The Daily Stoic - Ramachandra Guha on Gandhi’s Extraordinary Life and Legacy

Episode Date: June 25, 2022

Ryan talks to author Ramachandra Guha about his books Gandhi Before India and India After Gandhi, the journey that led Gandhi to become one of the worlds most influential leaders, how humanity was impacted by Gandhi’s legacy, and more.Ramachandra Guha—hailed by Time as “Indian democracy's preeminent chronicler” - is a prominent author and columnist based in Bangalore. Ram’s research interests have included environmental, social, political, and cricket history, and his books cover a wide range of themes, most notably India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, a widely discussed and also award-winning history of India since independence, and his most recent book, Gandhi Before India,which  focuses on Gandhi's years in South Africa. Apart from his books, Ram also writes a syndicated column that appears in six languages in newspapers with a combined readership of some twenty million. His books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages. The New York Times has referred to him as “perhaps the best among India’s non fiction writers.”NED Products will help you perform better, sharpen your mind and get consistent, quality sleep. Go to helloned.com/STOIC or enter code STOIC at checkout to get 15% off.LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/STOIC. Terms and conditions apply.Go to shopify.com/stoic, all lowercase, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today - go to shopify.com/stoic right now.Framebridge makes it easier and more affordable than ever to frame your favorite things - without ever leaving the house. Get started today - frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to Framebridge.com and use promo code STOIC to save an additional 15% off your first order.KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 50% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Sto virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Here's a funny story. So I had Tobias Luka on the podcast several months ago.

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Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music music or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, maybe you're aware that I'm working on this for Virtue series and I just did the courage book last year. This year, the discipline book will come out and I've been spending the last year, this year, the Discipline Book will come out, and I've been spending the last year, so starting to research and think about what will be the third book in

that series, book about justice. Justice isn't justice in the legal sense to the Stokes, but a broader sense of justice. How do we treat other human beings? What's our obligation into the world? How do we make the world a better place? And one of the great parts about writing this many books in this small window, it's exhausting, it's difficult, it's a number of things, but it has forced me to really dig deep, because I've used so much material in such a short amount of time. So I'm really starting to read about and think about people who I haven't been as well

versed in. And Gandhi is certainly one of those people. Like if you would ask me, and I talk about this in the podcast with today's guest, if you would ask me when I thought Gandhi was born, I would have thought, I don't know, maybe late 1890s at the earliest, I saw him as a 20th century figure. I would not have guessed the 1860s. And I knew next to nothing about his campaigns in South Africa. So anyways, I read this fascinating book called Gandhi before India, which I absolutely loved, and then his second volume in the series

about Gandhi's years in India is also amazing. I'm talking about Ramachandra and Guha. He goes by Ram. He is a fantastic writer. These are two of the best biographies I've read in a very long time. He's been hailed by Time magazine as one of the preeminent chronicles of democracy for India. He's based in Bangalore. He's written about environmental issues, social issues, political issues. He's been written about the history of cricket. his books cover a wide range of themes But mostly Gandhi for India during his time in India and then India after Gandhi He's won many awards for his works and he writes a syndicated column that appears in six languages in newspapers with a combined readership of 20 Million credible its books and essays

have been translated into more than 20 languages. And the New York Times has referred to him as perhaps the best among India's nonfiction writers. I'd say he's one of the best nonfiction writers slash biographers of his generation period. And I would put him up there against a lot of the epic biographies I've recommended over the years, Robert Karrot, Doris Kruens, Goodwin, Taylor Branch, etc. These are just incredible books. I guess I'm about 2,000 words into his canon now. And I really, really enjoy this conversation. I think you are to please read his wonderful book, Gandhi, before India, and then his epic book, Gandhi, the Years that Changed the World, 1914 to 1948.

I will link to them in today's show notes, but we can start off with this wonderful conversation, which I think very much ties in to this stoic virtue of justice, and how we can leave this world a better place than we found it, which Gandhi certainly did, and I think the best of the Stokes did as well. Enjoy. Well, I'm very excited to chat. You know, I knew that this book was going to be different.

I think I was going through the preface, and you make a remark about Gandhi in his other life, like about reincarnation. And it was really refreshing because it was like suddenly, oh yeah, this isn't a biography necessarily from the Western perspective that you're gonna assume that like the author is just like me. Like when I read a Taylor branch biography or a Ron Schurnau biography, I'm not getting that.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I really liked that. And I also thought though, like, you know, even if I was reading a biography of Martin Luther King, the author wouldn't say at the beginning, you know, she's in heaven right now. There was, you know what I mean?

There would be this sort of scholarly distance, and I liked that you broke that down right at the beginning. Yeah, I would still push back a bit to your interpretation. I would still see myself as a scholar. Of course. And I'm willing to see Gandhi Watson all, updating his greatness, his spiritual and moral greatness, but also his personal fallabilities. So to that extent, maybe I'm more Western than you think, because I do, I do adhere to a certain scholarly scruplesness.

No, I would agree. I think the book deserves to be on the shelf with those sort of great, like I consider a sort of rancher now. Doris Kern's good win. Robert Caro to be the great suit I've ever done it. And I would put your book right next to them. I loved both of them. I just mean it was, it wasn't an outsider looking in at Gandhi. It was so important what's so important

and why I really enjoyed it is that it was allowing me the outsider inside Gandhi's world. Correct, correct. I mean, that's it. You know, I have lived with Gandhi all my life. And of course, I followed him, understood him,

tried to track him, be to the different places he lived in. I come broadly from the same kind of, shall we say, council milieu, obviously he was from Gujarat, I don't know South India, but I wanted to be proper respect to his, to Gandhi, the moral figure, with all the ambiguities that go with it.

