Why the world doesn't need Gandhi Bashing....

There was some Gandhi-bashing going on in the one of the Orkut Forums, so I thought I will give a rebuttal from the Gandhigramite point of view......

The bash, first :

gandhiji was no secular human being. and nathuram godse was no fanatic. gandhiji was a spent idea and his time for rest had come. because he never wanted to rest peacefully he was laid to rest in peace for ever. had gandhi been alive for another 5 years, india would have travelled 30 years back. he was gainst industrialization and he was killed for he wanted to donate another some lakhs to pakistan. hindu muslim unity was not feasible at that time for the nation was in war over kashmir. you dont run a nation with gita's quotes. gita is for personal growth. gandhi would have done well to read up arthashastra or the bhishma parva of mahabharata to advise nehru. he was a confused human being. agreed that he had contributed immensely to the national struggle but he overdid it. he indeed played politics when he preffered nehru rather than bose to be the president of INC. gandhi wanted only those who believed in his ideology. i will define him as a "non-violent hitler". he did the damage indirectly. he was not a democrat at all!!

My rebuttal :

People often confuse Gandhiji's personal belief in Hinduism with a wrong understanding of the word Secularism. A Hindu, however pious, ritualistic and religious, can still be secular, by allowing other people to have similarly strong beliefs in their respective religions. This is exactly what Gandhiji often sought to explain. He was among the first to use the word Secularism in the Indian context, to say that, while every person is entitled to his personal belief in X or Y religion, the state has no business to align itself to any one particular religion more or less and people should keep their religious belief as a personal pursuit. He admitted his liking for Hinduism and its traditions as openly as he advocated respect for all religions. He even dissuaded the State from spending government funds to renovate the Somnath Temple.

I wanted to handle this one first. I'll come to whether Nathuram was a fanatic or not, but, he was, imho, definitely a murderer. Just in case, people confuse this with the word martyr. I consider Bhagat Singh and others of his calibre as martyrs and Bose and Bal-Pal-Lal to be brave leaders, but I consider Nathuram a weakling. He didn't know how else to fight Gandhi's ideology, he thought let's just remove him from the face of the earth. What did Nathuram do ? He killed someone for differing with him on what's good for the nation. Thats not reason enough to kill someone. If you differ from someone and if you think he is capable of a widespread influence, you should be able to take on his ideology by attempting to start an influential movement yourself, build it brick by brick out of your personal strength and leadership skills and show people what you think is true. Instead of that, you just settle scores with the gun, I wouldn't think that to be a mature mind. I might give him some points for passion, he didn't do it for a selfish reason, he had the courage to surrender, but if the underlying approach is flawed and lacks maturity, all passion and courage turn out to be grayed with tension and rage.

This is what Gandhi himself demonstrated. No one had even thought of a non-violent approach before. When he stepped into the political scene, the previous wave had entirely been about extremism. The idea of non-violence was not his original idea, but he was the one who institutioinalised it as an idea for the Indian freedom struggle. You might differ on whether or nor it was more efficacious, lot of people believe Bose's approach would have been better. But even if someone doubts its efficacy, you have to credit Gandhi for his capacity to institutionalise an entirely new approach to the question and gather millions of countrymen in support. And the response he got from the public was truly sweeping at the time, though there were always some differing groups in pockets. Even if you disagree with Gandhi's insitutionalising skills, look at what Bose did. He too demonstrated how to differ with someone, in a great healthy way. He differed with Gandhi, he set out to start his movement to tell people about what he thought was right and did succeed in gathering a large momentum against the British. That's a great way to differ with someone. The point I am trying to make here is: Nathuram did NONE of this. He was looking at the teleprinter giving out the news about Gandhi's fast unto death, and he was frustrated, all his pent up hatred flowed and he took up the task. He had his own and only point of view on Hinduism and if someone didn't listen to him a few times nicely... booooom.... He was largely influenced by Savarkar's writings alright, but even Bhagat Singh and Bose were influenced by Savarkar's writings, it's not what one reads that matters but having read, how to apply one's mind and what one sets out to do. There is a difference between fighting the British for the freedom of a nation and killing your countryman for a political question of transferring money. If Nathuram had to take on Gandhi at his game, he had to demonstrate an equal amount of personal strength and leadership, which comes by the thinking of a rich mind and long term application of effort. He couldn't do any of this and just went for a short term finish Now you tell me, need I discuss whether he was a fanatic or not ? In my view, there is no difference between this and naxalite violence.

It might be pertinent to cover here the point regarding transfer of money to Pakistan here, since the event is one of the ascribed motives of Nathuram. For the record, the deal was part of the Partition Agreeement. India didn't want to fulfil it because of events that happened after the partition (rebel occupation of Kashmir by Pakistan). So it was purely a political problem between India and Pakistan that, by design, was a complex one to solve and it remains to this day. Gandhiji had his views on the matter and he expressed it and, typical of him, wanted to fast unto death. Medha Patkar goes on a fast unto death and let's say, the government decides to reduce the height of the dam or appoint a panel to study rehabilitation, and one of the construction partners gets irked by the fast-unto-death strategy working in her favour, can he set out to kill someone for that ? I can understand if the procession becomes a law and order situation and the state intervening to handle it by exercising its powers, but can individuals settle violent scores on a issue under debate ?

