The Unknown Gandhi

In the 150th year of Gandhi’s birth, THE WEEK explores the lesser-known facets of his extraordinary journey from Mohandas to Mahatma

- Sneha Bhura

Prophet, spiritual leader, secular saint, freedom fighter, social reformer, philosopher, healer and “Father of the Nation”—Mahatma Gandhi is perhaps the most deified political figure in mod-ern history. Many were baffled by his masterful grip over statecraft combined with his garb of a religious ascetic—a loincloth and shawl, which he insisted on wearing even when he went to meet the English emperor in 1931.

While he is much written about, perhaps the only Indian most profusely written about, Gandhi continues to fascinate, confound and stupefy. For someone whose intellectual and political development crystallised outside India, who upon his return from South Africa was sent on an India study tour by his political mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale who considered him a “naive foreigner”, who came up with the phrase “non-cooperation” because of his unfamiliarity with Hindi at the time, Gandhi worked his way up to command staggering resonance across India. As Gandhi wrote in 1947, “For men like me, you have to measure them not by the rare moments of greatness in their lives, but by the amount of dust they collect on their feet in the course of life’s journey.” What are the lesser-known facets of his life’s journey from Mohandas to Mahatma?

VOYAGER

Mahatma Gandhi was a tireless walker. Most statues of “Bapu”, including the iconic Gyarah Murti, has him marching ahead. But Gandhi was a voyager, too. Rajmohan Gandhi, author, professor and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, writes: “In Hind Swaraj one reads his attacks on cars. On planes. On trains. But there is no attack on ships!”