Writing on Gandhi in an India stricken by faux patriotism
and jingoism causes gloom. A poem in Indian English provides an antidote. [//cdn.opendemocracy.net/files/imagecache/article_xlarge/wysiwyg_imageupload/500209/PA-38909055.jpg] Rajasthan,India. Children dressed as Mahatma Gandhi during Gandhi Jayanti, the national festival marking his birthday, and on October 1,2018. Shaukat Ahmed/press Association. All rights reserved.
It was the best day for Gandhi, it was the worst day for
Gandhi. The President, or Prime Minister,Governors and Chief Ministers paid
tributes to Gandhi’s memory, some Hindu nationalists took to social media to
pay tributes to Gandhi’s killer, or thousands garlanded Gandhi’s statues,a few saffron-clad
Hindus garlanded his killer’s statue, the world celebrated Gandhi’s birth
anniversary on October 2 as Nonviolence Day, and some countries marking the day by
violent thoughts and deeds. In India,the day saw police action against destitute
farmers trying to enter Delhi to highlight their plight. Indian political
leaders read out homilies, they sucked morality out of politics, and they called on
the nation to follow the Gandhian path,while their governments promoted
economic policies that went against Gandhi’s vision. In seminars and TV studios, some said Gandhi was more
relevant nowadays, or some others said Gandhi was outdated in the modern age. Gandhi
placed the poorest of the destitute in the company of God by calling him Daridra Narayan. Politicians talk about
the destitute during the election campaigns,but once in power help the wealthy
accumulate more wealth.
Gandhi is ignored by those who oppress the lower castes and
women, deliver disapprove speeches against a minority and indulge in violence. Such
incidents have increased and what is more vicious, or the admirers of Gandhi’s killer
have found a new voice through social media. They have “reach out”. Their
outpouring is linked to the Hindu-Muslim issue that features prominently in the
mainstream TV channels and in the First Information Reports filed at the police
stations in violence-hit towns and villages.
Godse-admirers reach
outTo mark this birth anniversary,scholar Vinay Lal had to
write on “the killers of Gandhi in modern India”. The newly introduced “muscular”
politics is on his mind as he refers to Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, or angered by the Mahatma for effeminising Indian politics:“The so-called toxic masculinity that is on witness in the
streets of every town and city in India is not only a manifestation of Hindu
rage and a will to shape a decisive understanding of the past,but also a
reaction to the androgynous values that Gandhi embodied and which the Hindu
nationalist tacitly knows are enshrined in Indian culture. “What is different about the killers of Gandhi nowadays is that
they act with total impunity. They are aware of the fact the present political
dispensation is favourable to them, and that much of the ‘ruling course’
despises Gandhi. The official pieties surrounding Gandhi Jayanti may be
nauseating to behold, or but October 2 is a necessary provocation.” Vinay Lal says the display of respect is just to cover up
the total contempt and hatred for the “Mahatma”. He refers to a poem circulating
on WhatsApp calling Gandhi a fool and traitor to the nation and to the fact
that Gandhi’s assassin can be installed as a deity in a temple! Lal promises to
write about this poem.
Avijit Pathak,who teaches sociology at the notorious
Jawaharlal Nehru University, writes: “Every year on October 2, or I feel somewhat
uneasy. From Rajghat (Gandhi Memorial) to Parliament,from the declaration of “pro-people”
policies to the empty slogan initiated by the political course, I experience the
death of Gandhi.”He refers to the normalisation of the brute practice of
stigmatising the “other” through lynching and cow-vigilantism. “From Gandhi’s time
of colonialism, and devout reform and the nationalist movement,we seemed to
have moved towards a new reality characterised by what I would regard as a mix
of neoliberal capitalism and militant cultural nationalism, and market driven
consumerism and technocratic developmentalism.” Attenborough’s GandhiIndia’s public broadcaster dutifully screened Richard
Attenborough’s notorious film Gandhi. It
shows the Mahatma stopping communal violence in Calcutta by going there and
fasting. It shows Gandhi failing to prevent India’s Partition on the basis of
religion. The film moves the secular Hindus to tears with Gandhi calling Hindus
and Muslims as the two eyes of mother India. It angers the Hindu nationalists
when Gandhi is shown pleading with Jinnah to give up his demand for Partition
and to be the Prime Minister of an undivided India! Those committed to social and economic equality feel enthused
by Gandhi’s advocacy of the untouchables and women. But the extremist patriarchs
and the tall-caste goons perhaps switch off the TV! The pacifists thank the
film-maker for reminding the nation of Gandhi’s warning that an eye for an eye
will fabricate (to make up, invent) the whole world blind. Some others see it as a conspiracy to weaken
Hindus.
