Third Class in Indian Railways

Gandhi was forty five when he returned to India - the land he had left as a teenager, the land that was now completely alien to him.  As the hero of the South Africa he was extended several invitations by the Congress to join the nascent ‘national freedom struggle’. He politely refused them; instead he chose to travel. He travelled extensively throughout the subcontinent, mostly on trains. The main purpose of such a venture, as he had said himself was ‘to get a grasp of the life’ in India.

During these jaunts, it is believed he made very elaborate entries on his ‘first’ impressions of India. When I picked up this book (free ebook lying in some corner of  the net) I was hoping to find his journal entries during these travels. But as it turned out this book was a compilation of six essays/ media articles/ speeches between 1915 – 1918, after the major chunk of his travels were done.

Enriched by his travels, and the success at Champaran, he started giving shape to his ideas - on a social, cultural and a political level.  These essays were his initial arguments, where he is still somewhat ambivalent, where he still comes across considering their pros and cons than being conclusive about them.  These ideas would later gather momentum, evolve much more powerfully to eventually enter the national consciousness as the core 'Gandhian' values.

The first essay is actually about the travel in third class in Indian trains. He describes the hopeless conditions of the third class in Indian Railways and as always with Gandhi, makes a case for their improvement.  These passages are perhaps one of the earliest documentation of reverse culture shock by an Indian. Consider this one, and imagine the comment section if the following passage for published in an Indian web portal:

Not during the whole of the journey was the compartment once swept or cleaned. The result was that every time you walked on the floor or rather cut your way through the passengers seated on the floor, you waded through dirt.

The closet was also not cleaned during the journey and there was no water in the water tank.

Refreshments sold to the passengers were dirty-looking, handed by dirtier hands, coming out of filthy receptacles and weighed in equally unattractive scales. These were previously sampled by millions of flies. I asked some of the passengers who went in for these dainties to give their opinion. Many of them used choice expressions as to the quality but were satisfied to state that they were helpless in the matter; they had to take things as they came.

Subsequent essays are values one usually associates with Gandhi. Ideas like  'vernaculars' and 'The Moral Basis of Co-operation' are just of historical relevance now. Few others, like the chapter on 'Ahimsa' are perhaps still valid? The one titled 'Swadeshi' is penetrative where he espouses how religion and politics in India are inseparable. ( which is true, contrary to liberal opinion even to this day). Gandhi’s arguments are times warped, at times too vague but it does reflect something unique for that time – one man observing the world, preparing a ground report, and suggesting solutions.

The writing is typically colonial replete with waxing and waning of humility and excessive consideration. Personally, as far as the ideas are concerned, nothing written was new to me; I was looking to find a personal voice, something more direct that would reflect on the writer himself. But Gandhi writes in a very impersonal tone. Even in the article 'National Dress' where he defends against personal attacks  (Irwin who had criticized Gandhi for choice of desi clothes against European attire) he remains rather circumspect.

What the book reaffirms to me is what Naipaul had written long back about Gandhi –

No one, no one had understood India like Gandhi had.

As an aside here’s Gandhi writing about Banks and credit system in 1917. See if it rings any bells?

The credit which is becoming the money power of the world has little moral basis and is not a synonym for Trust or Faith, which are purely moral qualities. After twenty years' experience of hundreds of men, who had dealings with banks in South Africa, the opinion I had so often heard expressed has become firmly rooted in me, that the greater the rascal the greater the credit he enjoys with his banks. The banks do not pry into his moral character: they are satisfied that he meets his overdrafts and promissory notes punctually. The credit system has encircled this beautiful globe of ours like a serpent's coil, and if we do not mind, it bids fair to crush us out of breath. I have witnessed the ruin of many a home through the system, and it has made no difference whether the credit was labelled cooperative or otherwise. The deadly coil has made possible the devastating spectacle in Europe, which we are helplessly looking on.

The entire book, first published in an Indian Lahore, is now available for free online. Suggested for light reading may be as a break in between heavy books. Obviously for readers interested in  Pre-independent India and Gandhi.

Among other things, this is my first book read on Kindle.