When I think of Gandhi, I recall the stories my granny told me of life in India and what is now Pakistan, during and after the struggle for Indian independence. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the knowledge that Gandhi had interests other than civil rights – something to do with celibacy, something to do with very young women…

In the unassuming RBS Corner Theatre, Gandhi biographer Jad Adams is reading from his new book Gandhi: Naked Ambition. He starts by explaining the justification for describing, in vivid detail, the sexual journey of one of the most important civil rights leaders in human history. Gandhi abdicated his right to privacy by giving a frequent and detailed account of his personal sexual experiments, the author tells us.

Gandhi’s philosophy that anyone seeking god must standardize their conditions was, we hear, linked increasingly to his physicality. We hear a stark and often uncomfortable litany of the sexual and dietary experiments which were self-imposed, and then imposed on the people around him – his wife, ashram members (including very young people), and the increasingly young women he surrounded himself with. I gain a very different image of the man; it isn’t one I like, and I wonder what, if anything, this means.

I’m intrigued by Manu, Gandhi’s grand-niece with whom he slept naked and who, after his death, was instructed to keep the contents of her diaries secret.

Audience questions are disappointing, mainly to do with Europeans Gandhi was rumoured to be sexually involved with.  An interesting parallel is drawn between Gandhi and Gladstone, whose ‘rescue work’ with young prostitutes, though it did not involve penetration, was extremely personal and sexual. It’s a brave and original look at Gandhi, and the author asserts that at this time in history we’re ready to see a more human picture of our civil rights icons.