Gandhi's Grandson.

• Author: Pal, Amitabh
• Position: Rajmohan Gandhi - Interview - Essay

It isn't easy being the grandson of a global icon, but Rajmohan Gandhi has been able to come through just fine. In his long and varied career as a journalist, politician, activist, and scholar, Rajmohan hasn't let his family legacy weigh him down.

"On balance, it's been wonderfully positive," Rajmohan tells me during a genial conversation at his apartment in Urbana, where he's been teaching at the University of Illinois since 2002. Tall, with a full head of hair and a clean-shaven face, Rajmohan at first glance bears only a passing resemblance to the almost-mythic proponent of nonviolence.

"We grandchildren have had the benefits without much of the burden," he says. "It must have been much worse for his sons--my father and his siblings."

As indeed it was. Mahatma Gandhi's oldest son, Harilal, had a difficult relationship with his famous dad (movingly depicted in a recent Indian film, Gandhi, My Father ), and became an alcoholic and a drifter, dying within six months of Gandhi's assassination. His second-oldest son, Manilal, stayed on in South Africa and played a role in the anti-apartheid movement, but also suffered from Gandhi's exacting standards. Rajmohan's father, Devdas (Gandhi's fourth and youngest son), fared better, becoming the editor of one of the most prestigious English-language newspapers in India, the Hindustan Times .

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Rajmohan also gravitated to journalism, running an opinion journal, Himmat (Courage) Weekly , from 1964 to 1981. During India's undemocratic interregnum from 1975 to 1977, his publication got into trouble with the authorities for its outspokenness.

"Everything was subjected to precensorship," he recalls. "For some time, we had to show everything to a censor, and only if a censor agreed could we print the material. So, often we carried blank spaces to show to readers what was happening to us."

This wasn't the only trouble he had with the authorities during that time. On Gandhi's birthday (October 2) in 1975, a prayer meeting was organized at Gandhi's memorial in New Delhi. When a prominent Gandhian, J. B. Kripalani, started speaking, the cops moved in and detained those present, including Rajmohan and his brother Ramchandra.

"This was horrifying, finding people with guns and sticks at Gandhi's memorial," Rajmohan says. "But my brother and I were both released within hours because the government did not want the world to know that on Gandhi's birthday, his grandsons had been arrested by the...