Fitting Gandhi in new Indian ethos
Saji Narayanan CK
There is a long list of world leaders who admired Mahatma Gandhi. George Bernard Shaw compared him with the Himalayas; Einstein called him the most enlightened of all politicians; Martin Luther King Jr compared him with Christ; and Barack Obama called him his real hero
During the 1970s, at a seminar organised by Kerala University, veteran CPM leader EMS Namboodiripad was asked to explain why the communist party could not lay its roots in India in spite of its early inception. One major reason, he explained, was that the communists could not realise the role of Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian political context. Gandhi’s politics was closely footed in India’s ethos and village life and that is why he succeeded. On the other hand, the communists did not develop an Indian communist movement just as Lenin did in Russia, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam or Mao in China. In this lies a lesson for all the popular movements in India even today. Probably Narendra Modi is the only leader closely following such a pattern in politics.
Gandhi’s advice at the time of Independence “to disband the existing Congress organisation” as it had “outlived its use” is well known. But not many know that he had also opposed the formation of AITUC by the Indian National Congress. However, the Congress leaders went ahead and this year marks the centenary of India’s central trade union movement, which had begun with the AITUC in 1919.
Gandhi’s uncompromised stand on the Chauri Chaura incident showed direction to those spearheading various movements. When the non-cooperation movement turned violent, killing about 23 policemen, in 1922, Gandhi immediately halted the agitation at the national-level, sending out a strong message that he will not tolerate any violence. His model of non-violent movement fascinated so many world leaders.
On February 14, 1916, Gandhi was invited to a missionary conference in Madras. During his talk, he explained to his audience the concept of Swadeshi and outlined three of its core facets — Swadeshi economics, Swadeshi politics and Swadeshi religion. He had no hesitation in telling the missionaries to adopt a religion rooted in the Indian ethos and to “restrict to one’s own ancestral religion”.
Gandhi wrote in Harijan on June 1, 1947 that the basis of Swadeshi socialism is economic equality, which is essential for Ram Rajya. He took inspiration from the first verse of Ishopanishad. He believed all wealth belongs to God and rejected the concept of private property. At the same time, he opposed the western idea of socialism on five counts — violent class war, materialism, lack of individual freedom, selfishness and mechanic concept of classless society. Antyodaya and Gandhi’s Sarvodaya are targeted towards the development of the last person in the society.
In his speech at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, on October 20, 1931, Gandhi remarked that the Indian education prevalent before the advent of British was a beautiful tree, rooted out by the British for their ulterior interests. He said:“Today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out.… and the beautiful tree perished.” This statement became the premise of Dr Dharampal’s famous book, The Beautiful Tree, on the Indian education that prevailed before the advent of the British.
Gandhi developed a Swadeshi economic policy for India. Rightly declared by him then, India lives in its villages even today. However, history has not been able to answer why he proposed as the first Prime Minister of Independent India Jawaharlal Nehru, who was diametrically opposite to his views on Swadeshi and village economy. Today, with globalisation and western capitalist model followed by the successive governments contributing to the slowdown of the economy as well as the manufacturing sector, we need to present Gandhian ideas that will suit the modern times. We need to reshape Gandhian ideals towards India-centric solutions to save the nation.
Gandhi’s differences with Dr Ambedkar are well known. Nehru too disliked Dr Ambedkar. However, when the question of constituting a drafting committee for Independent India’s Constitution came up, Gandhi recommended Dr Ambedkar to head it. In 1946, the Congress had defeated his entry into the Constituent Assembly. When the discussions on convening a Constituent Assembly for drafting a Constitution started, Gandhi called Vallabhbhai Patel and Nehru and asked whom were they going to entrust the task of drafting India’s Constitution. Nehru said he was considering someone like Sir Ivor Jennings, an internationally known constitutional expert from England. Gandhi advised them to not look for a foreigner when they had within India an outstanding legal and constitutional expert like Dr Ambedkar. That was how Ambedkar became the architect of the Constitution of India.
There is a long list of world leaders who were admirers of Mahatma Gandhi. George Bernard Shaw compared him with the Himalayas; Einstein called him the most enlightened of all politicians; Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was called Frontier Gandhi; Ho Chi Minh said he was a revolutionary disciple of Gandhi; historian Will Durant called him the most revered after Buddha; Martin Luther King Jr compared him with Christ; Nelson Mandela said it was through Gandhi’s teachings that apartheid was removed; and Barack Obama called him his real hero. Still, it is a mystery that the greatest messiah of peace in the 20th century was not given the Nobel Peace Prize even though many inspired by him were.
Gandhi’s assassination has always been a bone of contention in Indian politics. Nehru did not appeal against the acquittal of Savarkar, who was an accused in Gandhi murder case, and his daughter Indira Gandhi released a commemorative stamp in his name in 1970. The question remains why Nirmal Chatterjee, president of Hindu Mahasabha at the time of Gandhi’s murder, was, within one year, made a high court judge at the recommendation of the Nehru government. Chatterjee was also the legal adviser of Communist Party of India when it was banned. How did he subsequently become a Member of Parliament representing the CPI? His son, Somnath Chatterjee, later became a CPI leader. These are some of the questions which the course of history may have to answer to the future generation before any campaign is started against the RSS as Gandhi assassins.
Gandhi’s Ram Rajya and the RSS’ Hindu Rashtra are rooted in similar Indian ethos. Gandhi had visited the RSS shakhas on two occasions and delivered speeches — one at Wardha near Nagpur on December 25, 1934, and the other at Bhangi Colony in Delhi on September 16, 1947 as authenticated in the 96th volume of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. It is a fact that Mahatma Gandhi is losing relevance in the hands of his so-called followers. But one organisation, the RSS, with lakhs of its followers, remembers him every day during its morning prayer called Ekatmata Stotra. All other “Gandhian politicians” get a chance to remember Gandhi just once a year and that is on October 2.
— The writer is president of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh
