January 30, 2020 is the 73rd death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi,  the apostle of peace and a person who engineered India’s independence from British rule in 1947. His decency, democratic nature, personal examples and teachings are as relevant today in this divided and fractious world as they were almost a hundred years ago.

I am going to narrate anecdotes about him from people who met and worked with him.  Anecdotes help describe a person in human terms. No matter how great the soul is, once it acquires a human body then it is guided by the frailties of human existence.  

Gandhiji was no different. Many times he said that he was an ordinary human being but sometimes when truth spoke through him, he became a superhuman being capable of moving millions of his countrymen and doing wonderful things.  Thus he was a medium of higher forces and it is my belief that all great historical figures are such mediums whether good or evil.

I was born two-and-half years after Gandhiji’s death, so I never saw him in flesh and blood.  Hence all my understanding of him has come from meeting people who knew him and from reading about him and his writings.

My father, Jagdish Prasad Rajvanshi, a freedom fighter, told me a remarkable episode about Gandhiji. In 1941, Gandhiji was supposed to give a speech in Allahabad where he wanted to spell out his ideas about the ‘Quit India’ movement.  There were about half a million people on the grounds and there were much din and noise. Again and again important leaders of the Congress party like Jawaharlal Nehru and Acharya Kriplani would come to the mike and tell people to remain quiet so that they can hear their leaders speak. But to no avail. Gandhiji was late in coming to the meeting. Once he came, he got on the dais and put a finger on his lip.  A wave of silence spread over the field starting from the dais.

My father said he never saw such a thing in his life where a small frail man exerted so much power just by his presence and in a very non-violent way! 

A man with a presence

Gandhiji had a presence. That is a mark of a great soul and a very much evolved spiritual being. To Gandhiji spirituality came first; other things like politics, public life, etc. were by-products of his spirituality. There are many instances where people spoke about his aura or presence. Almost anybody who met him was influenced by his presence, thoughts, and ideas. 

My father’s friend late Ratan Lal Joshi, who was the editor of Hindustan and was also involved in the freedom movement, told me an anecdote.

A well-known writer from Allahabad who was Joshi’s friend used to write about Gandhiji’s sexual experiments in a very derogatory manner. He thought that Gandhi was a sexual pervert and had gone senile. Gandhiji apparently wanted to meet him and discuss with him this issue.  So a message was sent through Ratan Lal Joshi that he should come and meet Gandhiji.

The writer was delighted, and he prepared a four-page questionnaire about Gandhi’s sexual experiments.  Both he and Joshi went to see Gandhiji.  He asked the writer about his family, what his children were doing and told him that since he was such a good writer, instead of writing about his sexual experiments he should focus on good things and write about Raja Harish Chandra. All the interview time of 45 minutes was taken up in this chit chat.  After the interview, Joshi asked him why he did not ask those questions.  The writer said that he just could not get the courage to ask them of Gandhi. 

Living in Sevagram

A similar story was told to me by G.Lavanam when I roomed with him in Hyderabad in 1996 during a conference on Gandhiji. Lavanam was forced to join Sevagram Ashram in Wardha when he was 16 years of age. His parents Gora and Saraswati Gora, a great social reformer couple and atheist, were followers of Gandhi and lived in Sevagram. They decided to yank Lavanam out of the school and give him “Nai taleem” (new education) based on Gandhiji’s concept of imparting education through manual work and handicrafts.

He said that his job in the ashram was to cut vegetables and fruits. He used to hate it since he always felt that he should be attending school and not doing this manual work.

Everyday Gandhiji would pass him on his way to his bath after his massage. He did not say anything to him but used to smile. This went on for almost a month. One day while going to his bath Gandhiji asked Lavanam what he was doing.

Being a young impetuous boy who was already peeved with this type of work he replied “Don’t you see what I am doing?  Gandhiji said, “Yes, I can see that but have you tasted the fruits to see whether they are sweet or good.”

Lavanam replied indignantly, “How can I taste them? They will become Jhutha as they are for the Ashram.” Gandhiji said, “If I were in your place I would taste them and since nobody is watching, it does not matter.”  Lavanam told him that this is untruthful and not correct to which Gandhiji replied, “You, a 16-year-old want to teach me, the pujari (worshipper) of truth about what is correct and incorrect?” And then he had a hearty laugh.

Lavanam said that in those few minutes of exchange Gandhiji came to his level and put him at ease and became a great friend.  Though a great camaraderie developed between him and Gandhiji but Lavanam said that living in Sevagram was a mind-bending exercise. It was impossible to think critically and straight – such was the power of Gandhi’s thought and mind.

A karma yogi

B. B. Vohra, who retired as the chairman, Advisory Board of Energy during former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s time told me another anecdote. 

