Role of Gandhi in the National Movement

At one lime Jawaharlal Nehru remarked that he doubled the clarity of the Mahatma and also his own association with him. Explaining this paradox Nehru writes thus: "Personality is as' indefinable tiling, a strange force that has power over the soul man and he possesses this in a remarkable measure..... He attracted people..... They did not agree with his philosophy of life or even with' many of his ideals... and we went with him although we did not accept his philosophy."
What gave this enormous spell to the personality of Gandhiji? He epitomized the traditions of India. His emphasis was always on action, reminding one of the Karma Yoga in the Gita which has been the most pi scripture of the Hindus since the sixth century A.D. Although he was simple in and saintly in thinking, he permitted himself to be involved neck-deep in the struggle of the country. And all his actions were translated in the Hindu id "Defiance of law and order was non-cooperation with evil; hartal was 11 protest; Satyagraha was the technique for the realization of truth that is God.” Secondly, he openly asserted that the concept of Truth (God) is l unattainable, each one is endowed with a fraction of Truth, has almost the meaning as the cardinal principle of the Upanishads that salvation lies in them of the individual's soul with the universal soul.
Thirdly, his stress on simple living and abstemious habits of dietary in li cast a spell on the masses of India. Indeed, he did skip over two stages of traditional ashrams known for two millennia in India. He became the apple off of the common man because sainthood has always had a profound appeal to the masses reminding them of the various charkas like Sankara and Madhavaan saint-singers of the Bhakti movement. Although the middle class did not like hi knobbing with the Harijans, they could not but admire him, for deep down in their they knew that they were in the wrong, not the Mahatma. Besides, there was a surreptitious veneration for meditation