Mohandas K. Gandhi ... extracts from a recent article from the New York Times

The last steps, set in concrete, taken by Mohandas K. Gandhi before his assassination in 

1948. They are at the Gandhi Museum in New Delhi.

The article in the New York Times relates that Gandhi's reputation, mostly assumed to be spotless and admirable has been losing its luster in India. Here are some extracts from the article.

"Seventy years after his assassination, Gandhi’s global influence is still enormous and his reputation as a force for good remains firmly intact.

Like few others in history, he harnessed the moral firepower of nonviolent resistance, helping wrest India away from the British Empire. His example of what could be achieved with peaceful protest has inspired countless others, across different cultures and different times, from Martin Luther King Jr. to the so-called tank man in Tiananmen Square.

Well into the 21st century, Gandhi’s halo is still bright in most of the world. 

But in contemporary India, Gandhi is no longer quite so awe-inspiring, or even relevant.

As time goes on, he seems to be falling out of sync with the prevailing trends in Indian politics, although politicians still regularly exploit nostalgia for him.

“I am afraid Gandhi has become marginal,” said Pratap B. Mehta, a political scientist who is the vice chancellor of Ashoka University and former president of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “In modern India, the two dominant forces hate him.” Among Hindu nationalists, part of the demographic base that powers India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, Gandhi is seen as weak, Mr. Mehta said. Hindu supremacists are still angry at him for expressing so much sympathy for the country’s Muslim minority and for allowing Pakistan to split off from India.Some Hindu nationalists have even built statues of Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, who was once a member of a Hindu nationalist group that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many of his political allies also have belonged to. Mr. Godse is India’s real hero, some nationalists say. 

Gandhi is also out of favor with the Dalits, a class of Indians bound at the bottom of India’s Hindu society for centuries, but who now, with an estimated population of more than 200 million, wield significant political clout.

Gandhi was passionate about the poor, including the Dalits, railing against exploitation and living almost like a monk, wearing a simple white loin cloth and famously eating little. After Mr. Obama picked Gandhi as his ideal dinner companion, he joked: “It would probably be a really small meal.”

And in an exhibit at the Gandhi Smriti memorial (“Smriti” is a Hindi word that means something like “in memory of”), you can peer into his ground floor room and see what are labeled his “Worldly Remains”: his glasses, a spoon, a pocket watch and a pumice stone to scrub his body.

With such a commitment to the poor, it might seem curious that Gandhi was so comfortable here at a lavish private home built in 1928 for G.D. Birla, one of India’s early industrialists, who made a fortune from jute — and from others’ sweat.

Gandhi is like Churchill, Napoleon, Mao, Lincoln, any great figure,” Mr. Guha said. “His brand goes up and down. His legacy will be debated endlessly"

The article goes on to discuss details of Gandhi's life which have been called racist and even sexist but there is still great respect for him among many Indians..

The Republic Day parade in New Delhi on Saturday. The theme of this year’s event was Gandhi.

CreditAltaf Hussain/Reuters

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