A note from Dr.Rajasingham Narendran : I have retyped the text above from a copy of the above article in my possession. I think it carries a message appropriate to our circumstances in Sri Lanka- whether we are Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslim or any other. It also has a message to those leading and those aspiring to lead. Ultimately it is a message for mankind.
.... It took years of relentless integrity before Gandhi was trusted completely by his own people and finally by the world. He won this trust not only by his complete honesty in thought and action, but also by a unique frankness....
BY PEARL S. BUCK
(July 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Inevitably, leaders appear in our violent modern world, leaders self-appointed or chosen. With the need for leadership, a leader always appears, and in his person he epitomizes the struggle of his people. He becomes a symbol and by the power of his influence he shapes the struggle into revolution, violent or nonviolent. He could not become a leader, did not the people ask for leadership. Yet, conversely, were he not a born leader, the need of the people, could not make him one. A strange powerful instinct works between leader and people... I have seen this happen again and again in my lifetime, living as I did through decades of revolution in china- leadership on a local scale or on a national scale. There was a strange relationship, an instinctive one, between leader and people. The people need him and they find him and they shape him to their demand. He responds, and in turn shapes them to his demand. Once found, the people follow their leader blindly as sheep and sometimes to their mutual destruction, as in the case of Hitler. Or they follow to their success and triumph, as in the case of Gandhi. What makes the Hitler, leading his people to destruction? What makes the Gandhi leading his people to triumph? The answer lies in the quality of leadership, and the quality of leadership depends upon the quality of the leader. The people are not always wise. They can and often choose the wrong leader, a man with magnetism, perhaps, but without the principles upon which true leadership depends. It is these principles which I propose to explore here.
And what are the principles of leadership? I venture to say that, first of all, every potential leader is and of necessity must be a dreamer, one whose dreams of what could be, it-
A world that could be better, if –
A life that could be better, if-
A people who could be happier, if-
Most people do not dream big dreams. They hope, they wish, they have fragments of dreams, a better house, a big car- or a smart small one these days- clothes, food, prestige, business success, travel- these are all good little dreams that have no significance beyond themselves, enough perhaps to induce little dreamers to work harder, earn more, enjoy their individual lives. All good, but these are not the dreams I mean, the big dream, the universal dream of mankind for mankind. The person who can envision the big dream must have a conceptual mind, the synthesizing mind, the creatively thinking mind.
Essentially, of course, this is the mind of the artist, living in the eternal search for meaning, for beauty, for order, for understanding for universal happiness. Essentially, this mind expresses the very nature of the artist, the capacity to feel, the energy to pursue the vision. Instinctively the people, in search of a leader, are drawn to one who is superior to them they think, one who sees beyond what they see one who is willing to work for the dream and so for them. He is, above it all, able to express the dream in terms which they can understand, a dream of enough to eat, a steady job, freedom from oppression, freedom to think, to speak, to write-just be free. He puts into words what people want and in terms simple enough so that that they can grasp it and they come to believe that he knows how to make the dream come true. He promises, and they follow.
This capacity for dreaming is an essential part of a leader’s nature; it is imagination, it becomes a longing, which grows acute in him when he sees the needs of those who surround him and their dependence upon him, their hope in him. He is under obligation to them to prove himself. He is compelled by his belief in himself and in his dream, and the power of his own promises. He believes that he can make the dream come true. He is now the chosen one. Will he fulfil the promise and deserve the faith? Let us see; let us proceed.
