Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future an Entrenching the Past 87ideal, but it can also be proved that omething approximating to it did exist
in former times."^58 Responding to letter that wondered what a devout
Muslim would feel about Gandhi's alking in the name of the Hindu gods,
holding prayer meetings, and cha ting "Ramanama" (the name of Ram),
he wrote: "[Ramanama] is concei ed as a mode of addressing the all-
pervasive God known to me ... hy should an open profession by me
of my faith offend anybody, muc less the Muslim League?" As usual,
he had several creative options: " o one is obliged to join these meet-
ings and having joined is not oblig d to take part in the chant." As far as
Ramarajya was concerned, he wrot in Harijan in August 1946, "It is a con-
venient and expressive phrase, th meaning of which no alternative can
so fully express to millions. When visit the Frontier Province or address
predominantly Muslim audiences would express my meaning to them
by calling it Khudai Raj, while to a hristian audience I would describe it
as the Kingdom of God on earth. y other mode would, for me, be self-
suppression and hypocrisy."^59 Spe king at a prayer meeting at Haimchar
in February 1947, he reiterated aga , "Let no one commit the mistake of
thinking that Ramarajya means a rt le of the Hindus. My Rama is another
name for Khuda or God. I want Kh dai raj, which is the same thing as the
Kingdom of God on earth. The rule f the first four Caliphs was somewhat
comparable to it. The establishme of such a rajya would not only mean
welfare of the whole of the Indian eople but of the whole world."^60
The partition of the country, br tal Hindu-Muslim violence, and the
plight of refugees made Gandhi co fess, "[Ramarajya] has become a mere
dream. Let alone Ramarajya, at pr sent there is no rule whatever in the
country.... If this situation canno be improved, my heart cries out and
prays to God, that He should take me away immediately. Why should I
remain a witness to these things?"^1 Gandhi told his friends that he was
simply following a thinker who s id, "If you cannot see your way, it is
better to stay where you are."^62 H had a difference of opinion with the
leaders concerning the situation "b cause it seemed to me that the Rama-
rajya of my dreams was not materi izing."^63 He did not worry because he
had developed detachment and he as doing what he had been doing all
along, and what he felt was true.
Living true to his characteristic oral courage and spiritual wisdom,
Gandhi questioned himself and is own work: "Sometimes I wonder
whether during the last thirty yea s I have not taken the country in the
wrong direction. However, as I ha e confessed time and again, our non-
violence was not that of the brav ,"^64 He felt that "our ahimsa was the
ahimsa of the weak." Since ahimsa nd weakness would not go together,
it should be called "passive resista ce," which is "a preparation for active
and armed resistance." Therefore, 'the violence we see today is the vio-
lence of cowards." If 4 or 5 men etting into a fight and dying by the
sword is "violence of the brave," 1 ,000 armed men attacking a village of