馬鞍山崇真中學
2013-2014 年度 高中閱讀課好文共賞 (四)
(中四至中六)
EVE OF LAST FAST
The Author: Gandhi (1869 – 1948), known to the world as the “holy father of India”, was born into an
upper class family. He studied law at London, and was a barrister. After that he tried to set
up a law firm at Bombay (now known as Mumbai) in 1891, without success. So he went to
South Africa, working as a legal adviser. There, he found his fellow Indians being
discriminated against because they were not white. In 1896, he began teaching Indians
there to use passive resistance to the South Africans, and was imprisoned because of that.
He did not give up. Finally, in 1914, the South African government made concessions to
Indians living there, and he returned to India.
That experience was to be with him for the rest of his life. After World War I, he had many
followers. He began organizing a non-cooperation movement. Indians in public offices
resigned, children were withdrawn from all public schools, many streets were blocked by
squatters. The government of British India jailed him, but dared not harm him.
Gandhi became the international symbol of free India. He lived a very simple, spiritual life.
Indians had such a high respect for him that they called him Mahatma, a title reserved for
the “saints”. Very soon, he was the leader of India independence movement in early
1930s. Again, he changed his tactics into civil disobedience, using fast as a means. That
became quite successful. Gandhi kept on pressing for change, trying to improve the
injustice Indian society had imposed on the “Untouchables”.
After World War II, he did not want to, but finally agreed to the partition of the land into
two nations, Pakistan and India. Both were granted independence by Britain in 1947.
Gandhi wished the Muslims and the Hindus could live together in peace, and when riots
broke out between the two groups, he took the fast again, which was the background of
the present speech. And he succeeded, although, in a matter of days, he was assassinated
by a fanatic Hindu. That was in January, 1948; and the world mourned the loss of a great
man.
Reading Guide: M. Ghandi, honoured as the Father of Indian independence, is a name well known to
most people. The speech you will read is one written by him the day before he took his
last fast. Soon after that, India achieved what he had been fighting for years – its
independence from Britain. During the movement, he had all along committed himself
to non-violence, and this is how he began the speech.
Most people would think of health when they hear the word fast. This is not Ghandi’s
reason. He said he did it because of some wrong done by society, and he wanted to do
it as a protest. There are, of course, many ways we can show our displeasure when we
feel society has done us some wrong, and it doesn’t have to be as drastic as taking a
fast. But he believed in his conditions, that was the only way because there was not
better option. So why did he want to do that? From the speech, we do not know clearly.
He was back to Delhi and found something wrong with the city. He did not know why
himself, but he knew there had been disturbances, and it looked clam in Delhi because
the security forces were working fast. (The city Delhi later became the capital city of
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India, New Delhi.) That is to say, police crackdowned. He could not stand that, he felt
something had to burst out from him. He saw that what used to be there – friendship
between the majority of the population, the Hindus, and the two largest minorities
amongst them, the Muslims and the Sikhs – was not there anymore. He was scared.
He even said that he had been thinking about taking the fast for sometime, that there
was a “Voice” within him that urged him. He was most likely referring to his own
conscience here. He did not do it sooner because he was afraid his inside “Voice” was
wrong. If there was other means, he would have used them; fating was a last resort
only. Fasting is a non-violent protest; the alternative is a violet one, in his own word,
“of the sword”. It seems his Muslim friends had been pushing him to use force, which
he refused. But if he didn’t do something, people would see him as powerless. After a
few days’ thinking, he decided to go for a fast, and he was prepared to die for the cause.
Why was his action worthy of being blessed? He asked everyone to pray for him and
with him, for he would eat but would drink only. When would he end the fast? When
the three groups would calm down and stop the disorder against each other, from their
senses, not from outside forces. Ghandi hoped that India would be a great nation if all
came together as Indians, regardless of their religious background. (That was never
achieved, and the Muslim dominated Pakistan had to leave the Indian Union to become
an independent country. Years later, East Pakistan again broke away which became
what is now Bangladesh, under violence.) That is why he begged all not be angry with
him.
Not all agreed with his method. Not all believed that one could bring good sense to
people by fasting. Many of his friends had asked him to re-consider his method. Ghandi
however seemed to believe in himself and not others. He believed his own conscience
was a good guide, an adequate guide. If he should find out later that he had made the
wrong move, he would openly admit it and retrace it. From what he said here, it seems
reasonable to guess that there were quarrels amongst his advisers, and he wanted that
stop. If the people of Delhi would listen to him, that was good enough for him to give
up the fast.
Ghandi had fasts before this one, and not all ended with his wishes fulfilled. So he
might win or lose. He tried to persuade people that the action itself is worth it – win or
lose. A pure fast is its own reward, he said. He insisted he went on a fast not to expect
any gains, but he had to do it. Since he had to do it, others should let him die if he
should come to that. If death could bring the three groups together to form a unified
India, he was happy to do that. If Pakistan did not treat the others equally, he
suggested, the Indian subcontinent would fall apart. That’s why he hoped his fast could
quicken conscience. That came from a humble son of India who had a pure heart, i.e.
Ghandi himself. If he were not like that, he said, then it would be better that he died
sooner.
Those who support him, his friends, should not go to take him out of his fast. They
should think hard on the conditions facing India, on what all Indians should be doing.
He, Ghandi, was in the hands of God. That’s also why he saw the fast as a process of
self-purification.
Introductory Remarks: Gandhi could have lived a comfortable life if he had chosen to, but he didn’t;
he chose to sacrifice him for others, …
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EVE OF THE LAST FAST Gandhi
My Fast as a Protest
One fasts for health’s sake under laws governing health, fasts as a penance for a wrong done and felt
as such. In these fasts, the fasting one need not believe in Ahimsa. There is, however, a fast which a
votary of non-violence sometimes feels impelled to undertake by way of protest against some wrong
done by society, and this he does when as a votary of Ahimsa has no other remedy left. Such an
occasion has come my way.
When on September 9th, I returned to Delhi from Calcutta, it was to proceed to the West Punjab. But
that was not to be. Gay Delhi looked a city of the dead. As I alighted from the train I observed gloom
on every face I saw. Even the Sardar, whom humour and the joy that humour gives never desert, was
no exception this time. The cause of it I did not know. He was on the platform to receive me. He lost
no time in giving me the sad news of the disturbances that had taken place in the Metropolis of the
Union. At once I saw that I had to be in Delhi and ‘do or die’. There is a apparent calm brought about
by prompt military and police action. But there is storm within the breast. It may burst forth any day.
This I count as no fulfillment of the vow to ‘do’ which alone can keep me from death, the
incomparable friend. I yearn for heart friendship between the Hindus, the Sikhs and the Muslims. It
subsisted between them the other day. Today it is non-existent. It is a state that no Indian patriot
worthy of the name can contemplate with equanimity. Though the Voice within has been beckoning
for a long time, I have been shutting my ears to it, lest it may be the voice of Satan otherwise called
my weakness. I never like to feel resourceless, a Satyagrahi never should. Fasting is his last resort in
the place of the sword–his or other’s. I have no answer to return to the Muslim friends who see me
from day to day as to what they should do. My impotence has been gnawing at me of late. It will go
immediately the fast is undertaken. I have been brooding over it for the last three days. The final
conclusion has flashed upon me and it makes me happy. No man, if he is pure has anything more
precious to give than his life. I hope and pray that I have that purity in me to justify the step.
Worthy of Blessing
I ask you all to bless the effort and to pray for me and with me. The fast begins from the first meal
tomorrow. The period is indefinite and I may drink water with or without salts and sour limes. It will
end when and if I am satisfied that there is a reunion of hearts of all the communities brought about
without any outside pressure, but from an awakened sense of duty. The reward will be the regaining
of India’s dwindling prestige and her fast fading sovereignty over the heart of Asia and there through
the world. I flatter myself with belief that the loss of the hope of the aching, storm-tossed and hungry
world. Let no friend, or foe if there be one, be angry with me. There are friends who do not believe in
the method of the fast for the reclamation of the human mind. They will bear with me and extent to
me the same liberty of action that they claim for themselves. With God as my supreme, and sole
counselor, I felt that I must take the decision without any other adviser. If I made a mistake and
discover it, I shall have no hesitation in proclaiming it from the housetop and retracing my faulty step.
There is clear indication, as I claim there is, of the Inner Voice, it will not be gainsaid. I plead for all
absence of argument and inevitable endorsement of the step. If the whole of India responds or at
least Delhi does, the fast might be soon ended.
No Softness
But whether it ends soon or late or never, let there be no softness in dealing with what may be
termed as a crisis. Critics have regarded some of my previous fasts as coercive and held that on merits
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the verdict would have gone against my stand but for the pressure exercised by the fasts. What value
can an adverse verdict have when the purpose is demonstrably sound? A pure fast, like duty, is its
own reward. I do not embark upon it for the sake of the result it may bring. I do so because I must.
Hence, I urge everybody dispassionately to examine the purpose and let me die, if I must, in peace
which I hope is ensured. Death for me would be a glorious deliverance rather than that I should be a
helpless witness of the destruction of India, Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam. That destruction is certain if
Pakistan ensures no equality of status and security of life and property for all professing the various
faiths of the world, and if India copies her. Only then Islam dies in the two Indias, not in the world. But
Hinduism and Sikhism have no world outside India. Those who differ from me will be honoured by me
for their resistance however implacable. Let my fast quicken conscience, not deaden it. Just
contemplate the rot that has set in beloved India and you will rejoice to think that there is a humble
son of hers who is strong enough and possibly pure enough to take the happy step. If he is neither, he
is a burden on earth. The sooner he disappears and clears the Indian atmosphere of the burden the
better for him and all concerned.
I would beg of all friends not to rush to Birla House nor try to dissuade me or be anxious for me. I am
in God’s hands. Rather, they should turn the searchlights inwards, for this is essentially a testing time
for all of us. Those who remain at their post of duty and perform it diligently and well, now more so
than hitherto, will help me and the cause in every way. The fast is a process of self-purification.
Questions to think about:
1. Can you name the similarities between Gandhi and Dr Sun?
2. Do you think taking fasts is a good way to pretest? If you want to express your opinion, would
you do it?
3. If, as Gandhi believed, non-violence is a very useful tool to fight for social justice, why are
people not using it? Tell your own opinions.
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