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# The Message of Bapu’s Hut

This morning, while I was sitting in this hut where Mahatma Gandhi lived, I was trying to absorb the spirit of its concept and imbibe in me its message. There are two things about the hut which have impressed me greatly. One is its spiritual aspect and the other is the aspect of its amenities. I was trying to understand Gandhi’s point of view in regard to making the hut. I very much liked its simplicity, beauty and neatness. The hut proclaims the principle of love and equality with everybody. Since the house which has been provided for me in Mexico is in many ways like this hut, I could understand its spirit. Here I found that the hut has seven kinds of place. As you enter, there is a place where you put down your shoes and prepare yourself physically and mentally to go into the hut. Then comes the central room which is big enough to accommodate a large family. Today, at four in the morning, when I was sitting there for prayer, four people sat along with me, by supporting themselves on one wall, and on the other side there was also enough room for as many people again, if they sat close together. This room is where everybody can go and join others. The third space is where Gandhi himself sat and worked. There are two more rooms — one for the guests and the other for the sick. There is an open verandah and also a commodious bathroom. All of these places have a very organic relationship.

I feel that if rich people come to this hut, they might be making fun of it. But from the point of view of a simple Indian, I do not see why there should be a house bigger than this. This house is made of wood and mud. In its making, it is not the machine, but the hands of man which have worked. I call it a hut, but it is really a home. There is a difference between a house and a home. A house is where man keeps his luggage and furniture. It is meant more for the security and convenience of the furniture than of the man himself. In Delhi, where I had been put up, is a house where there are many conveniences. The building is constructed from the point of view of these conveniences. It is made of cement and bricks and is like a box where the furniture and other conveniences can fit in well.

We must understand that all furniture and other articles that we go on collecting in our lives will never give us inner strength. These are, so to say, the crutches of a cripple. The more of such conveniences we have, the more our dependence on them increases and our life gets restricted. On the contrary, the kind of furniture I find in Gandhi’s hut is of a different order, and there is very little cause for being dependent on it. A house fitted with all kinds of conveniences shows that we have become weak. The more we lose the power to live, the greater we depend upon the goods we acquire. It is like our depending upon hospitals for the health of people and upon schools for the education of our children. Unfortunately, both hospitals and schools are not an index of the health or the intelligence of a nation. Actually, the number of hospitals is indicative of the ill health of people and schools of their ignorance. Similarly, the multiplicity of facilities in living minimizes the expression of creativity in human life.

Unfortunately, the paradox of the situation is that those who have more such conveniences are regarded as superior. Is it not an immoral society where illness is accorded high status and ignorance more consideration? While sitting in Gandhi’s hut I was grieved to ponder over this perversity. I have come to the conclusion that it is wrong to think of industrial civilization as a road leading toward the development of man. It has been proved that for our economic development, greater and bigger machines of production and larger and larger numbers of engineers, doctors and professors are literally supernumery.

Those who would want to have a place bigger than this hut where Gandhi lived are poor in mind, body and life style. I pity them. They have surrendered themselves and their animate selves to an inanimate structure. In the process they have lost the elasticity of their body and the vitality of their life. They have little relationship with nature and closeness with their fellowmen.

When I ask the planners of the day why they do not understand the simple approach Gandhi taught us, they say that Gandhi’s way is very difficult, and that people will not be able to follow it. But the reality of the situation is that since Gandhi’s principles do not tolerate the presence of any middleman or that of a centralized system, the planners and managers and politicians feel left out. How is it that such a simple principle of truth and non-violence is not being understood? Is it because people feel that untruth and violence will take them to the desired objective? No. This is not so. The common man fully understands that right means will take him to the right end. It is only the people who have some vested interest who refuse to understand it. The rich do not want to understand. By ‘rich’ I mean those who have conveniences of life which are not available to everybody in common. There are the ‘rich’ in living, eating, and getting about; and their modes of consumption are such that they have been blinded to truth. It is to the blind that Gandhi becomes a difficult proposition to understand and assimilate. They are the ones to whom simplicity does not make any sense. Their circumstances unfortunately do not allow them to see the truth. Their lives have become too complicated to enable them to get out of the trap they are in. Fortunately, for the largest number of people, there is neither so much of wealth that they become immune to the truth of simplicity, nor are they in such penury that they lack the capacity to understand. Even if the rich see the truth they refuse to abide by it. It is because they have lost contact with the soul of this country.

It should be very clear that the dignity of man is possible only in a self-sufficient society and that it suffers as one moves toward progressive industrialization. This hut connotes the pleasures that are possible through being at par with society. Here, self-sufficiency is the keynote. We must understand that the unnecessary articles and goods which a man possesses reduce his power to imbibe happiness from the surroundings. Therefore, Gandhi repeatedly said that productivity should be kept within the limits of wants. Today’s mode of production is such that it finds no limit and goes on increasing, uninhibited. All these we have been tolerating so far, but the time has come when man must understand that by depending more and more on machines he is moving toward his own destruction.

The civilized world, whether it is China or America, has begun to understand that if we want to progress, this is not the way. Man should realize that for the good of the individual as well as of society, it is best that people keep for themselves only as much as is sufficient for their immediate needs. We have to find a method by which this thinking finds expression in changing the values of today’s world. This change cannot be brought about by the pressure of governments or through centralized institutions. A climate of public opinion has to be created to make people understand that which constitutes the basic society. Today the man with a motor car thinks himself superior to the man with a bicycle, though when we look at it from the point of view of the common norm, it is the bicycle which is the vehicle of the masses. The cycle, therefore, must be given the prime importance and all the planning in roads and transport should be done on the basis of the bicycle, whereas the motor car should get secondary place. 

The situation, however, is the reverse and all plans are made for the benefit of the motor car giving second place to the bicycle. Common man’s requirements are thus disregarded in comparison with those of the higher-ups. This hut of Gandhi’s demonstrates to the world how the dignity of the common man can be brought up. It is also a symbol of the happiness that we can derive from practising the principles of simplicity, service and truthfulness. I hope that in the conference that you are going to hold on Techniques for the Third World Poor, you will try to keep this message before you.