Gandhi Statue in San Francisco, USA; picture by Krishna Srinivasan
Compiled by London Swaminathan
Date: 8 September 2018
Time uploaded in London – 18-45 (British Summer Time)
Post No. 5405
Pictures shown here are taken from various sources including google, Wikipedia, Facebook friends and newspapers. This is a non- commercial blog.
India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru refers to Gandhi several times in his book ‘Discovery of India’.
Here are some quotations:
Some kind of ethical approach to life has a strong appeal for me, though it would be difficult for me to justify it logically. I have been attracted by Gandhiji’s stress on right means and I think one of his greatest contributions to our public life has been this emphasis.
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Blood-shot Eyes!
I remember the words that Gandhiji said on that fateful evening on August 8 th,1942( about World War II)
We must look the world in the face with calm and clear eyes even though the eyes of the world are blood- shot today.
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Bogus Interview
Some weeks earlier a friend in Rome had written to me to say that Signor Mussolini would like to meet me. There was no question of going to Rome. And then there had been the bogus interview with Mr Gandhi which the Giomale d’italia had published in 1931.
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Picture of Gandhi Statue by Krishna Srinivasan, SFC, USA.
Gandhi is not a Brahmin
There are innumerable examples of non- Brahmins and even persons belonging to the depressed classes, being so respected and sometimes
considered as saints.
Even today, in this money age, the influence of this tradition is marked, and because of it Ganghiji who is not a Brahmin can become the Supreme leader of India and move the hearts of millions without force or compulsion or official position or possession of money.
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Tapas- Penance does it!
This idea of some kind of penance, tapasya, is inherent in Indian thought, both among the thinkers at the top and the unread masses below. It is present today as it was present some thousands of years ago, and it is necessary to appreciate it in order to understand the psychology underlying the mass movements which have convulsed India under Gandhiji’s leadership.
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About Bhagavad Gita
Even the leaders of thought and action of the present day— Tilak, Aurobindo, Ghose, Gandhi— have written on it, each giving his own interpretation. Gandhiji places his firm belief in non -violence on it, others justify violence and warfare for a righteous cause.
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Caste must be eliminated!
Gandhiji’s references to caste have been progressively stronger and more pointed, and he made it repeatedly clear that the caste as a whole and as it exists, must be eliminated. And again, quite recently, he said:
The caste system, as we know, is an anachronism. It must go if both Hinduism and India are to live and grow from day to day.
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Anti Purdah
Muslim Voters in Gujarat where Gandhi was born
Gandhiji has been, and is, a fierce opponent of purdah and has called it ‘a vicious and brutal custom’ which has kept women backward and undeveloped. I thought of the wrong being done by the men to the woman of India by clinging to a barbarous custom which, whatever use it might have had when it was first introduced, had now become totally useless and was doing incalculable harm to the country. Gandhiji urged that woman should have the same liberty and opportunity of self -development as man.
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Tagore and Gandhi have undoubtedly been the outstanding and dominating figures of India in this first half of the twentieth century.
Picture by london swaminathan; location Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan, London
— Subam —
Tamil and Vedas 