Ashis nandy biography of mahatma
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Rediscovering Gandhi
IN CONVERSATIONS, social theorist Ashis Nandy fondly recalls an exchange between philosopher Ramachandra Gandhi and poet Umashankar Joshi. The philosopher argued that MK Gandhi was inconceivable without his spiritual strivings, while the poet—and one suspects Ashis Nandy too—insisted that Gandhi’s significance lay in his willingness to engage and transform the “slum of politics”.
This divide between the religious, spiritual Gandhi and the political one or, more aptly, the divide between Gandhi the ashramite and Gandhi the satyagrahi has come to shape not only our academic engagement with the life and thought of Gandhi, but also our memory of the man whom we revere, revile or remain indifferent to. The dichotomy is a superficial one. Gandhi saw himself as a satyagrahi and an ashramite. His politics was imbued with spiritual strivings and his relationship with religion was a deeply political one.
A long, rich and diverse biographical tradition, which has deepened our understanding of Gandhi’s life and his strivings, has not escaped this divide either. This tradition has been partial to the satyagrahi Gandhi; whereas the ashram, the ashram community, his striving to see “god face to face”, his fasts and his experiments with brahamcharya remain shadow
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How to find Gandhi today
It is ’s misfortune that he has become an icon in India — as a symbol of honesty and non-violence, projecting a utopia that modern India has nothing to do with. As a result, Gandhi has become a highly venerable, saintly person who has no practical significance in everyday life and politics.
His birthday is now an “official” event, where you take your family to listen to bhajans in the morning and tame, didactic speeches in the evening. And you think that you have done your duty. Nothing much of Gandhi has remained in Indian public life.
For instance, Gandhi said armed nationalism was no different from imperialism. This stance cannot even be mentioned in India today. Gandhi’s avowed guru, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, once said that Gandhi’s book was the work of a lunatic; it went against everything that the great sons of India had said.
Yes, Gandhi remained an unapologetic dissenter. When, during his last days, an American journalist asked him whether he would change anything in his fierce critique of modern civilisation in Hind Swaraj, Gandhi said he wouldn’t change even a word. The official Gandhi today has now become a pale shadow of his own self — benign, saintly, house-broken and perfectly irrelevant to daily life and normal politics
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