Without his wife Kasturba, Gandhi would have neither become a barrister nor a Mahatma, said former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Mr. Gandhi, the grandson of the Mahatma, was speaking at an event at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan here to commemorate the upcoming 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. It is also the 150th year of birth of Kasturba, Mr. Gandhi pointed out.
When Gandhi could not put together the money to study in England, Kasturba’s jewellery was sold to fund the years he spent abroad studying to be a lawyer, he said. “No Kasturba means no barrister, no South Africa [the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements in South Africa], no Mahatma and no decolonisation of the colonised world.”
In another instance, when Gandhi wanted to give Kasturba’s jewellery away to people in need, she argued with him to keep them for her daughters-in-law and questioned his legal right over what was given to her. Gandhi would not have been able to do a fraction of what he did without his wife having been there to look after the house, releasing him to look after the society, Mr. Gandhi said, narrating instances from the Mahatma’s writings.
Having recorded these exchanges in his writings, the Mahatma was “the chief prosecutor of himself in the court of life”, said Mr. Gandhi. Every criticism of him can be based on the faults he recorded in his own writings. “Gandhi is not a picture of perfection to be worshipped like a deity. He is to be studied critically and with love,” he said.
Gandhi had said “I hate being late” when he arrived late at the fateful prayer meeting in Delhi where he was shot. “Violence, hatred, terrorism, squandering of natural resources, tyranny of wealth – we cannot afford to be late and we cannot let these things overtake us,” said Mr. Gandhi.
