Independence

The novel uses its comic realist style to show how colonial independence was, in contrast to the heady ideals and expectations captured in the pre-independence rhetoric of freedom and independence, actually a subtle and, in many senses, disappointing experience. In particular, the novel shows how the broad-ranging and ambitious goals of Gandhi’s movement were reduced or otherwise abandoned following India’s independence on August 15, 1947.

Gandhi’s strategies and tactics for gaining independence, and his vision of post-independent India, are predicated upon his belief in the radical and transformative power of love. Thus, in one scene, Gandhi tells the spirited and defiant Sriram that: “…before you aspire to drive the british from this country, you must drive every vestige of violence from your system. Remember that it is not going to be a fight with sticks and knives or guns but only with love. Until you...