Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/129

 that a federal administration is not necessarily. If you point out the difficulties that would arise in the absence of a federal administration, he is unconvinced. Then you argue further and he finally says, “I know that despite my personal views there will be a central administration.” This is a characteristic Gandhi cycle: He enunciates a principle, defends it, and ultimately admits that it is unworkable. His mind is malleable and fluid. There is something of the dictator in him when he wants action. Then he crushes opposition by the weight of his logic and the strength of his popular following. But there is nothing of the dictator in his thinking. A dictator can never admit he is wrong. Gandhi can; he often does.

Gandhi is very much of a Hindu. The Hindu religion is a tolerant and sponge-like religion. Hindus believe in one God. Some also believe in Christ. Some are atheists; they claim that Hinduism is a code of life independent of a deity. Some pray to idols. Some worship mountains and rivers and gods who were once men and women; they see no conflict between such opposites as monotheism and idolatry. “If the Niagara Falls were in India,” an Indian said to me, “they would be a god.” The Mt. Olympus of Hinduism is densely populated, but many Hindus are sure that there is a place reserved in it for Mahatma Gandhi. The general Indian feeling about Gandhi is that