Mahatma Gandhi
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How spirituality shaped Mahatma Gandhi
IANS | Jan 29, 2014
Title: Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography
Author: Arvind Sharma
Publisher: Hachette India
Pages: 252
Price: Rs.550
This work captures the spiritual side of a man who played probably the most important role in helping India to become a free nation. The weapons he used were unique: truth and non-violence. This, author Arvind Sharma says, was part of his innate spirituality.
For Gandhi, morality and religion were synonymous. He made it amply clear that what he wanted to achieve was self-realization, "to see God face to face, to attain Moksha". His earliest influences came from Hindu lore. His parents were devout worshippers of the god Vishnu. It was part of this influence that Gandhi learnt to repeat the name of Rama - a Vishnu 'avatar'- to get rid of his fear of ghosts and spirits!
But Gandhi was no Hindu fanatic. He respected all religions equally. The New Testament made a definite impression on him. Theosophy made a deeper impact. He battled for Muslims. He was a true religious pluralist. But "if he did not find Christianity perfect, neither did he find Hinduism to be so". It was his faith in spirituality that clearly gave him the courage to act the way he did on so many occasions, even when it looked as if he was treading a lonely path.
Gandhi would say that the thread of life was in the hands of God. But unlike most Hindus he did not believe in idols. At the same time he worshipped the Bhagavad Gita - calling it his "mother" in later life. Even Nathuram Godse saw Gandhi as a saint - but a saint gone wrong and deserving to die.
The book has one gaping hole. There is surprisingly no reference to Paramhansa Yogananda, an iconic Indian saint whose "Autobiography of a Yogi" (published in 1946) is still considered a spiritual classic. Yogananda moved to the US in 1920 and for three decades preached Kriya Yoga and meditation to tens of thousands. On a short trip to India, he spent time with Gandhi at Wardha and taught the Mahatma and his aides Kriya Yoga. It was probably the only yoga Gandhi learnt. A self-realized guru, Yogananda called Gandhi a saint. I am surprised how Sharma overlooked this important spiritual chapter in Gandhi's life in an otherwise informed book.
Did Mahatma Gandhi see his death coming?
TNN | Jan 30, 2014
AHMEDABAD: Did Mahatma Gandhi have a premonition of his death just hours before he was shot at by Nathuram Godse? Strangely, there were a number of instances in the last 48 hours of Bapu's life in Delhi's Birla house when the Mahatma indicated to near and dear ones that he wouldn't remain amid them for long.
On the afternoon of January 29, 1948, the day before the assassination, an agitated member of a group of villagers who had been recently rendered homeless due to communal clashes, confronted Gandhiji and claimed that he had done enough damage. "You have ruined us utterly. Leave us alone and take your abode in the Himalayas," the angry person had said. This disturbed Bapu very much. That same evening, while walking to his prayer meeting, he had confided to his grand-niece Manuben, "The pitiful cries of these people is like the voice of God. Take this as a death warrant for you and me."
A few hours later, that afternoon, a four year old Rajiv Gandhi accompanying Krishna Hutheesing, Jawaharlal Nehru's sister and Indira had called on Bapu. Rajiv placed some flowers at Gandhi's feet. To this, Gandhi had playfully chided the little boy and said, "You must not do that. One only puts flowers around dead people's feet." These recorded incidents are part of a new book by Pramod Kapoor, 'My experiment with Gandhi', that explores these and lesser known aspects in the Mahtama's life.
On January 30, Gandhi battled thoughts of death more than just once. Bapu was feeling unwell and had woken up at 3:30 am. He was 'unusually disturbed with the 'darkness' that surrounded him. The darkness being, partition woes and infighting in the Congres. At about 3:45 am, he had surprisingly asked for a rendition of a Gujarati bhajan, 'Thake na thake chhatayen hon/Manavi na leje visramo,Ne jhoojhaje ekal bayen/Ho manavi, na leje visramo (Whether tired or not, O man do not take rest, stop not, your struggle, if single-handed, continues.)," claims Kapoor's book.
Few hours later Bapu was asked to take some penicillin pills that his doctor had left for him to cure a bad cough. "If I were to die of disease or even a pimple, you must shout to the world from the house tops, that I was a false Mahatma. Then my soul, wherever it may be, will rest in peace. But if an explosion took place or somebody shot at me and I received his bullets on my bare chest, without a sigh and with Rama's name on my lips, only then you should say I was a true Mahatma."
Later that day Bapu was in a crucial meeting with Sardar Patel when two leaders from Kathiawar came to visit him unannounced. On being informed of their coming, Gandhi had said, "Tell them that I will see them, but only after the prayer meeting and that too if I am alive."
