must read:Gandhi & son: A family tragedy

India is a country richly littered with sacred monuments, honoured traditions and shrines to the many gods worshipped by its people. But few things are held in such reverent awe as the memory of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation and the man rightly credited more than any other with achieving the country's independence.

On the occasion of his death, in 1948, Albert Einstein said of the man (whom he had never met but whose picture hung from his study wall): "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."

Meanwhile, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last British Viceroy of India and the man who oversaw the termination of British rule 60 years ago next month, said that Gandhi would "go down in history on a par with Buddha and Jesus Christ".

Now, nearly six decades after his death - assassinated by a Hindu radical, Nathuram Godse - Gandhi's life and personality are set to undergo an unprecedented and perhaps somewhat painful scrutiny as the result of a new movie that explores one of the more troubled and yet little-publicised aspects of the independence movement leader's life. The Indian film Gandhi, My Father, which opens next week, examines the troubled relationship between Gandhi and his eldest son, Harilal, who rebelled against his father and even converted briefly to Islam before his death as an alcoholic, shortly after Gandhi was shot dead as he walked in the grounds of Birla House in Delhi.

However cautious and honest the work, it was always likely there would be a backlash against any portrayal of a man whose memory for many should be beyond reproach. In India, where Gandhi was given the name Mahatma, or "great soul", as a mark of respect - he was actually born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi - there have already been rumblings of controversy. Devotees have called for the film to be scrapped and boycotted.

Letters have even been written to the country's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, as well as to the President and Minister for Information, demanding that they step in and stop the film's release.

Razi Ahmad, secretary of a museum dedicated to Gandhi in the Bihar city of Patna, said: "We strongly feel that the film should not be released. The name of Mahatma Gandhi or that of any other national leader should not be used for commercial purposes. It is against the law of the land. We are of the view that any attempt to tarnish the image of national heroes should not be permitted."

It is true that the controversy and disgruntlement have so far been limited. There have been no hunger strikes, no campaigns of civil disobedience or marches to the sea to make salt - all tactics adopted by Gandhi during the non-violent independence campaign that he led - but the concerns and comments of Mr Ahmad and those for whom he claims to speak are nonetheless insightful; for all the talk of a "new India" and for all the headlines one sees about its purported transformation into an economic superpower with its bright eyes fixed clearly on the 21st century, some things in this country remain fixed and unchanging.

"Gandhi wasn't the only driving force in Indian independence. However, he was the most loved because of his kindness to man and his courage of conviction," said one of Gandhi's biographers, the US-based Pat Marcello. "Neither the promise of imprisonment or death deterred him from making things right for his countrymen. Because of that, people trusted him and loved him. They believed that he cared so much. He was revered."

The film-makers insist they had no intention of doing anything to undermine such reverence and say that their movie does not portray Gandhi in a poor light - a view supported by a number of early reviews of the film. The actor Will Smith, who attended a screening, said he was "very impressed with the canvas of the film and the emotional intensity of the actors".

The Bollywood star Anil Kapoor, is the film's producer, told reporters: "We've shown the film to many Gandhians and Gandhi's relatives, including his great-grandson Tushar Gandhi. He had the highest praise for our film. I didn't make this film because I suddenly got interested in politics. I saw Gandhi, My Father as a great father-son story. And the minute I heard about it I wanted to do it. And the fact that the father was the father of the nation put this subject notches above the rut."

He said that his wife had wept as she read the script. He added: "There are innumerable works on Gandhi, yet his relationship with his family has not been explored enough. We've focused on this aspect of Gandhi's life, particularly on his relationship with Harilal."

The film, in English and Hindi, was shot over 100 days in India and South Africa, where Gandhi spent a number of crucial formative years. It is based partly on the play Mahatma vs Gandhi by Feroz Abbas Khan, who is the film's director. Leaning heavily on Chandulal Dalal's biography of Harilal, Khan supplemented the work with additional research, including interviews with Harilal's relatives. Yet Khan too insists that the film, set over the period 1906 to 1948, does not portray Gandhi unfavourably. "We have presented facts and are not making any judgements," he said.