And not simply see him as a free to fighter or as a nonviolent revolutionary to inspire the movement for anti-coronial liberation. Because Gandhi was, you know, I suppose King comes close among all the characters you mentioned. Unlike the characters that Ron Turner or Doris could be in deal with who are American presidents, essentially interested in politics. King is both a man of the seat and a man of the faith of the clock. And I've been reading some of his own writings on Gandhi, and in many ways, he understood

Gandhi better than any other non-Indian could have. So Gandhi is actually first a person of faith and only secondarily a person who wants to transform society. Yeah, you know, the other thing that struck me right off the bat about the biography is and again, I'm sort of trying to reflect on my own biases, is if you had asked me when Gandhi was born, I would have guessed not 1869 because I see him as a figure of the 20th century, not as being born in the middle of the 19th century. It was just even where we place him, It was just even where we place him, because there's movies about him,

but because we see him as this sort of, again, I think, why Gandhi before India was so important, is most people, we don't even, that's all prologue to the Gandhi story, but he really was a figure from a different era. Absolutely. And you know, Ryan, I was really usually thought I would write a one volume book. And then I realized that there was not just so much material,

but that Gandhi was socially, constantly, philosophically, politically shaped well before he returned to India. He was in London when Queen Victoria was still on the throne. So he was kind of a late Victorian Hindu, you could say, right? Now, he was born in a part of India that is not under direct British shoe, and it still carry the traditions of Rajput princes. So and of course in South Africa living in the diaspora for two decades, and I'd like

to say something particularly for your audience, you know, the Indian diaspora in America today is incredibly rich, powerful and influential. But the diaspora, Indian diaspora that Gandhi lived in South Africa were indentured laborers. You know, they were not heads of Microsoft and medical advisors to President Obama and vice presidents now, like Kamala Harris or Senator Gogersman. And he was the diaspora in South Africa was largely working class. And Gandhi himself was upper class. And he really immersed himself

the lives of ordinary people by going to South Africa. If he had remained in India, he'd be the prosperous lawyer in Bombay whose clients should have been rich merchants from the same caste and class background as he did. So how the diaspora changed Gandhi is something that never really got the focus either in the film or by Atmbaro or in the early biography. So I wanted to enhance the title Gandhi before India. No, it was fascinating. And again, having just recently gone through the Taylor branch series on Martin Luther King,

I was struck at the intense parallels between the Jim Crow laws in America and the racist laws in South Africa. Essentially, almost a century before Martin Luther King is fighting them, Gandhi is dealing with the exact same kinds of race-based discrimination, almost with identical language. Absolutely. And also the way peacefully you break the law.

You're going for real-life combatment that is rare for whites, right? Or you're traveling a tram which is is there for whites, right? Or you travel in a tram which is you're not supposed to go, right? And again, a very interesting parallel between Gandhi and King Arayal is that both had supporters from the ruling race, dissident, whites in South Africa identified with Gandhi, dissident whites white sense, not America, world on the freedom rights, right? Going in the past with the African American comrades. And I think that is the greatness of Gandhi and King

that thought is not black and white. It's not us versus then. It's not the good guys and the bad guys. It is saying even the bad guys are capable of redemption. And that's a very, actually religious idea. You know, a secular thought, Marxist for example would say, a capitalist is always a blood sucker, full stock. Right.

So I think Gandhi and King, this very generic king gets this from Gandhi. The idea that even the last year's tyrant has an eye to of humanity in him and we can stoke that eye to humanity by a nonviolent protest. Yeah, and I was struck also in South Africa originally just how modest Gandhi's political and social aims were that he really was, although he was a radical figure who in his own life was radically egalitarian and open-minded that as a strategist and as a lawyer, he focused very much as an incrementalist and would prefer half a loaf to no loaf at all.

Absolutely. As he said, there's a phrase used as a letter, which I think comes out to look to share him. One step at a time is good enough for me. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellasai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wunderys' new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different

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Okay, so he was only aiming at unwinding, reversing those specific laws that discriminate against Indians. And his larger vision of, you know, national emancipation only comes after it turns to India. And it's willing to, and it's always willing to dialogue. So if there's a racist law propagated, you know, right to the government and say, let's have a conversation. He won't begin civil disobedience against the law right away. He'd give them a chance to retract it or refine it or amend it. So if that says he is absolutely an incrementalist, and that's why often, at this moment,

the case is taking two young revolutionaries are not impatient with Gandhi, because they want to change very quickly and so whatever means possible, whereas Gandhi knew that real change comes slowly, it's an order of stask, and it's sustainable if you do not use violence. That's something young radicals don't understand.

Yeah, I was okay. I found the self-restraint always remarkable, not just in terms of the non-violence, but the process that you were just talking about where he'd write the letter. He'd let them jerk him around. He'd write another letter. It was so, he was so, not reluctant, but restrained into when he would finally decide to be disobedient or to operate in contravenants of the law, that was never the first thing that he did. Not at all. And I think that's, I think of, of course,

it's also it's part of the kind of steadiness and sobriety that comes with this spiritual life. You know, Gandhi would spend a lot of time with himself. Later on, I'm not, now, but not in Gandhi before India, but after he returns to India, he decides to observe a silence day. So one day he doesn't talk at all. And the only exception was if there was a major political meeting, if the vice-soy calls

him. And I think that allows you to really, that kind of a, you know, so this outer life, which is social transformation, justice, egalitarianism, end-agracism, ending-cast oppression, that's an outer life. And there's an inner life which is what I'm doing through just moral, sustainable, and you reflect on that. You don't just rush into something. And I think this kind of, how many of it in the inner life in the outer life?

Maybe King, because the discrimination, the King faces again, I don't want to go on too much of his comparison, but maybe King does not have enough of the inner life because he's continuously battling, you know, stuff, he's always in meetings, he can't retreat, you know, he has other interests outside his family and so on. So maybe Gandhi was able to beautifully blend the inner life and the outer life, which is incredibly rare among public figures. Yeah, I have to imagine part of that is it's a different, he is living in a different century. It's not the same mass media environment. It's not because there's not cars. You know, he's existing in a more rural,

monk-like world, I guess. But I like what you're saying, because I found that in the book. It seems like his spiritual discipline, the fasting, the vegetarianism, these sort of strict rules that he, it's self-discipline. It's not even religious discipline. He's chosen this.

