Ramachandra Guha explores Gandhi’s critics and legacy in new book Arguments with Gandhi

A little over a century later after Mahatma Gandhi began writing his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth we meet Ramachandra Guha in Mumbai He introduces us to his eponymous title Arguments with Gandhi HarperCollins mdash a moral and political history of the MahatmaldquoHere is a man who died 80 years ago and we are still arguing about him and we will continue to argue about him Few public figures are discussed for so long after they are gone He is debated not just in India but across the world and across many areas of life mdash nonviolence race gender caste economic policy and religionrdquoPics courtesyHarperCollins Wikimedia CommonsThis book looks at the other side of Gandhi ldquoIrsquove given all his critics a lot of space this book is not just Gandhirsquos voicerdquo Guha reminds us adding ldquobut it includes his admirers too all of it spans over a centuryrdquo Questions are aplenty and time is short so we chose prudently in our interaction with the historianExcerpts from the interviewDid Indiarsquos youth in the 1920s have different viewpoints compared to say those in the 1940s while reacting to Mahatma Gandhirsquos ideasIrsquod say not the youth but sections of the political class No group is homogenous Even today many young people are protesting against the regime many are not One of the features of the freedom movement are the strands of the freedom struggle they came out into the streets courted arrest or like Bhagat Singh joined revolutionary streams They were fired by idealism and the desire to make India freeRamachandra GuhaItrsquos like today where many are keen to make India a just place where opportunities are provided for all Back then a vast majority didnrsquot become political which is also the case today More students came out in the 1940s than in the 1920s as it turns out including in Bombay with leaders like Usha Mehta and similar cases In the rsquo20s students went to jail but in the rsquo40s it was more widespreadThe book reveals the Soviet Unionrsquos disparagement of Gandhi Why were they interested in his ideologyBecause it was an alternate route to emancipation There are three routes to emancipation Firstly if itrsquos an oppressive regime you accept it and take whatever crumbs you can Secondly you aim to change it through Satyagraha andor civil disobedience and thirdly to try to capture state power through an armed struggle The Soviet path or the Bolshevik path was the third path the path of Gandhi was the second They were competing with each otherGandhi in South AfricaAs I write in that chapter Gandhi and Lenin are roughly the same age they had similar trajectories both live abroad and return home both were writers and both are deeply concerned about emancipating their countries In 1917 when the Russian Revolution began Gandhi launched the Champaran Satyagraha so they ran parallel from then till 1947There is a revolutionary stream inspired by the Soviet Union which wants to liberate India through an armed struggle and there is the Gandhian approach So they are in a sense rivals for the same space Itrsquos not just a question of political rivalry but profound ideological differences And thatrsquos where the disparagement of nonviolence comes in because the Leninists as well as Indian revolutionaries felt nonviolence was a weak feminist strategy that was unlikely to wield any dividendsVladimir LeninThat chapter ends after Independence in the 1950s when the Cold War started The Soviet Union started to cozy up to India because of their rivalry with the USA and started praising Gandhi which was convenient to themWhy did Einstein utter the famous words ldquoShould we all Americans try to become a little Gandhian Should we try his weapon of Civil DisobediencerdquoAlbert Einstein was deeply moved by Gandhirsquos philosophy of nonviolence The world was hurtling towards war in the 1930s there was Nazism and Fascism and bloody dictatorships Einstein was inspired by Gandhirsquos path of nonviolence of putting yourself in front rather than using arms Later on after the nuclear bomb in which he played a part and was then horrified he turned to Gandhi again He had genuine admiration for the saintly figure of GandhiAlbert EinsteinAnd what did Gandhi think of EinsteinHe admired him They had some correspondence which I mention in the book Einstein opposed compulsory military service so did Gandhi He respected Einstein and had invited him to visit India which he couldnrsquot Gandhi had only a fleeting correspondence with Einstein but Einstein on the other hand consistently praised Gandhi for more than 20 years in his letters and his advice to people He thought Gandhi was the greatest figure of his age What does your research reveal about Gandhi being hesitant to pursue an alliance with Africans of colourGandhi was a community leader in South Africa He wasnrsquot a leader of all humanity He had gone there to represent the small Indian community and at that stage he felt that was his task But after his return he advises the Indians there and urges them to cooperate with the African movementWhen you study a person like Gandhi itrsquos important not to impose your views of today back on him Today you canrsquot ask lsquoWhy he didnrsquot do sorsquo the context was different He was a young man he didnrsquot have those grand visions of emancipationGandhirsquos views on gender are equally revelatory You write lsquoIf Gandhi had his own way there would have been no women in the Salt MarchhelliprsquoGandhi was fine with women promoting khadi being social workers including advocating men to abstain from liquor He was ambivalent about them joining the struggle because India was a very conservative society back then There was already a radical experiment of men and women being in the same Ashram And then to be marching together becoming friends possibly lovers He was worried about the implications of such developments in society and that they would turn against himAgain we have to look at India in 1925 and now 2026 Today itrsquos fine for men and women to sit beside each other on Marine Drive That wouldnrsquot have been the case 100 years ago Gandhi was aware of the wider social context in which the freedom struggle was operating and had to work within those constraints He didnrsquot wish for things to reach a stage where women would be disallowed from even spinning khadi as a result of the social scenarioOf course Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay insisted that women be allowed to join the Salt Satyagraha and he agreed One of the arguments of this book is that Gandhi was always willing to change his mind