The poet who wrote Gandhi’s favourite bhajan

Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite bhajan, ‘Vaishnav jan to’, played in all his prayer meetings, was written by Narsinh Mehta, a poet-philosopher who too hailed from Gujarat and lived 400 years before Gandhi was born.

Gandhi’s Song, a documentary written, directed and produced by journalist Mayank Chhaya, sheds new light on the saint who inspired the Mahatma to the extent that the latter made ‘Vaishnav jan to’ his moral weapon, putting it at the epicentre of his Ahimsa philosophy.

So who was Narsinh Mehta? In the documentary, Tushar Gandhi, the Mahatma’s great-grandson, says, “To Gujaratis of at least my generation, he is an icon and one can never take away from him his creation.”

History records Narsinh Mehta (1414-1480) as a poet-mystic of the Vaishnava sect, from the Bhakti era when a wave of devotional poet-saints swept across medieval India, led by Mirabai, Tulsidas, Surdas and Kabir. Born in Talaja village, Junagadh, in Saurashtra in an upper-caste family of Nagars, Narsinh is believed to have angered his community by mingling with everyone and considering all humanity as equal. In the documentary, scholar Jawahar Baxi says that although Gandhi hasn’t mentioned it, it was likely that Narsinh inspired him to fight against untouchability.

Believed to be unlettered, Narsinh’s poetic language was yet highly developed. He wrote in ecstasy about Krishna, and his immensely popular bhajans and aartis — many sung to this day — give him a place in Gujarati literature as an Adi Kavi.

Left unmentioned

That he is not known beyond Gujarat bothered Mayank. A journalist for four decades, who began his career in Mumbai’s Fress Press Journal and authored the only authorised biography of the Dalai Lama by a non-Buddhist author (Dalai Lama: Man, Monk, Mystic), Mayank began making Gandhi’s Song in 2015 “to let people know that Gandhi did not write the bhajan. It rankled me that Narsinh Mehta’s name did not find a mention even in the video commissioned by the government in 2019 to commemorate the Mahatma’s 150th birth anniversary, featuring singers from around the world rendering the bhajan. Every morning, Doordarshan’s regional channels play an instrumental version with images of Gandhi ashrams across the country, but again don’t mention the poet. The film’s title is a deliberate irony to draw attention to Narsinh and his astonishing body of work,” says Mayank.

Research suggests that Gandhi first consciously introduced ‘Vaishnav jan to’ around 1907 to fellow residents of the Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm in South Africa. Born in Porbandar, it’s easy to see how the “seeds of the song may have been sown in his childhood,” says Tushar in the film. What made his great-grandfather pick it up as his moral compass?

“This song was like an audit of his soul,” says Tushar. “When I started relating the song with episodes in Bapu’s life, it started taking on a much deeper meaning for me.” He says the song provided Gandhi with a simple yet profound benchmark to challenge himself to aspire to, even as the barrister in him was turning into the ‘saint’ that Nelson Mandela famously called him.

‘Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye je

Peed paraayi jaaNe re’

(A truly righteous person is one

who feels the pain of others).

It is easy to see why the song became Gandhi’s favourite, but why did he never speak about Narsinh Mehta? Mayank laughs it off. “I think he should have, but that was his approach. Tridip Suhrud, the Gandhi scholar featured in my film, points out that to Gandhi, it did not matter who wrote something, as long as what was written appealed to him.”

The film’s music is by Junagadh-based classical singer Vipul Shantilal Trivedi. The last song was composed by Mayank and set to music by Vipul. The film is now available on YouTube.

The author is a radio-television personality and curates

online film festivals.