76 THE WEEK • JUNE 30, 2019
MAKING OF THE
MAHATMA
Gandhi owes his intellect to a number
of books and personalitiesBY NIRMAL JOVIAL
P
utlibai made her son Mohandas take
three vows before he went to England:
that he would not eat fl esh, would not
drink alcohol and would look upon
other women as his mother or sister. On reach-
ing England, he painstakingly “abstained from
meat in the interests of truth and of the vow”.
But at the same time, he wished that someday
every Indian would become a meat-eater; he
was a believer in the “scientifi c” superiority of
the meat-diet back then. He looked forward
to the day when he could eat meat freely and
openly and enlist others in that cause.
In his initial days in London, Gandhi wan-
dered in search of vegetarian restaurants and
fi nally found one in Farringdon Street. While
entering the restaurant, he noticed books on
sale under a glass window near the door and
bought, for a shilling, A Plea for Vegetarianism
by Henry S. Salt. Th e book had a profound
infl uence on him, dispelling his doubts about
vegetarianism.
Salt was the son of a colonel in the Royal Ben-
gal Artillery. He was a member of the London
Vegetarian Society and a regular contributor in
the society’s journal. He wrote nearly 40 books,
including biographies of the poet P.B. Shelley
and the American philosopher Henry David
Th oreau. Th oreau’s essay on civil disobedience
made a deep impression on Gandhi. He was
formulating his ideas of passive resistance inSouth Africa when a friend sent him the essay in- Later he read more about Th oreau in Salt’s
biography. Th e ‘Salt March’ to Dandi and Gan-
dhi’s civil disobedience movement owed much
to Th oreau.
Gandhi drew great strength from the Bible,
a copy of which he got from a vegetarian from
Manchester. Th e Sermon on the Mount in the
Gospel of St Mathew left a deep impression
on him. Comparing the Bible with the Gita, he
argued that both talks about “renunciation”.
Th e Gita remained his favourite text, followed
by the Bible. In August 1926, when he attempt-
ed interpreting the Bible to students of Gujarat
Vidyapith, it enraged the Hindu orthodoxy.
Gandhi responded to his critics saying, “For
myself, I regard my study of and reverence for
the Bible, the Koran, and other scriptures to be
wholly consistent with my claim to be a staunch
sanatani Hindu.”
However, there were periods in his early life
when he faced the question whether he should
remain a Hindu. Gujarati poet and philosopher
Srimad Rajchandra (Gandhi used to call him
Raychandbhai), whom he had fi rst met in 1891
on his return from England, helped him make up
his mind. In South Africa, when he faced pres-
sure from his friends to convert to their religions,
Gandhi sent 27 questions to Rajchandra. Th e
reply cemented his faith. “I have tried to meet
the heads of various faiths, and I must say that
no one else has ever made an impression that
Raychandbhai did.... In my moments of spiritual
crisis, therefore, he was my refuge,” Gandhi wrote
in his autobiography. Rajchandra urged Gandhi
to practise brahmacharya, too.
Ramachandra Guha, in his book, Gandhi:Th e
Ye a r s Th at Changed the World 1914-1948, writes