But in order to satisfy the intellectual aspirations of his time, and for purposes of his social and political thought, Gandhi also offered and exposition of religion which he thought was entirely rational. The logic equivalent of supralogical God, the mundane manifestation of the supra-mundane deity, he found in truth. Truth is God, he declared. Truth is Rama, Narayana, Ishwara, Khuda, Allah and God. And since the quest for God is the essence of religion, even the atheisism of the sincere atheist is in fact a form of religion. Gandhi claimed that he had disarmed some important critics and "many a young man" with this definition of God. He frequently quoted with favour the Sanskrit proverb, satyat nasti paro dharma, that is "there is no religion higher than truth", and regarded it as the very basis of his socio-political thought.

Thus truth, referred to by Gandhi as the eternal principle, is the first principle of religion, as explained by him so far as his impersonal (non-autobiographical) thought is concerned. The pursuit of truth, the attempt to realise truth in one’s thought and action, is the substance of the religion of man. "Devotion to truth," says Gandhi, "is the sole justification for our existence."

When Gandhi spoke of religion, he was more concerned with religious values than with religious beliefs with the fundamental ethics that he believed to be common to all religions, rather than the formal allegiance to received dogmas that becomes a barrier to religious experience. Religion does not mean sectarianism. It means a belief in "the ordered moral government of the universe." He referred to "the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever purifies. It is the permanent element in human nature which counts no cost too great in order to find full expression and which leaves the soul utterly restless until it has found itself." It sustains a person as nothing else does. It is "rock-bottom fundamental morality." When morality incarnates itself in a living man it becomes religion, because it binds, it holds, it sustains him in the hour of trail.

Gandhi was wholly against state religion, even if a country had only one religion. Sectarian, he felt, is a purely personal matter and has no place in politics. A society or a group, which he depends partly or wholly on state aid for existence of religion does not deserve or have any religion worth the name. In reality, there are "as many religions as there are individuals."

Gandhi thought that the saint and the revolutionary are not compatible, although the former is more concerned with his inward integrity and the latter with his outward effectiveness. The saint must not become a self-deceiving escapist who refuses to act, while the revolutionary politician must not become a self-seeking opportunist who is ever ready to sacrifice his declared principles. The true saint must be effective in society, while the true revolutionary must be possessed of the deepest integrity; in the end, the two categories merge into each other. In this way Gandhi upheld what Archbishop Temple called "the error of medieval monasticism." The belief that it is possible to live in society that is altogether at variance with its prevalent moral standards.

Gandhi was, in fact, following in the footsteps of the Buddha in showing the connection between the service of suffering humanity and the process self-purification. He rejected the distinction between the mundane and the ultramundane, the natural and the supernatural. Neither artha (politics) nor moksha (salvation) could be separated from dharma (social and personal morality). He did not merely contended that artha must be subordinated to dharma in the case of conflict but went further and, as in the Dharamasutra literature, regarded politics as a branch of ethics; did not therefore take his stand on the concept of rajadharma (royal duty) in ancient Indian religious literature. Politics is also a means of enforcing and promoting morality, although to be "pure" politics was regarded in classical Hindu political thought as significant only in satya Yuga, the Golden Age; in Kali Yuga the use of danda or legitimate coercion was regarded as unavoidable and could be justified in terms of the recognised obligation of the ruler to preserve the social system and uphold the citizen’s performance of his traditional dharma.

The interplay of power and moral values is at the center of the problem of politics, but is usually understood solely in terms of moralizing the conduct of the State. Gandhi was, however, far more interested in challenging the conventional view of the nature and domain of politics, in widening the concept of power, and above all, in destroying the dichotomies between private and public morals, religious values and political norms, ethical principles and political expediency. In a materialistic civilization this requires nothing less than an assault on deeply rooted and widely held notions of realism and self-interest, narrowly defined, that flow from the segregation of true religion and power politics.

The volume is a valuable addition to the discipline of Gandhian thought. It will be of immense use to the serious students of Gandhi in particular and others in general.