Mahatma Gandhi is a photograph by Miroslava Jurcik which was uploaded on April 30th, 2017.
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi hoped to win people over by changing their hearts and minds, and advocated non-violence in all things. He himself remained a committed Hindu... more
Title
Mahatma Gandhi
Artist
Miroslava Jurcik
Medium
Photograph
Description
Gandhi hoped to win people over by changing their hearts and minds, and advocated non-violence in all things. He himself remained a committed Hindu throughout his life, but was critical of all faiths and what he saw as the hypocrisy of organised religion. When he arrived to Africa he study 80 different religious books. And he was exceptional in many ways , but he still was just a man.
With religious chastity under scrutiny, a new book throws light on Gandhi's practice of sleeping next to naked girls. In fact, he was sex-mad, writes biographer Jad Adams. After Jad Adams went through a hundred volumes of his complete works and many tones of eye-witness material, details became apparent which add up to a more bizarre sexual history which was supress as he was elevated to Father of the nation.
In fact, Gandhi did not develop his censorious attitude to sex (and certainly not to marital sex) until he was in his 30s, while a volunteer in the ambulance corps, assisting the British Empire in its wars in Southern Africa. Gandhi considered how he could best "give service" to humanity and decided it must be by embracing poverty and chastity.
Gandhi found it easy to embrace poverty. It was chastity that eluded him. So he worked out a series of complex rules which meant he could say he was chaste while still engaging in the most explicit sexual conversation, letters and behaviour.
He told readers of his newspaper Indian Opinion: "It is the duty of every thoughtful Indian not to marry. In case he is helpless in regard to marriage, he should abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife."
The rules did not, however, apply to him. Sushila Nayar, the attractive sister of Gandhi's secretary, also his personal physician, attended Gandhi from girlhood. She used to sleep and bathe with Gandhi. When challenged, he explained how he ensured decency was not offended. "While she is bathing I keep my eyes tightly shut," he said, "I do not know ... whether she bathes naked or with her underwear on. I can tell from the sound that she uses soap."
As he grew older (and following Kasturba's death) he was to have more women around him and would oblige women to sleep with him whom – according to his segregated ashram rules – were forbidden to sleep with their own husbands. Gandhi would have women in his bed, engaging in his "experiments" which seem to have been, from a reading of his letters, an exercise in strip-tease or other non-contact sexual activity. Much explicit material has been destroyed but tantalising remarks in Gandhi's letters remain such as: "Vina's sleeping with me might be called an accident. All that can be said is that she slept close to me."
Meanwhile, it seemed that challenging times required greater efforts of spiritual fortitude, and for that, more attractive women were required: Sushila, who in 1947 was 33, was now due to be supplanted in the bed of the 77-year-old Gandhi by a woman almost half her age. While in Bengal to see what comfort he could offer in times of inter-communal violence in the run-up to independence, Gandhi called for his 18-year-old grandniece Manu to join him – and sleep with him. "We both may be killed by the Muslims," he told her, "and must put our purity to the ultimate test, so that we know that we are offering the purest of sacrifices, and we should now both start sleeping naked."
Eighteen-year-old Abha, the wife of Gandhi's grandnephew Kanu Gandhi, rejoined Gandhi's entourage in the run-up to independence in 1947 and by the end of August he was sleeping with both Manu and Abha at the same time.
Like many great men, Gandhi made up the rules as he went along.
While it was commonly discussed as damaging his reputation when he was alive, Gandhi's sexual behaviour was ignored for a long time after his death. It is only now that we can piece together information for a rounded picture of Gandhi's excessive self-belief in the power of his own sexuality. Tragically for him, he was already being sidelined by the politicians at the time of independence. The preservation of his vital fluid/sperm (as he told other man to do) did not keep India intact, and it was the power-brokers of the Congress Party who negotiated the terms of India's freedom.
This pic was taken Sydney wax museum.
Uploaded
April 30th, 2017
Statistics
Viewed 958 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 03/28/2024 at 9:34 PM
Colors
Embed
Share