As long as there is violence which threatens the very future of the human race, the relevance of Gandhi would continue. He would remain relevant till this danger of total annihilation of the human race is removed.

J.P. Narayan

 

Two considerations which require attention at the outset of this paper in the light of the above title are: one, Gandhi did not have direct contact with the indigenous people, nor is there any specific treatment of their problems in his writings; and, two, there is seemingly a dialectical relation between the Gandhian thought and indigenous ideology.

Gandhiji came face to face with the natives of South Africa belonging to various tribes, namely, the Zulus, the Bachuanas, the Basutos and the Swazis, etc. He was shocked to see the plight of about five million natives politically controlled by a meagre 2.5 million Europeans. Gandhi was a witness to the discrimination of the blacks first by the Dutch when they started their colony in South Africa in the middle of the 17th century, and later by the British who overpowered the former in the first half of the 19th century. The basis of the discrimination against the local Blacks was ‘color’. Their dignity as human beings took a back seat as Blacks were looked upon as pre-scientific, pre-logical, incapable of any rational thinking. The attitude of the white was that of superiority and ethnocentrism; the rights and privileges of the blacks were insignificant for the white minority. This was apparently the first encounter of Gandhi with an indigenous population who had lost their right of self-assertion. In the context of India we have more than enough sources to show Gandhi’s involvement with the low caste whom he called harijans, meaning ‘children of God’, but we hear little about Gandhi’s involvement with the aboriginal, the native, the tribal who are the indigenous people of India, though the Indian Government vehemently denies the existence of any ‘indigenous’ people in the country.

Gandhi did have an impact on the Tana Bhagat movement in Chotanagpur in the sense that the puritanical ideas of Gandhi penetrated the movement. The Oraon Tana Bhagats, who were fighting the British for their socio-economic cause, initiated another element of ‘purification’ in their sect dividing Oraon tribe itself on the basis of purity-pollution. Thus some would hold Gandhi to some degree responsible for the division and for the Hinduisation of the tribals?

The moral values Gandhi stood for were different from those of the tribals. Gandhi was stern in his dealings with those with moral lapses, and his normal remedy was immediate expulsion from his ashram, always with a possibility of a return after real penitence. That may have been one of the reasons why Verrier Elwin was disillusioned with Gandhi.

To say that Gandhi was sympathetic to the tribals would be an exaggeration. In fact, Elwin, though a foreigner, was a real friend of the tribals. No doubt, he has been accused of exploiting tribal women and marrying them for his professional interests as an anthropologist. Nevertheless, if anyone had real love for the tribals of India, it was Elwin and not Gandhi. According to Guha, to Elwin’s dismay, the Congress and politicians paid little attention to the needs of the original inhabitants of their country.

It is said that it was Gandhi who gave the term ‘adivasi’ to the indigenous people. As far as the Oraons of Bihar are concerned, Gandhi played a significant role either for the better or for the worse. Tribals, especially, the Oraons, Mundas and Kharias of Chotanagpur had united against the atrocities by the British and their unjust laws that were alienating them from their land, society and culture. Rallies organized in Ranchi to oppose the British Government were highly successful. It is alleged that the Congress, under the leadership of the then President of the Congress Party, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, caused division among the non-Christian tribals and the converts by alluring the non-Christians to merge with the Party.

In spite of the fact that Gandhi was relatively passive towards the tribal cause, if one looks into the Gandhian philosophy and indigenous ideology, one cannot but be amazed by the extent to which they shared values, ethos and the spirit. The effort here is to point out how well intertwined they are.

The question of the relevance of Gandhi in the present scenario, let alone the next millennium, has indeed been problematic. Given the rampant corruption, indiscriminate violence and loss of the sense of respect and reverence for human life and dignity, some see the Gandhian model of humanism to be outdated. There was a time during the British rule in India when the Gandhian model of truth and non-violence offered a solution to the existent problems of the day, but times are much different now. At the beginning of the 21st century, there is everywhere an atmosphere of suspicion, insecurity and apprehension. It is appropriate to ask whether Gandhian thought has any significant contribution to make in bringing harmony, peace and prosperity to the third millennium.

