E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Timeshorrify you to learn that I willingly underwent five injections of vaccine forthese boils... (Gandhi called vaccine 'filthy'.) Your eyes would flow with delightif you saw me here in my solitary cell spinning, spinning not as a task imposedby a tyrant faddist, but with pleasure'. The 'tyrant faddist' printed the letter asthe first item in Young India of February 9, 1922.Sycophancy repelled Gandhi. He respected and befriended his fiercestantagonists. Though pleased to make a convert, he was not flattered by loudpartisans. He encouraged dissent; he helped dissenters. Opponents foundcomfort in the knowledge that he could reverse himself on even the mostimportant political issue in order to give the alternative policy a fair trial.Such democratic liberalism made it possible for many members of his politicalfamily, some of whom had joined reluctantly in the 1921-22 non-co-operationcampaign to lay plans for co-operation when Gandhi was sentenced on March18, 1922, to six years' imprisonment. He had prohibited nothing when heentered prison. From his cell his only injunction was 'peace, non-violencesuffering'. Congress, therefore, was free to flounder and meander in confusion.www.mkgandhi.org Page 243