Gandhi & Science

- By Dr Abhay Bang*

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is 'Most talked About Man in the World' as per the September 20, 1931 headline of Burlington Hawk-Eye US based newspaper. Even today his experiments and words are relevant to the whole world. However, everyone have different reservations about him, few good, and few bad.

This is a speech (converted into article) by Dr. Abhay Bang for Frontiers of Humanity’ lecture series under the ‘Gandhi, Science’ lecture series at Indian Academy of Sciences. At an event, in his speech he brought to light - why Mahatma Gandhi was not anti-science, in fact he himself was a science. The article brings in a different outlook towards the life of Mahatma Gandhi.

Let's start at the editorial office of The Time magazine in New York. It is December of the year 1999, the end of the 20th century. Time magazine wants to select the Person of the 20th Century. A large number of names have been suggested and the popular choice boils down to two names, Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi. The editors have a dilemma. Finally, the editors select Einstein as the person of the 20th century. Science and a scientist triumphed over Gandhi but in popularity. And that was the judgment in the 20th century. Today, in the 21st century, we need to re-examine the relationship between science and Gandhi once again and come to our judgment. I am not at all, going to talk about the work that I do or I did because this particular topic is even more fascinating than talking about my own work.

I have framed six questions for this exploration.

Six Questions about Gandhi and Science

• Was Gandhi anti-science?
• How did he relate to science?
• How was he different?
• What was the science underlying his nonviolence?
• What was Gandhi’s non-material method of knowing the truth?
• How is Gandhi relevant in the 21st Century? Relevant to us?

We shall start with the allegation against Gandhi, that he was anti-science, shall explore his relationship with science, but more in-depth shall explore what were his methods. And finally, how is he relevant to us today, if at all.

I must begin with a confession. I was born in a Gandhian family, grew up in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram. I studied in the very school that he had started. At the age of 18, I started studying medicine, then public health, and for the past 35 years I'm doing medical and public health research. For nearly 50 years, since I was first introduced to science, I have had a chequered relationship with Mahatma Gandhi on the question of science. I have felt embarrassed by his views, I have felt confused, I have felt angry. I have had, mentally, series of arguments with him on the issue of science. I have had disagreements with him. And I'm happy to tell you, that finally, every time, I have lost and he has won! I propose today to share with you this 50 years struggle with Gandhi and my journey to explore Gandhi and science. I also must acknowledge that I will heavily draw upon what Mahatma Gandhi has written and from his life, from several biographers who have written beautifully, from his foremost disciple and the exponent of his thoughts - Vinoba Bhave. I shall liberally make use of one beautiful article which Shambu Prasad wrote in the Economic and Political Weekly, nearly 20 years ago, and finally, my own experiences and experiments in life.

Was Gandhi anti-science?

So the first question. Was Gandhi anti-science?

Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, people who were so close to him, and even the people in the West, like Aldous Huxley, have accused Gandhi to be anti-science. The architect of India's national science policy, Dr. Meghnad Saha, look, what does he say about Gandhi - “We do not for a moment believe that better and happier conditions could be created by discarding modern scientific technique and reverting to the spinning wheel, the loincloth and the bullock cart.”¹

The last part of his sentence is definitely aimed at Mahatma Gandhi and his techniques and the symbols like spinning wheel, loincloth, and bullock cart. Meghnad Saha, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the intellectual class of India as a whole believe that Gandhi was anti-science, and hence, largely, irrelevant today. Mahatma Gandhi himself was responsible, at least partly, for this impression. In Hind Swaraj, probably his most seminal book next to his autobiography, he severely criticizes what we consider science. But be careful. He has criticized not science, but some of the products of science, like machines and medical practice. So, to us, he appears to be anti-science. Then to add salt to the injury to our intellect, his faith in prayer, and finally, the Ram-Nam. Thus, for any person of science, for any person who considers himself to be an intellectual, Gandhi is an anti-thesis. And hence we have conveniently labeled him to be an anti-science person. But then look at what he has to say about the scientists.

