The next dialogue between Hinduism and Christianity was the longest in duration and the richest in content. The spokesman for Hinduism was Mahatma Gandhi. Christianity was represented by many men and women from India and abroad. Some of them occupied high positions in the worldwide Christian mission.

The dialogue started in 1893 when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi reached South Africa as a barrister and discovered that the Christians who befriended him were looking forward to his conversion. It ended on December 24, 1947 when Mahatma Gandhi, the father figure in independent India, offered Christmas greetings to Christians in India and abroad, wishing them well and hoping that they “will pursue the path of sacrifice and martyrdom shown by Jesus Christ.” At the same time he asked his Christian countrymen to shed fears about their future in independent India.

Gandhiji was brought up in an atmosphere of religious tolerance. He had accompanied his mother and father to the Vaishnava Haveli and the temples of Shiva and Rama. Everywhere they worshipped with equal reverence. Jain monks “would pay frequent visits to my father” and talk with him “on subjects religious and mundane.” So did Muslim and Parsi friends of his father who “listened to them with respect, and often with interest”¹

Small wonder that when he saw the behaviour of Christian missionaries for the first time, he “developed a sort of dislike” for Christianity. He was a school student at Rajkot. “In those days,” he writes, “Christian missionaries used to stand in a corner near the high school and hold forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their gods. I could not endure this. I must have stood there to hear them once only, but that was enough to dissuade me from repeating the experience.” His dislike of Christianity deepened when he heard about the doings of a “well-known Hindu” convert. “It was the talk of the town,” he continues, “that, when he was baptised, he had to eat beef and drink liquor, that he also had to change his clothes and that thenceforward he began to go about in European costume including a hat. These things got on my nerves. Surely, thought I, a religion that compelled one to eat beef and drink liquor and change one’s own clothes did not deserve the name. I also heard the news that the new convert had already begun abusing the religion of his ancestors, their customs and their country. All these things created in me a dislike for Christianity.”²

By the time Gandhiji read the Bible for the first time, he had developed an eager and reflective interest in religion. Towards the end of his second year in England, he read Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Song Celestial and The Light of Asia. The first work is the famous English translation of the Gita. The second narrates the life of the Buddha. The Gita “struck me as one of priceless worth.” As regards the life of the Buddha, “once I had begun it I could not leave off.” Around the same time, he read Madame Blavatsky’s The Key to Theosophy which “disabused me of the notion fostered by missionaries that Hinduism was rife with superstition.” So he welcomed a copy of the Bible sold to him by a Christian friend who was a vegetarian and who did not drink. “I began reading it,” writes Gandhiji, “but I could not possibly read through the Old Testament. I read the book of Genesis, and the chapters that followed invariably sent me to sleep. But just for the sake of being able to say that I had read it, I plodded through the other books with much difficulty and without the least interest or understanding. I disliked reading the book of Numbers.”³

The New Testament, however, “produced a different impression, especially the Sermon on the Mount which went straight to my heart.” This first impression proved to be his last also. In years to come, he continued to identify “true Christianity” with the Sermon on the Mount and exclude everything else in Christian theology to the chagrin of Christian missionaries who could neither disown the Sermon nor stop at it. “My young mind,” continues Gandhiji, “tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, The Light of Asia and the Sermon on the Mount. That renunciation was the highest form of religion appealed to me greatly.”⁴

Gandhiji came in contact with some believing Christians during his stay in South Africa and had an opportunity to reflect on Christian theology. Mr. A. W. Baker, the attorney of Gandhiji’s client in Pretoria “was a staunch lay preacher” and “one of the Directors of the South Africa General Mission.” He showed interest in the religion of Gandhiji who confessed that though he was a Hindu, he did not “know much of Hinduism” and “knew less of other religions.” Mr. Baker invited Gandhiji to the daily meetings of his missionary coworkers and promised to give him “some religious books to read.”⁵ Gandhiji was somewhat intrigued and asked himself, “What… can be the meaning of Mr. Baker’s interest in me? What shall I gain from his religious co-workers? How far should I undertake the study of Christianity? How was I to obtain literature about Hinduism? And how was I to understand Christianity in its proper perspective without thoroughly knowing my own religion?” He came to the conclusion that “I should make a dispassionate study of all that came to me, and deal with Baker’s group as God might guide me” and that “I should not think of embracing another religion before I had fully understood my own.”⁶

He started attending the meetings where the “prayers did not last for more than five minutes.” He was introduced to Mr. Baker’s “co-workers” one of whom was Mr. Coates who “loaded me with books, as it were.” The books were a mix of the stale and the stimulating. At the end, “the arguments in proof of Jesus being the only incarnation of God and the Mediator between God and man left me unmoved.” But Mr. Coates “was not the man to accept defeat.” One day, “He saw, round my neck, the Vaishnava necklace of Tulasi-beads” and said, “come, let me break the necklace.” Gandhiji told him, “No, you will not. It is a sacred gift from my mother.”⁷ Mr. Coates “could not appreciate my argument, as he had no regard for my religion.” He was convinced that “salvation was impossible for me unless I accepted Christianity which represented the truth, and that my sins would not be washed away except by intercession of Jesus, and that all good works were useless.”⁸

Another Christian group which Gandhiji met at this time was that of the Plymouth Brethren who proclaimed that “as we believe in the atonement of Jesus, our own sins do not bind us.”⁹ One of the Brothers “proved as good as his word.” He “committed transgressions” and remained “undisturbed by the thought of them.” Gandhiji was relieved to know that “all Christians did not believe in such a theory of atonement” and assured Mr. Coates that “the distorted belief of a Plymouth Brother could not prejudice me against Christianity.”¹⁰ 

By now Mr. Baker “was getting anxious about my future.”¹¹ He took Gandhiji to the Wellington Convention of Protestant Christians. Gandhiji’s colour created some problems for him in the hotel and the dining room but Mr. Baker “stood by the guests of a hotel.” The Convention lasted for three days and Gandhiji “appreciated the devoutness of those who attended it.” But he “saw no reason for changing my belief in my religion.” He found it impossible “to believe that I could go to heaven or attain salvation only by becoming a Christian.” He made a frank confession of his doubts to his Christian friends who “were shocked.”¹²

The Convention helped Gandhiji to make up his mind about Christianity. He adhered to these views for the rest of his life. “My difficulties,” he writes, “lay deeper. It was more than I could believe that Jesus was the only incarnate son of God, and that only he who believed in him would have everlasting life. If God could have sons, all of us were his sons. If Jesus was like God or God Himself, their all men were like God and could be God Himself. My reason was not ready to believe literally that Jesus by his death and by his blood redeemed the sins of the world. Metaphorically there might be some truth in it. Again, according to Christianity only human beings had souls, and not other living beings, for whom death meant complete extinction, while I held a contrary view. I could accept Jesus as a martyr, as an embodiment of sacrifice and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue, in it my heart could not accept. The pious lives of Christians did not give me anything that the lives of men of other faiths had failed to give. I had seen in other lives just the same reformation that I had heard of among the Christians. Philosophically there was nothing extraordinary in Christian principles. From the point of view of sacrifice, it seemed that the Hindus greatly surpassed Christians. It was impossible for me to regard Christianity as a perfect religion or the greatest of all religions.”¹³

At the same time, Gandhiji felt greatly dissatisfied with Hinduism as he saw it. He could not understand how “untouchability could be a part of Hinduism.” As not only his Christian but also Muslim friends were trying to convert him, he wanted to know more about Hinduism. He presented his problem to Raychandbhai, his mentor in India, and “corresponded with other religious authorities in India.”¹⁴ Raychandbhai assured him that “no other religion has the subtle and profound thought of Hinduism, its vision of the soul, or its charity.” Thus Gandhiji “took a path which my Christian friends had not intended for me.”¹⁵

He continued to read books written by Christians and also to correspond with Christian friends in England. He found that some exponents of Christianity did not adhere to Christian theology and took a broader and deeper view of Jesus and his message. He started moving away from Christianity as preached by the missionaries. The missionaries, however, refused to give him up as a bad job and when he moved to Durban, “Mr. Spencer Walton, the head of the South Africa General Mission, found me out”¹⁶

The approach this time was softer. Mr. Walton never asked Gandhiji to embrace Christianity. He became Gandhiji’s friend and introduced him to Mrs. Walton. Gandhiji liked them both for their “humility, perseverance and devotion to work.”¹⁷ At the suggestion of some other Christian friends, Gandhiji started attending the Wesleyan Church every Sunday. But he found the sermons “uninspiring” and the congregation “worldly-minded people who went to church for recreation and in conformity to custom.”¹⁸ On occasions, he fell into an “involuntary doze” and felt ashamed. He was relieved when he found that his neighbours in the Church “were in no better case.”¹⁹ Finally he gave up attending the Church.

Gandhiji had a standing invitation from a Christian family to join them for lunch every Sunday. “Once we began to compare,” he writes, “the life of Jesus with that of Buddha. ‘Look at Gautama’s compassion,’ said I. ‘It was not confined to mankind, it was extended to all living beings. Does not one’s heart overflow with love to think of the lamb joyously perched on his shoulders? One fails to notice this love for all living beings in the life of Jesus.’ The comparison pained the lady.” The contact came to an end soon after because Gandhiji tried to teach her son the superiority of vegetarian food over meat-eating. The lady felt dismayed and told Gandhiji that “my boy is none the better for your company.” He took the hint and stopped the Visits.²⁰

Gandhiji had become a famous man by the time he left South Africa for good in 1915 and started working in India. He had not yet emerged as the Mahatma, nor risen to the supreme command of the national movement for freedom from British rule. Christian missionaries regarded him as a friend because of his proclaimed admiration for Jesus. Early in 1916 he was invited to address a Missionary Conference at Madras on the subject of Swadeshi. After having defined Swadeshi as “that spirit in us which restricts us to the use and service of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote”, he said that “in order to satisfy the requirements of the definition, I must restrict myself to my ancestral religion.”²¹ He advised the missionaries to “serve the spirit of Christianity better, by dropping the goal of proselytising but continuing their philanthropic work.” He told them that Christ’s message, “Go Ye Unto All the World”, had been “narrowly interpreted” and that “in every case, a conversion leaves a sore behind it.” At the same time he held up Hinduism as the embodiment of the Swadeshi spirit. That was the secret, he said, of its being the most tolerant religion.²²

Christian missionaries had been propagating that the Reform Movement in Hinduism as well as Gandhiji’s doctrine of Satyagraha were influenced by the principles of Christianity. The proposition was presented to Gandhiji by Rev. Wells Branch in the latter’s letter dated May 9, 1919. He wrote back on May 12 that “I do not think either has anything to do with Christian teaching.” He held “modern civilisation and modern education” as responsible for the Reform Movement. As to satyagraha, he said that “it is an extended application of the ancient teaching.”²³ In the same letter he rejected the “exclusive divinity of Jesus” while praising the Sermon on the Mount. Rev. Branch had come to believe that there were many “secret followers of Jesus” in India who were not coming out in the open because they feared persecution from Hindu society. Gandhiji replied, “I have moved among thousands upon thousands of Indians but I have not found any secret followers of Jesus.”²⁴

Thus by the time M. K. Gandhi emerged as Mahatma Gandhi and took command of the national movement for freedom in 1920, he had studied and reflected upon all aspects of Christianity and formed his views on them. He had watched the working of Christian missions from close quarters and understood their role vis-a-vis Hindu religion and culture. In years to come he would identify himself as a sanAtanI Hindu fully satisfied with his ancestral faith. He would explain and elaborate his views on Christianity and Christian missions and defend the principles and practices of Hinduism which the missionaries held in contempt. But because he admired Jesus as a great teacher, he would continue to arouse fond hopes in Christian hearts.
Meanwhile, he had changed from a loyal citizen of the British Empire to its uncompromising opponent. The weapon he forged for fighting the British Raj in India was non-violent non-cooperation. The struggle for freedom was combined with a programme for socioeconomic reconstruction in which the abolition of untouchability was a major plank. His campaigns involved him in conflict not only with the British Government of India but also with Hindu orthodoxy.

While he was in Sabarmati Jail he was interviewed by a representative of The Manchester Guardian some time before March 18, 1922. The Hindu of Madras published the interview on August 15, 1922. The interviewer tried to pin him down by saying that non-cooperation was “contrary to Christ’s teaching.” Gandhiji replied, “Not being a Christian I am not bound to justify my action by Christian principles.”²⁵

While he was still in jail, the Young India of February 8, 1923 published an interesting item which deserves to be reproduced in full:

Rev. Dr. Macarish, elected head of the Presbyterian Church Synod which recently met at Orillia in Canada referred to the incidental commercial advantages of religious missions in the following words:

“One cry in the country had long been markets, wider markets, and since the introduction of the Fordney Bill, that cry has been louder and more insistent than ever. If the farmers and manufacturers desire to create a market, they would do well to get in touch with foreign missions, and we are assured that it would not be long till they received their money back with liberal interest.

“Although the missionary went to the foreign fields to win souls for Jesus, the results of his labours also meant the extension of commerce. Trade would follow the banner of the Cross, as readily as it would the Union jack, the Stars and Stripes, or any of the other national emblems, and usually it cost a good deal less.

“It cost British Government £225,000,000 to make the Union jack float over Pretoria; yet it is doubtful if the South African war did as much to promote trade, as missions there had previously done. In the past, the missionaries had been the best advertisers of heathen countries. Dr. John G. Paton did more to advertise the South Sea Islands than the sandal-wood traders ever did, and who ever did more to advertise Africa than Livingston?

“Fifty years ago, it was said that when a missionary had been abroad for twenty years, he was worth £50,000 to British commerce; and it was probably not extravagant to say that one of our missionaries in India or China to-day was worth a similar sum to any great industrial centre in this country.”

Gandhiji had launched his programme for abolition of untouchability soon after he came out of jail. He had made it clear to all concerned that untouchability was a Hindu problem and that Hindus alone should participate in the movement for its abolition. But Christian missions tried to jump into the fray. He received a letter from Mr. George Joseph of Travancore asking whether he could join the satyagraha at Vykom which was going on for securing to the Harijans the right to travel on certain roads and enter Hindu temples for worship. Gandhiji advised him on April 6, 1924 to “let the Hindus do the work” and referred him to the Nagpur resolution of the Congress which “calls upon the Hindu members to remove the curse of untouchability.” At the same time he drew Mr. Joseph’s attention to the untouchability practised by the Syrian Christians.²⁶ He also told the Hindus not to seek the support of non-Hindus in the Vykom satyagraha. “If you are fighting as an enlightened against the bigoted Hindu,” he wrote to K. Madhavan Nair on May 6, 1924, “it is your bounden duty not only not to seek but respectfully to reject all support from non-Hindus.”²⁷ He was aware that Christian missionaries were not above exploiting the situation to the disadvantage of Hinduism.

A “retired Indian police officer” in England wrote in The Manchester Guardian that Christian missionaries had done commendable work for the uplift of Harijans. Gandhiji thought that the article deserved his comment. He wrote a Note under the heading ‘Ignorance’ in the Young India of July 13, 1924. “The writer brings up for commendation,” he said, “the Christian work among untouchables; I must not enter into the merits of Christian work in India. The indirect influence of Christianity has been to quicken Hinduism into life. The cultured Hindu society has admitted its grievous sin against the untouchables. But the effect of Christianity upon India in general must be judged by the life lived in our midst by the average Christian and its effect upon us. I am sorry to have to record my opinion that it has been disastrous. It pains me to have to say that the Christian missionaries as a body, with honourable exceptions, have actively supported a system which has impoverished, enervated and demoralised a people considered to be among the gentlest and the most civilized on earth.”²⁸

Gandhiji had the leisure to read and look through a large number of books, mostly on religion, while he was in Sabarmati jail. Some of these books had been sent to him by Christians in India and abroad, who wanted to enlighten him about Christianity. Commenting on these books in the Young India of September 4, 1924, he wrote, “I must confess that whilst I recognized their kind motive, I could not appreciate the majority of books they sent. I wish I could say something of their gifts that would please them. But that would not be fair or truthful if I could not mean it. The orthodox books on Christianity do not give me any satisfaction. My regard for the life of Jesus is indeed very great... But I do not accept the orthodox teaching that Jesus was or is God incarnate in the accepted sense or that he was, or is the only son of God. I do not believe in the doctrine of appropriation of another’s merit… I do not take the words ‘Son’ and ‘Father’ and ‘the Holy Ghost’ literally… Nor do I consider every word in the New Testament as God’s own word. Between the Old and the New there is a fundamental difference. Whilst the Old contains some very deep truths, I am unable to pay it the same honours I pay the New Testament. I regard the latter as an extension of the Old and in some matters rejection of the Old. Nor do I regard the New as the last word of God... I would therefore respectfully urge my Christian friends and well-wishers to take me as I am. I respect and appreciate their wish that I should think and be as they are even as I respect and appreciate a similar wish on the part of my Mussalman friends. I regard both the religions as equally true with my own. But my own gives me full satisfaction. It contains all that I need for my growth. It teaches me to pray not that others may believe as I believe but that they may grow to their full height in their own religion.”²⁹ He added, “That which I would not have missed was the Mahabharata and the Upanishads, the Ramayana and the Bhagavata.”³⁰

Mahadev Desai has recorded in his Diary dated November 3, 1924 that a Swiss missionary met Gandhiji and apologised for his broken English. Gandhiji put him at ease by telling him that English was a foreign tongue for him also. The missionary told him, “Every one knows you all over Europe. In Germany and Switzerland, you are quite a name because you are an excellent Christian.” Gandhiji laughed and said, “But I am not a Christian.” The missionary persisted, “But you follow Christian principles in life faithfully.” Gandhiji pointed out, “Yes, that is true. But those principles are found in my religion as well.” The missionary “was a little put out” but insisted, “But in Christianity specially so.” Gandhiji observed, “That is doubtful. I think all religions enjoin certain general commandments – ‘speak the truth’, ‘harm nobody’, etc. But personally my own religion gives me peace; if I got it from any other I would certainly embrace that religion.” The missionary “did not seem to appreciate this remark”, and left.³¹

The Navajivan dated December 7, 1924 recorded an interview which Gandhiji gave to two American professors. One of them asked, “Do you believe in Christ as the Saviour of humanity through His vicarious suffering?” Gandhiji replied, “I am not much impressed with the concept.” The professor enquired, “Are you shocked?” Gandhiji said, “No, not shocked either… I do not believe at all that one individual can wash off the sins of some other and grant him redemption. It is a psychological fact that one individual may feel pained at the sins and sorrows of another and the consciousness that the former is grieved may lead to the moral uplift of the latter. But I cannot accept the idea that one man die for the sake of the sins of millions and save them.”³²

The missionary machine, however, kept grinding in the same old grooves. Its campaign among the Harijans kept on maligning Hinduism. Gandhiji was pained. “Lots of people,” he said at the Antyaja Conference on January 16, 1925, “will come and tell you that your Hindu religion is all wrong, as you are not allowed to go to school or enter the temple. To such people you should say, ‘We shall settle accounts with our Hindu brothers ; you may not come between us as you may not intervene in quarrel between father and son or among relatives.’ And you should remain steadfast to your religion... Many Christian friends ask me to turn Christian. I tell them there is nothing wrong with my religion. Why should I give it up? I have joined the Antyajas and if for that reason Hindus persecute me, do I cease to be a Hindu? Hinduism is meant for me and my soui.”³³

Mahadev Desai records in his Diary dated May 30, 1925 that when Gandhiji was in Darjeeling he was invited by Miss Roland, a Christian missionary, to address an audience at the “Bengali teaching school” for missionaries. About “a hundred or hundred and fifty European men and women were present.”³⁴ He said, “Conversion to a religion is like passing one’s Entrance Examination, standing at the gateway to Heaven. Whether you accept one religion or another is of no consequence. All that God wants us to say is whether what we profess with our lips, we but believe in our hearts. There are thousands of men and women in India who do not know Jesus or his amazing sacrifice, but are far more God-fearing than many a Christian who knows the Bible and feels he follows the decalouge.” He had no use for nominal Christians. “In my humble opinion,” he continued, “a man is not ‘converted’ the moment he renounces his own faith and embraces another. I can quote a number of examples of Indians and Zulus who have turned Christians, but have not the faintest idea of the law of love or the sacrifice of Jesus or his message.”³⁵

He acknowledged “the debt we owe to missionaries for service to vernacular languages and literatures- Gujarati, Marathi and Bengali.” He mentioned Pope and Taylor for what they did for Tamil and Gujarati. “But in this,” he said, “you have touched but a fringe. You will serve India best when you pick up the poorest of Indians and that only when you identify yourselves with them.”³⁶ He regretted what Bishop Heber had said about these poor people - Where every prospect pleases, and man alone is vile. “He was wrong. Let God forgive him,” Gandhiji added.³⁷

During the same visit to Bengal, Gandhiji was invited to speak before a meeting of missionaries held at the Y.M.C.A. in Calcutta on June 28, 1925. He started by telling them of his association with Christians since his student days in London. “In South Africa,” he said, “where I found myself in the midst of inhospitable surroundings, I was able to make hundreds of Christian friends.” He made them laugh when he told them, “There was even a time in my life when a very sincere friend of mine, a great and good Quaker, had designs on me. He thought that I was too good not to become a Christian. I was sorry to have disappointed him. One missionary friend of mine in South Africa still writes to me and asks me, ‘How is it with you?’ I have always told this friend that so far as know, it is well with me.”³⁸

Next, he told them about his meeting with Kali Charan Banerjee. “In answer to promises made,” he said, “to one of these Christian friends of mine, I thought it my duty to see one of the biggest of Indian Christians, as I was told he was, - the late Kali Charan Banerjee. I went over to him - I am telling you of the deep search that I have undergone in order that I might leave no stone unturned to find out the true path - I went to him with an absolutely open mind and in a receptive mood, and I met him also under circumstances which were most affecting. I found that there was much in common between Mr. Banerjee and myself. His simplicity, his humility, his courage, his truthfulness, all these things I have all along admired. He met me when his wife was on her death-bed. You cannot imagine a more impressive scene, a more ennobling circumstance. I told Mr. Banerjee, ‘I have come to you as a seeker’, - this was in 1901 –‘I have come to you in fulfilment of a sacred promise I have made to some of my dearest Christian friends that I will leave no stone unturned to find out the true light.’ I told him that I had given my friends the assurance that no worldly gain would keep me away from the light, if I could but see it. Well, I am not going to engage you in giving a description of the little discussion that we had between us. It was very good, very noble. I came away, not sorry, not dejected, not disappointed, but I felt sad that even Mr. Banerjee could not convince me.”

Passing on to his present position, he said, “Today my position is that though I admire much in Christianity, I am unable to identify myself with orthodox Christianity. I must tell you in all humility that Hinduism as I know it, entirely satisfies my. soul, fills my whole being and I find a solace in the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads that I miss even in the Sermon on the Mount. Not that I do not prize the ideal presented therein, not that some of the precious teachings in the Sermon on the Mount have not left a deep impression upon me, but I must confess to you that when doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of external tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita.”³⁹

His love of Hinduism did not mean disrespect for other religions. “I must add,” he said, “that I did not stop at studying the Bible and the commentaries and other books on Christianity that my friends placed in my hands; but I said to myself, if I was to find my satisfaction through reasoning, I must study the scriptures of other religions also and make my choice. And I turned to the Koran. I tried to understand what I could of Judaism as distinguished from Christianity. I studied Zoroastrianism and I came to the conclusion that all religions were right, but every one of them imperfect - imperfect naturally and necessarily, - because they were interpreted with our poor intellects, sometimes with our poor hearts, and more often misinterpreted. In all religions, I found to my grief, that there were various and even contradictory interpretations of some texts…”⁴⁰

He chided the missionaries for misrepresenting Hinduism. “You, the missionaries,” he said, “come to India thinking that you come to a land of heathens, of idolaters, of men who do not know God. One of the greatest of Christian divines, Bishop Heber, wrote the two lines which have always left a sting with me: ‘Where every prospect pleases, And man alone is vile.’ I wish he had not written them. My own experience in my travels throughout India has been to the contrary. I have gone from one end of the country to the other, without any prejudice, in a relentless search after truth, and I am not able to say that here in this fair land, watered by the great Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Jumna, man is vile. He is not vile. He is as much a seeker after truth as you and I are, possibly more so… I tell you there are many such huts belonging to the untouchables where you will certainly find God. They do not reason but they persist in their belief that God is. They depend upon God for His assistance and find it too. There are many stories told through the length and breadth of India about these noble untouchables. Vile as some of them may be, there are noblest specimens of humanity in their midst.”⁴¹

And this nobility was not confined to the ‘untouchables’ of India. “No. I am here to tell you,” he continued, “that there are non-Brahmins, there are Brahmins who are as fine specimens of humanity as you will find in any place on the earth. There are Brahmins today in India who are embodiments of self-sacrifice, godliness, and humility. There are Brahmins who are devoting themselves body and soul to the service of untouchables, but with execration from orthodoxy. They do not mind it, because in serving pariahs they are serving God. I can quote chapter and verse from my experience. I place these facts before you in all humility for the simple reason that you may know this land better, the land to which you have come to serve. You are here to find out the distress of the people of India and remove it. But I hope you are here also in a receptive mood and, if there is anything that India has to give, you will not stop your ears, you will not close your eyes and steel your hearts, but open up your ears, eyes and, most of all, your hearts to receive all that may be good in the land. I give you my assurance that there is a great deal of good in India. Do not flatter yourselves with the belief that a mere recital of that celebrated verse in St. John makes a man a Christian. If I have read the Bible correctly, I know many men who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ or have even rejected the official interpretation of Christianity will, probably, if Jesus came in our midst today in the flesh, be owned by him more than many of us. I therefore ask you to approach the problem before you with open-heartedness, and humility.”⁴²

Gandhiji told the missionaries that they stood isolated from the people of India because they “come to India under the shadow, or, if you like, under the protection of a temporal power, and it creates an impassable bar.”⁴³ He said that he was not impressed by the “statistics that so many orphans have been reclaimed and brought to the Christian faith.” He asked them to identify themselves with the masses and find out what the masses need most. “You cannot,” he said, “present the hungry and famished masses with God. Their God is their food.”⁴⁴

A missionary asked him, “Do you definitely feel the presence of the living Christ within you?” Gandhiji replied, “If it is the historical Jesus, surnamed Christ, that the inquirer refers to, I must say I do not.: If it is an adjective signifying one of the names of God, then I must say I do feel the presence of God - call him Christ, call him Krishna, call him Rama. We have one thousand names of God, and if I did not feel the presence of God within me, I see so much of misery and disappointment every day that I would be a raving maniac and my destination would be the Hooghly.”⁴⁵

An Englishmen “defended Bishop Heber’s song on the ground that the song did not refer to Indians but to Christians” and that “they described themselves in their songs very often as the worst of sinners.” Gandhiji “put his defence out of court.” He quoted “those parts of the song which said that India, Africa and such other countries were inviting the Christians to spread their light in these lands, and that it was there that nature’s prospect pleased but only man was vile, because the heathen was worshipping wood and stone in his blindness.” At the end he asked, “Is it not strange, that a song written ages ago is still sung in Christian circles?”⁴⁶

On August 12, 1925 Gandhiji delivered another speech before the Y.M.C.A. at Calcutta. He started by giving an account of his association with Christianity and Christians. He mentioned Principal S. K. Rudra and C. F. Andrews as among his best friends. Coming to the duty of Indian Christians, he said, “In my humble opinion a Christian Young Indian owes a double duty - to those whose religion he has given up and to those whose religion he has adopted… The Indian Christian’s duty to the religion he has given up is to retain all the good that belongs to it and impart it to the new he has taken. Contrarily, he takes the best of the new religion and transmits it to those whom he has left or who have banished him. But that never happens in a majority of cases. With deep grief that has to be noted. And in Madras you go to different quarters altogether, but by no means a congenial surroundings. You will find there vice double-distilled and no gain on either side.”⁴⁷

Instead, the Indian Christians had invited a double tragedy. They did not mix with Indians, and Europeans would not mix with them. “I tried to talk,” he said, “as I kept walking on the Ellisbridge [in Ahmedabad] to young girls walking to their seminary. They did not even return my salaams. I attended a service also. You will be surprised to see that I was sitting in a corner hoping to exchange a word - without avail, not even a glance. Excuses there may be, but that should not be the case. You cut yourself away from your kith and kin…”⁴⁸

Another great mistake the converts to Christianity were making was to neglect their native languages and try to learn the English language alone. “They are passing through schools and colleges,” he said, “like so many pieces of a machine - but they don’t think, don’t originate, forget their mother tongue. They try to learn the English language, succeed in making a hash of it, and trying to think in a foreign tongue, become paralysed… There is something radically wrong in a system which has brought about such helplessness.” He commanded to them the example set by Madhusudan Datta who had “enriched his mother tongue” and Kali Charan Banerjee and S. K. Rudra who had retained their Indianness after becoming Christians. “If the Indian Christians,” he concluded, “want to serve their country, are to serve the religion they profess, it will be necessary to revise a great deal of what they are doing today.”⁴⁹

He was happy when the speakers who preceded him at a congregation of the Baptist Church on August 20, spoke in their mother tongue. “The man who discards his mother tongue,” he said, “gives up thereby his parents, his friends, his neighbours and his country as well. The man who is capable of snapping such ties of love becomes unfit for doing any good to humanity or to anybody whatever. And the man unfit to serve the world is unfit to know or serve God.”⁵⁰

He upheld the same spirit of Swadeshi in other spheres of life. “During my travels,” he continued, “I find a general belief that to turn a Christian is to turn European; to become self-willed, and give up self-restraint, use only foreign cloth, dress oneself in European style and start taking meat and brandy. But I think the fact is, if a person discards his country, his customs and his old connections and manners when he changes his religion, he becomes all the more unfit to gain a knowledge of God. For, a change of religion means really a conversion of the heart. When there is a real conversion, a man’s heart grows. But in this country one finds that conversion brings about deep disdain for one’s old religion and its followers, i.e., one’s old friends and relatives. The next change that takes place is that of dress and manners and behaviour. All that does great harm to the country. In my view your object in changing your religion should be to bring about the prosperity of your country.”⁵¹

He told them that conversion should not mean license in conduct. He drew their attention to what the Bible teaches about one’s conduct towards one’s neighbours. “Christian friends tell me,” he said, “that when the change their faith, there remains no need for them to observe any restraint. They say, ‘You can do anything you like when you become a Christian.’ I respectfully say that this is a wrong notion. I shall give you an instance to prove my contention. There is a common belief that while some food is forbidden and some allowed in Hinduism, once you become a Christian, you get a license to eat anything you like and drink even liquor. Hence there are a lot of Christians who disregard their neighbour’s feelings and do what they like at the cost of hurting them. But I was told the other day that the Bible condemns such conduct.”⁵²

A student doing post-graduate studies in the U. S.A. wrote to Gandhiji asking for his “frank evaluation of the work of Christian missionaries in India.” He wanted to know if “Christianity has some contribution to make to the life of India” and if India could “do without Christian missionaries.” Gandhiji said, “In my opinion Christian missionaries have done good to us indirectly. Their direct contribution is probably more harmful than otherwise. I am against the modem methods of proselytising. Years’ experience of proselytising both in South Africa and India has convinced me that it has not raised the general moral tone of converts who have imbibed the superficialities of European civilization, and have missed the teaching of Jesus. I must be understood to refer to the general tendency and not to brilliant exceptions. The indirect contribution, on the other hand, of Christian missionary effort is great. It has stimulated Hindu and Mussalman religious research. It has forced us to put our house in order. The great educational and curative institutions of Christian missions I also count among indirect results, because they have been established, not for their own sakes, but as an aid to proselytizing.”⁵³

A Christian Indian domiciled in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) but studying in the U.S.A. sent to Gandhiji a number of questions on behalf of students associated with the Y.M.C.A. One of the question was, “What is your attitude towards the teachings of Jesus Christ?” Gandhiji published his reply in the Young India of February 25, 1926: “They have an immense moral value for me, but I do not regard everything said in the Bible as the final word of God or exhaustive or even acceptable from the moral standpoint. I regard Jesus Christ as one of the greatest teachers of mankind, but I do not consider him to be the ‘only son of God’.”⁵⁴

An English translation of Gandhiji’s autobiography was being serialised in the Young India from December 3, 1925 onwards. When the account of his first encounter with Christianity appeared in the weekly, he received a letter from Rev. H. R. Scott, “at present stationed at Surat.” Gandhiji published the letter in the Young India of March 4, 1926. “I was the only missionary in Rajkot during those years (from 1883 to 1897),” wrote Rev. Scott, “and what you say about Christian missionaries in Rajkot standing at a corner near the High school and pouring abuse on Hindus and their gods fills me with painful wonder. I certainly never preached ‘at a corner near the High school’; my regular preaching station was under a banyan tree in the Pan Bazar; and I certainly never ‘poured abuse on Hindus and their gods.’ That would be strange way to win a hearing from Hindus. Then you say that a well-known Hindu was baptised at that time, and that ‘he had to eat beef and drink liquor, and to change his clothes, and go about in European clothes, including a hat.’ No wonder that such a story got on your nerves, if you believed it. Well, I have been over 42 years in India, and I have never heared of such a thing happening; and indeed I know it to be quite contrary to what all missionaries with whom I am acquainted teach and believe and practise. During my time in Rajkot I baptised a number of Brahmins and Jain sadhus. They certainly had not to ‘eat beef and drink liquor’, either at the time of baptism or at any other time... I know of course that this kind of story is told about converts to Christianity in Kathiawad and elsewhere in India. It is obviously the wilful invention of people who wish to prevent the spread of Christianity in India and hope thereby to frighten young Hindus who show an inclination to learn the truth about Christianity, and no doubt it has had its results in deterring many such honest inquirers as yourself. But surely you must have had many opportunities since then of discovering that that particular libel is without foundation, and as a sincere lover of truth you cannot lend the great weight of your authority to perpetuate such a wilfully malicious misrepresentation of Christian missionaries.”⁵⁵

Gandhiji commented, “Though the preaching took place over forty years ago the painful memory of it is still vivid before me. What I have heard and read since has but confirmed that impression. I have read several missionary publications and they are able to see only the dark side and paint it darker still. The famous hymn of Bishop Heber’s ‘Greenland’s icy mountains’ - is a clear libel on Indian humanity. I was favoured with some literature even at the Yervada prison by well-meaning missionaries, which seemed to be written as if merely to belittle Hinduism. About beef-eating and wine-drinking I have merely stated what I have heard and I have said as much in my writing. And whilst I accept Mr. Scott’s repudiation, I must say that though I have mixed freely among thousands of Christian Indians, I know very few who have scruples about eating beef or other flesh meats and drinking intoxicating liquors. When I have gently reasoned with them, they have quoted to me the celebrated verse ‘Call thou nothing unclean’ as if it referred to eating and gave a licence for indulgence. I know many Hindus eat meat, some eat even beef and drink wines. They are not converts. Converts are those who are ‘born again’ or should be. A higher standard is expected of those who change their faith, if the change is a matter of heart and not of convenience.”⁵⁶

Gandhiji started giving a series of lectures on the New Testament to the students of the Gujarat National College at Ahmedabad from July 24, 1926 onwards. Some Hindus did not like it. He was accused of being a “secret Christian”. They feared that reading the Bible to young boys was likely to influence them in favour of Christianity. “We need not dread, upon our grown-up children,” wrote Gandhiji in the Young India of September 2, 1926, “the influence of scriptures other than our own. We libralize their outlook upon life by encouraging them to study freely all that is clean. Fear there would be when someone reads his own scriptures to young people with the intention secretly or openly of converting them. He must be biased in favour of his own scriptures. 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. He is no sanatani Hindu who is narrow, bigoted and considers evil to be good if it has the sanction of antiquity and is to be found supported in any Sanskrit book. I claim to be a staunch sanatani Hindu because though I reject all that offends my moral sense, I find the Hindu scriptures to satisfy the need of the soul. My respectful study of other religions has not abated my reverence for or my faith in Hindu scriptures. They have indeed left their deep mark upon my understanding of Hindu scriptures. They have broadened my view of life. They have enabled me to understand more clearly many obscure passages in the Hindu scriptures.”⁵⁷

“The charge of being a Christian in secret,” he continued, “was not new. It is both a libel and a compliment - a libel because there are men who can believe me to be capable of being secretly anything, i.e. for fear of being that openly. There is nothing in the world that would keep me from professing Christianity or any other faith the moment I felt the truth of and the need for it. Where there is fear there is no religion. The charge is a compliment in that it is a reluctant acknowledgement of my capacity for appreciating the beauties of Christianity.”⁵⁸

Gandhiji’s great regard for Jesus was misunderstood by some Christians. W. B. Stover wrote to him, “You have taken the Lord Christ for your leader and guide. There is none better.” Gandhiji replied, “You do not mind my correcting you. I regard Jesus as a human being like the rest of the teachers of the world. As such he was undoubtedly great. But I do not by any means regard him to have been the very best. The acknowledgement of the debt which I have so often repeated that I owe to the Sermon on the Mount should not be mistaken to mean an acknowledgement of the Orthodox interpretation of the Bible or the life of Jesus. I must not sail under false colours.”⁵⁹

Gandhiji had a discussion with some missionaries on July 29, 1927. The questions asked by the missionaries and the replies given by him were reproduced in the Young India of August 11, 1927. He opened the discussion with an introduction on how he looked at the history of religion. “Christianity,” he said, “is 1900 years old, Islam is 1300 years old. Who knows the possibility of either? I have not read the Vedas in the original but have tried to assimilate their spirit and have not hesitated to say that though the Vedas may be 13,000 years old - or even a million years old, as they well may be, for the word of God is as old as God Himself - even the Vedas must be interpreted in the light of our experience. The powers of God should not be limited by the limitations of our understandings.”

Next, he commented on the role of the missionaries as teachers of religion and said, “To you who have come to teach India, I therefore say, you cannot give without taking. If you have come to give rich treasures of experiences, open your hearts out to receive the treasures of this land, and you will not be disappointed, neither will you have misread the message of the Bible.” The missionaries asked, “What then are we doing? Are we doing the right thing?” Gandhiji replied, “You are doing the right thing the wrong way. I want you to compliment the faith of the people instead of undermining it... Whilst a boy I heard it being said, that to become a Christian was to have a brandy bottle in one hand and beef in the other. Things are better now, but it is not unusual to find Christianity synonymous with denationalisation and Europeanisation. Must we give up our simplicity, to become better people? Do not lay the axe at our simplicity.”⁶⁰

The missionaries posed their problem, “There are not only two issues before us, viz., to serve and to teach, there is a third issue, viz., evangelizing, declaring the glad tidings of the coming of Jesus and his death in redemption of our sins. What is the right way of giving the right news? We need not undermine the faith but we may make people lose their faith in lesser things.” Gandhiji’s reply was sharp. “It would be poor comfort to the world,” he said, “if it had to depend upon a historical God who died 2,000 years ago. Do not then preach the God of history, but show Him as He lives today through you... It is better to allow our lives to speak for us than our words”⁶¹

The missionaries then asked, “But what about animistic beliefs? Should they not be corrected?”⁶² Gandhiji told them not to concern themselves “with their beliefs but with asking them to do the right thing.” Finally, the missionaries came out with their dogma, “How can we help condemning if we feel that our Christian truth is the only reality?” Gandhiji saw the implied intolerance and said, “If you cannot feel that the other faith is as true as yours, you should feel at least that the men are as true as you. The intolerance of Christian missionaries does not, I am glad to say, take the ugly shape it used to take some years ago. Think of the caricature of Hinduism, which one finds in so many publications of the Christian Literature Society. A lady wrote to me the other day saying that unless I embraced Christianity all my work would be nothing worth. And of course that Christianity must mean what she understands as such. Well, all I can say is that it is a wrong attitude.”⁶³

Gandhiji had received a letter from an American lady who described herself as “a lifelong friend of India.” He reproduced it in the Young India of October 20, 1927. “Believing that Christ was a revelation of God,” she wrote, “Christians of America have sent to India thousands of their sons and daughters to tell the people of India about Christ. Will you in return kindly give us your interpretation of Hinduism and make a comparison of Hinduism with the teachings of Christ?” Gandhiji commented, “I have ventured at several missionary meetings to tell English and American missionaries that if they could have refrained from ‘telling’ India about Christ and had merely lived the life enjoined upon them by the Sermon on the Mount, India instead of suspecting them would have appreciated their living in the midst of her children and directly profited by their presence. Holding this view, I can ‘tell’ American friends nothing about Hinduism by way of ‘return’. I do not believe in people telling others of their faith, especially with a view of conversion. Faith does not admit of telling. It has to be lived and then it becomes self-propagating.”⁶⁴

Coming to Hinduism, he wrote, “Believing as I do in the influence of heredity, being born in a Hindu family, I have remained a Hindu. I should reject it, if I found it inconsistent with my moral sense or my spiritual growth. On examination, I have found it to be the most tolerant of all religions known to me. Its freedom from dogma makes a forcible appeal to me in as much as it gives the votary the largest scope for self-expression. Not being an exclusive religion, it enables the followers of the faith not merely to respect all the other religions, but it also enables them to admire and assimilate whatever may be good in the other faiths. Non-violence is common to all religions, but it has found the highest expression and application in Hinduism. (I do not regard Jainism or Buddhism as separate from Hinduism.) Hinduism believes in the oneness not of merely all human life but in the oneness of all that lives. Its worship of the cow is, in my opinion, its unique contribution to the evolution of humanitarianism. It is a practical application of the belief in the oneness and, therefore, sacredness of all life. The great belief in transmigration is a direct consequence of that belief. Finally, the discovery of the law of varnashrama is a magnificent result of the ceaseless search for truth.”⁶⁵

