For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Mango in prespective of Mahatma Gandhi

Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, M.S.

Contact no. - 09404955338

Mango in perspective of Mahatma Gandhi

Mango is the national fruits of India. This word originated from Tamil Language. It was first translated in other language like Latin and English in 1510. It is a very delicious fruits. Everybody likes it. The ripe mangoes are varies in shape, size and color. Ripe mango gives a very sweet smell. This fruit trees are cultivated in warmer subtropical climate. More than one third mangoes cultivated in India. So India is the largest producers of Mangoes. Its fruits have a very high energy value and nutrients. It is rich in vitamins A, B and C. Alphanso, Kesar, Chausa and Dashahari are very famous verity of mango. Mahatma Gandhi liked it very much. He used it as medicine. He wrote, “we get plenty of seasonal fruits and dried fruits. Summer in India, as everywhere, is the best season for the former. Of these, the mango is the most important. It is the most delicious fruit I have yet tasted. Mango-juice is very greatly used in the mango-season. It is eaten with cakes or rice. We never cook or stew ripe fruits. We preserve unripe fruits, chiefly mangoes, while acid. Medicinally, fresh fruits, being generally acid, are supposed to have a tendency to give fever.”1

“But plant a mango sapling and see what happens if you fail to water it for two or three days or to make a hedge around it. I have imagined Esther as a mango sapling and you as the Kabirvad. You may behave as an alfonso6 sapling, if you wish. But it seems you wish to remain a sapling forever.”2

“The mango tree as it grows and spreads bends lower. Similarly, as the strength of the strong increases, he should become progressively more humble; he should become more and more godfearing.”3

“Indians planted mango trees in South Africa and consequently mangoes also are available in considerable quantities. Some varieties of these can certainly compete with the best mangoes of Bombay.”4

“To the workers in the field the immediate gain may seem too small, but, as a mango sapling yields thousands of mangoes when it grows into a tree, so a patient worker will certainly witness, in the long run, excellent results of his seemingly modest beginning.”5

“Mango trees do not bear fruit quickly. If a tree like the mango tree requires to be tended for a number of years, how much tender care will a woman require who is like a tree and who has been kept ignorant for so long?”6

“Mango trees are not protected and urchins all over the land help themselves often to mangoes during the mango season and nobody worries about them. I am not sure that the urchins whom he had arrested had touched his mangoes.”7

“The mango tree is not providing the requisite protection against the increasing heat.”8

“Mango is a cursed fruit. It attracts attention as no other fruit does. We

must get used to not treating it with so much affection.”9

“A friend has sent me an extract from Current Science showing how mango seed kernel is a fair substitute for cereals and fodder:

I have known this use from my early youth. But no one seems to have thought of conserving this seed for food. The mango season is upon us and, though much time has been lost, it will be a good thing if every mango seed is saved and the kernel baked and eaten in the place of cereals or given to those who need it. Every ounce of food saved is so much gained.”10

“Do you collect mango seeds and utilize the kernel or do you throw them away?”11

“Even as a young mango plant has need of a strong fence round it.”12

“We should learn to be humble. If we but care, we can learn even from a tree. If you hit with a stone a mango hanging from the branch of a beautiful mango tree the tree will immediately let it fall to the ground. If man will only think, he can learn a great many noble lessons from trees and birds and beasts. That is what I am trying to do and, having succeeded in some measure, sometimes feel like advising others also to do the same. I will, however, go on working as God prompts me and as long as He wants to take service from me.”13 So Mango is very necessary for every Indians. Every Indian must be plant it.

1.The Vegetarian Messenger, 1-6-1891

2. LETTER TO MAHADEV DESAI; May 15, 1920

3. Navajivan, 8-6-1924

4. VOL. 34 : 11 FEBRUARY, 1926 - 1 APRIL, 1926

5. Navajivan, 14-2-1926

6. Navajivan, 15-12-1929

7. LETTER TO COWASJI JEHANGIR; June 2, 1931

8. INTERVIEW TO THE PRESS; May 1, 1933

9. NOTE TO AMRITA LAL CHATTERJEE; April 15, 1941

10. Harijan, 26-5-1946

11. LETTER TO MANIBHAI DESAI; June 9, 1946

12. Harijan, 15-6-1947