In his inaugural lecture at the Tibbia College, New Delhi, in 1921, he said - “But, I have nothing but praise for the zeal, industry, and sacrifice that have animated the modern scientists in the pursuit of truth.”² He highly appreciates the scientific spirit, scientific inquiry. And look at his life as the real evidence. He has himself said that ‘my life is my message’. So for a genuine inquiry, we must go beyond his statements and look at how he lived, what he actually did. And if we go into that, we find a lifelong curiosity and inquiry about various issues of science. About health sciences, diet, sanitation, germs, and exercise. He wants to know about the chemical analysis of various kinds of foods. His photograph with the microscope is well-known. At that moment, he was trying to see the leprosy bacilli – the causative organism of leprosy. When he was in the Yerwada jail, after 1942, he took a fascination with the telescope and developed a hobby of watching in the sky through it. Gandhi made liberals use scientific tools and scientific methods. But the most sensitive and difficult part is the attitude.

If we carefully look at Gandhi's attitude, his willingness to test, to experiment, and to look for evidence, his willingness to correct himself and change - these are the attributes of a scientist. And his very famous statement– “If a reader finds that my two statements contradict, take the later one as my better judgement.”

Political leaders or the saints usually don't admit that their earlier statement was wrong and the newer statement is their new judgment. They take pride in never changing. Gandhi, in this respect, is very much like a scientist. As if he is saying - I change. As the evidence comes I change my views. John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist, was once confronted by a politician that what he had earlier said was different. Keynes responded, “Yes sir! If the facts change, I change my opinion. What else do you do?”

In that respect, Gandhi is very much like a scientist. The most powerful evidence comes from the episode of Chauri Choura. We recently celebrated, after one hundred years, that episode of Chauri Chaura, but the government celebrated it for the wrong reasons. Mahatma Gandhi had launched a national non-cooperation movement in 1920, with the belief that India was ready for a non-violent national movement. But in 1921, a mob in Uttar Pradesh burned down the police station in Chauri Choura and killed 22 policemen. Gandhi was shocked. He said, and he said it publicly, that - I made a Himalayan blunder. My judgment that Indian people were ready for the non-violent movement was wrong. This is, as if, a scientist is saying – I had a hypothesis. It is refuted by the evidence. I accept it. And since my hypothesis was wrong, I must give it up and correct myself. Therefore I withdraw the whole national movement. That was one of the riskiest moments in Mahatma Gandhi's public life. He was just established as the national leader in India. And he risked that position by taking back the national movement against the opinion of the entire country.

These are attributes of a scientist. His laboratory was himself. Not only the nation was his laboratory, but he himself also was his laboratory. His experiments with Brahmacharya are very famous as well as infamous, but then he's experimenting on himself. ‘Is there any trace of sexual feeling left in me, which I want to get rid of? If I am truly non-violent, if I'm truly a saint or the so-called Mahatma, I should be completely free from the sexual desires, from Vasana. Am I?’ He did the most sensitive, risky experiment on himself to search in the races of his mind and his body.

I know Gandhi has been often very severely misunderstood and criticized for this experiment. But when I read about it, I was reminded of a name in medical science - John Hunter. John Hunter was a famous anatomist, about 200 years ago. He did one bold experiment on himself to find out how syphilis was transmitted. He took an inoculum from the sore of a patient with syphilis, injected that material onto his penis, and observed. Within few weeks a syphilitic ulcer developed at the site; thus he proved how the sexually transmitted disease syphilis spreads. Gandhi's experiment on himself was as daring and as risky as the John Hunter's. He publicly wrote about it. It's no wonder that Gandhi titled his autobiography - 'My Experiments with Truth'. His ultimate goal was to understand the truth. These are all attributes of a true scientist. He was a scientist of life.

How did he relate to science?

We come to the next question. If Gandhi was not anti-science, how did he use it, how did he relate with science? We can see the evidence of Gandhi's relationship with science, his application of science, in what Gandhi called his ‘constructive programs’, the various programs of rural development, and social reforms. Foremost amongst the constructive programs were Khadi (hand-made cloth) and Charkha (the spinning wheel). Gandhi uses scientific methods, looks for better and better technical tools to improve Khadi so that the ordinary village spinner and weaver can produce better cloth, can get more wages and people can use more Khadi. He even coins the term, Khadi Science. He calls Charkha, the spinning wheel, a grand and noble machine. It's difficult to believe today, but about 80 years ago, Gandhi announced an award of rupees one lakh at that time, (maybe worth about 10 crore rupees today), for somebody to innovate a more efficient Charkha. One finds that Gandhi uses science liberally. He expects from his Khadi workers an attitude of a scientist. Look what he says – “The science of Khadi requires the technical and mechanical skill of a high order and demands as much concentration as is given by Sir J C Bose to the tiny leaves of plants in his laboratory before he wrests from them the secrets of nature held by these fellow creatures of ours.”³

