Gandhi , Gujarat Hymn , Known All ,Devote Song

Although Gandhi made Gujarat politically conscious, it was some years before Gujarat became a political entity. In 1960 it became at separate state the Maha Gujarat movement whose foremost leader was Indulal Yagnik. So, too, Gjarat’s intelligentsia became aware of its cultural entity this consciousness.

It is to a now virtually forgotten Gujatati literary luminary, Ranjitram Vavabhai, that Gujarat owes its consciousness of its cultural unity. Later, Munshi sought in the twenties and thirties to revive Gujarat’s pride in its cultural heritage. Cultural influences in Gujarat’s life have been many and diverse: Vaishnavism and Jainsim: Brahmo Samaj and the social reform movement of Maharasthra; English literature and Western philosophy, Gandhi and his associates in early days, especially in the Gujarat Vidyapith, such as Kaka Kalekar, a Maharashtrian who is in the front rank of Gujarat’s intellectuals and men of letters; Tagore, Santiniketan ad Bengali literature, art music and Sri Aurobindo and Pondicherry Ashram.

Speaking, first, of Gujarati literature, the earliest Gujarati writers were Jain Sadhus. But the first Gujarati poet was Narsinh Mehta, the saint-poet –devotee. His bhajan (devotional song) about the characteristic virtues of a true Vaishnav was a favorite of Gandhi and it is the one Gujarat hymn which has come to be known all over India.