"Hindu-Muslim unity has been my life’s mission." - Mahatma Gandhi

Extracts from The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi

A question has been put to me:

Do you intend to start general civil disobedience although Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah has declared war against Hindus and has got the Muslim League to pass a resolution favouring vivisection of India into two? If you do, what becomes of your formula that there is no swaraj without communal unity.

I admit that the step taken by the Muslim League at Lahore creates a baffling situation. But I do not regard it so baffling as to make civil disobedience an impossibility. Supposing that the Congress is reduced to a hopeless minority, it will still be open to it, indeed it may be its duty, to resort to civil disobedience. The struggle will not be against the majority, it will be against the foreign ruler, If the struggle succeeds, the fruits thereof will be reaped as well by the Congress as by the opposing majority. Let me, however, say in parenthesis that, until the conditions I have mentioned for starting civil disobedience are fulfilled, civil disobedience cannot be started in any case. 

In the present instance there is nothing to prevent the imperial rulers from declaring their will in unequivocal terms that henceforth India will govern herself according to her own will, not that of the rulers as has happened hitherto. Neither the Muslims League nor any other party can oppose such a declaration. For the Muslims will be entitled to dictate their own terms. Unless the rest of India wishes to engage in internal fratricide, the others will have to submit to Muslim dictation of the Muslims will resort to it. I know no non-violent method of compelling the obedience of eight crore of Muslims to the will of the rest of India, however powerful the rest may represent. The Muslims must have the same right of self-determination that the rest of India has. We are at present a joint family. Any member may claim a division.

Thus, so far as I am concerned, my proposition that there is no swaraj without communal unity holds as good today as when I first enunciated it in 1919.

But civil disobedience stands on a different footing. It is open even to one single person to offer it, if he feels the call. It will not be offered for the Congress alone or for any particular group. Whatever benefit accrues from it will belong to the whole India. The injury, if there is any, will belong only to the civil disobedience party.  

But I do not believe that Muslims, when it comes to a matter of actual decision, will ever want vivisection. Their good sense will prevent them. Their self-interest will deter them. Their religion will forbid the obvious suicide which the partition would mean. The ‘two-nations’ theory is an untruth. The vast majority of Muslims of India are converts to Islam or are descendants of converts. They did not become a separate nation as soon as they became converts. A Bengali Muslim speaks the same tongue that a Bengali Hindu does, eats the same food, has the same amusements as his Hindu neighbour. They dress alike. I have often found it difficult to distinguish by outward sign between a Bengali Hindu and a Bengali Muslim. The same phenomenon is observable more or less in the South among the poor who constitute the masses of India. 

When I first met the late Sir Ali Imam I did not know that he was not a Hindu. His speech, his dress, in whose midst I found him. His name alone betrayed him. Not even that with Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah. For his name could be that of any Hindu. When I first met him, I did not know that he was a Muslim. I came to know his religion when I had his full name given to me. His nationality was written in his face and manner. The reader will be surprised to know that for days, if not months, 

I used to think f the late Vithalbhai Patel as a Muslim as he used to sport a beard and a Turkish cap. The Hindu law of inheritance governs many Muslim groups. Sir Mohammed Iqbal used to speak with pride of his Brahmanical descent. Iqbal and Kitchlew are names common to Hindus and Muslims. Hindus and Muslims of India are not two nations. Those whom God has made one, man will never be able to divide.

And is Islam such an exclusive religion as Quaid-e-Azam would have it? Is there nothing in common between Islam and Hinduism or any other religion? Or is Islam merely an enemy of Hinduism? Were the Ali Brothers and their associates wrong when they hugged Hindus as blood brothers and saw so much in common between the two? I am not now thinking of individual Hindus who may have disillusioned the Muslim friends. Quaid-e-Aza, has, however, raised a fundamental issue. This is his thesis:

Nawab Sir Shah Nawaz Mamdot presenting address of welcome
at the All-India Muslim League session,
March 1940, with Jinnah at the left.

It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality. This misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond the limits and is the cause of most of our troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time.

The Hindus and Muslims have two different religious philosophies, social customs, literatures. They neither intermarry, not dine together, and indeed, they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of life are different from different sources of history. They have different epics, their heroes are different, and they have different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other and, likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single State, one as a numerical minority and the other as majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built for the government of such a State.