What is their relation to the values upheld and cherished by the indigenous community, not only in India but also in many other countries the world over? The present paper attempts to explore objectively the dialectics between Gandhian thought and indigenous ideology for a meaningful inculcation of an integral and holistic humanism in the next millennium.

In the Gandhian cosmology, there is an orderly world, but the Divine is of a higher order to which the natural order is subordinate. Tribals believe in the hierarchy of beings: there are the natural and the supernatural realms. Whereas in the natural world there is an egalitarian society, the supernatural world is a hierarchy of beings. The Supreme Being is all goodness, the most beneficent one, who can never be wrong. The spirits, on the other hand, are subordinated to Him and depend on human beings for their sustenance.

In Gandhi’s philosophy, the divine order is a moral order intrinsically and intuitively realized by every human being. This moral awareness is the basis of the human awareness of God’s existence, whose power sustains the moral order. It is Gandhi’s conviction that the practice of moral living is possible only for the individual in relation to other human beings. For Gandhi, such cooperation can be based only on genuine love. Ahimsa or non-violence is the basic law of love, which, according to Gandhi, should govern all human affairs and all interpersonal relations.

Tribes have a very similar ideology, which notion of the moral order among the tribes is also a foundation of their social order. Their belief system nurtures and nourishes their pattern of behavior. Religion thus becomes a way of life for them. Morality is part and parcel of their social framework. All the activities of a good tribesman are governed by his faith in one Supreme Being who is interested in the welfare of the whole of humankind. That is why Singbonga, the Great God of the Munda tribe, sent messengers to the Asur, the iron smelters, to stop working on their bellows night and day as it was causing pollution in the entire universe. But when they refused to pay heed to the messengers, as a last resort, He destroyed them, in order to maintain the world order (a popular ‘myth of the origin of the evil spirits’ in the Munda tribe).

Sarvodaya means ‘development of all’. Tribal society has evolved a socio-cultural mechanism to take care of the entire tribe. Gola Dhan, for instance, is a system of ‘grain-bank’, contributed by each family. In times of crises, people take loans from the ‘grain-bank’ and later return it at a low interest rate. Similarly, the tribal villages have a system of madait or sangat which literally mean ‘cooperation’. In case a poor family needs the help of others, the whole village decides to work for it without any remuneration.

Structural Violence and the Gandhian Ahimsa. The second millennium is marked by violence, violence of all kinds, at all levels. In this century we have seen enough of the violence perpetrated by the state. We have also witnessed the terrorist violence, secessionist-insurgence, ethnic conflicts and caste wars. The phenomenon of violence has been universal: the stripping of women of lower castes or of minority communities; of the rape of nuns; cold-blooded murder of priests; caste conflicts of Jehanabad claiming hundreds of lives; and naxalite attacks on their adversaries. Outside India, we hear of the blood bath in the LTTE attacks, and wars in Croatia, Iraq, Kuwait, East Timor or Kargil that have claimed thousands of lives. Yet, the arms race among various countries goes on. Nuclear experiments continue with a renewed vigor under the pretext of national security. The exploitation, oppression and dehumanization of the tribals continues unabated.

Gandhi’s ideology seems dead to some, Gandhi had never been so irrelevant now. Gandhi, they say, has no solution for the present crises. The corresponding traditional tribal values of tolerance, harmony, equality, sharing, humility, honesty, simplicity and symbiosis with nature are being looked upon as irrelevant today, not only by the non-tribals but also by the tribals. The real solution lies in ‘tit for tat’, in ‘an eye for an eye’; ‘Might is right’ is the slogan of the day.

A closer look at the Gandhi’s life and works takes us into the realm of his philosophy of being. What left a lasting mark in Gandhi’s life was the suffering of the natives, the workers, the traders, the clerks who were robbed of their human dignity in South Africa. Even before the promulgation of the Indian Constitution underlining the fundamental rights to her citizens, the right to dignity, equality and justice were promoted by Gandhi. In fact, it was precisely this cause that cost him his life.

