The Mirror: Gandhi and Hitler

The real power of humans is the ability to rise above judgements about right and wrong and seek to meet the humanity of another person. It challenges the justification in the notion of enemy. Many horrific acts are undertaken in the name of fighting an ‘enemy’. Some may say Hitler had no humanity, yet the spiritual life appeals to the good in each person. We cannot transform the world until we expand the possibility that good exists in all. In truth Gandhi’s letters to world leaders addressed as ‘Dear Friend’ didn’t appear to change their course, yet the message was to humanity. Not unlike the philosophy of Jesus ‘If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the left cheek’. What this means is to respond to evil or lack of love with good. It is to not hit back nor run away. This is the power of nonviolence, it is true courage to face aggression with peace. You cannot imagine how strong this behaviour is. I am only beginning to know Gandhi through my own life. I am beginning to understand the real power of love, it is indeed selfless.

I have and do practice Satyagraha ‘holding on to truth’ and Ahimsa ‘nonviolence’ or love. I have been in conflicts where I really felt deeply hurt and could have easily hit back psychologically, instead I reach within myself to find the peace of truthful expression. I cannot force another to see my way, but I can express what I feel in honesty. If people choose to ignore that or fight, I have no responsibility for that. All I can do is be peace. I deeply understand this as I have had to send love to many that were not interested. Yet I recognise that this is my work in peace, in truth it has nothing to do with the other. They must choose their own path. This was indeed the case with Hitler, what the letters showed was not the futility of self expression but the power in addressing a person deemed deeply brutal as ‘friend’. Many would seek revenge on such a person, but Gandhi made a decision to try. Here I am reproducing that, clearly an action not worthless.

Gandhi’s letter is reproduced toward the bottom of this blog.

This was emailed to me through the Gandhi organisation, I believe they are in India.

Gandhi’s letters to ‘Dear Friend’ Hitler inspire film

Two letters written by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to German dictator Adolf Hitler addressing him as ‘Dear Friend’ during the latter’s ambitious eastern Europe push is subject of a film that hits the theatres this weekend.

The film ‘Gandhi to Hitler’ stars Raghuveer Yadav as the diminutive German dictator, Neha Dhupia as his love interest Eva Braun and Avijit Dutt as Mahatma Gandhi.

The film takes a parallel look at two socio-political set ups – the last days of Hitler when only his trusted comrades Eva and Joseph Goebbels stood by him through the upheavals in Germany and India’s desperate bid for freedom and the individual choices of a young couple.

Although the enemy was common, the diametrically opposite ideologies adopted by both the leaders prompted Gandhi to write to Hitler to dissuade him from a bloody campaign against humanity.

The first letter was written on July 23, 1939 before the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, while the second was written on Christmas eve in 1940.

Addressing him as ‘Dear Friend’, Gandhi wrote “Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success?”

Directed by Rakesh Ranjan Kumar, the film was screened in Berlin in February and at the Cannes film festival in May.

“In non-violent technique, as I have said, there is no such thing as defeat. It is all ‘do or die’ without killing or hurting. It can be used practically without money and obviously without the aid of science of destruction which you have brought to such perfection,” Gandhi wrote in his second letter.

He emphasizes the need to bring the British empire to its heels without resorting to violence. Yadav, a noted character actor who started his career in television, is back in the new role while Dutt starred in Deepa Mehta’s ‘Fire’.

GANDHI’S LETTER

Refer http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/for-sake-of-humanity_10.html

Transcript

As at Wardha,
C. P.,
23-7-’39

HERR HITLER
BERLIN
GERMANY.

Dear friend,

Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence. Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth.

It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to a savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success? Any way I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you.

I remain,

Your sincere friend

M. K. Gandhi