Sarojini Naidu

For example, when it came to gender and caste, when it came to gender, as you mentioned a while back and you've detailed in your book, you know, he was quite happy to have them in the party.

He helped Sarojini Naidu become Congress president in 1925.

But at the same time, he felt that they have to play a different role than their men.

He had a very traditional notion of what women should do and what men should not do.

And he's shouted down by Gandhi supporters, and he walks out of the hall and takes a train back to Mumbai.

And ever since then, he's a kind of a antagonist and rival of Gandhi's.

I mean, one cannot square the Jinnah whom Sarojini Naidu called the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity in the late 19-teens to the Jinnah of the 1930s and 40s, who says Hindus and Muslims can't live together.

I mean, it's not as if anything has changed in his life to accept possibly this bitter rivalry with Gandhi.

I'm quoting from Ram's book, as I will at other points.

And now, you know, you look at Gandhi and you see that, okay, He enabled Sarojini Naidu to become the first woman president of the Congress, I think around 1925.

But at the same time, he wasn't quite for them playing a role in public protests.

At one point, he said, quote, women alone can work and achieve great things among women.

massively for Rana and I think it became much less later on by the time the Charkha requirement came in so I don't think the Charkha was a great symbol but you know he did all of these different things it's not just a membership fee why should anyone want to join you know he captured the mass imagination in a way that no other leader can he spoke in a simple language he dressed simply he lived simply it is not the case of a politician wearing kurta pajama but going around in a Rolls Royce Phantom.

He lived a simple life.

Though I think Sarojini Naidu once said that it takes a fortune to keep the Mahatma in poverty.

You know, Birla used to play a fortune just to book out an entire railway coach so he can travel undisturbed.