IACA Book Reading and Signing, July 23rd, 2005

GANDHI’S PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH: FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT
Authored by Dr. Uma Majmudar

By Mahadev Desai


Beating the sweltering heat, a sizable crowd gathered Saturday, July 23rd at the India-American Cultural Center to listen to Dr. Uma Majmudar introduce, read, and sign her new book titled GANDHI’S PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH: FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT. Dr. Lawrence Carter, Sr., the first Dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel, Morehouse College, graced the occasion with his presence. IACA’s Executive Vice President. Seetha Vallurupalli, welcomed all and presented a flower bouquet to Dr. Majmudar, clad in a beautiful blue silk-sari. After Madhavi Dave, in her mellifluent voice sang Mahatma Gandhi’s favorite bhajan, “Vaishnav janato...,” IACA’s Board Member Ani Agnihotri introduced Dr. Carter, Sr., who is a Professor of Religion and College Curator at Morehouse College since 1979. Widely traveled, Dr. Carter has a highly impressive list of academic qualifications, teaching and community service accomplishments. He is a much-sought out Speaker, as well as a prolific author and the founder of the Gandhi Institute for Reconciliation at Morehouse College, April 1, 2000. He is a recipient of numerous honors and recognitions. In his eloquent address, Dr. Carter said, “Jesus led Martin Luther King, Jr. to Gandhi and the rest is history.” He spoke of the inspiring busts of Mahatma and Kasturba Gandhi located in the lobby of the King Chapel, Morehouse College, and invited the audience to visit the Chapel to view the busts.
 
He said he had been traveling the entire globe to talk about Gandhi, Dr. King and Daisaku Ikeda of Japan, who are probably three of the most outstanding ambassadors of Peace. “Mahatma Gandhi is in a class by himself. As BBC announced, he is believed to be the most important leader of the last thousand years.”, he added.

Dr. Carter went on to introduce Dr. Uma Majmudar, a lecturer in the Religion Department of Emory University. Prior to coming to the United States with her family in 1967, Dr. Majmudar, with a Master’s degree in English literature, had already launched her college-teaching career at the Balabhai Damodardas Arts and Science College in Ahmedabad, India. After coming to Atlanta in 1971, Dr. Majmudar added to her educational repertoire by taking Journalism credited courses from Georgia State University in 1973. In 1976 she founded Voice of India, a quarterly magazine on behalf of IACA and was volunteer-editor for almost ten years. As a freelance writer, she contributed articles in various American and Indian newspapers and magazines. Along with her husband, Dr. Bhagirath Majmudar, Dr. Uma Majmudar has been highly active in the Indian-American community of Atlanta; together the Majmudars have contributed significantly toward the cultural education of Indian-American children.

Dr. Carter commended Dr. Majmudar’s book and spoke of the potential impact it would have on the student body of Morehouse College. He congratulated Dr. Majmudar for her book being accepted by the most prestigious of all academic presses, the State University of New York Press, known as SUNY. He announceed that he has selected Dr. Majmudar’s book to teach his course on “Gandhi and King” (Religion) for the next semester at Morehouse College. Both Dr. Majmudar and the audience felt honored and welcomed Dr. Carter’s kind gesture with great applause.

Alluding to Hillary Clinton’s remark, “it takes a village to raise a child,” Dr. Majmudar quoted from her “Acknowledgments” that “it takes not one person to write a book but the entire community-at-large.” She profusely thanked her family, her community of friends and relatives, and especially her mentors who supported and encouraged her throughout the writing of this book. “Though there is no dearth of literature on and about Gandhi,” said Dr. Majmudar, “still there is a spiritual void waiting to be filled by a book like this.” In his Autobiography, Gandhi himself started writing THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH (1925), but could not finish on account of his heavy involvement in India’s struggle for freedom. “This is that unfinished story of Gandhi’s spiritual saga,” said Dr. Majmudar; it focuses on the soul and substance of the man and projects Gandhi as primarily a man of deep, abiding and ever-growing faith. Dr. Majmudar briefly gave the background of how the seed idea of the book was planted in her mind after she took Dr. James Fowler’s course at Emory and studied his classic book STAGES OF FAITH. It was then that she realized that “ no one had yet undertaken a systematic study to focus on who Gandhi really was—a deeply religious man (a bhakta) at heart, but religious not in its conventional sense. Gandhi believed in that “religion which is behind all religions,” namely, “the religion of humanity.” Thus, “its focus on Gandhi as a man of faith is the first distinguishing feature of my book,” said Dr. Majmudar, and stressed that “the power that nourished Gandhi’s soul was his ever-growing faith in the ultimate triumph of Truth and in the innate Godliness of the human soul.”

