ACADEMIA Letters

Human body in Indian context - Body language of

’non-anthropologist’ Mahatma Gandhi
Cajetan Coelho, KU Leuven

Abstract
Nursing the human body was a priority in the life of Mahatma Gandhi. He regarded the body
as sacred, endowed with a role for the service of fellow human beings and Mother Earth. And
to be fit for rendering service, proper body care, hygiene, nutrition, respect, and truth force
were to be essential items in the toolkit of every individual.

\no indent Keywords: emic, body, healthcare, satyagraha, passive resistance, community,
leprosy

Introduction
The anthropological sense of this essay is that it shows how ’non-anthropologist’ Mahatma
Gandhi views the human body, its possibilities, challenges, and its illnesses. In this sense, it
is an ‘emic’ discourse, (Barnard 1996; Harris 1976), even if it does not refer explicitly to the
anthropological literature on the body. I do not do that since my research is not on the body,
but on community building experiments and here it is more important to see how Gandhi tries
to understand the human body and its role in community-making.
In 1905 Gandhi read the life story of Damien who contracted leprosy and passed away in
Molokai (Farrow 1937). Gandhi found the heroism of Damien exemplary, and he writes: The
political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Damien of

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Cajetan Coelho, deshbhakt2015@gmail.com

Citation: Coelho, C. (2021). Human body in Indian context - Body language of ’non-anthropologist’ Mahatma
Gandhi. Academia Letters, Article 3571. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3571.

1
Molokai. It is worthwhile to look for the source of such heroism (De Volder 2010: 167). The
following episode occurred soon after Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa. Gandhi
visited Chennai, the Madras of his days, to meet his friend Srinivas Sastri. At the latter’s
place, Gandhi learnt that a senior member was confined to bed suffering from leprosy and
was counting his last days, as a social outcast (Goffman 1963). Gandhi sat near the bed of
the sick man and began wiping his wounds with the ends of his own garment. The ailing
leader was overwhelmed. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Gandhi knows no fear and shrinks
from nothing which he advices others to do. In fact, his love of suffering and hardships as
a means of spiritual progress is almost morbid. His compassion and tenderness are infinite
like the ocean. The present writer stood by, as Gandhi wiped the sores with the ends of his
own garment (Sastri 1924: 311-312). On nursing the sick, Gandhi had the following to say,
my aptitude for nursing gradually developed into a passion, so much so that it often led me
to neglect my work, and on occasions, I engaged not only my wife but the whole household
in nursing duties. Such service can have no meaning unless one takes pleasure in it. When it
is done for show or for fear of public opinion, it stunts the person and crushes his/her spirit.
Service, which is rendered without joy, helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other
pleasure and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of
joy (Gandhi 1968: 195 -196).
In December 1939, Gandhi admitted leprosy affected priest Parchure Shastri, in the Sewa-
gram Ashram. He nursed the ailing Shastri for 1½ year, massaged his body, and gave direc-
tions about his diet and treatment. Shastri was a scholar of Sanskrit and an activist in In-
dia’s freedom struggle. Gandhi had maintained regular correspondence with him to support
his morale, even before Shastri came to live in Sewagram Ashram. It was due to Shastri’s
presence, that Gandhi read the available scientific literature about leprosy, and discussed its
different aspects with medical professionals (Shukla 1949: 135).1 The author of this paper
has visited the Parchure Shastri hut in Wardha’s Sewagram village in Maharashtra.

Gandhi’s views on human body

Ronald Inden in ‘Imagining India’ discusses how Indians gradually lost their agency in the
course of the long history of being a colonized people (Inden: 1990). French scholar Gilles
Deleuze is interested in the capacity of human beings to value things or to ‘create values.’ Ev-
ery human being is both a product of a unique and complicated multiplicity of forces, including
the inward-directed forces of self-creation, as well as a producer of difference, change, move-
1
Parchure Kuti is located on the Bapu Kuti Sewagram Ashram campus. During my field study, I lived for a
week in one of the guest rooms at the Rustom guest house in the Ashram compound.

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Cajetan Coelho, deshbhakt2015@gmail.com

Citation: Coelho, C. (2021). Human body in Indian context - Body language of ’non-anthropologist’ Mahatma
Gandhi. Academia Letters, Article 3571. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3571.

2
ment, and transformation. These are the processes – which collectively, following Deleuze,
one may simply call ‘life’ or ‘being alive’ through which human beings experience value. Life
understood in this sense interests Deleuze, for he regards life as a valuable, as something that
is in some sense worthy of being valued (Jun & Smith 2011: 103). I am tempted to observe
Gilles Deleuze carrying forward the Gandhian thought.
Mahatma Gandhi saw pre-Independent India a feeble and disabled country: disunited,
caste-ridden, economically poor, educationally backward, and superstitious. Illnesses, dis-
ease, slavery, injustice, and leprosy painted a grim picture. Diseased body handling activities
were a taboo in traditional cultures in the subcontinent. Asylums, hospitals, and orphanages
were often run by overseas volunteers. Treating body-related illnesses meant touching and
caring for sick bodies. Gandhi gratefully acknowledged the contribution of the foreign volun-
teers in the rehabilitation works for leprosy affected people across India. Gandhi’s uniqueness
manifested, among other things, to his taking a deeper interest in the health problems besetting
colleagues, their families, and fellow Indians.