But then I imagine that that discipline is transferable to the political and activism world as well, the outer world as you called it. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Because yeah, the person who decides I'm not going to eat on this whole trip because they're not serving vegetarian food or whatever it is, that same energy also says, look, I know where this is going. Ultimately, I'm going to have to defy this law, but I'm going to do this six or eight or a year long dance first because that's how it works. I think that's, in that sense,

he's a radical, but a patient radical. And patients and radicalism don't normally go together. You know, he's radical in his conception of how human beings and society has changed, but he's willing to allow it to take all the time and requires. So he's a patient radical, and that has an alternative to self-discipline.

Along with vegetarianism and fasting, I'd also add his emphasis, which is very important in India on physical labor. Because in India, it's the upper caste, the mental labor, and it's the lower caste, the lower the physical labor. So he is his own slave, he's his own cleaner, his own cook, his own spinner. So he has to spin every day, you have to work with the spinning machine and that discipline of physical labor of, you know, okay, he's not in a grand, I mean, he's India's most famous man, but he's not in a mansion with 200 servants to attend to him, right? So I think that's all part of his, he's a more maker. Yeah, and one of my favorite parts in the Gandhi before India, one is,

is despite that strictness that interdiscipline you're talking about, just a few minutes ago, about his ability to work with other people, I liked, you point out he's like visiting the home of a friend and the friend marvels at how Gandhi almost certainly disapproved of the luxuries of their lifestyle, but he never says anything about it, which there's a stoic rule, Marcus Reales, and meditation says, stripped with yourself, tolerant with others, And that struck me as a mantra that Gandhi follows all with. Though he is also strict with people close to him. So in Gandhi's movement, there's a distinction between those who live in the Ashram in the settlement with him. So the hundred, eighty hundred people who live in the Ashram who are men, women, Hindus, Muslims, on communities, have to observe the same

walls. So there's a booklet called Ashram walls, and they have to attend the Iddefeat prayer meeting in the morning. They have to spin every day. They have to clean the latrine. But outside, there's a broader group of sympathizers and fellow travelers on whom there are no impositions except support when the movement requires it. So I think, I think in that sense, I mean, I don't know what was, but I mean, no enough about Marcus O'Reilly's family life. But Gandhi was very strict with his family, not with his political comrades in the wider

movement, to whom he was totally, and certainly not with his enemies or his advers wider movement to whom he was totally not with his enemies or his adversaries, he had no enemies, Gandhi had no enemies, his political adversaries, he was understanding empathetic tolerance. But we know, because we know so much more about his private life, his family life, we know that he was maybe excessively strict with his children, Gandhi before India, at the story of his elder son, who was, you know, whom he was incredibly harsh with. And I would have to know, I don't think even the greatest Greek historians know,

whether Marcus O'Reilly's, you know, or Roman historians know whether, people like that were, you know, lived up to these principles in their daily life. Gandhi sometimes particularly with regard to his family. I think this is again, I don't think King was a great family man. I don't think because he was a great family man, Einstein was not a great family man. Maybe extraordinary commitment to a cause, exact surprise on those closest to you.

It transforms our knowledge as a society in beneficial ways, but people closest to you, like your mother, your father, your children, your romantic partner, sometimes better burden of your incredible obsessions. You ever have someone that you fall out of touch with, and then you get back in touch and you're like, whoa, you're crushing it. That is really cool. I got a note from someone I knew when I lived in New York City.

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Yeah, I think with Gandhi we do know that he was always learning. So he goes, for example, his attitude to Africans goes from being racist to non-racist to anti-racist. He's always growing. But regard to his children, he's most cruel to his older son, who's born when he's just educated as son, but his born is 18, but he's much more understanding and empathetic towards his younger sons, which is described in the second volume. So one of the great things about Gandhi is that he's always thinking, learning, evolving, improving himself, you know, and he is too many critics, he must attack. The court statement he made in his early 20s about Africans, which is disparaging because

Indians were racist about Africans. I think he was stuck in the mentality of his early 20s, which is not too old. The more he lived with work with Africans, the more he shared his racial prejudices. As in the 1920s and 30s, he was an active supporter of people like W.E.V.Dow, De Boy, the NAACP, and he was a consistent anti-racist. And I think that's again a something which ordinary people who are not gunny, like you and me can learn, you know, how in the course of one's life

to recognize one's imperfections, one's moral and personal imperfections, and try and overcome them. I thought that was particularly illustrative in his relationship with women, which is he comes from a very patriarchal society, but the women that he allows into his life, his wife being an inspiring figure, but his secretary who sort of outright not just challenges his notions, but then challenges him directly about what women are capable of, what their role

is. And then when the women start to go to jail in protest in South Africa, Gandhi, it opens his mind in a way that I don't think any amount of study could have changed him, but seeing their courage, he is really quick to update, you know, centuries old assumptions about, that come to him from culture about gender. Absolutely. And I think experience teaches him. So there's this secretary who's a this remarkable Jewish woman called Sonia Sleshin who we mentioned, who was in his office every day, challenging him, arguing with him, oblique his mind. And then one of his, on one of his steps to London, when he goes to negotiate, he goes to South Africa, to negotiate with the Imperial government, he sees the suffrage jets on the street protesting nonviolently and taking the police batons on their head. And he says, wow, women are capable of fighting for a

principle too, they're not just supposed to be in the home, cooking for guys like weak. And absolutely, I mean, I think it's the suffragettes and his secretary and who play a role in really him unlearning his patriarchy. You know, I mean, in 1913, right? I mean, it's like India, even today, is an incredibly patriarchy place. You know, we call ourselves an emerging economy, you know, an aspiring super power, but the female labor participation rate is about 30-35 percent. One in two and three women don't work, outside the home because of prejudice, not because they don't want to, right? And social constraints.

