Speech at Lausanne, 8 December 1931; printed in his weekly paper Young India, 31 December 1931

Truth Is God

In December 1931 Mahatma Gandhi traveled through Switzerland on his way home from London. He had spent three months at the Round Table Conference, but the talks had broken down and he had gained nothing. He stayed with the writer Romain Rolland in Villeneuve, and on 8 December he went to Lausanne to speak at the Maison du Peuple. His son Devdas Gandhiji and his secretary Mahadev Desai sat on the platform beside him. A listener in the hall asked him to explain what he meant by God. For fifty years he had said God is truth. That evening in Lausanne, he turned the words around and said, "Truth is God."

Gandhiji explained that the word for truth in Sanskrit comes from sat (said "sut", not like the English word), which means existence. People often argue about God, and many people say God does not exist. But even an atheist does not deny that truth exists. When someone searches for facts with all their effort, they are already seeking what Gandhiji meant by God. Putting truth first gave everyone common ground. It meant nobody had to accept a creed before the work began.

Therefore

When you need to work with someone who disagrees with you, start from the facts you both accept. The work moves forward when the argument is about what happened rather than what each person believes.

A small reminder, on the desk or the notebook, that an argument goes better when you begin with what nobody denies.

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