Ricky Kej states Mahatma Gandhi was forgotten till Richard Attenborough made a film on him

Not just Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but Grammy award winning musician Ricky Kej too feels that Mahatma Gandhi was not known to most until Sir Richard Attenborough made the biopic called Gandhi in 1982. According to Kej, the film helped Mahatmareclaim fame globally as an ambassador of peace.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an interview on Tuesday claimed the release of the film generated curiosity about Gandhi, who was relatively unknown in the decades following independence.

“Mahatma Gandhi was a great soul. Wasn’t it our responsibility to get him that level of global recognition during the last 75 years? Nobody knew about him. When the Gandhi film was released, curiosity was generated across the world about who is this man. We didn’t do anything,” said Modi. “If the world knew about Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi was no less than them and you have to accept that.”

While Modi has drawn flak from rival politicians over his statement of the Mahatma, no BJP leader has yet offered any counterpoint to defend Modi.

A three time Grammy winner on Thursday came out in support of Modi and explained how Richard Attenborough’s 1982 biopic Gandhion the Mahatma helped him become known globally as an ambassador of peace.

Ricky Kej, an Indian-American musician, wrote on his Xhandle that following his assassination in 1948, Gandhi had disappeared from public memory in the West.

“After Gandhiji died in 1948, he was lost soon after from international consciousness. For the next 33 years he was very rarely spoken about or written about in the western world. He was definitely not mainstream,” wrote Kej. “In the West, the new generation after his time, had not even heard of him.”

After Gandhiji died in 1948, he was lost soon after from international consciousness. For the next 33 years he was very rarely spoken about or written about in the Western world. He was definitely not mainstream. In the West, the new generation after his time, had not even heard… https://t.co/u2mAPgHVjf — Ricky Kej (@rickykej) May 30, 2024

“When the film Gandhiby Sir Richard Attenborough was released in 1982, not too many people cared about the film and the film makers struggled with distribution,” Kej wrote. “It had a limited and deferred release. Like most Art films.”

“People (In the West) were shocked that an unknown biopic about a personality they had never heard of is nominated against ET(They all watched and loved ET). Of course,Gandhi was the better film and won eight Oscars in April 1983. That is when Gandhi (the film) became a massive box office success internationally and, Mahatma Gandhiji (our father of the nation) was cemented permanently in international consciousness and became synonymous with peace,” Kej wrote.

The musician, however, is unhappy with the film for one reason.

“Unfortunately though, even today when people in the West imagine Gandhiji it is Ben Kingsley who they see, and not Gandhiji himself. The medium of cinema is very powerful, and in many ways… if harnessed well,” wrote Kej.