Gandhiji was the most misunderstood Leader both in his time and after that. Still he stands tall among all the Leaders and in fact there is no other Indian Leader even compared to him. He failed in many ways, though he finally succeeded in his mission to get freedom to India through his eternal principle of non-violence. In this he got final success as he never preached anything not practising in his life.
And when he launched his non-cooperation and non-violence movements to get freedom from British rule, though many cooperated—thanks to their thankless sacrifice, still there always remained a ‘love and hate’ relationship with him by everyone—beginning from his family member, his followers, his opponents, his admirers. So when I read the following comments by the reporter as the footnotes to his published interview, finally it is not Gandhiji who get caught in his spider net or trapped naïve Indians but those, like this reporter alone failed to see him through the thin vulnerable net that he spun around him through his idealism of non-violence and non-cooperation. Though vulnerable and fragile, still that net remained an iron curtain to many both then and now to penetrate to understand him. It is good that he remains, like God, a mystery. Otherwise, he would have easily become a mortal like us.
166. INTERVIEW TO “MANCHESTER GUARDIAN”
SABARMATI JAIL,
[Before March 18, 1922]2
While he had been telling this, his friend and fellow-prisoner, Mr. Banker, had brought him his charkha or spinning-wheel. As I bade good-bye to the Mahatma, he was just settling down to the daily duty, shared by all his followers (in theory if not in practice), of spinning or weaving a certain amount each day.
As I reached the end of the verandah, I turned for a last look. There was this unassuming-looking little man, dressed with less ceremony than the meanest coollie,@ squatting cross-legged in front of his charkha, spinning away as contentedly as Mohammed’s spider. Was he, I wondered, spinning a web that was to save the Indian peasant from the menace of an industrial system, untinged with even a veneer of Christian ethics; or was he himself caught in the centre of a vast web of illusions, spun from his own extraordinary brain, into which he had drawn hundreds and thousands of his ignorant and emotional countrymen?—Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 26, footnotes, p. 377,
Gurukulam, 16-4-2024
@ When I read about his simplicity, in spite of his great influence, then tears flowed from my eyes. He will always remain a Mahatma.
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