Zanoni, Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the supernatural, was adapted by Manilal Dwiwedi- Gandhi's Sanskrit Prof. at Samaldas College- and published in serial form in his magazine till, finally, it was compiled into the novel 'Gulabsinh' which was published a year before the old lecher died of syphilis. Bulwer also influenced Blavatsky and the Theosophists. Things came full circle when Bulwer's granddaughter, daughter of a Viceroy and wife of Lutyens, took up Krishnamurti as the new Cosmic Messiah.
Bulwer's link to Gandhi is interesting in view of Gandhi's peculiar relationship with Hermann Kallenbach- with the former casting himself as the wholly spiritual 'Mejnour' and the latter taking the part of the affection craving 'Zanoni'- because the gemutlich German reception of Bulwer's ideas was more compatible with collective enterprises of Socialist, or- later- Zionist sort. However, it was Russian Literature upon which Bulwer had thrown the greatest shadow. Pushkin started a version of his 'Pelham'. Turgenev wrote a 'strange story'. Tolstoy's Pierre or Dostoevsky's Ivan stand in need of the type of idealized spiritual preceptor Bulwer presented in a Rosicrucian or radically ambiguous Theurgic form. Thus the stage was set for Blavatsky to discover 'mahatmas' on the astral plane.
India, sadly, had too many 'Mejnours' of a shady sort. Plenty of Swamis claimed to be immortal and to have all sorts of divine powers. At the same time, the average 'Zanoni', though not averse to making similar claims, did end up patronizing brothels. Not unreasonably, some such would rather have got sex for free.
Dwivedi's own romanticism which, sadly, is neither Sufi nor Sanskritic- being the sort of mendacious ego-mania which paves the primrose path to Syphilis- is well captured by Wikipedia
At this point I will state that the main quest in my life was to find a pure locus of love. If such a locus happened to be a woman, preferably a wife, so much the better. But if in the absence of a woman such an intimacy could be established with a man, that too suited my purpose. I pined for friendship only with this object in mind. In friendship I insisted that I must be the sole object of love. To me, love meant complete identity – identity that makes one forget one's own self and feel exquisite pleasure in doing so. I did chance to come across some women to satisfy my thirst for love – not for sex – but I was disappointed by both – men and women, in consequence of which my love turned into longing.
— Manilal Dwivedi, Atmavrittanta
For Gandhi, of course, the truth about Manilal was an 'unthought known' or at least not something to dwell too much upon. But this was also the case when it comes to his Dad's 'pushtimarga' Guru whose syphilitic shenanigans had been well publicized, a few years before Mohandas was born, by the Maharaj Libel Case. The fact is, Gandhi would have resented the fact that Mummy might have had to fuck the diseased cretin his Daddy worshipped.
Open Magazine has an interview with Gandhi's grandson Rajgopal who has perpetrated yet another worthless book about this grandfather.
You interpret Gandhi as saying that he disapproved of his father marrying the fourth time (his mother Putlibai), which he believes was, out of carnal desire. You quote Gandhi as saying in your book, “I have not been able to forgive him for this.” But in Autobiography, Gandhi never speaks about his disapproval or inability to forgive him. Where does this come from? Why does Gandhi associate carnal pleasures for a 40-year-old man with sin that deserves no mercy?
It comes in a later reflection. I should have given the precise reference in a footnote. His ‘inability to forgive’ his father for four serial marriages comes from his absolutist views on what constitutes fidelity, chastity and morality.
This is a stupid lie. Every lawyer of that period knew the Maharaj Libel Case. Dewans and Nagar Seths and so on, who belonged to that cretinous cult, thought they were buying Heaven by prostituting their wives to a shithead with a diseased dong.
The fact is Gandhi became a Gujarati writer at a time when his language had more gossip than literature. Its Romanticism- though appearing as bloodless as Tagore's shite- was a roman a clef of a deeply decadent sort.
By comparison, the White Victorians were as pure as angels. Wilde may have sodomized a lot of waiters and so forth but he did not seduce women or knowingly spread a horrible disease within his own social circle.
Bulwer, at one time a more important writer than Dickens or Carlyle, wasn't wholly bad- though we can find little nice to say about his son, the Viceroy. The notion of 'Vril' could be seen as 'Libertarian'. If anybody can blow up the world, the 'price of anarchy' changes such that there is a meta-game of a humanistic, value adding, sort. Arguably, this is the present nuclear family. Baby can refuse to play with Daddy thus blowing up his world. Daddy has to up his game to please Baby. That's a good thing. Baby knows best.
Vatsalya- 'parental' affection- is always based on reciprocity. You try to feed Baby and Baby tries to feed you. The compromise is that the whole family eats the same healthful food without excess salt or spice. Genuine 'Advaita' or 'Tawhid' is based on reciprocity between worshipper and worshiped. There is no 'zalim' tyrant or impassable Godhead. Yes, there is mutual affection, trust, and 'ananda'- joy- in a reciprocal type of 'lila'- or play. But, so what? This exists between you and your Mummy no matter how old you grow or you and the puppy dog whom Baby now finds a more satisfactory play-mate.
