This is the fourth volume of The Selected Works Of Mahatma Gandhi. It includes almost all the basic brochures and pamphlets which were written by Gandhiji during his lifetime. The brochures have been arranged in the order in which they were published.
Ethical Religion was written originally in Gujarati as early as 1907 in South Africa and was serialized in the Indian Opinion. It contains the basic ideas of Gandhiji on ethics and religion. It is one of the less known publications, but, nonetheless, important for understanding Mahatma Gandhi's fundamental thought.
In his Autobiography, Gandhiji has mentioned about the 'magic spell' of Ruskin's Unto This Last which he read during his twenty-four hour journey from Johannesburg to Durban in 1908. This book exercised very deep influence on Gandhiji's life and work. He translated it later into Gujarati, entitling it Sarvodaya. Gandhiji has paraphrased the teachings of Unto This Last as follows:
The good of the individual is contained in the good of all.
A lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's, as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work.
A life of labour, i.e. the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living.
Hind Swaraj Or Indian Home Rule was first published in the columns of the Indian Opinion in South Africa. It was written in 1908 during Gandhiji's return voyage from London to South Africa in answer to the Indian school of violence. The new edition of Hind Swaraj was published in 1938. Though Gandhiji's views as expressed in the first edition remained in substance unchanged, they had gone through 'a necessary evolution'. In his Preface to the first edition, Gandhiji wrote: In my opinion it is a book which can be put into the hands of a child. It teaches the gospel of love in place of that of hate. It replaces violence with self-sacrifice. It pits soul force against brut force.
From Yeravda Mandir is a collection of weekly letters by Gandhiji to the inmates of Satyagraha Ashram, Sabarmati, during his incarceration in 1930 in the Yeravda General Prison, Poona. They were originally written in Gujarati. The letters explain in some detail Gandhiji's own ideas about the eleven rules of conduct to be observed by the inmates of the Ashram. They include truth, non-violence, chastity, control of the palate, non-stealing, non-possession, fearlessness, removal of untouchability, breadlabour, equality of religions, and Swadeshi.
Discourses On The Gita is the English rendering of Gujarati letters written by Mahatma Gandhi to the inmates of the Ashram from Yeravda Central Jail in 1930. In the course of these eighteen letters, one on each Chapter, Gandhiji has tried to explain the essence of the Gita's philosophy in simple language and style. The Gita occupied a central place in Gandhiji's life, and recitations from it formed a regular part of his daily prayers.
Constructive Programme: Its Meaning And Place was first published in 1941, and its revised edition in 1945. In the course of his foreword to this brochure Gandhiji
had emphasized that constructive programme is the truthful and non-violent way of winning complete Independence. It is designed to build up the nation from the very bottom upward. He added training for military revolt means learning the use of arms, ending perhaps in the atomic bomb. For civil disobedience, it means the Constructive Programme.
Key To Health was written by Mahatma Gandhi during his detention in the Aga Khan Palace in the course of the 1942 'Quit India' movement. It is, indeed, significant that instead of writing a book on politics Gandhiji chose to pen down his basic ideas on the promotion of health through simple 'nature cure' methods and without the use of modern medicines. Originally, Gandhiji had written on health problems in the columns of the Indian Opinion in South Africa in 1906. Key to Health is, however, an entirely new publication, though the fundamental ideas are, more or less, similar.
