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Mahatma’s vital concern Brahmacharya: Gandhi & His Women Associates A MOBILE
exhibition that visited our village during the centenary of Mahatma
Gandhi’s birth in 1969 depicted dozens of his photographs from that of
a toddler in Porbandar to his last journey on a gun carriage in New
Delhi. However, the image that remained etched in my mind was that of a
toothless old man with a beatific smile on his face and clutching at a
staff. Years later when I read Arthur Koestler’s controversial, some say,
racist, book The Robot and The Lotus, I was shocked to read about
some of Gandhi’s mind-boggling views on sex. It described a particular
incident in which the British police who had gone to arrest him found
Gandhi and a nubile girl sleeping on the same bed in a state of
undress. Girja Kumar, who is credited with setting up the prestigious
Sapru House library in New Delhi, throws light on a slightly uncharted
aspect of Gandhiji’s life—his relationship with a bevy of women. His
admiration for Gandhiji is apparent but that does not prevent him from
calling a spade a spade. From his days in South Africa where he went
as a struggling lawyer, women of all nationalities were attracted to
Gandhiji like bees to honey. He always felt, though seldom admitted,
that Kasturba, whom he married at the age of 13, could not provide him
intellectual companionship. So he looked for and found women of his
choice who could understand the role he played and the politics he
pursued. Unlike most others, Gandhiji was brutally frank about his
relationships with women, though many of his confidants with the
singular exception of Jawaharlal Nehru, who was "diplomatic",
found them questionable. Women were simply guinea pigs for his weird
experiments in brahmacharya. Gandhiji had difficulty in coming to terms
with as basic an instinct as sex. He found it an abhorrent urge, the
control of which would make him great. And he was ready to go to any
length to perfect his state of married celibacy. An incident that
happened soon after his marriage influenced him a great deal. His father
was on his deathbed and Gandhiji was massaging his legs when he had an
arousal. He rushed to Kasturba, woke her up, had sex and returned to his
father’s bed to find him dead. The thought that he was dying exactly
when he was copulating haunted him all his life. "I cannot imagine
a thing as ugly as the intercourse as man and woman", he once said.
Thus began his famous battle against sex which he never won, not because
he was not earnest or full-hearted in his attempt but because he fought
against the all-powerful Nature. For all his greatness as a mass
leader, philosopher and thinker, Gandhiji had idiotic ideas about many
aspects of sex. He forsook milk because it stimulated "the lower
passion of man’s nature" forcing a vitriolic comment from his
first known female friend Millie Graham Polak, "If that be so`85
then young children who are principally fed on milk would be nothing but
horrible little brutes". Barely 23 years after his marriage, he
renounced sex because he believed that if he got enamoured of Kasturba
and indulged in sexual gratification, he would fall the very instant.
"My work would go to the dogs and I would lose in a twinkling all
that power which would enable one to achieve swaraj". All his
higher education did not equip him to discard the notion that semen
which he called "vital fluid" was "God’s gift to be
preserved, stored and retained under all circumstances". It was as
if swaraj lay in semen. While he practised abstinence with perfection
making his bedroom a torture chamber, he agonised over his involuntary
discharges exposing his ignorance of the biological functions of the
body. There were many women social climbers who were in his charmed
circle but there were others who found him sexually attractive and
sought gratification through him. Without exception, he used all of them
as his "walking sticks" or as tools in his grand but grotesque
laboratory of brahmacharya. What did the women get in return? He
regretted that he adopted "Lakhsmi," a Harijan who ended her
life in obscurity, he got a married girl Jeki exposed to public ridicule
by forcing her to cut her hair just because she made the mistake of
kissing his son, he subjected his wife to torture of all kinds,
conditioned many of his women friends like Sonja Schlesin, Sushila
Nayyar and Mirabehn to remain spinsters all their lives and ruined the
family life of friends like Jayaprakash Narayan. Why? The author
answers, "Probably he loved no once except himself". There is
a touching episode in the book where his elder son Harilal, a drunkard
who once became a Muslim, shouts "Mata Kasturba ki jai" when
the Jabalpur Mail in which the Gandhis were travelling reached Katni
station. He thrust an orange, which he had begged from a fruit vendor,
into her hands and said, "Ba, it is exclusively for you. If you don’t
eat it, give it back to me". When Gandhiji solicited a portion of
the "booty" as his patrimony, Harilal brusquely rejected his
request, "No. It is exclusively for Ba. He also added an advice to
him. "All your greatness is owed to her". When the train
moved, they heard the distant cry, "Mata Kasturba ki jai".
He was a Mahatma for the world but for his family he was the Old
Testament God spitting brimstone and fire. Girja Kumar’s is an
enjoyable book that calls for tighter editing to eliminate repetitions
and proof mistakes.
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This image underwent a metamorphosis when I saw Ram Kinkar’s
life-size sculpture of Gandhiji taking part in the Dandi March at a park
in Santiniketan. But for a loin-cloth, he was naked. What struck me most
was his physical beauty, particularly the strength of his muscular legs.
Realisation dawned on me that he was as handsome as he was charismatic.
