The Hindu Business Line : Meddling with Mahatma

IT seems that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government could never have enough of meddling with others' writings on one count or another. While on the one side the top political brass was up to the ears in controversies of various kinds whipped up over the ardour it was showing for the re-writing of history books and text-books, on the other, unbeknownst to anyone, the Information Ministry had begun directing its reformist zeal at the Collected Works of the Father of the Nation himself.

Remember, if you will, that the contents of the 100 main and supplementary volumes were, with great dedication and after detailed verification, collected, codified and arranged by a gifted veteran in the field, Prof K. Swaminathan, who bent all his energies as the Editor for well-nigh 25 years to make the Collected Works a true and authoritative reflection of the mind and heart, as well as philosophy and legacy of the Mahatma. Remember also that the whole monumental endeavour was completed and the Works published under the supervision of the Advisory Board constituted by Jawaharlal Nehru, the chosen heir of the Mahatma, under the chairmanship of Morarji Desai, as devoted a Gandhian as you can ever find, with members of impeccable credentials such as Gandhi's secretary and biographer, Pyarelal, Kaka Saheb Kalelkar, Sriman Narain and Jitendra Desai (Managing Trustee of the Navajivan Trust founded by the Mahatma).

This was pristine archival material which should have been left alone, especially when going anywhere near any writing by the NDA Government was exciting suspicion. But no! Seems suddenly someone got a brainwave of making a thorough mess of the job of replacing the entire lot with a revamped edition. The new edition omits over 500 items under the entirely indefensible pretext that they were "not authentic" or were in an "indirect form". Many other items are missing owing to botched up computerisation of the material. All prefaces for the volumes written by Prof Swaminathan have been dropped without reason. Even his name has been blanked out.

In merging the main and supplementary volumes, the integrity, sequence and identity of the original arrangement has gone overboard. There are many other instances of tampering or sloppiness, whichever way you look at it. Surely, the Mahatma did not deserve this!

B. S. Raghavan

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