He does not say some Hindus are bad; he says Hindus as such have nothing common with Muslims. I make bold to say that he and those who think like him are rendering no service to Islam; they are misinterpreting the message inherent in the very word Islam. I say this because I feel deeply hurt over what is now going on in the name of the Muslim League. I should be failing in my duty, if I did not warn the Muslims of India against the untruth that is being propagated amongst them. This warning is a duty because I have faithfully served them in their hour of need and because Hindu-Muslim unity has been my life’s mission.

Sevagram 1 April 1940

Harijan 4 June 1940

Above extract is taken from 

Themes in Indian History

India’s Partition Process, Strategy and Mobilization

Edited by Mushirul Hasan

A decade in Toronto - 25

Che and his classmates with
Toronto Mayor John Tory, promoting cricket
Che is to the left of Mayor Tory

2015 was the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s return to India after over two decades’ stay in South Africa (he returned to India on 9th January). He had left for South Africa in 1893, a year that is significant to Indian history (and I’ve written about this earlier, too) as it was in 1893 that Swami Vivekananda addressed the World Congress of Religions in Chicago, transforming the world’s comprehension of a civilisation. It was also the year when Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak launched the Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav to bring about caste unity.

Gandhi went to South Africa as a lawyer and returned from South Africa as a leader of the masses, equipped to take on the might of an empire. He would transform Indian society and in following decades and have a tremendous impact and influence on the 20th century movements that led to the end of colonialism, the rise of the underclass (the unwashed masses) across the world, and the assertion of fundamental human rights to protect one’s identity.

To commemorate the Mahatma’s return from South Africa, the Government of India launched the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in 2003 – a three-day congregation of the Indian diaspora that commenced (until Narendra Modi changed the date, for no reason except probably his ideological distaste for all things Gandhian) on January 9 every year.

For 2015, the Government of India produced posters highlighting Gandhi’s rise as a leader in South Africa. I have reproduced one here (these are taken from an earlier blog on the subject: A Pravasi Comes Home). 2019 is the 150th year of the Mahatma.

Today, when nationalism is acquiring dangerous dimensions, and there is a tendency (especially in India) to call anyone who disagrees with the official Hindutva line as an “anti-national”, it’d be relevant to understand Gandhiji’s views on nationalism.

During the Vaikom Satyagraha (anti-untouchability agitation), Gandhiji defined his nationalism thus: “My idea of nationalism is that my country may become free—free that if need be the whole of the country may die—so that the human race may live. There is no room here for race hatred.” (Indian Nationalism: The Essential Writings (p. 164). Edited By Irfan Habib. Rupa Publications. Kindle Edition.)

For a unique perspective on the ongoing Sabrimala agitation and its linkage to the Vaikom Satyagraha, read Ramchandra’s Guha’s article: Remembering the Vaikom Satyagraha in the light of Sabrimala

The Pulwama attack by Pakistan-based terrorists that killed 44 Indian soldiers has dominated social media in India and in the Indian diaspora abroad. I have often wondered how effective Gandhiji would have been with his satyagraha and nonviolence if he’d faced religious fundamentalists of today. There’s little doubt that he’d have been assassinated all over again, and in double quick time.

There’s a Nathuram Godse in all religions because fundamentalism is an ideology, not religion, and fundamentalists use only those parts of religion that preach intolerance against other religions.

Masood Azhar’s supporters (the perfidious Pakistani establishment) can justify that he is fighting the good fight for his fellow Muslims in Kashmir. But, there’s little to distinguish his thought process from Godse’s. Azhar regularly masterminds the massacre of innocents in the hope that he can bend the Indian state to do his ideological bidding – leave Kashmir. Godse assassinated a man who influenced an entire civilisation to do his bidding for living peaceably together.

In this context, I want to briefly return to the nationalism debate. My former colleague Sudheendra Kulkarni walked out of a television debate recently when the host (the abominable Arnab Goswami) called Sachin Tendulkar anti-national.

Kulkarni's voluminous Music of the Spinning Wheel has a fascinating anecdote of a meeting between the Mahatma and Romain Rolland (Kulkarni presented the book to me when I met him in 2017). 

“I played him the Andante from the Fifth Symphony, and, on Gandhi’s request, returned to the piano and played Gluck’s Elysian Fields from Orfeo, the first orchestral piece and the flute melody,” writes Rolland.

Kulkarni says, “Since Gandhi never showed much interest in Western classical music, we can ask ourselves the question: Why did he expressly ask Rolland to play him Beethoven?” There are many answers to this question, Kulkarni says, and then adds: “…there is another, more important, reason behind Gandhi’s request to Rolland to play Beethoven for him. That reason was Mirabehn.”