Elsewhere, he says – “Under my scheme, there would be more and better libraries, laboratories, and research institutes. Under it, we should have an army of chemists, engineers, and other experts who will be real servants of the nation and answer the varied and growing requirements of a people. The knowledge gained by them will be the common property of the people.”⁴

The last sentence is most important. What for the scientists and research infrastructure? He says that they will be the real servants of the nation and answer the varied and growing requirements of the people. ‘The knowledge gained by them will be the common property of the people. It will be different than the intellectual property right and patents, very different than the prevalent practice of knowledge owned by the scientists as personal property. Gandhi's purpose of science, the purpose of research, and the ownership of knowledge produced are different. He wanted his ashrams, and he uses this terminology, he says, his ashrams should become laboratories of the village and social reconstruction. He established the All India Village Industries Association for encouraging Gramodyog (village industries). Three names on its advisory board would be very familiar to you. Sir CV Raman, Jagdish Chandra Bose, and PC Ray, the three best scientists of India of that time, invited them to work on his village industries advisory board.

And finally, he coined a term that is so meaningful; that term is Satyagrahi Scientist. His ideal constructive worker, freedom movement worker, political worker, or ashram inmate should be a Satyagrahi Scientist. What did he mean by that? The worker should be a Satyagrahi – a non-violent seeker of truth. At the same time, he should also be a scientist in his attitude, in his methods, in his experimentation. That is Mahatma Gandhi's vision. His choice of the first Satyagrahi for the Vyaktigat Satyagrah (individual satyagraha) movement in 1940 was very significant. He didn't select Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Satyagrahi of the nation. Jawahar came second. His first choice was Vinoba Bhave, an obscure person at the time. He selected Vinoba, not only for his spiritual qualities but also for his scientific attitude. Vinoba had done phenomenal work on Khadi and Charkha.

A particular instance speaks volumes about Gandhi, and his choice – Vinoba. The spinners in Khadi complained to Mahatma Gandhi that the wages were very meager. Economically, that was natural because Khadi was not manufactured using machine. It involved manual spinning and weaving. So the rate of production was slow. But the prices of the cloth had to be kept low so that everybody would be able to purchase. Hence the wages were low. When the labourers complained, Mahatma Gandhi said we can't be unfair to the labourer. So he invited Vinoba and asked him to suggest the minimum wages for the labourers in Khadi. Vinoba asked for some time.

He returned after six months, a slim person, had lost 30 pounds of weight. Gandhi was alarmed; asked him – Vinoba, what happened? Vinoba said – ‘For the past six months, 'I was doing the manual spinning at the rate of the wages that are paid to the spinner. I earned two anas (one eighth of a rupee) per day. I have limited my food intake only to what can be bought with two anas. With the current wages, this is what happened'. Vinoba had turned himself into a laboratory. To sum up, Gandhi liberally and enthusiastically welcomed and employed science, scientific methods, and the scientists in his constructive work; and constructive work was very important for him. He has elsewhere said that in the last analysis, perfection in construct work is Swaraj – freedom and the self-rule.

How was he different than scientists?

How was he different than us? Make no mistake. Gandhi was not great because he was scientific or because he used science. All of us do that. That doesn't make us Gandhi. Using science is commonplace. How was he different?

One, his yardstick to evaluate science was the purpose it was used for. Science had to have a meaningful purpose. Look what he says – “I would like to pay my humble tribute to the spirit of research that fires the modern scientists. My quarrel is not against that spirit. My complaint is against the direction that the spirit has taken. It has chiefly concerned itself with the exploration of laws and methods conducting to the merely material advancement of its clientele.”⁵

He praises the scientists and scientific spirit, but he complains that they are using their skills, their knowledge, only for the material advancement of the clientele. For him, this was too narrow a purpose, too shallow a purpose. Science often becomes a tool in the hands of those with capital, where it becomes a tool of profit-making or in the hands of government where it can become a tool of coercion and destruction. So most often, science and scientists end up making either capitalists or governments more powerful. Power to the capitalist or power to the government. In Gandhi's hands, science becomes a tool for social change and justice. He expects – “Unless all the discoveries that you make have the welfare of the poor as the end in view, all your workshops will be no better than satan’s workshops.”⁶

Ultimately, the welfare of the people should be the end in view. Gandhi uses no mild words. He says, unless you do that, all your workshops will be no better than ‘Satan's workshop’. He shakes us, hits us hard, forces us to examine for what purpose our science, our laboratories, our scientific careers are being used. Gandhi was great because, in his hands, science became a tool of social change and justice.

