For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

P. G. Mathew and Mahatma Gandhi

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

P. G. Mathew and Mahatma Gandhi

P. G. Mathew was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi guided him. He had participated in freedom movement. I do not think that I need to deal with it now as you must have received my previous letter if you have not please told me. Any way the purport of my previous letter was that I could not give you any monetary help. My advice to you was to gain much more practical experience than you had. 1 I was glad to have your note. If you have patience God will give you light and peace. 2 Human speech is inadequate to express the reality. The soul is unborn and indestructible. The personality perishes, must perish. Individuality is and is not even as each drop in the ocean is an individual and is not. It is not because apart from the ocean it has no existence. It is because the ocean has no existence, if the drop has not, i.e., has no individuality. They are beautifully interdependent. And if this is true of the physical, how much more so of the spiritual world! 3

The things you write about are ultimately decided by faith. Reason can take us only a little distance. Man is a person; God is not in the same sense. Man sins because he has the sense of right and wrong. Our difficulty arises through our effort to measure God by our little selves. And He eludes all measure. 4 How is it you funked it again. I had fully expected you at Bardoli. You could have passed a clear week with me. I do not mind you’re not coming if you are in love with your work. Give me an idea of your day’s work. 5 How are you getting on? Are you any the better for the two days with me? What are you doing at the Vidyapith? 6 You will stay with me to your hearts content when the real time comes. It is no use forcing the pace. But the real staying with me is the working out of the ideal I stand for. The other the physical contact may easily produce false satisfaction. But this is not to wean you from the desire. This is to give you patience during separation. What are you teaching at Vidyapith and whom? Does it give you some satisfaction? 7

I was glad to have had even that brief chat. You must keep perfectly cheerful and calm. You must shed your shyness and begin to speak Hindi freely, no matter how bad or ungrammatical it may be. By the time I return I expect you to be able to talk fluently in Hindi and you must write also as often as you can. This want of self-confidence in you, an educationist, is a terrible drawback and you must get out of it. An educationist is always a student. Nothing is beyond him and he is never too old to learn a new thing if the learning of it is necessary for the task before him, and you have realized that a competent knowledge of Hindi is indispensable if you are to serve through the Ashram. You should write to me. If Ratilal is there try to befriend him. A good educationist would delight in handling semi-lunatics like Ratilal and by his moral force weaning them from their lunacy. I do believe that Ratilal is not past praying for. He is very responsive to any kind attention that might be given to him. Being brainless he has no friends. Nobody has taken a loving interest in him. Hence he has felt neglected and the feeling of being neglected made him sour, angry and, in the end, mad. 8

You are as shy as ever I see. Do shake it off and write freely. I am glad you are looking after Tilak and took charge also of Bharatan. You must try and write a few lines to me in Hindi. Parasuram tells me you have made progress. ‘is truthful’. Truth is not a mere attribute of God but He is that. He is nothing if He is not that. Truth in Sanskrit means Sat. Sat means ‘Is’. Therefore Truth is implied in ‘Is’. God is, nothing else is. Therefore the more truthful we are, the nearer we are to God. We are only to the extent that we are truthful. The illustration of hen and her chickens is good. But better still is that of the Lord and His serf. The latter is far from the former because both are mentally so far apart thought physically so near. Hence Milton’s “mind is its own place” and the Gita’s “man is the author of his own freedom or bondage.” It is to realize this freedom that I would have us to labour as pariahs and labourers. 9

I am glad of your decision. Swami Anand will reach there on 9th and will take charge of you. He will put you among a band of workers. Your ultimate destination will be Thana, some miles from Bombay. Meanwhile you will be living with the workers in Bombay. You will live with them and board with them. But if you choose to find your own food, you can begin to draw Rs. 15 per month at once, i.e., from the time Swami Anand takes charge of you. Rs. 15 per month will cover your food, clothing, medicine if any and all extras. But they will not cover residence which will be found for you free of charge, so long as you are in Thana or Bombay. If you are posted in a village, in which there is not much change just now, Rs. l5 will cover everything including rent. You will give 8 hours’ corporate labour and learn Hindi diligently. If you can do all this cheerfully I have no doubt that it will solve your difficulty and by God’s grace you will get over the past. 10

I had already told you that you should not do anything at Thana. You are not built for any physical work. I wish you would stick to the family and serve it by getting an employment, however humble it may be. 11 I never threw you overboard. I have dealt with you no otherwise than I have with my blood-son and blood sister. I repeat my advice to you not to come if you can be suited elsewhere. I must refuse to undertake the support of your parents until I am satisfied that you can cheerfully labour with your hands and feet the whole day long and assiduously make up your Hindi and that you have consecrated yourself to constructive work through me and that there remains no cause to suspect your purity. 12

Whether I write “love” or do not makes no difference in my attitude towards you. It all depends under what pressure I write letters. There is no royal road to becoming moral. You do so by prayer and penance and by living for the service of humanity. When you do that you have no time to become immoral. Of course, marriage is the ordinary thing for all. I overcame the impulse to the extent I have done simply because the impulse for service was greater than the sexual impulse. I do not know how many people who are associated with me are pure nor have I any desire to pry into their lives. I assume their purity until their impurity obtrudes itself upon my gaze. A celibate is wedded to his work with which he has fallen in love. If you see any difference between the two states I must accept defeat. 13 You have become a problem. I have asked Munnalal to take you to Dr. David and see if you can be kept in Nagpur or whether you can be kept in Segaon or simply sent to Nagpur for treatment. You should be patient and not worry. Whatever happens has to be suffered cheerfully. If you have any suggestion of your own don’t hesitate to make it. 14

I am sorry your recovery is not as rapid as you had expected. Let this sickness teach you patience. I am here till the end of the month at least. 15 I am glad you are fixed up at last. Of course, I have not the addressee had asked for an article on Jinnah from Gandhiji, as he proposed to publish a series of biographies of all prominent Muslim leaders of India. Forgotten you but I have not written to the people I have not forgotten. I write only when I must. 16 I am grieved at your father’s passing away. I can understand your remorse. How can one be angry with one’s father even if he leaves nothing for the one? But let that be. Giving away in charity all that you have come into will be an adequate penance. 17 Rajkumari is at Simla. She is giving herself a rest. No letters are sent there. Why grieve over the passing of your mother? She has been freed from pain. I am going to Bengal. 18

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