GANDHI’S MODEL

Evening Star, Issue 20943, 6 November 1931, Page 7

GANDHI’S MODEL

THOREAU’S FIRM STAND Mahatma Gandhi’s limited luggage for his voyage to England is likely to contain a copy of Thoreau s essay on ‘Civil Disobedience, 5 according to tno ' New York Times.’ (Thoreau drew the attention of his native village. Concord, Massachusetts, _to himself when ho spent a night in the local •gaol rather than pay the poll tax, which he persistently fought. in ‘Civil Disobedience, 5 he wrote: “I did not for a moment teei confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. 1 could but smile to see how industriously they locked tho door on my meditation, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body. .... I saw that the State was half-witted and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost allniiy remaining respect for it, and pitied it. “ Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, hut only his body, Ins senses. 55 . . , . Gandhi has likewise asserted that imprisonment has no terror for him, and that he suffers from no sense of punishment while in gaol. In Tboreau’s essay, first published in 3849, the American expresses views that find their parallel in the conduct of the Indian leader. _ Thoreau accepted in both his thought and conduct the principle of the Declaration of Independence that liberty is an inalienable right of man. Ho constantly emphasised the freedom of tlie individual, and believed that since the majority not only could he wrong but often was, the minority should nob

be coerced by superior numerical strength. His ‘Civil Disobedience* to a treatise on the theme that revolution is justified when the wrong administration of a _ Government makes revolt more beneficial than compliance . with its laws. The right of resistance,; he pointed out, did not perish in 1775.- “ Must the citizen even for a moment, or in the least decree, resign his conscience to the legislator. 1 he asked. “Why has every man a conscience, then? I think we should be men first and subjects afterward.It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any, time what 1 think right.” Thoreau declared that the basis of civil obligation continued to be justice rather than expediency. He set out to disturb the complacency of the American voters with these words: “ Even voting for the right is do mg nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that' it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of majority. There' is but li'ths virtue in the action of masses of .men. - Instead of obeying all _ laws,_ Thoreau’s good citizen would intentionally break unjust ones. _ His _ conduct, though illegal, would justify itself and the State would thereby be a step nearer to Thoreau’s concluding thought in the essay; “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognise the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”-