Godse has been turned into an epitome of evil, and Gandhiji put on a pedestal. Thus, we have little opportunity to study the two as human beings. Godse was both an assassin and a good man: he was as much an ascetic and a lover of the Bhagavad-Gita as was Gandhiji. Gandhiji was both a fascinating moral leader and a flawed politician. And Gandhiji is now etched in our memories as an extraordinary man in no small measure because he was assassinated and did not die a frustrated and bitter old man neglected by the country and Congress leaders.

Because he was assassinated, we now ignore the frailties and the follies of the Mahatma. Professor Bharat Gupt of Delhi University argues that Gandhiji's was an Indian medieval mindset, which sought personal salvation just like the followers of the Bhakti tradition. He sought to organise society for reasons of Bhakti rather than for social reform and control that previous Indian reformers had fought for and espoused. It is not that he disregarded social reform, like the new Dalit leaders proclaim. It was simply that for Gandhi social reform followed from individual change. That is why people like Ambedkar did not much care for Gandhiji's social movement.

But Gandhi's version of individual growth and enlightenment ignored the traditional Hindu version. His was a contrast from the classical Hindu vision of balance between the four stages of the individual life, brahmacharya, grihastya, vanaprastha and sannyasa (chaturashrama), and the four concerns of Hindus, dharma, artha, kama and moksha (purushaarthasI). His was a mind that was fairly ignorant of the ancient systems of Indian knowledge and arts, and hence his restrictive definition and view of the Hindu self. Gupt argues that Gandhiji's transition from the medieval to the modern without the understanding of the ancient led to his incomplete view of Indian history, culture, and mores.

Gandhiji defined satya (truth) and ahimsa (non-violence) as positivistic and absolutist respectively. In his autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, factual and ethical truth is equated with ultimate truth. But in the practice of ahimsa, a mystical force of non-violence is presumed to be experienced as ultimate truth that can bring about the change of heart in the opponent. In other words, his practice of truth or transparently right conduct acquires the mystical power of saving the self and the others. This is the medieval Vaishnava practice where surrender through right conduct "saves" the devotee. But as a political doctrine, this approach does not always deliver the change of heart in the opponent, let alone oneself. Thus, we observe Gandhiji's disappointing engagement not only with Muslims, Christians, the British, and the secular-millenarian Communists, but also with a large majority of Hindus too. Unless we understand clearly why Gandhiji evoked mixed responses, we will simply continue to deify him by building his statues and naming roads after him, and by ignoring him in our daily routines.

Similarly, Gandhian economics rests on sharing with the bhaktas the material wealth and regarding the owner as the trustee. It also rests on the principle that frugality is essential to keep the mind free for higher activity. The same is true of his attitude to sex. All these, of course, are/ were neither new nor strange in ascetic and spiritual practices. But to bring them into the public sphere and to insist that all Indians follow him was both the weakness and the arrogance of Gandhiji. Individual transformation is what is emphasised in Hindu spiritual practice. The organisation of society for pragmatic ends needed and needs a different approach. The utopian society that Gandhiji wanted to construct thus is not dissimilar to any other millenarian ideal, and therefore fraught with the same dangers.

Gandhiji, strangely enough, was not averse to pragmatism. He wrote a lot, he traveled enough, and he put himself in the limelight often so that the world would not ignore him. Even in the modest India collection at our university, there are shelves overflowing with Gandhiana. While the Catholic Church will not anoint him a saint anytime soon, he is already sainted by the world which frowns upon any criticism of him, and which then promptly ignores him.

On 30 January, Martyrdom Day, we heard from his personal assistant, Venkita Kalyanam, that Gandhiji did not die uttering, "Hey Ram." Unfortunately, that particular observation will not make our historians and textbook writers to stop incorporating that "myth". Gandhi, in the Indian land of make-believe, has been conveniently added to pantheon of mythic figures.

Ramesh Rao is Professor of Communications at Longwood University, Virginia, USA.