| Review of: | Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi by Stanley Wolpert |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Manu Bhagavan |
| Reviewed in: | Peace & Change |
| Date accepted online: | 27/07/2004 |
| Published in print: | Volume 29, Issue 2, Pages 322-346 |
Book Reviews
In April 2002, an angry and vicious mob attacked the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad Gujarat, India, bringing violence to the former sanctum sanctorum of worldwide "nonviolence" for the first time in its long history, breaking a taboo no British colonist nor 1947 communalist ever would have dared to. The primary object of the assault was antiglobalization activist Medha Patkar, who had sought to use the ashram to rally for peace, to rally against what at the time was an ongoing state-sponsored pogrom against Muslims in the area. A frenzied Hindu gestapo penetrated the sanctity of the ashram and tried to harm Patkar, though she escaped. In its unfolding, the event clearly refracted two important challenges the world finds itself facing today: the increasing creep of globalization and mass consumerism and the rise of religious bigotry and violent intolerance throughout the world. Patkar's use of the Sabarmati Ashram was of course no accident but rather was a strategic choice-a hope to capitalize on the symbolism of that place and its famed martyr and to give fire to the call for peace. Likewise, the anger vented on the ashram itself was steeped in symbolism, as the Hindu nationalist crowd battered the physical legacy of the ashram's founder, much as their ideological ancestor had done some 50 years ago to the founder himself. Looming over the entire incident, then, and raising the profile of its local, regional, and international implications, stands the shadow of that very founder, Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi. Despite claims to the contrary, Gandhi's continued relevance never has seemed more apparent. It is precisely this fact, and Gandhi's current stature as one of the two icons (together with the supposed counterphilosophical revolutionary Ché Guevera) of the worldwide peace and justice movement, that gives call for reexamination and further interrogation of Gandhi's life and times, his ideas, and his successes and failures. In this context, Stanley Wolpert's hagiographical account of "Gandhi's passion" broaches a crucial and timely subject.
For those with little familiarity with Gandhi, Wolpert's book serves as a good general introduction. It carries us from Gandhi's birth on October 2, 1869, through his assassination on January 30, 1948, and touches briefly on his Indian and global legacies. In the interim, we learn of his experiences in London and South Africa, his early experiments with meat eating and smoking, and his eventual commitment to the pursuit of "truth." Wolpert guides us through Gandhi's rise as a champion of anticolonial Indian nationalism, giving us insight into the Mahatma's insistence on personal suffering and his evolving ruminations on the power and effectiveness of "nonviolence." The book climaxes in a narrative of the lead-up to the partition of the subcontinent, the growing "poison" of communal hatred, and, because of it, Gandhi's disillusionment at independence (nicely foreshadowed in the first chapter). Wolpert concludes with Gandhi's last-ditch effort from 1947-48 to rekindle people's faith in love and tolerance, an effort that ironically met its end at the hands of a hateful religious fanatic.
The strength and appeal of
While many will find this tone and trajectory interesting and catchy reading, it is precisely these same attributes that will disappoint others, especially those with more postmodern sensibilities. Salman Rushdie, for example, in his well-known commentary on Gandhi for
If Attenborough's Mahatma Christ metaphor was clear subtext, Wolpert bludgeons his readers with an overt comparison in the first paragraph of his introduction: "The first example of the word passion ... is 'the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the Cross.' The story of Mahatma Gandhi's life may be read as a pageant of his conscious courting of suffering. Gandhi's passion also ended in martyrdom" (p. 3). What Wolpert paints thus is more caricature than realistic portrait-a romanticized view of Gandhi on an unapologetically Orientalist model that precisely replicates the more-moral-than-thou depiction that Rushdie mocks. Gandhi's "yogic powers" (e.g., pp. 60, 118) and internal light are given more weight in explaining his success than his economic tactics or sly political strategies. While we see Gandhi struggle with various questions and internal demons, he is rarely seen taking missteps or making significant miscalculations. Whereas Gandhi's decision to pursue a vow of celibacy, for instance, is portrayed admiringly in an awe-struck tone, the voice of Gandhi's wife, Kasturba, is never raised (pp. 15, 17). Gandhi's later use of his vow to sleep naked with teenage girls is dealt with more skeptically-and with more embellishment of various concerns raised (pp. 186, 227-230)-but a truly critical analysis of the practice never is ventured.
Although such idol worshipping might be forgiven, especially in the desperate current times, much more egregious is the bizarre absence of substantial scholarly research on Gandhi made over the last several decades. For example, Shahid Amin's heralded work [
This too might be excused, as heavy scholarly debates can clutter easily and can overwhelm introductory texts meant for broad readership. But this particular void carries into several instances of problematic word choice and erroneous statements. Wolpert states that "Hinduism's Great God Shiva ... was first depicted on an Indus Valley seal dating back to the third millennium B.C." (p. 3), a stretch of any accepted academic understandings of the seal in question. Later, he claims that all devout Hindus are strict vegetarians (p. 14), a preposterous essentialism. Wolpert's loose use of language is most striking in his description of revolutionary Bhagat Singh and his companions as "terrorists" (p. 158), and in his present-tense deployment of the term
These faults taken
[1](http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/gandhi2.html; current as of 6/1/03).
[2]In Ranajit Guha, ed.,