CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The term "Mahatma" has held an idealistic meaning to the Western culture.  Mahatmas and

their existence have always been associated to seances in the eastern culture.  It
was believed commonly that in Benares and Bodh Gaya, one encountered Mahatmas who
acquired supernatural powers by the way of asceticism but they were never connected with
governance and politics. To look back at the historical account of India,  It  is hard to
ascertain precisely when Mr. M. K. Gandhi became the "Mahatma Gandhi",
because "mahatmahood" is not bestowed on one; the term means holiness, and is a nation's
spontaneous homage .

In modern culture, there is certainly no figure that carries numerous colours to different

people. The title of Gandhi brings up the image of a saint, or a charlatan, art austere, mystic,
or eccentric, to the incurious foreigner.

The Mahatma in the history books and newspapers is projected as a nationalist, hero, high-
souled idealist, and evangelist. He is portrayed as a gentle quietist, a revolutionist and maker
of values, a man of tortuous schemes or, to use his own words, "a single-minded seeker of
truth".

Gandhi, in the history books and newspapers, is projected as a nationalist, hero, high-souled
idealist, and evangelist. He is portrayed as a gentle quietist, a revolutionist, maker of values,
and a man of tortuous schemes or, to use his own words, “a single-minded seeker of truth".

However, when we refer to the unconventional literature, and analyse words and works of
Gandhi, his deeds were not as saintly as projected by the historians. Cotemporary literature
and modern thinking has led to emergence of a different image of Gandhi. Gandhi saddened
the masses. His superhumanity therefore has been currently subject to criticism. 

One of the major problems with Gandhi was that he was an extremist, he believed in strict
idealism. This is feasibly unfair because Gandhi enveloped his promises and ideals in
conditions which were prima facie suffocating and led to extreme suffering. He did not
accept the scientific but old, traditional approach towards the problems. His statements and
demands have proved to be problematic.
While declaring non-cooperation movement, he ordered abstinence to the point of chastity.
He further said, “Being a nation of slaves, it is our duty at the present to suspend bringing
heirs to our slavery.” Such statements and his lifestyle has raised several doubts against this
holy title granted to him.

Following are few points of contention to highlight how modern world Gandhi was not a
Mahatma.

A Hardliner for Non- Violence

Gandhi was an extremist and pursued his ideologies to the core. His ideology of non-violence
and strict adherence led to serious repercussions.

{Chauri Chaura, Bose, Bhagat Singh, other minor incidents}

Ardent Supporter of Caste System

In 1955 Ambedkar remarked, “Gandhi was never a Mahatma; I refuse to call him a
Mahatma.” In an audio file of the BBC interview, Ambedkar said that Gandhi was not a
reformer and “He was just an episode in the history of India, not an epoch maker”.

Gandhi's polemic portrayal by Ambedkar came from his ardent support of

casteism. Gandhism if looked at singly is  a toxic ideology as he extensively denied the social
and economic development of Indian society. Gandhi's father was of “Modh Baniya” caste in
the varna of "Vaishya". In the 1920’s he publicly made a speech saying  “I am opposed to all
those who are out to destroy the caste system.” He further added that every Hindu “must
follow the hereditary profession” and that “prohibition of inter-marriage” between people of
different varnas was “necessary for the rapid evolution of the soul.” 

Therefore, he went on articulating all the caste merits but switched his terminology from

caste to varna in 1925. He further  proposed fusing the smaller castes and reproducing the old
system of four varnas, i.e., Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras and stated that they
should stick to their occupations legislated by the society from learning, warfare, trade and
service to the above three varnas respectively. From the caste paradigm unchanged, Gandhi's
varna theory took out the inherited profession model which exploited the Shudras and made
their life socially problematic. 
As per Gandhi's philosophy, Shudras were to live as a subservient community, even within
the context of a Gandhian utopia. The economic paradigm of the Gandhian model was
simultaneously revolting. 

