Gandhi's reputation as a charismatic spiritual leader is undeniable, and the movie's presentation of his life ably depicts the major crises that established his reputation. His confrontation with the South African regime; the pitiless massacre of peaceful Indian protesters at Amritsar in 1919; the Salt March of 1930; and his massive funeral--these key episodes are told with authenticity and emotion.

The intersection of an individual life with such historical moments involves a mix of biography and history. In the movie, the power of Gandhi's philosophy of non-violent protest, shown in these intense scenes, helps explain India's successful resistance to British authority. That focus, however, blurs some of the larger historical issues that led to the separate independence of India and Pakistan.

What distinguished Gandhi's opposition to British rule was his commitment to spiritual energy as a way of changing political life. Instead of confronting the empire with armed rebellion or acts of violence, Gandhi advocated peaceful non-cooperation with Britain's unjust laws. Contemporaries called this strategy passive resistance or, in the words of the 19th-century American writer Henry David Thoreau who Gandhi read, civil disobedience.

Drawing on Sanskrit traditions, Gandhi named his strategy satyagraha. Literally meaning "truth" and "force, " Gandhi said it was "the Force that is born of Truth and Love or non-violence." For Gandhi, the commitment was not passive, but active; it demanded action, but peaceful action, even when it provoked violent reactions from the powers that be. "I want to change their minds," says Gandhi in the movie, "not kill them."

The people of India did not unanimously accept that philosophy. Violence, rioting, and outbursts between Muslims and Hindus led Gandhi to go on personal fasts to protest such fighting. These were acts of penitence intended to exert moral pressure and persuade people to abandon violence. As the movie shows, such efforts never fully succeeded. For instance, the burning of a police station in Bardoli in 1922, contrary to the principles of non-violence, prompted Gandhi to go on a five-day fast; it also led him to suspend the non-cooperation campaign, temporarily, since he felt that the masses had not yet accepted his views.

Other ideological conflicts undermined Gandhi's belief in national unity. Tensions between Gandhi, spokesman of the masses, and the middle-class Muhammed Ali Jinnah, who became head of Pakistan, reflected real fears among the religious minority that the Hindu majority would threaten its freedom.

Jinnah insisted that Muslims and Hindus constituted two distinct nations. "We are a nation of a hundred million," stated Jinnah in 1944, "we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitionsÉ.we are a nation."

Gandhi's offer to make Jinnah prime minister of a single India in 1947 could not overcome those fundamental ethnic differences. Indeed, the failure to achieve national unity created antagonisms that affect India-Pakistan relations to this day.

Yet Gandhi's assassins were not Muslims. Rather, his acceptance of the division of India into two national states angered Hindu fundamentalists who wished to undo the partition of their motherland. Leaders of this Hindu opposition conspired to commit the murder. After a trial, two of the convicted conspirators were sentenced to death. As they faced execution, one of them shouted, "India united, may it ever be." Gandhi, no doubt, would have opposed the death sentences.

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