Beyond the veil of fame
MUKUND PADMANABHAN
|
This book fills a gap in the seemingly impenetrable thicket of biographies on the Mahatma
|
MOHANDAS - A True Story of a Man, his People and an Empire: Rajmohan Gandhi; Penguin-Viking, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Rs. 650.
Perhaps, the best way of explaining what this biography does is by explaining what it does not. It does not, like Erik Erikson's celebrated psychological reconstruction of Mahatma Gandhi explore the subconscious reservoirs from which his theory of militant non-violence sprung. It is not, like Louis Fischer's hugely popular account, a brisk and breezy overview of Gandhiji's ideas and his impact on the world. It is, in comparison to Joseph Doke's deeply personal recollection, much more than a portrait of a specific period in the great man's life.
`Complete' portrayal
Rajmohan Gandhi's Mohandas has been written at a time when the Mahatma has already been repeatedly put through the biographical wringer. His life has been scrutinised from every conceivable perspective. He has been praised and derided, his contradictions laid bare and reconciled, his ideas psychoanalysed, his motives demystified, his charisma deconstructed. In the face of such a daunting biographical history, it is something of a challenge to embark on another Gandhiji project. But Rajmohan Gandhi— who was a twelve-and-a-half when the Mahatma, his grandfather, died— has identified a gap in this seemingly impenetrable thicket of biographies. The "need" for a "complete" and "chronological" portrayal— one in which "the whole of his life could be looked at as one piece, and a touchable, seeable, comprehensible Gandhi brought out."
The quest for such "completeness" has an attendant risk— that of getting bogged down in a morass of factual detail, not all of which is necessarily interesting or illuminating. But Rajmohan strikes a fine balance in this comprehensive work, lacing the painstakingly detailed chronological account with just the right amount of interpretation to rescue it from being a mere factual narrative.
No grand theories
There are no grand theories here, no sweeping generalisations, no too-clever-by-half conjectures. By and large, the biographer is content to stay out of sight, emerging here and there to make a cautious interjection or a circumspect explanation. One of the very few places he departs from this approach is when he passionately defends Gandhiji's approach against the criticism that he used religion and religious metaphors in the struggle for freedom. "Between a politics that pretended religion was absent from India and a politics that squarely faced religion's hold," Rajmohan suggests that Gandhiji's choice of the latter was the right one. The riots following Partition, he argues, were not a result of religion being brought into politics; rather, he argues, they occurred despite Gandhiji's efforts to persuade people that all religions "taught goodwill", because of the "hate and fear many an Indian nursed and spread at the time."
For the most part, however, the biography exudes a calm and dispassionate sobriety; the only overwritten parts are, possibly excusably, in the last few paragraphs that deal with his assassination. The portrait of Gandhiji painted here emerges slowly— from the timid and somewhat cowardly Kathiawari childhood, the awkward years as a student in England, the growing confidence as a lawyer in South Africa (a self-assurance that ironically emerged from his humiliation), and his emergence as a leader in India (who although often at odds with his more politically savvy nationalist colleagues seemed better equipped to read the mind of India).
Detached observer
A considerable amount of media attention has focussed on the book's discussion of Gandhiji's "special relationship" with Saraladevi Chaudurani, a niece of Tagore and the wife of a Lahore-based Congressman. It is a relationship that finds mention in Martin Green's biography and in one of Rajmohan own earlier works. In the context of this 745-page volume, the section on Saraladevi is but a long footnote. But Rajmohan hints that the relationship ("around which Eros too might have lurked")— which alarmed family members and others close to Gandhiji— came dangerously close to altering the very course of his life. The "important item from the family archives... used here for the first time" that the author mentions in the preface is a probable reference to a stern letter C. Rajagopalachari wrote to Gandhiji about the relationship. Contrasting Gandhiji's wife Kasturba and Saraladevi was like comparing "a kerosene Ditmar lamp" and "the morning sun", C.R. wrote. "The encasement of the divinest soul is yet flesh... Pray disengage yourself at once completely."
When narrating the now familiar milestones and markers in Gandhiji's life— whether it is Chauri Chaura, Quit India, his relationship with Kasturba, his experiments with vegetarianism and celibacy — Rajmohan adopts the position of a detached observer. It is a position that cuts both ways. There are times in the volume when such detachment engenders a certain blandness. But the approach goes a long way in painting a portrait of Gandhiji that is very human, plausible, and easy to identify with.
It is a biography about a man and not so much a Mahatma. Could this be why Rajmohan chose to title this book simply and with the name he was given at birth — Mohandas?
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Book Review
