Bridging the Divide: Shared search for truth
Barun Mitra
Shri Vijay Tambe’s address at the National Atheist Conference (Sevagram,Wardha, October 16,2025), made me notice how Gandhi becomes a meeting ground for believers and non-believers alike. The difference between theists and atheists today is less metaphysical than linguistic. Their dispute centres on what is meant by the word religion. Modern discourse equates religion with doctrine—rituals, theology, metaphysical claims—whereas dharma has always referred to the struggle to discern the right action in a particular situation. Yet dharma continues to be translated as “religion,” even in Gandhi’s own writings, perpetuating the confusion.
This is why Gandhi preferred to describe himself as a sanatani—a seeker of the eternal—rather than a Hindu in the sectarian sense. Hardly a coincidence that in his adult life he seldom visited temples or prayed before idols. His spiritual evolution culminated, around his 60th year, in the inversion of “God is Truth” to “Truth is God.” Truth, not deity, became the axis of his life.
Gandhi could make this shift because he lived the struggle he spoke of.
He reinterpreted inherited texts, including the Gita, creatively and courageously.
He subordinated scriptural authority to the “small voice within.”
He placed practice above profession, offering his life as a continuous experiment with truth.
His reading of the Gita illustrates this most clearly. For Gandhi, the Kurukshetra was not an external battlefield but the inner field of moral conflict, accessible only through disciplined introspection. For the revolutionaries of his time, the same Gita provided a call to arms against colonial injustice. The contrast is telling.
The difference between the two interpretations lies in what they enabled. The revolutionaries inspired awe through their sacrifice, but few could emulate them; their battlefield was external, their enemy clearly defined. Gandhi’s battlefield lay within, making it possible for millions to participate. Acts like the charkha, boycott, or the salt march were not only political strategies but invitations to cultivate self-rule through an inward gaze.
This inward gaze is difficult amid the distractions of modern life and the seductive comfort of blaming the “other.” Yet it is also paradoxically liberating. When one recognises the diversity and contradictions within oneself, the sense of enmity begins to dissolve. Gandhi’s experiments with truth were about this dissolution—about bridging the inner divides so that the outer divides could no longer take hold. His “oceanic circles” radiated outward precisely because they began inward.
The revolutionaries underscored the distinction between themselves and the enemy. Gandhi sought to dissolve that distinction. Thus, for him, atheists, casteists, colonialists, even violent revolutionaries, were not adversaries to be defeated but fellow-wanderers, reflections of the pluralities within each person. The goal was not victory over the other but reconciliation through the awakening of truth.
This approach was not theoretical. It manifested repeatedly in Gandhi’s life.
– General Jan Smuts, who had once imprisoned Gandhi, later returned his handcrafted prison slippers with a letter expressing deep regard.
– Gandhi’s long dialogue with Gora, the atheist educationist, displayed how two seekers could transcend labels through sincerity and shared practice.
– Gandhi’s presence in Bengal in 1946–47, which Manu Gandhi called a “miracle” and Mountbatten described as a “one-man army,” showed how he could restore sanity in a society tearing itself apart.
Yet, what Manu called a miracle in Calcutta was actually the natural culmination of Gandhi’s disciplined, lifelong pursuit of unity through truth. What appeared miraculous was the relationship Gandhi had cultivated with the people. His transparent practices and fearlessness earned him a moral credibility across communities. This trust awakened in ordinary people a sense of their own agency. They felt inspired—almost compelled—to rise to the possibilities that Gandhi’s example opened before them.
The so-called miracles of Calcutta and Noakhali were therefore co-created between Gandhi and the people. Gandhi provided the ethic, courage, and moral horizon; the people animated it through their own actions—refraining from violence, crossing communal boundaries, offering repentance, and practising forgiveness. None of this would have been possible had the people not responded to Gandhi’s sincerity with their own awakening.
Thus, the real miracle was the shared agency that emerged—a collective willingness to act from truth rather than fear, hatred, or revenge. Gandhi did not perform miracles; the people did, by discovering within themselves the strength to embody the unity he pointed toward.
This made Gandhi see Gora not as an atheist but as a fellow-traveller—another seeker experimenting in his own way. Both approached truth as a search rather than a possession, a journey through plurality rather than a claim to certainty. In an age eager to weaponise difference, their relationship stands as a reminder that the deepest bridges are built not through argument but through shared practice, humility, and the courage to remain open to the other.
This note was written by Barun Mitra after reading Shri Vijay Tambe's Address (Secretary of Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan ), reflecting on Gandhi's theism at the National Atheist Conference at Sevagram , Wardha, in October 2025.The text of the address is available in the blog of the ashram website.
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