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Mahatma Gandhi and His Bizarre Sex Experiments
On the morning of December 20, 1946, at 4:00 AM, Gandhi’s translator, Nirmal Kumar Bose, walked toward Gandhi’s room. He opened the door. But what he saw in front of his eyes shocked him to the core. The 77-year-old Gandhi was sleeping in a naked state with his 19-year-old grandniece, Manu. Okay. We’ve all heard this story somewhere, sometime. And it is true. But the real story is a bit different. A bit more bizarre. We read about Gandhi in our school books. He was called Mahatma. It was said that he walked the path of truth and non-violence and gave the country freedom. But no one teaches the story of those four ashrams of Gandhi, which he used like a laboratory. Where he conducted experiments on himself, his family, his followers. Where the ashram residents became so dependent on Gandhi that he would experiment on their children, and no one would question it. Where multiple women in the ashram were so attracted to Gandhi that they yearned to sleep close to him.
Gandhi’s entire life story is connected to his sexual obsession. Let me explain from the beginning. Gandhi and Kasturba were married at a young age. Kasturba was only 14 years old, and Gandhi was 13. Their age may have been young, but the attraction was deep, and perhaps that’s why Gandhi wrote: I was so lost in this lust-filled love that despite wanting to educate my illiterate wife, I couldn’t. But Gandhi began to consider this natural human behavior impure when his father was ill, and it was his turn to care for him. But Gandhi left his father with his uncle and went to Kasturba, and he says that while he was having intercourse with his wife, his father died. This incident filled Gandhi’s mind with guilt that at such a moment, he had knelt before his lust. He started seeing this natural sexual obsession as his weakness. And despite trying many times, he couldn’t stay away from it — or perhaps he never did. Because Gandhi and Kasturba gave birth to their first son, Harilal, in 1888. That same year, he went to London for studies, where he gained knowledge about brahmacharya (celibacy) and tried practicing it with his wife upon return. But still, their second son, Manilal, was born in 1892, and when Gandhi shifted to South Africa, they had two more sons, Ramdas and Devdas.
Gandhi wanted to adopt brahmacharya. But perhaps he was confused. He would even discuss with his cousin whether he should stop having intercourse with his wife. In 1907, he wrote in his newspaper Indian Opinion that sensible Indians should not marry at all, and if they do, they should not have intercourse. But the irony is, he adopted brahmacharya at the age of 38, by which time he already had four children. And now it was time for his innovative brahmacharya experiments, which he did not limit to himself.
Even a few minutes in South Africa will be enough to inform the visitor there are two major race groups: white and non-white. Gandhi went to South Africa as a lawyer. There, he progressed in his work, made new friends, but in the 1900s, South Africa was largely under British control. Black natives were deprived of their rights, and the condition of Indians working there wasn’t much better. When Gandhi started fighting against the British government for the rights of Indians living in South Africa, people began to see him as their leader. While living there, he established two self-sufficient ashrams: in 1904, the Phoenix Settlement, where his newspaper Indian Opinion was run, and later in 1910, the Tolstoy Farm, inspired by the ideas of Leo Tolstoy and John Ruskin. Gandhi’s family, along with some friends, assistants, and their children, lived there. But Gandhi used these ashrams like a laboratory. Where he experimented on himself, his family, and his followers.
There were no servants in these ashrams. So everyone, young and old, did hard labor, including cleaning latrine pots, which was considered the work of lower castes. But Gandhi linked cleaning pots to caste equality. When Gandhi asked his wife Kasturba to clean a Dalit person’s pot, she flatly refused. This is the work of the lower caste. For this reason, Gandhi even threatened to throw her out of the house. But wait — Gandhi wrote an article in his weekly Harijan about what an ideal person should be. In it, he says if Brahmins’ work is to purify the soul, then Bhangis’ (sweepers’) work is to purify society’s body — that is, to clean society’s potty. Bhangis should have knowledge of building good latrines. They should know how to clean them. They should have the art of eliminating bad smells. And so on. The point is, cleaning latrine pots was introduced more to impose rules on ashram residents than for caste equality.
