For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Experiment on nature cure by Mahatma Gandhi, Part-III

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No.- 09404955338

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net

Experiment on nature cure by Mahatma Gandhi, Part-III

Nature Cure is the system of therapeutics in which surgery and prescription medications are avoided, and preparations such as vitamins, nutritional supplements, and herbs are used to treat and prevent disease. It is a method of treating disease using food and exercise and heat to assist the natural healing process. Mahatma Gandhi was a very fond of nature. He knew it very well that nature has given everything to us. All plants, leaves, flowers, fruits have some medicinal property. So he did a lot of experiments on it. He guided to their associates for it. Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I am able to write to you only after coming here. Manu suffered quite a lot. Her nose bled all day long. She had fever also. Now it seems that her nose will not bleed and she will get no fever either. I have brought Manu here. Treatment and care were provided by Sushilabehn. Sometimes I took courage in both hands and tried nature-cure remedies.”76

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I think you should acquire a thorough knowledge of nature cure during your stay at Bhimavaram. I hope there is no trace of untouchability in Bhimavaram. If there is, you can be of help to Dr. Raju even there. I expect you to keep spinning and weaving while you are there. Improve your health. Then we shall see what to do. Read books on nature cure also. You will have to spend at least a year in Bhimavaram.”77 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Bhai Dinshaw is here. He is agreeable to all other conditions; but wants an undertaking that the Trust village will continue to be available for nature cure for at least five years after the document is signed. Later, if the attempt fails, the movable or immovable property of the Trust may be used for educational purposes.”78

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “In Poona too there is Godbole. He has been to America. He gives nature cure treatment. However, what you are doing is all right. My faith was the main thing in the treatment I gave. Everyone would say that such a major case should have been taken to a doctor. May your son get well. How can I give three or four hours to your father-in-law? I do not have even a moment’s time. He can ask me if there is anything. I shall reply when I have the time.”79 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “You consider experiments on living animals and taking of glands, liver and so on as part of nature cure. That seems to me going too far. This needs to be considered. It will not matter if you do not reply to this. Only you must think over it. I am all right. Mangaldas Pakvasa is doing everything. He may come here. I went and saw the land yesterday. I have not been to see the land recommended by Pandit, and I don’t intend to go. Gulbehn gives me a bath daily.”80

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “My conception of nature cure, like everything else, has undergone progressive evolution. And for years I have believed that, if a person is filled with the presence of God and has thus attained the state of dispassion, he can surmount handicaps against long life. I have come to the conclusion, based on observation and scriptural reading, that when a man comes to that complete living faith in the Unseen Power and has become free from passion, the body undergoes internal transformation.”81 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Follow nature-cure methods at the hospital. You must know the rules of cleanliness and observe them meticulously. There are too many mosquitoes there. Just because you are taking work from the poor women you should not put up with their indifferent performance. As a doctor and a householder it is your duty to teach them cleanliness. It should be your job to eradicate mosquitoes from the neighborhood. You should know how to do that. How can you call yourself a nature-cure doctor if you do not do all these things? I can write much along these lines but I am sure you are one of those to whom a word is enough. For this reason and also because I do not have the time I am not prolonging the letter.”82

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “You will recover. Don’t take too many drugs. Gunaji is acquainted with nature cure and also believes in it.”83 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “According to the theory of nature cure, all diseases have one single original cause. If that is true, the statement that “my health is good in other ways” is meaningless. This letter is just to amuse you and myself and also to show you that I think of you every day.”84 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “The dirt which is there in the clinic all the time should be completely removed. There should not be any leakage. Cleanliness should have the first place in nature-cure. If the expenses go up on that account, let them.”85

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Sardar and I keep receiving telegrams suggesting that you should be put up as a candidate for the Central Legislative Assembly. I myself have no interest in the elections. A durbar daily assembles round the Sardar, but I know nothing about it. Ordinarily he does not talk to me nor do I ask him anything. I attend to my work and he attends to his. The only reason for our being together this time is his nature-care treatment. He does not have much faith in nature care while I have. An operation would be a very risky affair. No doctor except Dr. Deshmukh advises it. That is why he has put faith in me and is undergoing nature-cure treatment. I have, accordingly, brought him to Dr. Mehta for I have faith in him. My own knowledge of nature cure is superficial. I have given this introduction because I thought it necessary.”86