Now, guns and a hundred years ago when guns's operating, it's much more patriarchal, and to think of Indian, women and South Africa quoting the rest, including his wife, but not just his wife, there's some of this too. It's quite extraordinary. Yeah, I found it to be really inspiring. And the separate jet story too, there's some similarities to Gandhi's work, which is, it's not this instantaneous thing, right? It's a, the separate jets work for like a hundred years, a hundred years of going to jail, a hundred years of fighting, and ultimately realizing that when one is strident in their

resistance to a law and willing to die over a principle, resistance inevitably crumbles. It's not immediate, but inevitably, it's unsustainable that you would be able to force people to do a thing that they don't want to do. Yeah, absolutely. I think that that is a, and the, the grandee learns from the suffrage, et's. And, you know, from, also, perhaps from a peasant scene in his day to Kutraath, whom he's seen protesting non-varying, you know, they can take the blows, they can suffer, they can go without food, but they will persist in telling the landlord that he must pay them a just ways.

And yeah, I mean, that's among the things I try to do in my book was to show the range of influences on Gandhi and how he's shaped by so many people because if you start seeing him as a Mahatma as this godlike figure who's born with all these values and ideals and has come on earth to save us by implementing his ideals. You don't see how he's growing, how he's learning, how these different interactions actually shape him. And that's it. One of the lessons I learned early as a biographer, writing about somebody else, was that a biography is only as good or as plausible or as a compelling as the secondary subjects, not your main subject.

Too many Bible verse, only right about the main guy or the main girl without the context and Mr. Ival and unless you forget these other people, you know, Sonia Sleshin, some of the radical Indians who went to jail with him, Tambi Nairu, his first funder who was a passing merchant Karustamji, his Jewish colleague Pollack, who was kind of his checkered in command. You know, his adversaries, General Smuts, that's how the Gandhi story has people biased, many other characters other than Gandhi. And above the limitations of many biographies were Gandhi

is that they're resolutely focused only on him, without looking at this wider caste constellation of people who shape him. Yeah, we want to see these people as fully formed, not like what you said, which is that they're an evolution and they're never static. I was so like, first off, when I used to think of Gandhi, I didn't think of him as this figure learning in South Africa. And then also though, you don't think of him

as this poor, struggling law student in London who's being introduced to all these different characters. And I really came away from your book with this sense of Gandhi as a product, not just of his influences, but also of serendipity and randomness and all these happenstance that make him this unique figure that was the man whose time and idea had come.

Absolutely. So you talk about serendipity and serendipity and randomness. And actually this is that shape Gandhi. You know, at least a few I'll mention which figure in Gandhi before India. His father dies when he is very young. His father would not have allowed him to go to England because crossing the seas is breaching the caste taboos. His father would have said his father was a chief minister of princely state. You know said I'll get you a job

with the Maharaja, you don't have to go to England. But Gandhi reached Gujarati Travelogue, he's consumed by the idea, he emotionally persuades his mother to allow him to go. And the father would have been inflexible patriots. So that's lucky break number one, but a lot of lucky break, but actually number one is father, right?

Then he comes back and he fails as a lawyer in Bombay and in Rajkot and his own town. And having succeeded, you and I would not be having this conversation. Because you just be a guy who made a lot of money at the bar in Bombay. And then he wants to go back to the princely state in which he was born, for one third, a try for a job. But he finds his brother is in bad order because his brother has been involved in a dispute between the king and one of his successes and done some rather shady things. So he has no refuge there. And then this accidental invitation comes on the left. And you go on and on and on and on. So there are many instances of happenstance

that shaped him. And of course, that he transforms himself. And of course, I often, when I speak at schools, about not just about Gandhi, occasionally I'm taught, after taught, give lectures on history and education. And I tell you about how mediocre a student Gandhi was. You know, one of the findings in my book that most delighted me was Gandhi School Machi.

Which was printed in obscure book many years ago and had somehow escaped the attention of other biographers. And he's a consistently middling student. Now, he's not a ranking student. No, is he right at the bottom of the class, which has a certain distinction of his own? He's just mediocre in the middle. So, I mean, from such unpropecious bearings

to become what he did, I think a lot has to do with his, with this, what I said, the inner Gandhi, his practice, his self-restained, his ability to think, his curiosity about other people. You know, when he was early on, when he was young, he writes about this, not a Bible, he finds a Christian evangelist on the street and he stops to visit to him. You know, he doesn't, so he's always curious about other people and their ideas. And it's the curiosity that I think is the root of the compassion he shows in later life. Because he's a huge amount of other people and their ways of thinking.

Yeah, you, I guess maybe there's a lesson in this in his life is we tend to fight the things that are happening to us, right? Oh, this happened, which means I can't do this. I didn't get this thing that I wanted. It didn't work out. But God is being led to great things by sort of accepting and working with the seemingly unfortunate circumstances. You keep finding themself in. But if none of those, if any one of those things hadn't happened, we might not be talking about him today. And the entire global order might be different. Absolutely, absolutely.

