How do the various inhabitants of Raja Rao's Kanthapura understand and interpret Gandhi and his message?

The novel divides its characters accoring to their support
or opposition to Gandhi's message and the figure of Gandhi is at the center of the
narrative. The famale narrator, Achakka, tells the story of the village together with
her own story of hoe she came to support Gandhi's philosophy. Moorthy is a young Brahmin
who returns to the village of Kanthapura to spread Gandhi's message and the policies of
the Indian National Congress. His main opponent is Bhatta who manages to rally around
him a group of Brahmins (and, ironically, Moorthy's own mother). They are against
Gandhi's challenge to the caste system as they fear that it will eventually disrupt the
Indian social order (represented in microcosm by the rigid separation of quarters
according to class and occupation in the village). As the political crisis surrounding
Indian independence provokes violent clashes, Moorthy finds himself increasingly aligned
with Nehru's political positions. This shift reveals the conflict between spirituality
and politics and the difficulty of keeping Gandhi's spiritual and political messages
relevant for modern India.