The title, borrowed from Mahatma Gandhi’s own words, seems to summarize his entire legacy—particularly today, when ultranationalists often accuse him of being responsible for the present ‘communal’ crisis in India. History, however, will tell the truth, and no one needs to defend Gandhiji, for he himself never attempted to defend his legacy.
The message he wrote during the deluge in Gujarat in 1927 remains relevant not only to Gandhi but to anyone who has taken up leadership, whether in a small or a great way—even beginning within one’s own home. In the end, misunderstandings are often the leader’s lot, because being a boss is a lonely thing.
When one leads, people generally prefer to follow rather than to assist. Yet, sooner or later, those very followers may enthusiastically find fault with the leadership they once accepted—sometimes the criticism coming first from those who had followed most faithfully.
As Gandhi himself pointed out, this has been the eternal destiny of leadership throughout human history. The best way to face it is neither to become defensive nor to abandon the path, but to accept it and move forward. Gandhiji demonstrated this again and again throughout his life—and, in a different sense, his legacy continues to demonstrate it even after his death.
Gandhi and the Gujarat Floods
The occasion for Gandhi’s reflection was the devastating Gujarat floods of 1927. He received several urgent telegrams and a letter asking him to come and lead the relief operations. Yet he deliberately chose not to go. He trusted the self-reliance of Gujarat and, above all, trusted Vallabhbhai Patel, who was leading the relief work there. Patel advised him that his presence was unnecessary and that the organization Gandhi had helped build in Gujarat had achieved more than his personal presence could have done.
Gandhi explained that he was not relating these events to defend himself. A servant of the people, he insisted, does not need to defend himself. Although his health was fragile, he acknowledged that in an emergency even an ill person might feel compelled to do his bit. But there was another principle at stake: once a task had been entrusted to a worker, others should not interfere unless that worker sought or permitted their help. Those in charge should be trusted—and removed only when they betray that trust.
Gandhi therefore asked himself what he could actually add by going to Gujarat. If he arrived as the senior leader, Patel might naturally look to him for direction and thereby surrender some of his own freedom of action. Gandhi regarded this not as an advantage but as “nothing short of a misfortune.” To arrive suddenly and interfere in work with which he was unfamiliar would, in his own words, be little more than “an exhibition of ignorant vanity.”
There is here a profound lesson about leadership. A leader does not necessarily lead by being physically present everywhere, issuing instructions, or placing himself at the centre of every activity. Sometimes leadership consists precisely in knowing when not to intervene.
Gandhi then made the principle still broader. No leader, he argued, should allow external pressure to make him disobey his inner voice. If a leader repeatedly surrenders his judgment to outside pressure, he forfeits the very basis of leadership. The people around him may see one thing and demand another, but the person actually responsible for a task may see circumstances that others cannot see.
He also warned against what he regarded as an unhealthy attachment to a leader. The repeated demands that he come to Gujarat revealed, in his view, “a wrong attachment which we must surmount at all costs.” Gandhi reduced his own importance almost completely: he was merely “a mere lump of earth in the hands of the Potter.” What ultimately mattered was not Gandhi but Truth and Love—ahimsa. If these were present, he believed, things would ultimately right themselves.
This is perhaps the most remarkable part of his reflection. He did not want Gujarat—or India—to depend upon Gandhi. He wanted people to look beyond the individual leader to Truth and Love, to use servants like himself while they remained faithful to the right path, and to correct them when they went astray.
The principle is strikingly relevant to leadership of every kind. A leader who makes followers dependent upon his or her presence may appear powerful, but in reality such leadership weakens the organization. Genuine leadership creates people and institutions capable of functioning without the leader.
Gandhi went even further in acknowledging his own limitations. Leaders who had become physically incapable, he suggested, should give up their desire to remain at the centre of active relief work. Certain kinds of service require physical strength and endurance; a person unable to meet those demands could become a hindrance rather than a help.
But Gandhi reserved his strongest words for the problem of misunderstanding. A servant of the people, he said, should never become bitter or fearful when his actions are misunderstood, whether the misunderstanding is deliberate or unintentional. From the beginning of human history, those who have attempted to lead or serve have been misunderstood. There is no escaping it.
His conclusion is both simple and demanding: to endure misrepresentation and still “stick to one’s guns” is part of the very gift of leadership. Gandhi could say this from personal experience: “Misunderstandings have been my lot ever since I entered public life, and I have got inured to them.”
He therefore wanted Gujarat to remain self-reliant and self-helpful, moving from one achievement to another. Individuals like himself would come and go; Gujarat, however, should continue.
That may be one of Gandhi’s most enduring lessons about leadership. The real test of a leader is not how indispensable he can make himself, but whether he can help create people who no longer need him. And when that leadership is misunderstood—as it inevitably will be—the leader must resist the temptation to defend himself endlessly, become bitter, or surrender his convictions.
Conclusion
Gandhi’s words from the Gujarat floods of 1927 therefore speak far beyond that particular disaster. They speak to anyone who has accepted responsibility for others—in public life, in an organization, in an movement, or even within a family. Leadership can be lonely because those who lead are often judged by those who follow them. Yet misunderstanding is not necessarily evidence of failure; sometimes it is simply the price of taking responsibility.
And perhaps that is what Gandhi meant when he said, with characteristic simplicity: “Misunderstandings have been my lot.”
Reference
M. K. Gandhi, “The Gujarat Floods,” Young India, 18 August 1927, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 34, pp. 362–365.
Ashram, August 10, 2026
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