Manilal Dwivedi- unlike Mahatma Gandhi- was unfaithful to his wife. He also thought a child bride had an obligation to give up education and go live with a husband who had not kept his own promise to get educated. Widow remarriage was anathema to him. It is significant that in the 'Rukmabai' case, the reason Reason prevailed was because the girl said 'send me to jail. I won't obey your obnoxious judicial ruling'. This was true 'Satyagraha' not Gandhi's witless type of blackmail which, in fact, made the Viceroy's job easier. Rukmabai went on to train as a Doctor and did much good. After her 'husband's' death she wore white as his widow. Rukmabai incarnated Gujarat's inimitable fusion of what is ethical and devotional, what is idealistic and what is utilitarian. She studied worthwhile stuff and earned her living in a worthwhile manner. It may be that she thrilled to Manilal's poetry or the Mahatma's equally specious politics. But, she was Gujarat and, as Gujarat, has prevailed.
What has definitively survived in Gandhi's Baron's Court- ten minutes walk from where I live- is K.M Munshi's Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan. You can see handsome, Manilal Dvivedi type, Professors of Gujerati or Sanskrit or Music or Drama, but their morals are as pure as their diction is chastened. I may mention that Akram Khan, the dance prodigy, studied there. But there has been no 'Me-too' scandal concerning that place. It provides an excellent service at a very affordable price. But then so do other Gujarati institutions- e.g. Swaminarayan Temple. Now I come to think of it, Arya Samaj too is ab ovo Gujarati.
What isn't Gujarati, but is fin de siecle European and decadent, is Gandhism. There is an irony in that a working class Parsi has endowed the humble name of 'Green-Grocer' upon a Kaula family of Tantric savants! But when Rajmohan challenged Rajiv in a parliamentary election- genuine Gandhi vs 'just being humble' Gandhi- the ultimate result was unexpected. Sonia emerged, for the first time, as a vote catcher. The pativrata Woman was shown as having the true 'Shakti'. 'Booth capturing' did not matter. Mutual enrapturing within the Honeymoon heart did matter. This was the only 'Tantra' or 'Raja Yoga'. Bulwer had affairs and locked up his wife- an equally accomplished writer- in the madhouse. Now, among academics, he is a byword for bad writing. There is a Bulwer Lytton award for the worst opening line of a novel. Obviously, because we are speaking of academics, they fucked up. The line they take objection to- 'it was a dark and stormy night & c'- is perfectly correct. Indeed, it is well observed. London's red labyrinths do indeed feature dank, Grub, or sewer-facient, streets where, by some concatenation of circumstances, a sudden gust can punctuate a monsoonal torrent.
Rajmohan, worthless cretin that he is, has written a book on the young Gandhi. He just doesn't get that Mohandas was, briefly, the student of Manilal before transferring to the West London of Oscar Wilde. This is a story I could write about because I actually know something about Gujarati literature- at second hand- which being cheaper is actually more authentically Gujju.
The 'gay' Gujju tradition- which isn't really about gender or transgression or anything mystical or theurigc- basically, these guys- like Manilal- just have an itch of a transactional sort- has no particular political valency. Nobody has any real problem with it. It claims no great social or soteriological utility in the manner of Gandhi's shite or Rajmohan's shite. Yet, au fond, there is a genealogical relationship here- at least with respect to Gandhian West Ken.
Wilde's Dorian Grey, it will be remembered is not so much a tribute to Disraeli's 'Vivian Gray' as to Dizzie's buddy Bulwer and his Teutonic, Naturphilosophie based, Cantabrigized notion of Socratic Friendship as Mesmeric Domination with respect to a governing caste. If Pushkin wanted to do a Russian version of Pelham, it was because he wanted a Russian version of the Eton/Oxbridge elite. Bulwer, like Disraeli, did not go to Public School- hence their relative 'femininity'- but Bulwer was a College man, genuinely of the ton, and the Continent could appreciate this. Dizzy and his daddy were like Ricardo- a guy the Continent knew as a benevolent broker to their impecunious Princes whose chief social distinction was his friendship with Madam Schopenhauer! Bulwer, on the other hand, they took seriously. Indeed, in 1862, some Greeks thought that if they couldn't get a son of Queen Victoria, then maybe Bulwer could take their throne! This was a time when an English baronetcy was rated higher than an Italian Dukedom or the dime a dozen Princes the Slavic nations were provided with.
Wilde, unlike Bulwer, was, au fond, a Victorian moralist of the Oxford School. Or, rather, like Bram Stoker, let us rather say he was a true son of Ireland- Aryavarta's Occidental Shveta Dvipa. Themes which in Bulwer can be subordinated to the sciences of Government, are for the Irish truly anathema. Sadly, Gandhi studied in London, not Dublin. He met the mystical Cardinal Manning when what he needed was the counsel of a red haired, raw wristed, Maynooth man- preferably one who had served in Madras.
It may be that there is an elitist element in Yeats- and his Mohini Chatterjee- but there isn't in Wilde. Capitalism and Socialism and Empires, be they based on one over-mastering theos or ethnos or phronesis or mimesis, yet are enemies of the Soul in which, without habitation, they remain insubstantial and mischievous.
Wilde, son of Esperanza's 'amar aasha', is a Dwivedi whose 'Advaita', whose 'Tawhid', is not wholly bogus. In de profundis he bears witness that, like the 'udumbara' or 'strangler fig tree', any physical desire turned inordinate and therefore metaphysical- i.e. ethical- is bound to be an obhaggavibhaggo vipatito seti schizoid self-deforming karmic ouroburos or witless dharmic auto-fellation of a Gandhian type.
Wilde, ultimately, was unsaved by the wisdom he had written. Gandhi got lucky and caught a bullet.
By contrast, Rajmohan snapped his own moral spine to suck himself off.
It is sad that Gandhi's sons did not obey their progenitor's admonition to abstain from sex- even within marriage. On the other hand, Narendra Modi's obedience to that ordinance helped redeem Gujarat from incessant gobshitery.
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