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This month's edition of Commentary has a review of Gandhi which is; like much of Commentary's output, viciously irreverent, openly combative and extraordinarily well-written. Richard Grenier, who has been the journal's regular moviegoer for a little over four years, takes a hatchet to the movie with great glee...
Grenier is politically conservative and unabashedly elitist; his review includes quite a bit of sniping at Indian and Hindu culture. But much of the material deals with facts culled from the various biographies and writing of the real Mohandas K. Gandhi--and any way you look at it. Grenier seems correct in saying that the movie took quite a few liberties with the facts. Those who found Gandhi beautiful, inspiring and enchanting should consider the following...
...movie, which portrays Gandhi as utterly chaste, seems to have left out scenes from real life of the Indian leader's young female followers fighting amongst each other for the honor of sleeping naked with Gandhi and cuddling him in their arms. This was his way of testing his vow of abstinence in preparation for coming struggles which required moral fortitude. Nor is mention made of the daily enemas Gandhi gave the young girls, or the enemas and nude massages they gave him each...
While the movie accurately depicts Gandhi's successful organization of Indians in South Africa against the state's apartheid laws, it skirts a key issue: what about the Africans? It turns out Gandhi's concern with racial discrimination was limited to Indians--in fact, he offered to organize a brigade of Indians to help the English colonial rulers crush an African rebellion. On a related note, we never see how Gandhi (Sergeant-Major Gandhi) earned a War Medal from the British Empire for valor under fire while assisting the violent suppression of South African Blacks...
...government of India not only funded one-third of the movie from its treasury, but former Prime Minister Pandit Nehru and present Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (no relation to the Mahatma), along with other Indian officials, made suggestions on script, screenplay and casting, and rechecked the product throughout the shooting. This may in part account for the unfavorable light shone on Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan...