GANDHI AS A JOURNALIST
14.0. Objective of the lesson :
The objective of this lesson is to introduce you to
- Mahatma Gandhi as a freedom fighter
- Mahatma Gandhi as a journalist
- Gain an insinght into important writings of Mahatma Gandhi
Structure of the lesson :
- Introduction to Mahatma Gandhi’s Life
- The Transformation to Mahatma
- Gandhi as a Journalist
- Gandhi as a Writer
- Summary
- Model Questions
- Refernce Books
| 14.1. Introduction to Mahatma Gandhi’s Life |
When Gandhi was born British rule had been established in India. The uprising of 1857, known as the Mutiny, had merely served to consolidate the British adventure into an empire. India had effectively passed under British tutelage, so effectively indeed, that instead of resenting alien rule the generation of educated Indians were eager to submit to the “Civilizing mission” of their foreign masters. Political subjection had been reinforced by intellectual and moral servility. It seemed that the British empire in India was safe for centuries.
When Gandhi died it was India, a free nation that mourned his loss. The disinherited had recovered their heritage and the “dumb millions” had found their voice. The disarmed had won a great battle and had in the process evolved a moral force such as to compel the attention, and to some degree, the admiration, of the world. The story of this miracle is also the story of Gandhi’s life, for he, more than any other was the architect of this miracle. Ever since his grateful countrymen call him the Father of the Nation.
And yet it would be an exaggeration to say that Gandhi alone wrought this miracle. No single individual, however great and wonderful, can be the sole engineer of a historical process. A succession of remark- able predecessors and elder contemporaries had quarried and broken the stones which helped Gandhi to pave the way for India’s independence. They had set in motion various trends in the intellectual, social and moral consciousness of the people which the genius Gandhi mobilized and directed in a grand march.
Raja Rammohan Roy, Ramkrishan Paramhamsa and his great disciple, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Dadabhai Navroji, Badruddin Tyabji, Syed Ahmed Khan, Ranade, Gokhale, Tilak, Aurobindo Ghosh and Rabindranath Tagore, to name only a few. Each one of them, had in his own, field created a consciousness of India’s destiny and helped to generate a spirit of sacrifice which, in Gandhi’s hands, became the instruments of a vast political-cum-moral upheaval. Had Gandhi been born hundred years earlier he could hardly have achieved what he did. Nevertheless, it is true, that, but for Gandhi, India’s political destiny would have been vastly different and her moral stature vastly inferior.
But though Gandhi lived, suffered and died in India for Indians, it is not in relation to India’s destiny alone that the life has significance. Future generations will not only remember him as a patriot, and nation- builder but much more. He was essentially a moral force, whose appeal is to the conscience of man and therefore universal. He was the servant and friend of man as man and not as belonging to this or that nation, religion or race. If the worked for Indians only, it was because he was born among them and because their humiliation and suffering supplied the necessary incentives to his moral sensibility. The lesson of his life therefore is for all to read. He founded no church and thought he lived by faith he left
behind no dogma for the faithful to quarrel over. He gave no attributes to God save Truth and prescribed no path for attaining it save honest and relentless search through means that injure no living thing. Who dare therefore clam Gandhi for his own except by claiming him for all?
Another lesson of his life which should be of universal interest is that he was not born a genius and did not exhibit in early life any extraordinary faculty that is not shared by the common run of men. He was no inspired bard like Rabindranath Tagore, he had no mystic visions like Ramakrishna Paramhansa, he was no child prodigy like Shankara or Vivekananda. He was just an ordinary child like most of us. If there was anything extraordinary about him as a child, it was his shyness, a handicap from which he suffered for a longtime. No doubt, something very extraordinary must have been latent in his spirit which later developed into an iron will and combined with a moral sensibility made him what he became, but there was little evidence of it in his childhood. We may therefore derive courage and inspiration from the knowledge that if he made himself what he was, there is no visible reason why we should not be able to do the same.
His genius, so to speak, was an infinite capacity for taking pains in fulfillment of a restless moral urge. His life was one continuous striving, an unremitting sadhana, a relentless search for truth, not abstract or metaphysical truth, but such truth as can be realized in human relations. He climbed step by step, each step on bigger than a man’s, till when we saw him at the height he seemed more than a man. “Genera- tions to come, it may be, will scarce believe”, wrote Einstein, “that such a one as this, ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.” If at the end he seemed like no other man, it is good to remember that when he began he was like any other man.
Such is the great lesson of his life. Fortunately, he has himself recorded for us the main incidents of his life till 1921 and described with scrupulous veracity the evolution of his moral and intellectual consciousness. Had he not done so, there would have been in India no dearth of devout chroniclers who whould have invented divine portents at his birth and invested him with a halo from his childhood.
| 14.2. The Transformation to Mahatma |
Three year’s stay in South Africa persuaded Gandhi that he could not now desert a cause he had so warmly espoused. He therefore took six months leave to visit India and bring his family back. But it is was no holiday. He visited many cities in India and worked hard to interest the editors of papers and eminent public men in the unfortunate condition of Indians in South Africa. He published a small pamphlet on the subject. Though it was a very sober and restrained statement of the Indian case, a distorted summary cabled by Reuters created considerable misunderstanding in Natal which was to have unpleasant conse- quences later.
