A Critical Review of Mahatma Gandhi's Letters on Brahmacharya Sexuality and Love, edited by Girja Kumar

Gandhi – A man who has never been ordinary practically his entire life. And the list of reasons that made him the same is almost an inexhaustive list, and continues to grow even 75 years after his death. Because as we dig deeper, we find newer and even more astonishing facts about him, his mind, and his actions. Gandhi was an imperfect Brahmachari, as he claimed the same. His views on Sexuality need a better word than mere ‘controversial’. His understanding of Love is still far ahead of our time to make sense of. This paper reviews and critically analyzes Girja Kumar’s book – Mahatma Gandhi’s Letters on Brahmacharya Sexuality and Love. The paper becomes an essential guide to all the readers aspiring to read the book, and at the same time, it also coexists as a topic of discussion on its contents, post the read. It decodes and critically analyses Gandhi’s letters and gives a meaningful insight into the nature of his conversations with some important people in his life. It also discusses the observations of his core nature in general, and reviews the author’s take on him. His letters on Brahmarcharya, Sexuality and Love take us through a never-seen-before journey in which we see an even more ‘Gandhian’ version of Gandhi.