Gandhiji was on a visit to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in November 1927. The Young India dated December 8, 1927 reported his speech at the Y.M.C.A., Colombo. “Gandhiji then took,” said the report, “the case of modem China as a case in point. His heart, he said, went out to young China in the throes of a great national upheaval, and he referred to the anti-Christian movement in China, about which he had occasion to read in a pamphlet received by him from the students department of the Young Women’s Christian Association and the Young Men’s Christian Association of China. The writers had put their own interpretation upon the anti-Christian movement, but there was no doubt that young China regarded Christian movements as being opposed to Chinese self-expression.” To Gandhiji the moral of this anti-Christian manifestation was clear. He proceeded to advise the Ceylonese Christians. “The deduction,” he said, “I would like you all to draw from this manifestation is that you Ceylonese should not be torn from your moorings, and those from the West should not consciously lay violent hands upon the manners, customs and habits of the Ceylonese in so far as they are not repugnant to fundamental ethics and morality. Confuse not Jesus’ teachings with what passes as modern civilization, and pray do not do unconscious violence to the people among whom you cast your lot. It is no part of that call, I assure you, to tear the lives of the people of the East by its roots. Tolerate whatever is good in them and do not hastily with your preconceived notions, judge them. Do not judge lest you be judged yourselves.”⁶⁶

He ended with a message for the Buddhists who were members of the Y.M.C.A. and present in the meeting, “To you, young Ceylonese friends, I say: Don’t be dazzled by the splendour that comes to you from the West. Do not be thrown off your feet by this passing show. The Enlightened One has told you in never-to-be-forgotten words that this little span of life is but a passing shadow, a fleeting thing, and if you realize the nothingness of all that appears before your eyes, the nothingness of this material case that we see before us ever changing, then indeed there are treasures for you up above, and there is peace for you down here, peace which passeth all understanding, and happiness to which we are utter strangers. It requires an amazing faith, a divine faith and surrender of all that we see before us… Buddha renounced every worldly happiness, because he wanted to share with the whole world his happiness which was to be had by men who sacrificed and suffered in search of truth.”⁶⁷

Gandhiji had a discussion with members of the Council of International Fellowship who stayed in his Ashram in January 1928. The discussion was reported in the Young India of January 19. Coming to questions about conversions, he said, “I would not only not try to convert but would not even secretly pray that anyone should embrace my faith… Hinduism with its message of ahimsa is to me the most glorious religion in the world - as my wife to me is the most beautiful woman in the world - but others may feel the same about their own religion. Cases of real honest conversion are quite possible. If some people for their inward satisfaction and growth change their religion, let them do so. As regards taking our message to the aborigines, I do not think I should go and give my message out of my own wisdom. Do it in all humility, it is said. Well I have been an unfortunate witness of arrogance often going in the garb of humility. If I am perfect, I know that my thought will reach others. It taxes all my time to reach the goal I have set to myself. What have I to take to the aborigines and the Assamese hillmen except to go in my nakedness to them? Rather than ask them to join my prayer, I would join their prayer. We were strangers to this sort of classification – ‘animists’, ‘aborigines’, etc., - but we have learnt it from English rulers. I must have the desire to serve and it must put me right with people. Conversion and service go ill together.”⁶⁸ A member asked, “Did not Jesus Himself teach and preach?” Gandhiji replied, “We are on dangerous ground here. You ask me to give my interpretation of the life of Christ. Well, I may say that I do not accept everything in the gospels as historical truth. And it must be remembered that he was working amongst his own people, and said he had not come to destroy but to fulfil. I draw a great distinction between the Sermon on the Mount and the Letters of Paul. They are a graft on Christ’s teaching, his own gloss apart from Christ’s own experience.”⁶⁹

As Gandhiji’s view of the Christian missions became known, the controllers of missions felt concerned. Here was a man whose very humility was putting Christianity in the wrong. John R. Mott was a leading American evangelist and fabulous fund-raiser for the Protestant missions. He came and met Gandhiji on March 1, 1929 and tried to fathom him. The interview was published in the Young India of March 21, 1929. After discussing some generalities such as the future of India, etc., Mr. Mott came to the question he had travelled all the way to pose before Gandhiji. He asked, “What then is the contribution of Christianity to the national life of India? I mean the influence of Christ as apart from Christianity, for I am afraid there is a wide gulf separating the two at present.” Gandhiji replied, “Aye, there is the rub. It is not possible to consider the teaching of a religious teacher apart from the lives of his followers. Unfortunately, Christianity in India has been inextricably mixed up for the last one hundred years with the British rule. It appears to us as synonymous with the materialistic civilization and imperialistic exploitation by the strong white races of the weaker races of the world. Its contribution to India has been therefore largely of a negative character. It has done some good in spite of its professors. It has shocked us into setting our own house in order.”⁷⁰

Mr. Mott asked if Christians can help in the removal of untouchability. Gandhiji informed him that the “removal of untouchability is purely a question of the purification of Hinduism” and “can only be effected from within.” Mr. Mott insisted that “Christians would be a great help to you in this connection.” He cited Rev. Whitehead, Bishop of the Church of England, who had made “some striking statements about the effect of Christian mass movements in ameliorating the condition of the untouchables in the Madras Presidency.” Gandhiji said, “I distrust mass movements of this nature. They have as their object not the upliftment of the untouchables, but their ultimate conversion. This motive of mass proselytisation lurking at the back in my opinion vitiates missionary effort.”⁷¹

Mr. Mott now came to the point. “There are some who believe,” he said, “that the untouchables would be better off if they turned Christians from conviction, and that it would transform their lives.” Gandhiji was equally clear. “I am sorry,” he said, “I have been unable to discover any tangible evidence to confirm this view. I was once taken into a Christian village. Instead of meeting among the converts with that frankness which one associates with a spiritual transformation, I found an air of evasiveness about them. They were afraid to talk. This struck me as a change not for the better but for the worse.”⁷²

Mr. Mott asked Gandhiji, “Do you disbelieve in all conversion?” Gandhiji replied, “I disbelieve in the conversion of one person by another.” Mr. Mott repeated the age-old missionary slogan, “Is it not our duty to help our fellow-beings to the maximum of the truth we may possess, to share with them our deepest spiritual experience?” Gandhiji observed, “I am sorry I must again differ with you, for the simple reason that the deepest spiritual truths are always unutterable. That light to which you refer transcends speech. It can be felt only through the inner experience. And then the highest truth needs no communicating, for it is by its very nature self-propelling. It radiates its influence silently as the rose its fragrance without the intervention of a medium.”⁷³

Finally, Mr. Mott tried the last weapon in his armoury. “But even God,” he said, “sometimes speaks through his prophets.” Gandhiji replied, “Yes, but prophets speak not through the tongue but through their lives. I have however known that in this matter I am up against a solid wall of Christian opinion.” Mr. Mott came down and said, “Oh no, even among Christians there is a school of thought - and it is growing.- which holds that authoritarian method should not be employed but that each individual should be left to discover the deepest truths of life for himself. The argument advanced is that the process of spiritual discovery is bound to vary in the case of different individuals according to their varying needs and temperament. In other words they feel that propaganda in the accepted sense of the term is not the most effective method.” Gandhiji welcomed the statement adding, “That is what Hinduism certainly inculcates.”⁷⁴ The interview ended on a pleasant note, though it did not satisfy Mr. Mott. He came for two more rounds some years later.⁷⁵

A Christian missionary from Vizagapatam, Mr. Abel, interviewed Gandhiji on May 1, 1929. “Is not Jesus Christ the only sinless one?” he asked. “What do we know”, said Gandhiji, “of the whole life of Christ? Apart from the years of his life given in the four gospels of the New Testament - we know nothing of the rest of his life. As a man well-versed in the Bible you ought to have known that.”⁷⁶

February 23, 1931 was Gandhiji’s day of silence. He wrote a note to Dr. Thronton, a Christian missionary, in reply to some points the latter has raised. “If the missionary friends,” he said, “will forget their mission, viz., of proselytising Indians and of bringing Christ to them, they will do wonderfully good work. Your duty is done with the ulterior motive of proselytising. I was the first to raise a note of warning in this respect… Help certainly you have (brought), viz., what comes through contact with you and in spite of you, i.e., the spirit of inquiry about the shortcomings of our own religion. You did not want us to pursue the inquiry because you saw immorality where we saw spirituality. When I go to your institutions I do not feel I am going to an Indian institution. This is what worries me.”⁷⁷

Gandhiji gave an interview to the press in Delhi on March 21, 1931. “Asked if he would favour the retention of American and other foreign missionaries when India secured self-government”, Gandhiji was reported to have said, “If instead of confining themselves purely to humanitarian work and material service to the poor, they do proselytising by means of medical aid, education, etc., I would certainly ask them to withdraw. Every nation’s religion is as good as any other. Certainly India’s religions are adequate for her people. We need no converting spirituality.”⁷⁸

This raised a furore in missionary circles in India and abroad. Gandhiji wrote an article, ‘Foreign Missionaries’, in the Young India of April 23, 1931 in which he was pained to note that “Even George Joseph, my erstwhile co-worker and gracious host in Madura, has gone into hysterics without condescending to verify the report.” He said that what was reported in the press was “what a reporter has put into my mouth.”⁷⁹ He corrected the press report to read as follows: “if instead of confining themselves to purely humanitarian work such as education, medical services to the poor and the like, they use these activities of theirs for the purpose of proselytising, I would certainly like them to withdraw. Every nation considers its own faith to be as good as that of any other. Certainly the great faiths held by the people of India are adequate for her people. India stands in no need of conversion from one faith to another.”⁸⁰

He proceeded to “amplify the bald statement”, which, one must say, was not much of an improvement on his earlier statement. He made no concession to conversion by “modem methods” which “has nowadays become a business like any other.” He was reminded of “a missionary report saying how much it cost per head to convert and then presenting a budget for the ‘next harvest’.” He also asked some very pertinent questions: “Why should I change my religion because a doctor who professes Christianity as his religion has cured me of some disease or why should the doctor expect or suggest such a change whilst I am under his influence? Is not medical relief its own reward and satisfaction? Or why should I whilst I am in a missionary educational institution have Christian teaching thrust upon me?” He did not rule out conversion but gave his own meaning to it. “Conversion in the sense of self-purification, self-realization,” he wrote, “is the crying need of the hour. That, however, is not what is meant by proselytising. To those who would convert India, might it not be said, ‘physician heal thyself’?”⁸¹ On the same day he cabled a summary of his article to The Daily Herald of London.

