Mahatma was a cruel man

Partly Shoba Narayan is right saying “the Mahatma had flaws—he was a cruel husband and a mostly absent, if intensely anxious, father—but his moral compass was as unwavering as it was right. How else could a frail man sway a nation and chase out a powerful empire through ahimsa (non-violence) and satyagraha? Gandhi conducted peculiar experiments with young women—sleeping and bathing nude together to strengthen his chastity—but he didn’t suffer from the moral ambivalence that plagues much of Indian industry today. Ever the champion of human rights, he even put it ahead of nation-building. When Patel, Nehru, Azad and Jinnah were pondering the semantics and logistics of independence, Gandhi was in the largely Muslim areas of East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and Bihar, trying to stop communal violence”. 

Also see my other post here