Gandhi: Patron Saint of the Industrialist.

I shall talk to you about the Swaraj party when we meet. I do not want you to change your view because by justifying your views I seek to justify my position as well.[55]

Apparently Gandhi had reasons for publicly seeming to support a party which he admitted in private he was against. Similarly, Gandhi voiced radical views against capitalism and industrialism in his public speeches and writing:

Industrialism is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind .... Industrialism depends entirely on your capacity to exploit.[56]

To change to industrialism is to court disaster ... The one great change to make is to discard foreign cloth, and reinstate the ancient cottage industry of handspinning. We must thus restore our ancient and healthgiving industry if we would resist industrialism. I do not fight shy of capitalism. I fight capitalism ... I do picture a time when the rich will spurn to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor ....[57]

These radical positions do not seem to correspond to other elements in Gandhi's life and thought, especially his close relationship with the industrialists. Margaret Bourke-White, having read Gandhi's seemingly revolutionary writings, was very puzzled to learn that for a quarter of a century Gandhi had spent much of his time living in G. D. Birla's palatial mansion in Delhi, where he was later assassinated.

Margaret Bourke-White's investigations into working conditions at one of Birla's mills in Delhi revealed a equally puzzling attitude on Gandhi's part to Birla's labour practices. Bourke-White was present when Gandhi was fasting in December 1947. During his fast, all the trade-unions sent delegations with peace pledges and pleas for Gandhi to end the fast. One trade-union, the largest union in India, did not send delegates. The textile workers union, whose chief employer was Birla, was noticeably absent. On December 8, shortly before Gandhi was to begin his fast, workers at Birla's textile mill in Delhi went to the manager asking for a cost of living bonus to meet rising prices. When their requests were answered with gunfire and rifle butts, the workers sent a delegation of five workers to see Gandhi at the Birla House. According to Bourke-White, Gandhi refused to see them.[58] On an earlier occasion, the workers at Birla's Delhi mill wrote to Gandhi directly to complain of bad working conditions.[59] Instead of answering the letter or questioning Birla about the matter, Gandhi forwarded the letter to Birla. Birla responded by telling Gandhi that the workers were lying.[60] Margaret Bourke-White visited Birla's mills and found conditions to be appalling. The squalid living quarters Birla provided for his workers were no better than those at mills belonging to owners who were not devotees to Gandhi. She wondered why Gandhi never visited the mills, as it would have been easy for him to do so.[61]

In none of the voluminous correspondence between Birla and Gandhi is Gandhi critical of the working conditions in Birla's mills. Birla once defensively wrote Gandhi, not in response to rebuke from Gandhi, but to reports that conditions were bad in his mills. Birla tells Gandhi that he is improving conditions in one factory and hopes to do so in others. He blames any atrocities at his mills on the mill managers, claiming he cannot control them.[62] While it would seem natural for the Mahatma to take an interest in Birla's workers, Gandhi refrained from criticizing or questioning Birla personally. In other cases, Gandhi did not shy away from public criticism of companions who did not abide by his views. He frequently complained about his longtime friend Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. Gandhi had called for a boycott of all British education. Malaviya, the founder of Banaras Hindu University, refused to comply. In one of many attacks against Malaviya's position, Gandhi accused him of the greatest adharma (unrighteousness).

I do not want to go into why this Empire in Satanic. But an Empire which has been guilty of the atrocities in the Punjab, which killed children six or seven years old ... to study in the schools of such an Empire is, to my mind, the greatest adharma of all. To Panditji, an elder brother to me, this seems to be dharma.63

Though Gandhi continued to say he respected Malaviya, in reality there was a break in their friendship. In Gandhi's thirty-two year friendship with Birla, he never publicly criticized Birla's actions. Gandhi at times would make suggestions to Birla, but if Birla failed to follow them, Gandhi did not complain. Gandhi did not have the upper hand in the relationship. He considered Birla one of his mentors and would act on his advice.[64] In Gandhi's letters to Birla he does not lecture him, except with regard to dietary matters. Their correspondence is remarkably free from spiritual concerns, quite unlike the writing which Gandhi puts forward to the public. In Birla's collection of his correspondence with Gandhi, one letter by Gandhi stands out in addressing spiritual matters.[65] Birla writes that he cannot remember the context or for whom the letter was meant. Though the letters between Gandhi and Birla are very amicable, the subject matter concerns mostly mundane affairs of finances and strategy.

