ABSTRACT
This chapter explores intersections between Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s cautious ambivalence towards carnal/marital pleasures and Saadat Hasan Manto’s response to this forced denial of the natural impulse towards sexual pleasure. Manto’s Swaraj Ke Liye (1950) is read as an allegorical tale interrogating Gandhian practices of Brahmacharya and conjugal abstinence. Manto’s characters as desiring bodies counter the Gandhian ideas of self-control and sublimation of corporeal passions. In dwelling on this juxtaposition between a natural, sexual way of life against a grand yet bland political design, the chapter attempts a dialogue between Manto and Gandhi, pleasures and politics, desires and devotion, indulgences and ideals.
