The Soul Searching

The value of this book lies somewhere else. It provides a different framework in which to think of Gandhi. The framework is not,simply,Gandhi the renouncer. It is something far more profound,unsettling and disturbing. What would it like to be a person who essentially takes personal responsibility for all the suffering that takes place in the universe? He is not simply a person who says,untouchability is wrong,we must fight against it; he is not simply a person who eschews violence,or does not recognise categorical distinctions between Hindus and Muslims. He is a person who holds himself personally responsible for all these ills. The central premise of Lelyveld’s riveting drama is that Gandhi associates self-control on his part,with the achievement of social aims. Any letting up in his sense of discipline,his self-control,his desire,is responsible for evil. In this sense Gandhi is not a renouncer. He is the opposite,he feels responsible for evil.

This biography is a wonderful account of how Gandhi comes to be this way. Lelyveld brings special skills to bear on this project. He is probably the only writer on Gandhi who knows both India and South Africa very well,and the extended treatment of Gandhi in his South African context is especially valuable. Second,he brings a dramatic flair to the narrative that has,a couple of minor lapses apart,very good sense of judgment. When at some point during the Partition riots Gandhi says,“Kya karun?”,the build up to that point is so amazing that you literally stop in your tracks with Gandhi’s helplessness.

But,again,Gandhi plays a trick on all of us. At one level,this biography seems to make Gandhi more human. Gandhi is often uncertain,capable of serious mistakes; it often takes him a while to come to grips with his own partial knowledge and prejudices. His understanding of the burdens Indian society has to bear,in the form of untouchability,or Hindu-Muslim violence,evolves gradually,and Lelyveld is particularly strong on these. Gandhi internalises the fight against them not as doctrines,but to the very core of his being.

It is almost as if these evils are so heinous,that every trace we leave on the world,including our own desires and appetites should be in service of combating them. It is often said,with some lament,that Indian’s don’t write good biographies; they write hagiographies or are incapable of the kind of psychological complexity a good biographer requires. Reading Lelyveld’s fine book,however,makes you wonder whether the opposite is true. Indians don’t write biographies because they are so astonished by the strangeness of other lives,that they have to give up the conceit that these can ever be understood from the inside. The surface is all one is entitled to understand; the rest is just plain conceit. One can almost imagine the Mahatma winking at us: you think you can try and understand the nature of the Self; you think you can try and understand me. Think again.