Gandhi Before Gandhi

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

Page 7

A GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
To the liberal minded the whole world is a family.
॥ वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् ॥
Jesus must have been attracted to and lived in India. "It is beyond doubt, therefore, that India was commercially connected with the countries situated on the shores of the Mediterranean many centuries before the birth of Jesus; that India's wealth and commodities had attracted different people to her in very ancient times; that her
religions were openly preached and known in the very land which afterwards became the birthplace of Jesus; that Alexander's conquest had made foreign nations more familiar with India and her people, and her glory had spread throughout the world then known. Is it then not possible that Jesus, having heard of the richness of the philosophies and sciences of India, should have gone there with a desire to study them? The evidences are overwhelming in favor of the theory that Jesus must have been attracted to and lived in India during the time about which the Evangelists are silent."
You know, my brothers and sisters, that we are not an independent nation, we are subjects of her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria,
the "defender of the faith," but if we were an independent nation with our own government and our own rulers with our laws and institutions controlled by us, free and independent, I affirm that we would seek to establish and for ever maintain peaceful relations with all the nations of the world. We would seek neither to lessen your dignity nor to encroach upon your right or domain, and we would ask for same recognition in the family of nations, since you have already conceded that we are a part of the family of nations. A Sanskrit poet says:
Whose brilliant mind "This is my country, that is your country,
dared to speak these are the conceptions of narrow souls, to
these words to thousands of the liberal minded, the whole world is a
Christian in their own country?? family."