Gandhi Writes From Prison, Seeking to Promote Religious Harmony and the Singing of a Common Hymn

He also thanks the co-author of his book, “Songs from Prison: Translations of Indian Lyrics Made in Jail”, writing “I haven’t forgotten the Gujurati hymns at which you laboured so much.”

Religion meant a great deal to Gandhi and enriched his life. He dedicated himself with boundless energy to achieving understanding and fostering unity among the different faiths. Gandhi stated, to emphasize this point, “I am a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Jew.”

His unshakeable faith in universal brotherhood and interest in music is reflected in his deep fascination with hymns – those from the Bible, the Koran, and the Gita. The songs recited at Gandhi’s prayer meetings stressed the emptiness of material possessions and urged surrendering one’s life completely to God. The ancient hymns and prayers sung or read during these meetings included famous passages from the Gita, the Bible, and the Koran that proclaimed the power of truth. Then there were the Hindu songs that glorified renunciation, self-purification, and the brotherhood of all mankind.

Gandhi’s favorite hymns were usually the ones sung at his prayer-gatherings. One of these, the True Vaishnava hymn, says that “He is a true Vaishnava, who feels the suffering of others as his own suffering. He is ever ready to serve, and is never guilt of overweening pride. He bows before everyone, despises none, preserves purity in thought, word, and deed…He preserves equanimity and never stains his mouth with falsehood, nor touches the riches of another. The bonds of desire cannot hold him…He knows neither desire nor disappointment, neither passion nor wrath”.

Some Christian songs moved Gandhi deeply. His choice of these hymns sheds much light upon his own religious personality. The hymn, “When I survey the wondrous Cross,” touched his inner most feelings. He always sang this at the end of his long fasts. The hymn goes like this: “When I survey the wondrous Cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride, were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.”

To Gandhi, God is truth and light. He is love, ethics, morality, fearlessness, and the source of light and life. And yet, He is above and beyond all these. Gandhi said: “I am in the world feeling my way to light amid encircling gloom. I often err and miscalculate. My trust is solely in God.” And the song “Lead kindly Light,” composed by Cardinal Newman, always gave him strength. It goes: “Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead Thou me on’ O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till The night is gone; And with the morn those angel faces smile, Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.” The noted Protestant hymn ”Rock of Ages cleft for me” was another of Gandhi’s favorites: “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flow’d, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power… While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyelids close in death, When I soar through tracts unknown, See Thee on Thy Judgment Throne; Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.”

Gandhi once said: “Prayer has saved my life, without it I should have been a lunatic long ago. I feel that as food is indispensable for the body so was prayer indispensable for the soul. I find solace in life and in prayer. With the Grace of God everything can be achieved. When His Grace filled one’s being nothing was impossible for one to achieve. Prayer is nothing else but an intense longing of the heart. You may express yourself through the lips; you may express yourself in the private closet or in the public; but to be genuine, the expression must come from the deepest recesses of the heart… It is my constant prayer that I may never have a feeling of anger against my traducers, that even if I fall a victim to an assassin’s bullet, I may deliver my soul with the remembrance of God upon my lips.”

On May 5, 1930, Gandhi was famously arrested at Karadi near Dandi for violating the Salt Law. It was one of his best known imprisonment. While in prison, he began perhaps his most significant artistic undertaking when he put together and edited every one of the 253 hymns of the Ashram Hymnal—a collection of hymns from across the whole of India. With the help of English professor John Hoyland, the work was translated into English and published in 1934 under the title of “Songs from Prison: Translations of Indian Lyrics Made in Jail.”

Gandhi was again imprisoned on January 4, 1932, for staging peaceful protests following his return from England and the unproductive meetings on British-Indian relations. He was taken to Yervada Jail. He was released unconditionally by the British government on September 20, 1932 after he had commenced a 21-day fast. He was held at Yervada a number of times during the struggle for independence. In the early 1930s the subject of hymns was much on Gandhi’s mind, and when he received a letter from Hoyland telling of an idea to have a a common hymn sung everywhere at the same time, it immediately appealed to him.

Autograph letter signed, on both sides of a post card, while incarcerated at the Yervada Central Prison in Pune, Maharashtra, July 26, 1932, to John S. Hoyland, approving the idea of the hymn, and thanking him for his help on the soon to be published hymnal. “Just one line to thank you for your sweet note. Olwin’s idea of singing a common hymn on a fixed weekday at a fixed hour has, I see, taken root. Let us hope it will grow like a snow ball. I haven’t forgotten the Gujurati hymns at which you laboured so much. When I am free from my present study, I propose to revise my own rendering & compare it with yours. Love to you all from Mahadev & me.” It is signed “M. K. Gandhi”. On the front side, Gandhi writes along an edge: “Mahadev tells me I have not a copy of your rendering of the Gujarati hymns.” Mahadev Desai was Gandhi’s associate and private secretary from 1915-1942 when he died.

This is our first letter of Gandhi from prison, relating either to one of his books, or to his love of hymns.