Very simple food was cooked and eaten in the ashram. But Gandhi didn’t even eat spices. He often ate raw food like fruits and nuts. But Gandhi did not limit his food experiments to himself. When Kasturba was ill, the doctor advised her to drink beef tea. Of course, she couldn’t eat beef, but she could eat good vegetarian food. But Gandhi decided to experiment on his sick wife and advised Kasturba to eat only grains and fruits, leaving out vegetables and salt. And when Kasturba refused, Gandhi told her: If you don’t do this, I won’t eat salt or pulses for a year. And Kasturba was forced to follow this bizarre diet. But Gandhi’s food experiments weren’t always successful. Gandhi always suffered from constipation and always used enemas. Gandhi used enemas more for purifying his mind than his health. Like, Gandhi says he gave an enema to a European woman in South Africa with his own hands. Later, this habit spread among ashram residents, where due to simple food, constipation and enemas became common. But Gandhi’s daily question to women would be: Sister, did your stomach clear properly this morning? Gandhi was obsessed with enemas, and that’s why he later asked Kasturba to give enemas to his future daughter-in-law.
All of Gandhi’s experiments were related to the purity of his mind and body. And at the top was celibacy, i.e. , brahmacharya, and in these experiments, he even included children. [Music] By this time, Gandhi had developed hatred for intercourse, and his only motto was: I won’t do it, and I won’t let others do it. For this, he implemented some rules in the ashram. Men and women were kept in separate rooms. Of course, smoking and drinking were not allowed. Food was kept as simple as possible. And Gandhi had now given up milk too. Now he only ate raw fruits. Meal times were fixed. They were taken together. After that, there were prayers. Ashram residents were told to wear European laborers’ clothes. Hard labor was compulsory for everyone. Children were told to participate in farm work. The little semi-formal schooling children got came after this hard labor. What they would eat, drink, wear, and with whom they would live — everything was controlled. Their personal choices were taken away, and that’s why they became dependent on Gandhi. Like one ashram resident said: We became so dependent on Gandhi that we asked him about every little thing — Bapu, how much oil should I apply? Should I shave my head? One spoon or two of soybean paste? Some people even said that Gandhi gathered people from different places just to gratify his ego and use them like guinea pigs in his experiments. These people were so influenced by Gandhi that he would experiment on children, and no one would question it.
Gandhi himself writes: I sent some naughty boys and some young innocent girls to bathe together at the same time in the same place. Although I had explained to them the duty of self-surrender — that is, controlling themselves — and Gandhi would also be present there, and he would examine these teenagers’ sexuality. Like, whether these children could control themselves or not. He would make them sleep together on an open veranda, 3–3 feet apart, and said he started these experiments with the belief that he could prove boys and girls could live together without any harm. But physical attraction in teenagers is normal, and sexual matters arose between some boys and girls, which Gandhi found out about. He opposed the boys and started thinking about what to do with the girls. He thought of leaving a physical mark on these girls so they would learn a lesson and warn the boys. He decided to cut the girls’ hair. The girls refused. But Gandhi gained the support of the ashram women and cut the girls’ hair with his own hands so that boys, seeing the cut hair, would refrain from committing such a sin again. This was perhaps the first time Gandhi conducted such experiments with minor children. But these experiments were not the last.
In the Tolstoy Ashram, Gandhi’s second son, Manilal, lived. During this time, closeness grew between Manilal and a woman named Jackie. Presumably, they had intimate relations. Jackie was a married woman whose husband lived in Fiji. When Gandhi found out, he went on a 7-day fast. He said everyone should know how bad it is to commit such a sin. Manilal also joined him in fasting, and Gandhi said: Even if my son dies in this fast, it won’t matter to me. Gandhi used fasting as an emotional tool so that the other person would drown in guilt and agree to do anything to get out of that guilt. Like, Gandhi asked Manilal to vow lifelong brahmacharya, which Manilal gave. Though later, at 35, Manilal broke that promise. As for Jackie, she was mistreated. She was made to fast. Her hair was cut. Her jewelry was removed, and she was made to wear widow’s clothes as a sign of remorse. Gandhi writes about this whole event: I have never spent such painful days in my life as these days. My heart has dried up. I can’t express my pain. I often felt like taking a knife from my pocket and stabbing it into my stomach. Gandhi was extremely angry about Manilal and Jackie’s affair, and rightly so. Where he wanted to make his ashram sex-free, these people were having an affair. But wait, there might be a twist. There could be another reason for Gandhi’s mental agony. Perhaps Gandhi included Jackie in his brahmacharya experiments. Like, he wrote in a letter to his German associate Hermann Kallenbach: We all slept side by side on the veranda, and Jackie slept next to me. Okay, there is nothing in this letter that proves Gandhi included Jackie in his brahmacharya experiments. But in the future, he included many women in his brahmacharya experiments, from which it can be inferred that Gandhi was thinking about it.