When plague broke out in Rajkot, Gandhi volunteered his services and visited every locality, including the quarters of the untouchables, to inspect the latrines and teach the residents better methods of sanitation.
During this visit, he made the acquaintance of veteran leaders like Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Surendranath Banerjee and the great savant and patriot, Tilak. He met the wise and noble-hearted Gokhale and was greatly attracted to him. He addressed a large public meeting in Bombay. He was due to speak in Calcutta also, but before he could do so urgent telegram from the Indian community in Natal obliged him to cut short his stay and sail for Durban with his wife and children in November 1896.
When the ship reached to Durban, it was put into five day’s quarantine. The European community, misled by garbled versions of Gandhi’s activities in India and by a rumour that he was bringing shiploads of Indians to settle in Natal, were wild with anger and threatened to drown all the passengers. However, the passengers, including.
Gandhi’s family, were allowed to land unmolested. But when Gandhi came down a little later and his identity was discovered, an infuriated mob fell upon him, stoning, beating and kicking him and would probably have killed him had not a brave English lady came to his rescue.
News of this cowardly assault received wide publicity and Joseph Chamberlain, the British Secretary of States for the Colonies, cabled an order to Natal to prosecute all those who were responsible for the attempted lynching. But Gandhi refused to identify and prosecure his assailants, saying that they were misled and that the was sure that when they came to know the truth they would be sorry for what they had done. Thus spoke the Mahatma in him.
It was during this second period in South Africa that Gandhi’s mode of living underwent a change, albeit gradual. Formerly, he was anxious to maintain the standard of an English barrister. Now he began, in his methodical but original fashion, to reduce his wants and his expenses. He “studied the art” of laundering and because his own washerman. He could now iron and starch a stiff white collar. He also learnt to cut his own hair. He not only cleaned his own chamber-pots but often his guest as well. Not satisfied with self- help, he volunteered, despire his busy practice as a lawyer and demand of public work, his free service for two hours a day as compounder in a charitable hospital. He also undertook the education at home of his two sons and a nephew. He read books on nursing and midwifery and in fact served as midwife when his fourth and last son was born.
In 1899 the Boer war broke out.Though Ganhi’s sympathies were all with the Boers who were fighting for their independence, he advised the Indian community to support the British cause, on the ground that since they claimed their rights as British subject it was their duty to defend the Empire when it was threat- ened. He therefore organized and, with the help of Dr.Booth, trained an Indian Ambulance Corps of 1,100 volunteers and offered its services to the Government. The corps under Gandhi’s leadership rendered valuable service and was mentioned in dispatches. What pleased Gandhi most was the fact that Indians of all creeds and castes lived and faced danger together. All his life nothing gave him greater happiness than the sight of men working as brothers and rising above the prejudices of creed, caste or race.
In 1901, at the end of the war, Gandhi felt that he must now return to India. His professional success in South Africa might, he feared turn him into a “money-maker”. With great difficulty he persuaded his friends to let him go and promised to return should the community need him within a year.
He reached India in time to attend the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and had the satisfaction of seeing his resolution on South Africa pass with acclamation. He was however disappointed with the congress. He felt that Indian politicians talked too much but do little. He depoted the importance given to the English language in their discussions and was pained to see the insanitary condition of the latrines in the camp.
After staying for a few days in Calcutta as Gokhale’s Guest, when he went out on a tour of India, traveling third class in order to study for himself the habits and difficulties of the poor. He observed that the extreme discomfort of third class travel in India was due to much of the indifference of the railway authorities as to the dirty habits of the passengers themselves and suggested that educated persons should voluntarily travel third so as to reform the people’s habits and be in a position to ventilate their legitimate grievances. The diagonals as well as the remedy suggested were characteristic of his approach to all social and political problems – equal emphasis on obligations as on rights.
Gandhi was not destined to work in India yet. Hardly had he set up in practice in Bombay when a cable- gram from the Indian community in Natal recalled him. He had given them his word that he would return if needed. Leaving his family in India he sailed again.
He had been called to put the Indian case before Joseph Chamberlain who was visiting South Africa. But the Colonia Secretary who had come to receive a gift of thirty-five million pounds from South Africa had no mind to alienate the European community. Gandhi failed in his mission to win Chamberlain’s sympathy and discovered in the process that the situation in the Transvaal had become ominous for the Indians. He therefore decided to stay on Johannesburg and enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme court.
Though he stayed on specifically to challenge European arrogence and to resist injustice, he harboured no hatred in his heart and was in fact always ready to help his opponents when they were in distress. It was this rare combination of readiness to resist wrong and capacity to love his opponent which baffled his enemies and compelled their admiration. When the so-called Zulu rebellion broke out, he again offered his help to the Government and raised an Indian Ambulance Corps. He was happy that he and his men had to nurse the sick and dying Zulus whom the white doctors and nurses were unwilling to touch.
It was during these marches through the Zulu country that he pondered deeply over the Kind of life he should lead in order to dedicate himself completely to the service of humanity. He realized that absolute continence or brahmacharya was indispensable for the purpose, for one “could not live both after the flesh and the spirit”. And so immediately after his return from the Zulu campaign in 1906, he announced his resolution to take a vow of absolute continence to a select group of friends.
This step was taken under the influence of the Bhagvad Gita which he had been reading regularly every morning for some time and committing to memory. Another doctrine of the Gita which influenced him profoundly was “non-possession”. As soon as he realized its implications he allowed his insurance policy of Rs.10,000 to lapse. Henceforth he would put his faith in God alone.