In one of his essays, he advises “manual scavengers to convert urine and night soil into
manure” as a symbol of his patronising and denigrating attitude towards Shudras (today
known as Dalits). He failed to realise how such a defiance helped underpin caste hierarchies.

The documented facts show that later he did not support casteism and converted into a social
revolutionist encouraging inter-caste marriage, especially between Brahmins and “Harijans”
in order to dismantle the caste system “root and branch,” and publicly acknowledging that
“when all become casteless, monopoly of occupations would go.” However, he started
enforcing this agenda on the society so strictly that he started opposing Brahmin marriages
and supported only inter-caste marriages. His arrogant extremism and virulent attitude did not
reform the social system but epitomised the faulty contours of caste that run wide and deep
across the social fabric of India, even till date.

Traditional and Orthodox Approach towards Society

Gandhi was a man of traditional and single-dimensional thought. He did not accept the new
and modern ideas that would help India grow into a modern state. Gandhi was a vocal
opponent of industrial civilization and machines. He neglected the fact that modern
machinery allows individuals to be creative and develop better living standards. Every
society aims at ease, comfort and leisure. These elements are the primary prerequisite for
a culture and society's stability, rendering human life worthy of its existence. Furthermore,
Gandhian concept of trusteeship' is essentially geared towards the abolition of class tension in
the arrangement between employers and employees and landlords and tenants. This theory
was less likely to yield results as it was too idealistic and  the rich upholding the interests of
the poor would have been the natural consequence arising out if it . Gandhian ideology was to
be suitable only for the affluent upper classes, which is exonerated by the class status of
Gandhism 's actual torch-bearers. Gandhi 's values are badly tailored to the goals of a free
democracy.

His ideals of traditional life, simple life and slogan “Go back to Village” costed him his
wife’s life. British physicians advised Gandhi that a penicillin injection would cure his wife
Kasturba when she was stricken with pneumonia; Gandhi, however, declined to have foreign
drugs pumped into her body, and she thus died.  Later, when Gandhi contracted malaria, he
let go his ideals and allowed doctors to inject him with quinine.

Moreover, Gandhi described India as “land of villages” and  he said villages represented the
spirit of Indian culture.  He stated that villagers were self-sufficient and he used this mindset
as a political symbol to reinforce India's anti-imperialist battle. Modern cities have been
described by Gandhi as icons of imperial dominance, decline and destruction. He stressed the
regional village development programme. In India's villages, he also established
disadvantages such as untouchability, deforestation etc. and favoured their elimination. He
failed to recognise that if we stick to the traditional and conventional ways of living and
textile or product manufacturing and production would make villages and India stagnant in its
progress and hamper a better and brighter future.

Uncategorically Anti-Black

In 1893, Gandhi went to South Africa when he was employed to work for rich Indian
merchants as a solicitor. It was during this time when he helped to create the Congress of
Natal Indians. The aim of this Congress was to "promote agreement and unity between
Indians and Europeans living in the South African colony and eventually combat prejudice
against Indian traders in Natal."

Instead, Gandhi advocated racial discrimination as a policy to uplift Indians under colonial
rule, mostly dividing Indians and Blacks. It was his opinion that the Indians were better than
Black or the "Kaffir". The Indian Opinion newspaper, which he founded in 1904, provided an
outlet for most of his anti-black discourse. Here is an example of only one of his anti-black
quotations from this period in South Africa that he penned down:

“Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to

be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us
to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and
whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to
buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and
nakedness.”

His essays on Apartheid are pervaded by this belief that Indians were stronger than native
Africans, where he writes repeatedly about the need to distinguish Indians from Indigenous
Africans psychologically and physically. Perhaps more disturbing was his claims of the
hardships of colonial institutions being associated with Africans. It was a definitely Anti-
Black attitude that is in line with an ethnicity and birth right oriented casteist mentality. His
anti-Dalitness, which would come to characterise his relationships with Dalits in India after
Independence, foreshadows his anti-blackness.