What follows is a fascinating narration of a little-known history:

“Strange though it may seem, Beethoven had played a pivotal role in bringing Madeleine Slade to Gandhi. She fell in love with Beethoven’s music when, at age of fifteen, she first heard a composition by him, Sonata Opus 31 No. 2 She writes in her autobiography, The Spirit’s Pilgrimage, that her whole being was stirred by it; she played it over and over again…She learnt French so that she could read about Beethoven’s life in Romain Rolland’s Jean Christophe (the 10 volume novel that got him the Literature Nobel)…”

Upon meeting Rolland, she was advised her that “the only living person worthy of the sort of veneration you have felt for Beethoven is Mahatma Gandhi.” Of course, Madeleine had never heard of the Mahatma. Then, after she had read Rolland’s book on the Mahatma (which he had written without having met him), she decided to visit India.

Kulkarni writes, “(Rolland)…had been himself craving deeply for many years to receive Gandhi in Villeneuve and to let him experience Beethoven’s sublime music. In a letter to Mirabehn on 25 April 1927 (that is, four years before Gandhi came to meet Rolland), he had written” “If Gandhi knew him (Beethoven), he would have recognized in him our European Mahatma, our strongest mediator between the life of the senses and eternal Life. And he would bless this music which perhaps, for us, is the highest form of prayer, a permanent communion with the Divinity.”

“Earlier, too, in his letter to Mahadev Desai on 24 February 1924, Rolland had described Beethoven as ‘our European Mahatma’ who ‘sings in his Ode to Joy; Let us – millions of human beings – embrace each other.’”

(from: Beethoven got Romain Rolland and Merabehn together)

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Akshya Mukul’s Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India was published in 2015 – the year when the first high-profile lynching of a Muslim allegedly for beef consumption occurred in India. (Dadri lynching)

It was just a year after Narendra Modi took charge as the Prime Minister of India, and there would be many lynchings in the next three years.

Mukul's book gave a perspective to the rise of Hindutva ideology. It linked the rise to the ferment in the Indian society in the late 19th and early 20th century when for the first time since the medieval era, the Hindu identify began to manifest itself socially, culturally, economically, and politically on the Indian subcontinent.

The business class (and in India’s case, the class and the caste almost always subsume) consolidated the Hindu identity by coalescing the other two upper castes (Brahmins and the Kshatriyas) into a force that began to influence the political and sociocultural landscape.

In retrospect, what is surprising is that the subterranean influences that these forces unleashed have remained relevant and have grown in influence to dominate public life in the 21st century. They were reined in and controlled only because of the enduring combined influence of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Mukul’s book also gives deep insights into the relationship that the Indian elite shared – it was a nurturing relationship that overlooked ideological differences in preference of protecting class (and caste) interests. To read more, click here: The ties that bind the elite.

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A cinematic experience that I’ll never forget was to see Miguel Gomes’s Arabian Nights I, II and III at the Toronto International Film Festival, which celebrated four decades in 2015. The film comprises three parts - The Restless One, The Desolate One, and The Enchanted One. It is about contemporary Portugal – altogether 383 minutes that narrates the transformation of the Portuguese society through fantasy; especially graphic is the depiction of the relationship between a young woman and a banker. The film is an epic.

My motivation in choosing this all-day film was to know about contemporary society in Portugal, a country that has historical links to India.

To read more about the film, click here: Arabian Nights I, II, III

A decade in Toronto - 20

Che

A number of global legends from diverse spheres passed on into history in 2014, among them were Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Richard Attenborough, Robin Williams. 

All of them contributed to deepening our understanding and appreciation of the arts. Marquez is unquestionably one of the best novelists of all times. 

If you’re interested in reading about what I wrote when he passed away, click here: Marquez

Similarly, Attenborough contributed to a better appreciation of Mahatma Gandhi achievements and contributions to making the world a better place. Attenborough’s Gandhi was a cinematic masterpiece and deservedly swept the Oscars in 1982 (unfortunately, Spielberg’s ET lost out). Gandhi the movie introduced the Mahatma to a global audience especially to a younger demographic. 

Che and Mahrukh

Attenborough was also a consummate actor and admired by the discerning moviegoer for his portrayal of General James Outram in Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977).