Next to the Gita, the book which influenced him most deeply was Ruskin’s Unto This Last which his friend Polak had given him to read one day in 1904. What Ruskin preached, or rather what Gandhi understood him to preach, was the moral dignity of manual labour and the beauty of community living on the basis of equality. Since, unlike Ruskin, Gandhi could not appreciate an ideal without wanting to practice it, he immediately set about to buy a farm where such a life could be lived. Thus was founded the famous Phoenix colony, on a hundred acres of land, some fourteen miles from Durban.
But Gandhi could not stay long at Phoenix. Duty called him to Johannesburg where also, later, he found another colony on similar ideals, at a distance of twenty-one miles from the city. He called it the Tolstoy Farm. In both these ashrams, as settlements organized on spiritual ideals are known in India, the immates did all the work themselves, from cooking to scavenging. Extreme simplicity of the life was observed, reinforced by a stirct code of moral and physical hygiene. No medicines were kept, for Gandhi who had earlier read Adolf Just’s Return to Nature believed profoundly in nature cure. Every inmate had to practise some handicraft. Gandhi himself learnt to make sandals.
He foresaw that a shadow with the South African Government was sooner or later inevitable and knew from his own individual experience that no brute force could quell the spirit of man ready to defy and willing to suffer. What he could do himself he could train others to do. Individual resistance could be expanded and organized into a mass struggle in the prosecution of a moral equivalent to war. He had read Tolstoy and Thoreau’s use of the term “civil disobedience” did not seem to express Gandhi’s own concept of ahimsa as a positive force of love, nor did he like the use of the phrase “passive resistance”. The concept was now clearly formulated in his mind but the word to describe it was wanting. His cousin Maganlal Gandhi suggested sadagraha, meaning holding fast to truth or firmness in a righteous cause. Gandhi liked the term and changed to satyagraha. Thus was evolved and formulated Gandhi’s most original idea in political action.
The occasion was not long in coming. In 1907, when the Transvaal received responsible government, it passed what came to be known as the Black Act, requiring all Indians, men and women, to register and submit to finger prints. Gandhi advised the Indian community to refuse to submit to this indignity and to court imprisonment by defying the law. In January 1908, he was arrested and sentenced to two months’ simple imprisonment. He was followed by other satyagrahis.
Before the prison term was over General smuts sent him an emissary proposing that if the Indians volun- tarily registered themselves he promised to repeal the Act. Gandhi agreed to the compromise. He always believed in trusting the opponents. But the other Indians were not so trusting. One burly Pathan even charged Gandhi with having betrayed them and threatened to kill him if he registered. On the day Gandhi went out to register he has waylaid and attacked by this and other Pathans and severely injured. When he recovered consciousness and was told that his assailants had been arrested he insisted on their being released.
Gandhi registered, but his disappointment was great when Smuts went back on his word and refused to repeal the Black Act. The Indians made a bonfire of their registration certificates and decided to defy the ban on immigration to the Transvaal. Jails began to be filled. Gandhi was arrested a second time in September 1908 and sentenced to two months imprisonment, this time hard labour. The struggle contin- ued In February 1909 he was arrested a third time and sentenced to three months hard labour. he made such good use of his time in jail with study and prayer that he was able to declare that “the real road to ultimate happiness lies in going to jail and undergoing suffering and privations there in the interest of one’s own country and religion”.
In 1911, a provisional settlement of the Asiatic question in the Transvaal brought about a suspension of the satyagraha. In the following year, Gokhale visited South Africa and on the eve of the departure assured Gandhi that the Union Government had promised to repeal the Black Act, to remove the racial bar from the immigration law and to abolish the £3 tax. But Gandhi had his fears which were soon borne out. The Union Government went back on its promise, and to this fire was added a very powerful fuel when a judgment of the Supreme Court ruled that only christian marriages were legal in South Africa, turning at
one stroke all Indian marriages in South Africa invalid and all Indian wives into concubines. This provoked Indian women, including, Kasturbai, to join the struggle.
It was illegal for the Indians to cross the border from the Transvaal into Natal, and vice versa, without a permit, Indian women from the Tolstoy Ashram crossed the border without permits and proceeded to Newcastle to persuade the Indian miners there to strike. They succeeded and were arrested. The strike spread and thousands of miners and other Indians prepared, under Gandhi’s leadership, to march to the Transvaal border in a concerted act of non-violent defiance. Gandhi made strict rules for the conduct of the satyagrahis who were to submit patiently and without retaliation to insult, flogging or arrest. He was arrested and sentenced, bu the satyagraha spread. At one time there were about fifty thousand indentured labourers on strike and several thousand other Indians in jail. The Government tried repression and even shooting, and many lives were lost. “In the end”, as an American biographer has put it, “General Smuts did what every Government that ever opposed Gandhi had to do – he yielded.”
Gandhi was released and. in January 1914, a provisional agreement was arrived at between him and General Smuts and the main Indian demands were conceded. Gandhi’s work in South Africa was now over and, in July 1914, he sailed with his wife for England where Gokhale had called him. Before sailing, he sent a pair of sandals he had made in jail to General Smuts as a gift. Recalling the gift twenty-five years later, the General wrote : “I have worn these sandals for many a summer since then even though I may feel that I am not wrothy to stand in the shoes of so great a man.”
| 14.3. Gandhi as a Journalist |
Journalism was the factor that transformed Ordinary Gandhi into Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s work in journalism had a strong influence not only on every newspaper in India but also on the entire literary world of every language in India!!!