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Pyarelal’s fever has come down today. Perhaps it will touch normal now. Sushila looks after him, but he is being given nature-cure treatment.”87 Nature cure refer to methods of self-healing, often using fasting, dieting, rest or hydrotherapy. Some of these are, for example, used in the following systems of alternative medicine. Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Please do not think that just because I have been given assurance about Nasik no other alternative should be considered. Nature-cure work is of great importance. If carried on well it can have far-reaching results the scope of which can hardly be envisaged today. It must also be considered to what extent Dinshaw can fit into this set-up. If you think it necessary to see me before taking any decision in the matter and if you can find some time, come and talk it over. But if the matter can be settled through correspondence, you need not come. In spite of my great interest in this work you should take it that I am acting in a detached way. If I am to live for 125 years, there is also this condition that my sense of objectivity, that is, non-attachment should increase day by day and approximate as much to perfection as is humanly possible. I do not know how this can happen or whether it will happen at all. Why should I even wish to know? Let me keep that ideal in view and do what I consider to be my duty. I know this much that it is difficult to reach that ideal. But my life has been spent in tackling difficult tasks.”88

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “The person I send to manage things here will stay here. Meat will be cooked in the kitchen for only Maji and any members of your family who may be visiting but not for any patient. My dharma tells me that non-vegetarian food, such as mutton, liver, etc., have no place in nature cure. I do not suggest that those things have not benefited or cannot benefit anyone. All I say is that in my view they cannot be included in nature cure. The entire portion I am occupying at present will be reserved for you and Gulbai and it should not be necessary at any time to vacate it even for me. Whenever I come, I can live anywhere on the upper floor. It will not be difficult for me even to stay in the room which Saralabehn is at present occupying. If it rains I can settle in the bathroom. But it is not the least bit fair for me to occupy the portion especially built for Gulbai.”89

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I do not even see the three-year training being given here which you thought was necessary. That is not correct. But in this matter, I have got to be content with whatever you can easily provide. If you think that thereby the whole thing would completely change and if it is not proper for me to interfere to such an extent, you can remove me. If I were to involve myself in the matter, I would let things continue as they are. I receive letters from people from all over. They are willing to help in this or even join in. Some of them I must admit are very good. But till such time as I see you as a votary of nature cure and know who will be the right people to work with you, I would not like to admit any nature cure expert. If I run this workshop I would like to pass on its benefits to the thousands of people outside. For that, I would naturally need to have a large number of workers. Only when that happens, can we at last have something like a university.”90

Nature cure and Yoga are deeply related. Yoga is a science which develops the human personality by affecting all aspects of his existence and provides him complete health, prosperity, happiness and peace. Yogic behaviour changes the gunas i.e. Rajas. Nature and all its elements are composed of these three gunas. Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I had purposely refrained from correcting or contradicting reports about my shifting to Poona and establishing a nature cure hospital on an extensive plot of ground in Poona or even Nasik. All this was wrong, as most unauthentic reports in the Press are. These have always cost me dear, perhaps the public more than me. There was, however, a grain of truth in the ounce of rumour. Dr. Dinshaw Mehta knew me before I knew him and, ever since I have known him, I have liked him. I have been myself a nature cure man before all known to me. Of them, Dr. Dinshaw has made the greatest impression on me and he is a dreamer like me. He wants a nature cure university; so do I. He has made over to a Trust his concerns at Poona and Sinhgad. Their nominal cost, according to the schedules to the Trust, is, in round figures, Rs. 50,000. I have allowed myself to be one of the Trustees. The other two are Dr. Mehta himself and Mr. Jehangir Patel who is interested in nature cure. Hitherto Dr. Mehta’s institution has been meant for monied men and then for as many poor people as he could safely take. Patients have all been residential.”91

