Political Diary

New Delhi, 26 September 2008

Gandhi, Which Gandhi?

OUR EXPERIMENTS WITH UNTRUTH

By Poonam I Kaushish

The drumbeaters were out. Hooting for Rahul Gandhi. “He is the country’s future, our next Prime Minister” gushed Congressmen in Amritsar. “Is the movie ‘Gandhi’ connected with him?” queried a schoolgirl. “No, it’s about the other Gandhi, the one we read about in history and get a chhutti for,” answered her friend. “You mean the Mahatma in Sanjay Dutt’s Lage Raho Munnabhai. Who popularized Gandhigiri -- truth, morality and values. The one our netagan talk about ad nauseum to acquire a halo around their own heads,” replied the schoolgirl. 

She was damn right. See how our leaders who till yesterday remembered the Mahatma only ritually, are today falling over each other to be first past the post in everything Gandhian. Naturally, with Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections round the corner what else can one expect? All busy pontificating ad nauseaum on Gandhian philosophy in the 21st Century --- peace, non-violence and empowerment.  No matter if it is at odds in a criminal-politico era where violence is the rhetoric of the times.

Questionably, does our polity honestly believe in Gandhiji? Adhere to his values? Forget it. All are busy riding the crest of popularity of coming from the land of Gandhi and his erstwhile Gandhigiri to reap a political harvest. Two days hence (2 October), at the crack of dawn a smattering of leaders will head for the Rajghat, the samadhi of freedom. With beatific smiles even as they inwardly curse the time wasted. Ritually offer flower petals. Observe two minutes’ silence. Give sound bites to the TV cameras and rush back to their heavily securitized cars and target their next destination. Only to go through the ritual again.

Look at the irony. We are as far removed from Bapu’s vision of India as chalk from cheese. Forgotten in the euphoria of free India are his idea of simple living and high thinking, his sense of right and wrong and his value system. Put it down to a natural reaction from a politically, socially and morally bankrupt nation, even as a debased and pulverized people stand by as mute spectators.

If ahimsa, or call it soul force, cast a Mahatma’s halo around him universally, himsa has become the universal truth for our society today. Wherein, Gandhi’s teachings have been reduced to mere straws that fly about in the political wind, courtesy our parochial leaders. Pious platitudes and inane speeches to paint a halo round their heads. The fire and zeal across the nation in response to Gandhi’s “do-or-die” slogan died an early death. Replaced by a rent-a-crowd brought by chartered buses to election rallies. Might is right, after all.

What else can one expect from our paper tigers. Isn’t it tragic that his jayanti is being celebrated amidst a cacophony of terror, rage and violence. Wherein the three Cs (crime, corruption and casualness) and three Ms (money, muscle and mafia) rule the roost. What the Mahatma abhorred and denounced. Indeed, India has travelled a long road from the Gandhian era.

More pertinent is the fact that Indians don’t want to debunk Gandhi. It would be crazy to do so when the whole world is looking to him as a guide for a better world. It’s just that the people are not ready to take on his perpetrators. One, because we have tended to become immoral, unethical and even corrupt ourselves. Two, with abject poverty around, who has time for Gandhi. The struggle for roti, kapada aur makaan is what matters. Besides, it is so easy to be complacent than retaliate. Gripped as we are in the tentacles of the Punjabi homily: ki pharak painda hai. (What difference does it make!) Whither our self-esteem, pride and nationalism?

Trust our polity not even to spare Gandhi’s surname to encash on his goodwill. Adroitly converting it into a brand to be used and misused. Which the Nehru-Gandhi family has hijacked as sole proprietatory rights. One has only to see the wide chasm between VOP (very ordinary people) Gandhian offsprings and the VVIP leaders. How many remember the history behind the inception of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Which now is mistaken worldwide as Jawaharlal Nehru’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s.

Why only the surname. How many remember that Gandhi wanted to wind up the Congress Party and have a Lok Seva Sangh (Servants of the People Society) to take its place. This was primarily because of the rot that was setting into the party. He had received information that some Congress legislators were taking money from business houses to get them licences, that they were indulging in blackmarketing and subverting the judiciary and intimidating top officials to secure transfers and promotions for their protégés in the administration.

Where are the Gandhian leaders. Genuine leaders of the people and genuinely from the people.  “Let them not arrogate to themselves greater knowledge than those who have unrivalled experience but do not happen to occupy their chair,” said Gandhi. Today, it is a kissa kursi ka and paisa pakro gaddi rakho every day. Politicians are only for themselves. Good governance be damned.  Political survival alone matters. Their hierarchy of status gauged by the gun-totting commandos surrounding them. Funny isn’t it that our leaders need strong protection from the aam aadmi they are supposed to represent and serve.

Said the Mahatma in his autobiography “Experiments With Truth”: “I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be shuttered. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about freely. I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. Mine is not a religion of the prison house. It has room for the least of God’s creations. But it is proof against insolent pride of race, religion or colour.” His life was his message.  Like the three monkeys on his desk--- each with its own message. Speak no evil, hear no evil and see no evil.  Today apes and parrots have replaced the monkeys. They speak no truth, hear no truth and see no truth.

Take politicians. Gandhi wanted them to be like Ceasar’s wife --- above suspicion in everything. Ministers, he said, “should not live as ‘sahib log’ or use private work facilities provided by the Government for official duties.” Nothing could be farther from the truth today. Yesterday’s princes have been replaced by Ministers, and MPs, who see themselves as winners.  And we call ourselves a democracy. Feudal, is more like it.

Depressingly, no where does ideology, principles, party interests or policies even rhetorically figure in our netagans’ vocabulary. In the past, the leaders at least used to camouflage their intentions in ideological garbage. Today, even that fig leaf or verbosity has been discarded. Power at any cost. The country and its democracy can go to hell.

And, what should one say about India’s secular credentials. Which have been dissected, butchered and roasted to suit political convenience and tactics. Unfortunately, the secularism advocated by the founding fathers has got greatly diluted to mere “ism” and slogans. Clearly, a day is not far when Mahatma Gandhi’s call for Ram Rajya will be dissected and debunked as the outpourings of a rabid Hindu fundamentalist. This is the secular reality of India’s “420 secularism”.

In the final analysis, what should one say of a polity that swears by the Mahatma but doesn’t heed him. “Today I am your leader but tomorrow you may have to put me behind the bars, because I will criticize you, if you do not bring about Ram Rajya,” he said. We did not put him behind bars. Instead, we murdered him --- and continue to do so daily. Our experiments with untruth! ---- INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)