“My Letters” reveals not only the subject and object well but also the person, personality and attitude of Mahatma Gandhi. One can know real Gandhi through these letters, and his views about:
Vibhajan
Purna Swarajya
Bharat Chhodo
Ahimsa
Satyagraha
Asahayoga
Khadi
Harijan
Vishwa Yuddha
Gandhi’s determination and confidence, his devotion and dedication towards the greater cause of nation and humanity, have found profound expression in his letters.
Gandhi’s perception of each situation or issue is crystal clear and shown well through the letters. There is no illusion or dilemma. He had no doubt about what he was doing and what he was asking the people to do.
His ideas are clearly expressed in the letters. Such open and clear minds are rare. Without any shred of doubt, Gandhi was a rare figure.
“My Letters,” including Gandhi Re-introduced, is illuminating and will enrich the inner core. The letters are relevant and essential because of the global instability and terrorism.
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SECTION - I
Gandhi Re-introduced
The Need for Re-introduction
Pragmatic Gandhian Philosophy
Gandhi: An Attached and Detached Personality
Important Events in the Life of Mahatma Gandhi
Imprisonments of Mahatma Gandhi
Fasts Observed by Mahatma Gandhi
The Letters
SECTION - II
Selected But Complete Letters
Letters to..... Moti Lal Nehru
Jawahar Lal Nehru
Vallabh Bhai Patel
M.A. Jinnah
Lord Mountbatten
Lord Wavell
Lord Irwin
The Viceroy
Mira Behn
Adolf Hitler
Subhash Chandra Bose
Sarojini Naidu
C. Raja Gopalachari
G. D. Birla
Rabindra Nath Tagore
F. D. Roosevelt
S. Radhakrishnan
Jaiprakash Narayan
Prabhavati
Rajendra Prasad
J. B. Kripalani
Kasturba Gandhi
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Sample Chapters
(Following is an extract of the content from the book) | Hide  |
A Letter to Adolf Hitler
If there was any centralised power and dominance, it was Hitler. He had grown so strong and punished his enemies in such a way that the other European and American countries joined hands to wipe him out. They needed a World War to end the reign of Hitler, whose some friends deccived him. Even after his death, Hitler is a power to reckon with and an emblem of fear that shakes even strong hearts and militant brains. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1899 at Braunau am Inn in Austria and died on April 30, 1945 in Berlin, Germany. He is always known as the Dictator of Nazi Germany. He ruled from 1933 to 1945. Hitler moved from Vienna to Munich in 1913. He fought the World War-I as a soldier in the German Army. After the war, he joined German Workers’ Party in 1919. In 1920, he became head of propaganda for the re-named National Socialists or Nazi Party. He became the party leader in 1921. Using unrelenting propaganda, he created a mass movement. The party’s rapid growth came to climax in 1923 in Beer Hall Putsch for which he served nine months in prison. In the jail, he wrote his virulent autobiography ‘Mein Kampf.’ In it he propounded anti-semitism, anti-communism and extreme German Nationalism. He advocated inequality, exalted and advocated the superiority of the ‘Aryan Race’. The economic slump of 1929 held him and renewed his inner vigour and political power. In 1932, Hitler seriously contested for the president but lost. He entered intrigues to gain legitimate power. In 1933, Paul Von Hinderburg invited him to be the Chancellor. He became the Chancellor and adopted the title of Fuhrer, which means ‘leader’. He gained dictatorial power with the Enabling Act. He suppressed opposition with the assistance of Heinrich Himmer and Joseph Goebbels. He started enacting anti-Jewish measures, which culminated in the famous holocaust. He became an ally of Benito Mussolini in the Rome-Berlin Axis. The German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact of 1939 enabled him to invade Poland and participate in the World War-II. It is said that in an underground bunker in Berlin, he married Eva Braun and the very next day they committed suicide. Gandhi wrote three letters to Hitler. The British Government did not allow one letter to be sent. One letter of Gandhi is available and is printed here. It speaks volumes. WARDHA, December 24, 1940 DEAR FRIEND, That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed. I hope you will have the time and desire to know how a good portion of humanity who have been living under the influence of that doctrine of universal friendship view your action. We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents. But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in universal friendliness. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity. Hence, we cannot possibly wish success to your arms. But ours is a unique position. We resist British Imperialism no less than Nazism. If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny. Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field. Ours is an unarmed revolt against the British rule. But whether we convert them or not, we are determined to make their rule impossible by non-violent non-co-operation. It is a method in its nature indefensible. It is based on the knowledge that no spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or compulsory, of the victim. Our rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls. They can have the former only by complete destruction of every Indian—man, woman and child. That all may not rise to that degree of heroism and that a fair amount of frightfulness can bend the back of revolt is true but the argument would be beside the point. For, if a fair number of men and women be found in India who would be prepared without any ill will against the spoliators to lay down their lives rather than bend the knee to them, they would have shown the way to freedom from the tyranny of violence. I ask you to believe me when I say that you will find an unexpected number of such men and women in India. They have been having that training for the past 20 years. We have been trying for the past half a century to throw off the British rule. The movement of independence has been never so strong as now. The most powerful political organisation, I mean the Indian National Congress, is trying to achieve this end. We have attained a very fair measure of success through non-violent effort. We were groping for the right means to combat the most organised violence in the world which the British power represents. You have challenged it. It remains to be seen which is the better organised, the German or the British. We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid. We have found in non-violence a force which, if organised, can without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most violent forces in the world. In non-violent technique, as I have said, there is no such thing as defeat. It is all ‘do or die’ without killing or hurting. It can be used practically without money and obviously without the aid of science of destruction which you have brought to such perfection. It is a marvel to me that you do not see that it is nobody’s monopoly. If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud. They cannot take pride in a recital of cruel deed, however skilfully planned. I, therefore, appeal to you in the name of humanity to stop the war. You will lose nothing by referring all the matters of dispute between you and Great Britain to an international tribunal of your joint choice. If you attain success in the war, it will not prove that you were in the right. It will only prove that your power of destruction was greater. Whereas an award by an impartial tribunal will show as far as it is humanly possible which party was in the right. You know that not long ago I made an appeal to every Briton to accept my method of non-violent resistance. I did it because the British know me as a friend though a rebel. I am a stranger to you and your people. I have not the courage to make you the appeal I made to every Briton. Not that it would not apply to you with the same force as to the British. But my present proposal is much simple because much more practical and familiar. During this season when the hearts of the peoples of Europe yearn for peace, we have suspended even our own peaceful struggle. Is it too much to ask you to make an effort for peace during a time which may mean nothing to you personally but which must mean much to the millions of Europeans whose dumb cry for peace I hear, for my ears are attuned to hearing the dumb millions? I had intended to address a joint appeal to you and Signor Mussolini, whom I had the privilege of meeting when I was in Rome during my visit to England as a delegate to the Round Table Conference. I hope that he will take this as addressed to him also with the necessary changes. I am, Your sincere friend, M. K. GANDHI
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