When Gandhi disagreed with Birla, he found a way of avoiding argument. In one instance, Gandhi publicly complained that people were buying mill-produced khadi under the mistaken impression that it was homespun. Birla understood this as an indirect criticism of his textile industry, which was producing milled khadi., and gave quick retort to Gandhi's complaint:

Do you not think that you are unnecessarily exaggerating the results of the khadi propaganda? ... You could find this out yourself if you send hawkers with mill-made as well as shuddha khadi who may ask some villagers to select their choice after explaining the latter properly about the quality as well as the price of the cloth, I have not the least doubt that if you made the experiment you will find that 90% of the consumers will pick up the cheaper and more lasting of the two stuffs. Mill khadi is popular because people find it cheap, durable besides it being swadeshi make.[66]

Gandhi answered a week later: "I got both your letters. But even today there is not time for reply."[67] Gandhi never allowed the khadi issue to become an object of contention between himself and Birla. Instead he found a place for mills in the khadi movement. Later Gandhi wrote to Birla:

I am convinced that the boycott will be successful only through khadi. This does not mean that the mills have no place in the scheme at all. The mills can have their deserved place by recognizing the worth of khadi. The conception of God envelopes all Gods.[68]

Gandhi was clearly making concessions to Birla in incorporating textile mills into his homespun khadi movement. Gandhi was as much interested in pleasing his patron as Birla was in pleasing his saint.

A useful model for examining the give and take of the Gandhi-Birla relationship is that of the patron and publicist as presented by the historian C. A. Bayly.[69] Bayly examines the relationship between wealthy patrons and leaders of reform movements such as the Hindi movement and the cow-protection movement in the late 1880s. Bayly uses for example the patronage of Madan Mohan Malaviya, a leader of the Hindu revivalist movement, the Hindu Mahasabha, by the wealthy magnate Ram Charan Das.[70] Bayly holds that the goal of the patron-publicist relationship was not exclusively concerned with protection of the patron's financial interests:

Two forms of relationship can be seen between patron and publicist, as also between various levels of political activity. One was the relationship between patron and publicist designed to protect material interests, or to promote them within new political arenas--the vakil relationship. The other concerned the protection or enhancement of particular conceptions of status conceived within the bounds of revived Hinduism--the dharmik relationship. It is difficult to separate them.[71]

Desire for enhanced religious standing in the community, which affected all avenues of social interactions, from marriage arrangements to business deals, was an important element of the patron-publicist relationship. Religious patronage was a means to enhance social and economic status in the community. Avenues of religious patronage went beyond the traditional practices of temple construction and maintenance, feeding of bråhma~nas, sponsoring of festivals, etc. With the advent of religious reform movements in the 1800's, sponsoring such causes as the Hindi movement or the cow-protection movement became a religious and status-enhancing act. Elements of some of the earlier religious reform movements, such as the use of the vernacular and revived cultural identity, as well as the political undertones and organizational capabilities of the movements, later played a role in the growth of nationalism. These causes were sponsored by the wealthy, whose economic and social standing profited therefrom.[72] Later, the relationships of patrons and publicists became an important element of Congress.[73]

Aspects of the Birla-Gandhi relationship can be described by Bayly's model. Birla's fame and social standing did not rest on his raw wealth alone. Birla did not neglect to develop his reputation for generous religious patronage. He is well known for his religious gifting, particularly in the construction of magnificent temples. Birla admitted that he did not construct the temples from personal piety, "Frankly speaking, we build temples but we don't believe in temples. We build temples to spread a kind of religious mentality."[74] Birla's financial support of the publicist Gandhi, as a form of religious patronage, would serve him well. The mere association with Gandhi conferred on Birla a measure of Gandhi's religious stature. It is easy to see that Birla's generous patronage of Gandhi could have been perceived as a sign of devotion and Gandhi's acceptance of that patronage as a sign of approval of Birla. Gandhi's role in the independence movement was as much religious as it was political. He was the Mahatma, the Great Soul. Gandhi captured the hearts and imaginations of his fellow Indians by drawing upon a wealth of traditional Hindu symbolism. The political entity that Gandhi called for would be a råmråjya, a kingdom likened unto that of the righteous Lord Rama. The British, Gandhi often said, were the equivalent of the evil demon Ravana, who Lord Rama and his entourage defeated. Gandhi, not only discarded his Western garb and lifestyle to appear to identify with the Indian masses, but also to take upon himself the attitude of the brahmacåri, the holy renunciant. He renounced material possessions, sexual relations, and held to a strict vegetarian diet as part of his regime of holiness. At the same time he was the guiding inspiration to a massive political movement. According to Bayly's model, Gandhi would be the exemplar publicist.

