India of My Dreams

A life of service must be one of humility. He who would sacrifice his life for others, has
hardly time to reserve for himself a place in the sun. Inertia must not be mistaken for
humility, as it has been in Hinduism. True humility means most strenuous and constant
endeavour entirely directed to the service of humanity. God is continuously in action
without resisting for a single moment. If we would serve Him or become one with Him,
our activity must be as unwearied as His.
From Yeravda Mandir, Chap. XII

No work that is done in His name and dedicated to Him is small. All work when so done
assumes equal merit. A scavenger who works in His service shares equal distinction
with a king who uses his gifts in His name and as a mere trustee.
Young India, 25-11-26

A votary of Ahimsa cannot subscribe to the utilitarian formula (of the greatest good of
the greatest number). He will strive for the greatest good of all and die in the attempt
to realize the idea. He will, therefore, be willing to die, so that the others may live.
He will serve himself with the rest, by himself dying. The greatest good of all
inevitably includes the good of the greatest number, and therefore, he and the
utilitarian will converge in many points in their career, but there does come a time
when they must part company, and even work in opposite directions. The utilitarian to
be logical will never sacrifice himself. The absolutist will even sacrifice himself.
Young India, 9-12-26

Service is not possible unless it is rooted in love or Ahimsa. True love is boundless like
the ocean and rising and swelling within one spreads itself out and crossing all
boundaries and frontiers envelops the whole world. This service is again impossible
without bread labour, otherwise described in the Gita as Yajna. It is only when a man
or woman has done bodily labour for the sake of service that he or she has the right to
live.
Young India, 20-9-29

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Not until we have reduced ourselves to nothingness can we conquer the evil in us. God
demands nothing less than complete self-surrender as the price for the only real
freedom that is worth having. And when a man thus loses himself, he immediately
finds himself in the service of all that lives. It becomes his delight and his recreation.
He is a new man never weary of spending himself in the service of Gods creation.
Young India, 20-12-28

All our activities should be centred in Truth. Truth should be the very breath of our
life. When once this stage in the pilgrims progress is reached, all other rules of
correct living will come without effort, and obedience to them will be instinctive. But
without Truth it is impossible to observe any principles or rules in life.
A seeker after Truth, a follower of the Law of Love, cannot hold anything against
tomorrow. God never provides for the morrow. He never creates more than what is
strictly needed from day to day. If, therefore, we repose faith in His Providence, we
should rest assured that He will give us every day our daily bread, supplying enough
that we require.
Young India, 4-9-30

Ends and Means

They say, means are after all means. I would say, means are after all everything. As
the means so the end. There is no wall of separation between the means and the end.
Indeed the Creator has given us control (and that too very limited) over means, none
over the end. Realization of the goal is in exact proportion of no exception.
Young India, 17-7-24

Violent means will give violent Swaraj. That would be a menace to the world and India
herself.
Young India, 17-7-24

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Impure means result in an impure end. Hence the prince and the peasant will not be
equalized by cutting off the princes head, nor can the process of cutting off equalize
the employer and the employed. One cannot reach truth by untruthfulness. Truthful
conduct alone can reach truth. Are not non-violence and truth twins? The answer is an
emphatic no. Non-violence is embedded in truth and vice versa. Hence has it been
said that they are faces of the same coin. Either is inseparable from the other. Read
the coin either way. The spelling of words will be different. The value is the same.
This blessed state is unattainable without perfect purity. Harbour impurity of mind or
body and you have untruth and violence in you.
Therefore, only untruth, non-violent and pure-hearted socialists will be able to
establish a socialistic society in India and the world.
Harijan, 13-7-47

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Chapter 16
THEORY OF TRUSTEESHIP
Suppose I have come by a fair amount of wealth either by way of legacy, or by means
of trade and industry, I must know that all that wealth does not belong to me, what
belongs to me is the right to an honorable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by
millions of others .The rest of my wealth belongs to the community enunciated this
theory when the socialist theory was placed before the country in respect to the
possessions held by zamindars and ruling chiefs. They would do away with these
privileged classes. I want them to out grow their bread by labour. The labourer has to
realize that the wealthy man is less owner of his wealth than labourer is owner of his
own, viz. the power to work.
The question how many can be real trustees according to this definition is beside the
point. If the theory is true, it is immaterial whether many live up to it or only one man
lives up to it. The question is of conviction. If you accept the principle of ahimsa, you
have to strive to live up to it .The question is of conviction. If you accept the principle
of ahimsa, you have to strive to live up to it, no matter whether you succeed or fail.
There is nothing in this theory which can be said to be beyond the grasp of intellect,
though you may say it is difficult of practice.
Harijan, 3-639

You may say that trusteeship is a legal fiction. But if people meditate over it
constantly and try to act up to it, then life on earth would be governed far more by
love than it is at present. Absolute trusteeship is an abstraction like Euclids definition
of a point, and is equally unattainable. But if we strive for it, we shall be able to go
further in realizing a state of equality on earth than by other method . It is my firm
conviction that if the state suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the
coils of violence itself, and fails to develop non-violence at any time. The state is a
soulless machine; it can never be weaned from weaned from violence to which it owes
its very existence. Hence I prefer the doctrine of trusteeship. The fear is always there
that the state may use too much violence against those who differ from it. I would be
very happy indeed if the people concerned behaved as trustees ; but if they fail, I
believe we shall have deprive them of their possessions through the state with the

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minimum exercise of violence (that is why I said at the round table conference that
vested interest must be subjected to scrutiny , and confiscation ordered necessary
with or without compensation as the case demanded) What I would prefer would be
not a centralization of power in the hands of state , but an extension of the sense of
trusteeship; as in my opinion the violence of private ownership is less injurious than
the violence of the state . However, if it is unavoidable, I would support a minimum
state-ownership.

The modern review 1933, p.412

It has become the fashion these days to say that society cannot be organized or run on
non-violent lines .I join issue on that point. In a family, when the father slaps his
delinquent child, the latter does not think of retaliating. He obeys his father not
because of the deterrent effect of the slap but because of the offended love which he
senses behind it. That in my opinion is an epitome of the way in which society is or
should be governed. What is true of the family must be true of society which is but a
larger family.

Harijan, 3-12-38

I hold that non violence is not merely a personal virtue. I t is also social virtue to be
cultivated like the other virtue to be cultivated like the other virtues. Surely society is
largely regulated by the expression of non-violence in its mutual dealings. What I ask
for it an extension of it on a larger, national and international scale.
Harijan, 7-1-39

My theory of trusteeship is no make-shift, certainly no camouflage. I am confident

that it will survive all other theories. It has the sanction of philosophy and religion
behind it. That possessors of wealth have not acted up to the theory does not prove its
falsity; it proves the weakness of the wealthy, No other theory is compatible with nonviolence. In the non-violent method the wrong does compasses his own end, if he does
not undo the wrong. For, either through non-violent non-cooperation he is made to see
the error he finds himself completely isolated.
Harijan, 16- 12- 39

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