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An Interview With Arun Gandhi
B y A my
P iM t us
M erwin
A run G andhi was bom in 1934 in
Durban, South Africa, the fifth grand
son o f India’s late spiritual leader
M ohandas K aram chand “ M ahatm a”
G andhi. Arun has been a journalist
for The Tim es o f India, w ritten four
books and hundreds o f articles. W ith
his w ife and colleague, Sunanda,
A run published the Suburban Echo
in Bombay from 1985-1987. Arun en
visioned and edited W o rld W ith o u t
Violence: C a n G a n d h i’s D ream Be
com e R eality ?, acollection o f essays
and poetry from noted international
scientists, artists, political and social
leaders on the ideals o f nonviolence,
published in O ctober 1994 in celebra
tion o f the 125,h anniversary o f M a
hatm a G andhi’s birth. A run’s m ost
.recent literary project is T estan ien t to
T ru th
Q: H ow did you becom e aw are o f
the personal pains o f racism in your
childhood?
A ru n G a n d h i: I grew up in South
A frica. M y dad was the second o f
four sons ofM ohandas K. (M ahatma)
G andhi, and w as the only son who
devoted his life to nonviolence. He
offered to live in South A frica and
continue with the w ork that G randfa
ther had started there. M y tw o sisters
and I w ere b om there.
A partheid in the ‘30s and ‘40s was
really very oppressive and deeply
rooted. I suffered a lot o f prejudice. 1
w as beaten up at the age o f 10 by
som e w hite youths because they
thought I was too black, and a few
m onths later by som e black youths
because they thought 1 was too white.
The beatings and hum iliation caused
m e to be very angry, and I w anted
revenge an-eye-for-an-eyejustice,
rh a t is w hen m y parents decided to
take m e to India and give m e the
opportunity to live w ith G randfather
and hopefully learn som ething from
him.
W hen I w ent to India and lived
with Grandfather, one o f the first things
he taught me was that anger is like
electricity
it’s ju st as useful and
beneficial, but only if w e use it mtel-
lence in public life. A lot o f the prob
lems w e face are results o f personal
problem s, and if we are able to solve
personal problem s then public prob
lems w ill take care o f them selves.
Q: W hat are the elem ents o f non
violence?
A ru n G a n d h i: People have the
m isconception that nonviolence is a
political strategy that is only m eant
ligently and respectfully; it can also
be ju st as deadly and destructive if
we abuse it. He taught m e that, al
though w e c a n ’t do aw ay w ith or
elim mate anger from our lives, we can
learn how to use that energy posi
tively. O ne o f the things he sug
gested was that 1 should w rite an
anger journal with the intention and
com m itm ent to find a solution to the
problem , not w ith the intention o f
keeping it alive. 1 did that for several
yeas, and it helped m e very m uch in
learning how todeal with my feelings
o f anger.
O ne o f the reasons why I have
devoted m y life to spreading the word
o f non-violence is to try to bring
about a change in the attitudes o f
people by helping them m ove aw ay
from prejudice and hate and tow ard
learning how to build better relation
ships.
Q: At the M.K. G andhi Institute
that you have established, w hat are
your goals regarding the elim ination
o f racism in the broadest sense o f
econom ic, political and cultural eq
uity for all?
A ru n G a n d h i: W e basically see
tw o things wrong w ith hum an be
ings. O ne is that they d o n ’t know
how to deal w ith their anger in a
positive m anner, they usually deal
w ith it in very negative ways. The
results are that they destroy them
selves and everything around them ,
and still the problem s remain. W e are
focusing on teaching people how to
deal w ith their anger in positive ways.
T he next thing w e find is that w e as
hum ans d o n ’t know how to build
relationships betw een ourselves, so
w e create all kinds o f labels. W e label
people as black, white, yellow or
brown, or by gender orreligious affili
ation or sexual orientation o r w hat
ever - w e have so m any la b els...so
w e are teaching people how to build
and m aintain relationships.
These are goals that w e have set
for ourselves. We are appealing and
reaching out to people everyw here,
trying to teach them those two things
- how to use nonviolence in their
personal lives rather than nonvio
for huge political conflict resolution,
and that one is nonviolent as long as
one doesn’t use physical force. But
truly, nonviolence begins w ith the
self. We m ust be the change w e wish
to see. If w e w ant to have a nonvio
lent relationship w ith people, we
have to be nonviolent ourselves. That
means we have to understand w hat
we mean by nonviolence.
It is not enough to not use physi
cal force, we m ust also not use pas
sive force. There is a difference b e
tw een physical violence and passive
violence Physical violence is when
we use physical force against an
other. Passive violence is w hen we
express hate, prejudice, anger, and
econom ic, social, cultural, political
and religious suppression and op
pression. That insidious passive vio
lence is so oppressive it generates
anger in the victims. Then the vic
tims, not knowing how to deal with
that anger, respond with physical
violence.
I f we want to create a situation where
people live in peace and harmony at
home or in their neighborhoods or in the
c ities or where ver, first we must address
the passive violence we practice, and
then move on from there to the physical
violence, because passive violence is
what fuels the fires ofphysical violence
- to put out the fire by turning off its fuel
supply.
Q; In many families, two members are
working just for survival, and they have
no time, energy or money to put toward
social change or political action.
A ru n G an d h i: O neofour problems
today is that we get so caught up In
materialism and living “the good life"
that we are spending all o f our energies
trying to earn more money so that we can
have better lives, either for ourselves or
our children. The result o f that is we
forget our own morality. Grandfather
used to say beat materialism and mo
rality have an endless relationship -
when one increases, the other decreases.
We have to decide what we want in life
and to what extent we are willing to go
for it. If we seek materialism all o f our
lives, then we are going to dispense
with morality and will suffer the conse
quences o f that.
Q: Ifpeople can set their limits on their
materialistic needs, howcan they achieve
an inner peace?
A run G andhi: When they decide to
achieve that - and each individual family
has to come to that decision honestly
and with complete faith in what they are
doing - then they would be able to give
better time and more attention to their
children and wouldbe able to bring them
up better. That wouldmean we wouldbe
able to have better relationships with
people. Today a lot o f our relationships
are breaking down because nobody has
time for each other, not even for our
children. Then when our children rebel,
we get angry with them. One thing leads
to another, it goes on and on. and we
don’t know how to stop it.
TIME IS
N O W !!!
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