Without being overtly pedagogic, the movie is replete with messages of contemporary significance. One of them is how the Mahatma detested nepotism and would do nothing whatsoever to promote his son’s career using his personal influence. Harilal wants to study law in England and become, like his father, a barrister.

A wealthy Gujarati businessman has in fact authorised the father to nominate one student each year for a scholarship to study law in London. The father refuses to name his son for the scholarship the first year — and also the next year. Harilal is frustrated. He thinks his father neither loves nor cares for him. On the other hand, his father, who is running an ashram near Durban in South Africa, believes that all the boys and girls in the ashram are his children and must receive equal love and care from him.

Contrast this with what the Gandhis belonging to the Nehru dynasty have been doing. Rahul is only 37 years old. His parliamentary career, undistinguished by any standards, is only three-and-a-half years old. He has made exactly one speech so far in the Lok Sabha, and that too from a written text. Outside Parliament, his occasional speeches and sound bites have been a source more of embarrassment rather than enlightenment for his own partymen.

He is, at best, still a learner, and far from being eligible for a “scholarship” even to ministership. And yet his mother has nominated him for a post that is already more powerful than that of any minister in the UPA government, and is widely seen as a perch from where he would be elevated to prime ministership.

... contd.