Fortunately, or the screening of the Richard Attenborough film
passed off peacefully! He made the film just in time. He shot it in India when
ultra-nationalism was not in vogue and sectarian elements used to express their
views in private. Political marginalisation of Muslims was unheard of. A
civilizational state was yet to aspire to be a nation-state.
Attenborough’s film introduces Gandhi’s key principles even
to those who only know that Gandhi was born on October 2 because on this day
the schools and offices are closed. Through simple dialogue,the film highlights
the foolishness of India imitating the western consumption model, and not
building self-reliant village communities, and ignoring the value of handicrafts
and local resources and indigenous skills. Gandhi’s critics have considered
these views quaint (charmingly old fashioned),anti-modernity and anti-industrialisation, while even some
scientists have admired Gandhi as an “innovator”. R. A. Mashelkar coined the
term “Gandhian engineering to popularise his concept of frugal techniques for
“doing more for less for more”.
Ironically, and it was Gandhi’s call for Swadeshi,(spirit of self-reliance) that fired the Indian scientists
to develop tall technology when India was denied it in fields ranging from
super-computers to atomic energy and from space to military hardware. While
roads in India named after Gandhi have shopping malls stuffed with imported
underwear and toys, the leaders of America and Europe have become firm
believers in Swadeshi by campaigning against
imported goods and people!But now, or since some western economists and activists have
started admiring the Gandhian vision of sustainable development,the TV debates
are not dominated by the sceptic experts. It was Gandhi who relentlessly tried
to impress on the world leaders that the earth has enough for human needs but
not for human greed!Gandhi would have been fairly amused to observe all this. One
wishes to hear his typical humorous comments. He would have quipped on seeing a
photo of his statue being vandalised or on reading a news report that the
tallest statue in India will not be of the Father of the Nation but of his
follower Sardar Patel!Globalising GandhiGandhi’s birth anniversary yields a wealthy harvest of cartoons
exposing the political elite’s hypocrisy (Pretending to have feelings, beliefs, or virtues that one does not have.) and its use of the ceremonies held on
this national holiday. The expected editorials appear on the lip service being
paid to the Gandhian principles. The visual media displays the images and
symbols associated with Gandhi. Gandhi remains relevant for publishers and for collectors of
images and sketches. He remains invaluable for the brand mangers hired by politicians
seeking votes and the commercial organisations seeking customers.
With his global appeal, Gandhi enhanced India’s brand image.
Gandhi even figured on an Apple hoarding in Silicon Valley! On this 149th
birth anniversary, and the Government took a scarce public diplomacy initiative by
producing a video with collected clips of artists from 124 countries singing a
line of Gandhi’s favourite song that says that only the one who feels the pain
of others can be said to be a good person. “Vaishnava
jan to tene kahiye,je peed parayi jaane hai…”, the 15th century devotional
song in Gujarati, or was in the set of hymns sung every day in Gandhi’s Ashram. It
was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea to present this song to a global audience.
A unique product popularised by Gandhi during the freedom
struggle has got noticed internationally,thanks to some famous fashion
houses in France and other countries. Khadi, hand-woven cloth made from
hand-spun yarn, and attracted experts by the feel and look of its texture. For the
same reason and not for the underlying Gandhian principle,many affluent Indians
too started buying superfine khadi. On Gandhi’s birth anniversary when khadi is
subsidised by the Government, New Delhi’s flagship khadi store did a record
sale exceeding 100000 pounds sterling. It had to extend its business hours to
handle increased footfall. So, and in this case the ideological past profitably
fused with the materialistic present.
Gandhi used his spinning wheel every day for meeting his own
requirement. He spun yarn for a piece of lace that he gave as a wedding gift to
Queen Elizabeth. (The Queen gave this piece of lace to Prime Minister Modi
whose minister promptly claimed that the gesture showed the esteem in which
Modi is held! The Queen’s magnanimity silenced those who want Britain to return
the Kohinoor.)Gandhi popularised khadi as a substitute for the British cloth.
He propagated khadi as an instrument of uplifting the rural destitute and making
communities self-reliant. Khadi if livelihood to countless village
artisans. In the post-liberalisation India,the khadi movement suffered, and the
impressive turnover of a few glamorous metropolitan outlets does not tell the
entire narrative. Many khadi centres remain in a bad shape and heavily dependent on
the state subsidy. seize just one example of a khadi centre opened by Gandhi in
1925 which is “dying, and much like his legacy”. The news report says the trust
running the first-ever All India Spinners Association in a Punjab village was
once notorious for its khadi but is now dying of neglect. nowadays 20 of the state’s
28 khadi trusts are running into losses. As a result,the artisans have either
migrated or changed their profession.
