Economics of death

In the end, Euthanasia is not about ethics but about money.

What price do you put on someone you love? That's the real and unasked question in the debate on passive enthanasia - terminating the lives of the incurably ill who are no longer conscious or capable of acting on their own. I recall a family's terrible dilemma which i found myself involved in some years ago.

One of the sisters in the family was stricken by an irreversible and fatal disease that attacks the auto-immune system and for which there is no known cure. The diagnosis had been made too late to try alternative therapies which might have deferred the inevitable. The patient - to whom i was not related but who was as close to me as if she were my own sister - went into a coma and was taken to a state-of-the-art medical facility in Delhi.

The moment she was admitted into the hospital, the patient, in effect, ceased to be a human individual with human attachments of family and loved ones and became instead the property of a team of medical specialists. No longer conscious of where she was or what was happening to her, she was put into an intensive care unit which no one could enter except those who were treating her. We could see her through a glass pane, attached to mechanical devices which took over from her the business of existence: the breathing of the lungs, the beating of the heart, the circulation of blood, the intake of nutrition. She became a machine, linked to other machines.

Regular as clockwork the attendant team of specialists would look in on the patient. Literally look in. Open the door, look at her from the doorway, make a note on clipboards they were carrying and go away. It was a large team and day by day it seemed to get larger. Who are all these people? I asked a nurse. Doctors, she replied.

What sort of doctors? I asked. Special doctors, said the nurse. They were indeed special doctors, as I discovered. One was a dietitian. Another was a dermatologist. Why did a patient unable to take in any nutrition other than through a drip need a dietitian to visit three times a day? No one knew. Why did the patient need a dermatologist's visit every day? No one knew.

But each time these specialists would look in on her, the visit would be put on the bill. Which, like the team of specialists, was daily growing bigger. It was, after all, a state-of-the-art private hospital. With high overheads, including specialists who occupied expensive offices and had to earn fees in order to pay their rentals.

Twice a day we'd go to see the head doctor. No, there was no change in the patient. No, no change could be expected. No one could bring themselves to ask the question that hung in the silence like a thunderclap: How long do we go on like this, how long can we go on?

The family was reasonably well off. But how long could they afford to keep the patient in the hospital? One month? Two? A year? There were other expenses to meet, a son to be educated, futures to be provided for. But how do you put a cut-off price on a life? Even on the life of a machine kept alive by other machines.

The family couldn't do it. So I volunteered. I told the head doctor there was no more money for the ICU, for the machines. The doctor looked thoughtful. I see, he said. There was no talk of the law, or of ethics. No talk of the sanctity of life. No talk of miracle cures.

Sometime that day, we weren't told when, the machines were switched off. The patient stopped being a patient and became a closed file and a final bill. Which the family paid, racked with remorse, feeling that what they were paying was blood money. Was this sum what a life was worth, no more and no less? To the loss of a loved one was added the burden of guilt.

Parliament can legislate on the ethics of euthanasia. Who's going to legislate on the economics of death, and the cost that conscience has to bear? What is the price of someone you love?

The Underage Optimist

Welcome to Republic India-Excellent

Yes, we did it! It took us 28 years but when we finally did win the Cup, we won it in massive style. We won at home, chasing the highest ever total of a World Cup final, recovered after the loss of two big batsmen, and with a stunning six as the victory shot. It is not possible, at the current moment, to praise the team enough. Their victory will give a lifetime of bragging rights and inspire an entire generation.

Equally stunning were the celebrations that followed right after the win. Even though it was close to midnight, within minutes, millions took to the streets. In something India has never witnessed before, there were impromptu victory processions, happy traffic jams, ecstatic people on the roads and a street party to which, literally, everyone was invited.

Why did we feel so great?  What makes this win so special and is there a bigger impact of the win that we can carry into our own lives. After all, as some may say, this is just a game. It has no tangible impact on ordinary Indians lives. Yet, there is no denying the mood-elevating effects of winning the biggest trophy of our biggest game. It is like a booster dose of self-esteem and hope administered to the entire nation.

