The Mahatma and the eunuch: brahmacharya education in Gandhian nationalism

ABSTRACT

Eunuchism was conceptualized as a sacred political duty in Gandhian liberal nationalism. From 1906 to 1948, Gandhi embraced the identity of a ‘pure’ and ‘asexual’ eunuch through his brahmacharya experiments to locate the nation on an alternative plane and sought to educate Indians to practice an asexual life for larger cultural liberation based on moral supremacy. This article explores how Gandhi creatively utilized his practice of brahmacharya – often defined as the search for God entailing celibacy – to reinvent the persona of the eunuch. It discusses how he decriminalized and demarginalized eunuchs by collaborating with them conceptually to salvage the colonized (male) self. The article also shows the paradox of Gandhian eunuchism: the exclusion of real eunuchs who were evaluated according to colonial ideas of deviance and immorality.

KEYWORDS:

• Gandhi
• brahmacharya
• Indian nationalist discourse
• eunuchism

Acknowledgments

The corresponding author would like to acknowledge the financial support extended to the second author by IMPRESS-ICSSR, New Delhi, in the form of a sponsored research grant, for the present study. The original project is titled ‘Restoring the sacred in public spheres’ (file no IMPRESS/P2124/689/18-19/ICSSR).

In addition, the authors are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their interesting observations and constructive comments on the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Sushila Nayyar, Manu Gandhi, and other women slept with Gandhi as if they were sleeping with their mother. Nirmal Kumar Bose noticed ‘Emotional unbalance to the point of neurosis…’ in women who participated in Gandhi’s experiments (qtd. in Kumar, 2011, p. 311). In an interview with Ved Mehta, Sushila Nayyar stated that the concept of brahmacharya experiment was formulated when people asked questions regarding his sleeping with young ladies – with Manu, Abha and with her (2013, pp. 231–232).

2. On 10 February 1947 Gandhi wrote: ‘My own mind, however, is becoming firmer than ever, for it has been my belief for a long time that that alone is true brahmacharya which requires no hedges... I am not conscious of myself having fallen. My mind daily sleeps in an innocent manner with millions of women, and Manu also, who is a blood relation to me, sleeps with me as one of these millions... If I do not appear to people exactly as I am within, wouldn’t that be a blot on my non-violence?’ ‘Letter to Vinoba Bhave’, CWMG, 86, pp. 452–453.

3. Gandhi wrote to Satis Chandra Mukerji: ‘A young girl (19) who is in the place of a granddaughter to me by relation shares the same bed with me, not for any animal satisfaction but for (to me) valid moral reasons. She claims to be free from the passion that a girl of her age generally has and I claim to be a practised brahmachari. Do you see anything bad or unjustifiable in this juxtaposition?’ ‘Letter to Satis Chandra Mukerji’, 1 February 1947 CWMG, 86, p. 414.

4. On 7 February1947, Gandhi wrote to Nirmal Kumar Bose: ‘There is an indissoluble connection between private, personal life and public. [Y]ou cannot overlook private deflections from the right conduct. If you are convinced..., you should pursue my connection with Manu…’ (CWMG, 86, p. 442). Bose did not support Gandhi’s celibate practices. Owing to Gandhi’s firm belief that this brahmacharya-experiment was God-directed, Bose attempted to persuade him in vain about the inappropriateness of his experiment with Manu.

5. For the British, eunuchs posed a threat to the colonial idea of masculinity. Their public performances and feminine sartorial style were viewed as ‘obscene’. They were ‘reasonably suspected’ of sodomy, kidnapping or castration for their gender and sexual ambivalence. The part II of the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 was colonial attempt to remove eunuchs from the public space. Thus, the eunuchs were made ‘habitual criminals’.

6. In the nineteenth century, eunuchs carried the charge of ‘unnatural’ acts and were regarded as ‘habitual sodomites’. In 1860, the Indian Penal Code categorized sodomy as a criminal act under Section 377.

7. ‘Letter to Shankarlal Banker’.

8. ‘Letter to Krishnachandra’, 1 March 1945.

9. ’Discourses on the “Gita”’, 9 April 1926.

10. ‘Letter to Premabehn Kantak’, 21 May 1936.

11. Sethi (1996) suggests that Gandhi domesticated Indian politics by representing woman as the ‘incarnation’ of his non-violence.

12. ‘Letter to Krishnachandra’, 28 October 1939.

13. ‘Letter to Harjivan Kotak’, 11 December 1927.

14. The authors offer a detailed account of Gandhi’s quest for the mother in his personal life and political activism.

15. ‘Self-control Again’, Harijan, 30 May 1936.

16. ‘Questions on Education–IV’, Navajivan, 24 June 1928.

17. ‘In Confidence’, Young India, 13 October 1920.

18. ‘Ethics of Destruction’, Young India, 1 September 1921.

19. ‘Influence of Attitudes’, Young India, 16 September 1926.

20. ‘Discussion with Students’, 21 July 1934.

21. ‘Letter to Raojibhai Patel’, 7 March 1914.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research [IMPRESS/P2124/689/18-19/ICSSR].

Notes on contributors

Chaitali Choudhury

Chaitali Choudhury is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in English. The primary focus of her research is on the concept of celibacy in Indian nationalist discourse. Recently, she published a research article entitled ‘Gandhi as “God’s eunuch”’ (2018) and a book chapter entitled ‘Gandhi’s passion and the poetics of non-violent India’ (2019).

Akshaya K. Rath

Akshaya K. Rath, Assistant Professor of English, has received his Ph.D. from the University of Hyderabad. He specializes in Indian Theology and Postcolonial Studies. Secret writings of Hoshang Merchant (2016) and Gay icons of India (2019) are his most recent books. His next book manuscript Across the black water: The Andaman archives is in press.