It was in the late 1970s, that my grandfather visited us in New Delhi. His agenda was to spend time with us, visit a few Gandhian friends who were in the twilight of their lives nearly three decades after independence and visit Rajghat. An otherwise authoritarian man with a stentorian voice would break down at Rajghat, showing his emotional side. Yes, Gandhiji had visited their family home in Chennai, and that too for three weeks in April - May 1915. My grandfather would gave just crossed 10 then; while his own father was a public figure, running a journal, bringing leaders together, publishing their writings, and maintaining a friendship with Gandhiji that spanned decades. Among many memoirs, paintings, sculptures that dot my grandparents home, the most cherished is the framed photograph of Gandhiji and his wife with my great grandfather.
So Gandhiji was more than a distant icon, who fought for Indias freedom through non violence and won it seventy-eight years ago. There was a familial connect that made me read about him, adulate him, defend him, critique his views and reimagine his relevance today, There is perhaps so much written about him, elevating him to the level of sainthood, and some excoriating him and assigning the entire blame of partition on his name. Considering the sheer weight of his achievements of questioning racism in South Africa and bringing about half a change during his times, to returning to India, joining and then leading the freedom struggle, developing new morally unimpregnable ways to fight injustice and oppression, of questioning everything within his society - of caste, untouchability, gender roles, class, treatment of animals, he has left an imprint which is hard to erase and hard to match.
So what is his relevance in this world today? I think the dismantlement of colonialism started with India in 1947. Colonialism was morally wrong, politically indefensible, and economically difficult to sustain, It took time for much of Europe to let go of their colonized states, but within 15 years much of the colonized world became free.
However, even in countries that were ostensibly free, problems remained. Reform was either painfully slow or non existent. It took eighty five years for US to abolish slavery post independence , but post that African Americans in many parts of US endured humiliating segregation, without a right to vote till 1965. These changes were brought about by Martin Luther King, who followed Gandhijis non violent methods, that of fighting oppression without giving in, and showing the morally correct path to American leaders. Nelson Mandela was another stellar example of how decades of oppression could be reversed. The fight against apartheid, and the violent incidents that surely underscored the struggle was conflated with the spread of communism. Mandela rose through the clutter, embracing Gandhi's non violent ways to press for the dismantlement of apartheid. And while doing so showed extraordinary generosity by starting a Truth and Reconciliation process so that the true freedom that South Africans enjoyed does not transform into a witch hunt against all whites. Nelson Mandela's ANC was initially a violent movement. And as long as there was violence, the government could resort to force to quell the movement, and paint at as anarchy spread from elsewhere. During the polarized cold war era it was convenient to blame the Soviet block and overlook the moral horrors of an apartheid state. It took Nelson Mandela, then inspired by Gandhiji to break the deadlock, just like Martin Luther Kind who accomplished this almost three decades earlier.
When one questions the relevance of Gandhiji today the answers are clear When one examines the most persistent and violent of conflicts, where the morally correct answer is clear, it is the violence that obfuscates the path. The genesis of Israel during modern times was clearly the decades of antisemitism in Europe culminating in the unimaginably evil Holocaust, forcing Jewish Europeans to flee to their roots and promised land under the most extenuating circumstances. They occupied a land that was colonized by the Ottomans and then the British. An Israel was created out of Palestine. The Palestenians who saw this as their own land getting usurped fought back. Several bloody wars followed. Each aimed eliminating Israel, till the maps were redrawn in 1973, with Israel occupying Gaza Strip and West Bank, as semi-autonomous regions.. However, what is justice is known to all. It took another two decades for Israel and Palestine to come to the negotiating table and come close to articulating a two state solution in the early 1990s. But violent forces from the fringe took over, and Israel and Palestine got pulled back from the summit of peace to the precipice of perpetual war. It takes extraordinary resilience and courage to defend a small country against countless barrage of missiles from Gaza or Lebanon or Syria. But it also speaks of unfathomable retaliation against opponents every time this happens. The current events in Gaza are an unfortunate culmination of the waves of violence and retaliation that have marked this conflict. Could there have been a Gandhiji from the land If the intifada that precceeded the OSlo peace accords was non lethal and essentially non violent, could not there have been a more sustained movement for peace? To recognize that Israel as a nation needs to exist where it stands because the followers of one of the most ancient of religions were almost exterminated during the Holocaust. Cannot Israel recognize that Palestenians who existed as a colonized people needed their own country. In this din, the day to day stories of coexistence remain buried. It is violence that obfuscates,. It is violence that prevents any reasonable pathways from unfolding. It is violence that brings out the worst in human beings. Gandhiji saw that very early in his life as he read the Gita, War and Peace, the Bible, and showed the way. What will it take for a new Frontier Gandhi to emerge out of every conflict and show the way
Any unabashed adulation of Gandhiji the man faces the risk of becoming another fundamentalist dogma. Given his immersion in the freedom movement, and solving Indias inequalities and injustices, he was not the best reader of world affairs. I do not know whether he came out and stood against the holocaust and showed a more nuanced understanding of the problems in the middle east. He died just when the seeds of the conflict were beginning to bloom, his views had such an overwhelming shadow that it took decades for India develop a more nuanced understanding of the middle east,.
India lives in its villages, but casteism in rural India is as fertile as the gangetic plains in its villages. A modern economy, with pursuit to education, jobs in manufacturing, retail, technology and services is the best pathway to a society that is free from the shackles of caste and class. I do not think India's leaders could gave envisaged in 1947 what India could have looked like today with at least its urban economy - not necessarily perfect but much better for the country as a whole. It took a Nehru to recognize that start modernizing the country. The seeds of modern India were sown by him, while taking Gandhijis ideals of secularism and equality as the very core of India.
That said, in a world replete with hateful ways there was one man who showed the path forward. His ideas were not only his own, it was a synthesis of many streams of thought that he remained open to. The message of non violence and fraternity above all remains an ideal that is hard to shake off. At least in our India. The ideal of keeping a mind that is open to all streams of progressive thought, and synthesizing them into our own framework is another. Facing up to injustices and finding a better way is a third.
Thank you Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