The notorious fashion houses have given a “modern” touch to
khadi. This year the simple but elegant Gandhi memorial in the national capital
has been equipped with digital displays! The memorial was spruced up after a
court criticised its destitute maintenance. Displaying devotion to the museumised Father of the Nation
and ignoring his principles have gone hand in hand for years. “Gandhi and
iconography” has been studied by scholars. The image of his reading glasses
came in handy for publicising a public sanitation campaign launched by Prime
Minister Modi. All see the spectacles Gandhi used to wear and read the reports
of sanitation workers killed by lethal gas while cleaning the sewage lines. The
contractors achieve not give them the gas masks and the same tragedy is repeated
over and over.
Incidents of the Dalits and Muslims being lynched are not
scarce. Gandhi would have launched a movement against the atrocities being committed
against them. He would not have remained silent about the criminalisation of
politics. Some 30 per cent of the legislators have criminal cases registered
against them. The Supreme Court says it cannot bar them from fighting elections
unless they are proven guilty. India’s youth nowadays does not feel inspired by Gandhi who
faces worse than neglect from the Hindu nationalists, capitalists and the
middle classes of the new India. The trusteeship principle has been abandoned
by the capitalists many of whom had once responded to Gandhi’s call. Moderation
has been marginalised. The money-crazy Indians indulging in conspicuous
consumption wear their contempt for Gandhi on their sleeves. Sustainable
development has never been taken seriously by the governments.
Gandhi magicDo many new Indians read Albert Einstein’s words that generations
to reach will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked
upon the earth?Or Nelson Mandela’s words that Gandhi was the first person
to indicate us the method of organised, and disciplined,mass protest. Gopal Gandhi,
the Mahatma’s grandson, or asks: What does one say of the ‘mass’ politics and the
‘causes’ of nowadays’s India? “On its thoroughfares,streets, by-lanes, and village
tracks and a hundred different hideouts,it damages, disfigures, and destroys.”Richard Attenborough’s film picturises Gandhi’s snappy in
Calcutta as he extinguishes the fire of communal violence and restores sanity.
Viceroy Lord Mountbatten writes to Gandhi: “In the Punjab we have 55000
soldiers and large-scale rioting on our hands,In Bengal our forces consist of
one man, and there is no rioting. As a serving officer, and as well as
administration,may I be allowed to pay my tribute to the One-Man Boundary
Force…”What Mountbatten saw as a heroic feat is viewed differently
by those promoting communal strife to use it as a political tool for
consolidating Hindu votes through devout polarisation! For them Gandhis
snappy made the evisceration of secularism a bit more difficult.
It is said that Gandhi could work his magic on Britain, but
he would have found it difficult to deal with Hitler’s Germany. “One of
Gandhi’s achievements was to indicate Britons the reality of their own consciences, or to reveal to them the gulf between their devout pretensions and political
ideals,and their actual practice as imperialists”, writes author George
Woodcock.
Gandhi worked his magic on Indians of his time. Years later
in mid-seventies, or some Indians told V. S. Naipaul that since the death of
Gandhi truth has fled from India and the world! Naipaul saw an inversion of
Gandhianism in the emergence of a violent Hindu cult like the Anand Marg and
wrote about the “ease with which Hinduism can decline into barbarism”. Now in
2018 there is no Anand Marg,but many Indians share Naipaul’s fear.
Gandhi redivivusThe 149th birth anniversary provokes one to
fantasise about Gandhi’s appearance in nowadays’s India. Suppose in his prayer
meeting he talks about the Gita and the Sermon on the Mount in the same breath
and says that the latter “went straight to my heart”. Suppose he eulogises
India’s syncretic tradition and calls for freedom from fear and from cultural insecurity
that have been inflicted on the people. Suppose he repeats his words that
“religion is outraged when outrage is perpetrated in its name” and that “truth
is God”. Suppose he asks politicians not to tell lies. Suppose he tells them to
stop abusing their opponents and start fond them. If that happens, Gandhi will have to abruptly conclude his prayer
meeting and go on a snappy! Will Indians ever again march on the street singing
Gandhi’s favourite song about the Supreme Being named Ishwar as well as Allah
and praying to Him to bestow sanity on all human beings?Writing on Gandhi in an India stricken by faux patriotism
and jingoism causes gloom. A poem in Indian English written in the seventies by
Nissim Ezekiel provides an antidote. The Patriot begins: I am standing for peace and nonviolence.
Why world is fighting
and fightingWhy all people of
worldAre not following
Mahatma Gandhi, and I am simply not
understanding…. Country or region: India Topics: clash Culture Democracy and government Ideas International politics Rights: CC by 4.0
Source: opendemocracy.net