Thought Of Ghandi- Means And Ends

Gandhiji has written that "means and ends are convertible terms in my philosophy of life". On one hand he is supporting his own philosophy and on the other, denouncing the Machiavellian idea that ends justify means. He was raising his voice against the code of conduct that one should not see whether the means are good or bad if the ends are justifiable, violence is justified if ends are desirable.

For gandhiji means and ends are inseparable. There is no wall of separation between means and ends. The creater indeed has not given the control over ends. The means must be Noble to achieve Noble ends.

The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree, and there is just the same inviolable connection between there means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree. like a beautiful tree, not one of whose millions of leaves is like any other. Though therefore they are from one seed and belong to the same tree, there is none of the uniformity of a geometrical figure about any part of a tree. And yet we know that the seed, the branches and the leaves are one and the same.

We know too that no geometrical figure can bear comparison with a full-blossomed tree in point of beauty and grandeur. Impure means result in an impure end..... One cannot reach truth by untruthfulness. Truthful conduct alone can reach Truth. Are not Non-violence and Truth twins?

In his moral and political thought, Gandhi gave Satya and Ahimsa the highest importance and said that ahimsa is the means to reach satya, which is the end. The pursuit of satya leads to the recognition of the need for ahimsa to a point where we hold to ahimsa as the immediate, tangible part of the ultimate Truth.

Gandhi sometimes also equated satya with ahimsa – they are like two sides of a coin, he said – for they are intertwined and it is impossible to disentangle and separate them. But at other times, Gandhi clearly distinguished between the two.