I was surprised by his influences, not just how English they were, but how American they were. He's very influenced by Christian thought. He's very influenced by Thoreau, then obviously not American, but also by Tolstoy. But there wasn't much in the way of sort of Greek or Roman philosophy. Was that an oversight? Was it just not resonate with him? I was just curious, like, because there is other philosophical traditions that I think are aligned. And when I read one of my favorite books, I read it every morning is Tolstoy's A Calendar of Wisdom. I don't know if you've read this. But towards the end of his life, Tolstoy put together a collection of his favorite influences in what shaped him. And along with Thoreau, etc. in here is, you know, Marcus Aurelius is in here, Efectetus is in here, a Confucius is in here, Conte is in here, but people that I didn't see

Gandhi referencing much. See, that's partly because Gandhi did not, was not, did not have, you know, a classical or a university education. He was in a small town where he went to an ordinary high school and then he went to study the law and in many ways he self taught and self trained and he's reading just what comes his way which I believe is regarded as a tall story. The book of tall story that influenced him the most is the kingdom of God is within you which is a philosophical work which essentially says you do not have to go to church, you don't have to believe in the Pope to be a good Christian, you interpret the Bible and its teachings as you wish,

the kingdom of God is within you individually, which actually resonates with some traditions of Indian philosophy. It's likewise say, you are yourself, you are the divine, you can find the divine within you, you don't have to go to a temple to pray and do all kinds of rituals, which is a prayer and priest to strive for you. And then also he was influenced by Tolstoy's writings on pacifism and by Tolstoy's embrace of celibacy, which Tolstoy had a very colorful sex life

before he became Sullivan, with many women other than his wife, and that Gandhi was influenced by that. But interestingly, there is no evidence that Gandhi read Tolstoy's novels. I, during the pandemic, I said, as Gandhi's biographer, I have to go one better than Gandhi. So I spent several months reading War and Peace and a Karenina and Tolstoy's great short stories.

And, but and of course, the others staggeringly good. I mean, there's no question about the genius of Tolstoy's novelist. But then there is no evidence that Gandhi knew about Tolstoy, the idiot Tolstoy was a great novelist, but he was really interested in his philosophical reflective works. But, you know, so he was actually exposed to Greek, and he would have vaguely known about Kant and Higl, but he certainly didn't read them. You know, he was actually not a particularly well-read man, which made him in some ways a strength because he made up his ideas. He, uh, partly based on

his experience, partly on his rather erratic reading and they made sense to him. It's spring here in Texas and one of the great things about spring is doing outdoor projects with my kids. One of the best Kiwi co-kits that I've done with my kids, they built this stomp rocket. We just spent hours out in the yard shooting it up in the air, tracking it down, shooting it up in the air, tracking it down. They just had an amazing time. If you're looking to have some outside, non-screen time play hands-on, science-based work with your hands projects, KiwiCo is it.

Step into spring and celebrate the season of discovery with KiwiCo subscription, get 30% off your first month plus free shipping on any crate line with code Stoic at KiwiCo.com. That's 30% off your first month, kiwico.com promo code Stowe. Yeah, I mean, to flesh out, I'm going to come back to the influences, but I thought that was remarkable. He basically invents passive resistance independently, and then someone goes, hey, have you heard of this throw guy? Because he also did that. And so it's almost like Gandhi is such a genius. He's independently coming up with some of these things. And then realizing that he's running parallel to some of the greatest philosophers who ever lived.

Yeah. And he was happy to be valid again by through, of course. Yeah. And we told that this American who's, you know, again, I will ask this to you. You mentioned Thoreau. Again, there's an incidental commonality between Gandhi and Thoreau, not just the idea of civil disobedience, which is an idea of political philosophy, but a personal characteristic. Gandhi liked walking or not too. Yeah. Okay. And of course he walked long distances through London in his short march. And you know, he, he, Tharo was born before the end of the Mordaka, but it's kind of unlikely that he didn't want much to travel in more.

And unlike my fifth Gandhi, I mean, Gandhi was happy to train, you know, third class compartment of the train, but he really liked walking, you know, and every, and I think that something again, walking is a certain kind of a meditative activity. It's very different from going to the gym, you know, it's not like you're walking, and even if it's in a city, it doesn't have to be in a park or in the wild. You're walking in a city, it's physical exercise, but it's in a city, it doesn't have to be in a park or in the wild. Even walking in a city is physical exercise, but it's also kind of a, as I said, it's meditative, which going to the gym is exerting, it's energizing. It's like, I'm going to show you what I can do. Rather than let me think about what life is, why I look at the trees and the buildings around me. So I need, and that's again an aspect of Gandhi, his, his level walking.

Seven of the points every day. Which I've been talking about. Yeah, I think it's very hard to separate philosophy and walking. I think they are, they are inextricably intertwined in the Eastern and the Western tradition because it's where all the good ideas come from. I think Nietzsche said only ideas had well-walking have any worth.

Oh, that's it. I think he's right. I mean, I mean, that the stuff, ideas you get in the shallow, which are sometimes, I mean, have you read a calendar of wisdom? I would get it. I to get it. Have you read a calendar of wisdom? I will get it. I will order it immediately. I think he would like it. Basically, what I heard is it was sort of the last thing he did and then it was suppressed by the Soviets after the revolution. And that's why it really wasn't published in English until the 80s.

But it's sort of, it's all of Tolstoy's favorite quotes and then his reaction to those quotes and you just read one page a day. It's one of my absolute favorite books. I am going to order it. It's sort of you finish up on the list. Yeah, it sounds like what you're saying is, you're talking about college students and a lot of them listen to this podcast. It sounds like what Gandhi didn't get was a liberal arts education.

He didn't have an undergrad degree. He was educated, shall we say, by the University of Life? Yes. And that probably in some ways allowed him to, by not having the same philosophical upbringing as many of his adversaries would have been, because they all would have been elite educated British men for the most power, is that it also allowed him to see and form a new paradigm because he wasn't boxed in by there. He understood sort of British Western thought because he was educated in their legal system, but he was not as indoctrinated with all of the same ideas, and this allows him to come up with a radical new way of how human should interact. Absolutely.

