Gandhi: The Mortal Side Of A Demi-God

As readers know, OTR enjoys exploring perceptions and realities of the world around us. He realizes more often than not, that Lewis Carroll was on to something when he wrote about life on the other side of the looking glass. In the words of Alice speaking from Wonderland:

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?

"If I had a world of my own. . . ." OTR thinks most of us do have worlds of our own. And most of those worlds are small, manageable for the most part, likely quite satisfactory, and just what their owners want. But some seek much larger worlds. Others have larger worlds thrust upon them. Some worlds grow so large and universal that they approach the divine. There is even a term, hagiography, for the study of the "saints" among us. In time the term, as defined by Wikipedia, has come to "refer to the works of contemporary biographers and historians whom critics perceive to be uncritical and even 'reverential'".

For early Baby Boomers, there is probably no better person elevated to "sainthood" by the hagiographers than Mohandas Gandhi. The man had his critics, but OTR cannot recall them or what they said. Today, there is a new Gandhi biography (Great Soul) by Joseph Lelyveld, and it has been reviewed in The Wall Street Journal by the British historian and biographer Andrew Roberts. Roberts writes that Lelyveld has promoted a generally positive view of Gandhi, but neither has he shied away from the remarkable dark side of the Great Soul. Roberts's assault on the hagiographic image of Gandhi elaborates on many of the mortal realities most of us know little or nothing about. It will leave some readers astounded in addition to selling Lelyveld's books.

OTR , news junkie that he is, thinks the world would be such a bore if the personal worlds of our saints really matched those of their hagiographers. Thankfully, there are those who explore the mortal sides of our demi-gods. After all, it is the flaws and foibles we recognize. That divine status is a bit more difficult for us mortals to discern.