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Readers are aware that I have become co-trustee with Shree Jehangir Patel and with Dr. Dinshaw Mehta in his clinic at Poona. A condition of the trust is that from January 1 this year the clinic should become a clinic for the poor instead of for the rich. The conception was mine but owing to my absence on tour the condition has not been wholly fulfilled. I am hoping to go to Poona this month, however, and trust I shall be able to do some work in this connection. My fervent hope is that rich patients will, if they came, pay to their fullest capacity and yet live in the same wards as the poor. I believe that by doing so they will derive more benefit from henceforth. Those unwilling to abide by this condition need not trouble to go to the clinic. This rule is necessary. In addition to treatment for their ailments, poor patients will also be taught how to live healthy lives. It is a common belief today that nature cure is expensive, more so than Ayurvedic or allopathic. If this is proved to be true, I shall have to admit failure. But I believe that the opposite is true, and my experience also bears out the belief. It is the duty of a nature cure doctor not only to look after the body but also pay attention to and prescribe for the soul of a patient. The best prescription for the soul is, of course, Ramanama (God’s name). I cannot today go into the meaning of and method of applying Ramanama. I will only say that the poor do not stand in need of much medicine. They die uncared for as it is. Their ignorance makes them blind to what nature teaches us. If the Poona experiment succeeds, Dr. Dinshaw Mehta’s dream of a nature cure university will come true. Help of India’s true nature cure doctors is needed in this great work for the country. There can be no question of making money in it. The need is for those who are filled with the spirit of service to the poor and only with a sufficient number of such doctors can the work progress. The mere title of a doctor is no criterion; a real doctor is he who is a true servant. Those who have experience and knowledge and are anxious to serve may write with a list of their qualifications. No replies will be given to those whose qualifications are not up to the standard. Readers will please note that work has increased with the revival of Harijan. There will, therefore, be very little scope for replying to individual letters.”92

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Nature cure treatment means that treatment which befits man. By ‘man’ is meant not merely man as animal but as a creature possessing, in addition to his body, both mind and soul. For such a being, Ramanama is the truest nature cure treatment. It is an unfailing remedy. The expression ramban, or infallible cure, is derived from it. Nature too indicates that for man it is the worthy remedy. No matter what the ailment from which a man may be suffering, recitation of Ramanama from the heart is the sure cure. God has many names. Each person can choose the name that appeals most to him. Iswar, Allah, Khuda, God mean the same. But the recitation must not be parrot-like, it must be born of faith of which endeavour will be some evidence. What should the endeavour consist of? Man should seek out and be content to confine the means of cure to the five elements of which the body is composed, i. e., earth, water, akash, sun and air. Of course Ramanama must be the invariable accompaniment. If, in spite of this, death supervenes, we may not mind. On the contrary, it should be welcomed. Science has not so far discovered any recipe for making the body immortal. Immorality is an attribute of the soul. That is certainly imperishable but it is man’s duty to try to express its purity. If we accept the above reasoning, it will automatically limit the means permissible under nature cure. And man is thereby saved from all the paraphernalia of big hospitals and eminent doctors, etc. The large majority of persons in the world can never afford these. Why then should the few desire what the many cannot have?”93

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Today I am attending to a few letters among which your letter catches my eye. What you write about Gomati2 is quite understandable. Some nature cure practitioners can diagnose a case which allopathic doctors cannot, but this cannot be applied in the case of Gomati, and I am of the opinion that Dr. Dinshaw cannot cope with the case. He has plenty to recommend himself. He is liberal but has fallen into a track which he is not likely to give up all at once. He is pulling on with what is not to his liking, thanks to his boundless faith in me. I have taken up the burden of running the clinic under these circumstances. He will guide us wherever we may ask him. Hence even if Dhirubhai comes, he cannot have the benefit of Dinshawji’s knowledge, his brilliance and experience. At present he can utilize my own limited knowledge. Dinshaw himself is physical culture personified but he does instruct others. He is possessed by nature cure, by his desire to establish university for it, and he entertains a hope that it will come to be through his association with me. If this department should wholly belong to the poor, we may bid on it some hope of establishing a university. Under the circumstances, I don’t think we can give satisfaction to Dhirubhai. I have a feeling that something like Ashram life might come to be here, as though I could do nothing else! Or, maybe, I was not interested in anything else! Thus I am proceeding willingly as well as unwillingly. I am sending away from what may be called the menial staff; it remains to be seen how far I succeed. Therefore, if Dhirubhai and such others came, they will have through experience of sanitation and other work and will have to be content with my own knowledge of nature cure, such as it is. If, in the mean while, Dinshaw opens up and acquires the ability of transferring his knowledge to others, we can make some progress.”94