The next principle I think is that of genius, abetted by talent. It is very easy to dream. In one way or another, as I have said, each of us has his dream. Whether we can fulfil the dream to the extent to which we can fulfil it, determines the quality of leadership. I do not hesitate to attach the word genius to this quality. The flair, the vision, the conceptual thought, all are part of the genius. You will also that I also attach the word talent. Genius and talent are two different attributes. Genius is the quality, the principle; talent is the ability to express the genius and to make the application. I think in this regard particularly Sun-Yat-Sen of China whose lifetime was partly my lifetime. There is a man who certainly was a dreamer and certainly had the quality of genius in a strange sort of way but had no talent whatever so that he had no means, no technique, to make the dreams come true. He had no ability to work out in practical terms his own hopes. I might say then that genius is art and talent is craft. The difference between art and craft and the relationship between art and craft is the difference, the relationship between genius and talent. The potential leader may have genius, but unless he has the talent for its practical expression, he will fail as a leader, and when he fails the people, those whom he has led will either follow other leadership or they become quite ruthless towards the leader who failed. They will not only reject him, they will put him to death because they cannot forgive him. He has betrayed them, not by intension, but by lack of talent. He has been able to conceive, but not to organize. He has promised but he has not produced. One has to only study the history of revolutions in the world to understand the necessity of talent in leadership as well as genius. Rarely if ever has the first revolutionary leader remained free and alive. Others of little genius but more talent take over.
Mahatma Gandhi, in contrast, I think, to Sun-Yat-Sen, had the same genius, but he had a remarkable talent for practical application. He was a politician and social craftsman, as well as a genius. His dreams were solid anchored firmly to the needs of his people. His concepts were not only Utopia, but also of how to achieve it. He knew his people. He knew what they were able to understand and what they were able to do, and he led them only as fast as they could go- but as fast and in ways that they understood. How much laughter there was in high places when he talked of salt and of the spinning wheel and of non-violence! But these were the ideas which his people the simplest of them, could grasp. Salt was a daily need, the spinning wheel gave them symbolic freedom from the machines of the empire and non-violence was part of their ancient religion. Gandhi would have failed completely had he not used such means. The people understood what to do when he told them and therefore they could take their part in bringing the dream to reality. Through action suited to their understanding they were able to see the dream more clearly. The dream itself would have faded had Gandhi been less skilled as a craftsman in his leadership. Had he only talked of the dream without telling people what to do about it, he would have failed as their leader. He never failed his people, for what he asked of them he first did himself. He practised what he told them to practise. And all the time he maintained the dream. He knew what he was working for. He never lost that vision the end to which all else was the means.
Genius and talent in the simplest terms that I have tried to express them and this brings to me to the next principle integrity. There is a difference you know between honesty and integrity... People can be quite honest but not have integrity. Honesty is being honest, and telling the truth to the best of your ability, being fair and so on, but integrity is being honest when no one can know about it. Integrity is honesty carried through the fibers of the being and the whole mind, into action so that the person is complete in honesty. That kind of integrity I put above all else as an essential of leadership. There are, as you know, good and honest persons of the utmost integrity who nevertheless cannot be leaders because they have not the qualities of conceptual thought, which I call vision, and who possess no genius and talent. But genius and talent without integrity are not enough. Integrity is the soul of leadership.
I cannot, however, put one quality above another in this matter of the principle of leadership. They are equally important. Without each the whole cannot be achieved and all must be found in the same person before we have the potential leadership which we need.
What is integrity again? It is loyalty in triplicate- loyalty to the dream, loyalty to one’s best self and the people one knows, and loyalty to the people one serves. A clear and single example of integrity might be Gandhi’s visit to England at the height of his career, before his success was assured. He was already successful in his own country but whether his leadership would be recognized abroad was as yet unknown. You will remember that notable visit, how he arrived in London wearing his costume of homespun cotton, and although the weather was grey and chill, his only wrap was his hand-woven woollen shawl. He fed on goat’s milk, and he slept on a mat. Among the dignified and amply dressed Englishmen he seemed an odd figure and there was much laughter and many cartoons blossomed on the pages of magazines and newspapers. But Gandhi was unmoved by laughter and criticism. He knew what he was doing. I do not doubt that he had thought out carefully every step of his way, how he would dress, how he would behave. His talent was at work. Of course, he could have worn English formal dress with the best of them, but had he done so, his people would have doubted him. They would have feared that he was yielding to the British in some secret way of which perhaps he might scarcely be aware. He had to identify himself with those he served. He could eat no better food, wear no better or different garments from those he and his followers had worn in India. He dramatized millions of Indian peasants in his own small rather insignificant person but he did this not only for the sake of drama. Drama alone would not have served. But I am sure that had he gone to England dressed otherwise we would not have seen the India that he wanted us to see. He did it first for integrity’s sake. This is I, he said in effect, and in this man whom you behold, you see millions of other men, my people, of whom I am only one. When the people of India studied his photograph in their newspapers they did not laugh or make fun. You may be sure their devotion swelled to greater heights than ever before. This man was their man; he had given himself to them. He did not betray them when he went to rich countries. He walked the handsome streets of London looking exactly as he did on the dusty roads of the Indian countryside. They recognized him as thousands of miles away. He was always the same. They trusted him.