To understand why this win is so big, it is important to understand the context in which this has come. This trophy comes at a time when the only remarkable news coming out of India was the scams, including a big one in sports. The only remarkable people were the corrupt politicians and their cronies. Many of these people roam free and are even celebrated by Indian society. This is India – connections, the clique of powerful people who scratch each others backs and give each other mutual access to their power to enhance it. This is the way people rise in India who you know is more important than what you know. How you trade your power for another persons power is the core skill that will make you rise in life.

In the middle of all this, our men in blue brought home the World Cup. It was not a competition of connections. It didn't matter who your father was, which minister was your best friend or how much money you had in the bank. Only one thing mattered excellence. For the only way to win this Cup was to play better than everyone else, in match after match. And we played better than anyone else.

Such global recognition is rare for India, but this win showed the way to another, more glorious, Indian path to success : India-excellent. The India-excellent way to success is still hazy, but the young generation is getting a whiff of it. And it smells a lot better than the stale odour of success generated by India-connections. In fact, young India loves the perfume of excellence. That is why the youth came out onto the streets at midnight for the players, but they wont for any politician. The success that comes from excellence feels good its like a fresh and juicy apple. The success from connections tastes like reconstituted fruit. From a distance they may look the same, but for the person achieving it, the feeling is worlds apart. You can't kiss a bribe the same way as Dhoni kissed the trophy. You can't celebrate an unfairly earned telecom license the way Team India did after the match.Your ill-gotten gains may win you some fake friends, but India-connections is just not the same flavour as India-excellent. India-excellent is cool, India-connections is not.

With this win, youngsters today can see two paths. As they grow up, they will have the choice of two roads. India-connections is a well-travelled road. It may be easier, but ultimately less rewarding. The India-excellent road that Dhoni and company have paved for us is the harder one. However, it is more meaningful and more rewarding.

The clash of these two India's will dominate the next two decades. Right now, India-connections has the upper hand. In the finals, tickets were essentially reserved for the India-connections. If you didnt have the right contacts, you couldn't get a ticket. This, ironically, for a contest that celebrates excellence. But i dare India-connections to contain India excellent. It won't be able to. Lurking beneath the tiny, creamy layer of India-connections is a talent pool so vast that it can transform our nation. One person's success can ignite the winning spark in millions of hearts. And Dhoni's men haven't just provided the spark, they have lit a fire. As a tribute to our team, let us resolve to win, and win using the path of India-excellent. After all, if we can be great at cricket, we can be great at anything. Let this trophy be the start of many Indian victories. Thank you, Team India, for making so many of us so happy.

RIGHT & WRONG

Hazare fills the void in corruption battle

Past two weeks back, India was trying to come to terms with a phenomenon they neither understood nor anticipated.

The abrupt emergence of Anna Hazare as the symbol of a largely middle-class outburst against the insincerity of the war on corruption had been puzzling. In many ways, this 71-year-old self-professed Gandhian from rural Maharashtra is a total antithesis of what modern India apparently stands for. He is neither young nor tech-savvy ; he doesn’t talk the ‘development’ jargon of well-travelled NGO activists; and his politico-cultural symbolism — Chhatrapati Shivaji, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Bharat Mata and Vande Mataram—is seemingly at odds with modernist impulses of India’s aspirational classes. Yet, Anna has become the unlikeliest symbol of a movement that may well end up unseating a government, even if it doesn’t succeed in cleansing public life.

Perhaps the lionization of another diminutive man with an infectious smile is an indication that the more India changes the more it remains the same. Nearly four decades ago, professor W H Morris-Jones observed that Indian leadership follows three idioms: the traditional, the modern and the saintly. The last fits uneasily into perceptions of Indian modernity or, for that matter, the caricatured view of its conservatism. But in the past 100 years, the most significant movements for change have been propelled by people who lived in a world of their own imagination and were driven by exacting ethical standards.