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “It is plain to me as it has become to some of my friends that I am incorrigible. I can learn only by my mistakes.4 I do not know why I could not learn through objections or warnings from others.5 I can learn only when I stumble and fall and feel the pain. As children we all used to learn this way. My condition is just like a child’s even in my 76th year. I have just discovered myself making a mistake which I should never have made. I have known Dr. Dinshaw Mehta for a long time. He has dedicated his life solely to nature cure of his conception. His one ambition is to see a full-fledged nature cure university established in India. A university worth the name must be predominantly for the prevention and cure of the diseases of the poor villagers of India. No such university exists in the world. The institutes in the West are designed more for the rich than for the poor. I feel that I know the method of nature cure for the villagers of India. Therefore I should at once have known that nature cure for the villagers could not be attempted in Poona city. But a Trust was made. Very sober Jehangirji Patel permitted himself to be a co-trustee with Dr. Mehta and me, and I hastened to Poona to run for the poor Dr. Mehta’s erstwhile Clinic which was designed for the rich. I suggested some drastic changes; but last Monday1 the knowledge dawned upon me that I was a fool to think that I could ever hope to make an institute for the poor in town. I realized that if I cared for the ailing poor, I must go to them and not expect them to come to me. This is true of ordinary medicinal treatment. It is much more so of nature cure. How is a villager coming to Poona to understand and carry out my instructions to apply mud-poulties, take sun cure, hip and friction sitz-baths or certain foods cooked conservatively?2 Will it not be impudence? The villager would go away nodding, but at the same time he would smile and think that the person who advised him to undergo nature cure was a fool. He would expect me to give him a powder or a potion to swallow and be done with it. Nature cure connotes a way of life which has to be learnt; it is not a drug cure as we understand it. The treatment to be efficacious can, therefore, only take place in or near a man’s cottage or house. It demands from its physician sympathy and patience and knowledge of human nature. When he has successfully practiced in this manner in a village, or villages, when enough men and women have understood the secret of nature cure, a nucleus for a nature cure university is founded. It should not have required eleven days’ special stay in the institute to discover and all its attendant paraphernalia for my purpose. I do not know whether to laugh or weep over my folly. I laughed at it and made haste to undo the blunder. This confession completes the reparation.1 I have not learnt to give up any work once begun and therefore there is only one alternative left for me. In which village should I start this work? I should like the reader to draw the moral that he should never take anything for gospel truth even if it comes from a Mahatma unless it appeals to both his head and heart. In the present case my folly is so patent that even if it had continued for some time, very few, if any, would have succumbed to it. The real villagers would not have come for relief to this institute. But if the discovery had come too late, it would have blasted my reputation for I would have lost in my own estimation. Nothing hurts a man more than the loss of self-respect. I do not know that now I deserve the confidence of my fellowmen. If I lost it, I know that I shall have deserved the loss. To complete the story I must tell the reader that not a piece of the money earmarked for the poor ailing villagers has been spent on this abortive enterprise. What shape the present institution will now take and where and how poor man’s nature cure will be tried is no part of this confession. The result of the initial mistake must not, however, be an abandonment of the new pursuit that I have taken up in the so-called evening of my life. It must, on the contrary, be a clearer and more vigorous pursuit of the ideal of nature cure for the millions, if such a thing is at all practicable. Possible it certainly is.2 So far as I am concerned it is enough if this mistake makes me more cautious in realizing my ideals. Time alone can say whether or not poor villagers would welcome nature cure. There is no reason to doubt that it should be welcome.”95

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Letters are being received in large numbers from patients wanting to be admitted to the Nature Cure Clinic at Poona. Let me inform them that no such facility exists at present. The standard of cleanliness that was intended to be introduced into the institution has not been reached. Work for the village people has not yet been started. So long as the preliminary adaptations are not complete, nothing can be done. The patients have, therefore, to wait. Dr. Dinshaw Mehta’s Nature Cure Clinic at Bombay is no doubt there. He may open branches at Poona and Sinhagarh also. But since he has undertaken heavy responsibility in connection with the Nature Cure Trust, all this may take time. For private patients the scale of his fees will continue as before.”96