“My newspapers became for me a training ground in self-restraint and a means for studying human nature in all its shades and variations. Without the newspapers a movement like Satyagraha could not have been possible.” – Mahatma Gandhi
How did Gandhi become a Journalist?
In 1903, in South Africa, Gandhi started a weekly newspaper, Indian Opinion (16 pages tabloid), issued every Saturday in 4 languages. Three years later Gandhi dropped two of those languages for the want of competent editors, but he himself edited the paper in the othertwo languages and issued the paper on time until he left South Africa in 1914.
From India Gandhi continued supporting Indian Opinion all his life by providing regular editorial materials and moral and financial support. In 1919 Gandhi started two weeklies in India. Young India & Navjivan and issued it regularly all his life except for the durations during which the government ceased the press. In 1933 Gandhi added a third weekly, Harijan (which means ‘the children of God’) and ran it all his life except when the press was ceased.
More than 75% of the content in his papers came from his own pen. It is estimated that during his lifetime Gandhi wrote more than 10 million words. That translates into 500 words every day for 50 years!! And all his writing was related to personal improvement, and social and political reform.
The single factor that helped Gandhi the most in earning the title of ‘Mahatma’ and the leadership of the masses was his dedication of running the weekly newspapers for nearly 40 years of his life.
Today, when the contemporary media scenario bristles with unheard of turmoil – investigative journalism- through all means fair and foul; over-riding role of market forces in the media wherein the “advertorial” and “response” and “response features” edge out editorials, and when the media is trying to project the celebri- ties and models as the icons of modern society, it would be worth while to revisit Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy and canon of journalism and his contribution as a journalist.
According to Chalapathi Raju, himself an eminent editor, Gandhi was probably the greatest journalist of all time, and the weeklies he ran and edited were probably the greatest weeklies the world has known. He published no advertisement; at the same time he did not want his newspapers to run at a loss. He had
gained considerable experience in South Africa, where he had taken over in 1904 the editorship of the ‘Indian Opinion’ and published it in English, Tamil and Gujarati, sometimes running the press himself.
‘Young India’ and ‘Harijan’ became powerful vehicles of his view on all subjects. He wrote on all subjects. He wrote simply and clearly but forcefully, with passion and burning indignation. One of the object of a newspaper, he said is to understand the popular feeling and give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments, and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects.
Gandhi’s papers published no advertisements. They enjoyed wide circulation. His approach to journalism was totally devoid of ambitions. To him it was not a vocation to earn his livelihood; it was a means to serve the public. In the ‘Young India’ of 2July 1925, he wrote: “I have taken up journalism not for its sake but merely as an aid to what I have conceived to be my mission in life. My mission is to teach by example and present under severe restraint the use of the matchless weapon of satyagraha which is a direct corollary of nonviolence.”
Gandhi looked upon Journalism as a means to serve the people. He said in his autobiography: “The sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countryside and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many journals of the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? and who should be the judge? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil. go on together, and man must make his choice.
Gandhi-The Great Communicator and Journalist
Apart from being a national leader and social reformer, Gandhi was a great communicator. More than any one else, he recognized that communication is the most effective tool to shape opinion and mobilize popular support. He was successful because he had a latent skill in communication that surfaced in South Africa where he had gone initially to set up practice as a lawyer. The practice of communication started by him in South Africa gave him the clue to rally millions of his countrymen when he returned to India.
Gandhi was associated with six journals, for two of which he was the editor. His first paper, ‘Indian Opinion’ was started in South Africa. In order to ventilate the grievances of Indians and mobilize public opinion in their favour, Gandhi started writing and giving interview to newspapers, He focused on open letters and Letters to Editor, but soon realized that occasional writings and the hospitality of newspapers were inad- equate for the political campaign he had launched. He needed a mouthpiece to reach out to the people; so in June 1903 he launched Indian Opinion.
It served the purpose of a weekly newsletter which disseminated the news of the week among the Indian community. It became an important instrument of education. Through the columns of the newspaper Gandhi tried to educate the readers about sanitation, self-discipline and good citizenship. How important the journal was to Gandhi is seen from his own statement in his biography, My Experiments with Truth.
‘Indian Opinion….. was a part of my life. Week after week I poured out my soul in its columns and ex-
pounded the principles and practice of satyagraha as I understood it. During 10 years, that is until 1914, excepting the intervals of my enforced rest in prison there was hardly an issue of ‘Indian Opinion’ without an article from me. I cannot recall a word in these articles set down without thought or deliberation or word of conscious exaggeration, or anything merely to please. Indeed the journal became for me a training in self restraint and for friends a medium through which to keep in touch with my thoughts.”
The critics found very little to which they could object. In fact, the tone of ‘Indian Opinion’ compelled the critics to put a curb on his palm.
