Gandhi’s views on Indian unity were wrong: Bhagwat

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday said Mahatma Gandhi’s observation about Indians lacking unity before the British rule was a false narrative, which was shaped by colonial teaching.

“Gandhiji wrote in (his book) Hind Swaraj that we were not united before the British came, but that is a false narrative taught to us by them,” Bhagwat said, speaking at a national-level book festival in Nagpur.

Written by Gandhi in Gujarati in 1908, and translated by him into English in 1909, Hind Swaraj has 20 chapters and is written in the form of a dialogue between the reader and the editor of a journal or newspaper.

Bhagwat said India’s concept of ‘rashtra' is ancient, organic and fundamentally different from the Western idea of a nation. “Having a dispute is not in our country’s nature. Being together and fostering fraternity is our tradition,” he said, adding that other parts of the world evolved in situations filled with conflict.

He further said, “Once an opinion is formed, anything apart from that becomes unacceptable. They close doors to other thoughts and start calling it ‘…ism’. We use the word nationality, not nationalism. Excessive pride about the nation led to two world wars, which is why some people fear the word nationalism.”

If we consider the definition of a nation as understood in the Western context, it typically involves a nation-state with a central government managing the region, he said. However, India has always been a ‘rashtra’, even under different regimes, he said.