What is True Civilisation?

Gandhi wrote about it in “Hind Swaraj”: “The Gujerati equivalent for civilisation means good conduct… To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions… We notice that mind is a restless bird; the more it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions, the more unbridled they become.

“Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to our indulgences. They saw that happiness was largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich, or unhappy because he is poor. The rich are often seen to be unhappy, the poor to be happy…

“We have had no system of life-corroding competition…. They (our ancestors) reasoned that large cities were a snare and a useless encumbrance, and that people would not be happy in them, that there will be gangs of thieves and robbers, prostitution and vice flourishing ih them, and that poor men would be robbed by the rich men…

“The tendency of Indian civilisation is to elevate the moral being, that of Western civilisation is to propagate immorality. The latter is godless, the former is based on a belief in God.”