Mahatma Gandhi was a staunch upholder of moral uprightness. Most of his disciples were honest, straightforward and indifferent to power politics. They followed his principles, both in letter and spirit. In the novels of Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, R.K. Narayan and Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, we have benign and complementary images of the Mahatma. But when independence was achieved and Mahatma Gandhi disappeared from the national scene, things began to change for the worse and people’s faith in the disciples of Gandhi began to erode. There was corruption and moral degradation of his unscrupulous followers. As a result, the image of Mahatma Gandhi was badly tarnished. This phase of the diminishing popularity of Mahatma Gandhi has also been presented by some IndoEnglish novelists. In Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh, A Bend in the Ganges by Manohar Malgonkar, and Azadi by Chaman Nahal we have the expression of this aspect of Gandhian personality.
Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Magadh University, Bodh-Gaya
