Gandhi's girls - sex scandal

Washington Monthly, July-August, 1987 by Art Levine

More Revelations: Still, by week's end, the prospects for Gandhi's political recovery looked grim, despite his denials and counter-attacks. In the next few days, there were other newspaper accounts of Gandhi's celibacy experiments. The Bombay Post ran an insiders' account of life in Gandhi's ashram. Contrary to the image he had cultivated of a gentle, loving soul, the two-part series, "The Dark Side of Gandhi,' detailed the brutal regimen imposed on his followers. His 100-plus disciples, forced to live in primitive mud and bamboo huts, were awakened daily at a A.M. to eat nothing but a few crumbs of unseasoned vegetarian gruel and dry wheat. Weakened, they were subjected to long harangues on arcane religious topics. Eyewitness accounts were gruesome. "We had to spend hours on our knees chanting prayers and spinning cotton,' said one American follower who defected. "We were like zombies.' Cult experts say Gandhi had dozens of ingenious schemes to weaken his followers' ties to their families and strengthen his control over them. Their secret name for their leader: "Bapu,' or father.

The Post story was the final straw. In his political death throes, Gandhi made a dramatic appearance before his supporters--and stopped just short of abandoning his campaign for a free India. "I intended, in all honesty, to come to you this sunrise and tell you that I was leaving the cause. But, then, after tossing and turning all night, as I have through this ordeal, I woke up and said, "Heck, my goodness, no.''

Instead, Gandhi with his back against the proverbial wall reached deep into his bag of tricks and, like a cat with nine lives, pulled yet another rabbit from his hat: a hunger strike. Over the course of a fifty-year career, Gandhi had turned this familiar strategy into a crowd pleaser that could move the masses or pummel an Empire. "Under certain circumstances, fasting is the one weapon God has given us for use in times of utter helplessness,' said Gandhi defiantly.

No one doubts that Gandhi can go weeks on end without even a drop of chutney. But political analysts are doubtful that the man, once dubbed "Mr. Hunger Strike,' could make this latest gambit work. "Gandhi represents the politics of the past,' said Patreek Chardeli. "A new generation of Indians wants vital, robust leadership. I don't think a starving old man is well positioned to do it.' More ominously, other pundits said the political damage was too much to contain-- even with a high-profile play for sympathy. Davidahr Garthati, the media consultant credited with Gandhi's decision to abandon the suit and tie of his early barrister days and "go native' instead, was equally pessimistic. Garthati noted, "His celibacy shtick was crucial to the saint image he'd cultivated for all these years. The non-violence thing, the spinning wheels, the fasting--that was brilliant. But his celibacy really set him apart, made him genuinely holy. Without it, he's just another pacifist do-gooder.'

Political opponents moved quickly to capitalize on the gaffe. Columnist Robert Novakilli, a longtime Gandhi critic, lambasted Gandhi's hijinks from his nationally broadcast McRajan Group. "The real perversion is Gandhi's political agenda. For years, he and his pacifist pals have had two things in mind: tinkering with the salt tax and cozying up to Stalin.' And his most formidable rival, Moslem leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah, sought to subtly position himself to pick up Gandhi's fleeing supporters. "Family life has always been sacred to me,' he told reporters, standing outside his family's mosque with his wife and daughter. "I don't think it's my place to comment on the controversy surrounding some of those in the public eye. It's up to the Indian people to judge for themselves.'