Long live India! Hail Bapu! Hail Bapu! Revolution! After 21 years, Gandhi returned to India, and upon returning, he did what Congress couldn’t for years. He awakened the common people. [Music] When Gandhi taught Indians to fight the British with non-violence, to strike against black laws, to burn British goods and spin the charkha, during the Dandi March, every Indian wanted to see this Mahatma. In 1931, when Gandhi went to London, the English crowd wanted to see the man whom Time magazine had called a saint. Everyone became crazy about Gandhi’s otherworldliness. Everyone wanted to meet him. Gandhi had become a world figure. And he had become a key figure in Indian independence. Gandhi considered this his spiritual victory. And he credited it to his brahmacharya experiments, and he wanted every satyagrahi to become pure like him. To become brahmachari.
Gandhi built his first ashram in India in 1915. And then in 1917. It was said: Work so much that there is no time left for work. I mean intercourse. And if excitations still arise, take a cold bath. The excitations will subside. The disgust for intercourse was perhaps so that natural intimacy between married couples would end. Their attachment would decrease, and that attachment would increase toward Gandhi. They would become spiritually dependent on Gandhi. Like Prabhavati. Prabhavati was married, and her husband Jaiprakash Narayan was studying in the US. By the way, Jaiprakash Narayan was an independence activist. An excellent politician who was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1999. While Jaiprakash was studying in the USA, Prabhavati joined Gandhi’s ashram during the freedom struggle, and during this time, adopting brahmacharya was considered a good quality in Gandhi’s eyes, and influenced by Gandhi, Prabhavati took the brahmacharya vow without asking her husband. But where this vow reduced natural intimacy between Prabhavati and her husband, Prabhavati’s dependency on Gandhi increased, and she was ready to do anything for Gandhi. Including participating in his bizarre brahmacharya experiments. In a letter, Gandhi writes about Prabhavati: She often slept with me to keep me warm. When she lay shivering on the floor, I would pull her toward me for my sake. Not only women slept close to him, but in Kasturba’s absence, his personal physician Sushila Nayar, who was only 24 years old, would be present while bathing with him, where Gandhi would be naked. Not only Sushila, but Prabhavati and Lilavati too. Gandhi says: Sushila bathes behind the tub, and when she bathes, I close my eyes. I don’t even know if she bathes naked or wearing underwear. Yes, from the sound, I can tell she uses soap. And after bathing, Sushila would massage Gandhi when he lay naked. The ashram women happily agreed to participate in Gandhi’s bizarre experiment. I mean, Gandhi himself writes how one ashram woman fainted because she didn’t get a chance to serve him. I wonder why these women participated in Gandhi’s bizarre experiment. I think Gandhi had a technique. The 69-year-old Gandhi wrote to the 24-year-old Sushila: If you have also experienced desire, it’s okay because we are both in the same situation. We both need to be careful. After my 69 years, the vice inside me — that is, lust — cannot affect me.
Gandhi’s experiment may seem logical on the surface level. But Gandhi presented this experiment to the ashram women in such a way that they felt they were becoming part of a moral mission, and he also made them feel that through this experiment, they could test their brahmacharya penance. And now the time had come when the experiments were going to become even more intense because Gandhi wanted to become physically and mentally a eunuch, for which he had to put himself in situations where lust would increase, and he would stop himself from ejaculating. And how would this happen? Now Gandhi started regularly sleeping with ashram women. He writes in his letter: Abha slept with me for three nights. Kanchan only one night. Veena sleeping with me can be considered an accident. But she slept close to me. This letter was written to his submissive ashram manager Munnilal Shah, whose brahmacharya marriage he had arranged with an ashram woman named Kanchan. But on the conditions that they not meet alone. Not touch each other, not talk. And of course, not be intimate with each other. It was even said that they should live like brother and sister. But Gandhi convinced Kanchan to sleep with him. Later, Gandhi found out that Kanchan had no interest in this experiment. She wanted to live a normal sexual life, and she undressed in front of Gandhi because she didn’t want to hurt him. Munnilal Shah was loyal to Gandhi. But he was upset with this experiment. Later, Gandhi says: But if you both want to live like husband and wife, I will listen to you. But I remind you, if you consider yourselves brother and sister, what need is there for your father’s judgment? And in this letter, the Abha he mentions sleeping with was the wife of Gandhi’s grandson Kanu Gandhi. He would sleep in this state with his grandson’s wife, and he had been doing these experiments with Abha since she was only 16 years old. Kanu had forbidden Gandhi from doing this experiment with Abha. But he didn’t listen. A few years later, Abha wrote in her defense: Gandhi asked me to undress. But as far as I remember, I kept my petticoat and blouse on. But there were also sensible people around Gandhi. Like his son Ramdas forbade his wife from reading the books his father wrote on brahmacharya. Even Ramdas’s daughter Sumitra was smart; she was an intelligent girl, and Gandhi stopped her from getting formal education because he was against British education. While he himself had taken British education. He told Sumitra: What’s the need to study further? Come to my ashram. Become my secretary. I will train you. Sumitra replied: I don’t want to become like your lowly secretaries who wash your clothes and utensils. Organize your food. Take your appointments. Let people in and out. Later, Sumitra also said that great people like Nehru were never secretaries to their grandfather. They studied in England and were independent. Sumitra didn’t listen to Gandhi. She completed higher education. Then went to the US. Became an IAS officer in the USA and later a Rajya Sabha member. I wonder if Sumitra had listened to Gandhi and not completed her education, what would have happened to her? Would what happened to Gandhi’s other grandniece Manu Gandhi have happened to her?
