Past Imperfect Episode 32: Ramachandra Guha on Gandhi’s enduring arguments
Past Imperfect Episode 32 features Dinyar Patel, Associate Professor of History at SPJIMR, in conversation with Ramachandra Guha, Distinguished University Professor at Krea University and author of Arguments with Gandhi.
In India and abroad, Mahatma Gandhi has been the object of veneration and endless encomiums. Guha wants us to remember something else: that Gandhi has been deeply controversial, both in his time and ours. Arguments with Gandhi delves head-first into how Gandhi wrestled with some of the world’s greatest questions. This went beyond anti-imperialism and religious harmony to include gender and race relations, caste, economics, and the environment. Perhaps no other individual in recent times has had such a breadth of opinions on so many subjects. Those opinions, quite naturally, have incited sharp reactions, both positive and negative. Was Gandhi racist and casteist? Was he against modernity? Were his views on religion and nonviolence counterproductive? As Guha tells us, the answers are oftentimes complicated and surprising.