After finishing his breakfast Bapu rested for a while and got up on his own. When he started to walk towards the bathroom, it was a strange sight for Manuben, his grandniece who helped him walk. "Bapu, how strange you look?" she said, a reference to the fact that he had not gone anywhere recently without her. To this, Gandhi had quoted Rabindranath Tagore, saying "Ekla chalo, ekla chalo (Walk alone, walk alone)". This was eerily accurate as the walk towards the prayer meeting was, in fact, his last lone walk.
Murder of the Mahatma: The Mumbai trail
Let’s Kill Gandhi
Tushar Gandhi
Rupa &Co
Mahatma Gandhi was shot in Delhi. But the plot to assassinate him was hatched here, in what was then called the Bombay Province. It followed, therefore, that the investigation of the murder was placed under the direct charge of the Bombay deputy commissioner of police, Special Branch, J D Nagarwala.
Jimmy Nagarwala was a dashing Parsi officer whom the eminent writer Manohar Malgonkar described in his book The Men Who Killed Gandhi as having a film star’s cut of features.
He was chosen as Special Investigation Officer not only for his investigative skills but also because, fortuitously, he was neither Hindu nor Muslim and therefore had the crucial trump card of communal neutrality. After all, the Mahatma’s killing was as much an act of religious hate as a political one.
But to wind back to the plot itself. It was not as if Nathuram Godse had broken from the crowd in a sudden fit of impulse and fired three bullets into Gandhiji.
The radio announcements, ‘A madman has shot the Mahatma’ gave the erroneous impression of an extempore, wildcard attack, and Godse too, in his statement to the police, claimed that he had acted alone. This was of course proved to be completely untrue.
As it soon emerged, the young Nathuram, who shot, from a crouch of obeisance an old man hurrying to prayer, was no more and no less than the human trigger: behind the barrel of that 9mm Beretta lay months of planning and logistics, and a supporting cast of players.
Bombay, as it turned out, was the city in which three of the conspirators were apprehended; it was also the city in which key links in the assassination plan had been forged, and where the weapon was purchased.
A number of buildings in which the conspirators stayed before and after the murder, where they were arrested, and which were associated with the trial in some way, still stand.
In Tushar Gandhi’s provocatively titled new book Let’s Kill Gandhi (Rupa & Co), which is being launched at the Delhi Habitat Centre on Tuesday, there is detailed information on the Mumbai murder trail.
Tushar Gandhi, with the help of local history scholar Sharada Dwivedi tracked some of the buildings whose names have changed. All the facts in the book are mentioned in police records.
On the anniversary of Gandhi’s death, we go back in time and through this building trail—of hotels, lodges, offices, and even a temple—trace the footsteps of Nathuram Godse and the others from Marine Drive to Parel to Crawford Market and Carnac Road. The information here is from the book.
Kusoom Vadgama on Gandhi ji and sex
`Gandhi was obsessed with sex ¬while preaching celibacy to others'
The Times of India Aug 16 2014
A controversy has erupted in Britain over the proposed second statue of Gandhiji in London, this one in Parliament Square. Kusoom Vadgama, the doughty historian (born: 1932) and former `Gandhi worshipper', told Bachi Karkaria at age 82 why she is leading the fight brigade against the statue.
On Gandhi's `debasement of women' by his experiments with sexual self-control.
Kusoom Vadgama: Men in position of power take advantage of their status. They have no qualms about abusing minors or women. All his life Gandhi was obsessed with sex ¬while preaching celibacy to others. No one challenged him. He was the nation's `untouchable' hero, his iconic status eclipsed all his wrong doings. The protest against yet another statue of his in London, just two miles from the one in Tavistock Square, is a perfect opportunity to speak the truth about this other people's Mahatma.
Gandhi never made a secret of sleeping naked with his greatgrand daughter and the wife of his great-grand son. It may have been his way of testing his control over his sexual drive, but these women were used as guinea pigs. If he had used other adult women, it would have been nothing more than interesting gossip. But Gandhi chose a teenage blood relation and a great-grand-daughter-in-law for his sexual whims. I have no fear or hesitation in telling the truth about him. Ironically , it was he who instilled in me the mantra of `satyameva jayate'.
Gandhi's darker side was ignored but never forgotten.
But Gandhiji did give a great deal of space to women in the freedom struggle. For them it was a personal liberation.
Kusoom Vadgama: Gandhi mobilised the women of India. One of the reasons for his success was that his political rallies were called prayer meetings. Women attended in thousands not only to listen to him but also to have the `darshan' of the saintly man.
