India, Oct. 3 -- Gandhiji's 157th birth anniversary falls on 2nd October. The United Nations observes it as the International Day of Non-Violence. Few faces are more familiar to Indians than his. His image appears on currency notes and classroom walls, and most people carry some early memory of him, an essay written in school or a story told at home. He came to be called the Father of the Nation, and for decades discourses have been delivered in his name, speeches made, seminars held. Many of them carry a gentle lament that the country is forgetting his thought. The truth may be quieter than that. The country is not so much forgetting him as never having quite understood him.

Out of that half-understanding, two Gandhis have grown. The fi...