SAINT AND LAWYER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 536, 30 September 1949, Page 16

SAINT AND LAWYER

MAHATMA GANDHI, by H. S. L. Polak, H. N. Brailstord and Lord Pethick-Law-rence; Odhams Press, English price, 12/6. MCHONDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI, lover of the common man of India, is the subject of hundreds of books. This one was written by people who knew him well and had direct contact with him «during the three phases of his career. One was a lawyer, another a journalist, and the third a Secretary of State for India, Dealing with the first phase, Mr. Polak enables the reader to observe Gandhi’s mind in process of development. The leading characteristics of his personality are discussed with intimate knowledge. This section describes his youth and training, and especially his efforts on behalf of oppressed Indians in South Africa, in the course of which Gandhi discovered himself and his message. In this period the first experiments were made which revealed to him what his beliefs. and ideals meant in the stress of actual affairs, when their truth had to be tested at, the cost of other men’s sufferings, as well as his own. Mr. Polak was articled as a solicitor to Gandhi from 1905 to 1908, and was'for 10 years his closest’ confidant. There is an jntimacy and sureness of touch about this section which is perhaps not to be looked for in the later ones. Mr. Brailsford deals with the period between the wars when the idea of struggling for Indian independence was maturing. This was the time of. jail

sentences and fasts, the time of campaigning for "non-violent non-co-opera-tion," home spinning, prohibition, education, and the removal of ‘"untouchability." Lord Pethick-Lawrence gives an administrative official's view of the painful and difficult steps which. Britain and India had to take before independence could be achieved: He shows how influential Gandhi was even when out of office in Congress and not always in agreement with his colleagues who were leading Congress. Whether or not this book gives an accurate interpretation of each point in the Indian struggle, or of Gandhi’s part in it, a picture is drawn of an_ extraordinary human being. On the one hand his selflessness and _ spirituality gave him the authority of the saint; on the other the lawyer and politician in him often gave the appearance of any agitator. His strength lay in his love of India, his friendship for the village people rather than the intellectuals, and his integrity in suffering. The root of

his being was religion.

J.M.

B.