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Follies of the seemingly perfect man

This story of Gandhi makes for one of the most engrossing reads in Gandhiana.

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M Rajivlochan

This story of Gandhi makes for one of the most engrossing reads in Gandhiana. Guha’s style is engaging, though perhaps a bit too judicious. He tells us of the transformation of Gandhi into Bapu, Mahatma and a mass leader. That was something that no other Indian leader was able to do then, or since. 

Once the fear of the British was removed from the people’s minds, Gandhi was able to persuade them to participate in various movements demanding freedom from imperial domination. Guha also describes a few Gandhian movements against the evil practices inherent in India. 

He devotes an entire chapter on Gandhi’s efforts to shame Hindus in becoming better human beings, desisting from the practice of untouchability and caste. There is also the obligatory chapter on Gandhi sleeping naked with his nubile niece. Here Guha repeats the basic facts about this aspect of Gandhi and avoids being judgmental. He also does not say anything particularly new here.

For all the empathy he showed towards social justice and the socially downtrodden, Guha tells us that Gandhi was an upper-caste Hindu patriarch. He was livid that his son Harilal had married a girl of his own choice without consulting the parents and then lived happily with his wife. Choosing a wife and being in love with her were issues that put young Harilal in the bad books of Gandhi. Gandhi was also most upset at Harilal going off to become a lawyer, ignoring the father’s directive to abhor formal studies and stick to social work.  

In 1918, when Harilal had turned 30, Gandhi informed him that in Mahadev Desai he had found the son that Harilal could never be. Simultaneously, Gandhi rejected the numerous efforts on part of Harilal to rebuild bridges with his estranged father. 

When Harilal, now a widower with children, made another reconciliatory effort in the mid-1930s, Gandhi suggested that would be possible only if Harilal were to marry a widow and not think of setting up a business, but join the Harijan programme, etc. He also  asked Harilal to provide a proof that he had stopped drinking, smoking, gambling and indulging in sex. Despite such stringent terms, his efforts lasted about four and a half months. 

Gandhi’s continuous fault-finding eventually yielded results. By July 1935, Gandhi was to write: ‘Forget Harilal completely now. I have almost forgotten him.’ Guha speculates that Harilal’s troubles were the result of Gandhi trying to mould his eldest into his own image of a ‘purist and perfectionist’. That seems a mite simplistic, given Gandhi’s own numerous failings and his somewhat unhealthy obsession with sex. 

The simple fact was that Gandhi was an uncaring father, too full of himself and too domineering. Few could stand up to him. His three elder sons did and suffered for it, though Harilal seems to have suffered the most. Motilal Nehru, too, was someone not in thrall of Gandhi, but his attitude was tempered by the fact that his love for his son was far more than his intolerance of the humbug that he sometimes considered Gandhi to be. Motilal’s son, Jawaharlal, loved Gandhi more than he did Motilal. But these are the sort of issues that Guha leaves untouched.

Guha is particularly kind to Gandhi, while discussing the death sentence of Bhagat Singh. He faithfully reproduces the Mahatma’s statements on what all he had done to intercede in favour of Bhagat Singh, without noticing how Gandhi managed to get rid of an upcoming rival without seeming to do so. Essentially what Gandhi told the Viceroy was that were it for him to decide on a punishment for Bhagat Singh, he would avoid the death sentence on principle, since he personally abhorred the death sentence. When the Viceroy responded that the law needed to take its own course, Gandhi refused to be censorious of the Viceroy’s actions. He did warn the Viceroy that there might be public display of anger if Bhagat Singh was hanged on the day that the Karachi session of the Congress began. However, the Viceroy, on this occasion, seems to have fathomed Indians better than Gandhi. He let the hanging proceed, perhaps he acquiesced with the police design to hang Bhagat Singh and his companions a day in advance, and cremate the bodies in secret. 

In the subsequent session of the Congress, every speaker did condemn the government, and at some places, even a crowd gathered to mourn the young boys who lost their life fighting for freedom. However, the more important thing that happened was that another public figure who seemed to be gaining more public support than Gandhi had been removed permanently from public life. But then, isn’t a good politician also the one who is able to get rid of rivals without seeming to do so?

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