norway,
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Denmark, Holland and Belgium, France was his next subjugation while Japan has captured
some position of Thailand, stuck at Pearl Harbour and heading to ransack British Malaya ;
Gandhi reacted to the situation because at that time Britons’ stock became low in India: We
do not seek our independence out of Britain’s ruin. That is not the way of non-violence.
(LMG: 144)
This he proposed to suggest that if the Indians support Britain in war effort that is
symbolic of life and death, then Indians would be there on fronts not to initiate killing rather
to preach non-violence. But when the Viceroy of India on behalf of Churchill refused to
accept this, Gandhi waged passive resistance to protest against the war and India’s
helplessness. He observed fast and led one after the other freedom fighters to plunge
themselves in this cause by way of imprisonment. Those were Vinoba Bhave, Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad, Nehru, Sardar Patel etc. That coerced Churchill to declare in 1935: Gandhism
and all that it stands for must ultimately be grappled with and finally crushed. Because it
stood for India’s independence (LMG: 445). Gandhi combined ethics in polity by saying that
‘violent means will give violent swaraj. That would be menace to the world and to India
herself’ (Young India 1924).
The statements are the appropriate example of emotional ethics that Churchill
conveyed to his countrymen whereas moral ethics that Gandhi had given to native Indians.
The former had to hand over India to Indians without any grudges because they suffered
heavy losses on account of their emotional intelligence to cooperate with other allies so to
win their favour; while Gandhi used moral intelligence to cooperate with Britain and its allies
to win the hearts so to set an example that ahimsa is a higher reality of beautiful creation of
God and himsa is a disillusionment to destroy the beauty and truth.
It is worth to quote a spiritual guru to understand how Gandhi used to fight back the
negative perception and attitude of others: “We often fight our emotions. Then we feel bad.
We experience emotions as positive or negative, because of our personal choices and actions”
(Nonawalia 2010: 3). Gandhi comments upon Hindu-Muslim row over cow protection that:
The only method I know of protecting the cow is that I should approach my
Mahommedan brother and urge him for the sake of the country to join me in
protecting her. If he would not listen to me, I should let the cow go for the simple
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reason that matter is beyond my ability. If I were overfull of pity for the cow, I should
sacrifice my life to save her, but not take my brother’s. This, I hold, in the law of our
religion. (HS: 54)
He used to bring himself to such briefless state that he writes in the chapter ‘Warning’
that: “The soul has nothing to do with what one eats or drinks, as the soul neither eats nor
drinks; that it is not what you put inside from without, but what you express outwardly from
within, that matter” (MEWT: 83).
The instances of his emotional sensibility are abundant when he was in England to
study law, or when he was with his wife and family, when he could not resist himself from
being swayed by western standards, when he was a practicing lawyer either in India or in
South Africa or as a teacher in South Africa or as freedom fighter in the Liberation struggle
of India. But simultaneously we also find his moral ethics as regards his stand for truth when
he tries to confess fearlessly his actions of cheating, meat-eating, carnal lust for his wife, or
stealing stumps of cigarette etc. We see his perseverance in the form of Satyagrah when he
opposes Britishers’ ruthless massacre at Jalianwalabagh tragedy, when Mohammadens attack
on him in South Africa as regards his support for registration laws of transported Indians as
indentured laborers.
.
For instance he writes to clarify that violence can help to reach to the temporary goal
of rebuffing the evil-doer, but the violence cannot be an end – must not be a weapon for the
person in power and in strength, it may be a means to helplessness incase of dishonor:
But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more
manly than punishment (Mandal 2009: 35-40).
Gandhi disseminated positive energy not only through common day to day
experiences of life, even the persons whom he interacted or in association with, made him
enlightened. The reason of his being closer to enlightenment was that he used to
trancendentalise into the thought-process of the other.
References:
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Cherniss, Cary. 2000. Emotional Intelligence: What it is and Why it matters. Psychology,
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Fischer, Louis. 1951. The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. London: Harper Collins Publ. (All
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Gandhi, M.K. 2008. India of My Dreams. New Delhi: Rajpal & Sons. Print
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