Robin Williams acted in too many good movies, making it difficult to pinpoint his best. But I believe that he will be remembered for his portrayal of John Keating, the English teacher, who adopts unusual methods to teach his students' poetry and understand life better in Dead Poets Society (1989).

The list also included two individuals who were well known in their spheres and who I could claim to have known personally – Chelva Kanaganayakan and Vasu Chanchlani. Coincidentally, both passed away at a relatively young age of 62 and both were immensely active.

Vasu Chanchlani was among the most prosperous Indo-Canadians and a person deeply committed to philanthropy. His prosperity hadn’t changed his innate decency. He approached me to do a write-up on his nomination for the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award.

Che and Durga

What I found endearing about him was that he never let his wealth determine his relationships, or his identity. He’d happily accompany me to an ordinary Indian restaurant near the Chamber’s office and agreed to take turns to pay.

I got to know Chelva because of my association with the Festival of South Asian Literature and Arts. We were both members of the core group that worked to organize the festival curated by MG Vassanji and Nurjehan Aziz.

Read about him here: Chelva Kanaganayakan

With Mahrukh

Asghar Ali Engineer made a name for himself for his resolute opposition to religious fundamentalism. He passed away in 2013. As a journalist in Bombay, I’d come in close contact with him. On a couple of occasions, I’d gone over to his modest home in Santacruz East near Golibar to discuss current affairs. 

In the mid-1980s, his Centre for Study of Society and Secularism had published a report of the unstated but obvious bias against Muslims in finding jobs in the private sector. I’d taken views of a cross-section of influencers on the report. 

The best reaction had come from Datta Samant, the fiery trade union leader, famous for the textile strike of 1982. Samant looked at me quizzically when I asked him whether employers discriminated against Muslims. “They will exploit everyone. They don’t care about their workers’ religion.”

Engineer continued to be active, but we lost touch when I quit journalism in the late 1990s. 

When I went to Bombay in 2014, I made it a point to visit his Santacruz office. I took Che with me to introduce my son to the significance of a person such as Engineer and his contribution to ensuring that fundamentalism is challenged.

As a matter of principle, I have not told my son what dogma (religious/ideological) he should follow (I'll be happy if he doesn't follow any). I believe every human being has the right to choose, or better still, not choose at all. I believe that every human being has the right to not be indoctrinated, especially by family,  culture, upbringing and rigid family values. 

Where I make an exception is to tell him to be on the side of the oppressed. Engineer and his kind always stood (and stand) with the oppressed.

Unfortunately or fortunately, Che doesn’t remember that we visited Engineer’s office and met his son Irfan Engineer who has continued to do all the good work that his father initiated, and in his efforts, he’s been joined by Ram Puniyani, a former IIT professor, who even during his teaching days, was a resolute activist fighting the good cause of secularism.

Read about Asghar Ali Engineer here: Striving for Peace and Harmony

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My journey to discover authors and poets continued and I assisted  Meenakshi Alimchandani in organizing the South Asian component of the first (and last) Inspire Toronto International Book Fair. It was a great event, where the who’s who of Toronto’s literary world congregated to discuss what they know best – reading, writing, and books.

Meenakshi had her favourite South Asian authors for the panel discussion and included friends such as Jasmine D’Costa, Manjushree Thapa, Anirudh Bhattacharya, and the effervescent Pricilla Uppal, who succumbed to cancer earlier this year. 

Read about it here: Inspire

My friends Yoko Morgenstern and Joyce Wayne published their debut novels in 2014. Yoko’s Double Exile was released in July when I’d left for India. Joyce’s The Cook’s Temptation was launched at our common friend Sang Kim’s restaurant Wind-Up Bird Café (named after Haruki Murakami’s novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Joyce’s second novel, Last Night of the World (published in 2018) is one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time.

With Yoko

Read their interviews:

Yoko Morgenstern

Joyce Wayne

For a brief while, Sang’s restaurant became a hotspot for literary dos and attracted an esoteric group of people all of whom shared their love for great food and great books. Sang, an award-winning author, is these days pursuing his passion for creating exquisite cuisines. 

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Except the last photo with Yoko, the other photos are not connected to the blog. I've just placed them here because they were clicked in 2014, and Che looks smart in them.

Beethoven got Gandhi, Rolland & Mirabehn together

June 21 is world music day

My long rides from work to home in the evenings often compel me to listen to music on my cellphone. Unlike most of my co-commuters in the bus, who have earbuds perennially plugged into their ears, I don’t normally listen to music, preferring to read news features on Flipboard, or read a book. But when I’m running low on data, I occasionally switch over to music, and often the music is either Indian or western classical.

