Gandhi on Providence and Greed

Y. P. Anand and Mark Lindley

Although Gandhiji is often quoted as having said, Earth provides enough to satisfy every mans need but not enough for any mans greed, we would like to point out that he said something significantly different instead,1 but that 15-20 years earlier, his view in regard to food had indeed amounted to what the famous alleged statement says. The alleged statement is a distorted version of a remark attributed to him by a first-hand witness, Pyarelal, in a chapter entitled Towards New Horizons in Part II of Mahatma Gandhi The Last Phase (1958 and later editions). Describing some views expressed by Gandhi in 1947, Pyarelal wrote:
In addition to the economic and the biological, there is another aspect of mans being that enters into [human] relationships with nature, namely the spiritual. When the balance between the spiritual and the material is disturbed, sickness results. Earth [pritvi]2 provides enough to satisfy every mans need but not for every mans greed, said Gandhiji. So long as we cooperate with the cycle of life, the soil renews its fertility indefinitely and provides health, recreation, sustenance and peace to those who depend on it. But when the predatory attitude prevails, natures balance is upset and there is an all-round biological deterioration.

In these last two sentences the emphasis on ecology, the use of the term predatory and the statement that under certain conditions the soil renews its fertility indefinitely (rather than forever) were due to the influence of a book by J. C. Kumarappa, Economy of Permanence, to which Gandhi had contributed the preface when the first edition was published in 1945.3 So, what Pyarelal has given here is an account of some of Gandhis views toward the end of his life in regard to economic issues views which may have differed from his views as a civil-rights lawyer in southern Africa at the turn of the century or as a recently acknowledged mahatma in the 1920s. There is a substantial distortion of meaning in the popular jingle, because there is a significant difference between providing not enough for everyones greed and not enough for any-

1. Another unlikely remark that is often attributed to Gandhi, especially in the West, is his alleged reply to the question, What do you think of Western culture?. He is supposed to have said, I think it would be a good idea; but we have found no such remark in his Collected Works, nor in any first-hand report. It would be uncharacteristic of Gandhi to deny that there was such a thing as Western civilization. Instead, his position would be that there were some things wrong with it. To discuss this adequately would entail examining Hind Swaraj in detail and citing various relevant writings that evidently influenced him. These latter would include Edward Carpenters Civilization: Its Cause and Cure (London 1889). 2. Pyarelal wrote the book in English, but Gandhis remark to him will most likely have been made in Hindi, and in the subsequent Hindi translation of the book the term for Earth is prithvi, which means the planet. (See Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: Poornahuti, vol. IV, Ahmedabad 1973, p. 166.) 3. The relationship between Gandhi and Kumarappa is described in Mark Lindley, J. C. Kumarappa: Mahatma Gandhis Economist (Popular Prakashan, 2007).

ones greed. If in order to provide enough to everyones needs, the Earth must fail to provide enough for anyones greed, then the Gandhian precept of concern for the welfare of all (which he imbibed from Ruskins Unto This Last and which is in contrast to the Utilitarian precept of concern for the greatest good of the greatest number) is a hopelessly unrealistic ideal since some people are, as everyone knows, incorrigibly greedy to some extent; and if that Gandhian ideal is hopelessly unrealistic, then we live in a dog-eat-dog world of scarce resources and the devil take the hindmost. But if the problem is that the Earth cannot provide for everyones greed as well as for their needs, then there is a hope of solving the problem by enough people curtailing their greed enough, provided (a) no one elses greed is infinite and (b) the number of people becomes reasonably stable (unlike in the last eighty years, when it has doubled every two or three generations). The point which Gandhi actually made in this remark of 1947 that the Earth cannot provide enough for everyones needs if everyone is greedy amounts to an ecologically alert response to an orthodox precept among Western economists (Says Law) to the effect that everything marketed is to be regarded as scarce because people in their greed presumably want more of it. (Business schools teach that rational sellers calculate how scarce each item to be marketed is and set prices accordingly.) However, even though what Gandhi said in 1947 differs significantly from what he is quoted as having said, the fact remains that 15-20 years before then, he had made some remarks the meaning of which approaches rather more nearly to that of the jingle. In the 29 May 1927 issue of his Gujarati periodical, Navajivan, he said that Nature (kudarata)4 makes readily available i.e. without entailing misery for anyone just enough for everyones needs food-wise:
Nature... has implanted in its creation the instinct for food it also produces enough food to satisfy that instinct from day to day. But it does not produce a jot more. That is Natures way. But man, blinded by his selfish greed, grabs and consumes more than his requirements in defiance of Natures principle, in defiance of the elementary and immutable moralities of non-stealing and non-possession of others property, and thus brings down no end of misery upon himself and his fellow-creatures.

