Such are the times that one heaves a sigh of relief if Martyr’s Day passes off without someone gleefully enacting the assassination of M K Gandhi or Godse Zindabad trending on Twitter. Anyway, the denigration of Gandhi happens around the year on social media. The Father of the Nation is blamed for Partition, for the Kashmir issue, for the `marginalisation’ of Bose and Patel and for everything that has gone wrong, even for the present state of the economy. The irony escapes the right-wing troll army that many of them are the beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi employment guarantee scheme.
On a serious note, January 30 should be remembered as a day when religious fanaticism and a warped sense of nationalism snuffed out the life of a man who led our freedom struggle in such a creative and constructive manner. On this day, we should look at ways to re-invent the Gandhian tenets of `satya’ and `ahimsa’. On this day, we should ask ourselves why we cannot take inspiration from the man who is the patron saint of the oppressed the world over. On this day, we should take up the Gandhi challenge: Be, as he said, the change you want to see. Let us, like Gandhi, transcend hurt and resentment, channelling the energy into a higher purpose.
For this, we must first understand the real Gandhi. Instead of deifying or demonising him, one needs to look at his life -- which, the man said -- was his message. Emulating Gandhi is hard work. Good, Gandhi said, travels at a snail`s pace. ``Non-violence is a tree of slow growth. It grows imperceptibly but surely.’’ And then mere goodness is not of much use. "Goodness must be joined with knowledge, courage and conviction. One must cultivate the fine discriminating quality which goes with spiritual courage and character.’’
The onus is on the young. Old Gandhians have sequestered themselves in their `ashrams` while his ideological enemies are trying to appropriate him. The man would surely launch a satyagraha against the undeclared emergency of today, he would join the Shaheen Baug sit-in, side with Prashant Bhushan over the contempt of court case and demand the release of scholars and activists held without trial for nearly three years in the farcical Bhima Koregaon case.
What was the Rowlatt Act against which Gandhi launched a satyagraha in March 1919; it allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and permitted suspects to be interred without a trial. Gandhi was even tried for sedition in 1922 and sentenced to six years imprisonment. Today, those opposing similar Acts are dubbed urban Naxals and anti-nationals and are being locked up under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act meant to curb terrorist activities. One of them, 84-year-old Jesuit priest Stan Swamy died in judicial custody.
To be fair, there have been Gandhian efforts such as human rights activist Harsh Mander`s ‘Karwan- e-mohabbat’ which revisited cases of mob lynching across India by meeting the victims and their neighbours. However, more people should come up with such efforts, irrespective of whether they get public support. This is real courage, this is the best way to appreciate Gandhi.
Gandhi harvested hope, he appealed to the higher senses and was not a rabble-rouser. He insisted that the end should not justify the means and called off the non-cooperation movement at its height in 1922 after the Chauri Chaura incident when a mob burnt a police station with 22 cops and three civilians on the premises.
Gandhi is known for his aphorisms: `The earth provides enough to satisfy every man`s need, but not every man`s greed’; `The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong; an eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind’. Present-day leaders are known for their `jumlas.`
Gandhi was a voracious reader and corresponded with world leaders and philosophers; today’s leaders mix history with mythology, confuse science with obscurantist mumbo-jumbo and revel in selfies with PMs and presidents. The former was able to assemble a galaxy of talent, the latter is, at best, able to assemble a phalanx of ‘yes’ men. One had `Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye’ as his favourite hymn, the credo of the others is: `Goli maaro saalon ko…’’
It is not as if Gandhi did not have his critics in his contemporaries and among historians. At the end of the day, he was an astute politician; neither a `mahatma’ nor just a `chatur bania’. And his fancy notions about Hinduism, self-sufficient villages, nature cure and celibacy were not shared by all. Babasaheb Ambedkar was openly critical of Gandhi’s tacit endorsement of the caste system. Fellow Gujarati, Jinnah, felt betrayed by Gandhi. The man had his flaws, but his life was an open book, he practised what he preached, never hankered for power and constantly evolved.
The question therefore to ask is not whether Gandhi is relevant today but whether we are relevant to Gandhi today. Gandhi stood for the universal values of truth and compassion and if we have forsaken him, it only shows that we have lost our moral compass.