In a tribal society, egalitarianism is one of the most cherished values. Everybody in the tribe has equal status irrespective of his or her political or economic power. In the Genesis myths of the Oraon, Kharia and Munda tribes, ‘pride’ and ‘disobedience’ are said to be the greatest offences. If one is proud, one is sure to disobey or violate the law of the tribe, they argue. Any offence against the tribe is considered an offence against the Supreme Being Himself, which results in chchilan or ostracism from the tribe. This excommunication is not for the sake of punishment, but for reconstruction, reparation or reconciliation. Thus the Gandhian model of reconciliation, forgiveness, hatred for the sin and not the sinner, etc., makes a lot of sense in a tribal context. Everybody in the tribe is equal and is treated equally.

Though Gandhi has not been a crusader for the cause of the tribals, we find in his philosophy a space for an indigenous-Gandhian dialogue. His stress on non-violence and his application of the philosophy of God, world and man is operational in the daily life of the tribals. All life - plant, animal and human - are created by God according to the tribals, which is close to the Gandhian vision of a non-violent society. And in such a society, Gandhi envisages decentralization of power. Village life should arouse a sense of cooperation and fellowship. In such a society the dignity of labor is maintained and is not replaced by the use of machines.

The cherished dream of every tribal is for ‘equality,’ both economic and social. This finds a central place in the Gandhian philosophy. Humans are all equal and economic equality is the key to non-violence. Land is given to them by the Supreme Being. As humans are his stewards, the land can neither be sold nor misused. Gandhi’s idea that man should free himself to serve society is nothing new to the tribals. Their life is an epitome of service and communitarianism. Here Gandhi’s position that ‘the caste system was to maintain the social order’ can be seen as a justification. The equality of man and woman is yet another area of commonality between Gandhi and the indigenous peoples. Gandhi believed in an intimate relation between man and nature.

Times have changed down through the decades. Old values have acquired new meanings or new interpretations, often to suit the convenience of the interpreters. Writing off some great personality’s credibility under the pretext of its irrelevance is nothing new. Complacency makes the matter worse. It is difficult, no doubt, to follow the Mahatma, ‘the great soul,’ but not impossible. Similarly, the tribal’s own quest for truth is concretized in their signs and symbols, feasts and festivals, rites and rituals, and in the sacraments of their daily life. If they can live a harmonious and an integrated life, why not others?

Gandhi was not a Mahatma by birth, but earned this title because of his magnanimity. In his early days as a student in India and later in South Africa, he was vulnerable to temptations but he developed the moral strength to resist, proving the spirit to be stronger than the flesh. This points to the solution to the problems in the world. Similarly, in their struggle for survival tribals have evolved a way to brave the challenges of violence, untruth, evil and death with fortitude, hard work, truth, benevolence and respect for life.

1. As quoted in Ramchandra Guha, Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals, and India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 53.

2. Elwin to H. C. Greenfold, Divisional Commissioner, Jabalpur, 15th Nov. 1937, Jabalpur Collectorate Records; as quoted by Guha, 1998, p. 108.

3. Raj Kumar and Vijendra Kumar, (ed.), Mahatma Gandhi: Life, Ideology and Thoughts, A Vision for 21st Century (Jaipur: Mangal Deep Publications, 1999), pp. 131-32.

4. Gandhi Marg, vol. 20, no. 2, July-Sept, 1998, pp. 211-12.

5. Ibid., p. 213.

6. As treated by Midatala Rani in "Sarvodaya as a development Strategy," ibid., pp. 214-15.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., p. 215.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. "Gandhi and the Concept of Structural Violence," ibid., pp. 197-209.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid., p. 201.

15. Ibid., p. 203.

16. Ibid., p. 204.

17. "Gandhi on Freedom, Rights, and Responsibility," ibid.

18. M.P. Sinha, ed., Contemporary Relevance of Gandhi (Bombay: Nachiketa Publications Limited, 1970), p. 3.

19. "Need for a Second Gandhian Revolution," Gandhi Marg, vol. 20, no. 1, April-June, 1998, pp. 81-85.

20. Romesh Diwan, "Gandhi, the US, and the World: A Bridge to the Twenty-First Century," Gandhi Marg, vol. 20, no. 3. Oct.-Dec, 1998.