A Letter to a Hindu E-Book

Leo Tolstoy

• Herausgeber: Renard Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 37

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Dated the 14th of December 1908, A Letter to a Hindu was a letter written by Leo Tolstoy to Tarak Nath Das, a Bengali revolutionary and scholar, in response to a request for support for India's separation from British rule, which argued that the Indian people should seek to free themselves from British rule through non-violent protests and strikes, and other forms of peaceful resistance. The letter soon gained international attention after it was published in the Free Hindustan, and it came to the attention of the young Mahatma Gandhi. Drawing on a variety of sources, cultures and teachings, Tolstoy's letter was instrumental in forming Gandhi's views on non-violent resistance – as Gandhi himself acknowledges in his introduction: 'To me, as a humble follower of that great teacher whom I have long looked upon as one of my guides, it is a matter of honour to be connected with the publication of his letter'.

Leseprobe

A Letter to a Hindu

THE SUBJECTION OF INDIA –ITS CAUSE AND CURE

leo tolstoy

With an introduction by Mahatma Gandhi

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A Letter to a Hindu first published in English in 1908

‘Introduction’ first published in 1909

This edition first published by Renard Press Ltd in 2020

Edited text © Renard Press Ltd, 2020

Extra Material © Renard Press Ltd, 2020

Cover design by Will Dady

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contents

A Letter to a Hindu

introduction

part i

part ii

part iii

part iv

part v

part vi

part vii

Note on the text

Notes

Extra material

introduction

The letter printed below is a translation of Tolstoy’s letter, written in Russian, in reply to one from the Editor of Free Hindustan. After having passed from hand to hand, this letter at last came into my possession through a friend who asked me, as one much interested in Tolstoy’s writings, whether I thought it worth publishing. I at once replied in the affirmative, and told him I should translate it myself into Gujarati and induce others to translate and publish it in various Indian vernaculars.

The letter as received by me was a typewritten copy. It was therefore referred to the author, who confirmed it as his and kindly granted me permission to print it.*

To me, as a humble follower of that great teacher whom I have long looked upon as one of my guides, it is a matter of honour to be connected with the publication of his letter, such especially as the one which is now being given to the world.

It is a mere statement of fact to say that every Indian, whether he owns up to it or not, has national aspirations. But there are as many opinions as there are Indian nationalists as to the exact meaning of that aspiration, and more especially as to the methods to be used to attain the end.

One of the accepted and ‘time-honoured’ methods to attain the end is that of violence. The assassination of Sir Curzon Wylie* was an illustration of that method in its worst and most detestable form. Tolstoy’s life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for removing tyranny or securing reform by the method of non-resistance to evil. He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in self-suffering. He admits of no exception to whittle down this great and divine law of love. He applies it to all the problems that trouble mankind.

When a man like Tolstoy – one of the clearest thinkers in the western world, one of the greatest writers, one who as a soldier has known what violence is and what it can do – condemns Japan for having blindly followed the law of modern science, falsely so-called, and fears for that country ‘the greatest calamities’, it is for us to pause and consider whether, in our impatience of English rule, we do not want to replace one evil by another and a worse. India, which is the nursery of the great faiths of the world, will cease to be Nationalist India, whatever else she may become, when she goes through the process of civilisation in the shape of reproduction on that sacred soil of gun factories and the hateful industrialism which has reduced the people of Europe to a state of slavery, and all but stifled among them the best instincts which are the heritage of the human family.

If we do not want the English in India we must pay the price. Tolstoy indicates it. ‘Do not resist evil, but also do not yourselves participate in evil – in the violent deeds of the administration of the law courts, the collection of tax