The Christian opinion, however, was far from satisfied by his article. On April 11, 1931, James P. Rutnam of Ceylon put some questions to him. “in this great struggle for Swaraj,” he asked, “are we not fighting for liberty, liberty to worship our God as we please, liberty to convince our fellows who are willing to be convinced by our fellows who can convince us? Is India so bigoted as to think that within her are confined all the riches of the world, all the treasures of knowledge and human experience?”⁸² Gandhiji was painfully surprised at this persistent misunderstanding. He wrote another article, ‘Foreign Missionaries Again’, in the Young India of May 7, 1931. After explaining that he included Christianity among the religions of India, he said, “The attack has therefore surprised me not a little especially because the views I have now enunciated have been held by me since 1916, and were deliberately expressed in a carefully written address read before a purely missionary audience in Madras and since repeated on many a Christian platform. The recent criticism has but confirmed the view, for the criticism has betrayed intolerance even of friendly criticism. The missionaries know that in spite of my outspoken criticism of their methods, they have in India and among non-Christians no warmer friend than I. And I suggest to my critics that there must be something wrong about their methods or, if they prefer, themselves when they will not brook sincere expression of an opinion different from theirs. In India under swaraj I have no doubt that foreign missionaries will be at liberty to do their proselytising, as I would say, in the wrong way; but they would be expected to bear with those who, like me, may point out that in their opinion the way is wrong.”⁸³

He had to return to the theme on May 5, 1931 when he received a long letter from Rev. B. W. Tucker. The missionary was “in full agreement with you in your protest against the methods employed by Christian missions in their efforts to gain proselytes through education, medical services and the like.”⁸⁴ He also welcomed Gandhiji’s assurance that a swaraj government will not create “any legal enactment compelling missionaries to withdraw if they failed to give up their proselytising activities.” But he registered a protest “against the implications of your statement that the religions of India are adequate for her.”⁸⁵ Gandhiji wrote a short comment emphasizing that he still adhered “to the statement to which Rev. Tucker takes exception and which is, ‘Religions of India are adequate for her’.” He also made it clear that “What is resisted is the idea of gaining converts and that too not always by fair and open means.”⁸⁶ He followed up by yet another article, ‘Missionary Methods in India’, in the Young India of June 6, 1931. A retired Deputy Collector had written to him citing various sources, including Indian Census Report for 1911, and stating that missionaries were using material inducements for gaining converts. “That collection of quotations from named sources,” wrote Gandhiji, “should, instead of offending missionaries, cause an inward search. I have several other similar articles, some from Christian Indians. The writer will excuse me for withholding them. The controversy ought not to be prolonged.”⁸⁷

Three months later when Gandhiji was in London for attending the Second Round Table Conference, he was invited on October 8., 1931 to speak at the Conference of Mission Societies in Great Britain and Ireland. He started by trying to remove the misunderstanding created by the recent controversy about the place of Christian missions in India after attainment of independence. He ruled out “legislation to prohibit missionary enterprises.” But he maintained firmly his position about proselytisation. He said, “The idea of converting people to one’s faith by speech and writing, by appeal to reason and emotion and by suggesting that the faith of his forefathers is a bad faith, in my opinion, limits the possibilities of serving humanity.”⁸⁸ He admitted his indebtedness to “Christian influence for some of my social work” such as a “fierce hatred of child marriage.” But he made it clear that “Before I knew anything of Christianity I was an enemy of untouchability.”⁸⁹

Rev. Godfrey Philips of London Missionary Society posed a question before Gandhiji. “I wish we could understand one another better,” he said, “with regard to what is happening amongst the ‘untouchables’ in connection with Christian missions... We have found in our experience that when the ‘untouchable’, the outcaste, is down and out, we can do nothing permanent except by implanting in his inmost heart something that has vitalizing power - in our experience that is fellowship with God in Christ.”⁹⁰ Gandhiji replied that “in my own humble opinion it is an erroneous way” and that as “the rose would not have to speak, neither would the Christian missionary have to speak.” If the Christian missionary believes that “before he can come to the help of the untouchables, he must bring the message of God, or the message of the Bible, to the untouchables, how much more than to a man like me?” Gandhiji emphasised that “after having mixed with tens of thousands of untouchables”, he was convinced that they do not understand the missionary’s language. “They understand me better,” he said, “because I speak their language. I speak to them about their degraded condition. I do not speak about God. I feel that I take the message of God to them in this particular manner just as to a starving man I take the message of God through the bread I give him. I have no axe to grind. I must not exploit him, I just give him the bread. If I want to convey God to the humble untouchable I must take Him the way that he needs.”⁹¹

The next question, put by Rev. C. E. Wilson of the Baptist Missionary Society, was sharp. “Does Mr. Gandhi,” he asked, “mean that it is not right for us to go to India or any place and try to make people disciples, to teach the supreme truth of Jesus Christ, if we believe him to be the highest that we know? Mr. Gandhi has been preaching to us today. Does he mean to exclude all preaching?”⁹² Rev. W. H. G. Holmes of the Ok ford Mission at Calcutta told an anecdote about the plight of untouchables which he had himself seen. He was extending support to Rev. C. E. Wilson. “Would we be right,” he asked, “in going to teach them about this Father, who I told them loved them as dearly as he loved us, and would Mr. Gandhi encourage them to let us have land to build on in order to teach these people?”

Gandhiji replied, “Yes, I would, on one condition that you will teach them the religion of their forefathers through the religion they have got. Don’t say to them: ‘The only way to know the Father is our way.’… Show the ‘untouchables’ the Father as He appears in his own surroundings. Unless you are satisfied that we do not know the Father at all, and then of course it is your duty to say – ‘What you know as Father is no Father at all. What you believe comes from Satan.’ I sometimes receive letters saying that I am a good man, but that I am doing the devil’s work. I feel I adore the same Father though in a different form. I may not adore him as ‘God’. To me that name makes no appeal, but when I think of Him as Rama, He thrills me. To think of God as ‘God’ does not fire me as the name Rama does. There is no poetry in it. I know that my forefathers have known him as Rama. They have been uplifted by Rama, and when I take the name of Rama, I arise with the same energy. It would not be possible for me to use the name ‘God’ as it is written in the Bible. It is contrary to experience. I should not be attracted. I should not be lifted to the truth. Therefore my whole soul rejects the teaching that Rama is not my God.”⁹³

A member of the Conference “referred to the command for Christians to go out to all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” Gandhiji said that “if the questioner believed that these were the inspired words in the Bible, then he was called upon to obey implicitly - why did he ask a non-Christian for his interpretation?” The meeting ended with the President, Rev. W. Paton declaring that “Mr. Gandhi had made it abundantly clear that the issue between him and the Christian missionary movement lay much deeper than was supposed.”⁹⁴

On his way back from London on board S. S. Pilsana, Gandhiji gave a talk on Christ on Christmas Day, 1931. “I shall tell you,” he said, “how, to an outsider like me, the story of Christ, as told in the New Testament, has struck. My acquaintance with the Bible began nearly forty years ago, and that was through the New Testament. I could not then take much interest in Old Testament which I had certainly read, if only to fulfil a promise I had made to a friend whom I happened to meet in a hotel. But when I came to the New Testament and the Sermon on the Mount, I began to understand the Christian teaching and the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount echoed something I had learnt in childhood and something which seemed to be a part of my being and which I felt was being acted up to in the daily life around me.”

He had no u se, for the Jesus of history. “I may say,” he continued, “that I have never been interested in a historical Jesus. I should not care if it was proved by someone that the man called Jesus never lived, and that what was narrated in the Gospels was a figment of the writer’s imagination. For the Sermon on the Mount would still be true for me.” Finally, he came to Christianity as practised by Christians and as preached by the missionaries. “Reading, therefore, the whole story in that light,” he concluded, “it seems to me that Christianity has yet to be lived, unless one says that where there is boundless love and no idea of retaliation whatsoever, it is Christianity that lives. But then it surmounts all boundaries and book-teaching. Then it is something indefinable, not capable of being preached to men, not capable of being transmitted from mouth to mouth, but from heart to heart. But Christianity is not commonly understood that way.”⁹⁵

One of the Hindu practices which Christians regard as gross superstition and sin is idol-worship. A Christian, F. Mary Barr, sought Gandhiji’s opinion about it. In his letter dated November 30, 1932, Gandhiji wrote, “What must not be forgotten about me is that I do not consider idol-worship to be a sin, but I know that in some form or other it is a condition of our being. The difference between one form of worship and another is a difference in degree and not in kind. Mosque-going or Church-going is a form of idol-worship. Veneration for the Bible, the Koran, the Gita and the like is idol-worship and even if you don’t use a book or a building but draw a picture of divinity in your imagination and attribute certain qualities, it is again idol-worship and I refuse to call the worship of one who has a stone-image a grosser form of worship… it would be both arrogant and ignorant to look down upon such worship as superstition... All this is a plea for a definite recognition of the fact that all forms of honest worship are equally good and equally efficient for the respective worshippers. Time is gone for the exclusive possession of right by an individual or a group.”⁹⁶

Gandhiji had received a letter dated November 17, 1932 from Chas. Peacock stating that he was an Indian Christian who wanted to work for the removal of untouchability in Andhra “without surrendering my Christ... and without trying to change his religion.” He replied on December 10, 1932 stating that “Christians who have no desire to proselytise can render substantial help to the Anti-untouchability Movement by working under or with the ordinary Hindu organisations.” At the same time he added, “I observe from the correspondence I am receiving from Christian friends that the Hindu movement has quickened the conscience of Indian Christians and they are impatient to get rid of the taint in their midst.”⁹⁷ It was a hint that Mr. Peacock would do better to work for the removal of untouchability prevalent among Christians and leave Hindu untouchables to the Hindus.

He made the point abundantly clear in an interview to the Associated Press of India on January 2, 1933. He had received a letter from Colombo informing him that “non-Hindus consisting of a Buddhist, a Roman Catholic lady, a Christian and a few Muslims” had offered “what has been misnamed satyagraha” in order to secure-temple-entry for Hindu untouchables. “I have no hesitation whatsoever,” he told the press correspondent, “in saying that this could not be justified under any circumstances. It would be a most dangerous interference if non-Hindus were to express their sympathy by way of direct action. Indeed, I go as far as to say that direct action can be offered [only] by those caste. Hindus who are entitled to enter the temple in regard to which such action is taken, and who being entitled, believe in temple entry.”⁹⁸ In a letter to Horace Alexander written on January 5, 1933 he pointed out, “I get now and then piteous letters from Christian Indians who, being born of untouchable parents, are isolated from the rest of their fellows.”⁹⁹

Gandhiji received a letter from Amritlal Thakkar, a Malabar Christian, stating that “the Christian Harijan in Travancore is, in matter of civic, or social rights and in abject poverty, absolutely the same as his Hindu Harijan brother.” He wrote in the Young India of March 18, 1933, that ‘Christian Harijans’ should be a contradiction in terms because untouchability was regarded as a special curse of Hinduism. “The present movement,” he said “is automatically helping Christian Harijans, but I should be surprised if advantage is not being taken of the movement to drive out untouchability from the Church.”¹⁰⁰

The epic fast which Gandhiji had undertaken in order to oppose the separation of Harijans from Hindu society as intended by Ramsay MacDonald’s Communal Award, brought him many letters from the West. A majority of them were “full of goodwill and appreciation of it and the motive lying behind it.” But some letters were critical of the fast. One of them which Gandhiji published in full in the Harijan dated July 22, 1933, was from America and downright denunciatory. The writer thought that the fast had accomplished nothing, not even the publicity it was aimed at. “India whose culture and civilization,” said the writer, “goes back far beyond record, which was given the new tongue of Christ Jesus by Thomas, the disciple, in the first century, and in the centuries just past has been given many opportunities to face the light, still remains in pagan darkness, its caste system of society the greatest sore spot on the modern world.”¹⁰¹ The disciple of Jesus went ahead and repeated all the standard accusations that had been hurled by Christian missionaries against India for years on end - India’s women were “without soul”, India’s millions lived in “nauseating filth”, India’s ‘Holy Men’ sat “for years in some deformed position publicly torturing the body to liberate the soul”, and India’s “pagan religious rites” consisted of “striking the body full of nails, spears through the tongue, and other revolting tortures.” He said he had not read Miss Mayo’s Mother India but “am told on good authority that it is a compilation of facts - so horrible that I have known cases of extreme illness from reading it.”

