Gandhi's Waiting For The Mahatma

Gandhi did not believe in the accepted vision concerning economics and morality. For him, “True Dharma always promotes legitimate economic pursuits. For imperfect man, this is the finest test of whether what purports to be Dharma is true Dharma” (Gandhi’s India 25). He also modified the concept of Yagna in an innovative manner. “Yagna means an act directed to the welfare of others, done without desiring any return for it, whether of a temporal or spiritual nature” (Gandhi’s India 25).
Ramashray Roy finds that Gandhi’s stand mirrors the Upanishad and insists on the unanimity of all forms of life. He observes:
Gandhi’s position is identical with the Upanishadic insistence of the oneness of everything, senate and insenate. The adhyatma - adhidaivam

We see him in first person talking to other characters about his mission of getting India free from the British rule. He is not just a voice or an echo in this novel; he is a real human being in this novel who speaks for

Narayan is not the only writer who was influenced by the Mahatma’s principles and ideology and adopted it as a theme in his novels. We have a plethora of works in fiction and nonfiction that center around Gandhi and his way of life. Kanthapura, A Goddess Named Gold, The Sword and the Sickle and Untouchable, The Chronicles of Kedaram and In Transit are a few prominent works from the era that centered on the Gandhian theme and Gandhi himself. R. K. Narayan in Waiting for the Mahatma not only examines Gandhian ideologies but also describes in detail the hold that Mahatma had on the masses. In the growth of the protagonist Sriram, we see the impact of Gandhi and the resulting transformation of an average human being. He becomes a representative of the masses who followed the Mahatma and went through many trials and tribulations. The Sriram we meet at the beginning of the novel is not an intellectual or a person capable of changing the world but a young man with faults and weaknesses. He does not follow Gandhi or understand the Gandhian Ideal. He has his own doubts which he gradually resolves with Bharati’s guidance and his own interaction with the Mahatma. Waiting for the Mahatma is the only novel of Narayan which centers around Gandhi and places him as an important character in the course of freedom struggle . William Walsh commends Waiting for the Mahatma as “a rare