I remember meeting Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi more than 30 years ago, when he came down to Chennai to preside over the New Leader Awards function. He must have been in his late 50s then. Spending time with the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who has fully imbibed his values and ways, was an uplifting and inspiring experience.
Born on 7 August 1935 in New Delhi, Rajmohan Gandhi was the third son of Devdas Gandhi, who was the fourth and the youngest son of Mahatma Gandhi. Rajmohan’s mother, Lakshmi Gandhi, was the daughter of C. Rajagopalachari, a leading figure in India’s struggle for independence, who later became the second Governor General of India, after Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Like his father who was the Editor of Hindustan Times, Rajmohan took to writing and journalism. He has written 14 books. His biography of his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire, received the Biennial Award from the Indian History Congress in 2007. His biography of his maternal grandfather, Rajagopalachari won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2002. It was called, Rajaji: A Life, a Biography of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878–1972). Apart from Gandhiji and Rajagopalachari, he has written biographies of Ghaffar Khan and Vallabhbhai Patel.
Right from 1956 he has been associated with what was then called Moral Re-Armament, a movement that strives to promote mutual trust, reconciliation and democracy and to fight corruption and inequality. It is now called Initiatives of Change. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Rajmohan played a leading role in establishing Asia Plateau, the conference centre of Initiatives of Change in Panchgani, in the mountains of western India.
Fr Joe Antony SJ
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