Frankly, you had to be a bit crazy in 1919 to dream of unseating the Raj. You also had to be very other-worldly to believe in 1973 — barely a year after Indira Gandhi’s anointment as “Durga” after the Bangladesh war — that the corrupt edifice of the Congress Party could be brought down. Maybe it is too rash as yet to place Anna on par with either the Mahatma or ‘Loknayak’ Jayaprakash Narayan — the two saintly crazies who reshaped 20th century India. Yet, it is important to recognize that being impractical has never been a deterrent to inspirational leadership, at least not in India.
 
There are many features of the alternative Jan Lokpal Bill proposed by Anna and his supporters that are either outrageous or quirky. The belief that a Lokpal appointed by a committee of the great and good should have overriding powers over an elected government is at best utopian and, at worst, anti-democratic. And the proposal of who should constitute the electoral college of the virtuous is, to say the least, eccentric. Why should all those of Indian origin honoured by the Nobel committee in Sweden and Norway and the last two Magsaysay Prize winners — chosen by a committee in the Philippines—be ex-officio members of a desi star chamber. Why not the recipients of the Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna? Or for that matter, why not everyone honoured by the local Rotary Club?

The issue, fortunately, is neither the Lokpal Bill nor even the principle of ‘civil society’ representation in the drafting committee—a characteristically NGO-ish demand. The overwhelming majority of those inspired by Anna’s fast don’t seem all that preoccupied with the minutiae of a proposed legislation. What has excited them is the fact that someone of unimpeachable integrity has chosen to take a stand and confront a decrepit and smug system on the issue of corruption.
 
In 1921, when Mahatma Gandhi asked people to abandon schools, colleges, law courts, and resign from government service in the quest of swaraj in just a year, only a small handful actually did so. Indeed, many of India’s foremost intellectuals, including Rabindranath Tagore, were disturbed by what they saw as Gandhi’s reckless manipulation of impressionable young minds. But Gandhi’s larger moral appeal outweighed the shortcomings of his political strategy. The Mahatma became a national inspiration in the struggle for independence; Gandhism always remained a fad. A similar distinction marked JP, the symbol of resistance to Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian misrule and his woolly ‘Total Revolution’.

In the coming weeks, there will be fierce assaults, not least by rival ‘civil society’ activists, on the implications of Anna’s Jan Lokpal proposals. Some of these will be couched in lofty constitutionalism such as the sovereignty of Parliament ; others will be blended with competitive self-righteousness ; and still others will see Anna as an unwitting tool of the anti-Congress opposition, just as the communists saw ‘fascist forces’ in JP’s movement.

A clinical dissection of what Anna actually represents and the forces backing him will not, however, divert focus from the growing groundswell against corruption. There is a political space for a credible, even angry, movement against the rot in India’s political system. Circumstances have allowed a venerable, gutsy and untainted outsider to fill the void. It’s the sentiment behind his anointment that is relevant, not the fine print of a law to make India virtuous.

Egypt: A million mutinies seen every Friday

Egypt is not Iran. Urdu professor Ahmed Mohamed Ahmad Abdel Rehman enunciates the words solemnly, almost like an article of faith. Rehman, who teaches at Cairo's Al Azhar University, is fresh from the Tahrir Square revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak and set off a chain reaction in other Arab states. He debunks western fears of radicalization as Egypt awaits a new constitution, elections and a new government.

"Our revolution was peaceful, democratic and secular, not religion-based . Egyptians are a moderate people. We cannot tolerate fanaticism of any kind,'' he insists.

Rehman says Egypt is seriously searching India's parliamentary model for inspiration and ideas. "Most Egyptians like Indian democracy,'' he says. "We need a parliamentary system, not a presidential one. We want a prime minister who is accountable to parliament. We have suffered too long with a president in whom all powers were centralized.''

Indian democracy is a hot topic of discussion in Egypt today and figures in newspaper articles and street debates. Rehman recalls that Gandhi and his philosophy of satyagraha were held up as a model code of behaviour during those heady days in Tahrir Square.

