Was Mahatma Gandhi a racist? Did he support the caste system? Do his various arch-critics over the years – Dalit activists, Hindutva supporters, Marxists, and intellectuals ensconced in their ivory towers – have valid points?
Perhaps. With Gandhi, however, there are never easy answers. During his lifetime, Gandhi warmly encouraged criticism and debate. After his death, and despite all of the posthumous veneration and encomiums, the Mahatma has remained a lightning rod for controversy. In this episode of Past Imperfect, Ramachandra Guha takes us through these controversies to help us separate fact from fiction.
In Arguments with Gandhi, his latest book, Guha states that it is impossible to assign neat black-and-white binaries to the Mahatma and his ideas. “The geographical range of Gandhi’s life, the thematic range of his activities and the furious arguments his work evoked (and continues to evoke) make him a figure without parallel in the modern world,” he writes.
Gandhi, after all, was not simply an Indian leader. He engaged with people from a dizzying range of countries and cultural and religious backgrounds. Throughout his life he waded into some of the world’s most furious debates. And he kept on evolving his ideas: his views about certain…
Source: Scroll.in
