PARTISAN REVIEW
infected the political air? That one even thinks of asking such ques–
tions indicates his stature. One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic
distaste for Gandhi, one may reject the claims of sainthood made on
his behalf (he never made any such claim himself, by the way), one
may also reject sainthood as an ideal and therefore feel that Gandhi's
basic aims were anti-human and reactionary: but regarded simply as a
politician, and compared with the other leading political figures of our
time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave behind!
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