“Truth”” Gandhi once said, “Is not merely the matter of words. It is really a matter of living the truth-“
This trust did not come about in an hour or a year. It took years of relentless integrity before Gandhi was trusted completely by his own people and finally the world. He won this trust not only by his complete honesty in thought and action, but also by his own unique frankness. He bared his private life to his people. He described his own struggle with temptation. He told of his own failures and when he failed again he began over again, refusing to be discouraged. He was weak as other men are weak and he fought his weakness. His frankness at times was embarrassing: Some called it exhibitionism, but it was not. He was stripping himself naked, so that his people could see him as he was, and seeing him recognize them-selves. And because he had conquered himself, he gave them hope for themselves.
For Gandhi, this integrity meant a self-revelation where there could be nothing secret or hidden in his life and thought. All that he did was open and before the eyes of others. Even the simple rites of eating and sleeping, the habits of work and communication, were there for all to see. Everybody knew everything about him except, perhaps, in his weekly days of silence, when for one day he shut himself away into himself to commune with his own dream and renew his own vision. On that day he wanted to hear no human voice, not even his own. For the rest, he belonged to the people and they belonged to him.
There were times, of course, when this complete identification the result of complete integrity became somewhat irritating. Gandhi could be so involved with people, especially those closest to him, that he took part in their most private affairs and gave advice where it was not always wanted or-let us say- appreciated. His people had to become accustomed to his directions-or advice- in personal matters of marriage or health habits, or politics, or anything. But I think they forgave him everything because it was love and interest that prompted this help. Nothing was sacred to Gandhi- rather; everything was sacred, and therefore open to his inspection and participation. When his advice was not followed, or when he was opposed he had the annoying habit of immediately punishing himself instead of the other person. There is, of course, no more subtle revenge than the direction of Jesus when he advised his followers to turn the other cheek when struck- a concept by the way, to be found in Hindu scripture, in a poem which says, “ To give a drink of water in return for a drink of water is nothing. To do something one must return good for evil”
Any act disconcerting to the enemy could scarcely be devised when than the turning of the cheek. Just when does one do when the other cheek is offered? The most callous conscience must be pricked or at least confused, or even angered by such a retort. Come on they say gently, hit me again if you are wicked enough. To hit again is to acknowledge the wickedness and extend it to proof beyond dispute. Also- what is the use of hitting someone who asks to be hit? Gandhi applied the technique by going on fast and such was his will power that time and again he continued almost until death. Perhaps he was so completely one with his people that he knew nothing could terrify them more than the loss of him, their leader. And, always the recalcitrant one, in triumph he sipped his fruit juice and returned to life. There was great deal of humour in Gandhi and at times a child-like mischief which his people perfectly understood and enjoyed. It was Sarojini Naidu, I believe, that woman of wit and intelligence, who loved Gandhi with utter devotion, who said, one day, something to the effect that, it cost the people a great deal to maintain Gandhi in his simple poverty. This, I was told, was her comment upon a visit by Gandhi to one of his millionaire friends- and he was not proud for he made friends among millionaires as well as among untouchables- when he insisted upon having the furniture and carpets and decorations removed from a handsome room in the mansion and caused a great deal of trouble so that he could live in his usual poverty and simplicity.