Gandhi launched Satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act and the massacre in Jallianwala Bagh. he learnt in South Africa how important the press and public opinion could be in politics and had taught himself how to use the written word most effectively.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS A PRECIOUS PRIVILEGE THAT NO COUNTRY CAN FORGO
- K.Gandhi
The two journals ‘Young India’ and ‘Navjivan’ were used by him to ventilate his views and to educated the public on Satyagraha. In 1933 Gandhi started ‘Harijan’, ‘Harijanbandhu’, ‘Harijansevak’ in English, Gujarati and Hindi, respectively. These newspapers were the vehicles of his crusade against untouchability and poverty in rural areas. These papers published no advertisements even then they enjoyed wide circulation. His note of defiance and sacrifice gave a new stimulus to the evolution of press as a weapon of satyagraha.
Gandhi and Role of Newspapers
It will be pertinent to point out as to what Mahatma Gandhi considered to be the role of newspapers. He wrote: In my humble opinion, it is wrong to use a newspaper as a means of earning a living. There are certain spheres of work which are of such consequence and have such bearing on public welfare that to undertake them for earning one’s livelihood will defeat the primary aim behind them. When, further a newspaper is treated as a means of making profits, the result is likely to be serious malpractices. It is not necessary to prove to the opinion.
‘Newspapers are meant primarily to educate the people. They make the later familiar with contemporary history. This is a work of no mean responsibility. It is a fact, however, that readers cannot always trust newspapers. Often facts are found to be quite the opposite of what has been reported. If newspapers realized that it was their duty to educate the people, they could not but wait to check a report before publishing it. It is true that often they have to work under difficult conditions. They have to sift the true from the false in a short time and can only guess at the truth. Even then, I am of the opinion that it is better not to publish a report at all if it has not been found possible to verity it.’
The eminent journalist and freedom fighter Salien Chatterjee who covered Mahatma Gandhi, his actions and programmes for a number of years died a few months back, In an article, ‘Reporting Mahatma’, he had written for the special issue of Vidura on, Gandhi as a Journalist, (Jan-March, 1998) he said.
“I joined journalism in 1942. Reporting Mahatma Gandhi and my tours with him were the best and most memorable period of my journalistic career. Gandhi himself was a journalist. During my tours with him, he often told me how he worked day and night to produce his journal ‘Indian Opinion’ in Natal, South Africa. He described ‘Indian Opinion’ as the most useful weapon in his struggle in South Africa. He always stressed the importance of newspapers in educating the people. Gandhi always believed and always emphasized that the sole aim of journalism should be service, service of the people and the country.
In ‘Young India’ Gandhi once gave a glimpse of the exacting code he ad set up for himself. “To be true to my faith, I may not write in anger or malice. I may not write merely to excite passion. The reader can have no idea of the restraint I have to exercise from week to week in the choice of topics and my vocabulary. It is training for me. It enables me to peek into myself and to make discoveries of my weaknesses. Often my vanity dictates a smart expression or my anger a harsh adjective. It is a terrible ordeal but a fine exercise to remove these weeds.”
Gandhi’s canons of Journalism
Gandhi had been frequently writing on various aspects of journalism. To him editorial independence, adherence to truth and self-restraints were the three over riding considerations for journalism. In his message for the editor of the newspaper, ‘The Independence’, on 30 January 1919, he wrote: In wishing you success in your new enterprise, I would like to say how I hope your writings would be worthy of the worthy of the title you have chosen for your journal, and may I further hope that to a robust of indepen- dence you will add an equal measure of self-restraint and the strictest adherence to truth? Too often in our journals as in others do we get fiction instead of fact and declamation in place of sober reasoning. You would make ‘The Independence’ a power in the land and a means of education for the people by avoiding the errors I have drawn attention to.
Newspapers and Advertising
On receiving Advertisement support for running a newspaper Mahatma Gandhi wrote: It is now an estab- lished practice with newspaper to depend for revenues mainly on advertisements rather than on subscrip- tions. The result has been deplorable. They very newspaper which writes against the drink evil publishes advertisements in praise of drinks.
In the same issue, we read of the harmful effects of tobacco as also from where to but it. Or we shall find the same issue of a paper carrying a long advertisement for a certain play and denouncing that play as well. Medical advertisements are the largest sources of revenue though they have done, and are still doing incalculable harm to the people. These medical advertisements almost wholly offset the services rendered by the newspapers. I have been eyewitness to the harm done by them. Many people are lured into buying harmful medicines. Many of these promote immorality. Such advertisement find a place even in papers run to further the cause of religion.
This practice has come entirely from the West. No matter at what cost or effort we must put an end to this undesirable practice or at least reform. It is the duty of every newspaper to exercise some restraint in the matter of advertisements.
THE SOLE AIM OF JOURNALISM SHOULD BE SERVICE – M.K.Gandhi
Today, when there is widespread concern over the growing influence of market forces on media, and regret over journalism being no longer a social service, Gandhi’s views on values of journalism bring to bear on the profession of journalism the force of ethics and morality. In this context he had said, ‘It is often observed that newspapers published any matter than they have, just to fill in space. The reason is that most newspapers have their eyes on profits…… There are newspapers in the west which are so full of trash
that it will be a sin even to touch them. At times, they produce bitterness and strife even between different families and communities. Thus, newspapers cannot escape criticism merely because they serve the people.’