Let's take the example of sanitation, cleaning of toilets. Imagine, when Gandhi came to India, in 1914, no person of higher class or higher varna ever even looked at his toilet. That was the dirtiest place in the house to be cleaned by the so-called dirtiest people in the society, the scavengers, the Bhangi. Gandhi introduced the practice of cleaning toilets in his ashram. He did it first. He made it a common practice. He applied science for cleaning toilets. In this way, he achieved sanitation; he achieved health and major social reform – of getting rid of caste discrimination. He probably must be the first political leader to start cleaning his toilet, made a public movement of it. Even Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra prasad, and Vallbhabhai Patel, when they came to his ashram, had to clean their toilets. In Gandhi's movement, even the Brahmins in Maharashtra - Bhave, and Bapat and Patwardhan, started cleaning toilets, not only their own but of others also.

One Appa Patwardhan, a Brahmin gold medalist graduate from Maharashtra, joined Gandhi's movement. He was jailed. Now, the British did not allot him toilet cleaning duty for being Brahmin. The jail's rule book included rue- Brahmins must not be given menial work. But Appa Patwardhan said - I am Gandhi's soldier. It's one of the rules in my life that I clean my own toilet. You have to permit me a Bhangi’s work. That is my freedom. The British government refused that, so, he went on fast. A Brahmin going on fast for a Bhangi's work! Finally, the British government had to relent. So Gandhi, through his initiatives of cleaning toilets and sanitation, not only achieved ‘Swatch Bharat’, but he also transcended the Varna barriers. That was a revolution!

Gandhi was different in another way. He applied the moral test to science. “The advance of science has added not an inch to the moral stature of Europe. It has not reduced hatred and injustice.”⁷ He criticizes European science; today we might call it the American science. The advances of science have not added an inch to the moral stature of Europe. “It has not reduced hatred and injustice”. This is what Gandhi expects from science - to reduce hatred, to reduce injustice, and to increase the moral stature of the population. His complaint is that science doesn't do it. Gandhi applies a moral test to science. At least at that time, science and scientists failed in that. How do they perform today? We need to introspect.

A test case of the morality of science, for Gandhi, was vivisection and dissection of living animals. For the sake of knowledge of anatomy or zoology, it was considered necessary. Gandhi, during his adolescence, wanted to become a doctor. One reason why he didn't go for that career was that vivisection was necessary for medical training, and his heart revolted against it. Gandhi opposes vivisection, even for the sake of gaining knowledge of the inside of the animals, for two reasons. First, the effect on the animal- pain, suffering, and death. Second, the effect on the scientist performing the cruel act of dissecting and killing a living animal. Yes, they are merely animals, maybe a frog, a rabbit, a monkey, or a Guinea pig. But the act of killing them is not many steps away from the cruelty to and killing of human beings. Gandhi didn't support vivisection, or rather actively opposed it, because it encouraged cruelty in the human heart, the heart of the scientist.

Today, cruelty against animals has become a global movement. However, a hundred years ago, people like Nehru, Aldous Huxley, or Meghnad Saha, the people of science, would laugh at Gandhi. ‘Oh, he is an anti-science man, doesn't want to dissect, doesn’t approve of scientific inquiry!’ they might say. Gandhi was not against the dissection of dead bodies, but he was definitely against the dissection of living animals. To him, this was a question of ethics, a moral test. To him, science could not be devoid of morality. What about you Sir?

One more difference between us, the people of science, and Gandhi were that science by its very nature is reductionist. The scientist with his tools of inquiry focuses on one minute, small part of the reality that he wants to study in-depth. What happens? Once I saw a cartoon. A scientist is sitting in the gallery with a telescope. A comet is expected to rise somewhere in the sky. So the scientist has focused his telescope in that direction, at a particular angle expecting to see the comet when it rises. He's waiting, keenly observing the narrow-angle of sky through the telescope. His housemaid enters with a cup of tea and she looks at the open sky. She points out somewhere else and says, “Oh, the comet!” The scientist missed because he's focused very narrowly. The housemaid might be illiterate, but she's open, she sees the whole sky and can see the comet raising somewhere else.

