Volume 10, Issue 1, February 1997

John Henry Newman and Mohandas Gandhi represent an odd coupling. Newman’s popular hymn, “Lead, kindly Light”, exerted a powerful influence upon Mahatma Gandhi’s spirituality and India’s struggle for independence. The hymn was transmitted to Gandhi in Noncomformist circles in England and South Africa. “Lead, kindly Light” came to represent the spirit of his satyagraha campaigns against the British and Indian Governments. It also assumed an important place in Gandhi’s developing understanding of religious pluralism.