I knew Gandhi wrote a lot but I did not realise that every scrap of paper he wrote on, is preserved. I was reading some texts for the course Gandhi’s Critique of Modernity when I came across this website that has a collection of his letters. These are not just political letters or letters published publicly by Gandhi, these are everyday letters to his sons, Ashram dwellers, and so on. When there is so much material available in his own lucid words, Gandhi should be an easy to understand figure. Alas, that is not to be. He was a prolific thinker and kept grappling with his experiments with truth until the end. 65 years after his death, the reader’s quest is to wade through numerous pages to grasp the essence of what Gandhi said.
I have been so engulfed in Gandhi’s writings that they are cropping up in my dreams now. In last night’s dream, I kept trying to figure out where Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj ideas got sidelined by his larger-than-life image of ‘Bapu’.
He consistently championed truth and the four stages of Swaraj, yet the public just followed the political tools of non-violence and Satyagraha. Maybe because there are so many facets to his journey, my brain kept moving fluidly across time and space boundaries. If Prof. Kenwyn Smith was here, he would say that is to be expected- dreams are the product of right brain thinking.
He consistently championed truth and the four stages of Swaraj, yet the public just followed the political tools of non-violence and Satyagraha. Maybe because there are so many facets to his journey, my brain kept moving fluidly across time and space boundaries. If Prof. Kenwyn Smith was here, he would say that is to be expected- dreams are the product of right brain thinking.

Bapu’s image of a man in a white shawl and dhoti is indelible. Even when one imagines him speaking at a Congress convention before 1921, one still holds the classic image of Bapu. Perhaps this is why Jamil Dehlavi in the movie Jinnah always shows Gandhi like that. My dream had taken me from Gandhi in Karachi to Gandhi in Calcutta Congress session in 1920 where he is sharing the stage with Jinnah. Compared to Attenborough’s Gandhi, Dehlavi’s looked a little clownish with a weird accent. While the movie is about Jinnah, it shows how powerful Gandhi had become in just four years of active political life in India. As soon as Jinnah says “I beg to oppose this hasty resolution” against Gandhi’s proposal, somebody from the audience interrupts with “Mahatma ke khilaaf baat naa karein”, meaning do not speak against the Mahatma. The speech also shows the early dissent against Gandhi’s ideas as Jinnah refers to them as “dragging in of religious symbols”. He addresses Gandhi as “Mr. Gandhi” in his speech for which the public shouts him down. In the scene, a man stands up in the audience and shouts “Say Mahatma”.

[1] "The Man, The Mahatma." ThinkQuest. Oracle Foundation. Web. 10 Feb. 2013. .
[2] "Chronology 1921." Chronology of Gandhi's Life. Gandhi Serve Foundation. Web. 10 Feb. 2013. .
[3] Nandy, Ashish. “Gandhi after Gandhi”. The Little Magazine, Vol 1(1). Web. 8 Jan. 2013
[4] Amin, Shahid. “Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakphur District, Eastern UP, 1921-2”. Subaltern Studies III. Ed. Ranajit Guha. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984. 289-348.
[5] Heredia, Rudolf C. “Interpreting Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj”. The Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 34 no.24 (1999):1499
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Interesting. Not only your take on Gandhi but also the presentation. I see an evolving lekhika and I like the the way you're evolving, besides being amazed at the speed, that is! :)
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