Manu Gandhi was the granddaughter of Gandhi’s brother Lakshmidas. She was Gandhi’s grandniece. Manu lost her mother at the age of 12. Her father was poor, so Kasturba took care of her. When she was 16, she cared for Kasturba in her final moments. After Kasturba’s death, Gandhi started taking care of Manu like a mother. Like teaching her to make her hair, deciding her clothes, even taking interest in her physical development. Basically, Gandhi controlled Manu’s life. Like Gandhi’s secretary Pyarelal wanted to marry Manu. Gandhi flatly refused. Not because Pyarelal was older and Manu younger, but because Gandhi wanted to include Manu in his final experiment.
In October 1946, the fire of partition had now taken the form of Hindu-Muslim riots. Massacre was rampant in Noakhali, Bengal. So Gandhi thought he should go to the villages of Noakhali and bring peace. So he wandered from one village to another to bring peace. But a time came when he had to send his companions to different villages, and this disrupted his brahmacharya experiments. And the solution was that he wrote a letter to the 19-year-old Manu and called her to Noakhali. Gandhi wandered from one village to another, third, fourth, and Manu was always present with him. Gandhi’s interpreter Nirmal Kumar Bose was also present with him, and on the morning of December 20, 1946, he saw in Gandhi’s room what shocked him. Gandhi was sleeping on the same bed with his 19-year-old grandniece. Gandhi had told Manu: We both can be killed by Muslims at any time. We need to take the final test of our purity so that we know we are giving the greatest pure sacrifice, and for that, we both need to sleep naked together. Manu, who was his grandniece, agreed to Gandhi’s words. Gandhi gave the report of this experiment to his secretary Pyarelal, saying: Manu sleeps naked but sleeps deeply. And Gandhi would say: I am like Manu’s mother, and Manu also believes that if a girl’s mind is pure, she should feel no shame in sleeping with her mother — that is, with Gandhi. How strange this is, how twisted. On one hand, you say you are the child’s mother, and on the same hand, you make that child sleep naked with you to control your lust. It wasn’t that everyone supported Gandhi. Many people were upset with Gandhi’s experiments. Like from Noakhali, his secretary R.P. Parshuram and his interpreter Nirmal Kumar Bose left. Two editors editing the Harijan newspaper resigned, saying they would not print these experiments in Harijan. His son Devdas also wrote to him that he was on the wrong path. Congress leaders Vallabhbhai Patel and Kripalani also criticized Gandhi’s experiments. And do you know how Gandhi justified these experiments? He said he was performing a yajna (sacrifice), and these experiments were an important part of it. Please don’t look for logic because Gandhi linked his brahmacharya experiments to the existence of undivided India. He said if he could control his lust, he could stop Jinnah too. Again, don’t look for logic. Gandhi obviously couldn’t stop Jinnah, and the world saw the most violent mass migration. And when riots were happening across the country, massacre was rampant, he thought that if he could bring perfect balance in his purity experiments, the surrounding violence could end. And continuous violence meant now Gandhi had to demonstrate even more spiritual purity, and for that, he needed to add even more intense challenges to this experiment so he could control his lust even more. And for that, now he started sleeping with two women at the same time. One was 19-year-old Manu Gandhi, and the other was 18-year-old Abha Gandhi.
Till the end, I kept trying to find logic in Gandhi’s experiments. But I found no logic, and you shouldn’t look for it either. But Gandhi considered these brahmacharya experiments an essential part of his aspirations, which was to become God’s eunuch. But what about those women? I think they were exploited. Even if unconsciously, but these women were treated as inferiors by Gandhi. These women had come to Gandhi’s ashram to serve the country, for the country’s freedom, to become satyagrahis, and where did Gandhi trap them in his personal fad. Gandhi filled them with so much self-importance that they felt they were becoming part of a moral mission by participating in Gandhi’s experiment. But there was nothing like that. It was just Gandhi’s whim, which had no head or tail. It was just stupid.
