Gandhi Before Gandhi

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

Page 63

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
Mother India- In her ample lap you shall nestle
India's Message to
America
कर्मण्येगाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्या
adhik Roste na Falathu Kade ma Fal Hatrld, Ma Te Sangots
To me the outgrowth of religions, civilizations and Governments, are the expressions of human progress and development from one motherhood of law of nature of man. We, the people of India do not arrogate to ourselves superiority and authority, noting as we do along the ages, the rise, decline and fall of empires and civilizations, to lecture you for your faults or to condemn you for your failures. No. We in the old home of the great mother of the nations, the civilizations, the philosophies and the religions of the wide world, would extend to you the mother's blessing, the home's greeting, and express, not the hope only, but the firm belief that when you shall have compassed all seas and all lands, and all methods, and shall have exhausted all resources and discoveries in literature, in art, in the sciences, and in the worship of God, you will by degrees, by slow, perhaps painful but sure progress, turn your faces and direct your steps toward the old home, the old mother, and your brothers and sisters in India, the blessed. There you will find the old hospitality, the old sweet life, and the dear old mother unchanged in her devotion and in her love, capable of recognizing you all, and in her ample lap you shall nestle."