Speech at Lausanne, 8 December 1931; printed in his weekly paper Young India, 31 December 1931
Truth Is God
On 8 December 1931 Mahatma Gandhi took an evening train to Lausanne in Switzerland. He had just finished three months at the Round Table Conference in London, where talks on India had failed. He stayed with the writer Romain Rolland in Villeneuve, but Rolland was unwell and stayed home. Gandhiji walked into the Maison du Peuple on Rue Caroline to face a crowd of Swiss workers and pacifists. A Swiss friend named Edmond Privat stood next to him to translate his English into French. Someone in the crowd asked Gandhiji about his faith, and he answered with three words: "Truth is God."
For fifty years Gandhiji had told people that God is Truth. In Lausanne he explained why he reversed the words. If you begin by speaking about God, an atheist will disagree and walk away. But even an atheist like Charles Bradlaugh cannot deny truth, because everyone agrees that facts exist. The ancient Sanskrit root sat means that which exists. When you put truth first, nobody can step outside the room. Even people who reject religion are still looking for what is real.
Therefore
When you need to build agreement, begin with the thing nobody can deny. Then you can work out what to do next without arguing over labels.
Young India, 31 December 1931
His secretary Mahadev Desai wrote down every word at Lausanne, while his son Devdas Gandhiji and Pyarelal Nayyar watched the hall. Two days later Gandhiji spoke in Geneva, and then he caught a train to Rome and met Benito Mussolini. On 28 December 1931 he landed back in Bombay. His weekly paper, Young India, printed the Lausanne speech on 31 December 1931. British police arrested him at dawn on 4 January 1932 and locked him in Yeravda prison, but he kept the new phrasing for the rest of his life.
A small reminder, on the laptop or the desk, that an argument works best when it begins with what nobody can deny.
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