Dutta and Robinson examine, as they must, Tagores arguments with Gandhi, but do so in an extraordinarily one-sided way, taking

upon themselves the roles, simultaneously, of prosecutor, judge, jury, and hangwoman. Poisonous remarks about Gandhi pepper their narrative: indeed, in one sentence alone they call him narrowly-read, reactionary, anti-scientist, Indian chauvinist, and, most astonishingly of all, a stay-at-home. Between that unnamed editor of the Bangabasi and Messrs Dutta-Robinson lies a long unbroken history of bhadralok resistance to Gandhi. Recall the famous argument between M.N Roy and V.I Lenin in the early twenties, when the Russian recognized the power and promise of Gandhis movement, but the Indian dismissed him at a tool of the bourgeoisie. Roys characterization became the Marxist orthodoxy, resurfacing two decades later in the attacks on the Gandhi in the influential book India Today, authored by the Bengali Londoner Rajni Palme Dutt. Roy himself abandoned Marxism but continued to hold Gandhi in low esteem. Like that other great critic of the Mahatma, George Orwell, it was only his martyrdom that made Roy moderate his life-long distrust of the man. The reasons for the bhadralok hatred of Gandhi have been many and various. One think that envy, the fact that a man he considered of lower intelligence than himself had the masses in his thrall, was at the root of the Roys dislike of the Gandhi. But Roy also has his less subjective reasons, which were more widely shared. For the progressive, especially Marxist, intelligentsia of Bengal, Gandhi was too enamoured of tradition and too prone too religious imagery to be a reliable guide to the new society. There was also his philosophy of non-violence, which sat uncomfortably with a people who wished above all to wish away there typification of the British as a non-martial race. While they rejected satyagraha, the bhadrlok supported swadeshi; only they said, with reason that they had thought it long before Gandhi. In any case, bhadralok icons cultivated bodybuilding and bomb throwing, not fasting and satyagrah. This is true even when the critic had not the body or the bombs, as with Nirad Choudhry, whose outburst against Gandhi are directed chiefly at ahimsa. There are even Bengalis who complain that it was due to Gandhi that cricket and not football became Indias national game. The greatest of Gandhis bhadralok adversaries was, of course, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Bose admirers will tell you the deep deception practiced on him by the mahatm, which

led to the Bengali being ousted on 1939 from the presidency of the congress, an office Bose had won in an fair election. That episode certainly does not do much credit to Gandhi, but it must also be said that he had no reason to love or trust Bose. For some years prior to the struggle over the Congress Presidency, Bose had made public his low opinion of Gandhis intellect and leadership qualities. He thought that the old dog had his day, and must make way forthwith for the young lion himself. Boses challenge to Gandhi brought together the various strands of the bhadralok envy, rationality, the belief in science and violence. In his book The Indian Struggle, published in 1935, he criticized Gandhi for beholden to capitalists, and for for exploiting many of the weak traits in the character of the countrymen which had accounted to Indias downfall to a greater extent. The traits encouraged by Gandhi were Indias inordinate belief In fate and the supernatural her indifference to the modern warfare, the peaceful contentment endangered by her latter day philosophy and adherence to the Ahimsa carried to the most absurd length. His fair-minded biographer Leonard Gordon, writes that Bose felt that in her struggle against the British, India needed a strong, vigorous, military type leader perhaps even himself- not a hesitating. Confused, reformist guru. Gordon also notes that Boses outspoken criticism of colleagues was not to do him any good in the future. For all his reservations, Bose always called Gandhi Mahatma-not, it must be underlined, with mocking irony, but with respect. Other critics in Bengal and elsewhere have tended to refer to him, in prints, as M.K Gandhi . Indeed, the refusal to use the honorific has united revolutionary Marxist with right reactionaries. Between 1921 and 1947 nationalist newspapers would speak only of the Mahatma, but their colonialist counterparts, as for instance The Times Of India and the The Statesman, would write only of M.K Gandhi, no doubt on the grounds that that was how he was referred to in the police and the prison records of the Raj. After 15 August 1947 these newspapers guiltily abandoned the less respectful usage, In part to curry favour with the new Congress rulers and in part in response to pressure from readers. When The Telegraph was found in 1982 under the auspicious of a publishing house with impeccable nationalist credentials, it yet made it its practice to refer always to the

Mahatma as M.K. Gandhi. Was this, one wonders, simply a republican reflex, or did it also owe something to a long history of bhadralok aversion? The Netaji, who did not allow doctrinal and other disputes to come in the way of due respect, is a good one for The Telegraph to follow. It would also have before it the example of Gurudev, the man who first approved sanctified and made popular the title by which Gandhi was henceforth known. If the greatest of all the Bengalis thought to call the greatest of modern Indians Mahatma, this should be good enough for the rest of Bengal, bhadraloks and all.