Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry

 Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry by Arthur Herman

Read: April 2021

Churchill was 5 years younger than Gandhiji, their lives entangled with each other for about 40 odd years. Both could not have been more different persons than each other. One was the last of Victorian era imperialists, and the other hell bent on wrecking the empire on which the sun never set.

What this book brings out is the kind of insanity it brought out in an otherwise hard-nosed, rational Churchill. Even in the midst of the ‘Battle of Britain, he used to go mad with rage on the topic of giving any quarter to what he derisively called the ‘half naked fakir’. His colleagues could never understand his overwhelming hatred for Gandhiji, the kind of which Churchill did not display even for Hitler.

Churchill was the son of an aristocrat cum politician, Randolph Churchill, from the famous house of Marlborough. His mother was an American. Senior Churchill had high political ambitions, becoming Secretary of India and annexing Burma, the last major territorial expansion for the imperial Britain. However, he died early at the age of 46 and had a deep impact on Winston who was struggling at that time with his studies.

Interestingly, Churchill's intellectual growth happened while he was doing his military duty posted in India where he devoured books like a possessed soul and wrote his first book. He saw some fighting on Afghan border but gained his military fame in Sudan and in Boer Wars. He had a flair for self promotion and political ambition like his father.

Gandhiji, on the other hand lived mostly a non-descript life till he reached the English shores for his law studies. It is there that he was sucked into his life long quest of spirituality. Against the popular myth about his South African politics, he was mostly a failure there. But he understood what kind of politics he wanted to do. Even when he came back to India, he was mostly in the shadows of Congress stalwarts like Tilak and Gokhale. It was a chance meeting in Lucknow that took him to Champaran which launched the most fabled political career of 20th century.

Gandhiji and Churchill rarely crossed paths with each other, with Churchill becoming the PM in 1940, by which time Gandhiji was well past his political prime. But even before for about 30 years, they crossed swords with each other in various capacities like a warrior dance.

This book points out in no uncertain terms the gulf between the two adversaries: Gandhiji was a man with modest talents with deep spiritual moorings. On the other hand Churchill was a brilliant scholar, decorated soldier, statesman, aristocrat, had great power and responsibilities all his adult life. One thing both of them had oodles of iron will, a fearlessness to sacrifice everything. And when the two clashed, it became a story for ages.