I’m not an expert at either, nor an aficionado, but I can claim to have an appreciative ear for both, and enjoy the music.

I’ve noticed that unlike reading, which always leads to thinking and occasionally to aggravation, listening to music is soothing, it calms the nerves.

The two collections that I frequently listen to are Western Classical – Top 50, and Voices of India – Bhimsen Joshi. Both CDs bought many years ago in India, then transferred to my laptop, and now on my cellphone.

The Western Classical – Top 50 has some of the most beloved compositions known to music lovers across the world, and includes, among others, such perennial favourites as:

• Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik (Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major);
• Vivaldi’s The Four Season Spring (Part 1);
• Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, ‘Fate’: Allegro con brio;  
• Carl Orff’s Carmina burana i o fortuna;
• Bach’s Suite for Orchestra No. 2 in b minor for flute and string bwv 1067 vii badinerie;
• Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet sui; and
• Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra.

My favourite, of course, is Carl Orff’s Carmina burana fortuna. Although I don't comprehend a word of what is being sung, I can never tire listening to it; and unlike most of the compositions in the collection, this one is relatively new, from the last century.

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This version has the minimalist lyrics of the classic,
and that perhaps makes it more interesting

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I recalled reading of how Beethoven brought together Mahatma Gandhi, Romain Rolland, and Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade). In his book Music of the Spinning Wheel, Sudheendra Kulkarni narrates the encounter between Rolland and the Mahatma:

“I played him the Andante from the Fifth Symphony, and, on Gandhi’s request, returned to the piano and played Gluck’s Elysian Fields from Orfeo, the first orchestral piece and the flute melody,” writes Rolland.

Kulkarni says, “Since Gandhi never showed much interest in Western classical music, we can ask ourselves the question: Why did he expressly ask Rolland to play him Beethoven?” There are many answers to this question, Kulkarni says, and then adds: “…there is another, more important, reason behind Gandhi’s request to Rolland to play Beethoven for him. That reason was Mirabehn.”

What follows is a fascinating narration of a little known history:

“Strange though it may seem, Beethoven had played a pivotal role in bringing Madeleine Slade to Gandhi. She fell in love with Beethoven’s music when, at age of fifteen, she first heard a composition by him, Sonata Opus 31 No. 2 She writes in her autobiography, The Spirit’s Pilgrimage, that her whole being was stirred by it; she played it over and over again…She learnt French so that she could read about Beethoven’s life in Romain Rolland’s Jean Christophe (the 10 volume novel that got him the Literature Nobel)…”

Upon meeting Rolland, she was advised her that “the only living person worthy of the sort of veneration you have felt for Beethoven is Mahatma Gandhi.” Of course, Madeleine had never heard of the Mahatma. Then, after she had read Rolland’s book on the Mahatma (which he had written without having met him), she decided to visit India.

Kulkarni writes, “(Rolland)…had been himself craving deeply for many years to receive Gandhi in Villeneuve and to let him experience Beethoven’s sublime music. In a letter to Mirabehn on 25 April 1927 (that is, four years before Gandhi came to meet Rolland), he had written” “If Gandhi knew him (Beethoven), he would have recognized in him our European Mahatma, our strongest mediator between the life of the senses and eternal Life. And he would bless this music which perhaps, for us, is the highest form of prayer, a permanent communion with the Divinity.”

“Earlier, too, in his letter to Mahadev Desai on 24 February 1924, Rolland had described Beethoven as ‘our European Mahatma’ who ‘sings in his Ode to Joy; Let us – millions of human beings – embrace each other.’”

A Pravasi Comes Home

Earlier this month, India celebrated the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s return from South Africa on January 7 1915. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi left Porbunder in 1893 to practice law in South Africa, but fate and circumstances turned him into a leader of his people as he discovered new ways to oppose oppression. 

Many have commented in the last few weeks on how the South African sojourn turned Gandhi into Mahatma, and here are the links to some of the better pieces:

Mahatma Gandhi & the Art of Travel: Chandrahas Choudhury

Make space for Mahatma’s mind,heart: MJ Akbar

Mahatma’s Ghar Wapsi: Rajmohan Gandhi

In Gandhi Before India, historian Ramchandra Guha while describing Gandhi’s last days in South Africa records:

These wishes and felicitations provide a conspectus of the social and geographical range of Gandhi’s influence in the large, complex and conflicted land that, for two decades, was his home.

