Time managing editor Walter Isaacson discussed the historical legacy of the 20th century recently before a small gathering. Among his nominees for person of the century were Franklin Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and DNA pioneers James Watson and Francis Crick. It is only to be guessed how Gandhi himself would have felt to be in the company of Stalin or Hitler. The multidimensional Gandhi left a complex legacy for India, for the American civil rights movement, and for control of human appetites and aspirations. Gandhi was imprisoned seven times, spending a total of 2,089 days in Indian prisons and 249 days in South African prisons.
Modern time fails to sustain the same kind of reverence.
Such is the present-day power of international Big Business. Even the greatest of the dead may summarily be drafted into its image ad campaigns. Once, a half-century ago, this bony man shaped a nation s struggle for freedom. But that, as they say, is history. Now Gandhi is modeling for Apple.