THE TRUE FUNCTION OF JOURNALISM IS TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC MIND, NOT TO STOCK IT WITH WANTED AND UNWANTED IMPRESSIONS. – M.K. Gandhi
Gandhi and Radio
The first and only time Gandhi visited the Broadcasting house, Delhi was on 12 November, 1947, the Diwali Day. He arrived at the Broadcasting House accompanied by Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. A report on this event published in the issue of’ ‘The Indian Listener’ of 22 February, 1948, after Gandhi’ death, said: “A special studio was fitted with the ‘takhposh’ (low wooden settee) which was daily used by him for his prayer meeting addresses at Birla House, Appropriately, the prayer meeting atmosphere was created in the studio Gandhi was at first shy of the radio and it was after much persuasion that he agreed to
broadcast from the studios of AIR……… but the moment he reached the studio he owned this impersonal
instrument as his own and said: “This is a miraculous pwoer. I see ‘shakti’, the miraculous power of God”. According to the ‘Hindustan Times’ of 13th November, “He spoke for 20 minutes and his voice was exceptionally clear. His message was followed by recorded music of Vande Materam”
The news og Gandhi’s assassination on the evening of January 30, which had spread like wild fire in Delhi was flashed by foreign correspondents and news agencies all over the world within minutes. That evening at 8-30 P.m. Prime Minister, Nehru whom Gandhi had called his heir in the freedom struggle, broadcast from the Delhi station a very moving talk which began with the oft quoted words: “A light has gone out of our lives”. Others who broadcast later were Sardar Patel, Sarojini Naidu and numerous leaders and prominent personalities from all walks of life. Lord Mountbatten came to the Delhi station on 12 February to pay his homage in a broadcast talk.
On the day of the funeral, Melville De Mellow gave the marathon, almost ten hour long commentary, which in its moving description of the crowds and the procession as it inched its way with millions of people lining the route to the place chosen for the last rites on the bank of the river Yamuna, seemed to articulate the whole nation’s grief and homage. It was a classic of broadcasting at its best, and established De Mellow’s fame as an outstanding commentator. It was De Mellow who described the last anguished moments of the funeral ceremony before returning to the studios.
THE NEWSPAPERS SHOULD BE READ FOR THE STUDY OF FACTS THEY SHOULD NOT BE AL- LOWED TO KILL THE HABIT OF INDEPENDENT THINKING.
M.K.Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi’s speech during his visit to ‘The Hindu’ sums up his philosophy and vision of journalism: I have, therefore, never been tired of reiterating to journalists whim I know that journalism should never be prosituted for selfish ends or for the sake of merely earning a livelihood or, worse still, for amassing money. Journalism, to be useful and serviceable to the country, will take its definite, its best for the service of the country and, whatever happens the views of the country irrespective of consequences. I think that we have in our midst the making of newspapers which can do so.
Let us be clear in our minds that-to confine Gandhi to India and to view him as merely the great Indian national leader is to diminish his greatness and personality. Gandhi belonged to the whole world, the humanity at large. The Time magazine, while chronicling the sweeping forces and great events of the 20th century catalogued Gandhi as one of the greatest activists-who fought for change from outside the tradi- tional halls of power, who was bound to an abstract vision for which he would pay any price was life. The world that revered few men had revered Gandhi, Although Gandhi died believing his lone voice was unheard-he was mistaken; the power of his message would endure to move men and nations for all times to come.
Source: Employment News, Dated – 29 September – 5 October 2001, Vol. XXVI
| 14.4. Gandhi as a Writer |
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) edited three journals during his life. The first one, Indian Opinion (1903- 1914), was in South Africa. The other two: Young India (1919-1932) and Harijan (1933-1948) were both from Ahmedabad. The fact that Gandhi gained a London matriculation and was called to the Bar in 1891, needs to be placed alongside the reality that English was not Gandhi’s mother tongue and as a lawyer in India he was an utter failure. The latter was probably not so much due to his lack of knowledge of the language, as to stirrings within him about the ethics of his own profession and whether it was in a court of law that a petitioner could seek truth, though she may well get justice. So, neither training nor learning a language are keys to understanding how and why Gandhi came to wield and effective pen – in Gujarati, Hindi and English, notwithstanding that both were important means.
Writers, journalists, correspondents, and all those who use the currency of language to express thoughts and feelings about events outside or within themselves, especially those who work diligently at their craft, invariably start from a locus which is physical. Could it be the physical locus, South Africa in 1893, In Gandhi’s case, provided the impetus for him to pick up his pen and respond to a reality?
Three physical events where Gandhi was bodily and violently hurt partly explain the awakening of his unknown talent to express a reality and locate himself beyond the physical. First, in June 1893, Gandhi was thrown out of the train to pretoria, as he was in a compartment where only white persons could travel and holding a first-class ticket was held against him. Second, in July 1893, Gandhi was kicked off the footpath near President Kruger’s home. Third, in January 1897, on arrival in Durban from India, Gandhi was attacked by a mob. These were humiliations to which the entire “coloured” community was subject, not only Gandhi, but they had a particular effect on him.
In each of these cases, Gandhi refused to sue his assailants, but that does not mean that he stopped thinking about the motivation of his white brothers and sisters who continued to demean (using contemptu- ous words, such as, “coolies”, “coolie ships”, and so on) an entire community. The other part of his inner need to communicate – stemmed from his training – was warranted by the legal disabilities which all persons of colour, again not only Indians, were subject. In short. It was a “condition of semi-slavery” which thousands of indentured labourers from various part of the British Empire endured, not without tremen- dous pain, suffering, and debasement.