His anti-blackness is yet another revealing instance where he gives the differentiation that
most Indians were not native blacks. As he clearly mentions an Indian Adivasi / Indigenous
tribe, this next quote represents both his anti-Black and anti-indigenous stance:

“The statute books describe the Indians as belonging

to the aboriginal or semi-barbarous race of Asia,
while as a matter of fact there is hardly one Indian in
South Africa belonging to the aboriginal stock. The
Santhals of Assam will be as useless in South Africa
as the natives of that country.”

He objects against colonial efforts to compare Indians with indigenous Africans because
African tribes according to him were "barbarous and useless". Thus, in his mind, whites
made a bad decision because the Indians in South Africa were mostly not indigenous except
to India. This is not a man's view committed to freedom and inter-racial unity. Those are the
phrases of an anti-indigenous racial bigot. This is not a blueprint for creating permanent
independence from the monarchy, but an example of how the system abets and continues
painful hierarchies of citizens who are able to profit from the abuse of their own imperial
subjects.

A Misogynist and a Sexual Predator

Gandhi was a sexual deviant and a pervert of authority. Although several books that speak
about Gandhi 's principles of chastity have been published. His  early childhood marriage
and his father's tragic death were the root of his unusual sexual beliefs.

In his young age, he left his ailing father's bedside on the day his father passed away, to have
intercourse with his pregnant wife, Kasturba. He was ravaged with remorse for not only
abandoning his father, but also losing the child his wife was bearing at that time. This
suffering led to a lifetime of profoundly strange and punitive perceptions of sexuality
followed by Gandhi.

The desire for non-violence was linked, for Gandhi, to the quest for celibacy. In one's
thoughts and actions, he felt sexual gratification of some kind evoked aggression.  In
consequence of the same, he took a  Hindu vow of "brahmacharya" in 1906, which means a
Hindu life based religiously that insists on chastity. This was carried out at the age of 36.

He portrayed this personal life decision and vow as a  call for action for all Indian men to do
the same. He said, "It is the duty of every thoughtful Indian not to marry". If he is incapable
in regard to not have marriage, then he should not form any kind of sexual relations with his
partner. At his Ashrams across the world, the belief in celibacy was strictly upheld.

He thus imposed celibacy on his disciples at all of the Ashrams. His recommendation to
married people was not to sleep in the same bed and to take a cold bath if they had an
impulse. This odd chastity line contained married couples, small children, even his own son.

His celibacy, though, did not prohibit him from using the female staff of his ashrams to deal
with sexuality in his "experiments." This tests were targeted at checking his vow of
brahmacharya by positioning himself with women of all ages in sexual proximity.

This involved resting whilst they were nude, bathing, and getting massages from them in
addition to other physical activities. Gandhi wrote about one such occurrence with his
granddaughter, Manu, when at a time of extreme Hindu-Muslim conflict in Bengal, he
insisted on her to sleep with him. He further wrote,  "we may all be murdered by Muslims,
and we must put our purity to the supreme test, so that we know that we are giving the
purest of sacrifices, and now we can both begin to sleep naked."

Gandhi did not give up this tradition even before his demise, and passed away with Abha
and his grand-niece Manu, the two young women who've been his "human walking sticks"
and with whom he exchanged turns in bed every night.

Not only a sexual predator, Gandhi was also a prude and a misogynist who helped maintain
sexism. Owing to his ideologies, India remained one of the world's most sexually repressed
countries, and a miserable nation to be born female. In his 1949 Reflections on Gandhi
article, George Orwell said that "saints should still be judged guilty before they are proven
innocent."

Gandhi's scholar have stated that he believed in women as equal to men. As a "feminine"
philosophy, he celebrated non-violent resistance, neutralising the hierarchical violence of
British rule. Yet his sexual hang-ups made him have monstrously sexist thoughts. His image
of the female body had been deformed. He felt menstruation was a representation of the
degradation of the spirit of a female by her sexuality.

He noticed that a male youth had been bullying two of his female followers during Gandhi 's
tenure as a dissenter in South Africa.