As Birla's publicist, Gandhi was able to deftly weave Birla's interests into a seemingly spiritual context. A blatant example of this is found in Gandhi's support for Birla's position against government regulation of prices. On several occasions Gandhi brought up the need for decontrol in his sermons during his evening prayer meetings.[75] Gandhi also allowed the issue of decontrol to be promoted in his newspaper Harijan, a publication that was supposedly devoted to the needs of the oppressed. As part of the campaign for decontrol, Gandhi's son, Devadas, as managing editor of the Hindustan Times, Birla's chief New Delhi newspaper, also published an editorial calling for decontrols.[76] When Margaret Bourke-White questioned Birla about decontrols, he responded: "I never was in favor of controls. I am not built that way. The greatest virtue of capitalism is free competition."[77] He went on to add that since the recent decontrol of sugar prices, the price of sugar had gone down. Gandhi followed this line of argument in his prayer meetings. Bourke-White's investigation of decontrol found that it was true that the price of sugar went down for the for the wealthy, who could buy on the black market. As for the man on the street, the price of sugar had doubled.[78] Though in theory prices could go down for poor consumers with decontrol, in this case, it was the wealthy consumers and industrial producers who prospered.

Gandhi did not have anything against wealth. He was not inclined towards socialism and taught that there should be no forced redistribution of wealth in India. Gandhi called for social justice and alleviation of suffering, but believed that change brought about by government intervention would be ineffective. Change must first come in the individual heart. The wealthy should not be coerced into sharing their wealth; they should do it voluntarily. Gandhi taught that the wealthy should be trustees of their wealth, using only what was necessary for their own use and distributing their surplus for the benefit of society. Gandhi's idea is very much like the ideas of trusteeship that were being expounded in England and America in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Andrew Carnegie, a self-made American millionaire, had published a series of articles between 1886 and 1899 that sought to justify private wealth in the industrial society increasingly burdened with social concern and unrest.

Although some conservative Christian spokesmen had condemned corporate oppression, financial dishonesty, and growing poverty, many American and British religious leaders supporting the capitalistic economic system saw these social realities as prices that must be paid for progress. Carnegie in his essays set "in authoritative form the ideas that many Christian authors and most of the church press had been preaching for at least a generation."[79] In England the articles were reprinted and commented upon in the Fortnightly Review, Nineteenth Century, Saturday Review, and Pall Mall Gazette. The articles received much attention, including a review and praise by the British Prime Minister, William E. Gladstone. Carnegie believed that the articles were better-received in England, because England was "more clearly face to face with socialist questions." Carnegie's articles offered an alternative to socialism. He stressed individual effort and responsibility instead of government control. He urged the wealthy to adopt the principle of trusteeship:

This then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer ... the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than what they would or could do for themselves.[80]

Gandhi was a student in England from 1888 to 1891, at the time some of Carnegie's articles were published. As the articles were a subject of some controversy at the time they were published and afterwards, it is possible that Gandhi was exposed to these ideas that served to promote capitalism over socialism. Gandhi's teachings are remarkably similar to Carnegie's:

The rich man will be left in possession of his wealth, of which he will use what he reasonably requires for his personal needs and will act as a trustee for the remainder to be used for society.[81]

Carnegie made a list of worthy causes on which surplus wealth should be spent which included educational institutions, hospitals, churches, etc.[82] To provide for the required surplus wealth, Carnegie called for unbridled capitalism:

He who manages the ships, the mines, the factories, cannot withdraw his capital, for this is the tool with which he works wonders; nor can he restrict his operations, for the cessation of growth and improvement in any industrial undertaking marks the beginning of decay.[83]

Birla's lifestyle and actions could almost be used to illustrate Carnegie's ideas. Birla was known for his unostentatious living and philanthropy. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, in the foreword to G. D. Birla's book In the Shadow of the Mahatma, puts forward Gandhi's version of trusteeship and points to G. D. Birla as being a worthy trustee. The beneficiaries of Birla's patronage curiously match Carnegie's list of the institutions deserving of surplus wealth:

