Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. Oscar Wilde
Humans are humans and can be nothing more. Controversies arise when some are raised to the status of demigod and fail to live up to great expectations. The case of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is a typical example. His admirers idolised him as Mahatma, the Great Soul and what not during his lifetime and after death. Pearl S Buck, the American Nobel laureate called him one of the greatest leaders of people while Albert Einstein in his tribute stated, Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth. Jawaharlal Nehru went a step further when he eulogized Gandhi as the spirit of India that was very human, and yet essentially the ascetic, who has surpassed his passions and emotions, sublimated them and directed them in spiritual channels
Today, the spirit of India is in agony, reason being Joseph Lelyvelds recent biography Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India accusing Gandhi of being a bisexual. The Indians are aghast. Their embarrassment is tinged with anger as not only the state of Gujrat where Gandhi was born has already banned the book; there is a proposal to sanctify Gandhi by an amendment to Indias National Honour Act of 1971 making any insult against him punishable by imprisonment.
Humans are complex beings and so was Gandhi. That is why he never claimed to be either a Mahatma or a Great Soul. If the people raised him to the pedestal of a saint, the fault is theirs, not his. Consequent to the allegation of bisexuality, Gandhis relationship with his wife, Kasturba, a.k.a. Ba deserves some attention as the couple lived together for over six decades till her demise in the arms of Gandhi while the two were incarcerated together in Pune by the British. I have written in the arms of Gandhi because the lady was of great resolve. Back in South Africa, when she got seriously ill and was prescribed beef tea as a cure by her doctor (being Hindus, beef was abhorred by both husband and wife), she refused to take it, telling Gandhi that I would far rather die in your arms than pollute my body with such abominations. Kasturba was not just a housewife. She was a public figure, who remained an ardent supporter of Gandhis struggle in South Africa and India, not due to Gandhis urging but because of her own inner prompting.
Despite such devotion to her husband, theirs was not an ideal marriage. As so often happens, both struggled to dominate each other. The Mahatma turned out to be a tyrannical husband, who did not want his wife to go anywhere including visits to the temple and family friends without his permission. Such an authoritative demeanor poisoned their relationship because this virtual imprisonment was just not acceptable to Kasturba, who flouted the ban at will by going out whenever and wherever she liked. After all, she was the daughter of a wealthy Porbander merchant, Gokuldas Makanji. Thus, there were bitter quarrels and in Gandhis own words refusal to speak to one another became the order of the day. Much later, Gandhi admitted his mistake: If I had the right to impose restrictions on her, had not she also a similar right? All this is clear to me today. But at that time I had to make good my authority as a husband.
Not only was Gandhi dictatorial, he was also a jealous husband, who tenaciously watched Kasturbas every movement as he firmly believed that it was the duty of both the husband and wife to be faithful to one another for the whole life. Gandhi argued, If I should be pledged to be faithful to my wife, she also should be pledged to be faithful to me. Well! the watchful eyes of Gandhi could never find a single trace of infidelity in Kasturba but Lelyvelds research has cast doubts over Mahatmas fidelity, who seemed to be allegedly more in love with his German bodybuilder friend Hermann Kallenbach than Kasturba, quite contrary to the claim that he loved her much: I must say that I was passionately fond of her.Separation was unbearable. I used to keep her awake till late in the night with my idle talk. However, after several pregnancies and two decades of marriage his love for Kasturba waned for good as he took the brahmacharya (celibacy) vow in 1906 thinking that serving humanity was more important than the pleasures of family life.
The vow changed his world view towards women as he dilated, From that day when I began brahmacharya.My wife became free from my authority as her lord and master, and I became free from the slavery to my own appetite which she had to satisfy. But in 1908, when Kasturba was again seriously ill, Gandhi wrote a letter that was read to her by their nephew, expressly stating, I love you so dearly that even if you are dead.I will not marry again. Gandhi blamed himself for Kasturbas illiteracy as she could with difficulty only write and understand simple letters in Gujrati: I am sure that had my love for her been absolutely untainted with lust, she would be a learned woman, for I could then have conquered her dislike for studies.
Though Ba was not formally educated nonetheless she was a lady of matchless endurance. As a woman, it was very painful for her to tolerate the presence of young and pretty female disciples around her husband such as the golden-haired, blue-eyed Danish beauty, Esther Faering-a Christian missionary-that left her Danish mission to join Gandhis Sabarmati Ashram in 1920. Another European Memsahib lured by his saintly reputation was a German singer Helene Haussding, who was named sparrow by Gandhi. Yet another was the British Miss Slade renamed as Mirabehn by Gandhi. Kasturba was acutely jealous of these dotting beauties and the irony is that Gandhi, the great humanist, was aware of the pain caused to his wife as is evident from his communication to Mirabehn: Tell Ba, Father imposed on her a companion whose weight would have killed any other woman. Eventually, this weight proved too much and poor Kasturba departed in 1944. Gandhi felt her loss more than he thought he would and was therefore quite generous in his homage: [Her] strong will enabled her to become, quite unwittingly, my teacher in the art and practice of non-violent non-cooperationWe were a couple outside the ordinary. Ours was a life of contentment, happiness and progress. Obviously, this was Gandhis view not Kasturbas.
The writer is an academic and journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]