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “In the case of the ordinary method of treatment, the patient comes to the doctor to take drugs that would cure him. The doctors prescribe the drug. With the relief of abnormal symptoms in the patient, his function ends and with that his interest in the patient. The nature cure man does not ‘sell a cure’ to the patient. He teaches him the right way of living in his home which would not only cure him of his particular ailment but also save him from falling ill I future. The ordinary doctor or vaidya is interested mostly in the study of disease. The nature curist is interested more in the study of health. His real interest begins where that of the ordinary doctor ends; the eradication of the patient’s ailment under nature cure marks only the beginning of a way of life in which there is no room for illness or disease. Nature cure is thus a way of life, not a course of treatment.”97

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “For the nature cure clinic I must select some village. I am looking around for it here. My plan is that the period from February to the end of July should be spent in a comparatively cool place, including April and May in the hills. This arrangement cannot be made in Gujarat. Abu is the only hill station, and it does not have a climate comparable to that of Panchgani or Mahabaleshvar. Nor have I found cool climate like that of Poona anywhere in Gujarat. I am telling you all this in order that you should have nothing to complain about later. However, do you think one could find a place in Gujarat where nature cure work could be done and also where the above conditions be satisfied? And would you really prefer it? Nature cure is no longer a hobby with me. I must try it out in detail.”98

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “The practice of nature cure does not require high academic qualifications or much erudition. Simplicity is the essence of universality. Nothing that is meant for the benefit of the millions requires much erudition. The latter can benefit the rich only. But India lives in her seven lakhs of villages obscure, tiny, out-of-the-way villages where the population in some cases hardly exceeds a few hundreds, very often not even a few scores. I would like to go and settle down in some such village. That is real India, my India, for which I live. You cannot take to these humble people the paraphernalia of highly qualified doctors and hospital equipment. In simple, natural remedies and Ramanama lies their only hope.”99 Nature Cure is a science of healthy living. It teaches us that how we should live, eat? And how our daily routine should be? The methods of Nature Cure not only help us in attaining freedom from disease but with the help of their regular follow up positive health can be acquired.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “But nothing interests me so much as your stomach trouble. It may be beyond me but not nature cure. If it is beyond nature cure, it is beyond repair. Yours is not that. Rest and be thankful. I wanted to give you rest. But now I can’t till after my return from Delhi.”100 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Vaidya Vallabhram asks whether well-known home drugs and condiments can be included in nature cure. Doctor friends claim that they do nothing more than investigate the laws and act accordingly and that therefore they are the best nature-cure men. Everything can be explained away in this manner. All I want to say is that anything more than Ramanama is really contrary to true nature cure. The more one recedes from this central principle the farther away one goes from nature cure. Following this line of thought I limit nature cure to the use of the five elements. But a vaidya who goes beyond this and uses such herbs as grow or can be grown in his neighborhood purely for service of the sick and not for money may claim to be a nature-cure man. But where are such vaidyas to be found? Today most of them are engaged in making money. They do no research work and it is because of their greed and mental laziness that the science of Ayurveda is at low ebb. Instead of admitting their own weakness they throw the blame on Government and public men. Government is powerless to help those who through their own fault become helpless and thereby drag the name of Ayurveda in the mud.”101

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I settled down and started work in Uruli Kanchan in response to the invitation of the inhabitants there in the hope of making it a model nature-cure centre for the villages of India. The people of the village had promised their co-operation. They were to have provided the land and erected buildings on it. But that has not yet materialized. They have given the money. But that is not enough for buying land and buildings on it. Their active interest in it is more important than mere monetary aid. According to the reports received from co-workers there, the inhabitants of Kanchangoan have begun to understand and appreciate nature cure. And the workers have developed such self-confidence that they won’t mind if I do not return there before June. They say that the people are co-operating with them so whole-heartedy that they can well afford to wait till I descend from Mahabales war and Panchgani at the end of the warm season. All this has filled me with hope. Nature cure consists of two parts. Firstly, to cure diseases by the taking the name of God or Ramanama and secondly, to prevent illness by the inculcation of right and hygienic living. The report from the village says that the inhabitants are co-operating with them in keeping the village clean. I hold that where the rules of personal, domestic and public sanitation are strictly observed and due care is taken in the matter of diet and exercise, there should be no occasion for illness or disease. Where there is absolute purity, inner and outer, illness becomes impossible. If the village people could but understand this, they would not need doctors, hakims or vaidyas. In Kanchangaon there are hardly any cows. That is unfortunate. There are some she-buffaloes. But all the evidence that has come to me so far shows that buffalo’s milk is no match for cows in the health-giving quality. The vaidyas specially recommend cow’s milk for patients. I, therefore, hope that people of Uruli Kanchan will keep a herd of cows to ensure a supply of fresh clean cow’s milk to all. Milk is an absolute necessity for health. Then, the sooner the buildings are erected the better. In the first place, it is a question as to how long we ought to go on using Shri Datar’s bungalow. Secondly, and that is more important, so long as there is not adequate housing accommodation, proper treatment of patients is not possible. Accommodation for indoor patients is a necessity. I shall always hope that Kanchangaon will become an ideal village. Nature cure implies an ideal mode of life and that in its turn presupposes ideal living conditions in towns and villages. The name of God is, of course, the hub round which the nature-cure system revolves.”102

