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Gandhi's message, like his life, must be understood within the context of Indian history. He was born into a wealthy Hindu family and went through all the customs of the time. His marriage at age 13 was merely the most striking example of this. I n his autobiography, he writes that he was lustful back then, spending a great deal of time fantasizing about the moment he would have consummated his marriage with his young wife. While he was living through it, however, those things seemed normal to him. His judgment is formed after a long personal journey of engagement with many other experiences: his years of study in Britain, the period when he practiced law in South Africa, and his exposure to many different realities. When Gandhi was assassinated, India was not the country it is today, but it had changed enormously from the one he had known as a child -- and he played a major role in the changes that took place. We think what is missing in many discussions of Gandhi is that while he has a very important moral message some of his other ideas are questionable. His message worked in British India with its developing democratic institutions. It would not have worked against 20th century totalitarians (the Japanese militarists, NAZIs, or Communists. He was also badly wrong about economics. We think the interesting question about the modern India that Gandhi helped create can become a modern high income country like Europe, America, and Japan. Here there are a range of opinions. India is a vast and diverse country. Some believe that it's nearly impossible for it to transform rapidly or even entirely. India has made huge progress in developing a modern education system. A reader reports reading on The Hindu's website about a village in Andhra Pradesh where there is no primary school, and the children have to walk to the school in the neighboring village, which is accessible only via a crude forest trail. In the cities, on the other hand, there are top-notch schools. We think this is a major impediment. We think what is also important is that large numbers of Indians do not believe in
capitalism and cling to traditionalist and socialist beliefs. There is, however, no modern country with high income that has not got there through capitalism. The Asia Tigers for example that have made the transformation to modernity are those that have gone the furthest toward developing a capitalist economy.
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. The Story of My Experiments with Truth.
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