And I just say something about what happens after he returns to India. So he goes to India with his moral and political philosophy in place. But in India, his and empty his ideas on a much larger scale. He's not representing just the 150,000 Indians in the Dice for about 300 million Indians. He's not fighting just for the repeal of this law or that law, but the emancipation of India from colonial rule. And in India, he finds an extraordinary secretary who is who's role in Gandhi's life has been massively underplayed in all biographies so far, who's a man called

Mahadev Desai, who's generally learned himself, you know, who has actually read Kant and Hegel and you know, Toynbee and you know, about American, Amazon and thorough and so on. And who's very clued into global politics because Angani needs someone where he's, when the skin of his work is national and universal, he's not just a community organizer, which is what he was in South Africa. Mahadev Desai, who is very,

apart from Gandhi, the great hero, my second volume, is someone who who who summarized that news for him, who tells him what Lenin State and Revolution really argued for, who explains the meaning of the rise of Nazism, who talks about, you know, why this cramble for Africa happened. And actually, but luckily, in many ways, he was one of Gandhi's teachers. But he comes to Gandhi when Gandhi can integrate these pieces of information in the framework he's already developed. But he needs to be up to date with what is happening with the world, where he's taking

all the British Empire. And his people like Mahadev Desai and Jawadalanero, who was of course a very fine historian apart from being India's first prime minister, who really then believe in some basic details that Gandhi needs to plan his wider study. Yeah, and I thought what was striking about the first maybe 10% of Gandhi, basically Gandhi in India, I know that's not the exact title of the book, but that's the middle volume, is Gandhi's essentially returning to his homeland as a stranger, and he asked him to go meet

and understand and experience the terrain which he's gonna be operating in with almost a totally fresh set of ice because he's never been to these places in some cases. He's never met people who lived this way. He's been away from his homeland for what, 30 years at this point. It's a totally new experience. 20 audios, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. He has a mentor, go back to Chicago, go call him, tells him, He has a mentor, go park, he's to go, go play, who tells him, for the first year, just travel. I do not open your mouth, commenting on public affairs. You know, so he's silent for a while here, not just for one day in a week. And he's incredibly good-wise. And just takes a train and travels everywhere, north, south east, west, meet all kinds of people.

And then he's traveling, of course, for the next 30 years. You know, he's in a train compartment or walking more or less for the rest of his life, getting to know every aspect of the country he had left behind as a young man. And his immersion in the lives of ordinary people is something quite extraordinary. And since your audience is last year American, when he dies, about the lesser-known autobiography of the American one, Opportunities of Gandhi is won by the New York writer Dwight McDollard. Of course George O'Reilly wrote a famous essay on Gandhi when Gandhi died, where O'Reilly said, how clean a smell he leaves behind.

But Dwight McDollard, something very interesting about Gandhi. Gandhi said, McDonald said, the greatness of Gandhi was that he could treat the millionaire and the pauper both as he human beings. Yes. So that's I think he was not just mental about you, whether you were wealthy or prosperous, or you were desperately destitute. You know, he was not condescending to a poor man or

differential towards the face of his married Earth. He treated them as human beings as individual Asians like himself. And it's possible that among modern leaders, Nelson Mandela had the same kind of gift, if you read about Mandela, I was really rare, you know, too. Because normally we want to, you know, if you go, for example, it's famously said about cocktail parties in Delhi, which is true, what cocktail, you know, receptions in New York too, that the guy you're talking to is looking over your shoulder to see who's more important than you, you know, to believe you and move on to the next guy. Now, this is, this is how you're going to be.

But for Gandhi, everyone was his spiritual and moral and political and economic and social equal, every other human being. Yeah, he really did the equivalent of what now is a cliche when you hear a politician talk about going on a listening tour. He really does go on a listening tour and it shapes not just what he thinks, but I think it also informs him as to strategically how he can unite these people and activate them and achieve his aims. He's not bringing back, he is bringing back what he experienced and learned from South Africa,

but he's not wedded to it exactly. It is, he's open to changing and adapting to the people he is to be working with. Absolutely. Do you think, I once heard this thing that, there's like different levels of art, right? So like, there's one kind of art where you make a change. And so you create something that's artistically fulfilling.

And then there's, you create something that it's fulfilling and interesting for other people. But the highest forms of art are the forms of art that allow other people to create art. Like you invented a tool or a system that a camera, a new way of painting. What I thought, I think if you think about Gandhi as being someone who is greatest achievement, isn't what he does in Africa.

It's not what he does in India, but it's really a form of activity and change that is exported all over the world that it like he's also responsible for the civil rights movement in America. Yeah, absolutely. I think he's been a profound influence of the environmental movement worldwide, worldwide.

Now, but even in his lifetime, among the distinctive features about Gandhi is he's an incredibly charismatic and influential leader who yet has the ability to train his successes. So, you know, there are dozens of people who be mentors, nurturers and sex-free who go on to become in India. Incredibly significant social workers, spiritual leaders, political activists,

statesmen, lawyers, educationists. So, and that's very rare about, you know, alpha male, you know, generally it's all about yourself. To succeed, you have to crush everyone and get there and you go and there's no legacy that will leave behind. So he does that in his own lifetime with the people he nurtures, which I briefly mentioned in the epilogue to the second volume. But also this, we shall be saying this vocabulary of ideas and forms of action, that are then taken up by people all over the world.

that are then taken up by people all over the world. You know, it could be protest, it could be disobedience, it could be ways of living consistent with the earth, it could be interfaith relations dialogue between Christian and Hindu, Muslim and Jew, and so on and so forth. And I think that said absolutely. I think what you say about the three forms of art, you know, or three forms of, shall we say, political legacies that, you know, I become president of the United States, you know, or I do things while president

that continue to have positive ripple effects decades after I'm dead and forgotten. And I think that's the gun that you can do that. Yeah. And it is kind of humbling because I think we often take modernity as being, I guess, not, as being around longer than it has. It is kind of remarkable that a guy in the late 1800s, early 1900s, just invents this thing.

The idea that you don't have to hate the person that you're opposing, the idea that everyone is equal and deserving of respect and dignity, and the idea that one can bring about change without killing or hurting people. The idea that that was invented somewhat recently, like I've read Adam Hoth's child's book on the abolition movement in Britain. He has this line and he says, this may have been the first time, this would have been

like the 1830s. This was the first time in human history that people got outraged about the rights of other people, right? And again, this is all within like decades of where we are now is kind of humbling and also inspiring, I feel like. It's interesting that you mentioned Adam Watchhild because I have a book that came on earlier this year where he's mentioned in the pro-lo. And the book is called, it's published by the same publisher Knoth. It's called Rebels Against the Raj and it's about Westerners who joined the Indian Freedom Stagger.

