Paternity claims

What differentiates India's 1857 War of Independence from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's Satyagraha movement, apart from the fact that one was successful in getting rid of the British while the other failed miserably? It can't just be the body count, nor even the success or failure of the movements. Rather, if one goes by Tom Lodge's examination of Nelson Mandela's life, it was Gandhi's ability to marry the "traditional" (Hindu) with the "modern" (read western Christian theology), according himself a messianic role that could serve to lift the Indian freedom movement to great moral heights, which in turn could grant it the ability to overcome British rule.

It's no secret that Nelson Mandela, the hero of the South African freedom struggle, was and is a great admirer of Gandhi's, and if one goes by Lodge's account of his life, then he picked up more than a few political lessons from him. In this rather exhaustively researched and interpretation-heavy book, Lodge argues that Mandela too worked self-consciously to create a messianic aura around himself""not for any personal aggrandisement, but because he felt it would give the South African struggle a moral edge.

Mandela, originally from the ruling family of the Xhosa tribe, realises very early in life that he could never be the ruler of an oppressed people. In contrast with the ritualised routine of his life in the royal kraal, his education at the largely Methodist school he attends creates almost opposing streams of the African and the modern South African in him. Lodge argues that just as Gandhi gave a unifying set of symbols to British India through his charkha, satyagraha and his near missionary way of life at Sabarmati Ashram, so too did Mandela. He gave Africans a rallying point in his defiance of the Xhosa tribe while also advocating a wider case for tribal democracy, a kind of discursive democracy which owed more to his Xhosa upbringing than Methodist teachings.

The book, however, is over-analytical and attributes a pre-meditation to Mandela, which, while flattering to the subject of the book, could hardly be true. Admittedly, his leadership had elements of not just tribal life but also the dominant Afrikaans as well""as an attempt to build a pan-African identity (like the lingua franca tack familiar to English upholders in India). But this could be a reflection of his own upbringing and personality rather than a strategic attempt.

Mandela fought one of the toughest colonial regimes in the world. Surely even he could not have envisaged the journey that would make South Africa one of the last countries in the world to break free of state-institutionalised domestic racism.

Our own experience in India should show that the cultural schizophrenia which colonial rule engenders can manifest itself in wholly uncontrollable ways.

The reconceptualisation of South Africa as a multi-racial society committed to equality and integration (the "Truth and Reconciliation" agenda) was as much an ideological imperative as it was practical. The exodus of skilled managers and technicians that other African countries saw upon gaining freedom must have been fresh on Mandela's mind.

This is a book for those already familiar with the barebones of Mandela's life and leadership. For my money, I would take Stanley Walpole's The Passion of Mahatma Gandhi over this book any day.

MANDELA A CRITICAL LIFE

Tom Lodge
Oxford University Press,
New York
Price: Rs 745; Pages: 273