Gandhi – Naked Ambition by Jad Adams

There is a bookstore in New Delhi that has a section devoted to books on Gandhi, the liberation leader of India. Now, 62 years after his death, the venue is gearing up for a few more books to come. Bangalore-based historian Ramchandra Guha is writing a book (a two-volume biography), while the former New York Times editor is also preparing a book next year, and then there’s Jad Adams’ Gandhi: Naked Ambition.

Jad Adams write it first

British researcher and historian Jad Adams has gone ahead of these two with his provocative and entertaining book called Gandhi: Naked Ambition. Author Jad Adams has already published books on the Nehru Gandhi dynasty in India and Rudyard Kipling. In this book, he has written about the political contradictions of Gandhi’s life. The book begins with Gandhi’s marriage when he was 13 years old and ends at the time when he became the most famous advocate of nonviolence and was assassinated.

Aura dismantled by the author

The biography spans 300 pages, which is likely to attract more attention due to its threadbare analysis of Gandhi’s sex life. The sacred aura surrounding Gandhi’s image has been systematically dismantled by author Jad Adams. The author says that there was a duality between Gandhi’s great Vision of India on the one hand, unusual sexual life, views on sexual abstinence and clothing. Gandhi’s preoccupation with personal perfection and cultivated pauperism were just distractions, says Jad Adams.

Severe with himself and with those close to him

The practices followed by him in his Ashram dented his popularity to some extent, and the leadership of the liberation movement also slipped somewhat. Gandhi’s political goals were jeopardized by his personal experiments. India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, advised him against Gandhi’s treatment of (or suppression of) his sexual needs.

Throw away clothes to fight imperialism

The subtitle of the book Naked Ambition tells us about the man who first dressed and then took off his clothes to fight against imperialism. Gandhi’s metamorphosis from his birth to his death can be understood somewhat by the way he dressed. He first tried to get along with the British and then had to become intimate with the masses. He opted for European clothing when he was in the UK and South Africa, and later adopted the khadi to protest foreign imports. These eccentricities helped build his image among the masses, as he was hailed as Saint Gandhi by Time magazine in 1930. At the same time, there were people (not necessarily just British) who were deeply frustrated with him.