It has been one of Gandhiji's teachings that those who are blessed with wealth should regard themselves as Trustees and treat their wealth as trust property for the benefit of others. The large number of institutions which are to be seen in so many parts of the country in the shape of educational institutions or religious temples and Dharmshalas or Hospitals with their apex at Pilani and Delhi are testimony to the fact that Birlas have imbibed this part of Gandhiji's teachings in no small manner. They have earned abundantly and likewise spent also generously and abundantly on every good cause.[84]

Gandhi claimed that his idea of trusteeship was taken from the first verse of the oeÁßå Upa~ni[[Sigma]]ad.[85]

All this, whatsoever moves on the earth, is to be hidden in the Lord (the Self). When thou hast surrended all this, then thou mayest enjoy. Do not covet the wealth of others.

Perhaps by making such a claim Gandhi hoped to give credence to the concept of trusteeship in the eyes of the Indians. Attributing the basis of contemporary ideas or practices to ancient texts, even while the connection is spurious, is not an uncommon means of legitimization. This is not to say that it was impossible for Gandhi's idea of trusteeship to be original or inspired by Hindu tradition. The Manu sm~rti, for instance, contains a verse in a section on the duties of castes, which encourages the vaißya caste to accumulate wealth for the benefit of others:

He [a vaißya ] should expend the greatest effort in justly increasing his goods, and he should also take pains to bestow at least food on all creatures.

Manu sm~rti IX. 333.[86]

Theoretically, the verse could be developed into the idea of trusteeship. But Gandhi did not bring forward such an explicit text on which to claim trusteeship was founded. Judging from the popularity of Carnegie's writings and the simultaneity of Gandhi's stay in England with the publication of Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth," it is highly probable that Gandhi borrowed from Carnegie's ideas on trusteeship.

Gandhi's first application of trusteeship was with regard to Britain's trusteeship of the colonies well before Gandhi called for independence.[87] While Gandhi changed his mind about the ability of the British to be beneficent trustees, he did not change his mind about the trusteeship of capitalists in India.

Gandhi's support for capitalists is expressed in his writing concerning industrial workers. On one hand, Gandhi suggested in Young India that mill owners should provide the following improvements for their workers:

. The hours of labour must leave the workmen some hours of leisure.

2. They must get facilities for their own education.

3. Provision should be made for an adequate supply of milk, clothing and necessary education for their children.

4. There should be sanitary dwelling for the workmen.

5. They should be in a position to save enough to sustain themselves during their old age.[88]

In the same article Gandhi makes a strong statement of the intellectual superiority of the capitalist over the workers:

When labour comes fully to realise its strength, I know it can become more tyrannical than capital. The millowners will have to work dictated by labour if the latter could command the intelligence of the former. It is clear, however, that labour will never attain to that intelligence. If it does, labour will cease to be labour and become itself the master. The capitalists do not fight in the strength of money alone. They do possess intelligence and tact.[89]

In another article Gandhi worries that increased wages and reduced work loads will be squandered by the workers:

It is now time to examine the use we should make of increasing wages and hours saved. It would be like going into the frying pan out of the fire to use the increase in wages in the grog-shop and the hours saved in gambling dens. The money received, it is clear should be devoted to education of our children, and the time saved to our education. In both these matters the mill-owners can render much assistance.[90]

Gandhi implies that the workers are incompetent to spend their wages properly and that the mill-owners are better able to use the increase in wages to provide milk, reading rooms and harmless amusements and games for the workers. Gandhi counsels the workers that it would be a sin to request higher wages and less hours if they were unable to controls their passions. Higher wages and reduced hours, according to Gandhi, required clean minds and hearts.[91] Gandhi does not grace the capitalists with a lecture to the effect that increased profits require a clean heart. According to Gandhi's version of trusteeship, the capitalists had a right to their profits owing to their superior abilities. They were to make decisions that would benefit their less able workers.

