Gandhi was an activist and yet a hundred solid volumes can barely contain his writings, which are neither scholarly nor philosophical in a strict sense. They are his reflections and ``Experiments with Truth,'' and known better for their passion than for erudition. More than three hundred biographies, not to mention the thousands of research articles that baffle scholars around the world about this charismatic saint, have been written.

Although Gandhi drew inspiration from Tolstoy and others, he discovered a profound spiritual sourcein the teachings of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. ``If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to him the other too'' reverberated with him and eventually spawned active non-violence.

Gandhi was a powerful communicator though a poor orator. Once when asked what his message was, he crisply replied, ``My life is my message''. Though feeble in health and, as Winston Churchill once called him, a ``half-naked fakir,'' he was a missionary who generated a movement that mesmerized the masses. They knew he loved them and identified with their joys and sorrow.

If missionaries, whether of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, the Ram Krishna Mission or any other movement like the Bajrang Dal or the VHP wish to be effective, Gandhi shows a unique way. His success was not due to his association with a particular religion or sect but because he had a fundamental openness towards others. A fundamentalist he certainly was, but of a different variety. He burned with a zeal not so much to convert people from the truth of onereligion to that of another but for the truth of God and to alleviate human sufferings. He emphasised a conversion of the heart.

Not that the question of conversion from one religion to another did not trouble him: ``There was a time when I was wavering between Hinduism and Christianity. When I recovered my balance of mind, I felt that to me, salvation was possible only through the Hindu religion and my faith in Hinduism grew deeper and more enlightened. But even then I believed that untouchability was no part of Hinduism; and that if it was, such Hinduism was not for me.''

His faith in God was the result of his being a Hindu to the core, but he could never accept its teachings on the dehumanising caste system. He could not embrace a God or religion that would deprecate another human being because of his or her birth. ``Ishwara Sarvabhutam...Tishtathi'' (the Lord resides in the heart of all beings) was what he firmly believed. And this he propagated passionately. God and religion were notsynonymous for him: ``Religion is dear to me and my first complaint is that India is becoming irreligious. Here I am not thinking of the Hindu or the Mohommedan or the Zoroastrian religion but of that religion which underlies all religions. We are turning away from God.''

And what would the Mahatma have to say about Indian religiosity today? If the Hindu religion is where he found his roots, he did not shy away from swearing by the plurality that reflected the multi-religious face of Bharat maata. He asserted India's composite culture and said, ``In no part of the world are one nationality and one religion synonymous terms; nor has it ever been so in India,'' and reiterated, ``If the Hindus believe that India should be peopled only by Hindus, they are living in a dream land''.