It was Sarojini Naidu who once famously, with a touch of humor, said, “It costs a lot to keep Mahatmaji living simply.” The remark, though teasing, points to a real and complex tension — the gap between Gandhiji’s ideals and the practical realities that inevitably surrounded him.
Gandhiji himself was acutely aware of this contradiction. He never sought comfort for its own sake; rather, even the minimal arrangements made for him were necessities to sustain his tireless service to others. What might appear to outsiders as luxury was, to him, often a burden — a silent concession made not to satisfy personal desires, but to uphold his greater mission.
This struggle was evident even early in his life. After a trip across India in 1902, Gandhi made it a rule — it might even be called a fetish — always to travel third-class by train. Yet, as Joseph Lelyveld recounts:
“Even when, as sometimes happened in later years, the railway laid on entire cars and even trains for the exclusive use of his entourage, inspiring the poet Sarojini Naidu’s loving jibe: ‘You will never know how much it costs us to keep that saint, that wonderful old man, in poverty.’”(William L. Shirer, Gandhi: A Memoir, 1982, p. 37; cited in Joseph Lelyveld, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, 2011, New Delhi, HarperCollins Publishers India, p. 51)
It is tempting to judge ideals by the everyday life of those who hold them. Yet such judgments often miss the true picture. To live by an ideal in the midst of an imperfect world requires compromises — not of the soul, but of circumstances. True idealism does not mean rejecting every practical necessity; it means remaining inwardly detached even while accepting what is outwardly required.
Sarojini Naidu, in a more reflective moment, beautifully captured this deeper truth about Gandhi’s greatness. In a conversation, she said:
To make conversation she asked me what true greatness was. She {Mrs. Sarojini Naidu} said that the true greatness of a man did not consist in the multitudes of people whom he swayed by the magnetic power of his personality. If it had been so, Hitler would have been a truly great man, for there were millions of people who were ready to do his bidding. But true greatness consisted in absolute selflessness. Among the people she knew there were only two whom she would be inclined to call truly great—Mahatma Gandhi and her own father…I asked her whether Rabindranath Tagore could be considered to have possessed true greatness and she quickly replied: ‘A great poet, yes; but not a great man.’— Appasamy, A.J. A Bishop’s Story, CLS, Madras, 1969, p. 62
Thus, in Gandhiji’s life, even the small comforts he accepted were not a departure from his ideals, but a testament to his selflessness — bearing even the burden of ‘managed simplicity’ for the sake of the larger service he owed to humanity. Let us hear Mahatmaji himself speak further on this:
155. NOTES
A friend writes:
You are reported to claim to be a sannyasi and yet to have taken scrupulous care to have provided yourself with handsome living for yourself and your dependents and that you have made to that end a trust of your estate which is worth fourteen lacs and that you are leading a very easy and comfortable life. Some of us were staggered to hear this. Will you kindly enlighten the public on the point? I myself refuse to believe the report.
If dirt query had not come from an honest friend whom I know, I would have taken no notice of it, especially as some months ago, in answer to a question about my personal expenses,
I have dealt with my private affairs. I never had 14 lacs of rupees which I could call my own. What I did have I had certainly reduced to a trust when I renounced all property. But it was a trust for public purposes. I retained for myself nothing out of that trust. But I have never described myself as a sannyasi. Sannyas is made of sterner stuff, I regard myself as a householder, leading a humble life of service and, in common with my fellow workers, living upon the charity of friends who defray the expenses of Satyagraha Ashram at Sabarmati of which I am one of the founders. The life I am living is certainly very easy and very (p. 270)
comfortable, if ease and comfort are a mental state. I have all I need without the slightest care of having to keep any personal treasures. Mine is a life full of joy in the midst of incessant work. In not wanting to think of what tomorrow will bring for me I feel as free as a bird. Indeed at the present moment I may even be described to be living a life of luxury. An English lady, the other day, came to me whilst the train was standing at Gaya station and said, “How is it I see you travelling so comfortably in a second-class compartment surrounded by so many people when I expected to find you in a crowded third-class compartment? Have you not said that you want to live like the poor?
Do you suppose poor people can afford the luxury of second-class
travelling? Is not your practice inconsistent with your profession?” I straightway pleaded guilty and did not care to inform this fair inquirer that my body had become too dilapidated to bear the fatigue of incessant third-class travelling. I feel that the weakness of the body could not be pleaded as an excuse. I am painfully aware of the fact that there are tens of thousands of men and women much weaker in body that travel third class because they have no friends to provide them with second-class travelling expenses. There was, undoubtedly, an inconsistency between my practice and profession of identification with the poor.
Such is the tragedy of life and yet, in the midst of it, I refuse to part with my joy. The thought that I am ceaselessly and honestly struggling against the requirements of the flesh sustains
me in spite of the contradiction that the good lady could not fail to see.—Young India, Young India, 1-10-1925 , CWMG, vol. 28, pp. 270-271
Leave a Reply