Gandhi Lecture Kicks Off Annual King Celebration

Boston University launched its 17th annual celebration of alumnus Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. last night in the George Sherman Union’s Terrace Lounge with a lecture on Mohandas Gandhi and nonviolent civil protest.

However, the talk wasn’t a standard history lesson.

“Gandhi was weird,” said professor Leroy S. Rouner. “I mean, really weird.”

Rouner, the director of BU’s Institute of the Philosophy of Religion, told the audience of about 50 faculty and students a view of Gandhi different than the “semi-emaciated,” peace-loving activist who spent his days meditating.

Much of Gandhi’s “weirdness” involved what Rouner called an “issue that we are not supposed to talk about in public. That issue is sex.”

Rouner said the main difference between the two men was their respective views on sexuality. Gandhi believed that male sexuality caused aggression and that it was at the heart of all that is wrong with humanity, Rouner said.

While Gandhi made every attempt to seek purity and cleanse himself of his sexual desires, King saw “sexuality as a part of a kind of vital human energy,” Rouner said. King believed in “relating that vital human energy of individual people to one another in a common cause,” Rouner said.

Rouner argued the two men were different in their respective visions for the future of their people. In his years as a civil rights activist, King sought not to transform the socio-political system completely, as Gandhi did. King wanted equality, Rouner said.

“[King] wanted a place at the table,” Rouner said.

However, Gandhi’s peaceful political tactics had a tremendous impact on King, Rouner said. The men shared a common faith in nonviolence as the necessary means to achieve their desired ends.

“I had no idea they were so different,” said Schnell Manson, a School of Management senior.