India Today

Gandhi's enemies

The Mahatma remains a living figure for his critics as generation after generation discovers yet another of his "failings".

If Gandhi lives today it is because of his enemies, who seem unable to let go of his memory. The Mahatma's followers have turned him into a saint whose teachings can safely be ignored-as the words of a superior being to be admired from afar.

Given the ritualistic respect offered to him in India and received with public indifference, it is puzzling why Gandhi remains such a living figure for his critics. Perhaps they are the only ones who still feel betrayed by his loss of sainthood. This betrayal is renewed in every generation, as scholars and activists discover yet another of the Mahatma's failings.

In the wake of second-wave feminism, the Mahatma, during the 1980s, was excoriated for his views about women. The criticism was based on anecdotes about Gandhi's treatment of

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from India Today

India Today2 min read
The Right Balance
WITH THE POST-COVID RECOVERY IN FULL SWING, MAINTAINING THE country’s fiscal balance is a must. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was justly applauded for not hitting the panic button or taking drastic fiscal management measures during the pa
India Today2 min read
Gowda Knows
If you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan, you’ll remember the passage from ‘The Greek Interpreter’ where Sherlock describes his elder brother Mycroft—supposedly, a greater deductive mind. But the man had “no ambition and no energy” to follow up on the leads h
India Today5 min read
Shah At Home
TWO DAYS BEFORE AMIT SHAH FILED HIS NOMINATION PAPERS FROM GANDHINAGAR—a seat the Union home minister first won in 2019, with a margin of 557,000-plus votes—he visited 30 voters for whom he is the designated panna pramukh. A panna is a page in the el

Related Books & Audiobooks