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F THE SPIRIT of modern India has a geographic heartland it is Gujarat, the northwestern state Pakistan. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the mahatmaSanskrit for great soulwas a Gujar Porbandar, on the Arabian Sea, in 1869. The signal event of the Indian independence movemen that Gandhi, joined by thousands, led in March 1930 across Gujarat, from the Sabarmati Ashram

Dandi, on the Gulf of Cambay. There Gandhi picked up a handful of salt on the beach and defied the Br the collection or sale of salt by anyone but the colonial authorities. Next to air and water, salt is perhap necessity of life. It is the only condiment of the poor, Gandhi wrote. In a letter to the viceroy he argued be the most iniquitous of all from the poor mans standpoint. As the independence movement is essenti the land, the beginning will be made with this evil. Gandhis identification with the poor was intrinsic to his universalist philosophy. As he put it: I do not believe in the doctrine of the greatest good of the greatest number. It means in its nakedness that in order to achieve the supposed good of 51 per cent the interests of 49 per be, or rather, should be sacrificed. It is a heartless doctrine and has done harm to humanity only real dignified human doctrine is the greatest good of all. To protect the poor against the ravages of capitalism, which benefits only the majority rather than every adopt socialism after independence. More to the point, although the Hindus would numerically domina ignore or trample the rights of tens of millions of Muslims. Indeed, the greatest good necessitated tha the new nation and the ruling Congress Party be avowedly secular. But the spirit of India has undergone an uneasy shift in this new era of rampant capitalism and of deadl tensions, which arise partly as violent reactions against exactly the social homogenization that globaliza Gujarat finds itself once again at the heart of what is roiling India, and what singularly menaces the cou