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Nature cure consists of two parts. Firstly to cure diseases by the taking the name of God or Ramanama and secondly, to prevent illness by the inculcation of right and hygienic living. The report from the village says that the inhabitants are co-operating with them in keeping the village clean. I hold that where the rules of personal, domestic and public sanitation are strictly observed and due care is taken in the matter of diet and exercise, there should be no occasion for illness or disease. Where there is absolute purity, inner and outer, illness becomes impossible. If the village people could but understand this, they would not need doctors, hakims or vaidyas.”103

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Nature cure implies an ideal mode of life and that in its turn presupposes ideal living conditions in towns and villages. The name of God is, of course, the hub round which the nature-cure system revolves.”104 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “The clinic at Poona could not serve the purpose of village nature cure in the opinion of the Trustees. Therefore, it was closed down and an experiment in village nature cure started at Uruli Kanchan. There the work is going on satisfactorily, though on a small scale. There is nothing there worth seeing as yet. Even the land has not been bought and no buildings have been built. Now let us take the main question. The tendency of looking to the West in order to make progress in whatever we do should be checked. If we have to go the West to learn nature cure, it cannot be of much use to India. Nature cure is a thing which anyone can practice in the home. The advice of nature-cure experts should not be necessary for all time. It is such a simple thing that everyone can learn it. If we have to go to Europe to learn to recite Ramanama, it simply will not do. Ramanama is the very foundation of nature cure of my conception. Nor should it be necessary to go across the seas in order to learn the use of earth, water, ether, sun and air. This is self-evident. Whatever other knowledge is required in this direction can be had in our villages. For instance, if herbs are used, they must be village herbs. Ayurveda teachers know all about them. If some Ayurvedic physicians are scoundrels, they cannot become good men and servants of the people by going abroad. The knowledge of anatomy and physiology has come from the West. It is very useful and necessary for all physicians. But there are plenty of means of learning it in our own country. In short, whatever useful contribution to knowledge has been made by the West, it has reached everywhere and can be learnt everywhere. I might add here that the knowledge of anatomy and physiology is not essential for learning nature cure. The writing of Kuhne, Just and Father Kneip are simple, popular and useful for all. It is our duty to read them. Practically every nature cure physician knows something about them. Nature cure has not taken to the villages so far. We have not thought deeply and no one has thought of it in terms of the millions. This is just the beginning. No one can say where we shall stand in the end. As in all great and good enterprises, sacrifice and dedication are required to make this successful. Instead of looking up to the West, we should turn the searchlight inwards.”105

Nature is an important ingredient for a living entity. There are different methods that have been developed to cure the different types of diseases. Following are the different types of nature cure Treatments. Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Nature cure implies that the treatment should be the cheapest and the simplest possible. The ideal is that such treatment should be carried out in the villages. The villagers should be able to provide the necessary means and equipment. What cannot be had in the villages should be procured. Nature cure does mean a change for the better in one’s outlook on the life itself. It means regulation of one’s life in accordance with the laws of health. It is not a matter of taking medicine free from the hospital or for fees. A man who takes free treatment from the hospital accepts charity. The man who accepts nature cure never begs. Self-help enhances self-respect. He takes steps to cure himself by eliminating poison from the system and takes precautions against falling ill in the future. The central feature of nature-cure treatment is Ramanama.2 But it must come from the heart, if it is to be a remedy for all one’s ailments. Orange juice is not an essential part of nature-cure treatment. Right diet and balanced diet are necessary. Today our villages are as bankrupt as were are ourselves? To produce enough vegetables, fruits and milk in the villages is an essential part of the nature-cure scheme. Time spent on this should not be considered a waste. It is bound to benefit all the villagers and ultimately the whole of India. It is true and nature-cure homes of the right type should be opened in the villages and the cities. God willing, this will be done. The individual should rest content by doing his own duty leaving the rest to God.”106

