The Hindu Business Line : Does Mahatma Gandhi matter?

It may sound like a blasphemous question to ask about someone hailed as the Father of the Nation, whose portrait hangs in every government office and court hall, whose picture is emblazoned on currency notes, whose statue in the familiar loin cloth and staff in hand adorns India’s every city, town and hamlet, and after whom every major arterial road is named.

There is no point in burking the truth: Gandhi and India are fast going to be at odds with each other.

If you want corroboration, here is what a mainstream daily has found out by interviewing a cross-section of the aam aadmi in Chennai, Pondicherry, Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad. Those quizzed by the paper comprised school and college students, catering stewards, a housewife, a sales executive, a hotelier, a security guard and a domestic help. Except the hotelier with a foreign-sounding name who is savvy enough to recall the highlights of Gandhi’s life, all the rest were ignorant of where he was born, what his wife’s name was, who killed him and when, and what he stood for.

The following sample responses are bound to come as a shock to those who had reverentially assumed that the details of the Mahatma’s life and the noble principles he expounded were engraved in every Indian’s heart and mind:

“He was cool, I guess. Did a lot for our country. Apparently, he did not have sex for some 50 years. How come his wife did not leave him?...But yeah, he must have done something right or his birthday would not be a holiday for us every year” (Class 12 student)

“Ok he did a lot for us and all but it is not like freedom got us anywhere....And those women who were always with him. He was a sex maniac, wasn’t he?...” (Sales executive)

“He was a good guy. He did a lot for India and all that. He’s made some very good policies such as truth and non-violence and all. But I guess people don’t care much about it...I mean, like, people lie all the time. But personally I feel he was a great guy.” (College student)

Intolerance and violence

Even the Gandhigram Rural Institute, established soon after Independence to propagate his philosophy behind his approaches and achievements, and enjoying the status of a deemed University, is now undistinguishable from any run-of-the-mill counterpart in its trappings, superstructure, methods of teaching and syllabi and curricula, except for some concessions made to Gandhi in the naming of some degrees and their course content.

Instead of the simple, austere, ashram-like atmosphere, adopting the dignity of labour, self-help and mutual understanding as the guiding precepts, it is in the grip of the same kind of work culture, including an obsession with pay and perks, rank consciousness, groupings of employees into various grades and classes, and other ills afflicting Indian organisations in general.

Public life is befouled by intolerance to such an extent as to make it unsafe even to express an honest difference of opinion, lest motives be attributed and scores settled by physically eliminating the dissident.

Corrupt Ministers and officials think nothing of trading suitcases of currency notes embossed with his picture.

Every State, including Gandhi’s own State of birth, Gujarat, had been ravaged by violent outbursts leading to deaths and destruction of public property all too often.

In the present context, anyone uttering words such as brotherhood, harmony, honesty, goodwill, peace, selfless service, sacrifice, unostentatious living, and ceaseless striving for the public weal, leave alone the lofty tenets of truth and non-violence, will be taken to be completely out of his mind and unfit for polite company!

To what sad pass the land of Gandhi has come!

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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