In Delhi for Urdu lover Kamna Prasad's annual mushaira, Jashn-e-Bahar , Rehman recited poems penned by one of Egypt's best-known contemporary poets, Farooq Jewada. Odes to the martyrs of Tahrir Square, Rehman translated the poems into Urdu from the original Arabic.

He strongly defends the legitimization of the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamist groups that are increasingly influencing public discourse and policy decisions. The army recently appointed Brotherhood member Sobhi Saleh to the committee drafting the new constitution.

"What is the problem with that? We did not like the fact that these groups were banned by Mubarak. We are not Islamists but these groups are connected to our roots. They are well organized, do a lot of social work and have influence in the street. It is important to bring them into the mainstream,'' he says.

The poet-professor acknowledges the growing voice of the Muslim Brotherhood but remains confident it will not be allowed to foist an Islamist agenda on Egypt. "The youth who led the revolution will make sure of that,'' he says with supreme confidence. There is a reason he is sanguine. The signs were there at Tahrir Square. When members of the Brotherhood who participated in the revolution tried to raise Islamist slogans such as "Islam is the solution'' , they were quickly and firmly told to keep religion out of this.

"It was amazing to see the change in these groups, once they realized that they would be chased away from Tahrir Square,'' Rehman recalls.

"They forgot their fanaticism and mingled easily with fashionable, westernized women who weren't wearing veils. They even prayed together with Christian groups for the first time. Tahrir Square has taught us to be more tolerant and accept each other.''

In an effort to swim with the popular current of opinion, the Brotherhood has floated the political Justice and Development Party, which eschews religious motifs and slogans. Some of its members have gone on record to say they will not oppose a Christian as the next head of government and would welcome women's participation in politics. Egypt has a sizeable Christian population, which makes secular politics an imperative.

Rehman believes that groups like the Brotherhood are important for Egypt to regain its dominant position as leader of the Arab world. The Brotherhood is insisting the interim government review many of Mubarak's polices , especially relations with Iran and Hamas and Fateh of Palestine. The Brotherhood, he believes, is more connected with the interests of the Arab world. It was a worldview that Egypt lost under Mubarak. Now, says the professor , it is time for Egypt to rise again. "Mubarak had made us subservient to American interests . That's why we had no role in any Arab discourse. I hope that will change now,'' he says.

In the afterglow of the Tahrir Square revolution, Rehman heaps praise on the young people who were in the vanguard. They are guarding against the ebbing of the revolution's spirit, he says, gathering at Tahrir Square every Friday to discuss the week's events, suggest policies for the interim government to adopt and express approval (or disapproval ) of decisions taken.

Next Friday, for instance, they will begin to demand Mubarak's trial. "The revolution continues at Tahrir Square every Friday ,'' says Rehman with a smile.

The forgotten hero

Shyam Benegal's film on Subhash Chandra Bose is characterised as much by the patriotism that brought young men in hundreds to join their hero, as by its documentation of history.

Filmmakers are somewhat reluctant to explore celluloid translations of history. They are instead inclined to offer new interpretations of history, shed light on little-known facts about their subjects, and even raise questions that were missed in the course of academic research. Earlier films like Bimal Roy's Pehla Admi and Hemen Gupta's Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose belong to the typically post-colonial genre. With relaxation of censorship codes that prohibited anti-colonial propaganda, this genre drew upon historical events of an anti-colonial nature and narrativised the lives of personalities and leaders involved in India's struggle for freedom.

Shyam Benegal's 222-minute film Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - The Forgotten Hero, is like a light at the end of a dark tunnel because few films have been made on Netaji. The film won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration, 2005. But within a week of its first public exhibition in 2005, it disappeared from Indian theatres, leaving countless Netaji lovers pining for missing out on this historical film. Thankfully, Subhash Chheda of Rudraa Entertainment Private Limited has recently bought the DVD rights to Benegal's film, and the DVD version had its all-India release on 23 January, Netaji's birth anniversary.

