All worked up over Mahatma

It's that familiar chorous. The cacophony of a bunch of busybodies who want to impose their brand of morality on the rest of us.

Everyone in Orissa starting from the clownish former chief minister Giridhar Gomango, the Communists, the Congress and a couple of dowdy writers are frothing in their mouth demanding clampdown on a book depicting Mahatma Gandhi's sexually deviant activities.

The content of the Oriya book, Michha Mahatma (The Fake Mahatma), by Dr Bibudharanjan, a banker, has united the so-called Gandhi lovers. The 280-page book published by the novelist himself has showed up Gandhi as a mere mortal who struggled hard to douse the flame of lust at a time when the entire world looked upto him as Mahatma. Bibudhranjan, who has earlier penned controversial books on Nathuram Godse and Subhas Bose, has written that Gandhi's practice of sleeping in the buff with his lady consorts Abha and Manu was not only inappropriate, but abhorable and harmful. "An ideal Brahmachari is a man who by constant attandance upon God is capable of lying naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited," the novelist has written in the section`Sex and Gandhi' quoting the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.

“Gandhi is true but Mahatma is false. He was a man with all human failings but he covered them up all in his autobiography My Experiments with Truth in such a way to project himself a Mahatma. After his death his followers continued to cover up the unpalatable side of Gandhi and even went to the extent of blacking out his son Harilal's write up published in the Hindustan Standard a few days after his murder,” he says.

“In my book I have attempted a total and unbiased evaluation of Gandhiji, basing everything on evidence and documents. If the truth explodes the myth of Gandhiji's Mahatmahood, so be it. Why are the followers of Gandhi, who made a name for himself as a seeker of truth be agitated?" says Bibudharanjan.

In Michha Mahatma Bibudhranjan has described how the 77-year-old Gandhi almost forced Manu, the granddaughter of his own aunt to sleep naked with him during the Noakhali riots. "We both may be killed ny the Muslims at any time. We must both put our purity to the ultimate test, so that we know that we are offering the purest of sacrifices and we should now both start sleeping naked."

Though I personally don't agree with what the novelist has written, the war bugles have been blown. Considering that the book hit the bookstands a couple of days ago, I am sure none of those protesting have actually read it. All of them read about the book's contents from newspapers and TV channels. I have a copy of it, but couldn't go beyond the first few pages. While it's difficult to visualise Gamango - busy with his queer brand of tribal music - thumbing through the book, the same can be said about countless others who are just so ready to trash the book. Yesterday a woman leader from CPM came to my office with a press release about the book sullying Gandhi's name or something to that effect. This is a bit too much to swallow. If I am not badly mistaken the Communists have never been enamoured with the Father of Nation. Or is it just a October hangover? Whatever, the book has raised the decibel level in the soporific capital of Orissa.

As if all this was not hilarious, a nondescript journalist has now lodged a station diary in Puri, the hometown of the novelist, demanding the writer’s arrest and a ban on the book.

Though I would not rate the book highly over its literary worth, the brouhaha says a lot about our hypocricy. It's not just Orissa, I presume people in rest of the country would have done the same thing. Whatever happened to the idea of Freedom of Speech?

Update

The Mamus(cops) in Bhubaneswar today seized a few copies of the book and are scanning for objectionable material. I am sure they would find a lot. Just proves that cops do read beyond FIR copies.