Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi, spoke about his grandfather's weaknesses and despite having them, what made the Mahatma great.
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00:00He was a scamp. He was lying to his parents. He was stealing money from home.
00:07He was eating meat. He was smoking cigarettes and doing all kinds of things.
00:12He had all the weaknesses of any teenage kid.
00:32But the difference between him and the rest of us is that he realized that these are weaknesses.
00:41He was a very loving grandfather and he was very approachable.
00:45That is what I think about now and wonder how he was able to give me the same amount of time and respect and attention
00:58as he would give the leaders of the movement.
01:03With all the people in the ashram, when they came to him with sometimes ridiculous questions,
01:13he never laughed them off or got annoyed or anything.
01:18He very patiently answered those questions.
01:22In non-violence, if you don't go and suffer and lead the protest from up front like Gandhi did, then it can't succeed.
01:41You can't sit in your office and command other people to do something which you are not doing yourself.
01:51One of the reasons why we perpetuate violence is because we always want to control people at every level.
02:00And the easiest way to control people is through fear. It's quick.
02:05Politicians are controlling the nation through fear.
02:09We are controlling other nations through fear of armed forces.
02:14Fear is the basis of control.
02:17But non-violence requires us to build a relationship of love and mutual respect.
02:25And that control through love and mutual respect is much more lasting and much more civilized way of dealing with it than controlling people through fear.
02:44What are the weaknesses of Gandhi?
02:49I think it's our own weaknesses that make us criticize.
02:54We haven't really understood what he was trying to do and how he was trying to do it.
03:00He didn't force anybody to do those experiments with him.
03:05They did it with understanding and agreement.
03:11Some people have even accused him of being a racist because he used the derogatory terms of Kapur in his early writings.
03:23I wouldn't call it racism because racism is where you believe in what you hate and you perpetuate that hate.
03:32In his case, it was ignorance.
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