Great Movie

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2001)

Let me clear a few doubts that the viewers have posted on this movie.
1. That Ben Kingsley is a British actor - he is indeed a British actor, but of Indian origin - his real name is Krishna Bhanji. His depiction of Gandhi has indeed made all Indians proud.
2. Some people are complaining about the treatment Jinnah's character got during the movie. The depiction of Jinnah is perfect. He was single handedly responsible for the deaths of millions in the partition riots and uprooted the life of 11 million people in British India.
3. Indian Muslims are Indian citizens and have always been treated fairly by the secular and democratic Indian govt. In fact in 1965, during the Indo-Pak war, a lot of the Indian Council meetings were chaired by an Indian Muslim, because of the illness of the Indian PM. Moreover, during that war, Dr.Zakir Hussein, an Indian Muslim was the President of India. Jinnah's only grandson is a proud Indian citizen and CEO of one of the only Indian Fortune 500 companies in the world. Moreover, Jinnah's two-nation was aptly buried in 1971 when after the Pakistani Army massacred 3 million Muslim East Pakistanis and the nation of Bangladesh was formed after India's military intervention.
Even though these issues may not seem related to the movie Gandhi - they actually are - Gandhi stood for peace and equality irrespective of caste, creed or religion and thanks to his efforts today India is today the world's largest democracy and the world's largest secular country. Of course, there have been a few hiccups like Babri mosque demolition in India but in a country of 1 billion people, not everyone is exactly the same - would it be fair to label all white Americans as racists because of one Rodney King incident?