E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesThe C.B.S. producer signalled to stop. 'Well, that's over,' Gandhi said. He wasstill on the air. His voice was clear and the reception perfect.In his eighty-four days in England, Gandhi visited Eton, Cambridge, where hesentimentally asked to be taken to Trinity, which was Jawaharlal Nehru's and C.F. Andrews' college, and Oxford, and addressed scores of public meetings ofwomen's organizations, Quakers, Indian students, Indian merchants, Britishstudents, Labourites, Members of Parliament, the London School of Economics,The American Journalists Association, which arranged a vegetarian luncheon atthe Savoy in deference to his habits, Friends of India, Temperance Society,Vegetarians, etc. etc.Gandhi's two weekends at Oxford were memorable. He stayed with ProfessorLindsay, the Master of Balliol, who later became a peer, Lord Lindsay of Birker.'Both my wife and I,' Lindsay wrote in 1948, 'that having him in our house waslike having a saint in the house. He showed that mar of a great and simple manthat he treated everyone with the same courtesy and respect whether onewere a distinguish statesman or an unknown student. Anyone who was inearnest in wanting an answer to a question got a real one.’Another view of Gandhi at Oxford was expressed by Dr Edward Thompson, atwhose home, on his second Oxonian weekend, Gandhi had a discussion with agroup that included the Master of Balliol, Gilbert Murray, Professor S.Coupland, Sir Michael Sadler, P. C. Lyon and other trained minds. 'He can beexasperating,' Professor Thompson remarked after Gandhi's visit.Describing the intellectual joust, Thompson said, 'For three hours he was siftedand cross-examined... It was a reasonably exacting ordeal, yet not for amoment was he rattled or at a loss. The conviction came to me, that not sinceSocrates has the world seen his equal for absolute self-control and composure;and once or twice, putting myself in the place of men who had to confront thatinvincible calm and imperturbability, I thought I understood why the Atheniansmade "the martyr-sophist" drink the hemlock. Like Socrates, he has a "daemon".And when the "daemon" has spoken, he is as unmoved by argument as bydanger.'www.mkgandhi.org Page 321