ABSTRACT
Ramchandra Gandhi wrote about the most controversial comment made by his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, in the wake of the devastating Bihar earthquake of 1934, ‘Gandhiji scandalised both (meaning both naturalists and rationalists), and somebody who scandalises both atheists and theists, modernists and traditionalists, does, I think, cause an important creative disturbance in the thinking of many people’ (Gandhi 1983: 125). Ramchandra Gandhi too had the immense power of causing creative disturbance in the minds of his readers and audience by his incredibly imaginative interpretation of traditional texts and mind-boggling philosophical issues. Even during his analytical phase he was a wizard of words, which enabled him to transform any discourse-setting. Yet, such transformations never had a ring of inauthenticity around them because he never spoke in bad faith, but always from the innermost core of his heart, which was ever ready to grant the same amount of value and care to any self-conscious communicator as well as interlocutor. In his philosophy of communication, he discarded the ignominy of ‘speaking to’ people and carefully laid down the conditions of the true mode of communication or ‘speaking with’ people (Moitra 2002),1 thus empowering every human being with the freedom of thought and expression, and also the freedom to live in a nonhierarchical cooperative style. Indeed, this philosophy of communication is the bridge between the thoughts and works of early and later Ramchandra Gandhi.
