This paper explores the aspects of Gandhian movements, particularly the Civil Disobedience and the Quit India Movement and their impact on the society and individuals, as viewed and understood by a Bengali litterateur Satinath Bhaduri. Being a member of the Indian National Congress and having taken part in the Gandhian movements, Satinath had personal experiences which he drew upon while writing novels like Jagari and Dhonrai Charit Manas. Jagari concentrates on the urban response to the Quit India Movement whereas Dhonrai Charit Manas portrays the rise of a subaltern rural leader and how he interprets Gandhian ideology in his own fashion, assimilates them within his self and finally implements them in his outer life—thereby rising from a mere subaltern level of subconscious existence to an important, exalted position of a leader in the society. In Dhonrai Charit Manas, the author equates the rise of the subaltern Gandhian leader Dhorai Ram with Tulsi Ram, the immortal king of Ayodhya. The Gandhian concept of Ram Rajya takes a new form in Dhonrai's mental world where Tulsidas' Ram rajya finds a variable expression. Thus in Satinath's novel, the Gandhian age is the context, Gandhian ideology is the driving force and the rise of a subaltern Gandhian leader is the phenomenon. These novel adaptations thus represent Gandhi at an altogether different level.

In his book, A Week With Gandhi, Louis Fischer wrote, "Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy at New Delhi, said to me `Gandhi is the biggest thing in India'. That is correct. Gandhi is a unique phenomenon." Fischer had also started his biography of Gandhi (The Life of Mahatma Gandhi) with the first chapter entitled `Death Before Prayers'. Often one wonders as to why that was so. The answer is revealed when one reads the speech of the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as reported in the chapter:

"The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country, and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented the living truth, and the eternal man was with us with his eternal truth reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom."

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