On the morning of December 20, 1946, at 4:00 AM, Gandhi’s translator, Nirmal Kumar Bose, walked toward Gandhi’s room. He opened the door. But what he saw in front of his eyes shocked him to the core. The 77-year-old Gandhi was sleeping in a naked state with his 19-year-old grandniece, Manu. Okay. We’ve all heard this story somewhere, sometime. And it is true. But the real story is a bit different. A bit more bizarre. We read about Gandhi in our school books. He was called Mahatma. It was said that he walked the path of truth and non-violence and gave the country freedom. But no one teaches the story of those four ashrams of Gandhi, which he used like a laboratory. Where he conducted experiments on himself, his family, his followers. Where the ashram residents became so dependent on Gandhi that he would experiment on their children, and no one would question it. Where multiple women in the ashram were so attracted to Gandhi that they yearned to sleep close to him.
Gandhi’s entire life story is connected to his sexual obsession. Let me explain from the beginning. Gandhi and Kasturba were married at a young age. Kasturba was only 14 years old, and Gandhi was 13. Their age may have been young, but the attraction was deep, and perhaps that’s why Gandhi wrote: I was so lost in this lust-filled love that despite wanting to educate my illiterate wife, I couldn’t. But Gandhi began to consider this natural human behavior impure when his father was ill, and it was his turn to care for him. But Gandhi left his father with his uncle and went to Kasturba, and he says that while he was having intercourse with his wife, his father died. This incident filled Gandhi’s mind with guilt that at such a moment, he had knelt before his lust. He started seeing this natural sexual obsession as his weakness. And despite trying many times, he couldn’t stay away from it — or perhaps he never did. Because Gandhi and Kasturba gave birth to their first son, Harilal, in 1888. That same year, he went to London for studies, where he gained knowledge about brahmacharya (celibacy) and tried practicing it with his wife upon return. But still, their second son, Manilal, was born in 1892, and when Gandhi shifted to South Africa, they had two more sons, Ramdas and Devdas.
Gandhi wanted to adopt brahmacharya. But perhaps he was confused. He would even discuss with his cousin whether he should stop having intercourse with his wife. In 1907, he wrote in his newspaper Indian Opinion that sensible Indians should not marry at all, and if they do, they should not have intercourse. But the irony is, he adopted brahmacharya at the age of 38, by which time he already had four children. And now it was time for his innovative brahmacharya experiments, which he did not limit to himself.
Even a few minutes in South Africa will be enough to inform the visitor there are two major race groups: white and non-white. Gandhi went to South Africa as a lawyer. There, he progressed in his work, made new friends, but in the 1900s, South Africa was largely under British control. Black natives were deprived of their rights, and the condition of Indians working there wasn’t much better. When Gandhi started fighting against the British government for the rights of Indians living in South Africa, people began to see him as their leader. While living there, he established two self-sufficient ashrams: in 1904, the Phoenix Settlement, where his newspaper Indian Opinion was run, and later in 1910, the Tolstoy Farm, inspired by the ideas of Leo Tolstoy and John Ruskin. Gandhi’s family, along with some friends, assistants, and their children, lived there. But Gandhi used these ashrams like a laboratory. Where he experimented on himself, his family, and his followers.
There were no servants in these ashrams. So everyone, young and old, did hard labor, including cleaning latrine pots, which was considered the work of lower castes. But Gandhi linked cleaning pots to caste equality. When Gandhi asked his wife Kasturba to clean a Dalit person’s pot, she flatly refused. This is the work of the lower caste. For this reason, Gandhi even threatened to throw her out of the house. But wait — Gandhi wrote an article in his weekly Harijan about what an ideal person should be. In it, he says if Brahmins’ work is to purify the soul, then Bhangis’ (sweepers’) work is to purify society’s body — that is, to clean society’s potty. Bhangis should have knowledge of building good latrines. They should know how to clean them. They should have the art of eliminating bad smells. And so on. The point is, cleaning latrine pots was introduced more to impose rules on ashram residents than for caste equality.
Very simple food was cooked and eaten in the ashram. But Gandhi didn’t even eat spices. He often ate raw food like fruits and nuts. But Gandhi did not limit his food experiments to himself. When Kasturba was ill, the doctor advised her to drink beef tea. Of course, she couldn’t eat beef, but she could eat good vegetarian food. But Gandhi decided to experiment on his sick wife and advised Kasturba to eat only grains and fruits, leaving out vegetables and salt. And when Kasturba refused, Gandhi told her: If you don’t do this, I won’t eat salt or pulses for a year. And Kasturba was forced to follow this bizarre diet. But Gandhi’s food experiments weren’t always successful. Gandhi always suffered from constipation and always used enemas. Gandhi used enemas more for purifying his mind than his health. Like, Gandhi says he gave an enema to a European woman in South Africa with his own hands. Later, this habit spread among ashram residents, where due to simple food, constipation and enemas became common. But Gandhi’s daily question to women would be: Sister, did your stomach clear properly this morning? Gandhi was obsessed with enemas, and that’s why he later asked Kasturba to give enemas to his future daughter-in-law.