It was these physical and legal incidents which Gandhi pondered very seriously and have been percep- tively characterised as “iron enter(ing) his soul,” Yet, the effect of that corrosive metal piercing a sensitive soul cannot totally account for the prodigious outpouring form Gandhi’s pen, mind and heart. Could they? Starting from editing Indian Opinion in 1903 till his assassination by an ultranationalist in 1948, his pen continued to write. The Collected Works of Gandhi now number 100 volumes and these are edited.
What is it in a writer that serves as a proverbial fount to return to time and again for sustenance, reflection, and at times even temporary silence? In Gandhi’s case there is ample evidence in his writings, be it in his An Autobiography:
The Story of my Experiments With Truth (first Published in two volumes in 1927 and 1929) or in his seminal work Hind Swaraj (1909), that it was his intense search for the spiritual combined with the need to make human beings deeply aware that their response to inhumanity is with added humanity and love of the opponent. These were the embryonic seeds of ahimsa and satyagraha. Some have characterised his search as being God-centred and human-orientated. However one may define this bedrock within Gandhi, it is clear in his writings about satyagraha and ahimsa, while in South Africa and later in India, that he was writing for change both spiritual and temporal. Hence, the concept of swaraj for Gandhi was not just independence from the British Raj, but also self-discipline and self-rule by Indians. He perceptively saw a time when Indians themselves would exploit other Indians. Even though India was politically free, its poorest citizens would be in utter bondage and servitude. To them, independence effectively meant more subjugation, displacement, discrimination, misery, loot and mayhem. Hence, Gandhi’s question: “What is a swaraj?” It was addressed both to oppressors and oppressed, to morally change themselves, while subjecting himself to the same introspection.
The quotation at the outset provides an effective illustration of this, which are replete in his writings.
In South Africa from 1893-1915, writing for change meant, creating unity and harmony within the entire Indian community. This was a heterogenous group. Gandhi intended “infus(ing) a spirit of comradeship among Muslim merchants and their Hindu and Parsi clients from western India, the semi-slave indentured labourers from Madras, and the Natal-born Indian Christians.” This was no easy task.
Gandhi’s creative response in his writings on the grim situation in the columns of the Indian Opinion were a combination of legal memoranda, reports and remedies; historical antecedents of humanity’s struggle for social justice and equality; righteous appeals to the Boers, British and Indians – all citizens of the Emprie – to be conscious of their moral duties, evocation of religious ideals from various scriptures, and the evolu- tion of satyagraha and ahimsa as effective means to non-violent change.
All those familiar with Gandhi’s style of writing speak universally about his simplicity. His writings even on his return to India in 1915 and available in Young India and Harijan are factual, rational and with very little rhetoric. He is certainly moralistic, but not just that. He provokes his readers to respond and reflect on his moralistic writings and reply. That is why the style which Gandhi adopted in Hind Swaraj is polemical (as a dialogue between the “Reader” and “Editor”). The latter was Gandhi and the former were the extremists. In fact, Gandhi used this literary device to get the radical nationalists and anarchists to dialogue with him on various critical issues pertaining to India and his own moral and political philosophy.
Thus, as a writer he demonstrated his skills and interests in mediating between various points of view. In fact, James Hunt in Gandhi in London writes that Gandhi “had his most public encounter with the ideology of terrorism” during a dinner to celebrate the Dussera festival in London on October 24,1909. At this dinner Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), a fervent revolutionary and spokesperson for the extremists, spoke. It was “as a consequence of this encounter, Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj.” This is another practical illustration of Gandhi’s deep commitment to change. Even then, his writings were devoted to changing the hearts of zealots, those committed to violent change, perversion of history, and the need for morality in politics as in all spheres of life.
Writing, for Gandhi, was certainly a means to an end. It was the mean to reach the masses of India who were not part of the elitist Congress party at the time, but who necessarily formed an effective part of his vision for a free India. It was a means to search for practical ways which would bind Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Zorostrians, and all others as sisters and brothers.
Gandhi, however, was not just a writer, but also a doer (karma yogin). His “Constructive Programme” envisaged an India which particularly embraced its poorest and those who were oppressed by the perni- cious caste system. It aimed at moral, economical, and spiritual rejuvenation of all through sarvodaya, while building democracy from the paddy fields and mud huts. In his writings are also the basis for “civil disobedience”, hartal, dharna, accounts of massive jail-goings and rights of citizens, while using satyagraha and non-cooperation effectively against those who are elected to political or other offices and use it for their own benefit, foment communal division and wreak havoco on the body politic. Gandhi did all this and much more without any monetary compensation for his editorial labours, for no small change.
From The Bijak of Kabir, translated from the original Hindi and ed. Linda Hess and Shukdev Singh. New Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass. 1986.
| 14.5. Summary |
As a powerful mass communicator and as a fearless journalist, Mahatma Gandhi was unrivalled. Almost ever one knows that Mahatma Gandhi was a Political Leader, but very few know that Gandhi was also a journalist! Yes, Gandhi was an outstanding journalist. For 45 years, starting from 1903, he edited and published weekly newspapers. Journalism was the factor that trasnformed ordinary Gandhi into Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s work in the field of journalism had a strong influence not only on every newspaper in India but also on the entire literary world of every language in India!!!
