What made Gandhi such an effective communicator?
“My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth”.
-The collected works of Mahatma Gandhi
What can one say about a man who had such strong yet complex views on most things in life? How does one select a few examples of good communication from someone who wrote fruitfully and whose every word was judiciously chosen and had the ability to convey his thoughts perfectly? Bapu’s strength as a communicator was that although he used words economically, he was so precise that he was almost never misunderstood or misquoted.
When Bapu declared his intention to defy the British Monopoly on salt in India by making Contraband salt, many Congress leaders were opposed to the idea. Motilal Nehru wrote a 21-page-long letter, explaining it’s catches and how it was likely to cause the harm of Swaraj. Bapu sent him a one sentence reply on a post card: “Aadarniya Motilalji, karkein dekhiyen”. After Bapu picked up a fistful of saline mud at Dandi and two tolas of salt was refined from it, he gave a Clarion call to all of India to similarly defy the British. Being a loyalist, Motilalji declared his intention to break the salt law in Allahabad. By then, the British had realised their folly and the Viceroy had ordered the leaders to be arrested. When Motilalji reached home the police was waiting to arrest him. The last thing Motilalji did before going with them was to send a telegram to Bapu:”Aadarniya Gandhiji Karne se pehle hi dekh liya”.
Bapu never spoke in two tongues- one for the urban, educated and elite and another for the illiterate rural masses. His simplicity was such that the two diverse groups understood what he wished to convey and his words spread far and wide in that era of no social media. On the eve of breaking the salt law in April 1930, when a Canadian journalist asked him if he wished to send a message to the world, he said something that continues to inspire humanity:”I want world sympathy in this battle of right against might.”