Certainly, in India at least, some details of the difficult relationship between Gandhi and the eldest of his four sons are already known. Born in 1888, Harilal was refused permission by Gandhi to study law as he himself had done. To the London-educated Gandhi, preventing his son from following in his academic footsteps was an act of honourable defiance against the Western education system he had come to reject and he did not believe his son required such preparation for a life he presumed would be devoted to the struggle for freedom.

Yet Harilal rebelled against his father's influence and, perhaps, his exaltation by others as a man who could do no wrong. Later he converted to Islam and took the name Abdullah Gandhi in a move that many have seen as an act of rebellion against his father rather than a genuine religious conversion. He also sought to remarry after his wife's death, something of which his father did not approve.

In one bitter letter to his father, Harilal wrote: "In your laboratory of experiments, unfortunately, I am the one truth that has gone wrong ... Yours Harilal." Elsewhere, he wrote of the man whom Indians knew as "Bapu" or father: "He is the greatest father you have... but he is the one father I wish I did not have."

Gandhi, meanwhile, publicly deplored his son's "drink habit" and "habit of visiting houses of ill-fame". When Harilal became a Muslim, Gandhi wrote that "Harilal's apostasy is no loss to Hinduism and his admission to Islam a source of weakness to it," and suggested that, because of his debt problems, Harilal - who had also talked of converting to Christianity - had "gone over to the highest bidder".

If his conversion had been "from the heart and free from any worldly considerations,I should have no quarrel," he added, saying regretfully: "He still delights in sensation and in good living. If he had changed, he would have written to me to gladden my heart."

But Gandhi also blamed himself for having failed to connect with his first-born. The disappointment weighed heavily on him, as he himself admitted. "The greatest regret of my life ... Two people I could never convince - my Muslim friend Mohammed Ali Jinnah [a fellow independence activist who eventually pushed for the creation of a separate, Muslim-dominated country that became Pakistan] and my own son, Harilal Gandhi."

The flawed-but-human aspect of the Mahatma's story will perhaps come as something of a shock to those in the West whose perception of the man is gleaned mainly from another movie, Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 bio-epic featuring Ben Kingsley as the dhoti-wearing independence leader. While the international co-production received many plaudits - and secured eight Oscars, including best film and best actor - there is little doubt that it portrayed Gandhi in a overwhelmingly positive and almost saintly fashion. Little of his early life - and nothing about his relationship with his children - was shown.

Khan, director of the new, two-hour movie, which features Darshan Jariwala as Gandhi and Akshaye Khanna as his recalcitrant son, readily admits his portrayal will be different to that of Attenborough's, or at the very least that it will show a different side of Gandhi's life.

"Gandhi has always been compelling, complex and strangely contemporary. Sir Richard Attenborough introduced Mahatma to the West. I grew up understanding Gandhi through others till I discovered a deep wound he carried in his heart," he said in one recent interview. "Somewhere in the shadows of the great man lived his son, roaming the streets of India like a beggar. He converted to Islam and became Abdullah Gandhi as a rebellion, then reconverted to Hinduism as a penance, finally drinking himself to death. Mahatma Gandhi could transform the soul of a nation but couldn't save the soul of his own son."

Tellingly, the film has received the backing of many of Gandhi's family, some of whom have been involved with the production as consultants. They say the movie portrays a side of their relative that is often lost or ignored.

One of those involved in the promotion is Tushar Gandhi, a great-grandson. He said people inclined to criticise the film would do well to wait until they had seen it, rather than jumping to conclusions. "I have seen it. It is a very honest portrayal that I have admired. I like the balance shown," he said.

Of the mutterings of controversy that have come from India, he said: "I fail to understand it. Gandhi was a human being. We ought to be liberal enough to allow the facts. When you see the movie you not see anything negative. Rather you will feel for the pain and anguish he suffered."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2811639.ece