Ramachandra Guha, historian and Gandhi's biographer, is in no doubt that the Mahatma would have donned his lawyer's robes -- let's not forget that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a barrister called to the law at Inner Temple in England -- and defended Sudha Bharadwaj, the IIT-Delhi alumnus who has spent her life defending the rights of Adivasis in Chhattisgarh.

Professor Bharadwaj was among the five civil rights activists arrested by the Pune police on Tuesday, August 28.

Like her co-accused -- lawyer-activists Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves, journalist-activist Gautam Navlakha and poet-activist Varavara Rao -- Professor Bharadwaj remains under house arrest till the Supreme Court hears the case next week.

Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the arrests and Professor Guha's assertion of what the greatest Indian of our times would unquestionably have done had he been alive.