Gandhi replied by chopping the girls' hair off himself, to ensure that the "sinner 's eye" was
"sterilised." In his essays, Gandhi spoke of the event, spreading the word to all Indians that
women should bear accountability for sexual assaults on themselves. Gandhi believed that,
as human beings, Indian women who were raped destroyed their worth. He claimed that
those fathers who murdered daughters who had been sexually abused to save family and
collective honour could be forgiven. A war against contraception was also waged by
Gandhi, classifying Indian women who used them as "whores". For another century, Gandhi
reinforced the mentality that females were literally beings who could bring the men who
owned them either glory or guilt. A legacy like that still persists.

Neglected Personal Life and Family

The actual Gandhi did not respect his wife and mistreated his family He wrote about his
illiterate wife: "I really can't bear to look at the face of Ba. The word is always like that on
the face of a meek cow and gives us the impression that she is expressing something in her
own dumping way like a cow often does." Gandhi and Kasturba had a marriage for 61 years,
and he always identified  himself as an insecure and irrational husband. When his first son
was born, Gandhi was just 18, and Harilal was 6 months old while he went for South Africa.

Gandhi's absence embittered Harilal and he vowed to build his own personality. He

continued to drink and trade for gains in foreign clothes. Gandhi 's connection with his son
was further compromised by the choice of Harilal to remarry after his first wife's death.
"How can I persuade you to please him, who has always promoted renunciation of sex?"
Gandhi asked. If Harilal wishes to marry against my will, I would have to avoid thinking of
him as my son. "While Gandhi advocated non-violence, the business of his son at one point
relied on the continuity of the World War II, and financial difficulties were triggered by
peace.

He declined to educate his sons, forced them to avoid sex as young adults, and shunned
Harilal, the oldest, for having warned them to marry. Ultimately, his son insulted Gandhi in
media, embraced Islam, and as an alcoholic, he died.

Irony is in control of the nation. Our rulers turn to elevated-handedness in the name of
change and grow divisive frenzy to suit their intent. Gandhi is called "Father of Nation" at
times and is condemned as anti-Indian by the Radical Patriots. Yet the worship of the people
he controls makes rulers cautious. Their policy appears to be to look pro-Gandhi, but with
his spectacle frame as its emblem, confining him to the Swachh Bharat corner. It's going to
be easier to drive him from a wall into oblivion.
 CONCLUSION

India is schizophrenic about Gandhi, viewing him as the root of all good or bad. Gandhi has
revived the public consciousness in such a way that it could not be awakened by any other
man; he has released powers at the same time that he cannot manage. The influence of
Gandhi was indistinct. India was led by him to freedom. His countrymen were compelled to
confront their darkest biases regarding ethnicity , religion and crime. Perhaps, reading his
life as his letter would be the only way to reclaim Gandhi 's message in the middle of this
celebratory din. His publications were subordinate to his major actions in politics. Perhaps
he was not the best translator of his own acts.

Gandhi was a challenging mentor during his lifetime. He made unbending demands, keeping
them to elevated moral values, on families , friends, and political allies. The public was
marginalized  by stringent convictions on diet (he kept on peanuts, raw vegetables, and dry
fruit at different times) and sex (he made a sworn oath of chastity and continued it for his
last 42 years). Yet the positions he played as a politician, a political theorist, a guru, a writer,
a peacemaker, an educator, an engineer were so diverse that he gave something for
everybody, like characters in an epic book. Gandhi can be found amidst the clamour and
uncertainty of urban and rural life.  His stubborn mindedness, hard-natured ethos of
rebellion animates movements against bribery, rape, caste abuse, and urban slums.   Gandhi
's appeal to admit them into the public life of India is conjured up by the rising confidence
and accomplishments of women.

Gandhi was a catastrophic disappointment in certain lights, unable to avert, for example, the
Hindu-Muslim confrontation or the faceoff of majority-Muslim Pakistan. But the image of
Muslim and Hindu communities slogging into the waves on the beach in Dandi, straps of
saris raised, head scarves pulled back, attests to the resilience of the democratic, tolerant
society that Gandhi saw as the legacy of India.