All of Gandhi’s experiments were related to the purity of his mind and body. And at the top was celibacy, i.e. , brahmacharya, and in these experiments, he even included children. [Music] By this time, Gandhi had developed hatred for intercourse, and his only motto was: I won’t do it, and I won’t let others do it. For this, he implemented some rules in the ashram. Men and women were kept in separate rooms. Of course, smoking and drinking were not allowed. Food was kept as simple as possible. And Gandhi had now given up milk too. Now he only ate raw fruits. Meal times were fixed. They were taken together. After that, there were prayers. Ashram residents were told to wear European laborers’ clothes. Hard labor was compulsory for everyone. Children were told to participate in farm work. The little semi-formal schooling children got came after this hard labor. What they would eat, drink, wear, and with whom they would live — everything was controlled. Their personal choices were taken away, and that’s why they became dependent on Gandhi. Like one ashram resident said: We became so dependent on Gandhi that we asked him about every little thing — Bapu, how much oil should I apply? Should I shave my head? One spoon or two of soybean paste? Some people even said that Gandhi gathered people from different places just to gratify his ego and use them like guinea pigs in his experiments. These people were so influenced by Gandhi that he would experiment on children, and no one would question it.
Gandhi himself writes: I sent some naughty boys and some young innocent girls to bathe together at the same time in the same place. Although I had explained to them the duty of self-surrender — that is, controlling themselves — and Gandhi would also be present there, and he would examine these teenagers’ sexuality. Like, whether these children could control themselves or not. He would make them sleep together on an open veranda, 3–3 feet apart, and said he started these experiments with the belief that he could prove boys and girls could live together without any harm. But physical attraction in teenagers is normal, and sexual matters arose between some boys and girls, which Gandhi found out about. He opposed the boys and started thinking about what to do with the girls. He thought of leaving a physical mark on these girls so they would learn a lesson and warn the boys. He decided to cut the girls’ hair. The girls refused. But Gandhi gained the support of the ashram women and cut the girls’ hair with his own hands so that boys, seeing the cut hair, would refrain from committing such a sin again. This was perhaps the first time Gandhi conducted such experiments with minor children. But these experiments were not the last.
In the Tolstoy Ashram, Gandhi’s second son, Manilal, lived. During this time, closeness grew between Manilal and a woman named Jackie. Presumably, they had intimate relations. Jackie was a married woman whose husband lived in Fiji. When Gandhi found out, he went on a 7-day fast. He said everyone should know how bad it is to commit such a sin. Manilal also joined him in fasting, and Gandhi said: Even if my son dies in this fast, it won’t matter to me. Gandhi used fasting as an emotional tool so that the other person would drown in guilt and agree to do anything to get out of that guilt. Like, Gandhi asked Manilal to vow lifelong brahmacharya, which Manilal gave. Though later, at 35, Manilal broke that promise. As for Jackie, she was mistreated. She was made to fast. Her hair was cut. Her jewelry was removed, and she was made to wear widow’s clothes as a sign of remorse. Gandhi writes about this whole event: I have never spent such painful days in my life as these days. My heart has dried up. I can’t express my pain. I often felt like taking a knife from my pocket and stabbing it into my stomach. Gandhi was extremely angry about Manilal and Jackie’s affair, and rightly so. Where he wanted to make his ashram sex-free, these people were having an affair. But wait, there might be a twist. There could be another reason for Gandhi’s mental agony. Perhaps Gandhi included Jackie in his brahmacharya experiments. Like, he wrote in a letter to his German associate Hermann Kallenbach: We all slept side by side on the veranda, and Jackie slept next to me. Okay, there is nothing in this letter that proves Gandhi included Jackie in his brahmacharya experiments. But in the future, he included many women in his brahmacharya experiments, from which it can be inferred that Gandhi was thinking about it.
