The Mystic versus the Politician

Here is an important, but disturbing, book about Gandhi. It is important because it offers an interpretation that runs against the grain of the “domesticated” Gandhi that can be found in a tradition of books that includes Joan V. Bondurant’s Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, Bhikhu Parekh’s Gandhi’s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination and Ramin Jahanbegloo’s recent The Gandhian Moment. Their Gandhi is largely reasonable, sensible, interpretive—a theorist whose ideas can serve as a model for political practice. The Gandhi we encounter in Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography, by McGill University professor of comparative religion Arvind Sharma, is a bit crazy, however, for he is a mystical creator rather than an interpreter, and his ideas are similarly meant to bring justice through inspiration. So it is because of its focus on the centrality of religion for Gandhi that Sharma’s book is so...