Charles Freer Andrews - With Gandhi, Tagore and Sree Narayana Guru

With Gandhi, Tagore and Sree Narayana Guru

Known for his persuasiveness, intellect and moral firmness, he was asked by senior Indian political leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale to visit South Africa and help the Indian community there to resolve their political disputes with the Government. He met there a young Gujarati lawyer, Mohandas Gandhi, who was attempting to organize the Natal Indian Congress and the Indian community to protest against the racial discrimination and police legislation that infringed their civil liberties. Andrews was deeply impressed with Gandhi's knowledge of Christian values and his espousal of the concept of ahimsa, non-violence - something that Gandhi mixed with inspiration from elements of Christian anarchism. He helped Gandhi organize an Ashram in South Africa in Natal and publish his famous magazine, The Indian Opinion.

Following the advice of several Indian Congress leaders and of Principal Susil Kumar Rudra of St. Stephen's College, Andrews was instrumental in persuading Gandhi to return to India with him in 1915.

In 1918 Andrews disagreed with Gandhi's attempts to recruit combatants for World War I, believing that this was inconsistent with their views on nonviolence. In Mahatma Gandhi's Ideas Andrews wrote about Gandhi's recruitment campaign: "Personally I have never been able to reconcile this with his own conduct in other respects, and it is one of the points where I have found myself in painful disagreement."

Later Andrews was elected President of the All India Trade Union in 1925 and 1927. He accompanied Gandhi to the second Round Table Conference in London, helping him negotiate with the British government on matters of Indian autonomy and devolution.

While working for Indian independence Andrews developed a dialogue between Christians and Hindus. He spent a lot of time at Santiniketan in conversation with the poet and philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore. He also supported the movement to ban the ‘untouchability of outcastes’. In 1925, he joined the famous Vaikom Satyagraha, and in 1933 assisted B.R. Ambedkar in formulating Dalit demands.

Once C.F. Andrews,along with Rabindranath Tagore, visited Sree Narayana Guru, The supreme Spiritual Leader from Kerala, South India. Then he wrote to Romain Rolland; that "I have seen our Christ walking on the shore of arabian sea in the attire of a hindu sanyasin".