It may be apposite, however, to juxtapose to these endorsements a comment on Gandhi’s departure from someone who was not sorry to see him go. This was General Jan Christian Smuts. In May 1914 Smuts received a letter from Emily Hobhouse, who was now back in London. This conveyed news about mutual friends, and went on to discuss a man whom the Quaker now considered a friend but whom the Afrikaner still could not. “I have been reading Gandhi’s Home Rule for India – Hind Swaraj, wrote Hobhouse to Smuts. ‘Have you read it? I like it very much, all about India and the harm English civilization is doing there…It is a book you would have enjoyed at one period of your life.’

Smut’s reply is unrecorded. Whatever he might have thought of the English on the battlefield, after the war ended he had been first in the ranks of those seeking to unite the white people against the coloured. Hobhouse’s endorsement of Gandhi’s attack on Western civilization could scarcely have pleased him. In recent years he had read and seen too much of the man in any case. His feelings are contained in a letter he wrote to Sir Benjamin Robertson, where he said that after the Viceroy’s representative had returned to India, ‘Gandhi approached me on a number of small administrative points. some of which I could meet him on, and as a result, the saint has left our shores – I sincerely hope for ever.’

Earlier, Guha quotes Lord Gladstone’s description (to Colonial Office) about a meeting between Gandhi and Smuts, which encapsulates in a few words the deep distrust the British always harboured about Gandhi’s unique methods:

General Smuts has shown a most patient and conciliatory temper. In spite of a series of conflicts extending over many years, he retains a sympathetic interest in Gandhi as an unusual type of humanity, whose peculiarities, however inconvenient they may be to the Minister, are not devoid of attraction to the student…It is not easy task for a European to conduct negotiations with Mr. Gandhi. The workings of his conscience are inscrutable to the occidental mind and produce complications in wholly unexpected places. His ethical and intellectual attitude, based as it appears to be on a curious compound of mysticism and astuteness, baffles the ordinary processes of thought, Nevertheless, a tolerably practical understanding has been reached.

Images:Indian Diplomacy 

Gandhi Before India

Gandhi & Tolstoy

“Gandhi and Tolstoy were akin in good ways and bad. Both were indifferent fathers and less than solicitous husbands.” - Ramchandra Guha

Ramchandra Guha was in Toronto recently to launch his latest offering – Gandhi Before India – the first part of a two part biography of the Mahatma. The volume deals with Gandhi’s life from birth to 1915 – the year he returned from South Africa. It is a chronicle of his transformation from a failed lawyer to a leader of people. 

Guha is an erudite scholar who speaks as well as he writes. He had his audience spellbound for the better part of an hour as he narrated the highlights of the Mahatma’s life in South Africa.

Guha spoke about Leo Tolstoy’s influence on Gandhi.  In the book Guha says, “Leo Tolstoy (at this time) was certainly the most famous writer in the world. (He was) admired for his novels and stories, and in some quarters, even for his attempts at simplifying his life. In his early fifties he had a conversion experience, following which he gave up alcohol, tobacco and meat. His vegetarianism became so well known that he was asked to write an introduction to a book of Henry Salt’s. He took up working in the fields, and splitting wood and making shoes in a bid to empathize with his serfs. From a martial background, he now began to preach the virtues of pacifism. Although born and raised in the Russian Orthodox Church, he developed a deep interest in Hinduism and Buddhism.

“Of the many transitions, the most painful was his embrace of celibacy. In his youth he had been (in his own words), a ‘radical chaser after women.’ His wife went through more than a dozen pregnancies. He had affairs with peasant women on his estate. A man of ‘wild passion,’ he sought in middle age to give up sex along with the other pleasures he had forsaken.”

The Russian writer was Gandhi’s intellectual mentor. His was the most decisive intellectual and philosophical influence on Gandhi. Although Gandhi hadn’t read War and Peace, and Anna Karenina, he had minutely read and re-read Tolstoy’s religious and philosophical texts.

He read Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You in 1893 in Johannesburg. The title of the book is a line from the Bible and Tolstoy used it to make an eloquent case for interfaith dialogue and for individuals to reach their personal, conscience-driven path to God.

Tolstoy claims in the book that the spiritual truth or the essence of Christianity is not what the archbishop or the pope says; the essence of Islam is not what the grand mufti tells you what it is; and the meaning of Hinduism is not what the Shankaracharya tells you. You must find your own path to God.