Birla, while prospering from his textile mills and making use of Gandhi to promote his own industrial interests, daily wore khadi and occasionally worked at the spinning wheel. At Gandhi's suggestion he had been active in the Harijan upliftment movement. Though Gandhi and Birla are supposed to be strong supporters of the untouchables there is a noticeable lack of emotion or enthusiasm about the issue in their letters. The Harijans are spoken of as a cause, perhaps one that they would not want pushed too far. Gandhi did not want to abolish the caste system that had assigned the Harijans to their degraded position. B. R. Ambedkar, an untouchable leader, was strongly critical of Gandhi's motives and policies regarding untouchable castes, including the euphemistic designation of untouchables as Harijans.[92] Ambedkar was also critical of Gandhi's connection with businessmen:

If the Bania is financing the Congress it is because he realized and Mr. Gandhi has taught him--that money invested in politics gives large dividends.[93]

Gandhi's call for Harijan upliftment, like Gandhi's ideas on abolition of capitalism and industry would be revolutionary if put into actual practice. But Gandhi's lofty teachings were otherworldly and seemingly unattainable, perhaps purposely so. That most people would not follow them literally was understood, even by Gandhi. Birla once wrote of the exaggerated expectations Gandhi had aroused in the untouchable castes:

Especially among the educated Harijans, hopes have been encouraged which could under no circumstances be fulfilled. Many educated Harijans seem to be under the impression that the society of ours is going to create a millennium.[94]

Ambedkar accused Gandhi of exploiting social problems, such as the plight of the untouchables, for political gain, while actually preventing social change. Ambedkar pointed out for example that Gandhi had publicly supported a bill for temple-entry for Harijans, but when election time came, he, along with Congress withdrew support for the bill.[95]

Birla realized that behind all the revolutionary rhetoric, Gandhi was socially conservative. Gandhi might make public statements against industrialism, but he was no threat to Birla's industrial interests; he was a boon. Birla, as Gandhi's patron, basked in the aura of Gandhi's popularity, while Gandhi went about securing Birla's interests. Among Birla's chief concerns was Indian independence.

There had been times that Birla had profited from his relations with the British, and for some time had served as a go-between for Gandhi and British officials. But developments in British economic policies in India in 1937 had not been favorable to Birla and other industrialists:

The [British] refusal to change the rupee ratio, the willingness to sacrifice large-scale Indian interests in Burma, new encroachments of foreign capital in some profitable fields, austerity budgets and ... open hostility to India's industrialization and to planning combined to produce a marked shift in the traditionally cautious line pursued by big business towards the government.[96]

Resentment on the part of industry grew against the government and led to closer ties with Congress. B. R. Tomlinson, a historian, credits a group of industrialists, which included G. D. Birla, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, and J. R. D. Tata, with presenting in 1944 the most complete survey of India's postwar economic requirements, as well as detailed planning to achieve them. Tomlinson writes that the industrialists began to regard Congress, rather than the British, "as the body best able and most willing to secure for them a place in the domestic economy and polity they desired."[97] From 1944 onwards, business interests openly supported Congress. It was clear that big business, including Birla, would stand to profit by independence.

There was a major obstacle remaining in Birla's path. Jawaharlal Nehru, as president of the Congress in 1936, put forward two proposals. The first was to establish a joint anti-imperialist front. He was willing to yoke himself to any sympathetic party for this cause, including Madan Mohan Malaviya, whom Nehru had criticized for the communal politics of his Nationalist Party. Nehru's other proposal was the affiliation of trade and peasant unions to the Congress. Nehru in his presidential speech at the Lucknow Congress presented his plea for radical changes in the status quo of India:

I see no way of ending the poverty, the vast unemployment, the degradation and the subjection of the Indian people except through socialism. That involves vast and revolutionary changes in our political and social structure, the ending of vested interests in land and industry, as well as the feudal and autocratic Indian States system. That means the ending of private property, except in a restricted sense, and the replacement of the present profit system by a higher ideal of cooperative service.[98]

The outcome of the Lucknow Congress was that Nehru's idea of yoking the Congress to the unions was gently pushed aside to a committee who was to consider the matter. Satyamurti, a Congressman from Madras, announced that it was the triumph of Gandhi over socialism.[99]

Birla had earlier tried to bring Nehru into his camp. When Nehru was having severe financial difficulties, Birla had offered him a handsome monthly allowance, such as the Birla family was providing Gandhi and other Congress leaders. Nehru was angry with the offer and refused it.[100] Now Birla expressed his pleasure with Gandhi's victory over Nehru:

Mahatmaji kept his promise and without his uttering a word, he saw that no new commitments were made. Jawaharlalji's speech in a way was thrown into the waste paper basket because all the resolutions that were passed were against the spirit of his speech.[101]

