Selected Speeches of V R Gandhi

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi Godiji Jain Derasar Mumbai

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ed and addressed the Parliament; some of them taking rank with the highest of any race for learning, 'eloquence and piety. But it is safe to say that no one of the oriental scholars was listened to with greater interest than was this young layman of the Jainas as he declared the Ethics and Philosophy of his people". Priests, public men and the press spoke in eulogistic and glowing terms and paid tributes to his scholarship, learning, intelligence and culture. One Hon. E. B. Sherman, who was a master in Chancery of the United States, Circuit Courts said about Shri Virchand that "It has rarely, if ever, been my good fortune to meet a man, whose reading and culture have been so wide and varied, and who withal has so sweet, sincere and teachable a spirit as Mr. Gandhi.”
At the time the Congress was held the knowledge of the American public about India and the life and culture of her people was scanty. India was believed to be the land of heathens having no culture and no civilised life. It was believed to be the land of the Maharajas, tigers and cobras. Many charitable-minded men and societies sent Christian missions to civilise the people here and impart culture and religion to them. The Christian missionaries, who had come down to India had, either out of ignorance, absence of proper understanding or by making unwarranted generalisations from stray facts or instances, deliberately spread false, incorrect, twisted and perverse notions and ideas about Indian life, culture, civilization and religions. During his stay in America, he took an opportunity to correct
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