Tolstoy’s The First Step (translated into English in 1906) also influenced Gandhi immensely. In this book, Tolstoy says that any person who wants to contribute socially and politically to the society’s transformation, and who wants to devote his life to the service of society must abstain from idleness, gluttony and carnal desire – the three cardinal sins of the Russian aristocrats.

In Gandhi’s case, idleness and gluttony were not a problem. He was always hardworking, and he was a vegetarian. The real problem was carnal desire and he adopted a vow of celibacy, detached himself from his family and his children to simplify his life.

Tolstoy’s pacifism has played a significant role in formulating Gandhi’s ideas for non-violent struggle in Transvaal in South Africa. After reading, understanding and interpreting Tolstoy nearly two decades, Gandhi finally is inspired to write directly to Tolstoy in 1909 – a year before Tolstoy died.

Gandhi wrote to Tolstoy about what he was doing in South Africa, and Tolstoy was delighted to find an Indian disciple in South Africa. He replied immediately. During the course of this correspondence Gandhi  in an extraordinary display of self-confidence tells Tolstoy that what he and his group is doing in Transvaal (which is partly inspired by Tolstoy’s ideas of pacifism) is going to have a positive impact on the whole world. Guha observed, “It is an extraordinary confident claim to make of a nebulous movement that involves just a few thousand people – that it is going to transform the whole world.”

Mahatma’s apostles

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The Spirit's Pilgrimage is the autobiography of Madeleine Slade, better known to Indians as Mirabehn. In a moving story, she recounts how her interest in Beethoven was indirectly responsible for her awakening. It was Beethoven's music which led her to Romain Rolland, the French philosopher who guided her footsteps to Gandhiji. 

Rolland's book, Mahatma Gandhi, revealed to Mirabehn her one and only master, whom she served throughout her life. Without second thoughts, she gave up an affluent life in England and came to India, completely immersing herself in Gandhiji's life and work.

Mirabehn wasn't alone. There were several others who gave up everything they had, or could ever have had, to identify themselves with the man they considered next only to God - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It wasn't just the Mahatma's personality that attracted them; it was what he wanted to attain and they all came to share his dreams.

While Jawaharlal, Vallabhbhai and the Maulana (among others) were the political arms of Gandhiji, his work for the social reconstruction of Indian society – more important to him than the political transformation of the country – was done by a chosen few, working away from the limelight, quietly.

Disciples, through their long association with Gandhiji and his work, became his true apostles. They were Mahadevbhai Desai, JC Kumarappa, Mirabehn, Valji Govindji Desai, Kishorelal Mashruwala and Narhari Parekh.

For them nothing could ever come in the way of their endeavour to serve Gandhiji and carry out, without exception, even the most menial tasks assigned to them. Gandhiji's wish was their command.

When she first came to Sabarmati Ashram Mirabehn was given the task of keeping the premises clean. It is said that she did this with such thoroughness and sense of purpose that nobody could fail to notice it.

Mahadev Desai

Mahadevbhai Desai was, so to say, the first among equals. Thomas Hyslop, writing on Gandhiji's role as a social revolutionary in Quest for Gandhi, describes Desai thus: "Mahadev Desai, for over 24 years the secretary and chronicler of Gandhi, is in fact so able a reporter that her has been called Gandhi's Boswell…"

Mahadevbhai's dedication to Gandhiji was so complete that it seems unimaginable that a person of such immense learning, knowledge and obvious talent was content to remain in Gandhiji's shadow.

An incident which clearly illustrates the depth of Mahadevbhai's scholarly eminence occurred when master and disciple were languishing in jail. The discussion between the two veered towards literature and its social relevance.

Mahadevbhai was of the opinion that both Tolstoy and Ruskin initially concentrated only on pure art, but Ruskin later realized that life was much more than just art and literature; and that the advancement of the two could not alleviate stark poverty even indirectly.

It was this realisation that made Ruskin write Unto the Last – the book which forever changed the life of the Mahatma. Gandhiji felt that though Tolstoy too went through a similar phase, he did not write any such book.

To this Mahadevbhai replied that unlike Ruskin, Tolstoy was a true revolutionary and did not limit himself to writing a book, he changed his lifestyle totally. Gandhiji found this an important distinction.