In January 1948, he and his young friends came to Delhi from Punjab since they wanted to see Gandhiji as it was rumored that he may die any day as there had been many attempts on his life. Vohra told me that they walked few steps behind Gandhiji to the prayer meeting and saw that his skin was glowing like copper. He also told me that it was bitingly cold that day and he and his friends were wearing long johns, boots, overcoats, and warm caps while Gandhiji was going to the prayer meeting in the evening in sandals and without a cap, had a simple khadi shawl on his body, and wearing a dhoti which left half of his legs uncovered. Like a great yogi, he had mastered the elements, so he was not bothered by them. 

Gandhiji was a great karma yogi who believed in the power of action and work. He never believed in any palmist, soothsayer, etc. Joshi told me of another anecdote. A palmist came to Gandhiji to see his palm and maybe predict his future. He was informed that he will have to wait since Gandhiji was spinning his charkha (spinning wheel). After a couple of hours of waiting the palmist enquired as to how long he will have to wait further. Gandhiji informed him, “Till I get Sampoorn Swarajya (complete freedom) from British”  

Gandhiji had his share of human frailties. He was quite a bully and he had fixed ideas about lots of things.  I guess all messiahs believe their path is the correct path and want their followers to follow it leading sometimes to appear as a bully.

Nirmal Kumar Bose who was his secretary during his Noakhali trip in West Bengal in 1947 wrote that Gandhi would get terribly upset if the person who was assigned the work did not do it. This was despite the fact that the work was done by somebody else.  Gandhi felt that there should be discipline in the work force and so he acted many times as a military commander who wanted all his troops to do their assigned work without questioning.   

Thus, whatever Gandhiji wanted either in the ashram or in the Congress Party took place.  Joshi also told me another anecdote about this. It was a common practice in the Congress Working Committee meetings for Gandhiji to ask all the members their opinion on a particular matter and how they would like to proceed on it. Rajendra Prasad, a close associate of Gandhi and who later became the first President of India, once remarked “Bapu why do you do this drama of taking our opinions. Ultimately what you want and have decided will only happen.” Joshi told me that Gandhi had a hearty laugh at this comment.                                  

He was also quite harsh on his family. His poor treatment of his sons and his wife Kasturba are well documented. He threw out his sister and her husband from the Sabarmati Ashram when he found out that they could not account for a few paisa discrepancies in the ashram accounts.         

Gandhiji was a multi-faceted human being.  Endowed with a powerful mind he thought deeply on all the issues affecting him and the nation. Thus how to have a good diet, keeping a healthy body, and how to get rid of British were all equally important for him.  Thus one issue of Young India, a weekly paper that Gandhiji published, carried an article on how to get rid of constipation and the importance of the Gandhi-Irvin pact.  To him, both these things had equal importance.

Similarly, he actively talked and wrote about moral issues and Karma Yoga.  Thus, he combined in one person a commander of the independence movement, promoter of peace, creator of a new thought of non-violent Satyagraha, and advocate of a wholesome and healthy life. To my mind the only other person who combined all these qualities was Prophet Mohammad in 6th century AD.

Gandhiji was far ahead of his times. His 1930 Round Table Conference Speech in London is a masterpiece on the issue of North-South cooperation. Similarly, he showed the way for sustainable development by his own example of living simply and producing the highest quality of thought. His intuitive thinking of a self-sufficient and sustainable rural economy is an idea in vogue and which he propagated and wrote about in the 1920s. I feel his ideas on sustainability are more relevant today than any time before.

A man who united India

Gandhiji’s greatest asset was that he carried every Indian with him by his love and force of his higher thought. That is the hallmark of a great leader. They were other leaders in the last century like Chinese leader Mao Zedong, Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler, Russian leader Joseph Stalin and others but they led their countrymen with force and fear. 

At the time of his death, almost the whole country and world mourned. My mother who had never met Gandhiji told me that there was no food cooked in the house on that day since everybody felt that a close member of the family had died. 

In millions of homes throughout India similar grief was witnessed on that day. That could only happen because every Indian identified with Gandhiji as one of their own – a mark of a great and noble soul, almost bordering on divine.  No wonder legendary scientist Albert Einstein wrote “Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.’   

So on this death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi let us all remember him and try to emulate his example of self-reliance, “be the change that you want to see” and to work together towards uniting the country into one cohesive force for the upliftment of the poor. 

This should also be the day where our present leaders take a pledge to take all Indians together rather than dividing the society for their narrow political gains.

(The writer is Director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI),  Phaltan, Maharashtra.  The views are personal. He can be contacted at anilrajvanshi@gmail.com. https://www.nariphaltan.org/writings.htm)