Another distinguishing feature of the book that Dr. Majmudar pointed out is its structural developmental approach in showing how Gandhi’s rise to greatness was not meteoric; it was a rather slow and painful, continuous process of self and faith development, punctuated by conflicts, crises, and turning points. Nor was Gandhi born as a “Mahatma;” his “Mahatma serenity” was hard-earned through rigorous moral and spiritual sadhana (disciplines) and introspection. Through his undiminishing and ever-growing faith in God as Truth and in basic human goodness, Mohandas Gandhi grew to be a man of “Universalizing faith.” In order to show this gradual metamorphosis of Gandhi’s life and character, Dr. Majmudar has used James Fowler’s theory of “stages of faith” as a heuristic guide; hers is the first developmental study to analyze and interpret the fundamental role of faith in transforming Gandhi’s life.

Introducing her book as her “first brain-child,” Dr. Majmudar said that the book was long in the making; spanning ten years of research and writing. She said in a way this book tells her own intellectual developmental story, which, like that of her subject’s life, was marked by many ups and downs, trials and tribulations. However, by Dr. Fowler’s continuous support and guidance, and her own determination not to give up, Dr. Majmudar made it at last.

Dr. Majmudar described Gandhi not as a mystic, but as a karma-yogi and a seeker after Truth. She quoted Gandhi, who said, “My life is its own message.” Dr. Majmudar spoke about Rajchandra or Raychandbhai, the Jain jeweler of Bombay, who was the young Gandhi’s spiritual role model if not a guru. More than Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Ruskin, it was Rajchandra who molded young man Gandhi’s character, answered his intellectual queries, and satisfied his religious hunger. Dr. Majmudar also pointed out that what happened to the young attorney Gandhi at the Maritzburg railway-station in South Africa was not a sudden conversion or a revelation; it was rather a culmination of all previous insults he underwent before the incident. She also specified that Gandhi’s London-stay was not wasted as projected by other biographers of Gandhi, but it was London where he first learned about the British system and British people. It was in London that he read Henry Salt’s book, A PLEA FOR VEGETARIANISM, after which he became a “vegetarian by conviction,” and not just by tradition. Dr. Majmudar stressed that London was the training ground that made South Africa happen, and it was in South Africa that Gandhi first launched Satyagraha against the apartheid. He improved upon it later in India as the most potent nonviolent weapon against the British rule.

Dr. Majmudar summed up by stressing again the thesis of her book, that Gandhi was first and foremost a man of faith and a seeker after Truth, who used politics as only “a vehicle of moksha” (Bhikhu Parekh’s phrase). Gandhi’s death by assassination was the most eloquent affirmation of his whole life, because he died as he lived, for peace, for nonviolence and for the brotherhood of mankind. Moving beyond the narrow confines of caste, creed, nationality, race and religion, Gandhi grew to the highest spiritual stature, becoming a man of “universalizing faith”. “Today the world needs Gandhi more than ever before,” said Dr. Majmudar, reminding the audience of Gandhi’s prophetic words uttered in 1945, ‘Unless now the world adopts nonviolence, it will spell a certain suicide for mankind!”

The evening concluded with a few words by Dr. Majmudar’s daughter, Nija Meyer, who was closely involved in the editing of this book. Nija shared her thoughts from three perspectives. From a personal perspective, she referred to her mother as a scholar in every sense of the word, with a lifelong passion for learning, for reading, for writing, and for Gandhi. The book represents a culmination of all. From a professional perspective, she described how for two years, she and her mother pruned every word, every sentence, every chapter – to ensure that the book would be easy to read, yet highly informative and highly inspirational. And finally, from a public perspective, Nija described how this book would appeal to those wanting to know more about the Mahatma who shaped our country; to those wanting to learn more about the Indian culture and Gandhi’s profound influence on it; to historians who want to study Gandhi as a world leader; to those interested in psychology and understanding what combination of “nature versus nurture” made Gandhi who he was; to people striving to make the world a better place in today’s politically turbulent and violent world; and most of all, to any individual seeking to make that inward spiritual journey “from darkness to light.”