All of you knew Gandhi, so white people who fought for India's freedom. And I mentioned Hotshild because he had a very nice book about Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War or the side of the Republicans and the Lincoln Brigade. So what does it take for you know someone born to privilege? In my case, European, American, male, Christian privilege. In my case, European, American, male, Christian, from an imperialist country to go and become Indian and side with Gandhi and go to jail. So I think that's something also is Gandhi enables. So I caught off-challenged in the preface in that context because you know about Americans who went to fight for the liberty of the Spaniards. And he's a wonderful writer. I mean, I admire his work as a lot. And I think that kind of an empathy for those who are not as privileged as you, who are born, dis-privileged,

unlike you, and you're willing this to abandon and forsake your privilege to take their side. It's something which really comes, you know, the Buddha had, I mean, of course, to be fair, it goes back right to the Buddha, who was a prince and abandoned his palace to live among common people and, you know, preach the middle part. So actually, in some ways, the Buddha, particularly because he was born wealthy. He was a prince. He was a king son.

And I think that's the kind of tradition in which many of these people were equally Gandhi come. Spring is in the air. It's a time of renewal and growth going through this right now at Daily Stoic. We're trying to add some people in some key positions to help us continue to do what we do. And the hard part of hiring is finding the people that you want to hire. It's a tight labor market where talent has a lot of control.

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And he's talking about, it strikes him that they're born roughly around the same time. And Letterman is thinking about what happened on this bridge. And he's trying to, you know, all these college students went down there to fight for civil rights. And he was talking about how at that same time he and his friends had been planning like a spring break vacation, right? And how, how it is remarkable. Like, you know, think about these people as existing, everyone was doing it. It was obviously the pulse of the moral crusade

on the planet, et cetera. But actually the vast majority of people were just completely indifferent to what's happening. And it really is a special person that decides, I'm gonna put my life on hold, I'm gonna put my safety at risk and go get involved in this state. It's a very, I haven't seen any interviewer.

It's very revealing and honest and to the great deal of self awareness of Letterman's part that he can talk about. It's quite wonderful because I don't normally watch TV. But when John Lewis died, I watched quite a lot of American TV to see what the obituries about him were because he came to India several times, independently after King, and he was deeply inspired by Gandhi. And whatever John Lewis's aphorisms, which he was quoted after he died too, which I like very much is, you should be able to disagree without being disagreeable. Yes.

And you know, that's very gondian, right? Because Gandhi practiced non-violence in word and is deep. He was never polemical or harsh in writing to his opponents. He was always incredibly civil at courtes. He would be firm in putting across this point of view, defending his perspective, but he would disagree without being disagreeable. And in the kind of mocking, daunting, given the context today, where suddenly in my country and probably in your country too, political discourse is so short-threw with animosity,

hatred, polemic, mimicry. I think that lesson of the life, the public and political life of Gandhi and John Lewis. We can disagree, but we don't have to disagree. It's such a sanity lesson. Yeah, there's a remarkable video of John Lewis sitting down at the end of both of their lives with a man who had beaten him nearly to death for trying to use a bathroom in a Greyhound bus station. And the humanity of these two men who in their earlier life had been utterly at odds

with each other, one coming to feel shame and embarrassment and guilt for what he did. But the other one, feeling love and compassion and forgiveness for this person, it struck me as very Gandhi-esque also. Absolutely, wonderful. Yeah, I must tell you something. The book that I'm writing now,

so I'm doing a series on the Cardinal Virtue. So I just did one on Courage. I just finished one on Self Discipline. So that's why I read about Gandhi. But now I'm starting to think about justice as the third of the Cardinal virtues. What I think is so interesting is when people hear the word justice, they tend to think like the criminal justice system, they think of something legal or illegal, or they think social justice.

But what strikes me about the justice that Gandhi was after, it was a deeper, more sort of like golden rule justice, or it's social contract kind of justice. Like, what is a human being entitled to how do we treat each other? It's not, it's funny that as a lawyer, he's not really that interested in this sort of legalistic definition of justice, but something much more spiritual and philosophical. So, all of our justice much more spiritual and philosophical. So, offer justice is about rights and assets. Do I have my rights? Do I have an equal share of the assets? And I think Gandhi's idea of justice is about, I think, am I treating somebody else justly?

Am I really doing them justly? Are they relating to me justly? So it's more emotional, affectual, personal, and in the world as the one you use, which are complimentary. Of course, you know, that would be himself said. I paraphrased what he said, what he once said, even God, they're not up, up here to the poor man except in the form of bread. So we've recognized economic deprivation and economic inequality. We recognize politically inequality, but there's a kind of what in the personal, humanistic equality that is really searching and striving for as well, which essentially is not there in the constitutional legalistic understanding

of justice. Yes, and I think so often, especially for what- Are we going to ask that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so a lawyer would be primed to see the world in forms of rights and assets, but you know, Gandhi's sympathy and love and compassion is something sort of extra judicial that this is a human being and that we are made from the same thing and are one with each other, is striking, strikes me as the true definition of justice which we don't think about or talk about

enough. If I, you don't mind me Ryan Midbeaking, yeah, not extra judicial but trans judicial. Sure, yes. Yeah, because extra judicial in India has a very dark meaning. It's when a policeman sees a gangster, sees someone whom he thinks is a gangster the road and shoots him without taking him to court.

