This website is dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi who remains the single biggest influence in my life.

For people of my generation, Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most significant figures of the twentieth century - perhaps the greatest Indian since Buddha. Thanks to his political genius, Indians united as never before in history and rose against British colonial rule; the British who were, earlier, bragging about a thousand years for their empire were made to realise that it was wiser to leave India peacefully soon than to be pushed out violently. In the sixty years since Gandhi's death, his ideas of non-violent freedom struggle have been influential in mass movements against oppression everywhere: Martin Luther King's struggle against American racism and Nelson Mandela's struggle against South Africa's apartheid are just two examples.

But Gandhi was an experimenter - a seeker of truth - in everything he did. As such, he never claimed infallibility. In fact he often agonised about many of his own actions and was never afraid to admit his mistakes. You only have to read his autobiography to see that. To the so called Gandhians who claim to know what Gandhi would have done in this or that situation, I can only say that Gandhi would have asked you to do what, you thought, was right. In today's world, truth is reached through careful research and that is where Gandhi would have directed us if we were having difficulty in deciding.

Gandhi's methods of fighting the British raj were borne of what was possible in his day for an enslaved people. For example, khadi or hand-woven clothes were symbols of what Indians could make with their own hands which proved to be a very effective weapon against mass-produced cloth-imports from Britain. It helped India's freedom struggle in two ways: firstly, it built Indian self-confidence by producing our clothes ourselves; secondly, it hit the British where it hurt them most by freezing their textile exports to India. The situation has changed since independence. India is now one of world's leading textile manufacturers. Khadi has no longer the symbolism that it once had.

Satyagraha or non-violent non-cooperation is another misunderstood term. Gandhi justified non-cooperation with the British government in India on the premise that the British rule was immoral and therefore laws made by the British in India had no moral authority. Today's satyagrahis are misquoting Gandhi when they justify flouting of laws made by democratically elected Indian governments. This is not Gandhism by any stretch of imagination!

Albert Einstein was electrified by Gandhi. So were Romain Rolland, Bertrand Russell and George Bernard Shaw. But if Gandhi's contemporaries were mesmerised by him, Gandhi's name today invokes respect and admiration all over the world. No wonder so many unlikely people are at pains to compare themselves with Gandhi and so many critics are quick to retort, "He is no Gandhi". India's own ruling family has benefited from its Gandhian surname although not a single one of them has ever seen Gandhi or knows what Gandhi or Gandhism means.

Gandhi's name has now become synonymous with purity, simplicity, peace and mutual respect. These are universal human values. Gandhism as a timeless search for truth has a universal appeal. Gandhi is not just my hero; he is the hero of a vast humanity right across the world.

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