The letter proved, if a proof was needed, that neither the protest registered by Vivekananda nor the admiration for Jesus expressed by Mahatma Gandhi had helped orthodox Christians to emerge out of the self-righteous ignorance in which they had enveloped themselves and stop their vicious propaganda against Hinduism. Gandhiji commented that the writer “starts with a bias and ends with it”, that he “repeats the exploded libel about the women of India”, that he had “evidently read literature containing ignorant and interested distortions”, and that he had indulged in “wild generalisations” about “the tortures which so-called yogis undergo.” He concluded, “One can pity the readers, if there were any such, who made themselves sick by reading a book which opened the drains of India and made the readers believe that they were India.”¹⁰² He was mild as ever and left it to the readers to judge for themselves the mind from which the letter had emanated.

One of the ways by which the Catholic Church in India sought to alienate Hindus from their ancestral religion was to insist that the children of Hindu husbands and Catholic wives would be brought up as Catholics. It had been seen that most Hindu young men who fell in love with Catholic girls yielded easily to this demand. The issue came before Gandhiji when Manu and Elizabeth, both of whom were known to him, decided for a love marriage. He was never enthusiastic about love marriages which he had seen failing in most cases after the first few years. Moreover, he was opposed to marriages tearing away young people from their families and favoured marriages seeking the “approval and blessings of the elders.”¹⁰³ So he expressed his views on the subject in a letter dated November 16, 1933 written to Efy Aristarchi, a friend of Manu and Elizabeth. “The most fatal objection, however,” he said, “that I can see to this proposed match, is that Elizabeth desires, and from her own standpoint perhaps naturally so, that the progeny should be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. I do not mind it at all. But, even though Manu may have no objection, his parents and his people whom he loves dearly will never be able to reconcile themselves to their grandchildren being brought up in a faith other than their own.”¹⁰⁴

His objection was based on his perception of “a conflict going on between Hindu culture and the Christianity of Indians.” He had seen that “Christianity has become synonymous with Western culture” which, in turn, “may be fittingly described as Christian culture” because “the religion of the Western people is predominantly Christianity.” On the other hand, “Indian culture would certainly be described as Hindu culture.” He, therefore, thought it proper that “the progeny of Elizabeth must be brought up in entirely different surroundings unless Manu decides to tear himself away from his surroundings and lives an exclusive life or decides to settle down in the West.”¹⁰⁵ He was of the firm opinion that “when husband and wife profess a different faith, the progeny should be brought up in the faith of the husband” and he had “sound religious and philosophic reasons for this proposition.”¹⁰⁶

As more and more Christian agencies were coming forward to work for the removal of untouchability, Gandhiji made his terms clear in a speech at the Leonard Theological College, Jabalpur, on December 7, 1993. While inviting these agencies to work in subordination to Hindu agencies set up for Harijan uplift, he said, “You may choose to work independently. You may have the conversion of Harijans to Christianity. You may see in the movement a chance for propaganda. If you work among the Harijans with such aim, you can see that the very end we have in view will be frustrated. If you believe that Hinduism is a gift, not of God, but of Satan, quite clearly you cannot accept my terms. You and I would be dishonest if we did not make clear to one another what we stand for.”¹⁰⁷

A group of Christian Harijans came to Gandhiji and the talk he had with them was published in the Harijan of February, 23, 1934. “We are in the same position,” they said, “as Adi-Dravida Hindus. Are we to have any share in this movement?” Gandhiji told them, “You are getting indirect benefit. The Christian missionaries are wide awake and recognize that they should do something.” They proceeded, “We have decided to face the oppressors boldly. We are thinking of changing our faith.” Gandhiji said, “I cannot say anything about that. But I feel that oppression can be no reason for changing our faith.” The Christian Harijans asked, “Shall we get any relief in future from this movement?” Gandhiji assured them, “Yes, I am absolutely certain that, if this movement succeeds untouchability in Christianity is also bound to go.”¹⁰⁸

Mahadev Desai recorded in the Harijan dated January 25, 1935 a talk which Gandhiji had with a friend who had reported to him that the progress of the anti-untouchability campaign had “disturbed some of our Missionary friends.” The friend said, “Your campaign is taking away from the Missionary’s popularity.” Gandhiji replied, “I see what you mean, but I do not know why it should disturb them. We are not traders trenching on one another’s province. If it is a matter of serving oneself, I should understand their attitude, but when it is entirely a matter of serving others, it should not worry them or me as to who serves them.”¹⁰⁹

The friend posed the question another way. “But perhaps,” he said, “the authorities in charge of a Mission hospital would rightly feel worried, if you sent your people to go and open a hospital in the same place.” Gandhiji explained, “But they should understand that ours is a different mission. We do not go there to afford them simply medical relief or a knowledge of the three R’s; our going to them is a small proof of our repentance and our assurance to them that we will not exploit them any more. I should never think of opening a hospital where there is already one; but if there is a Mission school, I should not mind opening another for Harijan children, and I would even encourage them to prefer our school to the other. Let us frankly understand the position. If the object is purely humanitarian, purely that of carrying education where there is none, they should be thankful that someone whose obvious duty it is to put his own house in order wakes up to a sense of his duty. But my trouble is that the Missionary friends do not bring to bear on their work a purely humanitarian spirit. Their object is to add more members to their fold, and that is why they are disturbed. The complaint which I have been making all these years is more than justified by what you say. Some of the friends of a Mission were the other day in high glee over the conversion to Christianity of a learned pandit. They have been dear friends, and so I told them that it was hardly proper to go into ecstasies over a man forsaking his religion. Today it is the case of a learned Hindu, tomorrow it may be that of an ignorant villager not knowing the principles of his religion. Why should Missionaries complain, if I open a school which is more liked by Harijans than theirs? Is it not natural?”¹¹⁰

The friend asked, “But if it was a pure case of conscience?” Gandhiji replied, “I am no keeper of anybody’s conscience, but I do feel that it argues some sort of weakness on the part of a person who easily declares his or her failure to derive comfort in the faith in which he or she is born.”¹¹¹

The Harijan dated March 29, 1935 published an interview which Gandhiji had given to a Christian missionary before March 22. The missionary “asked Gandhiji what was the most effective way of preaching the gospel of Christ, for that was his mission.” Gandhiji replied, “To live the gospel is the most effective way - most effective in the beginning, in the middle and in the end. Preaching jars on me and makes no appeal to me, and I get suspicious of missionaries who preach. But I love those who never preach but live the life according to their lights. Their lives are silent yet most effective testimonies... If, therefore, you go on serving people and ask them also to serve, then they would understand. But you quote instead John 3, 16 and ask them to believe it. That has no appeal to me, and I am sure people will not understand it. Where there has been acceptance of the gospel through preaching, my complaint is that there has been some motive.” The missionary said that “we also see it and try our best to guard against it.” Gandhiji observed, “But you can’t guard against it. One sordid motive vitiates the whole preaching. It is like a drop of poison which fouls the whole food. Therefore I should do without preaching at all. A rose does not need to preach. it simply spreads its fragrance… The fragrance of religious and spiritual life is much finer and subtler than that of the rose.”¹¹²

The same issue of the Harijan published another interview given by Gandhiji to some missionary ladies, also before March 22. One of their questions was whether the Harijan Sangh was doing “anything for the spiritual welfare of the people.” Gandhiji replied that “with me, moral includes spiritual” and that setting up a separate department for spiritual welfare will “make the thing doubly difficult.” The ladies said that they had “something to share with the others” and that was the Bible. “Now as for Harijans,” they asked, “who have no solace to get from Hinduism, how are we to meet their spiritual needs?” Gandhiji replied, “By behaving just like the rose. Does the rose proclaim itself, or is it self-propagated? Has it an army of missionaries proclaiming its beauties?”¹¹³ The ladies persisted, “But suppose someone asked us, where did you get the scent?” Gandhiji said, “The rose if it has sense and speech would say, ‘Fool, don’t you see that I got if from my maker?’”¹¹⁴

The Harijan dated May 11, 1935 published an interview given by Gandhiji to a missionary nurse before that date. The nurse asked him, “Would you prevent missionaries coming to India in order to baptise?” Gandhiji replied, “If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytising. It is the cause of much avoidable conflict between classes and unnecessary heart-burning among the missionaries… In Hindu households the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink.”¹¹⁵ The nurse commented, “Is it not the old conception you are referring to? No such thing is now associated with proselytisation.” Gandhiji was well-informed about missionary methods. He said, “The outward condition has perhaps changed but the inward mostly remains the same. Vilification of Hindu religion, though subdued, is there. If there was a radical change in the missionaries’ outlook, would Murdoch’s books be allowed to be sold in mission depots? Are those books prohibited by missionary societies? There is nothing but vilification of Hinduism in those books. You talk of the conception being no longer there. The other day a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple and demolished it. This is outrageous. The temple could not belong to the converted, and it could not belong to the Christian missionary. But this friend goes and gets it demolished at the hands of the very men who only a little while ago believed that God was there.”¹¹⁶

The nurse took shelter behind the Bible. “But, Mr. Gandhi,” she asked, “why do you object to proselytisation? Is not there enough in the Bible to authorise us to invite people to a better way of life?” Gandhiji replied, “If you interpret your texts in the way you seem to do, you straightaway condemn a large part of humanity unless it believes as you do.... And cannot he who has not heard the name of Jesus Christ do the will of the Lord?”¹¹⁷

The Harijan dated May 25, 1935 published a discussion which Gandhiji had with Pierre Ceresole on May 16. He told Gandhiji about a book, India in the Dark Wood, which he had recently read and which wanted “the main framework of the dominant Hindu philosophy to be shattered.” The author of another book, Jesus: Lord or Leader?, also read recently by Ceresole, on the other hand, “rejects the claim of Christianity as the final religion and pines for a ‘fuller and richer faith than we have reached and to believe that God who has nowhere left Himself without witness, will use the highest institutions of other systems and many races to enrich the thinking and worship of mankind.’ He sees definite gain -in the abandonment of special claim for the inspiration of the Bible, and classes himself among those ‘who humbly desire to follow Jesus as leader, though their view of truth will not allow them to worship him as Lord’.” Gandhiji commanded the second approach, saying “There is a swing in the pendulum.”¹¹⁸

Gandhiji was carrying on a discussion with Mr. A. A. Paul of the Federation of International Fellowships “on the so-called mass conversion of a village predominantly or wholly composed of Harijans.”¹¹⁹ Mr. Paul asked him to “publish a statement giving your view of conversion?” Gandhiji replied that it would be easier for him if Mr. Paul could formulate some questions to which he could reply. So the Executive Committee of the International Fellowship in Madras sent to him nine propositions which he published in the Harijan dated September 29, 1935 with his own comments on them.

