Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (Signet Classics)

196 Pages·2010·10.623 MB·English

by  Louis Fischer

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Louis Fischer
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF INDONESIA"
GANDHI
His Life and Message for the World
The deeply moving life story of the great man who
led India's struggle for freedom and preached a phi-
losophy that influenced millions throughout the world.
J^:
A MENTOR BOO
M PhotobyBradleySmith
ahatma Gandhi conversing with Louis Fischer
during a stroll with Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (now
Minister of Health in the Government of India)
and a group of the Mahatma's followers at the
time of the author's visit in 1946.
MAHATMA GAN DHI
Indian Leader and World Influence
Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India's hard-won
struggle for independence, died at the hand of an
assassin on January 30, 1948. But the inspiration of
his life and his spiritual teachings live on in the
hearts ofmillions throughout the world.
This moving biography of Gandhi, by a man who
knew him well, is written with warmth and simplic-
ity. It tells the whole story of this great man from
hisboyhood daysinIndiabeforehewentto London
to study law, through his experiences in South
Africa where he worked to achieve legal equality
for Indians and Negroes with white men, to the
exciting years in India when he put his extraordi-
narygiftstouseinthecauseofIndia'sindependence.
In telling of Gandhi's later years the author makes
clearthe problems of a complexcountry at a crucial
period of its history and dramatically reveals the
deepspirituality,thehighanddevotedpurpose, and
the extraordinary humanity of one of the most re-
markable men of modem times. And he shows the
rea—l significance of Gandhi's teachings for each of
us his emphasis on kindness, honesty, humility,
non-violence, and the exaltation of the individual
human
spirit.
LOUIS FISCHER who first visited Gandhi in 1942
and again in 1946, is an outstanding foreign corre-
spondentandanalystofworldaffairs,andtheauthor
of a number of books.
INDIA and PAKISTAN
GANDHI
His Life and Message for the World
By LOUIS FISCHER
Author ofTheLifeofMahatmaGandhi
MfNTOf
A MENTOR BOOK
Published by THE NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY LOUIS FISCHER
All rights reserved
FmsT Printing, January, 1954
Second Printing, July, 1960
Library of Congress Catalog No. 54-6006
MENTOR BOOKS are published by
The New American Library of World Literature, Inc.
501 Madison Avenue, New York 22, New York
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
Part One FROM BIRTH TO GREATNESS
1 The World Weeps, 7
2 Blundering Boy, 8
3 Gandhi in London, 13
4 Two Incidents Shape the Future, 20
5 Color Prejudice, 22
6 Courage Under Attack, 25
7 The Transformation, 28
8 Soul Force, 35
9 Happy Victory, 40
Part Two GANDHI IN INDIA—
January 9, 1915-March 23, 1946
10 Ears and Mouth Open, 50
11 Mahatma Gandhi and the British, 56
12 Blood, 63
13 The Road to Jail, 67
14 Gandhi Fasts, 73
15 Answer to Moscow, 81
16 The Salt of Freedom, 93
17 The Half-Naked Fakir, 102
18 In London in Minus Fours, 104
19 Children of God, 107
20 The Magician, 117
21 Personal, 124
22 Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi, 129
23 Winston Churchill versus Mohandas Gandhi, 133
24 My Week with Gandhi, 137
25 Frustration and Irritation, 145
26 Jinna versus Gandhi, 148
Part Three VICTORY AND TRAGEDY—
March 24, 1946-January 30, 1948
27 Seeking the Divine in Man, 154
28 On the Eve, 163
29 Round and Round the Mulberry Bush, 169
30 The Birth of Two Nations, 171
31 Gandhi Hoes His Garden, 176
32 Love on Troubled Waters, 177
33 Victory is to Him Who is Ready to Pay the
Price, 183
34 Death before Prayers, 187
Index, 190
Digitized by tine InternetArciiive
in 2009
littp://www.archive.org/details/gandliiliislifennesOOfisc
PART ONE
From Birth to Greatriess
The World Weeps
I
By the holy waters of the Jumna, near New Delhi, almost
a milHon people waited in the sun for the funeral proces-
—sion to reach the cremation grounds. White predommated
^the white of women's cotton saris and of men's clothes,
caps, andbulbous turbans.
At Rajghat, a few hundred feet from the river, a fresh
pyre had been built of stone, brick, and earth. It was eight
feetsquare and abouttwofeethigh. Long, thin sandalwood
logs sprinkled with incense were stacked on it. Mahatma
Gandhi's body lay on the pyre with his head to the north.
In that position Buddha met his end.
At 4:45 P.M., Ramdas, the third son of the Mahatma,
set fire to the funeral pyre. The logs burst into flames. The
vast assemblage groaned. Women wailed; men wept. The
wood crackled and seethed and the flames united into a
single fire.
Nowtherewas silence. Gandhi'sbodywas beingreduced
to ashes andcinders.
A day earUer, on January 30, 1948, a young man had
shot and killed Mohandas K. Gandhi, India's leader.
"I never saw Gandhi," wrote Leon Blum, a former
French Premier. "I do not know his language. I never set
foot in his country, and yet I feel the same sorrow as if I
hadlost someonenear and dear. Thewhole worldhas been
plunged into mourning by the death of this extraordinary
man."
When he died, Gandhi was what he had always been: a
private citizen without wealth, property, title, official posi-
tion, academic distinction, or scientific achievement. Yet
the chiefs of all governments, except of the Soviet govern-
ment, andtheheads of allreligions paidhomage to the thin
FROM BIRTH TO GREATNESS
8
brown man of seventy-eight in a loincloth. President
Truman, the British King, the President of France, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Pope Pius, the Chief Rabbi of
London, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, and more than three
thousand other foreigners sent unsolicited messages of
condolence to India. The Security Council of the United
Nations interrupted its deUberations to pay tribute to
Gandhi. Philip Noel-Baker, the British delegate, lauded
Gandhi as "the friend of the poorest, the loneliest, and the
lost." Gandhi's "greatest achievements," he declared, "are
still tocome." Other representatives in the Security Council
praised his devotion to peace and his spiritual quaUties.
The U.N. lowered its flag to half-mast.
Humanity lowered its flag.
The mourners were aware of some of the Mahatma's
attributes. Gandhi "made humihty andtruth more powerful
than empires," said U.S. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg.
"I know no other man of any time or indeed in recent his-
tory," Sir Stafford Cripps, British statesman, declared,
"who so forcefully and convincingly demonstrated the
power of spirit over material things." General George C.
Marshall, then U.S. Secretary of State, groping to explain
the world's bereavement, said, "Mahatma Gandhi was the
spokesman for the conscience of mankind."
Men and women and children knew, or felt, that when
Gandhi fell by the assassin's three bullets the conscience of
mankind had been left without a spokesman. Humanity
was impoverished because a poor man had died. No one
who survived him had faced mighty adversaries at home
and abroad with the weapons of kindness, honesty, humil-
ity, and nonviolence, and, with these alone, won so many
victories. His is a story of unusual success with unusual
means.
2 Blundering Boy
If Gandhi had lived in India three thousand years ago his
birth would have been wrapped in myths and his youth in
miracles. But the cold light of the nineteenth century shows
that his origin was ordinary, his childhood normal, his
student days uneventful, and his early professional career