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Gandhiji wrote in Indian Opinion on 15-1-1910, that
intellectuals should contribute to upliftment of their fellow labourers by
earning a living through physical labour:
"Last but not least, it seems to us that, after all,
nature has intended man to earn his bread by manual labour-'by the sweat of his
brow' -and intended him to dedicate his intellect not towards multiplying his
material wants and surrounding himself with enervating and soul-destroying
luxuries, but towards uplifting his moral being-towards knowing the will of the
Creator- towards serving humanity and thus truly serving himself. If so, the
profession of hawking, or, better still, simple agriculture or such other
calling, must be the highest method of earning one's livelihood. And do not the
millions do so ? No doubt many follow nature unconsciously. It remains for
those who are endowed with more than the ordinary measure of intellect to copy
the millions consciously and use their intellect for uplifting their fellow
labourers. No longer will it then be possible for the intellectuals in their
conceit to look down upon the 'hewers of wood and drawers of water'. For, of
such is the world made."
* * *
Stressing the importance of bodily labour in Young India
dated 15-10-1925, Gandhiji wrote the following:
". . . The rains come not through intellectual
feats, but through sheer bodily labour. It is a well-established scientific
fact that where forests are denuded of trees rains cease, where trees are
planted rains are attracted and the volume of water received increases with the
increase of vegetation. Laws of nature are still unexplored. We have but
scratched the surface. Who knows all the il1 effects, moral and physical, of
the cessation of bodily labour? Let me not be misunderstood. I do not discount
the value of intellectual labour, but no amount of it is any compensation for
bodily labour which every one of us is born to give for the common good of all.
It may be, often is, infinitely superior to body labour, but it never is or can
be a substitute for it, even as intellectual food, though far superior to the
grains we eat, never can be a substitute for them. Indeed without the products
of the earth those of the intellect would be an impossibility."
* * *
While Gandhiji was having a discussion with a friend
before 1-8-1936, he indicated that physical labour helps mental growth and
development:
". . . But I tell you even taking my case that I am
sure our minds would have been infinitely better if we laboured with our hands
for eight hours. We would not have a single idle thought and I may tell you
that my mind is not entirely free from idle thoughts. Even now I am what I am
because I realized the value of physical labour at a very early stage of my
life. . . Today's village culture, if culture it can be called, is an awful
culture. The villagers live as worse than animals. Nature compels animals to
work and live naturally. We have so debased our working classes that they
cannot work and live naturally. If our people had laboured intelligently and
with joy, we should have been quite different today. . . They tried to do it in
ancient Rome and failed miserably. Culture without labour, or culture which is
not the fruit of labour, would be 'Vomitoria' as Roman Catholic writer says.
The Romans made indulgence a habit and were ruined. Man cannot develop his mind
by simply writing and reading or making speeches all day long. All my reading I
tell you was done in the leisure hours I got in jails, and I have benefited by
it because all of it was done not desultorily but for some purpose. And though
I have worked physically for days and months for eight hours on end I don't
think I suffered from mental decay. I have often walked as much as 40 miles a
day and yet never felt dull"
* * *
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