Bhikku Parekh a distinguished professor and also an upper caste/Hindu belonging to M.K.Gandhi’s own State of Gujarat analyzed the sex exploits of the Father of the nation Extracts from his book were published by the Times of India and Telegraph Bhikku Parekh 54 professor of political theory at Hull University was attacked as the second Rushdie for this book. Parekh deputy chairman of UK’s Commission for Racial Equality dealt with Gandhi’s experiments with celibacy and his practice of sleeping naked with young women. His critics however accused him of seeking to promote either his book Colonialism Tradition and Reform or his own fame by needlessly denigrating Gandhi 40 years after his death. He has been abused at a public meeting in London where he was also physically attacked. Parekh has been vice-chancellor of Baroda University in India and a visiting professor in the United States and Canada and has written several learned books on philosophy. In 1944 Gandhi began his most unusual celibacy experiments. He started openly sleeping naked with women. They included his grandnieces Abha and Manu (who was only 19); his doctor Sushila Nayar; and Prabhavati Narayan the wife of the prominent politician Jaya Prakash Narayan.

Gandhi took a decision to practice sexual abstinence in 1901 apparently without consulting his wife. For the first few years he was only more or less successful. As was his wont he decided to stiffen his resolve by taking an unbreakable vow to observe complete Brahm acharya in 1906 when he was 37 years of age and about to launch his first Satyagraha in South Africa. He did not find his task easy As he later admitted to Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur the sexual passion is the hardest to overcome in my case. It has been an incessant struggle. It is for me a miracle how I have survived it. He made his vow even more difficult by continuing to sleep next to his wife and refusing to follow the cowardly practice of avoiding contact with other women

Gandhi experimented with his diet habits and lifestyles to ascertain what stimulated the sexual impulse and how it could be weakened and eventually mastered. He discovered that the senses fed off each other and that none of them could be mastered without conquering the others as well. He found that there was a particularly close connection between food and sexuality and that a rich heavy and spicy diet as well as milk had a strong tendency to stimulate it. He discovered too that the idle mind was particularly vulnerable to the solicitations of the sexual desire and kept himself busy all his waking hours. He thought that a cold shower chanting the name of Rama and frequent prayers facilitated self-control.

Ata different level he ‘discovered’ that the sexual impulse derived much of its intensity from a mistaken approach to the human body. So long as one perceived the body as an instrument of pleasure one expected every organ to yield its distinct mode of gratification and could not avoid feeling that not to seek sexual pleasure was to waste an important organ Gandhi contented that the battle against sexuality became easier when one altered one’s approach to the body. As he put it If one is convinced that the genital organs are not intended for sex gratification wouldn’t one’s attitude change completely?

On the basis of these and other experimental findings Gandhi evolved a rigorous code of discipline and his thinking process began to undergo a process of cleansing. Evidently his conquest of sexuality was not yet complete and he needed to remain watchful. As he said in

1926 though his physical celibacy was fairly safe he had not yet acquired a complete mastery over the mind and was vulnerable to insidious invasions of undesirable thoughts.

Since Gandhi felt fully confident about his physical self-control he continued to maintain close physical contacts with his female associates. Many Indians disapproved of this especially his practice of putting his hands on their shoulders and some even raised the matter with him both publicly and in private. He responded by taking a vow in September 1935 to stop the practice for the sake of public good but broke it in Sevagaon a couple of years later saying that it was not intended to include his wife Sushila Nayar Manu and the other girls were like daughters to him. When accused of casuistry he rejoined that the spirit of the vow was far more important than the later and that be alone knew its spirit.

The year 1936 proved particularly trying for Gandhi. Throughout the preceding year he had worked extremely hard and slept no more than four or five hours a day. He fell ill in December 1935 but continued his punishing routine until he finally collapsed in the first week of January in 1936. While he was convalescing in Bombay he felt an intense sexual desire.

Gandhi had lated doubt about why the desire had invaded him after all these years. He wrote to a colleague:

It had its origin in my pampering the body with food while doing no work. I understood the cause and from that time stopped taking rest as prescribed by the doctors.

Gandhi summed up his feelings in a fascinating and brutally frank article in Harijan When he recovered from his illness he resumed his earlier heavy routine and resigned his self-confidence Two years later he had another crisis. On April 141938 he had a bad dream involving a desire to see a woman and an ejaculation. Evidently he was completely shattered. As he wrote to Madeleine Slade: The degrading dirty torturing experience of April 14 shook me to bits. He was in a well of despair obsessed by a feeling of self-guilt and did not know what had gone wrong. He lost all self-confidence became moody and his political work began to suffer. He had to see Jinnah for long and difficult negotiators and he did not feel up-to it. Although he met him and worked out important proposals he felt unsure of himself and looked to Nehru to provide the lead.

