Wednesday, 20 November 2019

The other Gandhi dynasty

Rajmohan Gandhi's biography of his illustrious ancestor contains the following passage which is meant to explain why Gandhi agreed to the Cabinet Mission Plan


This is decidedly odd. Yuddhishtra led the Pandavas. He did not assist them. They served him. It was he who declared war and he who gained the crown. If he suppressed qualms of conscience while doing so, his motivation was not loyalty to another, but commitment to his own aggrandizement.

Who, in the Mahabharata, suppressed 'qualms of conscience'? Bhishma, the rightful heir who gave up the throne and then supported the Kauravas though he knew they had done wrong. Rajmohan's slip is Freudian. He says Yuddhishtra but means Bhimshma. Gandhi should have been Prime Minister. He suppressed his qualms of conscience and supported Nehru- who however was a villain. 

Thus, it seems, Rajmohan thinks of Nehru as an usurper- one who rose on Gandhi's coat-tails- I should say dhoti-tails- but who rudely pushed him aside to snatch the glittering prize. In 1989, Rajmohan Gandhi contested the Amethi elections against Rajiv Gandhi. The grandson of Nehru defeated the grandson of the Mahatma.

The odd thing is that, despite Rahul's evident imbecility, nobody would prefer him to be replaced by a member of the other Gandhi dynasty

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