Gandhi Versus the Empire

Contemporary India has so few unimpeded opportunities to present its case to the world that those who sympathize with its struggle for freedom must welcome gratefully this book by Dr. Muzumdar. The author has gone directly to Gandhi himself for a statement of the Indian position; and the many passages in which the great leader is directly quoted illuminate not only Gandhi's political creed, but his profoundly revolutionary philosophy of life. No other leader in the world today seems so sane or so humane. If his plan should be carried out successfully it would constitute a transformation and an achievement more fundamental than that of Soviet Russia; for it would transcend the Industrial Revolution itself, and offer an alternative to the apparently inevitable domination of human life by the machine.

I do not know if such an effort can succeed or if the power of a gentle soul can stand in this world against imperial force; but I am sure that this attempt to accomplish the unprecedented lifts us up, more than anything else has been able to do, out of the cynicism and pessimism which poison the spirit of our time; and that this strange revolution by prayer and suffering does more than anything else around us to give some significance and nobility to our day.

If you would feel the soul of India, of the deepest and gentlest people known to history, read this book on Gandhi, and read the poetry of Tagore. It is incredible that a nation capable of producing such men should not soon be free.

WILL DURANT. Great Neck, June 27, 1932.

-vii-