Mahatma Gandhi, to me, had always been a very great man - the father of the nation, who won India her independence from the British through non-violent means. I had read about him in school, attended the local Oct 2 Gandhi Jayanti functions, and watched Richard Attenborough's 1982 movie Gandhi.

When I watched Gandhi again in the library during NTU days in Singapore, I was impressed by Ben Kingsley.

It was only in 2002 when I read Gandhi's autobiography - The Story of My Experiments with Truth, that I understood Gandhi better. Most importantly, it showed me how ordinary he was, as opposed to the saintly and unreachable person. In a lot of ways, I found his first 25 years of life not much different from my first 25 years. With this knowledge of Gandhi as an ordinary man who did extraordinary things, I found Gandhi more approachable, more reacheable.

Gandhi's message appers lost in Modern India

In present day India, despite being the Father of the Nation, you find very few people who truly understand or appreciate Gandhi. These people and happenings fall in one of three broad categories:

1) Our history books, numerous statues and M.G. Roads all over the country, and speeches by politicians spell out that Gandhi is the father of the nation - got us independence from the British by non-violent means. After the speech, they go back to their comfortable, corrupt zones. Young children and adults say, "Great! Gandhi was great!". I can't be like Gandhi.

Gandhi was not born great or saintly. He managed to do the unimaginable just by pure resolve. If he could do it, so can you and I. Gandhi's methods need to be adopted in our institutions, organisations and in our lives and thinking.

2) There are this present crop of Shiv Sena/VHP-inspired youths who believe Gandhi was the cause of partition resulting in India and Pakistan (Gandhi would have wanted to erase boundries from all of earth and make it a free land for all humanity. He was the last person who can be accused of advocating partition) and think he is irrelevant. There have been reports of history books in Gujarat being tampered with and attempts at belittling Gandhi's contributions.

These youths forget that these, and the western media, are the very people responsible for coining phrases like 'Hindu Fundamentalist'. There is nothing fundamentalist in the whole of Hinduism. Hinduism, in its very essence, is tolerance. Gandhi, his methods and teachings, message of universal tolerance, acceptance and love, is far more relevant today in our world of Osama Bin Ladens, Sept 11, Iraq invasions and terrorist threats.

3) There are others, many modern-day Indian youths, who don't know the A, B, C of Gandhi (except for some distorted facts) and for whom it has become fashionable to criticize Gandhi.

If you must criticise Gandhi, please do. But first, please go and read his autobiography and one or two biographies. Then feel free to criticise as much as you need to.