India would have travelled back ? Gandhi had his views on industrialization and the models village-centric rural development. I would even agree that his was one of the areas where he did not succeed much in getting support or widespread institutional acceptance. But to say that if he had continued to live, India would have gone back is not true. He was not at the helm of affairs of industrialization anyway. Nehru was incharge, it was well-known even at that time that Nehru and Gandhi had differences on a lot of issues and industrialization was one of them. Nehru had plenty of other friends in the science, engineering and policymaking circles and was also influenced by his study of the economies of other countries like Russia and Japan. Nehru had already firmed up his mind on the industrialization route and Gandhi had let him to differ and work in that route. Gandhi, on the other hand, still believed on a village-centric development working inside out, and thought, after freedom, he would "spend his ideas" working on changing the society at the grassroots level and leave the national policy to Nehru. So Gandhi or not, Nehru's industrialization agenda would have anyway prevailed. There are a section of people who now look back and review whether or not Nehru's approach was okay or not okay, but that's stuff enough for another thread. Gandhi, might have, probably gone on a few more fasts-unto-death to reverse any labour-hostile moves or any other moves by Nehru which affected people in a large way, but, in spite of differences, he believed in Nehru and had handed over the macrodirection of the nation-building to Nehru. Gandhi's model of village-centric development inside out still has its relevance in certain areas where it has been tried on a smaller scale, like in The Gandhigram Rural Institute, where I studied.

Confused man ? Every leader who wants to think deeply about the society in which he lives in, will have contrarian schools of thought conflicting in his mind at one point of time or another. Many of the basic problems that afflict society are easy to think about and solve at the individual level but extremely complex when it comes to institutionalising these solutions as a national policy. Gandhi was a well-read man, he wrote on almost every aspect of the individual and the society, he thought deeply and originally on many issues. The areas where he failed to make an impact, in my view, are those where he tried to institutionalise solutions that worked well at the individual level but may not work as a state policy. I can give a coin to the beggar, I might even give food to the same beggar all through the year, but to magnify those noble motives into a national policy on hunger is a different ball game. There were indeed some areas where he succeeded in doing this, (freedom struggle and untouchability) and some where he did not make such a great impact, like the Charkha and Khadi. He probably had a small set of basic beliefs and thought to resolve all the complex issues by deciding based on those beliefs, which he thought as "first principles". ( I might be wrong on this). Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Just because a leader of his stature failed in certain areas, to say that he was a "confused human being" is a sweeping over-generalisation. And the good thing about Gandhi, is he laid down, in writing, for public feedback, his conflicts and his own confusions if any, on issues that impacted the society.

Sidelining Bose : I don't think it's possible to run any political organisation, without sidelining someone or the other by political tact. Often, in politics, you have to choose between two equally vibrant minds. You have to choose one, because, both minds, though vibrant, work in totally different directions. Gandhi had approach A and Bose had approach B. It would have torn the Congress apart to have attempted to run one organisation with almost conflicting ideologies. Nehru, with all his differences, was more aligned to Gandhi. And Gandhi did not shoot Bose, like Nathuram did to Gandhi. He just said, if you want me at the helm, you know where I'll throw my hat. It so happened that at that point of time in history, Gandhi had an extremely strong following and backing in the party and in the country and large, and Bose had to move out. In fact, Bose went on to rise much much more in stature after he parted ways with Gandhi. Had he been stuck, he would have had to moderate all his vibrance in the service of something which he never believed and would have caused more frustration to himself and more trouble to the party. That Gandhi chose Nehru instead of Bose, is entirely within democracratic choice. People choose X against Y and align themselves all the time and quite often even part ways and succeed or fail. It so happened in history, that Gandhi's influence was so widespread and had greater following by numbers than the other schools of thought, so whatever Gandhi said, lot of people came on his side. You can't blame someone for his popularity, It's a numbers and ideology game, pitch your tent and count how many people listen to you, if it's more you win, if it's less try again next time. That's how politics works.

non-violent hitler who damaged indirectly ?: The phrase attributes an explicitly sinister motive to Gandhi's decisions. This is not true. Statements made by many current-day politicians make veiled references to taking things in "their own hands" and indirectly predict that they may have no option if the situation goes out of control etc. Gandhi never did any such thing. He announced his strategies against the British from time to time, all his announcements were clearly of the non-violent nature. In incidents like the Chauri Chaura, or in the case of partition violence, much damage might have been caused by how individuals interpreted and impulsively reacted to his declarations, but there was nothing in what Gandhi said that directly or indirectly hinted violence. Damage might have occurred as a cascading effect of various levels of interpretation by other individuals, but you can't place the responsibility for such acts on what strategy he announced, particularly when he openly exhorted all his followers to be strong but non-violent. Hindu Muslim Unity was not feasible at the time, agreed, so if someone espouses, is he wrong?, just because it wasn't feasible?. Producing environ-friendly cars or renewable energy in a cost-effective way was considered infeasible at one time, does it mean people who tried to explain to us were wrong ? In fact, I would like to think that they were forerunners in raising these to the people and telling them that if they wanted a good life, they have to choose their actions differently.

As to the statement that Gandhiji never wanted to rest, so he was laid to rest, I can appreciate only the pun. Let me take some rest now.