The Mahatma, his ism and the Congress Party.....
It is rare, in recent times, to find prominent political leaders observing the anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination. And it has always bothered me as to why the nation’s leaders did not decide to declare January 30 as a day of national importance. In many ways, it would have been far more appropriate for the nation building project than October 2.
Let me explain why I feel that way: In the event we decide to observe January 30 as a significant day, it will then become necessary that our Prime Minister, President and the various Chief Ministers and the State Governors will agree to address gatherings or participate in public functions to recall that the father of the nation was killed on this day in 1948.
Let me stress the point that he was killed and this is different from saying that the Mahatma died on this day in 1948. The reason is that one does come across notes by even senior media professionals that refrain from saying that the Mahatma was killed this day. They have their own reasons to say that January 30 is the Mahatma’s death anniversary!
Now, if January 30 was declared a national holiday instead of October 2, it would become imperative to recall that the father of the nation was killed. And then, it is possible that children ask their parents or their teachers (if teachers are honest and are there because they like to teach and not because they did not find any other job) as to who killed the father of the nation.
And those who know the answer would say that it was Nathuram Godse. And the child, in the natural course, will ask why did this Godse kill the Mahatma. The parents and the teachers will then have to explain that the Mahatma strived to build a nation that did not discriminate against the Muslims and that Godse was impressed by a school of thought, expounded by K.B.Hedgewar and M.S.Golwalkar, that India belonged to the Hindus alone and that since Gandhi was against excluding the Muslims from the nation building project, Godse went and shot him dead.
And if the child is curious, the next question would be as to who Golwalkar and Hedgewar were and whether Godse was just a loner or whether he had the support of some forces. The answer then will have to be that Hedgewar founded the RSS and Golwalkar succeeded him as its chief. And that Godse was helped in the gory assassination by a number of feudal and rich men.
The child will then begin to wonder about the present, see Gandhi as an icon and then be convinced against any kind of sectarian influences. In other words, the child could grow up imagining India as a democratic nation and detesting any attempt to distort this by way of raking up communal and other undemocratic ideas. But then, this has not happened and January 30, every year is just another day. And this year, we had a holiday because it happened to be Moharrum!
It so happened that this year we had something more than the ritual this year. We had the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Kenneth Kaunda sharing a platform with Dr. Manmohan Singh to observe Gandhi’s martyrdom on January 30, 2007. And Archbishop Tutu alone seemed to make the point that Gandhi and his ism did not and cannot mean a sterile appeal for peace and tranquility.
Tutu made it clear that peace and tranquility in an unequal world, in a world full of discrimination and oppression is not (repeat not) what Gandhi and his ism stood for. Gandhism, he reiterated, makes it the imperative, for all those who claimed that legacy to join and strengthen the struggle against inequality and oppression.
It is sad, in a sense, that our own Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, whose party claims to be the sole inheritors of the Mahatma’s legacy, just reduced Gandhi to a saint in the same way as Nehru and all others in the Congress party have done all the years.
Well, it is unfair to have expected Manmohan Singh, who is Prime Minister only because he is a loyal and servile member of the Congress party and a faithful of Sonia Gandhi to remember the Mahatma in the same perspective as Archbishop Tutu whose life was spent in leading the resistance against the apartheid regime in South Africa and against the larger imperialist agenda.
Manmohan Singh cannot but reduce Gandhi into a saint and his ism into a sterile discourse on non-violence. And then pave the way to a vulgar caricaturing of that in the form of a `laghe raho munnabhai.’’
One feels sorry for Archbishop Tutu and Kenneth Kaunda that they agreed to share the platform with someone like Manmohan Singh.
It is rare, in recent times, to find prominent political leaders observing the anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination. And it has always bothered me as to why the nation’s leaders did not decide to declare January 30 as a day of national importance. In many ways, it would have been far more appropriate for the nation building project than October 2.
Let me explain why I feel that way: In the event we decide to observe January 30 as a significant day, it will then become necessary that our Prime Minister, President and the various Chief Ministers and the State Governors will agree to address gatherings or participate in public functions to recall that the father of the nation was killed on this day in 1948.
Let me stress the point that he was killed and this is different from saying that the Mahatma died on this day in 1948. The reason is that one does come across notes by even senior media professionals that refrain from saying that the Mahatma was killed this day. They have their own reasons to say that January 30 is the Mahatma’s death anniversary!
Now, if January 30 was declared a national holiday instead of October 2, it would become imperative to recall that the father of the nation was killed. And then, it is possible that children ask their parents or their teachers (if teachers are honest and are there because they like to teach and not because they did not find any other job) as to who killed the father of the nation.