A disappointed, but undeterred Nehru went on tour to promote his proposals. In Bombay, he was met with hostility by businessmen. On 20 May 1936, The Times of India published a response to Nehru's speech signed by twenty-one Bombay businessmen:

We are convinced that there is a grave risk of the masses of the country being misled by such doctrines into believing that all that is required for the improvement of their well-being is a total destruction of the existing social and economic structure. The inculcation of any such ideas into the mind of unthinking millions of this country would lead to a situation in which not only the institution of private property but the peaceful observance of religion, and even personal safety, are likely to be jeopardized. The business communities and the propertied classes of this country played not a small part in the furtherance of the national movement for the achievement of political freedom and have supported all practical measures for the amelioration of the lot of the toiling masses of this country ....[102]

Birla himself avoided a public confrontation with Nehru. In a letter to one of the signers of the Bombay businessmen's manifesto, he criticized the open display of hostility towards Nehru's policies:

You have rendered no service to your caste men. It is curious how we businessmen are so short-sighted .... It looks very crude for a man with property to say that he is opposed to expropriation in the wider interest of the country.[103]

Birla's preferred method was to quietly strengthen the opposition to Nehru by bolstering the non-revolutionary, right-wing elements in the anti-British camp. He left it to Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalachari, and Gandhi to criticize Nehru for taking it on himself to try to push forward his minority viewpoint against propertied interests to the forefront of Congress policies.[104]

Gandhi's friendship with Birla endured until Gandhi's assassination at the Birla mansion in Delhi in January 1948. Gandhi has come to be remembered as a saint and leader of the Indian nationalist movement. He is not remembered as a supporter of capitalism and social conservatism. History's memory of Birla is somewhat fainter. After all, an industrialist is an industrialist. It is noted to his credit that he was also a devotee of Gandhi. This recollection distorts what transpired between Gandhi and Birla, as well as neglects their mutual influences. The relationship between the two men was too complex to be reduced to simple manipulation on the part of either. Theirs was a friendship involving an interplay of nationalism, social conservatism, the exigencies of business, politics, and patronage, as well as shared membership in mercantile castes, religion, and genuine affection.

The relationship between Gandhi and Birla reveals that Gandhi in many ways supported capitalism and policies that were favorable to the industrialists, particularly in respect to his teachings on trusteeship. It cannot be denied that Gandhi and Birla had a hand in the fact that after independence there was no social revolution and the socialist aspirations of Nehru were discouraged. When one reads a letter from Birla written as early as 1942 calling for the formation of Pakistan, and further mentioning that Gandhi told Birla at that time that he was willing to be converted to the idea, ones wonders if the full extent of Birla's influence is yet to be told.[105]

Birla once defended himself for not being the ideal trustee to Margaret Bourke-White. In response to her questions about the contrast between his industrial policies and Gandhi's ideal of trusteeship, Birla responded, "I am an industrialist and a mill owner. He is a saint."[106] Birla did not claim to be a saint and did not feel he had to live up to Gandhi's ideal of trusteeship. Gandhi as a saint had the luxury of being idealistic. He did not have to implement the ideas which won him mass appeal. Nor did he have to make sure his devotees implemented them. Gandhi's relationship to Birla reveals a less public side of the Mahatma. In G. D. Birla's words, Gandhi's letters to him were not those of "a great man or Mahatma but of a saintly man and the outpourings of a friendly soul."[107] Through their correspondence, we see a Gandhi who is far less the saint of history's imagination and much more a man, subject to biases and ideologies of his social milieu.

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Sagar Main Page

It long seemed that Mahatma Gandhi could not be comprehended by the Western mind. Having arisen in a culture that had so little in common with our own, and being an anomaly even within that culture, he was a shining but enigmatic figure. Millions of words were written about Gandhi, millions of his own words were recorded by his disciples, some four hundred biographies of him were published, and he wrote an autobiography-yet he eluded us. He loomed large, and we knew that he was regarded variously as a great political leader, a great spiritual leader, a sage, a visionary, a prophet, a saint, Christ, a god-yet he remained an abstraction. The man himself, though he lived in our time, was lost to us. Ved Mehta, born in India, educated in England and America, an author equally at home with Eastern and Western thought, whose intellectual and moral interests span the two cultures and who has written brilliantly about both, was almost inevitably drawn to the task of recovering for us Gandhi as a human being, of making the unintelligible intelligible.`