We recently celebrated Mr. M. K. Gandhi's 155th birth anniversary. Some people celebrate it every year, some don't, and to each his or her own. As for me:
I don't believe he was a Mahatma. I also have my disagreements with him on many counts and align myself more with freedom fighters like Subhash Chandra Bose, Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev and others. But agreements and disagreements aside, he was at least a man with some principles, he struggled for a good cause in his own way, and didn't live a life just dedicated to the pursuit of money, power and women. Not too many people qualify to this level.
I would rather befriend a thousand Gandhis than give even five minutes of my time to the person who shot him when he was old, frail and unarmed, the first terrorist of Independent India, the spineless, impotent, coward Nathuram Godse. Thhoooo!!!
I just call him Mr. Gandhi, not Mahatma Gandhi, but do respect him and think well of him. And I think this is a fair viewpoint, far more fair than those who disrespect him while they themselves wouldn't have, and do not, accept a single personal discomfort for any higher cause, leave alone going to prison in a struggle for the country's independence.
(And no, I don't think highly of Lal Bahadur Shastri.)