Gandhi sees the whole sky. He sees the whole truth. He doesn't see only a narrow picture, a fragmented view of life. He looks at life as an integrated whole. Everything is connected with everything else. Take Khadi that he promoted. Khadi provides market to the cotton of the farmer, gives wages to the spinner and the weaver, encourages local production and consumption – that is Swadeshi, and supported freedom movement. Khadi brings the people of the upper class closer to the poor people. Gandhi has an integrated, holistic view of change. He achieves multiple outcomes in one stroke – the Khadi.

Ish avasyam idam sarvam

Finally, one more difference between Gandhi and we the people of science, is that for Gandhi nothing is only material, inanimate, or dead. Everything in the universe is permeated by the Life principle. Once, Mahatma Gandhi had gone to Allahabad. Jawaharlal Nehru invited him for dinner. After completing the meal Jawaharlal himself was pouring water on Gandhi's hands for cleaning. At the same time, they were absorbed in talking about some national issue. Gandhi had completed his hand-washing but Jawaharlal, as he was looking at Gandhi's face, continued to pour water. Mahatma Ji said – Jawahar, you are wasting water.

Jawaharlal, jokingly said, “Bapu, this is Allahabad. The Ganga and Yamuna flow here. There's no dearth of water”. Gandhi’s reply was, "Yes Jawahar, Ganga, and the Yamuna do flow here, but they don’t flow for your sake !” He is reminding Jawaharlal that he had no right to waste even a drop of water just because it was only material. Everything here is sacred. ‘Ish avasyam idam sarvam’. Everything here is permeated with divinity and true principle. This view is different than our view. We look at everything at Jada, only as inanimate material. Gandhi looks at everything as material that is sacred and divine.

Thus, Gandhi's greatness is located outside of science. It is located in his moral dimension. He summarises this moral dimension into two words. Truth and Nonviolence. Shambu Prasad beautifully says, “Though a great believer in science, he was clear of its role in the cosmos, in this universe. Science to him was not above truth and nonviolence. Truth and non-violence were truer than many so-called scientific facts.”⁸ If it is so while appreciating Gandhi for his use of science, we ought not to forget that Gandhi's uniqueness is not in science, but it is in truth and non-violence.

Gandhi’s Truth and its Science

Let's try to understand what is the science behind his nonviolence and the science of truth. What is the science underlying truth? Scientists and Gandhi have a common goal; they are seekers of truth. For Gandhi, truth is the ultimate goal of life. While earlier he used to say, "Truth is next to God ". Then he started saying, "Truth is like God". And finally, Gandhi used to say, "Truth is God". What a statement! A religious and person of faith saying this, thereby implying that there is no other God. Truth is God. That is Gandhi's position about truth.

For exploring the material aspects of life, Gandhi used common scientific instruments such as the weighing scale, microscope, and telescope. But for touching the moral or spiritual aspect of truth, Gandhi had some other method. What was that method? He hinted about that method to the students of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in 1929. Look, what he tells them. “I tell you, you can devise a far greater wireless instrument, which does not require external research, but internal – and all research will be useless if it is not allied to internal research.”⁹

So he had some other instrument for this internal research. What was it? During one discussion with Rajagopalachari, he said that he treated his mother, who was so well versed in the art of fasting, as a scientist. Why? “One who is pure, who adheres to truth, and wants to cling to it is as much a scientist as a physicist". The Physicist is of course the purest scientist, but then Gandhi is saying that his mother was close to that because she was pure. She fasted, she purified herself. Here we have a glimpse. Gandhi's method to know the moral aspect of truth, the spiritual truth, was purifying the self. He had his Ekadashi Vrata, the eleven rules of conduct, eleven vows. These were all for purifying the conduct, the heart, and the life. Additionally, he used fasting as a method to purify himself, purify his heart. And finally, the prayer. Prayer is an acceptance that my strength has a limit, beyond which, I can't go any further. So finally I surrender, I pray to the symbol of truth, the Ramanan.

If you can make yourself zero, that is, your ego becomes zero, if your heart is clean, your life is clean, as Gandhi tried to make himself. What appears in the mirror of your heart is the reflection of moral truth. Gandhi calls this ‘the inner voice’. When he took that decision of withdrawing the national movement because of the Chauri Chaura episode, he said - "my inner voice tells me that you were wrong. The whole world may go against me, but I'll follow my inner voice. That inner voice, to him, was like the message of God or the voice of conscience". Gandhi could connect with that through a particular method. It was not an accident. He had a method - Your speech must be purified, it should be truthful, your behavior should be non-violent, you should follow brahmacharya, disciplined and restrained life, sharir-shram (physical labor), fasting, prayer, and finally submit to God's will. This is like cleaning your lenses. And in that clean state, you get the vision of truth.