Long live India! Hail Bapu! Hail Bapu! Revolution! After 21 years, Gandhi returned to India, and upon returning, he did what Congress couldn’t for years. He awakened the common people. [Music] When Gandhi taught Indians to fight the British with non-violence, to strike against black laws, to burn British goods and spin the charkha, during the Dandi March, every Indian wanted to see this Mahatma. In 1931, when Gandhi went to London, the English crowd wanted to see the man whom Time magazine had called a saint. Everyone became crazy about Gandhi’s otherworldliness. Everyone wanted to meet him. Gandhi had become a world figure. And he had become a key figure in Indian independence. Gandhi considered this his spiritual victory. And he credited it to his brahmacharya experiments, and he wanted every satyagrahi to become pure like him. To become brahmachari.
Gandhi built his first ashram in India in 1915. And then in 1917. It was said: Work so much that there is no time left for work. I mean intercourse. And if excitations still arise, take a cold bath. The excitations will subside. The disgust for intercourse was perhaps so that natural intimacy between married couples would end. Their attachment would decrease, and that attachment would increase toward Gandhi. They would become spiritually dependent on Gandhi. Like Prabhavati. Prabhavati was married, and her husband Jaiprakash Narayan was studying in the US. By the way, Jaiprakash Narayan was an independence activist. An excellent politician who was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1999. While Jaiprakash was studying in the USA, Prabhavati joined Gandhi’s ashram during the freedom struggle, and during this time, adopting brahmacharya was considered a good quality in Gandhi’s eyes, and influenced by Gandhi, Prabhavati took the brahmacharya vow without asking her husband. But where this vow reduced natural intimacy between Prabhavati and her husband, Prabhavati’s dependency on Gandhi increased, and she was ready to do anything for Gandhi. Including participating in his bizarre brahmacharya experiments. In a letter, Gandhi writes about Prabhavati: She often slept with me to keep me warm. When she lay shivering on the floor, I would pull her toward me for my sake. Not only women slept close to him, but in Kasturba’s absence, his personal physician Sushila Nayar, who was only 24 years old, would be present while bathing with him, where Gandhi would be naked. Not only Sushila, but Prabhavati and Lilavati too. Gandhi says: Sushila bathes behind the tub, and when she bathes, I close my eyes. I don’t even know if she bathes naked or wearing underwear. Yes, from the sound, I can tell she uses soap. And after bathing, Sushila would massage Gandhi when he lay naked. The ashram women happily agreed to participate in Gandhi’s bizarre experiment. I mean, Gandhi himself writes how one ashram woman fainted because she didn’t get a chance to serve him. I wonder why these women participated in Gandhi’s bizarre experiment. I think Gandhi had a technique. The 69-year-old Gandhi wrote to the 24-year-old Sushila: If you have also experienced desire, it’s okay because we are both in the same situation. We both need to be careful. After my 69 years, the vice inside me — that is, lust — cannot affect me.
Gandhi’s experiment may seem logical on the surface level. But Gandhi presented this experiment to the ashram women in such a way that they felt they were becoming part of a moral mission, and he also made them feel that through this experiment, they could test their brahmacharya penance. And now the time had come when the experiments were going to become even more intense because Gandhi wanted to become physically and mentally a eunuch, for which he had to put himself in situations where lust would increase, and he would stop himself from ejaculating. And how would this happen? Now Gandhi started regularly sleeping with ashram women. He writes in his letter: Abha slept with me for three nights. Kanchan only one night. Veena sleeping with me can be considered an accident. But she slept close to me. This letter was written to his submissive ashram manager Munnilal Shah, whose brahmacharya marriage he had arranged with an ashram woman named Kanchan. But on the conditions that they not meet alone. Not touch each other, not talk. And of course, not be intimate with each other. It was even said that they should live like brother and sister. But Gandhi convinced Kanchan to sleep with him. Later, Gandhi found out that Kanchan had no interest in this experiment. She wanted to live a normal sexual life, and she undressed in front of Gandhi because she didn’t want to hurt him. Munnilal Shah was loyal to Gandhi. But he was upset with this experiment. Later, Gandhi says: But if you both want to live like husband and wife, I will listen to you. But I remind you, if you consider yourselves brother and sister, what need is there for your father’s judgment? And in this letter, the Abha he mentions sleeping with was the wife of Gandhi’s grandson Kanu Gandhi. He would sleep in this state with his grandson’s wife, and he had been doing these experiments with Abha since she was only 16 years old. Kanu had forbidden Gandhi from doing this experiment with Abha. But he didn’t listen. A few years later, Abha wrote in her defense: Gandhi asked me to undress. But as far as I remember, I kept my petticoat and blouse on. But there were also sensible people around Gandhi. Like his son Ramdas forbade his wife from reading the books his father wrote on brahmacharya. Even Ramdas’s daughter Sumitra was smart; she was an intelligent girl, and Gandhi stopped her from getting formal education because he was against British education. While he himself had taken British education. He told Sumitra: What’s the need to study further? Come to my ashram. Become my secretary. I will train you. Sumitra replied: I don’t want to become like your lowly secretaries who wash your clothes and utensils. Organize your food. Take your appointments. Let people in and out. Later, Sumitra also said that great people like Nehru were never secretaries to their grandfather. They studied in England and were independent. Sumitra didn’t listen to Gandhi. She completed higher education. Then went to the US. Became an IAS officer in the USA and later a Rajya Sabha member. I wonder if Sumitra had listened to Gandhi and not completed her education, what would have happened to her? Would what happened to Gandhi’s other grandniece Manu Gandhi have happened to her?