The title of Benegal's film - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - The Forgotten Hero - itself tells a story. "Nobody remembers what he did, except to say that he was a great big hero," says Benegal, adding, "Few people remember that he challenged Gandhi, and about his transnational activities, nobody knows anything. People do not even know that he was married."

Benegal's film begins with the differences Bose had with Gandhi over the latter's non-violent approach to the freedom struggle, and compromises with the British. Benegal breaks up the narrative in a three-part structure. These are headed under Itmad, Ittefaq and Qurbani after the motto of the Indian National Army. The first segment unfolds how Netaji escapes house arrest and tries to enter Russia through Afghanistan. Ittefaq shows his days in Germany (including a meeting with Hitler, and marriage to Emilie Schenkl), the formation of the "Azad Hind Fauj" comprised of Indian prisoners of war in Germany, and his journey to Japan in a submarine. Qurbani narrates the story of his leadership of the Indian National Army, the battles and that fateful plane trip out of Saigon. 

 The film is the product of painstaking historical, documentary and other research that spanned 18 months. "When word went around that I was making this film, letters, papers and information began to pour in from strangers," says Benegal. 

Sachin Khedekar has portrayed the forgotten hero extremely well. He says that the film changed him as a person. "I studied and lived with the character for two years. Netaji has changed me as a person. I heard his speeches, watched his footage and read extensively to prepare for the role." The result is that instead of trying to incorporate Netaji's body language and manner of speech, his performance comes out of internalising the character rather than trying to merely be a physical xerox of the original Netaji. It is as natural a portrayal of the national hero as possible under the circumstances.

Rajeshwari Sachdev, who plays the character of Laxmi Sehgal in the film, says that for her too it was a re-discovery of history. "I read the autobiography of Laxmi Sehgal and met her personally to imbibe the character," she says.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - The Forgotten Hero spans the years of World War II (1940-1945), leaving untouched the part when he reportedly went missing from Taihoku airport in Japan. "This film is my celluloid homage to the leader, my patriotic mission. Leaving out the controversy over his death or his disappearance has not taken away from my film. I wished to bring out the spirit and values he stood for," says Benegal. 

He continues, "[Netaji] hardly had any credibility when he left the country in 1941. No official authority backed him in his brave endeavour. He travelled to Germany and convinced the German administration - the Nazi administration- about the need to set India free from British Imperialists and gained their support. He created an Indian legion there, and made them agree to his condition that this legion would not be used to fight on behalf of Europeans. When arrived in South-East Asia, he injected life into the dying Indian National Army and transformed it into a motivated, solid army of 80,000 committed soldiers, ready to lay down their lives for the freedom of the country. Indians across South East Asia joined the army."

"The Azad Hind Bank he set up and ran was so successful that he was able to repay the loan he had taken from the Germans. Despite opposition from a section of Japanese generals, he convinced them to the condition that the Azad Hind Fouj would be the first to step on Indian soil. It seems impossible that all this could be achieved by one man. But Netaji made it possible. He is outstanding and extra-ordinary not only as a man committed to the idea of gaining freedom for his country but also as an intelligent and fine human being," Benegal explains.

His uncle Ramesh Benegal, recounts the director, triggered in him the adoration for Netaji from his boyhood days. "My uncle was left behind in Rangoon when he was a boy during the mad scramble to leave Burma (Myanmar). When Netaji arrived in Burma, he volunteered to join the INA. He was chosen by Netaji along with 34 Indian boys, who were sent to Tokyo to train to be fighter pilots in the Military Academy there. But it turned out to be a lost cause ultimately when he became a POW and was released only after the INA trials in 1946."

The boy Benegal and his older brother were sent to Mumbai to fetch this uncle. "In my eyes, he was a great hero. He is probably the only INA man who was taken into the defence services in India. He joined the Indian Air Force, became a fighter pilot, and won two Mahavir Chakras, retiring as a highly decorated officer," Benegal reminisces. 

