The Nobelest Creation of Gandhi’s Writings and Speeches (Volumes I-III)

The book, it is clear, has proved a veritable boon to the Indian community and to those who are interested in their welfare. Gandhiji has suggested in these pages a recipe which, if properly followed, is sure to bring the communities together, bound in ties of mutual affection and esteem, for his prescription is based on life-giving factor of love and tolerance. The first volume of the book has been brought up to date and can claim to be more or less comprehensive. Almost all speeches of Gandhiji addressed to students in Ceylon, as also a few speeches delivered to students in England on the occasion of the Second Round Table Conference, have been included in this edition. His famous speech at the Benares Hindu University in 1915 also finds a place besides two or three more of that early period. In the second volume, all the relevant matter pertaining to the women of India, taken from Gandhiji’s various writings and speeches, has been presented in a way so as to give the reader as complete a picture as possible of Indian womanhood and its manifold needs and problems. Woman has been held to be the better half of man. But Gandhiji goes further and acclaims her as "the mother, maker and silent leader of man," and regards her as "the nobelest of God’s creation." To the women of India as, indeed, in some measure to the women of the world, this book will serve as a guiding light in their moments of need and trial. For, it touches every aspect of woman’s life, political, social and domestic, not excluding even the intimately personal; and for every one of the doubts, difficulties and dilemmas of the fair-sex, it prescribes a remedy that is at once compelling in character and elevating in effect. In the third volume, therefore, appropriately opens with an article from his world famous book of his bearing on Hindus Muslims problem, and then leads the reader on through various events and episodes in the life and affairs of the nation and Gandhiji’s reactions thereto. In short, no pains have been spared to make the volume as well-knit and comprehensive as possible. Gandhiji’s recent writings, as also his last utterance on the communal tangle during his address to the most momentous session of the All-India Congress Committee at Bombay on August 8, 1942, just a day before his arrest, have also been included so as to make the book absolutely up to date even in the literal sense of the word. The book should be a very valuable acquisition to both private and public libraries.