Mahatma Betrayed

Mahatma Betrayed is a study of the gradual decline of Gandhi’s charismatic political power after the withdrawal of Non-cooperation Movement in 1922. The period between 1922 and 1942 discussed in the present work deals with the conspiracies running behind the scenes without the knowledge of Gandhi, who abhorred secrecy in public life. Gandhi was not a power seeker but many including his trusted lieutenants, who had no faith in his philosophy of ‘truth’ and non-violence’, surrounded him. The sharp division of Gandhi’s followers into right and left wings prompted the British administrators to manipulate the Congress policies in accordance with their imperial interests. Grossly apprehensive of Gandhi’s conception of future India, the right wing of the Congress, mostly comprising capitalist and industrial tenancies of Congress, joined hands with the British administrators to stop formation of any close linked alliance between Gandhi and the left wing of the Congress. Many of those Mahaatma’s men were in fact the King’s men. Based on official documents, correspondences, memoirs and diaries, the book argues that Mahatma, who galvanized the dumb million poor and rural folk of India into a political force, seldom witnessed in the human history, failed to understand his own power hungry close associates, who hobnobbed with the British administration and turned the course of Indian history. The book reveals for the first time such glaring and astonishing facts and incidents and will be of immense interest to common readers, politicians, historians, political scientists and activists.