Priyanka Rai traces Mahatma Gandhi's descendants scattered around the world and across many domains of human endeavour
Much is known about the non-violent movement Mahatma Gandhi led for India’s independence but little is known about the family of the Father of the Nation. Gandhi's 120 direct descendants live in five nations across the world. They do everything from selling computer software to working for NASA. The youngest child of Gandhi’s eldest son Harilal, Renu, is an architect, has done her masters from Berkeley University and now works in a village near Ahmedabad. But none of the members of the family got anywhere close to accomplishing the great deeds of their illustrious ancestor. It is not easy being descendants of the Mahatma. “Mahatma is not in the genes”, says Tushar Gandhi, his great grandson. “Greatness and popularity are not hereditary. So it is not quite in order to have great expectations of the descendants of a great man. Popularity or fame depends on what we do and achieve as individuals.”
Asked about the rest of his extended family, he says, “By and large my cousins are private people and believe in doing their own work quietly. They deliberately chose to remain private. It started from my grandfather’s time. All the four children of Gandhi deliberately led low-key lives and their children followed their example.” Tushar says that he is the most ‘notorious’ of them all but has realised that he does not have the qualities to be a politician. Tushar is the son of US-based Prof. Arun Gandhi, whose father Mani Lal was the Mahatma's second son. Tushar had contested the 1998 Lok Sabha elections on a Samajwadi Party ticket and lost. He is the second member of the Mahatma's family to try his luck in politics, the first being his uncle Rajmohan Gandhi, son of Mahatma Gandhi’s youngest son Devdas, who was fielded by the Janata Dal against Rajiv Gandhi in Amethi in 1989. He was defeated and became a Rajya Sabha member before disappearing from the political stage. Tushar runs the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation in Mumbai and is working for a project of building a shelter and school for rescued child labourers in the twon of Kolhapur.
Most members of Mahatma Gandhi’s clan may not be in the limelight today but they are all doing well in different sectors. In their own quiet way they are serving not just their own country but the world. Significantly, the Mahatma’s four sons were deprived of formal education. In fact they are just what the Mahatma would have wanted them to be. They were not allowed formal education which would have provided them with their own choice of livelihood. The boys were schooled at home. Gandhi had mentioned this in his autobiography that he didn’t want to give his children what other children could not get. Gandhi’s contacts would have secured them places in the best European schools but he never wanted any favour for his family. But today his extended family includes lawyers, medical professionals, teachers, professors and scientists.
Much is known about the non-violent movement Mahatma Gandhi led for India’s independence but little is known about the family of the Father of the Nation. Gandhi's 120 direct descendants live in five nations across the world. They do everything from selling computer software to working for NASA. The youngest child of Gandhi’s eldest son Harilal, Renu, is an architect, has done her masters from Berkeley University and now works in a village near Ahmedabad. But none of the members of the family got anywhere close to accomplishing the great deeds of their illustrious ancestor. It is not easy being descendants of the Mahatma. “Mahatma is not in the genes”, says Tushar Gandhi, his great grandson. “Greatness and popularity are not hereditary. So it is not quite in order to have great expectations of the descendants of a great man. Popularity or fame depends on what we do and achieve as individuals.”
Asked about the rest of his extended family, he says, “By and large my cousins are private people and believe in doing their own work quietly. They deliberately chose to remain private. It started from my grandfather’s time. All the four children of Gandhi deliberately led low-key lives and their children followed their example.” Tushar says that he is the most ‘notorious’ of them all but has realised that he does not have the qualities to be a politician. Tushar is the son of US-based Prof. Arun Gandhi, whose father Mani Lal was the Mahatma's second son. Tushar had contested the 1998 Lok Sabha elections on a Samajwadi Party ticket and lost. He is the second member of the Mahatma's family to try his luck in politics, the first being his uncle Rajmohan Gandhi, son of Mahatma Gandhi’s youngest son Devdas, who was fielded by the Janata Dal against Rajiv Gandhi in Amethi in 1989. He was defeated and became a Rajya Sabha member before disappearing from the political stage. Tushar runs the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation in Mumbai and is working for a project of building a shelter and school for rescued child labourers in the twon of Kolhapur.
Most members of Mahatma Gandhi’s clan may not be in the limelight today but they are all doing well in different sectors. In their own quiet way they are serving not just their own country but the world. Significantly, the Mahatma’s four sons were deprived of formal education. In fact they are just what the Mahatma would have wanted them to be. They were not allowed formal education which would have provided them with their own choice of livelihood. The boys were schooled at home. Gandhi had mentioned this in his autobiography that he didn’t want to give his children what other children could not get. Gandhi’s contacts would have secured them places in the best European schools but he never wanted any favour for his family. But today his extended family includes lawyers, medical professionals, teachers, professors and scientists.
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