Dhaka, Oct. 2 -- In India, October 2nd is celebrated, a National Holiday, as Gandhi Jayanti -- Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary -- and this year it is the 155th. In 1969, the Gandhi Centenary Year, I happened to be working as an agricultural volunteer based at a Gandhian ashram in Bodh Gaya -incidentally, the birthplace of Buddhism -- in Bihar, India.

This particular ashram had been founded in the early 1950s by a dedicated follower of Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, and it was set up to study all religions. At the early morning prayers, we would have a reading from the Qur'an one day, the Bible the next, and then on successive days from the Gita, the Granth Sahib (the holy book of the Sikh religion), the Torah (sacred to the Jewish people), and...