Lessons unlearnt....

Today marks the 59th anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse, and perhaps we haven't really learnt our lessons yet. It is sad that even after so many years, we have failed to grasp the basic cause of this act, and what we must be fighting against.

Mahatma Gandhi was a great man, there is no doubting that. I have the highest regard for him and his principles, not in the least because of "Lage Raho Munnabhai" (but, yes, maybe more accentuated by it). But even the greatest of saints, the most venerable of men, are wont to be ignored some time.
He never approved of the Partition in the first place. I quote him, "My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God.”

But, this Mahatma, this deliverer of freedom, was condemned when his followers acquiesced to partitioning, to drawing lines in the sand, lines based on creed, boundaries based on the differences in faith, in beliefs. He was condemned when those who would have accepted his leadership under the occupying British now would no longer acknowledge the primacy of his authority. He continued to be condemned each and every time when communal riots broke out, when the State incompetently stood by and watch the carcass of Indian civil society slowly burn away. And he continues to be condemned whenever a civil servant or a legislator indulged in corruption or in immoral activities, violating his creed of honesty and simplicity.

Nathuram Godse would assassinate him because he was against any breach of faith, even when the one to whom he wished our faith was unfaithful, even when such fidelity would only cause us grievous harm and pain. He would be assassinated because he rejected the doctrine that one is born into a religion, and is by default antagonistic to all others. But that was but death once.

What we have done, and what we continue to do to his legacy, to his beliefs and to his value systems, may kill him many times over. Simply placing floral offerings and singing at his memorial would not suffice to heal his wounds. If Nathuram Godse and his colleagues are to be charged with having killed the physical Mahatma, we, the Indians of his nation, are equally guilty of having destroyed the spirit of the Mahatma, if not completely, then at least in part.

But is all lost? I dare think not; rather, I hope not. India and Indians can perhaps better acknowledge that now it is imperative that we all live together, and that narrow sectarian divisions should not be cause for us to yell blue murder. It is imperative that we come to understand that violence must always be reserved for the end, as the most extreme of alternatives, to be used only if all other peaceful means of resolving the problem concerned have failed beyond reproach. Then the flame at Raj Ghat may burn a little brighter, then perhaps the half-naked fakir of Porbandar will rest in peace, amidst his children, in the land of his dreams.

Is The Nation Turning Its Back on The Father?

Is the Nation turning its back on the Father?

Yesterday India celebrated, or at least I think it must have celebrated, the 136th birth anniversary of its greatest child, a child whom it honoured by calling him the Father of the Nation. This it did, not because he was a member of some aristocratic family to whom the nation was indebted, not because he was one of its former Prime Ministers or Presidents, but because through his simplicity, he drove the colonial powers from the shores of India, unveiling a new sun of freedom and hope. For achieving his goals, he didn't take recourse to arms a la Bolivar; for him, to be able to befriend even one's enemy is the finest outcome that can emerge out of a struggle. But, even in that, there is no paradox, no contradiction.

Befriending someone never means one gives up one's right to criticise and to question the actions of that friend. So it was even with satyagraha. Only perhaps the mode of criticism was starling different from the rest. The revolutionaries before him, and even after his struggle showed results, always believed that criticism masked in violence is often the best understood. They may be right, but in the end, such comprehension is filled with rancour, and as such can never end well.

That his aim was appreciated by not only those to whom he spoke and preached personally, but appealed to all across the globe, is a mark of the universality of his message. Sometimes, it makes no sense to take recourse to violence, what matters is you must never abandon the truth. Whenever I hear the word 'satyagraha', I tend to feel it means 'insistence on the pursuit of the truth', as in 'satya' or truth' + 'agraha' or 'insistence'. And where truth is the aim, the final goal, no wrong can ever occur in the path.

And yet, 57 years after his demise, the Nation stands accused of ignoring the man, in whose grief it cried out that the light had been extinguished. It is accused of forgetting his message of sarva dharma samabhava, and adopting the rubbish termed 'secularism' nowadays. It stands guilty of ignoring his insistence on a value-based system, preferring a materialistic society instead. His appeals to his colleagues to abandon self-gratification and to embrace the greater good of humanity have gone unheard. His 'heartlands' remain as they were in his days, and cry out seeking redemption of his promises to them. Promises of a new dawn which would come along with independence. Promises of liberation from shackles innumerable, once the foreigners left.
Promises that now bite. Because whence we were ruled by the British, our under-development could at least be attributed to their inherent desire to enrich their own nation. But now when our own rule us, what reason can we attribute to this? I am sure that if today he were to live, he would jump into the ocean, and cry out, 'Fie be upon me, for I have begotten the demon!' Simply singing 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram' on the 2nd of October is not enough; to truly honour him, we must live his dreams, his dreams of an India, where there would exist no divide, where religion would be a source of healing, not of pain. Until then, every moment the flame flickers at Rajghat, we mock the sacrifice, guidance & leadership of a man whom history knows as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a man whom the world knows as MAHATMA GANDHI.