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Many people wish to come to Uruli Kanchan to learn nature cure. I dissuade them. The institution that is working at Uruli Kanchan on behalf of the Trust is for the villagers. Its three trustees are Dr. Dinshaw Mehta, Shri Jehangir Patel and I. Though Dr. Dinshaw Mehta has a lot of experience of nature cure, he has gained this experience in towns. When he was conducting his nature cure home in Poona, though he took in poor patients, he gave them the same treatment as he gave his rich patients. As I conceived nature cure for the villagers, it should confine itself to such remedies as are available in the villages and should do without the aid of electricity and ice. This would be the limit of this treatment. Such work can only be for a person like me who has become a villager and whose heart is in the villages even though he be living in a city. So the trustees have entrusted this work to me. I have begun the work but I have no trained personnel. It is another thing that I take help from Dr. Mehta whenever I need it. I have found a good helper in Dr. Bhagawat whose heart is wholly in the villages and who himself lives very simply. Even though he is an allopath, he believes only in nature cure, does not despise manual work and never tires of working. The others are all new to the work though filled with the spirit of service. I too am new to the work. Shri Datar has given his house for our use. He charges no rent, and so the work can go on. But the house has not room enough for new students to be admitted. I myself cannot permanently stay in Uruli Kanchan. If God wills it I hope in future to spend six months in the neighborhood of Poona and six months in Sevagram. Those who wish to learn nature cure should therefore understand that in the present circumstances it is quite impossible for anyone to be put up here. Now a few words as to my conception of nature cure. I have written a little bit about it from time to time in previous issues. But since the idea is growing, I may as well explain the limits of nature cure as carried on in Uruli Kanchan. Diseases, whether in village or in town, are of three kinds: physical, mental and spiritual. And what is true of the individual is true of society. The majority of the inhabitants of Uruli Kanchan are business folk. One part is inhabited by Mangs, another by Mahars, and yet another by Kanchans. The name of the village is derived from this last group. There are some Garudis living here too, who are classified as criminal tribes under the law. The Mangs earn their living by making ropes, etc. They were doing well during the war but are now having a lean time and living in penury. The problem that faces the nature cure physicians is how to deal with this malady of the Mangs, which is by no means slight. It is the duty of the businessmen to cure them of this disease. No medicines from any dispensary are going to avail in this case and yet it is as fell a disease as cholera. Some of the tenements of the Mangs are fit only to be burnt. But burning will not provide new dwellings for them. How would they protect themselves from rain and cold? Where would they put their belongings? All these are questions to which the nature cure physician cannot shut his eyes. What is to be done about the Garudis? They do not commit crimes for the love of it. It is a habit ingrained in them for generations and so they are described as criminal. It is for the residents of Uruli Kanchan to wean them from this habit. The nature-cure physician cannot neglect this work. Several such questions face the nature cure worker. Nature cure work thus becomes purely work for swaraj and its field also becomes very wide. God willing, it can succeed, provided us, the workers and residents of Uruli Kanchan follow truth and persevere.”107

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “My experience is that a correct diagnosis is followed by a remedial measure answering the diagnosis. It will be wrong to blame medical books because they mention several alternative measures. The complicated human system does not lend itself to one certain remedy. It would be untrue to say that nature cure does not demand any diagnosis. As it believes in unity of disease and unity of cure, diagnosis adopted in nature cure is much simpler. Unity of disease and unity of cure is a good generalization. No nature cure man blindly applies earth poultices in all cases.”108 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “My love of nature cure and of indigenous systems does not blind me to the advance that Western medicine has made in spite of the fact that I have stigmatized it as black magic. I have used the harsh term and I do not withdraw it, because of the fact that it has countenanced vivisection and all the awfulness it means and because it will stop at no practice, however bad it may be, if it prolongs the life of the body and because it ignores the immortal soul which resides in the body. I cling to nature cure in spite of its great limitations and in spite of the lazy pretensions of nature-curists. Above all, in nature cure, everybody can be his or her own doctor, not so in the various systems of medicine.”109

