A glimpse of Gandhi's personal life

In January 1947, India was moving towards a tragic disaster. Months before India declared
partition, Mahatma Gandhi went from village to village in the hope of restoring communal
non-violence.
[Clips of Mahatma Gandhi]
This was also the time when his loyal and devoted stenographer, Parasuram, abruptly left him.
This is a story not many know, and if you look up on the internet, you’ll barely find a mention of
R. P. Parasuram – a man from South India who didn’t understand any Bengali but stood beside
Gandhi as a devoted disciple. His devotion was so pure that he once fought with his friends
upon hearing them speak against Gandhi’s character. But his sudden dispersal from Gandhi’s
side was not a mere coincidence or emergency, but the result of some experiments that might
shock you as well.
This is not all, there are countless more revelations like Gandhi’s racist comments, his
Brahmacharya-related experiments and the effect of his non-violent moments that I will uncover
for you today. Before we begin, remember that most of the statements are proof from his own
records available in the archives or that of his known people.
For your ease, I have divided this video into three phases, and this is phase 1 – Gandhi before
he came to India. [Serious tone and background music]
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on September 2nd 1869, to Karamchand and Putlibai
Gandhi in Porbandar, Gujarat. At the age of 13, he married Kasturba Gandhi and became a dad
to two sons in the following years. Now, although according to Gandhi, he was an average
student, he moved to London in 1888 and got a degree in law from Inner Temple. This was also
the time period when Gandhi learnt more about religion and philosophy. In 1891, he moved back
to Bombay to practice law but sadly for him, he had a hard time finding a good job. So in 1893,
he decided to move to South Africa on a one-year legal contract with an Indian merchant named
Dada Abdulla. What started as a one-year thing became a 21-year-long fight for civil rights in
South Africa. This awakening arose when in the early days of his stay, he was thrown out of a
first-class compartment on the Pietermaritzburg railway station, while he was travelling for work.
Despite holding a valid ticket, he was ill-treated because of his race. This led to the beginning of
Gandhi; this was where he began his journey of becoming a Mahatma. In May 1894, Gandhi
founded the Natal Indian Congress since he was residing in Natal, SA and fought for the
injustice against British Indians in South Africa.
[Screencast: Please explain the timestamps like this image:
]
But wait, I’m sure you must’ve heard this part of the story before, and all this is indeed true. But
there are some loopholes, some gaps in these stories, that nobody discussed for years after
India became independent and Gandhi became a Mahatma. The truth started surfacing on a
global platform in 2018 when lecturers and students from the University of Ghana protested and
got a statue of Gandhi removed from the premises. In fact, even before that, in 2015,
#Ghandimustfall gained circulation on social media [Screencast: Hashtag screenshot] because
Gandhi was a part of racism against South Africans. The first few instances of his racist remarks
were recorded in his letters when in 1984, where he addressed SA as kaffirs and disagreed with
Indians being “dragged down” to the position of the kaffirs. Remember, the word kaffir was not
taboo back then but his statements meant more than just a word, it was a full-fledged feeling of
supremacy. And he didn’t say it just once – he said it quite a few times. In 1899, he again
mentioned how British Indians were “infinitely superior to the Kaffirs”.
[Screencast: Add many statements from CWMG highlighting racism
]
This was the same year when the second Boer war had begun. The Britishers were up against
the Dutch and Germans, living in SA since the 17th century. Surprisingly, Mahatma Gandhi
gathered a force of 1,100 Indians to help as ambulance workers. But he did not support
the Boers, instead, he teamed up with the British who were fighting the Boers. Gandhi
wanted to show his “loyalty” towards the British. He thought this would make the British
hear his demands for the Indian community.
[Screencast:
]

Even after the war ended in 1902, Gandhi’s racial views were intact. When the
Government passed a law declaring Indians to be in the same position as the SA, Gandhi was
quick enough (year 1903) to point out his disappointment by saying that they had been brought
down to the level of the Kaffirs.
Similarly, in 1908, Gandhi was arrested for the first time. After refusing to leave Transvaal,
where he lived in SA, he was sentenced to two months imprisonment at the Old Fort Prison
Complex. During this time, he wrote about how he felt sharing a cell with native prisoners who
were nearly like “animals” to him. I’d like to point out – that Gandhi was not a young boy in his
20s, rather he was 39 years old when he was making these statements.
[Screencast: Statements
]
As a commoner, when I researched all these statements, it was obvious that he was trying his
best to help the British Indians, but in the process, knowingly or unknowingly, he was also
demeaning and criticising the natives of the country who were facing extreme oppression and to
this date, are subjected to racism in America and various European countries. It was as if
Gandhi was trying to divide and rule by picking sides, but apart from some minor wins, this did
not help much in the struggle against discrimination.
While we’re pointing this out, I should also remind you that in his later years in SA, Gandhi
indeed realised his mistakes and moved towards a more inclusive and race-neutral approach,
but the damage had been done to some extent. In 1910, Gandhi's newspaper, Indian Opinion,
covered reports on discrimination against Africans by the colonial regime. He also gradually
started considering Indians and Africans as one in the struggle for freedom. By the time he left
SA, he was regarded as a Mahatma by the people, but if Gandhi was ever inclusive of all races
is still a big question.
After helping South Africa attain freedom, Gandhi returned to India with his family. By this time
he had four sons but a notable topic was Gandhi’s vow to celibacy. At the age of 38, while
Gandhi was still in SA, he pledged to get rid of all materialistic pleasures and become a
brahmacharya. This was a result of his shame, as he mentioned in his words – when he was 16,
his father died, and the very same year, Kasturba Gandhi got pregnant. What traumatized him
the most, was that he had left his father’s side during his last moments because of his lust. “if
animal passion had not blinded me, I should have been spared the torture of separation from
my father during his last moments”. This made him miserable for the rest of his life.
[Screencast:
]
Moreover, it was also his faith in religion that propelled him to follow the path of a
brahmacharya. The faith didn’t come to him only through his studies but it was also a result of
watching his mother, Putlibai Gandhi, who followed Vaishnavism. Since they lived in Gujrat, a lot
of Gandhi’s religious practices like Brahmacharya itself came from Jainism. Yes, Gandhi was
secular, he believed in practising his own religion. Even many of his ideologies, mentioned in
several of his letters, held a reference to Bhagvat Gita. [Screencast: Compilation of his letters]
It was in fact, in a letter to Sanmukhrai, that Gandhi expressed his definition of brahmacharya–
which stated that the following was extremely necessary
(1) solitude;
(2) moderation in eating;
(3) good books;
(4) regular meditation;
(5) plenty of physical and mental labour;
(6) abstaining from spicy and intoxicating food or drinks;
(7) abstaining from shows and other things having a sex appeal;
(8) giving up the desire for sexual intercourse;
(9) avoiding being alone with a woman;
(10) repeating Ramanama or some other mantra.
[Screecast: zoom in on point 7
Focus on the seventh point in his list: "abstaining from shows and other forms of entertainment
that emphasize sexual appeal"—which brings us to the second phase of Gandhi’s life –
asceticism. The word asceticism means severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of
indulgence, in most cases, for religious reasons.
]
Now in 1948, before Gandhi’s final moments, we can see him walking with 2 girls for his evening
prayer meet. He called these two women his walking sticks and they were none other than his
grandniece, Manuben and his grand nephew’s wife, Abha. While for anyone not familiar with
Gandhi, this trio would be wholesome to watch, but for those who knew him, this was nothing
short of shame.