Of course, this is opaque to us. We don't understand. We know only the material methods of measurement and verification. We don't want to take the effort to clean our hearts. Why bother? We clean our body, but not our heart, not our conduct. And so we, the intellectuals and the scientists, conveniently labelled him as superstitious, one who talks about mystical things such as the inner voice. Because we can’t connect with the inner voice, we said, nobody can. But Gandhi accessed moral truth, spiritual truth through this kind of process.

The Science of Non-violence

For Gandhi, non-violence was the path to know the truth, to reach the truth. You can’t be violent with truth, force your wishes, your ego on truth. It is like being objective with your data. If you commit violence on your data, you can’t hope to know the truth. For Gandhi – the scientist of life – non-violence was absolutely essential to reach the truth – even in the political and worldly life. If it was so, what was the science underlying non-violence?

Today, we remember Gandhi for his non-violence, for his Satyagraha. His non-violence was very effective - against the white people in South Africa, against the British in India, against the communal riots in Calcutta. In the words of Lord Mountbatten, what an entire company of army couldn't do, this one frail old man could achieve; establish peace in Calcutta that was burning with communal fire. Gandhi was followed by Martin Luther King, resulting in a black man, Obama, becoming the president of the USA. Nelson Mandela followed Gandhi and won freedom for South Africa. They all followed Mahatma Gandhi's method of non-violence.

I had an occasion to visit Robbin Island near Cape Town. It is the island where Nelson Mandela was kept in prison for 27 years by the white people in South Africa. Imagine the hatred that Nelson Mandela should have accumulated against the white people. When I went to see the jail, my guide was a black man who had lived for eight years as a prison inmate of Nelson Mandela. Out of curiosity, I asked him, ''what was special about Nelson Mandela's personality"? He replied, “Nelson made a deep impact on me. He liberated me of my hatred for the white people !”

This is what non-violence did. In Attenborough's film ‘Gandhi’, it is difficult to forget the scene of salt satyagraha in Dharasana. The British soldiers are beating the Satyagrahi men and women with blunt instruments. Skulls are cracking. Blood is flowing. But the non-violent Satyagrahis don't even raise their hand. They can, but they don't. And that generated a global effect.

Jesus Christ said that if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn your other cheek to him. The question arises - why is non-violence effective? It's not an imaginary thing. We have several instances of how non-violence did become effective. Why? As scientists, we need to understand, to explain this unexpected effect. They exist to love and tenderness in everybody's heart. It's a universal law of nature. The famous hunter Jim Corbett describes one episode. Once, while he was walking through a jungle, he heard the sound of the bleating of a lamb. That lamb was lost in the forest. He saw the lamb and also saw a tigress lurching to leap on the lamb - a small, delicate, helpless creature. Jim Corbett aimed his gun at the tigress and waited. The tigress was crouching, slowly moving towards the lamb. Corbet was ready to fire. Suddenly, the tigress stood up, steadily walked to the lamb, and started licking it. She played with the lamb for a while and then disappeared into the jungle without harming. Many of you also might have seen on the Discovery channel the similar episode – a lioness protecting and making deep friendship with a fawn. The cruelest animals also exhibit that tender feeling of love towards the lamb or the fawn. Non-violence generates that deep natural tender feeling, that love banks on.

What happens in violence, the opposite of non-violence? Somebody hits you. The hit elicits anger and you hit back. A hit elicits a reaction. That's why Gandhi said that the law of violence is, “An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world will be blind”. Violence generates equal and opposite violence. In fact, violence follows Newton's third law of mechanics. ‘For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction’. This law of physics applied to human psychology - violence begets violence, anger begets anger, strong words beget strong words, an equal and opposite reaction. Non-violence turns this Newton's law but in the opposite direction. If violence generates violence, love should generate love. If my strong aggressive violent act towards others generates an equal and opposite reaction. If my action is gentle, the reaction will also be gentle.

Vinoba Bhave has explained it beautifully, and I was fortunate to be present when he expounded this complex concept. In a violent war, he said, you have to use stronger, increasingly destructive weapons. In the non-violent struggle, it is the opposite. Your response should be gentle and gentler and the most gentle, the cycle of violence will be broken and you will get more results – gentle and gentler. (His Hindi words were – Soumya, Soumya-tar and Soumya-tam.) This is the science of non-violence! Because you become gentle and more non-violent, there is a low or no reaction from the opponent. Vinoba further says, 'in the true nonviolent state, there is no opponent. Nobody is your enemy. If your heart is full of love and friendship towards others, there is no enemy. There can’t be. If you really have that love for others, even for your so-called opponents or enemies, then it will generate love. As simple as that. There is no enemy for non-violence because the enemy was in you. ‘Nelson liberated me’.

