Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 30

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
and most intolerant days of the Christian Church, any such set of villainous priests ever invented more bare-faced falsehoods or malicious slanders like these.
Unjust and diabolical charges against Hindus What has the contact of Christian nations with Hindus done for the latter? The idea generally prevalent in this country(USA) about the morality and truthfulness of the Hindus evidently has been very low. They are all classed as Heathens and Pagans by the so-called religious representatives of the Western world who fail, due to their conduct to call forth respect from the Hindu. Their unjust and diabolical charges against the Hindus have done, are doing, and will continue to do, more mischief in inter-racial matters than even the bitterest enemy of your republic could have invented. Such seeds of enmity and hatred have been sown by the missionaries that I would have considered it to be an almost Herculean task to establish better relations between India and America, had it not been for the Parliament of Religions and the spread of liberal thought from its platform
The literature and philosophy of Ancient India have excited the admiration of all scholars except Christian Missionaries
It has become an article of faith with most of the orthodox Christians that the Hindus are liars. All sorts of abuses are heaped on the people of India from the Himalaya to Ceylon, and, without exception all these calumnies proceed either from the missionaries or the English officers. We accord them their rights as we do even to the tiniest animalcule the right to live and be happy in their own way, if they let us alone, but when we find that these little creatures are annoying us, we have to brush them aside. The statements of these missionaries made about the Hindus, their religions and life, are never an admirable illustration of their methods and zeal. When I first came to know in this country from missionary sources that in India women threw their babies into the Ganges and that people threw themselves under the car of Juggernaut, I doubted, whether in the blackest
What was the moral status of the Hindus before the outer-barbarians invaded India ? If we examine the Greek; Chinese, Persian or Arab writings before the time of the Mahomedan invasion, we will find in them, the description of the true national character of the Hindus, i.e., the regard for truth and justice. Hiuen Tsang the famous Buddhist pilgrim in the 7th century and Marco Polo in the 13th century, have each
written in highest terms in praise of the Hindu Character, of their truth-fullness, honesty and the straight forwardness of their administration and justice. What Government either in Europe or America can justly lay claim to this virtue? The Mahomedan Geographer, Idrisi, says, "The Indians are naturally inclined to justice and never depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty and