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Mumbai's society wives and dabba-catering ladies fuel an
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Mahatma Gandhi called sex a serpent, a
poisonous scorpion that was determined to
bite and inflame him. He fought it all his life.
His strange experiments with celibacy
scandalised his ashram. Now, a new
biography has raised questions about a
different aspect of his sexuality and pointed to
allegedly racist pronouncements from his
South African years. TOI-Crest asked
historians, psychologists and writers to take a
fresh look at the fascinatingly complex human
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There has rarely been a public figure in the

history of the world who, in his letters and
autobiographical writings, has been as candid
as Gandhi in dealing with his sexuality. A
sympathetic reader cannot fail to be moved by
the dimensions of Gandhi's sexual conflict -
heroic in its proportion, startling in its intensity, interminable in its duration. Kama, the god of
desire, is the only opponent Gandhi did not engage non-violently nor could ever completely
subdue. The god is the "serpent which I know will bite me", "the scorpion of passion", whose
destruction, annihilation, is a preeminent goal of Gandhi's spiritual life. In sharp contrast to all
his other opponents, whose humanity he was always scrupulous to respect, the god of desire was 00 06 26 07
the only antagonist with whom Gandhi could not compromise and whose humanity (not to speak DAYS HRS MINS SECS
of divinity) he always denied. For Gandhi, defeats in this private war were occasions for bitter Watch the matches only on
self-reproach and a public confession of humiliation, while the victories were a matter of joy, indiatimes.com. Enter your email to
know how
"fresh beauty", and an increase in vigour and selfconfidence that brought him nearer to moksha.
By the time Gandhi concludes his autobiography with the words, "To conquer the subtle passions Like 6K

seems to me to be far harder than the conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my
return to India [from South Africa] I have had experiences of the passions hidden within me.
They have made me feel ashamed though I have not lost courage...but I know I must traverse a FROM THE TIMES OF INDIA
perilous path", no reader will doubt his passionate sincerity and honesty. His is not the reflexive
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moralism of the more ordinary religionists, of the (in W B Yeats words) 'priests in black gowns
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We can follow Gandhi's struggle with his sexuality only if we also view it, as Gandhi did, as a
spiritual struggle. Gandhi's embrace of an ascetic lifestyle, his fasts and his radical 3. Japan earthquake: Two killed, 100 hurt in powerful
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experimentation with foods to find those that did not inflame the senses, were all in service of
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one of the three cornerstones of his personal life - brahmacharya or celibacy, the other two being
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non-violence (ahimsa) and truth (satya). Of the three, he felt he might have at times fallen short
of ahimsa and brahmacharya but had never lost his devotion to truth. The only way Gandhi More from The Times of India

could ever lose the high regard, even reverence, in which he is held all over the world would not
be because of the discovery of any byways of his sexuality but if it was found that he had lied PROFILES
about them or, by Gandhi's own high standards, that he had not told the truth loudly enough.
This one's for Kashmir
Such a discovery would strike at the heart of what made him a Mahatma: his uncompromising
integrity. Meet Kashmir's first hip-hop
artist.

Although he had taken the decision to be sexually abstinent in 1901, Gandhi took the vow to
observe complete celibacy in 1906 when he was 38, and on the eve of his first nonviolent
political campaign in South Africa. The two, non-violence and celibacy, were linked in his mind,
'... one who would obey the law of ahimsa cannot marry, not to speak of gratification outside the More Profiles
marital bond. '
FROM TIMES BLOGS
We cannot understand Gandhi's sexual preoccupations without understanding their source in
Hindu Vaishnav ideas on semen and celibacy, which he had absorbed from his culture while A little more than 'team effort'
India lead in head-to-head record with
 India lead in head-to-head record with
growing up and which he had internalised. In brief, physical strength and mental power have Lanka.
their source in virya, a word that stands for both sexual energy and semen. Virya can either move Amit Karmarkar
downward in sexual intercourse, where it is emitted as semen, or move upward into the brain in
its subtle form known as ojas. The downward movement of semen is regarded as enervating, a Fighting the 'Bai'-zantine Empire
'We're moving out because of a maid
debilitating waste of vitality and essential energy. If, on the other hand, semen is retained,
problem.'
converted into ojas by brahmacharya, it becomes a source of spiritual life and mental power. Leena Misra
Memory, willpower, inspiration - scientific and artistic - all derive from the observation of
brahmacharya. Gandhi is merely reiterating these popular ideas when he writes that sex, except Book-banning belongs to a bygone
for the purpose of generation, is "... a criminal waste of precious energy. It is now easy to era
Book bans conjure up images of
understand why the scientists of old have put such a great value upon the vital fluid and why Rushdie and Taslima.
they have insisted upon its strong transmutation into the highest form of energy for the benefit of Robin David
society".
More Times Blogs