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “My idea of developing nature cure in Uruli Kanchan and the villages of India is fast expanding. It means teaching the hygiene of the body, mind and soul of the individual and society. Thus the workers in Uruli Kanchan have, besides cleaning the streets of the village, and attending to their bodily ailments through the judicious use of earth, sun ether, light and water, to attend to the pauperism of the criminal tribes called the Garudis described in law as one of the criminal tribes of India and the rapacity of Pathans in exacting interest, [which] are all social diseases demanding treatment by a real nature cure man. That ordinarily these things are not regarded as diseases in the nature cure books do not worry me. I, and if you like, we, as trustees for nature cure in the villages and cities of India cannot be satisfied with less.”110

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I know that the claim attributed to nature cure has been made by its exponents. I do not count myself among them. This much, however, can be safely claimed. Disease springs from a willful or ignorant breach of the laws of nature. It follows, therefore, that timely return to those laws should mean restoration. A person, who has tried nature beyond endurance, must either suffer the punishment inflicted by nature or, in order to avoid it, seek the assistance of the physician or the surgeon as the case may be. Every submission to merited punishment strengthens the mind of man, every avoidance saps it.”111 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Nature-cure treatment is not only for the body but also for the mind.”112

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “Your mind keeps changing. But don’t worry. Keep on ceaselessly repeating the name, so that no other thoughts may enter the mind. I know it is difficult for the sick to do this. Do not worry about it. If that repetition is diligently done, it sinks in one’s heart and proves an unfailing remedy even for the sick. Do not, therefore, think further but stay on there. Cling to nature-cure remedies and to Rama, and everything will be all right.”113 Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I am still thinking about nature cure. My views tend to become stronger. The Uruli Trust should be independent and separate. It should include the whole programme of village uplift together with nature cure. I would like to be associated with the Trust. It may not be necessary to trouble Nargisbehn. She may join if she wants to. The development of Uruli should be along distinctive lines. The limit of its expenditure has been fixed. It is decided to accept outside help to the extent of Rs. 1 lakh, and that, through me. If anything more is needed, it should be provided by the people of Uruli. Or we may curtail our activities. Foreign equipment, etc., cannot be permitted.”114

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “You will be pleased to know that I became a confirmed convert to nature cure when I read Kuhne’s New Science of Healing and Just’s Return to Nature over forty years ago. I must confess that I have not been able fully to follow the meaning of ‘return to nature’ not because of want of will but because of my ignorance. I am now trying to evolve a system of nature cure suited to the millions of India’s poor. I try to confine myself to the propagation of such cure as is derivable from the use of earth, water, light, air and the great void. This naturally leads man to know that the sovereign cure of all ills is the recitation from the heart of the name of God whom some millions here know by the name of Rama and the other millions by the name of Allah. Such recitation from the heart carries with it the obligation to recognize and follow the laws which nature has ordained for man. This train of reasoning leads one to the conclusion that prevention is better than cure. Therefore, one is irresistibly driven to inculcating the laws of hygiene, i.e., of cleanliness of the mind, of the body and of one’s surroundings.”115

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I am convinced that nature cure of my conception is bound to bring great relief to crores of poor villagers. For example, if a villager has to undergo X-ray treatment, the poor man will have to run to a city or wherever there is electricity. This he has to do at his expense and at the expense of his family. Why should he not benefit from the limitless grace of the sun-god who rises in his village every morning? Add to this an intelligent use of air, water, diet, earth, and so on accompanied by the recitation of the name of one’s family deity. I have no doubt that if all these things are carried on with perseverance even an incurable disease will disappear without a pie having been spent.”116

Mahatma Gandhi wrote on nature cure, “I do hold that any woman who wants to be an all-round village worker must have a basic training in nursing. That is to say she must know how to deal with and treat common diseases such as boils, malaria, scabies, vomiting, and diarrhea and so on. I of course believe only in nature cure.”117 India, being the land of traditional knowledge, has given rise to a lot of initiatives which help improve the health and lifestyle of human beings. In the healthcare sector itself, India nurtured various streams which include Ayurveda, Naturopathy, and Cow Urine Therapy etc.

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