Epilogue

Abstract

In the foregoing studies I have tried to follow through the motif of Gandhi’s Jewish associations, finding therein a constellation of factors which lead out in several directions. As in a musical composition, so also in a piece of writing, a theme cannot be worked to death but rises and falls along with many sub-themes and developments. The theosophical link intrigued because it showed itself in no less than three continents and brought Gandhi in touch with most of his Jewish friends. The Home Rule end of the subject, so to say, has already received the full attention of historians. Gandhi distrusted Annie Besant’s eloquence, her connection with only the educated section of the population, and he had no intention of joining in the Home Rule agitation launched by her in the midst of the First World War. His original interest in the theosophical movement had not been political. In London and Johannesburg it brought him in touch with idealistic people with Indian sympathies. Eclectic in temper as they were, they came across each other at a time when Gandhi’s appetite for congenial ideas was almost insatiable. That theosophists were usually vegetarians, nature cure enthusiasts and Indophiles at the same time was a happy coincidence as far as he was concerned. He probably did not realise that his Jewish theosophical friends had already virtually cut themselves off from their own tradition in order to become theosophists.