Question

What effort did Gandhi’s friend make to reform Gandhi?

Answer 1

The story of India’s freedom struggle has been recounted and debated over endlessly and indefatigably in independent India, and so is the life of the Mahatma. Serious researches have gone into these themes, although the circulating images of the freedom India won and the partition it suffered are often available for uncritical celebrations and cynical denunciations respectively. Gandhi too has suffered on account of his Mahatmahood, both at the hands of his hagiographers and those who looked upon him as a failed thaumaturgist.

Faith and Freedom is, for a change, not a familiarly told linear and teleological story of Indian freedom, nor is it a routine ‘He-brought-us-freedom’ type of celebration of Gandhi. Instead, what Mushirul Hasan, one of the best and sure-footed historians of modern India, has done is to situate Gandhi, respectfully but critically, within the context of different forces at work and the men who represented them in India’s struggle for freedom.

The book assumes that the freedom movement was propelled and at times thwarted by many ideologies, hopes and frustrations, which fit ill with the nationalist image of Gandhi leading the nation like Pied Piper of Hamelin. Yet the signature of Gandhi is unmistakably visible in the story, which even the binder of the book has appropriately acknowledged.

Answer 2

Gandhi's friend's efforts to fix Gandhi are as follows is:

• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was India's ambassador to the country, an anti-colonial activist and political scientist who used violent opposition to lead India's successful campaign for freedom of British rule, and later to promote the civil rights and freedom movement around the world.

• The Mahatma of Honor, which was first used in 1914 in South Africa, is now used worldwide.

• Gandhi also campaigned hard from the Indian subcontinent to another.

• He has used words and phrases such as Rama-rajya of Ramayana, Prahlada as a paradigmatic icon, and cultural symbols as part of swaraj and Satyagraha.

• During his lifetime, these ideas sounded strange outside of India, but they quickly and deeply harmonized with the cultural and historical values of his people.