A R Rahman has composed the music. The soundtrack of the film features 19 pieces composed by Rahman, including 13 instrumentals and orchestral themes, in addition to six further songs, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. Performers include the Western Choir Chennai and the Mumbai Film Choir. Rahman's Afghanistan war theme and the use of ekla chalo re, the famous Tagore number, the nursery song ghoom parani invoking the sentiments present in the mother-son relationship and desh ki mitti are especially memorable.

Shama Zaidi and Atul Tiwari have packed a wealth of excitement, adventure and information into the film. Art director Samir Chanda, costume designer Pia Benegal and make-up man expert Vikram Gaikwad then worked to give the places and characters a look of authenticity and worked out the minutest details. Cinematographer Rajan Kothari shot the film capturing ably, the vast canvas of its history, geography and political ambience just before India's independence from British rule.

The film is the product of painstaking historical, documentary and other research that spanned 18 months. The research team explored all available material, interviewed the people alive such as Netaji's Japanese interpreter, then in his late eighties. "When word went around that I was making this film, letters, papers and information began to pour in from strangers. The research includes the discovery of the only U-Boat left out of the total of 10,000 produced under Hitler we used for one of our shoots. It is now an antique fit for a museum of history, not sea-worthy in the least. Fortunately, the model we got was in the same model Netaji actually sailed in. We managed a model for underwater sequences in Sussex in England," informs Benegal.

The team shot in Burma and as shooting in Afghanistan was not possible for logistical reasons, Uzbekistan was chosen as a substitute. The Burma shoot was very important in all places where Netaji worked including the 80,000-acre Ziawadi estate that still has around 80 to 90 villages consisting exclusively of Indians who have been living there for more than 100 years.

"Netaji's central cantonment was in Ziawadi estate. The people remember him well, and when we asked for 500 locals to come in, 10,000 wanted to join. Very old men brought in their pay books showing their salary slips of the INA - Rs.5. But we could not find a single aircraft used during the Second World War for shooting. So we had to generate them on computer," adds Benegal. 

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - The Forgotten Hero is characterised by a complete lack of loud and bombastic rhetoric, a common feature of most nationalist and biographical films made on national heroes. Its central focus is on the man behind the hero, the human being behind the mask of the national leader, a true lover of his country dedicated to get it liberated from foreign rule.

The film's vast canvas that spans not only the figure of a great national hero, but covers a part of India's history over the last years before its Independence, crossing borders to discover the credibility of his convictions among leaders of other countries, are a testament to Benegal's command over understatement through the language of cinema. He is never over-dramatic through any incident or character, allowing history to take shape merely through the unfolding of the story of Netaji over the last five years of his life.

The film is characterised as much by the patriotism and hero-worship that brought young men in hundreds to join their hero, as by its documentation of history. It is the film of a journey - ideological, political, historical and personal that uncovers almost by incidence than by connivance of history, a beautiful fictionalized documentation of one of the greatest national heroes Indian has ever produced. Even the portion that shows Bose marrying the German lady and becoming the father of a little girl is essayed through soft and delicate, feather-light touches without diluting the central message of the man.

'Fast unto death out of place in today's India'

NEW DELHI: On Day 2 of his fast unto death at Jantar Mantar, Anna Hazare turned to face his companions fasting along with him. "For a corn cob (bhutta) to grow, a corn pod (dana) must be sacrificed to the soil. If that pod says I don't want to go into the soil, it will simply rot. It will end up in the thresher (chakki). But if it goes into the soil, it will ensure a field of corn. What is a man without sacrifice?" Around him, eyes swam, hunger pangs were ignored, tired limbs relaxed. The graying men nodded silently. They were here to sacrifice for the nation.

Sacrifice is not a term in modern India's lexicon. It is this idea of "going without" that gave Hazare's form of protest its edginess, say observers. "His whole action was so out of place in today's India that it immediately caught attention. It runs counter to current reality," says social commentator Santosh Desai.

