4. Representations of Gandhi
For nearly six decades, Gandhi has been a recurring figure in diverse mediums all over the world. Whether it’s a new biography or a modern take on Gandhi’s philosophies, the Gandhian tradition has been kept alive in not just literature, but in almost all art forms. However, it creates an interesting but a paradoxical situation; during his lifetime Gandhi was likened to other eminent figures like Lenin, Tolstoy and even Jesus Christ. Soon after his death a discourse developed. In India, Gandhi was seen as a man who brought momentous change in the country, who single-handedly overturned the regime that lasted for nearly a century. In the West, Gandhi was seen as an icon, as a revered figure who preached a doctrine of non-violence.
Many people saw Gandhi as a trouble-maker; few reporters wrote articles on him and published in the English newspapers. Reverend Joseph Doke was the first author who wrote about Gandhi, he was an English Baptist clergyman who was influenced by Gandhi’s ideas. His book, M.K. Gandhi: An Indian Patriot in South Africa (1909) traces a spiritual journey that the clergyman partakes in with the aid of Gandhi. In the article called ‘Saint Gandhi’ (pub. 1987), writer Mark Juergensmeyer creates a Christian legend surrounding Gandhi’s ideals and his demeanour. …show more content…
Facts of course are there, but facts are shrill. They have a way of saying more than they mean, and disbelievingly so. The silences and the symbols are omitted, and meaning taken out of breath and performance (...) The Pauranic style, therefore, is the only style an Indian can use – fact against custom, history against time, geography against space, and it is these coordinates that have to change and make the life larger than it seems, and its small impurities and accidents and parts, must perforce be transmuted into equations where the mighty becomes normal, and the normal in turn becomes myth. (Rao,
For nearly six decades, Gandhi has been a recurring figure in diverse mediums all over the world. Whether it’s a new biography or a modern take on Gandhi’s philosophies, the Gandhian tradition has been kept alive in not just literature, but in almost all art forms. However, it creates an interesting but a paradoxical situation; during his lifetime Gandhi was likened to other eminent figures like Lenin, Tolstoy and even Jesus Christ. Soon after his death a discourse developed. In India, Gandhi was seen as a man who brought momentous change in the country, who single-handedly overturned the regime that lasted for nearly a century. In the West, Gandhi was seen as an icon, as a revered figure who preached a doctrine of non-violence.
Many people saw Gandhi as a trouble-maker; few reporters wrote articles on him and published in the English newspapers. Reverend Joseph Doke was the first author who wrote about Gandhi, he was an English Baptist clergyman who was influenced by Gandhi’s ideas. His book, M.K. Gandhi: An Indian Patriot in South Africa (1909) traces a spiritual journey that the clergyman partakes in with the aid of Gandhi. In the article called ‘Saint Gandhi’ (pub. 1987), writer Mark Juergensmeyer creates a Christian legend surrounding Gandhi’s ideals and his demeanour. …show more content…
Facts of course are there, but facts are shrill. They have a way of saying more than they mean, and disbelievingly so. The silences and the symbols are omitted, and meaning taken out of breath and performance (...) The Pauranic style, therefore, is the only style an Indian can use – fact against custom, history against time, geography against space, and it is these coordinates that have to change and make the life larger than it seems, and its small impurities and accidents and parts, must perforce be transmuted into equations where the mighty becomes normal, and the normal in turn becomes myth. (Rao,