I would like to see International Women s Day maintained as a day that honours working women: Geraldine Forbes thestatesman.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thestatesman.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Understanding MK Gandhi’s ‘love’ for his ‘spiritual wife’
Gandhi with Manu Gandhi (left) and Abha Gandhi.
7 min read
Share Via
Read Full Story
If you run a cursory internet search for M.K. Gandhi’s relationship with Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, you are likely to come across articles with headlines referring to a love affair between them, even salaciously pointing to the Mahatma’s lust for her. The reality was far more complicated, as a newly published collection of letters between them shows.
Born in 1872, Sarala Devi was three years younger than Gandhi, and died in 1945. In all her 72 years, she knew the Mahatma closely for a little more than 12 months. In 1919-20, when India was pushed to a tipping point by the twin horrors of the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Gandhi came in contact with Sarala Devi and her husband Rambhaj Dutt Chaudhary, who was called “Panditji by all and sundry. The couple was living in Lahore at the time, far from Sarala Devi’s