Well.. on my browser (firefox) np links don't work, some sort of security warning. Here's that comment.
Summoned by /u/UA_Tsaug .
The Gandhi and underage girls is much weirder than most folks realize.
Gandhi was old and needed the help of young girls to walk etc as companion. So far so good. ( he asked for similar aid for his wife after her heart attack in prison) They were usually family as well (eg his grand niece, Manu). He, his companions and other folks around usually all slept on a mat on the floor at night. Being the tropics, everyone was lightly clothed, at night...
This is the point that many critics Hitchens et al jump on sleeping with nearly naked girls or naked girls or naked with girls, and it is completely mistaken and off.
Gandhi commonly wore just a dhoti/loincloth out of sympathy with the poor for later part of his life. Sleeping on a mat together communally is also common in India, even today, it makes it tougher for a husband and bride to get their sexy_times. So far so good, but we must go deeper.
Gandhi felt that he had transcended normal householder married state to the traditional last state of life in India, that of a brahmacharya. A brahmacharya is an ascetic who has renounced worldly pleasures but may get involved as advisor. Look around ancient India and even the current saffron party, and you can find putative examples.
Gandhi felt that as a brahmacharya he had transcended temptation and that this gave him a unique spiritual and political force to change society and government.
He used to bathe the girls, (as a father did or as a brahmacharya) . He wanted to write of this in his magazine (he edited it also), probably to show his credentials, but his wife and friends managed to dissuade him, as they felt it would be damaging rather than add to his moral authority., and would undermine the other social and Hindu causes and changes he advocated ( much/most of which was very worthy)
Good call, you say ?
Now was there anything sleazy going on ? Definitely not stuff you want to talk about. Also keep in mind that the girls were usually family. One could argue that many unfortunate hings happen in families, or that this was not like that,; instead let us ask.: Did he actually do anything ?
Keep in mind that Gandhi had massive hangups with sex ever since his father died while he was having sexy times with his wife. Also keep in mind that very late in life, amid the birth and growth of modern India, he woke up with night wood and was so stricken and pissed that he went on a week long vow of silence. Mountbatten remarked on it when they met at that time. It is documented record. For a guy who thought himself a bramachari, who tried to practice what he preached, to have evidence to the contrary, supposedly after many years, it is completely in keeping with why he was so panic stricken.
And that is why I believe that ultimately he is innocent of the darkest charge, that he should have not tried to put into practice his belief in this area ( but then it would be difficult to ask that of Gandhi, the author of the story of my experiments with truth and be the change you want to see in this world, who forced his wife to clean toilets like he and others did as a matter of principle and almost threw her out when she objected), while the most common charge of this practice is baseleless in context.