And those who know the answer would say that it was Nathuram Godse. And the child, in the natural course, will ask why did this Godse kill the Mahatma. The parents and the teachers will then have to explain that the Mahatma strived to build a nation that did not discriminate against the Muslims and that Godse was impressed by a school of thought, expounded by K.B.Hedgewar and M.S.Golwalkar, that India belonged to the Hindus alone and that since Gandhi was against excluding the Muslims from the nation building project, Godse went and shot him dead.
And if the child is curious, the next question would be as to who Golwalkar and Hedgewar were and whether Godse was just a loner or whether he had the support of some forces. The answer then will have to be that Hedgewar founded the RSS and Golwalkar succeeded him as its chief. And that Godse was helped in the gory assassination by a number of feudal and rich men.
The child will then begin to wonder about the present, see Gandhi as an icon and then be convinced against any kind of sectarian influences. In other words, the child could grow up imagining India as a democratic nation and detesting any attempt to distort this by way of raking up communal and other undemocratic ideas. But then, this has not happened and January 30, every year is just another day. And this year, we had a holiday because it happened to be Moharrum!
It so happened that this year we had something more than the ritual this year. We had the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Kenneth Kaunda sharing a platform with Dr. Manmohan Singh to observe Gandhi’s martyrdom on January 30, 2007. And Archbishop Tutu alone seemed to make the point that Gandhi and his ism did not and cannot mean a sterile appeal for peace and tranquility.
Tutu made it clear that peace and tranquility in an unequal world, in a world full of discrimination and oppression is not (repeat not) what Gandhi and his ism stood for. Gandhism, he reiterated, makes it the imperative, for all those who claimed that legacy to join and strengthen the struggle against inequality and oppression.
It is sad, in a sense, that our own Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, whose party claims to be the sole inheritors of the Mahatma’s legacy, just reduced Gandhi to a saint in the same way as Nehru and all others in the Congress party have done all the years.
Well, it is unfair to have expected Manmohan Singh, who is Prime Minister only because he is a loyal and servile member of the Congress party and a faithful of Sonia Gandhi to remember the Mahatma in the same perspective as Archbishop Tutu whose life was spent in leading the resistance against the apartheid regime in South Africa and against the larger imperialist agenda.
Manmohan Singh cannot but reduce Gandhi into a saint and his ism into a sterile discourse on non-violence. And then pave the way to a vulgar caricaturing of that in the form of a `laghe raho munnabhai.’’
One feels sorry for Archbishop Tutu and Kenneth Kaunda that they agreed to share the platform with someone like Manmohan Singh.
posted by Krishna Ananth at
2:21 AM
5 Comments:
Quite instructive, Sir. I had been ambivalent all along when it came to June 30. You know what I mean. But to be honest -- which is what Gandhian thought is at its deepest -- this date has many lessons in morality to offer. It also shows the huge difference between the "HE RAM" inscribed at Rajghat and the other commonly heard slogans referring to Ram. Emphasis on this date can make children understand the difference: it's otherwise very easy to miss it.
Dear Mr.Krishnan,
i enjoyed reading this post..this very process of deifying Gandhi starts right from our school text books. and this unidimensional picture of Gandhi is ingrained into the little minds.
And thus, forget the man by making him a saint.
IMO, E.F. Schumacher's 'Small is beautiful' captures the essence of the man and could serve as a better introduction about whatever he stood for. So is Erik Erikkson's book on Gandhi. I have heard that Anand Coomarasaamy and J.C.Kumarappa's essays on Gandhi were equally good. I hope there could be a better way to teach abt Gandhi than the caricature approach followed by our textbooks.
Wrote something abt Gandhi last year. Would be glad if you could visit..
http://themonkeymeditates.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html
rgds,
arvind
Dear Vikas,
I presume you meant January 30 and not June 30!!!
And what do we do when the regime does not want the children to understand this difference?
And Arvind,
Will visit your blog as soon as I get some time to sit before the comp.
Oh, I am getting too absent-minded. January 30 of course.
Sir,
A few disagreements.
I believe Savarkar and the Hindu Maha Sabha had a greater influence on Godse than Hedgewar and the RSS.
You refer to Gandhi as the 'Father of the Nation' - which nation are you referring to? Gandhi was purely a Hindi nationalist. I remember reading a statement of his in 'The Struggle for Freedom of Languages in India' by A.Ramasami which proposes the idea that the lingual minorities must submit to the will of the majority in India and learn Hindi accordingly. How different is this from Golwalkar's view that religious minorities should either follow 'Hindu culture' or be thrown out?
He may, of course, be respected for his sincere but futile attempts to create a non-violent society. But his elevation as a 'national saviour' by the Indian state and the consistent brainwashing that ethnic minorities are subject to from the primary level of education regarding his 'all-encompassing ideology' is nothing more than propoganda.
Regards
Karthik
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