This column is not about Gandhi as a genius (which, with a laugh, he would say he certainly was not) or about the spectacularly original man I believe him to have been. It is about the place of the word ‘genius’ in Gandhi’s thought and in his writings.

Why should that common word be picked up from Gandhi’s teeming English vocabulary for special attention? Because his use of that valuational word tells us a great deal about his assessment of persons and situations — a matter of interest in itself. And also because we can apply (or not apply) his yardsticks for evaluating persons and happenings in our contemporary times.

There is another non-Gandhi reason as well. Most users of the word do not know that ‘genius’ is a Latin word. Not just a word of Latin origin but a Latin word in its totality — in the way it is spelt, pronounced and meant. English has borrowed ‘genius’ from the language of Virgil, Horace, Ovid without any change whatsoever, somewhat like how C.V. Raman describes the journey of the diamond from its womb under the earth to human hands ‘…absolutely fresh…perfect from nature’s crucible.’ And so, reflecting on the word, one might also ponder its travel from one language register to another, admitting some variations in its action.

Here are representative examples culled by Gandhi-researcher Murtaza Gandhi from The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG).

Pronounced in both Latin and English identically, as Jee-nee-us, its meaning in classical Latin is ‘divine inner power’. In modern English, when used as a noun, for example, ‘the genius S. Ramanujan…’, it denotes a person with exceptional intellectual or creative ability. When used as an adjective, for example, ‘the genius of India…, it refers to a singular or unique characteristic.

The first encounter

Gandhi uses the word in both senses. His first recorded use of it is as a skill, a vision, an act of sheer dare. He talks about it as an achievement, not as the description of a person. The reference goes back to 1888, when he was 19 years old and when his English was unpolished. Travelling by the liner S.S. Clyde from Bombay to England to start his law studies, he was taken up by the sight of the Suez Canal. Cutting the slender isthmus of the Suez between Asia and Africa to save on journey time by several days, it was a marvel to behold.

He writes in what is now known as his London Diary: “The construction of the Suez Canal I am not able to understand. It is indeed marvellous. I cannot think of the genius of a man who invented it. I don’t know how he would have done it.” (CWMG, Vol.01, p.11). The ‘man who invented it’ is, of course, Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894), a French diplomat and entrepreneur, who thought of and made the Canal with the help of two engineers — the Austrian Alois Negrelli and fellow Frenchman Linant de Bellefond.

In this year, 2026, which marks the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Anglo-French-Israeli bombardment of Egypt, which aimed to take over the Suez Canal — which Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalised — Israel is using more lethal bombs with prodigal abandon in Palestine and Gaza and, with the United States joining the fire-play over Iran, causing the death, among others, of the Supreme Leader of the Iranian state, no less. So, today, we can reflect on Gandhi’s marvelling at the genius that went into the making of that oceanic passageway only with anxiety for the future of the area around that marvel.

The dark side

This brings one to a phrase which is twinned to ‘genius’: evil genius (or malignum genium). The earliest known use of that phrase as a concept is in French philosopher Rene Descartes’ use of it in his 1641 opus Meditations on First Philosophy. He posits in it the existence of a power that is the very opposite of the divine power that actuates ‘genius’ — evil genius, a malignant God or evil power.

By 1893, Barrister M.K. Gandhi was in South Africa and soon became the spokesman and leader of the Indian community there in its strivings for the recognition of its rights and its dignity. Stung by the discriminations and humiliations that Indian South Africans were subjected to, particularly at the hands of the Asiatic Department, we see him use the word not just in its simple sense of a compliment but in its contrary avatar: “There seems to be somewhere in the Asiatic Department of the government an evil genius working through it.” (CWMG, Vol.04, p.26, 23. The Bazaars in The Transvaal).

‘Evil genius’ occurs in Gandhi’s vocabulary again when he is back in India, where he uses it in the context of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (April 13, 1919) but very pointedly for an individual: “General Dyer has been haltingly blamed, and his evil genius, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, entirely exonerated…” (CWMG, Vol.19, p.339). Just stopping short of using the phrase ‘evil genius’, he invokes the word witheringly with sarcasm, to describe the British Raj’s policy of ‘Divide and Rule’: “But just now I am speaking of the genius of the Government. It has not hesitated to divide Hindus from Muslims in order to be able to retain its hold on us.” (CWMG, Vol.19, p.398, Speech at Nankana Saheb — March 3, 1921).

As a term of praise

The earliest recorded reference by him of a person as a genius in a wholly complimentary sense, is for Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who, in 1916, in the town of Belgaum, famously declared (in Marathi) “Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it.” The ‘Father of Indian Unrest’ had been dead four years, but addressing the Indian National Congress’ session in the same town of Belgaum in December 1924 as Congress President, Gandhi could not but refer to him and said (in English): He was the genius of swaraj (CWMG, Vol.25, p.508, Concluding Speech at Belgaum Congress, December 27, 1924). Gandhi is doing something very interesting here. He is terming Tilak as a genius of and in something very singular, very specific — swaraj. He is using the term very precisely, very contextually, like he would be if he were to describe Einstein as a genius of the Theory of Relativity.

The next most notable use by him of the word as a personal tribute is for Rabindranath Tagore. Speaking of him in 1931, Gandhi says: “In common with thousands of his countrymen I owe much to one who by his poetic genius and singular purity of life has raised India in the estimation of the world.” (CWMG, Vol.45, p.125, Tribute to Rabindranath Tagore — January 26, 1931).

He was to use the word for him again but again, not as a direct adjective but with a value added: “His creative genius has also given us Santiniketan, Sriniketan and Visvabharati” (CWMG, Vol.84, p.124, Speech at Prayer Meeting, May 8, 1946).

There is one person for whom Gandhi uses the word ‘genius’ without any niche that encases ‘genius’. It is for his friend and almost-preceptor, the young Bombay-based jeweller, poet, Jaina ascetic Rajchandra or Raychandbhai as Gandhi called him: “Kavi Rajchandra was born in a place called Vavania in Kathiawar… His schooling was quite elementary. But he was a genius. He knew Sanskrit, Magadhi and, I believe, Pali” (CWMG, Vol.43, p.98, A Great Seer — March 18, 1930).

Genius can do marvels and do evil. Remembering Gandhi’s awareness of that truth is today not a matter of language alone but of life and death.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a teacher who has held administrative, diplomatic and constitutional positions.