Truth and non-violence are extremely powerful, un-surmountable forces. When you follow them, when you become a non-violent seeker of truth, you become a Satyagrahi, one who insists on truth using non-violence. That's why Gandhi wanted his workers to become ‘Satyagrahi Scientists’. Satyagrahi should become a scientist and the scientist should become Satyagrahi. Satyagarahi literally means, Satya-agrahi (one with steadfast insistence on truth) and not to be a Duragrahi (one who insists on untruth), not to be an Ahankara-agarahi (the egoist). To seek truth, to be scientific, we have to be non-violent, open to other’s views, accept the truth, accept the refutation of our hypothesis. That is why nonviolence is necessary to reach the truth. In fact, non-violence is a science of mind, a science of reaction of the mind. That's why Gandhi said, 'Truth and non-violence are as ancient as the hills”. As if he was saying, ‘I have not invented them; they are based on nature's laws.’ As violence exists in nature, similarly non-violence and love also exist in nature. As I understand, that is the science underlying non-violence, the science underlying Gandhi’s methods.

Gandhi’s relevance to the 21st century

Finally, we come to the last question. How is Gandhi relevant in the 21st century, relevant to us? The twenty-first century faces three global challenges. The curse of capitalism - infinite greed and the humongous economic and political inequality. The curse of consumerism - excessive consumption leading to climate change, global warming. And the curse of communalism - leading to racial and interfaith violence. These three are the most important global challenges before humanity. What does Gandhi offer?

While these challenges are external and global, Gandhi's solutions to these are internal and personal. For a global problem, we usually seek global solutions. For the external problem, we seek external explanations and external solutions. Gandhi is absurdly simple; but that's why he's different, he's unique. To the global problems, his solutions are internal and personal.

For greed and accumulation, what is his solution? In today's for-profit world, the capitalistic world, greed has become good. In one Hollywood movie, probably the title was ‘Wallstreet’, the hero says, “greed is good”. More the greed more the accumulation, more the profit. That invariably leads to economic inequality. We have seen the Oxfam report; 2% of the people own 98% of the world's property and wealth. Nine persons in India own wealth more than half of the population of India, more than the seventy crore people of India. Only the nine persons! Intolerable inequality. Such a society is often cruel, undemocratic, and unstable. This is the inevitable Curse of Capitalism.

To this, Gandhi's solution is not killing the capitalist or those nine persons. His solution is a personal attribute - the Aaparigraha. Aaparigraha means the non-accumulation, non-possessing, possessing as little as possible. This principle comes from Jainism, Buddhism, and also from Patanjal yoga. Aaparigraha is the antithesis of greed, the insatiable desire for more possession.

His other solution to the Curse of Capitalism is trusteeship. You may own a lot of capital and wealth, but you voluntarily become a true trustee of it, use it for the social good. Not surprisingly, during Gandhi's own time, the leftists laughed at him. The capitalist is a man-eater tiger, he would never become a trustee. Gandhi is an idealist idiot, they said, or even worse – he is cunningly providing a cover-up for the capitalists – Bajaj and Birla, his financial supporters. But now we see Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet, Azim Premji and Tata's and so many others are giving away their wealth for social purposes. They seem to realize that, after a particular limit, what can I do with the wealth? It doesn't give any additional joy or pleasure. Better, I use it for others. That seems to be more satisfying. They seem to be confirming that Gandhi was correct in his diagnosis of the human mind.

So Gandhi's solutions to the ills of capitalism are aparigraha and trusteeship. They are based on a deeper understanding of human psychology. They are personal and internal. They are real. Curse of Consumerism leads to the excessive use of fossil fuel and global warming that will destroy life on the Earth, including human beings. Gandhi’s solution is again a simple change in human behaviour - the body labor, Sharir-Shrama. Nature has endowed human beings with a body; he/she must use it by resorting to productive, useful physical labour. Gandhi considers it sacred, an ethical, moral duty. You must do body labor every day. You must earn your bread through body labor, that's called bread labour. He makes a vrata, a law of conduct of this. If you live by body labour, you will not be a parasite on others. You should consume only as much as you produced with your body labour. Then you will not consume nature's limited resources in an unlimited fashion.