In effect, the image that will endure from Jantar Mantar is that of a composed Anna Hazare in white and his fasting companions, mostly graying. "The old people who just kept vigil were the impressive part of the agitation. They sustained the spirit of the movement," says sociologist Shiv Viswanathan of the five-day protest that came to an end on Saturday morning when the 72-year-old Hazare broke his fast.

The main takeaway is Hazare's morally strong intent. "A fast unto death has a morality play to it. Hazare played on morality with the right cameos in it: a police officer, a sadhu. The movement then acquired its own momentum," says Viswanathan.

While the campaign received clamorous popular support, it is unlikely to set a precedent. There are murmurs of "blackmail" and "arm-twisting", but fears of the fast-unto-death protest being repeated are misplaced. It was of a self-limiting nature. For one, a set of conditions, a degree of legitimacy is required for a fast-unto-death type of protest.

Second, there are very few Annas around, says Desai. Viswanathan agrees that the fast-unto-death was a result of desperation of having tired of a variety of scams, a way of drumming up attention. That said, caveats must be put into place. "We do need a series of caveats. Tomorrow, if a bunch of separatists decides to go on a fast unto death, what would you do? The issues are procedural, and caveats need to be put in place for this kind of protest," says Viswanathan.

Adding to that, Desai points to the case of Manipur's Irom Sharmila. At age 27, in the year 2000, Irom Sharmila undertook to fast unto death against human rights abuse in Manipur, calling for the Armed Forces Special Powers Act to be removed. Taken into custody, she has been force-fed with a tube for a full ten years now. "The state can forcefully feed if the issue doesn't have certain legitimacy," says Desai. To that end, it is not a replicable model.

A demon named desire.....

Kama is the one opponent Gandhi did not engage non-violently nor could completely subdue. In contrast to his other opponents, the god of desire was the only antagonist whoe humanity he denied.



STICKS AND STONES: In his periods of doubt, Gandhi would characteristically look for lapses in his brahmacharya to account for his ‘failures’ in the political arena. With grandnieces Abha and Manu.

It’s hard to tell whether Gandhi was a man with a gigantic erotic temperament or merely the possessor of an overweening conscience. There has rarely been a public figure in the history of the world who, in his letters and autobiographical writings, has been as candid as Gandhi in dealing with his sexuality. A sympathetic reader cannot fail to be moved by the dimensions of Gandhi’s sexual conflict - heroic in its proportion, startling in its intensity, interminable in its duration. The god of desire is the “serpent which I know will bite me”, “the scorpion of passion”, whose destruction, annihilation, is a preeminent goal of Gandhi's spiritual life. In sharp contrast to all his other opponents, whose humanity he was always scrupulous to respect, the god of desire was the only antagonist with whom Gandhi could not compromise and whose humanity (not to speak of divinity) he always denied. For Gandhi, defeats in this private war were occasions for bitter self-reproach and a public confession of humiliation, while the victories were a matter of joy, “fresh beauty”, and an increase in vigour and selfconfidence that brought him nearer to moksha. By the time Gandhi concludes his autobiography with the words, “To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be far harder than the conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India [from South Africa] I have had experiences of the passions hidden within me. They have made me feel ashamed though I have not lost courage...but I know I must traverse a perilous path”, no reader will doubt his passionate sincerity and honesty. His is not the reflexive moralism of the more ordinary religionists, of the (in W B Yeats words) ‘priests in black gowns ...binding with briars my joys and desires’.

We can follow Gandhi’s struggle with his sexuality only if we also view it, as Gandhi did, as a spiritual struggle. Gandhi's embrace of an ascetic lifestyle, his fasts and his radical experimentation with foods to find those that did not inflame the senses, were all in service of one of the three corner stones of his personal life - brahmacharya or celibacy, the other two being non-violence (ahimsa) and truth (satya). Of the three, he felt he might have at times fallen short of ahimsa and brahmacharya but had never lost his devotion to truth. The only way Gandhi could ever lose the high regard, even reverence, in which he is held all over the world would not be because of the discovery of any byways of his sexuality but if it was found that he had lied about them or, by Gandhi's own high standards, that he had not told the truth loudly enough. Such a discovery would strike at the heart of what made him a Mahatma: his uncompromising integrity.