In Gandhi's periods of doubt, such as the one from 1925 to 1928, after his release from jail, when
he was often depressed, believing that Indians were not yet ready for his kind of non-violent
resistance to British rule, he would characteristically look for lapses in his brahmacharya to
account for his 'failures' in the political arena. In another emotionally vulnerable period
comprising roughly eighteen months from the middle of 1935, we read: "I have always had the
shedding of semen in dreams. In South Africa the interval between two ejaculations may have
been in years. Here the difference is in months. I have mentioned these ejaculations in a couple
of my articles. If my brahmacharya had been without this shedding of semen, then I would have
been able to present many more things to the world. But someone who from the age of fifteen to
thirty has enjoyed sexuality - even if it was only with his wife - whether he can conserve his
semen after becoming a brahmachari seems impossible to me. Someone whose power of storing
his semen has been weakened daily for fifteen years cannot hope to regain this power all at once.
That is why I regard myself as an incomplete brahmachari. "

Another dark period covers the last two years of Gandhi's life when during the country's Partition
and Hindu-Muslim riots, he felt unable to influence political events. For an explanation, Gandhi
would characteristically probe for shortcomings in his celibacy, seeking to determine whether the
god Kama had perhaps triumphed in some obscure recess of his mind, depriving him of his
spiritual and mental powers and thus, ultimately, of political efficacy. Thus in the midst of
human devastation and political uncertainty, Gandhi wrote a series of five articles on
brahmacharya in his weekly newspaper, puzzling his readers who, as his secretary N K Bose puts
it, 'did not know why such a series suddenly appeared in the midst of intensely political articles. "

In reflecting on Gandhi's sexuality, we must concede the possibility of sexual celibacy to a few
extraordinary people of genuine originality with a sense of transcendent purpose - Vivekananda,
Tolstoy (who Gandhi took as his model), and even Sigmund Freud, who became abstinent in his
middle age. We can also never know whether Gandhi was a man with a gigantic erotic
temperament or merely the possessor of an overweening conscience that magnified each
departure from an unattainable ideal of purity as a momentous lapse. A passionate man who
suffered his passions as poisonous of his inner self and a sensualist who felt his sensuality
distorted his inner purpose, we can only empathise with Gandhi's conflict between the spirit and
the flesh. Gandhi's agony is ours as well, an inevitable byproduct of being human and thus
divided within ourselves. We all wage war on our wants.

The author, who has just written A Book of Memory, has based this article on the chapter
'Gandhi and Women' from his book 'Intimate Relations'

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Reader's opinion (8)

Shambhu Sahu Apr 4th, 2011 at 11:14 AM

Awesome read! It's all connected to spirituality... as Osho too said... and I believed. Good job sir.
Regards

REPLY

Yash Matta Apr 4th, 2011 at 08:03 AM

good one : )

REPLY

Ramakrishnan Cr Apr 4th, 2011 at 06:27 AM

I do not understand why we make a huge hue and cry over Mahatma's sex life.It is his personal life. Whatever be his personal
preference,does it make him a lesser mortal?

REPLY

Reshmi Chandrasekhar Apr 3rd, 2011 at 17:01 PM

Mahatma Gandhi was a self proclaimed celibate a principled man living withinthetenets of Indian culture cannot be a pervert just
to tickle the palate of wayward reader.The writer belongs to a hybrid culture who can shock or raise the brows of so-called
pedantic class.We Indians are tolerant and wise
 REPLY

Virendra P Singh Apr 3rd, 2011 at 13:30 PM

Gandhi was, after all, an ordinary mortal. If Gods were not 'liberated' from passion, Why expect Gandhi to be more than a God.

Gandhi was a God in a way, because he had courage to articulate and accept his vulnerability.

His obsession and then its rejection originate from same seed. Moderation.
REPLY

sumeet chandna Apr 2nd, 2011 at 11:42 AM

This is absurd why people are exaggerating on Gandhi's Relation with women & Intimate relations? He was also human & had
legitimate right to live as others lived.
why people make fuss about it? as they don't have time for any thing important in life.
People should grow & become mature to understand

REPLY

Ujjwal Kumar Apr 2nd, 2011 at 11:27 AM

pretty much surprizing !!!

REPLY

Prashanta Bhowmick Apr 2nd, 2011 at 08:21 AM

I am an ardent fan, no... am a devotee, of the great Gandhi, certainly curious to know HIM as far as one can go, BUT PEOPLE
OF HIGH VIRTUE ALWAYS TREAT SEXUALITY A VICE, becouse that is the one enemy they resent but can' control or
rather indulge to it!!

REPLY

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