Part 2: The Beginning
Part 3: The Cult of Chakra
Part 4: The Practical Man
Part 5: The Sex Maniac
Gandhi blamed his lust for the tragedy.
Gandhi got married at a very young age. While his wife was pregnant his father fell sick. Gandhi was unable to give attention to his wife as he spend a lot of time taking care of his father, messaging his feet. One night his uncle took over from him. Getting a rare opportunity he went straight to his room where his wife was. The young couple had sex that night. Later he came to know that his father has died, while they were having sex. The child born later also did not survive. The incident left behind a dark impression in his mind. Gandhi blamed his lust for the tragedy. Now he wanted to end that lust by controlling it. It was only in South Africa, when he was 38 years old, that he took the vow of Brahmacharya, i.e. to conduct consistent with Brahman or eternal conscience. It is a spiritual path that includes abstinence.
'I am a Super-atheist' - Gandhi
Gandhi was a religious man more than a politician. India’s freedom was important to him, but more that that he cared about the welfare of people. He was a social reformer who was dragged into politics rather unwillingly. According to Gandhi, politics divorced from religion or social reform was of no use. His inclination towards religion began when he was in England. It was in his second year when Gandhi read Gita for the first time. He started reading other religious books as well like The Light of Asia and was impressed by Hindu philosophy. He realized that superstition was not part of Hinduism. In later, life he fought hard to abolish all forms of superstition from Hindu religion. His devotion became stronger in South Africa after experiencing Boer War and the Zulu uprisings. There he was also influenced by his Christian and Muslim friends who wanted him to get converted to their own religion. Because of his friends he became familiar with Bible and Koran. Tolstoy’s ‘Kingdom of God’ left a lasting impression in his mind. Gandhi considered atheism as denial of self. Logic cannot help one understand existence of god as god was beyond comprehension. But Gandhi was a man with a broad mind that was always evolving. He once believed that ‘God is Truth’, but it did not satisfy him. So he evolved to ‘Truth is God’. After many interactions with his atheist follower Gora he even went on to call himself a super-atheist. Gandhi was also a practical man. While he himself was a theist, if atheism 'served to stop communal hatred and riot’ he would not mind the community turning towards atheism.
‘most dangerous, semi-repressed sex maniac’
While living a simple spiritual life of non-violence and poverty came easy to him, he found abstinence very difficult. Gandhi had an unusual sex life. C.P. Ramaswami Iyer once told Mountbatten that Gandhi was the ‘most dangerous, semi-repressed sex maniac’. His obsession with Brahmacharya developed from the childhood experience he had during his dad’s demise. In 1906, when he was still in South Africa, he took the vow of chastity. In India, Gandhi was involved in the much-controversial Brahmacharya experiments. In this weird experiment, he slept with the naked ladies, which included his personal doctor, Sushila Nayar, and his grandnieces Manubai and Abhaben. Gandhi believed that
‘one who never has any lustful intention, who by constant attendance upon God has become proof against conscious or unconscious emissions, who is capable of lying naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner sexually excited’.
Gandhi tried hard to attain that perfection. But his unwilling “nocturnal emissions” kept reminding him that that he was failing. Sometimes he even blamed his imperfection for the troubles India was going through because of the Hindu-Muslim riots. While in Bengal during the riots he told Manubai,
‘We both may be killed by the Muslims, and must put our purity to the ultimate test, so that we know that we are offering the purest of sacrifices, and we should now both start sleeping naked.’
Gandhi advised newlyweds to stay celibate for the sake of their souls. Even Jawaharlal Nehru thought that such views of Gandhi were ‘abnormal and unnatural’. Jawaharlal’s wife, Kamala, however, was very much influenced by Gandhi. In her later life, she abstained from sex, much to the dislike of Jawaharlal.
Gandhi’s own men, including Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Nirmal Bose, disliked the Brahmacharya experiment and urged him to stop. But Gandhi was adamant and even frank about what he wanted. Gandhi’s reply to his critics was ‘If I don’t let Manu sleep with me, though I regard it as essential that she should, wouldn’t that be a sign of weakness in me?’ Manu’s diaries throw light on the kind of effect the experiments had on her. She was devoted to Gandhi and was not forced to stay in there. Manu wrote, ‘Bapu is a mother to me. He is initiating me to a higher human plane through the Brahmacharya experiments, part of his Mahayagna of character building. Any loose talk about the experiment is most condemnable.’ The relation she shared with Gandhi was like ‘Mirabai who lived only for her Shyamlo [Krishna].’ Manu was standing beside Gandhi when the latter was shot. She was shocked. She wrote with dark void filling her heart,
‘As the pyre was lit and Bapu’s body was consigned to the flames, I wanted to sit there forever. It was all a bit difficult for me to accept; only a few days ago Bapu was with me, now I am completely lonely, completely helpless.’
Gandhi’s methods might have been weird, and may be even wrong, but he was not a ‘sex maniac’ as many try to project out of political malice or colonial prejudice. He did not lust for sex. He wanted to end that lust forever.
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Written by Subhrashis Adhikari
"Engaging and entertaining, this page-turner is remarkable in its narration and will give you a new perspective on various aspects of life. Wellresearched and heartfelt, the encouraging tone throughout the book tries to motivate towards a happier life." - Times of India
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