Why Politics?

184. If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircle us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake.

 –YI, 12-5-20, Tagore, 1069.

185. My work of social reform was in no way less or subordinate to political work. The fact is, that when I saw that to a certain extent my social work would be impossible without the help of p9olitical work, I took to the latter and only to the extent that it helped the former. I must therefore confess that work so social reform or self-purification of this nature is a hundred times dearer to me than what is called purely political work.

–YI, 6-8-31, 203.

186. My life is oneindivisible whole, and all my activities run into one another, and they all have their rise in my insatiable love of mankind.

–H, 2-3-34, 24.

A Practical Idealist

187. In dealing with living entities the dry syllogistic method leads not only to bad logic but sometimes to fatal logic. For if you miss even a tiny factor-and you never have control over all the factors that enter to be wrong. Therefore, you never reach the final truth, you only reach an approximation; and that too if you are extra careful in your dealings.

—H, 14-8-37, 212.

188. For me, the law of complete love is the law of my being. Each time I fail, my effort shall be all the more determined for my failure. But I am not preaching that final law through the Congress or the Khilafat. I know that any such attempt is foredoomed to failure. To expect a whole mass of men and women to obey that law all at once is not to know its working.

–YI, 9-3-22, 141.

189. I adhere to the opinion that I did will to present to the Congress nonviolence as an expedient. I could not have done otherwise, if I was to introduce it into politics. In South Africa too I introduced it as an expedient. It was successful there because resisters were a small number in a compact area and therefore easily controlled. Here we had numberless persons scattered over a huge country. The result was that they could not be easily controlled or trained. And yet it is a marvel the way they have responded. They might have responded much better and shown far better results. But I have no sense of disappointment in me over the results obtained. If I had started with men who accepted nonviolence as a creed, I might have ended with myself. Imperfect as I am, I started with imperfect men and women and sailed on an uncharted ocean. Thank God, that though the boat has not reached its haven, it has proved fairly storm-proof.

–H, 12-4-42, 116.

190. God has blessed me with the mission to place nonviolence before the nation for adoption. For better or for worse the Congress, admittedly the most popular and powerful organization, has consistently and to the best of its ability tried to act up to it.

I hope the learned critic does not wish to suggest that as the Congress did not accept my position, I should have dissociated myself entirely from the Congress and refused to guide it. My association enables the Congress to pursue the technique of corporate non-violent action.

—H, 2-12-39, 357.

191. I would not serve the cause of nonviolence, if I deserted my best co-workers because they could not follow me in an extended application of nonviolence. I therefore remain with them in the faith that their departure from the nonviolent method will be confined to the narrowest field and will be temporary.

–H, 30-9-39, 289.