Gandhiji on God, truth and love

GANDHI FOR 21ST CENTURY: Anand T. Hingorani - Editor; Co- publishers: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai- 400007; Manibhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Mumbai; Gandhi Smriti & Darshan Samiti, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 25 (paperback), Rs. 50 (hardbound) each.

THIS SERIES in 24 pocket-books, has little to do with the relevance of Mahatma Gandhi for the 21st century as the common title would suggest. It is but an unrevised reprint of the slim books first published in 1962 (then priced Rs. 2 each) titled ``Pocket Gandhi Series'', with only the get-up of the cover jacket of the present publication facelifted in Tricolour, each displaying different inset photographs of Gandhiji.

Each book, on a specified topic, is a compilation of select extracts from Gandhiji's writings and interviews on the subject, with a brief preface.

The 24 familiar Gandhian topics include ``God is truth'', ``The science of Satyagraha'', ``The teachings of Gita'', ``Hindu- Muslim unity'', ``Village reconstruction'', ``Views on education'', ``Man vs. machine'' and the like. The painstaking compiler and editor, now aged 92, gave up law studies to become an inmate of Gandhiji's Sabarmati Ashram in 1929. Gandhiji liked the idea of collecting his writings under suitable heads when Hingorani launched his ``Gandhi Series'' in 1941.

Gandhiji's eight-line message written then in his own hand appears as facsimile in all the books in the present series also.

The classified compilation of significant quotations appearing in these books no doubt represents a sum total of Gandhiji's views on each subject. Even so, many of the equally important passages from his writings do not find their place inasmuch as the extracts have been culled from his English weeklies Young India and Harijan only, apart from some of his interviews and letters in English. It should be remembered that more than 50 per cent of Gandhiji's writings were in his mother-tongue, Gujarati. Many of his seasoned views appeared in his Gujarati weekly Navajivan and his personal letters in Gujarati and they do not figure anywhere in the present series meant for the 21st century. The editor and the publishers could have done well if only they had taken the trouble of including such sparkling extracts from Gujarati items, English translation of which is already available in the 100- volume Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.

In his foreword to a recently released book on Mahatma Gandhi's letters to Americans, elder-statesman C. Subramaniam has inter alia recommended to those who want to know more about Gandhiji at least three of the 24 books in the series under review, namely God is Truth, The Sermon on the Mount (there is no such title under the series!) and The Message of Jesus Christ. To pinpoint a few of more important pronouncements of Gandhiji that the readers will miss in the present publication under the recommended heads, let the reviewer quote the following passages translated from Gujarati.

In a lengthy letter dated April 18, 1932 to one Purushottam, Gandhiji gave a new orientation to his equating truth with God. He wrote: ``I was not led to the conclusion that truth is God by considering that God is formless and so is truth. But I saw that truth is the only perfect description of God. All other descriptions are imperfect....''

The following significant message (in English) sent by Gandhiji on June 8, 1927 to World's Youth, a journal from Geneva on a request from its editor does not figure either in God is Truth or The Law of Love: ``Truth and love have been jointly the guiding principle of my life. If God who is indefinable can be at all defined, then I should say that God is truth. It is impossible to reach Him, that is truth, except through love. Love can only be expressed fully when man reduces himself to a cipher. This process of reduction to cipher is the highest effort man or woman is capable of making. It is the only effort worth making, and it is possible only through ever-increasing self- restraint.'' (CWMG, Vol. 33, P.452)

The book (No. 5) on the Gita fails to take note of Gandhiji's Gujarati letters on the subject written during his incarceration in Yaravada Central Jail in 1930 and 1932 which run into 38 printed pages in Volume 49 of the CWMG, even though the English translation of these letters were published by the Navajivan Publishing House in 1960 under the title Discourses on the Gita.

In The Message of Jesus Christ, even the following significant passage from Gandhiji's series of articles in English on his jail experiences published in Young India (Sept. 4, 1924) is conspicuous by its absence: ``My regard for the life of Jesus is indeed very great. His ethical teaching, his common sense, his sacrifice command my reverence. His sacrifice is a type and an example for us. I do not take the words Son, Father and the Holy Ghost literally. They are all figurative experiences. Nor do I accept the limitations that are sought to be put upon the teaching of The Sermon on the Mount. I can discover no justification in the New Testament for wars. I regard Jesus as one among the most illustrious teachers and prophets the world has seen.''

In the book The Gospel of Swadeshi, no mention is made of Gandhiji's very first definition of Swadeshi published in the Gujarati section of his weekly Indian Opinion dated January 1, 1909, wherein he elaborates on another meaning implied in it, namely, ``Swadeshi means reliance on our own strength - the strength of our body, our mind and our soul.''

Of course, reeling out any such number of missing items does not detract from the value of the book-series under review as a rough and ready reckoner carrying short excerpts from Gandhiji's writings on topics broadly classified under 24 heads.

La. Su. RENGARAJAN

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