Whenever the humour and drama of his life, and that is part of a good leader which he frankly enjoyed, the people enjoyed it too. They laughed at him, they revered him, and they trusted him. And in return he never asked them to do what he knew they could not do, if they were inspired- and he could inspire them. He never asked them to do anything ignoble or dishonest or unworthy of the higher cause for which he gave his life. And, I repeat whatever he asked them to do he did first. When he bade them give up untouchability he adopted as his own daughter a girl belonging to the untouchables. When he gave the name of Harijan, or ‘God’s Own’, to the untouchables, he led his people gently towards green pastures and the still waters of non-segregation. He did not force them beyond their power to perform but he led them. This is integrity. This is loyalty to the vision. This is loyalty to the highest self. This is loyalty to the highest in people. His own integrity roused in response the integrity of those whom he led. And I assure you this never fails.
Mahatma Gandhi was a leader who succeeded in bringing about his dream. He fulfilled his vision. Genius and talent combined in him and when he died his revolution was not taken over by lesser men. And there is a very important lesson to be learned from that. It is when the leader fails that lesser men take over, but if the leader does not fail, the revolution is not lost. Instead, men like Prime Minister Nehru, who were his followers, took up the challenge of leadership. There has been a different leadership in method perhaps, and even in talent, but the genius has been the same. They have not departed personally from the principles that Gandhi established. India, therefore, has not suffered the waste and loss that most countries suffer after revolution. Her progress has been steady. And the greatest tribute of all perhaps, to the success of that leadership is the fact that the British themselves have acknowledged its quality and now all over the world people are beginning to understand the quality of leadership that has followed Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi would not allow in himself the luxury of personal enmities. He rebelled steadfastly, of course, against colonialism and lived and died for the freedom of his people. Yet he was warmly friendly towards individuals who administered that which he wished to put away. Lord and Lady Mountbatten were his personal friends and admirers and the dignity and mutual respect which attended the granting of independence to India was unique in human history. We must attribute to this primarily the noble leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and the manner in which he conducted the long struggle.
Among these basic principles of leadership which I have tried to describe to you, I considered adding one more, that of fearlessness. Then I decided against it. For fearlessness is the inevitable capacity for the dream, accompanied by genius and practical talent, infused and empowered by integrity. Such a person by consequent nature is inevitably fearless. Certainly Gandhi was fearless, of jail, of ridicule, of poverty, of death itself.
It was strangely fitting that Gandhi should have died suddenly one day at the hands of his own people. I am sure we often think of the great drama of that death. It usually happens that a man nod such stature approaches heights intolerable to certain lost souls. Christ always has his Judas. The dualism of our universe manifests itself in many ways. Gandhi died while he was triumphant in leadership. He did not sicken and weaken as lesser men might do. He simply was sent on his way to what beyond we do not know. How can one imagine immortality? When I think of the word, immortality, I am reminded of the simple explanation an American mother gave to her child. We cannot know what happens to people after they die, she told the child, because we are not breathing the same air any more. See the dragon fly yonder, on the lake’s edge? Once it was water creature, living under water. Then one day it felt the necessity of going to the surface of the water. I didn’t know why it had to go, but it just seemed time to do it. So up it went and, there on the surface, suddenly it found itself changed. It had wings, and it could fly. But it was never able to return again under water or find the other creatures there, who had no wings yet, and who had to live under the water. And those creatures, I suppose said to one another, in their way, I wonder where he went, and why we don’t see him any more... They think he is lost, the mother said to the child, but he isn’t. He’s flying on wings in another world.
So, perhaps, we may say of Mahatma Gandhi, in remembrance. He is flying on wings somewhere in another world.
(Reproduction from Bhavan’s journal)
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