Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, was driven by and to pleasures of the flesh, like any other man. This is what a new and startling look into the Gandhi's life by British historian Jad Adams reveals in his new book, Naked Ambition.
True account: The book was well-received at its launch in London last week
Excerpts from a telephonic interview with Jad Adams:
What inspired you to write this book?
I've always been interested in Gandhi and the Independence movement. In 1995, I worked on another book, The Dynasty, where I explored the Gandhi-Nehru story. I wanted to look at his story through original source material that Gandhi himself wrote and of people who wrote about him and knew him. I feel a lot of information about the man has been obscured after his death where people have chosen to mythologise him and lend him an air of sanctity.
I wanted to see the real human being, the man behind the Mahatma. He didn't like the term, Mahatma, very much himself. He liked to concentrate on his spiritual nature. He wasn't ambitious to run a country but to spiritually refine himself.
Why choose to write about Gandhi's sex life?
I'm not implying that this book is only about sex. The truth is that Gandhi as a man liked talking and writing about sex and challenged his own sexual needs, at times. Information shows that he had practical experiments with sex, there are written records of this. My work is not an interpolation of sex into the life of a man whose actions were otherwise non-sexual. In fact, Gandhi's attitude was labelled 'abnormal and unnatural' by Jawaharlal Nehru and during Partition, senior leaders like J Kripalani and Vallabhbhai Patel also distanced themselves from him on account of his sexual attitude.
What has been the reaction to the book in England where there is a large Indian diaspora?
My book's been very well received there. During the launch of my book at London University, where I am a research fellow, there were many Indian students and they were intrigued and interested at the approach that I had taken.
Do you worry that there might be some backlash from Indians and others because of what has been said about Gandhi's sexual encounters?
I haven't received any backlash so far. I understand that there could be. But all the things that I'm saying in the book were either things Gandhi said himself or were said to him. What is wrong with that picture?
About the book
Naked Ambition released in the UK last week. It offers 'the most explicit account yet of Gandhi's sexual experiments with the wives of his followers and his teenaged grand-nieces'. In the book, Gandhi is quoted on the power of semen saying, "One who conserves his vital fluid acquires unfailing power".
I have worked with countless records both written by him and about him. Some of the most helpful were those produced by Sushila Nayar, Pyarelal's sister. In fact, she herself said that Gandhi's dwelling on sexuality and his Brahmacharya experiments were 'fundamental and integral to Gandhiji's philosophy of life, and on account of the great importance he himself attached to it and his own injunction to me on that behalf'.
We don't know what the source of this information is, whether is it fact or figment. However, to talk ill of a leader like Gandhi, who brought us so many values, is easy as he is dead. It's easy to demean him now when he cannot defend himself. It's in very bad taste.
D A Pillai, Gandhian and founder of the Indian Leprosy Foundation
In his own autobiogra-phy, Gandhi takes a vow of celibacy after having four children which shows that he was testing himself. People simply like to blow things out of proportion. Also, he was such a public figure, when would he have had the time for these many sexual encounters? I think he was busier being Father of the Nation than engaging in sexual experiments.
Nandini Sardesai, Sociologist
- Madhumitha
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