Gandhi’s this solution has multiple potential effects. It offers a partial solution to obesity (physical capitalism), to economic inequality, even to the class and the Varna inequality. The Vrata of sharir-shram brings everybody on the same plane. And of course, reduces the excessive use of fossil fuel. For our infinite desire for pleasure, he recommends ‘a-swad’, disinterest in the pleasure of tongue titillation – as the antidote. All personal solutions, which you and I can employ. For the current global wave of communal hatred and the consequent violence – the inter-faith violence, racial violence, the terrorism, the Taliban, and Bajrang Dal, the solution is not a bomb against the bomb or gun against the gun or the Murdabad against Zindabad. His solution is love and non-violence.

Today's urgent problems are global, problems are external and Gandhi's solutions are internal, personal and hence, they begin with yourself. Some years ago, I had gone to an international conference in London. The conference was treated as of a high level. We delegates were taken first to the Queen's palace, and then to the parliament, to the House of Lords. There was a reception for us. I was uncomfortable. This is not my usual world. When we came out of the British parliament building, right in front of it in the open space, I saw some people protesting. I felt an instinctive closeness to them. So I left the delegation and went near those protesting groups. They were three different groups. One was of the environmentalists - protesting against global warming and appealing to the British government to sign the Kyoto protocol. The second one was a pacifist group. It was appealing to the government to bring back the soldiers from Iraq. The third one was asking for higher wages and better working conditions for the British labourers. Three different political groups protesting in front of the British parliament for different demands. Behind them was a huge common banner uniting them. It said - Be the change yourself that you wish to see in the world – Mahatma Gandhi.

I felt that even sixty years after his death (at that time), the old man was still protesting in front of the British parliament and challenging the global powers. He was appealing to us – be the change that you wish to see in the world. You don't have to run after the world, You don't have to go and fight the wars elsewhere. You don’t have to wait till the global policies and the political, economic orders change. Change can begin with yourself. Right here and now. Gandhi offers us an instant revolution! That is why and how he continues to be relevant to the whole world!

Hence, Gandhi was pro-science!

To summarize, the impression that Gandhi was anti-science is unfounded. This is our first finding. The second finding is that Gandhi was an ardent follower and keen user of scientific knowledge and methods, especially experimentation. Third, he added the test of morality to the methods of material sciences, be it the vivisection or methods of mass production or mass destruction. Everything was tested on the test of morality and ethics. Gandhi's unique strength, his greatness, was located not in using science; that is commonplace. His greatness was in his moral methods; that was Gandhi's specialty. His two major moral principles were truth and nonviolence. For him, Truth was the ultimate. This is a faith of a scientist. Gandhi used a very sensitive and refined, but subjective, method of the voice of conscience to connect with, to know, the moral truth. His non-violence appears to be consistent with Newton's third law of mechanics, applied to human psychology and behaviour. It is deep psychology, but nevertheless, it's Newton's law. To the three urgent global challenges of the 21st century, Gandhi offers internal, personal, and moral solutions. This is what we find in the exploration on Gandhi and Science, and of Gandhi’s relevance to the 21st Century.

Let us return to the original dilemma of the editors of Time magazine. Time magazine selected Albert Einstein as the person of the 20th century. But Albert Einstein had already answered the question, after Gandhi’s death, he said, “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one, in flesh and blood, ever walked on this earth”. This is an ultimate tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. The tallest scientist ever was saluting the tallest man of his time. The Time magazine was right. If Albert Einstein was the person of the 20th century, then I would venture to say, that Mahatma Gandhi will be the person of the 21st century.

References

1. Meghnad Saha; Quoted by Shambu Prasad, Economic and Political Weekly, (2001)
2. Mahatma Gandhi; Inauguration of Tibbia College, New Delhi. 1921 (Collected Works (CW), 19: 357-358)
3. Mahatma Gandhi; (CW, 59: 127)
4. Mahatma Gandhi (CW, 73: 270)
5. Mahatma Gandhi; Inauguration of Tibbia College, New Delhi, 1921 (CW, 19: 357-358)
6. Mahatma Gandhi; (CW 34: 156-57)
7. Mahatma Gandhi; (CW 12 : 146; 16: 106-08 and 18: 235-36)
8. Shambu Prasad; (EPW, 2001, p. 3732)
9. Mahatma Gandhi; (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 1927)