Manu Gandhi was the granddaughter of Gandhi’s brother Lakshmidas. She was Gandhi’s grandniece. Manu lost her mother at the age of 12. Her father was poor, so Kasturba took care of her. When she was 16, she cared for Kasturba in her final moments. After Kasturba’s death, Gandhi started taking care of Manu like a mother. Like teaching her to make her hair, deciding her clothes, even taking interest in her physical development. Basically, Gandhi controlled Manu’s life. Like Gandhi’s secretary Pyarelal wanted to marry Manu. Gandhi flatly refused. Not because Pyarelal was older and Manu younger, but because Gandhi wanted to include Manu in his final experiment.
In October 1946, the fire of partition had now taken the form of Hindu-Muslim riots. Massacre was rampant in Noakhali, Bengal. So Gandhi thought he should go to the villages of Noakhali and bring peace. So he wandered from one village to another to bring peace. But a time came when he had to send his companions to different villages, and this disrupted his brahmacharya experiments. And the solution was that he wrote a letter to the 19-year-old Manu and called her to Noakhali. Gandhi wandered from one village to another, third, fourth, and Manu was always present with him. Gandhi’s interpreter Nirmal Kumar Bose was also present with him, and on the morning of December 20, 1946, he saw in Gandhi’s room what shocked him. Gandhi was sleeping on the same bed with his 19-year-old grandniece. Gandhi had told Manu: We both can be killed by Muslims at any time. We need to take the final test of our purity so that we know we are giving the greatest pure sacrifice, and for that, we both need to sleep naked together. Manu, who was his grandniece, agreed to Gandhi’s words. Gandhi gave the report of this experiment to his secretary Pyarelal, saying: Manu sleeps naked but sleeps deeply. And Gandhi would say: I am like Manu’s mother, and Manu also believes that if a girl’s mind is pure, she should feel no shame in sleeping with her mother — that is, with Gandhi. How strange this is, how twisted. On one hand, you say you are the child’s mother, and on the same hand, you make that child sleep naked with you to control your lust. It wasn’t that everyone supported Gandhi. Many people were upset with Gandhi’s experiments. Like from Noakhali, his secretary R.P. Parshuram and his interpreter Nirmal Kumar Bose left. Two editors editing the Harijan newspaper resigned, saying they would not print these experiments in Harijan. His son Devdas also wrote to him that he was on the wrong path. Congress leaders Vallabhbhai Patel and Kripalani also criticized Gandhi’s experiments. And do you know how Gandhi justified these experiments? He said he was performing a yajna (sacrifice), and these experiments were an important part of it. Please don’t look for logic because Gandhi linked his brahmacharya experiments to the existence of undivided India. He said if he could control his lust, he could stop Jinnah too. Again, don’t look for logic. Gandhi obviously couldn’t stop Jinnah, and the world saw the most violent mass migration. And when riots were happening across the country, massacre was rampant, he thought that if he could bring perfect balance in his purity experiments, the surrounding violence could end. And continuous violence meant now Gandhi had to demonstrate even more spiritual purity, and for that, he needed to add even more intense challenges to this experiment so he could control his lust even more. And for that, now he started sleeping with two women at the same time. One was 19-year-old Manu Gandhi, and the other was 18-year-old Abha Gandhi.
Till the end, I kept trying to find logic in Gandhi’s experiments. But I found no logic, and you shouldn’t look for it either. But Gandhi considered these brahmacharya experiments an essential part of his aspirations, which was to become God’s eunuch. But what about those women? I think they were exploited. Even if unconsciously, but these women were treated as inferiors by Gandhi. These women had come to Gandhi’s ashram to serve the country, for the country’s freedom, to become satyagrahis, and where did Gandhi trap them in his personal fad. Gandhi filled them with so much self-importance that they felt they were becoming part of a moral mission by participating in Gandhi’s experiment. But there was nothing like that. It was just Gandhi’s whim, which had no head or tail. It was just stupid.
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