Click to play videoSixty years ago on January 30, at 5.17 pm, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated.
His cherished principles – satyagraha, ahimsa, village reconstruction and Harijan welfare – seem to have been overtaken by a century increasingly defined by violence, quest for affluence and social prejudices.
And that brings us to the question that was asked on CNN-IBN show Face the Nation - did the Mahatma’s martyrdom go in vain?
Discussing the issue were American politician and social activist Reverend Jesse Jackson, Gandhian scholar Dr Tridip Surood and social activist and author Kancha Ilaiah.
Nathuram Godse murdered Gandhi, and had always claimed that he had acted out of love for his akhand Bharat or undivided India.
Today, there is an increasing popularity of Hindutva and a declining interest in Gandhian principles, although the BJP is no longer talking about akhand Bharat.
Has the philosophy of Godse and the Hindu Mahasabha become more seductive to the modern Indian mind than the philosophy of Gandhi?
Dr Tridip Surhud was undecided. “One thing you have to understand is that Nathuram Godse was a normal man, he was not evil incarnate as people portray him,” he said.
“It was a very cold, rational act done in a clear conscience,” he added.
Surhud went on to explain that Gandhi’s death was necessary for two things. The first was the protection of Hinduism, as Godse and the Hindu Mahasabha understood Hinduism to be. Gandhi’s death was also necessary for the creation of a modern, strong, realistic nation state.
Surhud explained, “As long as we have faith in this thing called the ‘nation state’, in its realism; as long as we have faith in its programmes of progress and development – that we think that the nation state can be the source of all good – then yes, to that extent Godse’s act has attained its fulfilment, because we have reposed a great deal of faith in this modern, democratic – and yet autocratic – nation state.”
It may be said, then, that Godse’s India has come into being, while Gandhi’s, perhaps, has not.
A reason suggested for that is something a scholar had written – that Gandhian philosophy was utopian, it was obscure, unrealistic and not pragmatic enough.
But Kancha Ilaiah disagreed and felt that Gandhian philosophy had its context in realism.
“Gandhian philosophy was not at all a pragmatic structure based on certain egalitarian fundamentals,” he stated.
Ilaiah drew a comparison of non-violence that Gandhi had propounded. “There is this Jesus-kind of non-violence, a Jesus-kind of sacrifice for the sake of the liberation of the other,” he said.
“Gandhi, meanwhile, was basing himself on Hindu philosophy which was violent, and was talking about non-violence and the freedom struggle based on non-violence,” he pointed out.
Ilaiah explained that Gandhi was a study in contrasts.
“The freedom struggle was full of violence and Gandhi became a kind of icon of non-violence, but violence was all around!”
This perspective raised an interesting point amongst the panelists that Gandhian non-violence was a contradiction in and by itself.
The point of unsuitability of Gandhi’s philosophy in India was put across to Reverend Jesse Jackson who, however, championed the Mahatma’s ideals.
Jackson confessed that had he met Gandhi, he would have been very keen to observe his methods and the way they were applied.
“We’ve known great success, we’ve known growth, we’ve known the end of barbarism, colonialism, tribalism, respecting women, we’ve known co-existence. And for that, I would thank him and I would congratulate him,” he said, bringing the discussion to its conclusion.
Results of the SMS poll:
Yes: 80 per cent
No: 20 per cent
CNN-IBN EDITORIAL
He wore a loincloth, he spoke simple Hindustani, he travelled third class. Not many people believe in those values any more, but the fact that he existed shows that such idealism is possible. Maybe now, we have lost touch with what those ideals were, but while Gandhi was alive, we know those ideals and we believed in what he stood for.
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