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'Bapu has been painted as a sexual lothario' |
| By: Alisha Coelho | | Date:
2010-04-25 | | Place: Mumbai | |
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Mahatma Gandhi's great grandson Tushar Gandhi is upset at British historian Jad Adams' portrayal of the man as a sex seeker
After British historian Jad Adam's latest biography on Mahatma Gandhi, Naked Ambition, stirred up interest, Gandhi's great grandson is less than amused.
PIC/AFP
MiD DAY had first published the interview with Jad Adams ('He liked talking, writing about sex,' April 8) two weeks ago, and was unable to contact Tushar Gandhi since he was out of the country. On his return, he responded to Mid Day's queries terming Adam's claims as 'far-fetched'. He said he was disturbed to see his great grandfather being "painted as a sexual lothario who liked to brag about his conquests."
"I haven't read the book, so it will be difficult to comment on its merits," said Gandhi, adding, "But many a times, Westerners have written about Bapu's experiments in Brahmacharya with a voyeuristic and single dimensional outlook towards sex."
Gandhi said, in the past, foreign authors had implied that Bapu had had sex with all his close female associates, "as if it was an ongoing ritual in his ashrams."
The Mahatma's experiments with Brahmacharya were recorded by Bapu himself, Gandhi clarifies. These accounts "very well documented in his own words, occurred in Noakhali with his grand niece Manuben. It was not as if sexual acrobatics were conducted. The claim that he had such experiments with female followers and wives of ashram residents, is far-fetched," he said. One of the basic rules of ashram life was to forgo all physical contact with the opposite gender. "Those who were married had to leave the ashram if they craved sex. The precinct of the ashram was a no-sex zone for the inmates as well as Ba (Kasturba Gandhi) and Bapu."
Gandhi said the Mahatma's female followers never felt uneasy around him. "A close female follower has written, 'With Bapu, we never felt as if we were interacting with a person of the opposite gender. Whenever I have interacted with him, the way he looked at me, the way he spoke with me and the way he touched me, I never felt as if a man was looking at me'." |
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