Earlier, Kusoom Vadgama too `worshipped Gandhi'.
He was Kusoom Vadgama’s God in Nairobi,Kenya, where both her parents were deeply involved in India's free dom movement.
In school, Kusoom Vadgama stud ied the glory and great ness of the British Empire, but spent all her time outside in protest marches and dawn processions, ordering the British out of India. she even shouted `Jai Hind' to the English school teacher, and thought she would be expelled.
Hermann Kallenbach and Gandhi
The Times of India, Sep 30 2015
Kounteya Sinha
Kallenbach was Gandhi's `wailing wall': Researcher
Priceless documents discovered in Israel have revealed, for the first time ever, the role a Jewish architect played in creating the phenomenon that was Mahatma Gandhi. When Lithuania unveils the statue of Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach in Rusne on October 2, researcher Shimon Lev of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, who has extensively studied the archive, will reveal to the world the story of the deep friendship between India's father of the nation and his “soulmate“. Excerpts from Lev's exclusive interview to TOI: How did you get your hand on the Gandhi Kallenbach documents?
Some years ago, I wrote a series of articles about a hiking trail across Israel. During my hike, in a cemetery near the Sea of the Galilee, I went to see the neglected grave of Kallenbach.I published a few lines about him, which resulted in an invitation from his niece, Mrs Isa Sarid, to “have a look“ at Kallenbach's archive. The archive was located in a tiny room in a small apartment up on Carmel Mountain in Haifa. On the shelves were numerous files carrying the name of Gandhi. One of the less known chapters of Gandhi's early biography was waiting for a researcher to pick up the challenge. Finding an archive like this might be the fantasy of any historian.
You call Gandhi and Kallenbach soulmates. Were they truly?
Their friendship was characterized by mutual efforts towards personal, moral and spiritual development, and a deep commitment to the Indian struggle. On a personal level, Kallenbach provided Gandhi with sound emotional support. He was Gandhi's confidant, with whom Gandhi could share even the most personal matters, such as troubles with his wife and children. Gandhi's letters to Kallenbach and documents in the archive reveal their relationship to be an extremely complex and highly unconventional one, with elements of political partnership and surprisingly strong personal ties for two such dissimilar men.
Any interesting anecdotes fom their lives that show their proximity to each other?
Kallenbach was Gandhi's “wailing wall“. When Harilal, Gandhi's eldest son, ran away to Delgoa Bay on his way to India in an effort to get the formal education his father denied him, it was Kallenbach who was sent to bring him back.
What was the unique historical significance in their encounter?
I think that one of most important contributions of Kallenbach is the establishment of Tolstoy Farm in 1910.It is impossible to over-emphasize the influence of the experiment on the formulation of Gandhi's spiritual and social ideologies. But what made their story even more unique was the “second round“, which took place in 1937, when Hitler was already in power. Kallenbach was asked by future Israeli PM Moshe Sharet to brief Gandhi on Zionism, hoping to get his support for a Jewish homeland. That is when Gandhi came out with the disturbing proclamation, The Jews, in 1938, in which he called the Jews to begin civil resistance and be ready to die as a result. Gandhi used Kallenbach as an example of the tension between his nonviolence doctrine and what was going on in Europe.
“I happen to have a Jewish friend...He has an intellectual belief in non-vi olence. But he says he cannot pray for Hitler. I do not quarrel with him over his anger...“
So the chronicles of their relationship traverse the dramatic events of the first half of the 20th century.
What was unique about this relationship and why isn't their relationship so widely known?
Kallenbach was Gandhi's most intimate European supporter. He was the one who Gandhi could mostly trust.
There may be a number of reasons for the general disregard of Kallenbach's contribution. Their forced separation due to Kallenbach's confinement in a British internment camp during World War I is partly to blame.Had Kallenbach gone to India, it is probable that he would have become the administrative manager of Gandhi's Indian ashrams. Moreover, the scarcity of first-hand sources regarding their relationship makes the study of his influence difficult.
Who inspired whom in the relationship and how?
Obviously, Gandhi was the one who inspired everyone else around him, including Kallenbach. He was the spiritual authority no doubt about this. Kallenbach's Jewish family regarded him as one trapped by “Gandhi's spell“.
How will this statue help in telling their stories?
Well, definitely it will make their fascinating story more known. I claim that it is impossible to understand Gandhi without understanding his relationships with those close to him.Between 1906 and 1909, Gandhi underwent an extremely significant transformation, the result of which was that his doctrine became fully solidified. His partner in these crucial years was Herman Kallenbach.
See also
Mahatma Gandhi