Emic insights in Gandhi’s writings

Gandhi’s constructive program (Gandhi 1941) was aimed to provide opportunities to develop
all-round skills needed to build a vibrant society of human beings. For the individual, con-
structive program meant increased power-from-within the core of ones being, through the
development of personal identity, self-reliance, fearlessness, and agency. A constructive pro-
gram is a holistic approach to what needs to be changed, a vision based on non-violent princi-
ples comprising ahimsa (non-violence) and satyagraha (truth force). At the community level,
a constructive program is that part of the strategy designed to facilitate the development of
new socio-human structures that foster political participation (Zigon 2007), cultural diversity,
economic self-reliance, and ecological resilience. It is action taken within the community to
build humanized structures, systems, processes, or resources that are positive alternatives to
human oppression, marginalization, exclusion, and stigmatization. In Pedagogy of the Op-
pressed, Paulo Freire refers to such proactive ways of thinking, learning, and doing (Freire
1968). Constructive program is doing what one can to usher a sense of justice imaginatively
and positively in the hearts of one’s own community members. Its emphasis is on ‘all bodies
cooperating with good’. Improving oneself, rather than trying to change the other is the goal.
Satyagraha or truth force is a Gandhian concept that is loaded with dynamism for those
struggling to ‘doing dignity’ (Coelho 2021) and attaining respectability. To regain one’s rights
and recover one’s voice, an ethically correct (Zigon 2014c), non-violent, peaceful, and con-
structive struggle is what Gandhi advocated. Satyagraha is a combination of truth (satya)

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Cajetan Coelho, deshbhakt2015@gmail.com

Citation: Coelho, C. (2021). Human body in Indian context - Body language of ’non-anthropologist’ Mahatma
Gandhi. Academia Letters, Article 3571. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3571.

3
implies love, and firmness (agraha), a synonym for force. So ‘Satyagraha’ is the force which
is born of truth and love or non-violence (Majumdar 2005: 138). Gandhi sees a difference
between passive resistance and Satyagraha. The latter is soul force, pure and simple. When-
ever and to whatever extent there is room for the use of brute force, there is less possibility
for exercising soul force. If we continue to believe ourselves and let others believe, that we
are weak, and therefore offer passive resistance, our resistance will never make us strong, and
at the earliest opportunity we would give up passive resistance, as a weapon of the weaklings
(Sweet 2008: 250).
Satyagraha is soul-force, as opposed to armed strength. Since it is essentially an ethical
weapon, only individuals inclined to the ethical way of life can use it wisely. A Satyagrahi
bears no ill-will, does not lay down his life in anger, but refuses to submit to his oppressor
because he has the strength to suffer (Gandhi 1920). Those who advocate the use of arms, put
various limits on it. On Satyagraha there are no limits,except those placed by the Satyagrahi’s
capacity for ‘tapascharya’ or the practice of voluntary penance. Satyagrahis offering Satya-
graha, foster the idea of spiritual strength. With the increase in one’s strength, Satyagraha
becomes more effective. In Satyagraha, physical force is forbidden even in the most favorable
circumstances. In many cases, passive resistance is often looked upon, as a preparation for
the use of force, while Satyagraha can never be utilized as such. Satyagraha and brute force
can never go together. Satyagraha may be offered to ones nearest and dearest. In Satyagraha,
there is not the remotest idea of injuring other bodies. Satyagraha postulates the conquest of
the adversary, by suffering in one’s own person. Gandhi would argue:

Jesus Christ indeed has been acclaimed as the prince of passive resisters, but
I submit in that case, passive resistance must mean Satyagraha and Satyagraha
alone. The phrase ‘passive resistance’ was employed to denote the patient suffer-
ing of oppression of devout Christians in the early days of Christianity. I would
therefore class them as Satyagrahis. And if their conduct be described as passive
resistance, passive resistance becomes synonymous with Satyagraha. The term
is essentially different from what people generally mean in English by the phrase
‘passive resistance’ (Wakabyashi & Kothari 2009: 14).

Some final words

Gandhi understood life and human body as precious gifts, given, and received for the ser-
vice of humanity and Planet Earth, our Common Home. This spiritual dimension is what
one comes across throughout Gandhi’s involvements with people from all walks of life. If

Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Cajetan Coelho, deshbhakt2015@gmail.com

Citation: Coelho, C. (2021). Human body in Indian context - Body language of ’non-anthropologist’ Mahatma
Gandhi. Academia Letters, Article 3571. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3571.

4
something positive happens to a human body, it becomes an expression of love, a gift, in this
case a spiritual gift. And a spiritual gift will ask for a special gift in return from the human
receiver (Mauss 1990). Human beings with such special gifts cannot but become sources and
resources for the making of something new, and why not a new world? Through these few
observations an effort has been made to highlight how Gandhi viewed the role of human body
for community creation.

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Corresponding Author: Cajetan Coelho, deshbhakt2015@gmail.com

Citation: Coelho, C. (2021). Human body in Indian context - Body language of ’non-anthropologist’ Mahatma
Gandhi. Academia Letters, Article 3571. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3571.

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Academia Letters, September 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Cajetan Coelho, deshbhakt2015@gmail.com

Citation: Coelho, C. (2021). Human body in Indian context - Body language of ’non-anthropologist’ Mahatma
Gandhi. Academia Letters, Article 3571. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3571.