Ashraf Engineer
February 22, 2022
There has been much research and conversation about Gandhi and his impact on India and the world but not as much effort has been devoted to his first disciple and the greatest influence on him – his wife, Kastur, or Kasturba as she came to be known. She was an extraordinary woman, one who gave up her traditional life to take on great hardship and sacrifice to support her husband. It’s unfortunate that she’s often referred to as a mere footnote in history but the truth is that she was a huge factor in all of Gandhi’s work and had a larger impact on the Freedom Struggle than most believe. The objective of this six-part series, ‘Kastur: In Gandhi’s Shadow, His Guiding Light’, is to know the woman who was his greatest constant and harshest critic.
Where did she come from? What was her childhood like? What was it like to live and grow up with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi? And what was her contribution to India’s freedom? To understand all this, we have Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of the Mahatma, an author, a peace activist and someone who’s striving to keep Gandhi relevant in today’s India. Tushar is also writing a book on Kasturba called ‘Kastur Ni Diary’, which will give us an even greater insight into her psyche.
