M. K. Gandhi, Our Moral Action Compass: His Selected Guiding Communications for the Changing India*

Abstract

This paper discusses M. K. Gandhi’s selected short writings of the early and mid-twentieth century by topics, themes and some major timely issues. Gandhi’s April 1933 advice to his readers, spelling his central moral–spiritual experiential truths, frames this writing. In an apperceptive view of Gandhi, he morally, spiritually, and socially ‘contextualized’ and ‘nuanced’ his direct, concise writings. These expressed his life’s core: ‘truth and nonviolence’. Three following topics exemplify his daily regimens in ‘food, health and hygiene’, commentaries on independence-seeking India during the troubled and violent 1940s, and his last 1947 radio speech. The two concluding sections overview how twenty-first-century 3.4 billion modern Indians still lack unity across different castes, religions and regional socioeconomic inequalities. Gandhi’s self-cultivated, disciplined moral, social, and civil bonds are needed. The drivers of such change must be the morally inspired, self-disciplined diverse younger Indians.