Gandhiji’s Views On Controversial Matters

By London Swaminathan

This is a short book with Gandhijis’ views on controversial subjects such as killing stray dogs, eating meat, dealing with raped Hindu women, Ahimsa, allowing incurable patient to die, Christian conversion, Tulsidas remarks on women, Muslim purdah etc. Though Mahatma Gandhi was a popular leader, he was not beyond controversy. Every day he received lot of letters criticising and condemning him and he himself termed them ‘Love Letters’. Those controversies died down the day he was assassinated. Then he became an unquestionable leader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pustaka Digital Media
• Release date: Feb 3, 2024
• ISBN: 6580553510365

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Gandhiji’s Views On Controversial Matters

Author:

London Swaminathan

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Table of Contents

Foreword

1. Why I am a Hindu?- Mahatma Gandhi

2. Love Letters received by Mahatma Gandhi !

3. Gandhiji on 11 Rules of Brahmacharya

4.Gandhiji’s Favourite Mantra

5. On Saint Tulsidas Controversy

6. Religious Conversion will destroy World Peace : Mahatma Gandhi

7. Beautiful Quotations from Mahatma Gandhi

8. More Interesting Quotations from Mahatma Gandhi

9. No Conversion Permissible

10. What Gandhiji wrote Before Godse’s Shooting

11. I don’t like Mahabharata Krishna : Mahatma Gandhi

12. Kill the Street Dogs and Lunatic Men  Mahatma Gandhi

13. Killing Stray Dogs Part 2

14 .Killing an incurable Patient is Good

15. Lord Rama Saved Me Mahatma Gandhi

16. Cow Mother is better than Our Mothers

17.Gandhiji and Vivekananda on Eating Meat

18. On Eating Beef

19. Gandhiji on Talking to Dead People through Mediums

20. Gandhiji’s Interesting Argument with a Catholic Priest

21. Poet Bharati and Mahatma Gandhi condemned Purdah

22. Gandhiji on Hinduism

23. Forty Kilo Gold in Gandhi Statue!

Foreword

This is a short book with Gandhijis’ views on controversial subjects such as killing stray dogs, eating meat, dealing with raped Hindu women, Ahimsa, allowing incurable patient to die, Christian conversion , Tulsidas remarks on women, Muslim Purdah etc. Though Mahatma Gandhi was a popular leader, he was not beyond controversy. Every day he received lot of letters criticising and condemning him and he himself termed them ‘Love Letters’. Those controversies died down the day he was assassinated. Then he became an unquestionable leader.

People never doubted his honesty and integrity; they wondered how come he justify some of his views. When they challenged him, he patiently replied to them. His line of argument showed that he started his life as a lawyer. He put forth his views coherently and logically. They are very interesting to read. He stood by Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana.

You may note some points are repeated in his Quotations.

Hope my collection of his write ups in his journals would generate more interest in people to read his original work The Story of My Experiment with Truth. One can see a big difference between the modern-day politicians and Gandhi. He preached what he practised and practised what he preached.

London Swaminathan

October 2023

[e-mail]

1. Why I am a Hindu?- Mahatma Gandhi

Date: 24 August 2018

Post No. 5358

GANDHIJI’S ANSWER TO THREE QUESTIONS

I have been asked by Sri S Radhakrishnan (later President of India) to answer the following three questions:

What is your religion?

How are you led to it?

What is its bearing on social life?

my religion is Hinduism which, for me, is Religion of humanity and includes the best of all the religions known to me.

I take it that the present tense in the second question has been purposely used instead of the past.. I am being let to my religion through Truth and Non Violence, i.e. love in the broadest sense. I often describe my religion as Religion of Truth. Of late, instead of saying God is Truth, I have been saying Truth is God, in order more fully to define my religion. I used, at one time , to know by heart the thousand names of God which a booklet in Hinduism gives in verse form and which perhaps tens of thousands of Hindus recite every morning. But nowadays nothing so completely describes my God as truth. Denial of God we have known . Denial of Truth we have not known. The most ignorant among mankind have some truth in them. We are all sparks of Truth. The sum total of these sparks is indescribable, as yet unknown Truth, which is God. I am being daily led nearer to it by constant prayer.

The bearing of this religion on social life is, or has to be, seen in one’s daily social contact. To be true to such religion one has to lose oneself in continuous and continuing service of all life. Realization of Truth is impossible without a complete merging of oneself in, and identification with, this limitless ocean of life. Hence, for me, there is no escape from social service, there is no happiness on earth beyond or apart from it. Social service here must be taken to include every department of life. In this scheme there is nothing high. For, all is one, though we seem to be many.

–M K Gandhi

Source book:-

Contemporary Indian Philosophy, Edited by S Radhakrishnan and J H Muirhead, 1936 (second revised edition 1952)

(My father V santanam bought this book on 3-9-1956 for 26 rupees 4 Annas and numbered the book as 580. Probably his book collection number. It was bought from Bharathi Puthaka Nilayam in Madurai.