Although he had taken the decision to be sexually abstinent in 1901, Gandhi took the vow to observe complete celibacy in 1906 when he was 38, and on the eve of his first non-violent political campaign in South Africa. The two, non-violence and celibacy, were linked in his mind, ‘... one who would obey the law of ahimsa cannot marry, not to speak of gratification outside the marital bond.’

We cannot understand Gandhi’s sexual preoccupations without understanding their source in Hindu Vaishnav ideas on semen and celibacy, which he had absorbed from his culture while growing up and which he had internalised. In brief, physical strength and mental power have their source in virya, a word that stands for both sexual energy and semen. Virya can either move downward in sexual intercourse, where it is emitted as semen, or move upward into the brain in its subtle form known as ojas. The downward movement of semen is regarded as enervating, a debilitating waste of vitality and essential energy. If, on the other hand, semen is retained, converted into ojas by brahmacharya, it becomes a source of spiritual life and mental power. Memory, willpower, inspiration - scientific and artistic - all derive from the observation of brahmacharya. Gandhi is merely reiterating these popular ideas when he writes that sex, except for the purpose of generation, is “... a criminal waste of precious energy. It is now easy to understand why the scientists of old have put such a great value upon the vital fluid and why they have insisted upon its strong transmutation into the highest form of energy for the benefit of society”.

In Gandhi’s periods of doubt, such as the one from 1925 to 1928, after his release from jail, when he was often depressed, believing that Indians were not yet ready for his kind of non-violent resistance to British rule, he would characteristically look for lapses in his brahmacharya to account for his ‘failures’ in the political arena. In another emotionally vulnerable period comprising roughly eighteen months from the middle of 1935, we read: “I have always had the shedding of semen in dreams. In South Africa the interval between two ejaculations may have been in years. Here the difference is in months. I have mentioned these ejaculations in a couple of my articles. If my brahmacharya had been without this shedding of semen, then I would have been able to present many more things to the world. But someone who from the age of fifteen to thirty has enjoyed sexuality - even if it was only with his wife - whether he can conserve his semen after becoming a brahmachari seems impossible to me. Someone whose power of storing his semen has been weakened daily for fifteen years cannot hope to regain this power all at once. That is why I regard myself as an incomplete brahmachari."

Another dark period covers the last two years of Gandhi’s life when during the country’s Partition and Hindu-Muslim riots, he felt unable to influence political events. For an explanation, Gandhi would characteristically probe for shortcomings in his celibacy, seeking to determine whether the god Kama had perhaps triumphed in some obscure recess of his mind, depriving him of his spiritual and mental powers and thus, ultimately, of political efficacy. Thus in the midst of human devastation and political uncertainty, Gandhi wrote a series of five articles on brahmacharya in his weekly newspaper, puzzling his readers who, as his secretary N K Bose put it, “did not know why such a series suddenly appeared in the midst of intensely political articles.”

In reflecting on Gandhi’s sexuality, we must concede the possibility of sexual celibacy to a few extraordinary people of genuine originality with a sense of transcendent purpose - Swami Vivekananda, Tolstoy (who Gandhi took as his model), and even Sigmund Freud, who became abstinent in his middle age. We can also never know whether Gandhi was a man with a gigantic erotic temperament or merely the possessor of an overweening conscience that magnified each departure from an unattainable ideal of purity as a momentous lapse. A passionate man who suffered his passions as poisonous of his inner self and a sensualist who felt his sensuality distorted his inner purpose, we can only empathise with Gandhi’s conflict between the spirit and the flesh. Gandhi’s agony is ours as well, an inevitable byproduct of being human and thus divided within ourselves. We all wage war on our wants.