Tolstoy and Gandhi

Two great men of two centuries; resemblances in their life and death is the theme of this book by Martin Green. Green has done an excellent and painstaking research juxtaposing these two men who advocated for love, peace and brotherhood than anyone else in these two centuries. Though Gandhi had traits of piousness and adherence to truth in him from an early age, his unshakable belief in non-violence, selfless service and simple living had not became his sole doctrines until he came across Tolstoy's teachings through his books, most notably `Kingdom of God is within you' much later when he was in jail in South Africa. Though Tolstoy died within couple of years since Gandhi had made his first contact with him at the age of forty, it was Tolstoy more than anyone else from whom Gandhi had continued to draw inspiration throughout his life. Even while considering Tolstoy as his role model, Gandhi could never completely agree with Tolstoy on many of his views, most importantly his views on religion. The Tolstoy whom Gandhi knew had renounced religion, its superstitions, science and politics whereas for Gandhi religion and its teachings were as essential as the air he breathed. Tolstoy was against any kind of organization when Gandhi was part and parcel of Indian national congress and freedom movements. While Tolstoy was against class structure of any sort Gandhi supported the caste system in India. For Tolstoy, the nationalism and patriotism were two meaningless words used by politicians, which he considered as ideology of slavery, imposed by the institutions to justify their own existence. Gandhi never considered himself a patriot or nationalist in the sense Tolstoy defined them. Gandhi had a political problem to solve and hence had been an ardent activist unlike Tolstoy who had been advocating his principles passively and often bogged down in his domestic issues. Tolstoy forecasted that Gandhi's Hindu indoctrination to the Indian politics was going to cause great deal of troubles which Gandhi's colleagues realized decades later. `Gandhi's Hindu nationalism spoiled everything' remarked Tolstoy for Gandhi's excessive application of Hindu school of thoughts to Indian politics for achieving his political goals. Gandhi's growing repulsion for industrialization had a parallel to Tolstoy's denunciation to art and intellect. If the lack of truth, and the existence of Eros when stripped of religion from the art was what concerned Tolstoy, the machines and its mass production refusing humans its physical labor was what Gandhi despised in industrialization. According to Gandhi, western civilization, deprived of its efficacy for spiritual harmony but conducive of material advancement becomes a body of corrupted, immoral and incorrigible institute. Gandhi's insistence on bread labor has the backing of Tolstoy's teachings which Gandhi imposed on the inmates of his Phoenix and Tolstoy farms in South Africa. When Gandhi tried to sell the same principle (