Gandhi discussed the April incident with his close colleagues and despite their advice to the contrary wrote an article about it in Harijan He thought that since he was a public figure and his experiments had important lessons for others he had a duty to share his experience with them. They came to us with all kinds of advice. Both Mariaben and Amrit Kaur advised him to avoid all contact with women not merely touch but also proximity speech look letter and not just with some but all women including his wife and doctor Miraben told him that the April incident was not an isolated one for she had once seen him put his arm around a female colleague’s neck in sleep

Gandhi decided on June 2,1983 that he would not touch any woman ever so lightly and even out of sheer fun the only exception being his doctor Sushila Nayar. The April incident had awakened him to the fact that although he might not consciously feel sexual desire it could unknown to him lurk around the dark recesses of his mind. More than ever before he became alert to its unconscious operations and felt the need to devise new strategies to track down and subdue it. A few months later he felt sufficiently confident and resumed the old practice of maintaining close physical contact with his female coworkers Sometimes they slept next to him and Sushila Nayar even slept with him to keep him warm She also gave him massage and medicated baths lasting over an hour and a half during which he often dozed off or transacted business with such male colleagues as his secretary Mahadev Desai and Sushila Nayar’s brother Pyarelal.

Gandhi’s lifestyle gave rise to considerable gossip both in India and abroad. The gossip became vicious when Prema Kantak to whom he had written some brutally frank letters about his sexual struggles published their correspondence with his approval. The first public reference to Gandhi’s lifestyle appeared in October1939 in Bombay Chronicle whose Allahabad correspondent reported starting revelations about his private life. A provincial Hindu fundamentalist paper carried more lurid stories named Sushila Nayar and accused him of gross sensuality and a dharma. Some of the American journals which had hinted at his improper relations with Madeleine Slade during their visit to London in 1931 indulged in even wilder speculations

Gandhi was not in the least ruffled by all this. He published in Harijan both the Bombay Chronicle report and the charges leveled by the Indian and American papers. He repudiated the charges asked his critics to produce evidence and offered a detailed explanation of his conduct. He contended that the campaign of vilification was inspired by the orthodox Hindus angered by his vigorous national movement against untouchability. That was why it had begun in Maharashtra been spearheaded by the Brahmins and given greatest publicity  in the Marathi papers run by them.

Undeterred by the campaign Gandhi not only continued his close associations with women but also embarked upon a most unusual practice. For the past few years he had slept with them in the same room at a respectable distance and of late he had begun to sleep together with some of them. He now decided to take the next step of sleeping naked with female colleagues as part of a new experiment. He seems to have started doing this after his wife’s death on Feb.22,1944. His reference to Women or girls who have been naked with me in his letter to Birla in April 1945 indicates that several women were involved. It would appear that in addition to Sushila Nayar Prabhavati Narayan Abha Gandhi and Manu Gandhi also formed part of the experiment. Lilavati Rajkumari Amrit Kaur Antussalaam and several others also seem to have been involved although it is not clear whether they simply slept together with him or did so as part of the a bad example alienate public opinion a bring him into disrepute. Gandhi remained unconvinced. He said that all his life he had insisted on doing what he thought was right in utter disregard of social customs. He had cultivated Muslim and Harijan friends and incurred the wrath of his family; he had insisted on crossing the seas and suffered the penalty of excommunication; he had attacked untouchability and admitted an untouchable woman into his ashram and patiently borne the execration of orthodox Hindus. He was not therefore going to bow to social pressure on an issue of such vital importance as his sexual experiment. However since his close colleagues held strong views he was prepared temporarily to discontinue the experiment and think again As he wrote to Munnalal Shah in March 1945:-

Thus I am what I am. There is no point in talking about the welfare of society. I cannot give up thinking. As far as possible I have postponed the practice of sleeping together. But it cannot be given up altogether. If I completely give up sleeping together my Brahm acharya will be put to shame.. Such restrictions should not be imposed on me.

Over a year later Gandhi decided to resume the experiment. Manu Gandhi had for some time expressed a strong desire to work with him and he decided to send for her in October of 1946. She was his grandniece and had served his wife with great devotion during her final illness. Just before her death his wife had entrusted her to Gandhi who agreed to become her mother. In a letter inviting her to join him he wrote I am not sending for you to make you unhappy. Are you afraid of me? I will never force you to do anything against your wish. The last cryptic remark seems to refer to Manu’s participation in an earlier experiment and perhaps to her joining Gandhi but expressed worry about the impure atmosphere in his ashram. He seems to have in mind Pyarelal whom N.K. Bose later accused of shadowing women in Gandhi’s ashram. Gandhi assured him that Pyarelal’s eyes were clean and that he was not likely to force himself on anybody.

Gandhi’s experiment of sharing his bed naked with the 19-yr-old Manu began on Dec.201946. He did not mention it to her father himself but asked her to do SO. Gandhi asked her to keep a diary and daily secure his signature of approval.

Though Gandhi first referred to the experiment in a letter to Krishnadas Jaju on Jan.81947 just under three weeks after it had begun it is unlikely that others did he know about it or that he himself had not mentioned it to them earlier. Gandhi’s small hut had no privacy and accessible to the Public almost all hours of the day and night. And since this was not the first time he had embarked upon such an experiment his close colleagues especially the women in his entourage must have known about it. Not even his worst enemies and he had many and not even the vigilant British officers even though that he was engaged in anything other than an innocent experiment.

Article extracted from this publication >> August 30, 1991