Even when he was studying for the Bar in London. Gandhiji wrote articles for the ‘Vegetarian’. When his political career in South Africa started in 1893, he wrote letters to the editors of the South Africa news papers and also of some news papers in India. That is low he came into contact with G A Natesan, the Editor of Indian Review in Madras, G A Natesan became a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhiji always stayed at the residence of G A Natesan during the several visits to Madras till the late 1930s.
After a few minutes stay in South Africa in 1893, Gandhi realized the paramount public need to become a journalist to fight for the rights of the Indian community. And he brought the highest qualities of the journal- istic profession? courage in the face of adversity, unswerving adherence to truth, pursuit of public causes, and objectivity in presentation? in all his letters, representations and memorials, not only to the govern- ment of the day but also the leading newspapers of the time.
His letters to the editors of South Arican dailies can serve as a lesson to all journalists even today on how to fight injustice in any country or any public system where the laws are loaded against one section of the people, without giving offence to the rulers themselves. Gandhiji’s only aim as a journalist was to achieve illuminating candour in print and to strip away cant. In short he was totally committed to the sacred pursuit of and the heroic effort to state the truth. Gandhiji was fully aware of the fact that the pursuit of the truth and the articulation of it was the most delicate, hazardous, exacting, and inexact of tasks. He was totally committed to the cause of the pursuit of truth, information and enlightenment. A telling example of this trait can be seen from his letter dated 25 October, 1894 to the Times of Natal, which had carried a contemptu- ously worded editorial title ‘Rammysammy’.
Gandhi wrote: ‘You would not allow the Indian or the native the precious privilege (of voting) under any circumstances, because they have a dark skin. You would look the exterior only. So long as the skin is white it would not matter to you whether it conceals beneath it poison or nectar. To you the lip-prayer of the Pharisee, because he is one, is more acceptable than the sincere repentance of the publican, and this, I presume, you would call Christianity. You may; it is not Christ’s. Sir, may I venture to offer a suggestion?
Will you re-read your New Testament? Will you ponder over your attitude towards the coloured population of the Colony? Will you then say you can reconcile it with the Bible teachings or the best British traditions? If you have washed your hands clean of both Christ and the British tradition, I can have nothing to say; I gladly withdraw what I have written. Only, it will then be a sad day for British and for India if you have many followers.’
After 10 years of relentless struggle, Gandhi realised that the twin tasks of mobilizing public opinion and influencing official decisions required a regular newspaper. Thus was born Indian Opinion in June 1903. he was clear about the nature and content of his newspaper. It would not carry any advertisement nor try to make money.
Instead, he sought subscribers who would give donations. It was while writing in Indian Opinion that Gandhi stumbled on the concept of satyagraha. Indian Opinion became certainly a most useful and potent weapon in the struggle for the rights of Indians in South Africa. In South Africa his writings often made the white racists look ridiculous: ? The white barber refused to cut my black hair, extending his colour preju- dice to not only non-Christian skin but non-Christian hair as well.
Gandhi served as Editor of Indian Opinion for 12 years from 1903 to 1915. Gandhi often declared that journalism was not a profession or business for him, but an effective medium of communicating with the common people. For this reason he wrote more and more in the Indian languages and spoke to the masses directly. It is not therefore surprising that Indian Opinion was bi-lingual (English and Gujarati) right from the beginning. Later for sometime it had also Hindi and Tamil sections. Indian Opinion more or less forced the South African provincial regimes to modify their repressive laws against Indians. Gandhi himself has confirmed this fact. He says of his Indian Opinion articles: ‘There was no padding, no essays given to
the readers. I used to reason out for them their difficulties. I had no time to discuss theories. They had weekly instructions as to what they were to do. I have not doubt that Indian Opinion had a vital part to play in moulding and guiding the Satyagrahis.’ (1-7-1940)
Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in January 1915. In 1917 he got a call from the Indigo farmers of Champaran in Bihar that they were being subjected to the same forms of indignity and exploitation as the indentured labourers in South Africa. Gandhi rushed to Champaran and conducted an investigation and wrote a detailed report. It was a masterpiece of journalism at its truest and noblest. After Champion it was only a matter of time before the Mahatma took to journalism as his most potent weapon of satyagraha in India till the attainment of our independence on 15 August, 1947.
Gandhi was the Editor of Young India from 1919 to 1931. Young India had a Gujarati edition called Navajivan. Young India, like Indian Opinion in South Africa, was the mouthpiece of the civil disobedience movement during the 1920s. Issue after issue of Young India and Navajivan carried samples of the Mahatma’s journalistic genius which blended seemingly earnest appeals to the government to do what was ‘just and righteous’. Gandhi was Editor of Harijan from 1933 to 1942 and again from 1946 to 1948. Harijan was the organ of the Harijan Sevak Sangh in the fight against untouchability. Like Young India. Harijan too had both Gujarati and Hindi editions.
In Gandhi’s conceptive of journalism, there was no room for sensational scoops. He said,’ there are occasions when a journalist serves his profession best by his silence’.
His writing was simple, direct and forthright. He was economical and effective in his choice of words and studiously precise in his expressions. His captions would repay careful study.
| 14.6. Model Questions |
- How did Gandhi emerge as an important journalist of his time? Discuss?
- Critically evaluate Mahatma Gandhi as a
- Discuss the contribution of Mahatma Gandhi to Indian