The first proposition was: Conversion is a change of heart from sin to God. It is the work of God. Sin is separation from God.¹²⁰ Gandhiji observed, “If conversion is the work of God why should the work be taken away from Him?… I often wonder if we are true judges of our own hearts... And if we know so little of ourselves, how much less we know of our neighbours and remote strangers who may differ from us in a multitude of things, some of which are of the highest moment?”¹²¹

The second proposition was: The Christian believes that Jesus is the fulfilment of God’s revelation to mankind, that he is our Saviour from sin, that he alone can bring a sinner to God and thus enable him to live.¹²² Gandhiji said, “The second proposition deals with the Christian belief handed to the believer from generation to generation, the truth of which thousands of Christians born are never called upon to test for themselves, and rightly not. Surely it is a dangerous thing to present it to those who have been brought up in a different belief. And it would appear to me to be impertinent on my part to present my untested belief to the professor of another which for aught I know may be as true as mine. It is highly likely that mine may be good enough for me and his for him.”¹²³

aThe third proposition was: The Christian, to whom God has become a living reality and power through Christ, regards it as his privilege and duty to speak about Jesus and to proclaim the free offer which He came on earth to make.¹²⁴ Gandhiji said, “The third proposition too, like the first, relates to mysteries of religion which are not understood by the common people who take them in faith. They work well enough among people living in the traditional faith. They will repel those who have been brought up to believe something else.”¹²⁵

The next five propositions stated that if a man wanted to repent and live a new life as a disciple of Jesus, the Christian regards it as his right to admit him to the Christian Church; that the Christian will do all in his power to test the sincerity of the convert and point out the consequences of conversion; that the Christian will try his best to prevent conversion for material considerations; that the Christian shall not be accused of using material inducements if the conversion results in the social uplift of the convert; and that the Christian was right in accepting as his duty the care of the sincere convert, body, soul and mind.¹²⁶ “The other five propositions,” commented Gandhiji, “deal with the conduct of the missionary among those whom he is seeking to convert. They seem to me almost impossible of application in practice. The start being wrong all that follows must be necessarily so. Thus how is the Christian to sound the sincerity of the conviction of his hearers? By a show of hands? By personal conversation? By a temporary trial? Any test that can be conceived will fail even to be reasonably conclusive. No one but God knows a man’s heart. Is the Christian so sure of his being so right in body, mind and soul as to feel comfortably ‘right in accepting as his duty the care of the sincere convert - body, soul and mind’?”¹²⁷

The last proposition was: It shall not be brought against the Christian that he is using material inducements, when certain facts in Hindu social theory, out of his control, are in themselves an inducement to the Harijans.¹²⁸ Gandhiji said, “The last proposition - the crown of all the preceding ones - takes one’s breath away. For it makes it clear that the other eight are to be applied in all their fullness to the poor Harijans. And yet the very first proposition has not ceased to puzzle the brains of some of the most intellectual and philosophical persons even in the present generation. Who knows the nature of original sin? What is the meaning of separation from God? Are all who preach the message of Jesus the Christ sure of their union with God? If they are not, who will test the Harijan’s knowledge of these deep things?”¹²⁹

“It is a conviction daily growing upon me,” concluded Gandhiji, “that the great and rich Christian missions will render true service to India, if they can persuade themselves to confine their activities to humanitarian service without ulterior motive of converting India or at least her unsophisticated villagers to Christianity, and destroying their social superstructure, which notwithstanding its many defects, has stood now from time immemorial the onslaught upon it from within and without. Whether they - the missionaries - and we wish it or not, what is true in the Hindu faith will abide, what is untrue will fall to pieces.”¹³⁰

Extracts from a letter from a Christian friend of Gandhiji were reproduced in the Harijan dated April 18, 1936. He quoted Jesus as saying to the Jews, “If you believe not that I am He, you shall die of your sins” and “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh into the Father, but by me.” Next, he threw a challenge to Gandhiji, “You must either believe Him to have been self-deceived or deliberately false.” Finally, he declared, “I pray daily that Christ may grant to you a revelation of Himself as He did to Saul of Tarsus, that… you may be used to proclaim to India’s millions the sacrificial efficacy of His precious blood.”¹³¹ Gandhiji wrote, “This is a typical letter from an old English friend who regularly writes such letters almost every six months. This friend is very earnest and well known to me. But there are numerous other correspondents unknown to me who write in the same strain without arguing. Since I now cannot for reasons of health write to individual writers, I use this letter as a text for a general reply.”¹³²

“My correspondent,” continued Gandhiji, “is a literalist… My very first reading of the Bible showed me that I would be repelled by many things in it if I gave their literal meaning to many texts or even took every passage in it as the word of God. I should find it hard to believe in the literal meaning of the verses relating to the immaculate conception of Jesus. Nor would it deepen my regard for Jesus if I gave those verses their literal meaning… The miracles said to have been performed by Jesus even if I had believed them literally would not have reconciled me to anything that did not satisfy universal ethics… Jesus then to me is a great world-teacher among others. He was to the devotees of his generation no doubt ‘the only begotten son of God’. Their belief need not be mine. I regard him as one among the many begotten sons of God.”¹³³ Finally, he said, “The Gita has become for me the key to the scriptures of the world. It unravels for me the deepest mysteries to be found in them. I regard them with the same reverence that I pay to the Hindu scriptures. Hindus, Mussalmans, Christians, Parsis, Jews are convenient labels. But when I tear them down, I do not know which is which.”¹³⁴

On or after May 10, 1936 Gandhiji had a discussion with Professor Rahm, a reputed biologist from Switzerland. Dr. Rahm said that he was “perplexed by the many warring creeds in the world and wondered if there was no way of ending the conflict.” Gandhiji gave a very straight-forward reply. “It depends,” he said, “on Christians. If only they would make up their mind to unite with the others! But they will not do so. Their solution is universal acceptance of Christianity as they believe it. An English friend has been at me for the last forty years trying to persuade me that there is nothing but damnation in Hinduism and that I must accept Christianity. When I was in jail, I got, from three separate sources, no less than three copies of the Life of Sister Therese, in the hope that I should follow her example and accept Jesus as the only begotten son of God and my Saviour. I read the book prayerfully but I could not accept even St. Therese’s testimony for myself.”¹³⁵

Gandhiji proceeded to make his position quite clear vis-a-vis orthodox Christianity. “But today,” he said, “I rebel against orthodox Christianity, as I am convinced that it has distorted the message of Jesus. He was an Asiatic whose message was delivered through many media and when it had the backing of a Roman emperor, it became an imperialist faith which it remains today. Of course there are noble but rare exceptions like Andrews and Elwin. But the general trend is the same.”¹³⁶ For the first time he did not try to reinterpret Christianity for Christians. The obstinacy shown by the orthodox Christians had hardened his attitude.

A Polish student brought a photograph to Gandhiji and got it autographed by him. “There is,” he said, “a school conducted by Catholic Fathers. I shall help the school from the proceeds of the sale of this photograph.” Gandhiji took back the photograph from the student and said, “Ah, that is a different story. You do not expect me to support the Fathers in their mission of conversion? You know what they do?” The Harijan of June 27, 1936 which relates this incident, continues, “And with this he told him… the story of the so-called conversions in the vicinity of Tiruchengodu, the desecration and demolition of the Hindu temple, how he had been requested by the International Fellowship of Faiths to forbear writing about the episode as they were trying to intervene, how ultimately even the intervention of that body composed mainly of Christians had failed, and how he was permitted to write about it in the Harijan. He, however, had deliberately refrained from writing in order not to exacerbate feelings on the matter.”¹³⁷

The Harijan dated July 18, 1936 published a discussion which Gandhiji had with Pierre Ceresole and some Christian missionaries. The dialogue deserves to be reproduced at some length because it shows most clearly the missionary mentality and Gandhiji’s opposition to it:

(Missionary Lady) I have not had the time or desire to evangelize. The Church at home would be happy if through our hospital more people would be led to Christian lives.

(Gandhiji) But whilst you give the medical help you expect the reward in the shape of your patients becoming Christians.

(M.L.) Yes, the reward is expected. Otherwise there are many other places in the world which need our service. But instead of going there we come here.

“(G.) There is the kink. At the back of your mind there is not pure service for its sake, but the result of service in the shape of many people coming to the Christian fold. (M.L.) In my own work there is no ulterior motive. I care for people, I cannot do otherwise. The source of this is my loyalty to Jesus who ministered to suffering humanity. At the back of my mind there is, I admit, the desire that people may find the same joy in Jesus that I find. Where is the kink?

(G.) The kink is in the Church thinking that there are people in whom certain things are lacking and that you must supply them whether they want them or not if you simply say to your patients, ‘You have taken the medicine I gave you. Thank God. He has healed you. Don’t come again’, you have done your duty. But if you also say, ‘How nice it would be if you had the same faith in Christianity as I have’, you do not make your medicine a free gift.

(M.L.) But if I feel I have something medically and spiritually which I can give, how can I keep it?

(G.) There is a way out of the difficulty. You must feel that what you possess your patient also can possess but through a different route. You will say to yourself, ‘I have come through this route, you may come through a different route.’ Why should you want him to pass through your university and no other?

(M.L.) Because I have my partiality for my Alma Mater.

(G.) There is my difficulty. Because you adore your mother you cannot wish that all the others were your
mother’s  children.

(M.L.) That is a physical impossibility.

(G.) Then this one is a spiritual impossibility. God has the whole humanity as His children. How can I limit God’s grace by my little mind and say this is the only way? 

(M.L.)