It is impossible to explain completely in English the nuances of meaning of the Urdu (originally Persian) term kudarata. It refers normally to something that is impersonal, and is thus not a god, and yet is utterly beyond human control. However, the passage in question shows that Gandhi included under this same heading the ethical precepts of non-stealing and non-possession of others property. And indeed when he used the same term in a similar statement five years later, his English translator rendered it as God:
God never creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment, with the result that if anyone appropriates more than he really needs, he reduces his neighbour to destitution. The starva-

4. We extend kind thanks to Dr. Varsha Das, Director, National Gandhi Museum, for translating for us the passages cited in Gujarati.

tion of people in several parts of the world is due to many of us seizing very much more than we need.5

And meanwhile, at a public meeting in Switzerland on 8th December 1931, Gandhi said (in English):
There would be no poverty on Earth if we made a sacred resolution that we would have no more than we need for our creature-comforts. And it would not do for a millionaire to sluggishly say that he owns millions because he needs those for his creature comforts. On the contrary, a man who is poor will continually examine himself and find out what are the superfluous things he keeps for himself, and, if you conduct yourself in a sportsmanlike spirit from day to day, you will be astounded at the fewness of things you require.

It seems to us that these earlier statements taken together say much the same as the jingle does. They reflect a certain stage in the development of Gandhis views about natural providence. His use, in those earlier statements, of the term kudarata (rather than pritvi, meaning simply the planet Earth) reflects a somewhat more cosmic and metaphysical outlook than does the perfectly down-to-earth remark of 1947 that is quoted in Pyarelals Last Phase. We regard his earlier view as factually mistaken, and his more mature one as correct. Let us conclude with some very brief remarks as to what he meant by greed. Sometimes he meant simply an unwisely extreme human desire, as in the following remark in a letter (not about economics) dated 19 October 1932: Excessive greed for anything is the root of all evil. But in regard to economics he associated greed with commercial competition, as in the following passage from an article commissioned in 1926 by an American journal, World Tomorrow, and published in its October issue (and then in The Hindu on 8 November). In this passage, the term the movement refers to the peace-movement of the 1920s:
I cannot help the gnawing fear that the movement will fail if it does not touch the root of all evil mans greed. Will America, England and the other great nations of the West continue to exploit the so-called ... uncivilized races and [still] hope to attain [the] peace that the whole world is pining for? ...Will Americans continue to ... [engage in] commercial rivalries and yet expect to dictate peace to the world?

It is wise to learn from history and to adapt to historical developments, and therefore the 21st-century peace-movement should differ in many ways from that of the 1920s. Yet Gandhis point in this passage seems to us just as applicable now as then. Peace can be precluded by intense commercial rivalries (for, say, access to raw materials) and by an aspiration of one nation to dictate peace to the others on terms favouring itself in the rivalries. These are hardly the only causes of war, but they are substantial.

5. Gandhi, History of the Satyagraha Ashram (1932),Chapter IV (Bread Labour), sixth paragraph; available in Vol. 50 his Collected Works (1972 edition), p. 215. For the Gujarati, see his Satyagrahashrama Itahas (Ahmedabad 1948), p. 49.