Gandhi

Reel Whirled Peas: June 2006


I read reviews of Gandhi written by Pat Aufderheide and Hanna Lessinger.

Aufderheide, a professor of Communications at American University, was critical of the film, suggesting that Attenborough’s hamhanded story telling had effective turned Gandhi into a comic book character. She calls it the “kind of history that convinces people that they hate history…actors mouth historic lines in telegraphic dialogue, each interchange cartoonishly large with Historic Significance or quaintly domestic with human moments.” I also felt like the story was too neat, the expressions and dialogue too contrived, the resolutions too simple. At times it looked and felt like a long History Channel production, where the dozen or so most famous moments are “re-enacted”.

Aufderheide also criticizes the passive indifference to roles assumed by women in the film. She describes Gandhi’s wife as an “obsequious second-in-command, occasionally pausing in her constant service to show visitors the pleasure of dedicating her life to him”. Mirabehn, the admiral’s daughter, is “reduced to a somber statue of service…casting reproving glances at upstarts in the presence of the master”. American photographer Margaret Bourke-White “runs around Gandhi like a hectic, friendly terrier”. Her descriptions are right on. Mrs. Gandhi must have played an important role in the fight for independence. One of the most realistic moments in the film was when she challenged, the only time she challenged him in the film, his demand to rake and cover the latrine. She felt that it was work that was below her, and he responded with a “we are all equal in the ashram” response. He said she will do the job with joy or not at all. “Not at all then”, she replies, and he tells her she has to leave. She screams that she is his wife, and where will she go? He acquiesces, and then exhibits a real moment of self-doubt. This time she is the one with the compassionate heart, setting him straight about the differences between his expectations of himself and others expectations of themselves. She was the sounding board, the one he could be weak or doubt-ridden in front of. Had Attenborough provided more moments like that, rather than, as Aufderheide describes, the “close-ups (that) focus on the goo-goo-eyed crew of sycophants and flunkies”, the film may have piqued my curiosity more.

While most of Aufderheide’s criticism is the way the story is told, Lessinger’s review includes passages about Gandhi himself, the “contradictory and uncomfortable sides of (his) character”. She points to Gandhi’s “intensely religious and essentially Hindu view of life” as the basis for warring between the Hindus and Muslims. With Gandhi’s ascendancy to the forefront of the fight for independence, says Lessinger, Muslims felt there was no place for them in the new state. I think there is some validity to Lessinger’s statement. It seemed that earlier on, when India was under British control, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs generally got along, at least so within the Indian Congress. Lessinger suggests that a more secular leader for independence may have allayed the fears of the Muslims and prevented the splitting of the state. Clearly history has shown that segregating the religions did little to improve relations between the two.

I also wondered why Gandhi did not use his almost celestial reputation to ease the burden of poverty. The film showed him moved by the suffering he saw, but not moved to fix the problem. Lessinger suggests that this is another result of his deeply-held Hindu beliefs. The caste system is predicated on the belief that people are born unequally based on their spiritual successes in past lives. Despite Gandhi’s admonition to his wife that everyone is equal in the ashram, he did not hold that truth for the general population.

India indeed gained independence, in large part due to Gandhi’s non-violent revolution. But it’s quite possible that colonial rule would have end a few years later anyway. Could the actions of a man capable of mobilizing an entire nation have been better used to alleviate the suffering of a nation? Let’s look 60 years hence. India and Pakistan are both independent, but there really has been no colonialism anywhere since 1970. India and Pakistan, Hindus and Muslims, still have strong animosities. And India, soon to have the largest population of any country, is still rife with poverty.