Though he had translated Rabindranth Tagore's Chitrangada into Gujarati, most of Mahadevbhai's later writings were on Gandhiji's multifarious activities. The most memorable writings are the diaries Mahadevbhai wrote detailing Gandhiji's visit to England to attend the Round Table Conference, his internment in Yerwada jail, the Bardoli satyagraha and others.

Despite being an authority on the Bhagwad Gita himself, he was content with translating Gandhiji's commentaries on the Gita into English.

Mahadevbhai's end came quite unexpectedly, in August 1942, when Gandhiji and all the top ranking leaders of the Congress had been jailed in the wake of the Quit India movement. He was more than a son to Gandhiji and the Mahatma, never one to publicly display emotions, is said to have broken down when he heard of his demise.

Joseph Chelladurai Kumarappa

JC Kumarappa was born just a few days after Mahadevbhai, on January 4, 1892. His father was a civil servant and his mother, a deeply religious Christian. Kumarappa was the unlikeliest of Gandhiji's disciple.

Having studied in England, he had come back to India and started a chartered accountancy practice, through a partnership firm. It was while Kumarappa was researching the article he was writing on the causes of Indian poverty that his transformation to a nationalist began.

While he was in the United States, he wrote a book on public finance and Indian poverty. This book was read by Gandhiji, who called Kumarappa over to his ashram for a meeting.

That meeting changed Kumarappa's entire worldview and life. He gave up his practice and took up a job as a professor with Gujarat University, at that time totally controlled by nationalist leaders.

At Gandhiji's behest he undertook several research projects on the feasibility of initiating agro-based village industries in several villages of Gujarat.

Moreover, he was entrusted with the task of editing Young India when both the Mahatma and Mahadevbhai were in jail, which was quite frequent.

Kumarappa was so involved with Young India that once, when authorities sealed the offices of the publication in the hope that it would cease bothering them for a while, Kumarappa cyclostyled the content and managed to hit the newsstands in time.

Besides such crusading activism, Kumarappa was one of the main formulators of the Congress's policy on India's economy. He also drew Gandhiji's attention to the importance of applying economic theories to village-based industries.

After Independence, Kumarappa was appointed as an advisory member to the Planning Commission; but he could not see eye to eye with Nehru's ideas on state planning and disassociated himself with the Commission.

In 1959, he left Wardha and went to a village near Madurai, a broken-hearted man. On January 30, 1960 – 12 years after his guru's death – Kumarappa passed away.

Kishorelal Mashruwala

Kishorelal Mashruwala never really claimed that he was a Gandhian, but he worked all his life to make people adopt not just his ideals and values, but also Gandhiji's concern for social reconstruction. He was the head of the Gandhi Seva Sangh since its inception in 1925 till 1940, when failing health forced him to relinquish the post.

Gandhiji, instead of appointing someone else, wound up the organization, much to the consternation of the day's political heavyweights, members of the Sangh themselves.

After Gandhiji's assassination, Mashruwala took charge of editing and publishing Harijan and was quite vehement in his opposition to the Congress government of the post-Independence era. He wrote Gandhi and Marx which gives a glimpse of the immense understanding that he had of Gandhian philosophy.

He observed, "When it is said that Gandhism is Communism minus violence, the impression created is that the violence factor in communism is some small impurity, the removal of which will make it the same as Gandhism. The minus violence factor is of considerable value. The implications of minus violence are so great as to make the equation as illusory as to say that red is green minus yellow and blue, or a worm is a snake minus poison."

Narhari Parekh was a fervent organizer of the several activities that the Mahatma initiated. He was also a writer and between 1916 and 1956 he authored 15 books, six translations and edited nine collections. He concentrated on the constructive-work programmes of Gandhiji.

Valji Govindji Desai is best remembered for causing immense trouble at school where he was doing his matriculation; calling for a hartal when he heard that Khudiram Bose had been executed. He too had a long and fruitful association with Gandhiji.

With such disciples working wholeheartedly towards achieving India's social reconstruction, Gandhiji could well afford to devote a major part of his time to political transformation. 

He, however, never thought himself the master. For Gandhiji, the relationship he shared with Mirabehn, Mahadevbhai and others was not that of teacher-disciple.

Writing to Romain Rolland after Mirabehn had arrived in India, Gandhiji said: "What a treasure you have sent me: I shall try to be worthy of the great trust. I shall leave no stone upturned to assist her (Mirabehn) to become a bridge between East and West. I am too imperfect to have disciples. She shall be a fellow-seeker. I propose to share the honour of fatherhood with you."