That's called an extra judicial killing. So maybe trans, you know, trans traditional is civil. Or you could even argue it's prejudicial, right? It preday, it's a way that, you know, Jefferson, Jefferson talks about inalienable rights that don't come from the government, that come from the creator or from life itself. Absolutely. What do you find that? Free hand, please. Free hand. Absolutely, deep leadership. What do you think? Pre-handful speech. Pre-handful speech. Well, and isn't that ultimately what King and Gandhi

have to do, which is make this distinction between what the law says and whether that law is right? So it might be a matter for the justice system, but it is fundamentally unjust. Yeah, absolutely. And I do find the characters fascinating, both in the legal system that Gandhi operated in, and then now reading this draft opinion

from the US Supreme Court, where you can watch someone's legal mind create a world, right? Where you go, hey, the Constitution and none of the legal scholars say anything about whether a woman has the right to control her own body. And it's this definition of missing the forest for the trees, where Alito can't conceive of the obvious fact that the law is saying nothing about women whatsoever because it didn't regard them as human beings. And just this idea that you can so by, I was struck by all the different judges in Gandhi's life and King's life today, who are following the

letter of the law, even though obviously what they are doing is profoundly unjust and inhumane. There's one exception in Gandhi's life, which is then the second volume, which is a trial in 1922. I mean, there's an English judge called Brunefield. And he, Gandhi has written these articles, which under the colonial legal definition of regardless, seditious of the state. So he sent in, same for six years, in prison.

At that, he says, after the judgment, he says nothing can, you know, he says something like this. No one like you has ever come before my court, before or will. I must recognize that in the eyes of millions of your countrymen, you are a saint and a hero. And the law tells me I have to send you to six years in jail. But if this sentence is limited or reduced, no one will be more pleased than I. It's an extraordinary statement while that, you know, no one will be more pleased than I. Now it's an extraordinary statement while that, you know,

it's one of the research who sees as that kind of embarrassment and guilt that the man who brutalized John Lewis, the policeman who hit John Lewis, and you know, had security guard at much later. But as he's saying this, he says, and it's actually covering the law. This is the law of light as we to sentence you to six years, but I must acknowledge that you're a hero and a saint to millions of your

countrymen. So I really hope something happens so that you don't spend these six years. It's a beautiful speech. That is beautiful because I was thinking about this recently because, obviously, I write about the stillyx and the tricky thing about the Stoics is Marcus Aurelius, and actually Marcus Aurelius' philosophy teacher, the one who introduces him to Stoicism, Junius Rousticus is the persecutor, the judge, who sentences Justin Marguer to death, for instance, very cruelly, he orders him to be flawed to death.

And so I was reading this one philosopher, and he was saying that guilt on Marcus Aurelius for this is that he, and this is the quote, he said, that he allowed the law to run its course, right? And that strikes me as similar to what that judge was saying, which is, I know intuitively, emotionally, there's something wrong with what I'm doing, but I am deferring to the law, or I am refusing to question the law or undermine the law. And that is this tricky moral gray area, but ultimately, I think we have to, we have to think what we're talking about, which is transjudicial. The law is less important than what is right and fair and true.

Absolutely. Yeah. Although I guess one might say that if judges simply put the law aside and only did what they're conscious told them, the entire civilization would collapse. So it's a tricky thing I suppose. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think the law is made not for judges like this, that's the rule field, but for maybe, not really folks who are not so moderately developed. You know, one last thing that I thought this was a striking moment in God, it's like because

he was so often principled to the point of, you know, putting his own life secondary to the principle, right? He'd rather starve than eat beef, let's say, or, you know, would rather go to jail than observe a slightly unjust law or compromise on law. But there was a moment you talk about early in Gandhi before India, where Gandhi is forced to go before a judge. He's fighting for someone else's rights, and the judge asks him to take his headdress off, which he complies with. And it struck me as a remarkably pragmatic moment in Gandhi's life, that maybe he doesn't

get enough credit for for being pragmatic as well as deeply principled. Yeah, so this is when he was very just reached South Africa and he was the first Indian lawyer. He made the first color lawyer in South Africa because they were no African lawyers either. And in India it would be quite customary for an Indian, you know, most Indian communities have different kinds of head gear. You know, they have different colors, different shapes, different cloth. And in India, you could buy your lawyer's robes and also wear whatever cap you want on top if it's sanctioned by customer origin. So he's wearing that, he's wearing his Katya Vari turban and the judges take it off.

And there's some mamas that he thinks about it and then he takes it off. Yeah, it is, it is. And Gandhi was that way. I mean, he knew which battles were more important, and which were, you know, just a question of prestige, prestige or ego. They weren't really consequential in terms of the rights of people. Yeah. And even, I thought it was remarkably lower-esque, but also brilliant when a number of wars break out. And Gandhi says, well, I want to contribute because I don't like suffering.

I want to, I also have to think about my image. I don't want to be seen as a traitor, but I also have this principle, which is that I don't want to hurt anyone. So he volunteers as a stretcher bearer. And I loved his sort of like, there's a quote from Marcus really, so he says, if there are brambles in the path, go around. You know, Gandhi figures out a way to do what he needs to do without being a slave to dogma or doctrine.

Yeah. I mean, I get, I mean, I always, lovely phrases is the beauty of compromise. Yes. You know, because compromise is regarded as not correct by, I get extreme, it's radical. And you know, these are, and he, and I think he also in, as he runs an ambulance call, he's a stature bearer, and he attends everyone, you know, he, he, you know, if it's a Juzulu soldier or a British white soldier, it doesn't matter. An injured person has come and will treat their wounds. Yeah, it was, it was remarkable. I so, I liked both the books so much.

I'm going to read Gandhi after India. And then what's the new one you said? It's called Rebels Against the Raj. I just tell me that all the title of the tall style book again. It's called A Calendar of Wisdom. Calendar of Wisdom, perfect. I think you'll love it. Well, thank you, sir. Thank you for writing these books. Thank you for what I imagine were years and years and years of research

and writing that went into every detailed build page. And you did us all a service and it's been an honor talking to you. Thank you, Ray. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoke Store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The app goes away. You go as the enemy, still in this is the key. The leatherbound edition of the Daily Stoke. We have them all in the daily stoke store.

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