After watching Hey Ram and seeing the interesting portrayal of Gandhi, I decided to rent gandhi last night. Though many Indians even warned me that the image of Jinnah showed in the movie is not very positive, I still decided to go for it. I must say Ben Kingsley did an excellent job as Gandhi, the role of Jinnah played by a grouchy looking guy was not good. The qiad was never like that. He was actually a very cheerful person. And another thing I would like to add is that the film was the story from the point of view of Gandhi and Jinnah’s point of view wasnt shown. It wasn’t yold why the Qiad left the congress. Why did he demand a separate homeland for Muslims and well before that why did the Qaid demand home rule. And last but not least, what were the causes behind the Qaid leaving Muslim league. Though I admit that Gandhi preached non vilence, but a movement like the non co-operation movement obviously was to cause problems and all the blame was given to Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s direct action day!
Gandhi's failure to avoid partition on communal grounds is one of major events in his life from subcontinental point of view. But Gandhi's appeal in west does not have much to do with these things which are considered minor political events of regional significance. The reason why Gandhi influenced Mandela or Ho Chi Minh or freedom movements all over the world and we continue to see his influence on liberal left in US, is the moralistic, uncompromising and brutally honest stand he took. This description may not appeal some people who continue to dub him a hoax and hypocrite. But this viewpoint continues to be minority. Certain things like nonviolence which are in fact rooted in Indian thoughts (From Buddha to Mahavira to vegetarianism) came as a distinct interesting viewpoint to west. His ideas of sulf sufficient villages, trusteeships and so on were quite novel. He gave a political and economic model which was not followed by govt. in later times and rightly so. Most of it seems wrong now.
But that was time, in 30's when west started idolizing sportsmen and celebrating weapons and here was a man who wrecked the British empire by picking up salt on beach, (at least that was perceptio. The person who was assighned the job finalizing partition plan did not meet Gandhi since he believed thT gandhi was responsible for breakup of the empire.)
Muslim League popularity and election victories were only for few years, 3-4 years. Congress leaders, apart from Gandhi felt it would be better to let it go than facing the civil war.