GANDHIAN STRATEGY

                              GANDHIAN STRATEGY

On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's 70th birthday the German born theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein was to say, ‘Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.

Mahatma Gandhi may have been a revered Bapu to Pandit Nehru and millions of Congressmen, but his alert and robust mind was that of a saint.

Rabindranath Tagore called Bapu as the Mahatma, while the latter addressed Tagore, the first Indian to receive the Nobel Prize as Gurudev.

Indian political and social firmament in the twentieth century was populated with several iconic figures, but none commanded the respect or were adorned with the aura of Mahatma Gandhi. It is reckoned that for aeons no personality will be able to capture the imagination as the Mahatma did. Several books, movies, documentaries, plays, paintings and statues have been made on this diminutive man with large ears, but it is well-nigh impossible to wholly capture the spirit of this towering personality. Among politicians and social reformers, he was perhaps the closest to the Divine, God or nature……….

Why is that so? Perhaps because of his simplicity, obduracy and brutal honesty. Which political figure discusses his sex life with such candour? None. Political and public figures masquerade their personal lives to maintain their Teflon coat. But that was not the case with the Mahatma.

In the age of subjugation and apartheid, it would have required tremendous courage, resolve and pluck for Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to travel by a first class compartment on the train to Pretoria. And after he was ejected from the train at Pietermaritzburg, he displayed remarkable fortitude and audacity to stay the entire night at the station in a waiting hall. The seeds of Satyagraha were sown in his intrepid mind that chilly winter night, on June 7,1893.

Richard Attenborough has captured this moving scene in the Oscar award winner ‘Gandhi’, which millions across the world have watched. However good Ben Kinsley enacted the role or the director crafted the script, it is next too impossible to encapsulate what would have transpired in the mind of the Mahatma. His feelings, emotions, pain, anguish, pathos and resolve can never be canned by any filmmaker.

‘I do not ask to see the distant goal, one step is enough for me,’ said Gandhiji. This is quite similar to the cardinal philosophy of the Alcoholics Anonymous- one day at a time.

Tactics need to be differentiated from strategy. While strategy is the larger goal, objective, the master plan and act of war, tactics are part of the larger stratagem and manoeuvre to realise these objectives.

His strategy entailed political right and self-government ought to develop gradually in a series of progressive stages. He maintained liberalism and never cut the umbilical cord with the   potentate(British).

The politics of Gandhiji were all embracing. It was a struggle against the policy of Divide-et-impera adopted by the British, a combat against the orthodoxy and prevalent social evils. Negotiate with the masters to seek redressal of issues confronting the masses. As non-violence was his credo, it was important to adopt the tactic of mass action as against mass insurrection. He was staunchly inimical to class struggle, violent upheavals and continuously strove for resolution through parleys and dialogue. Violent thoughts and adopting violent means were not part of his true nature and were thus inimical to his strategy as he appreciated the brutality of the British forces. Thus he singularly gave up the Civil Disobedience movement following the burning of the police post at Chauri Chaura, where 22 policemen were killed. Likewise, he did not champion the cause of Bhagat Singh, Sukhhdev and Raj Guru as they chose pitilessness over Satyagraha. 

 This was his political strategy as against a radical, revolutionary and militant class and mass struggle. He did not espouse the cause of the revolutionaries and extremists while fully in agreement with their patriotism and commitment to freedom. The instrument to achieve freedom was as important as the means. End was as significant and equally decisive as the methodology adopted.

He abhorred violence and any form of killing was an anathema to him. This cardinal principle perhaps may have been implanted in his fertile mind through his Jain-Hindu upbringing. However, he was deeply catholic in his temperament and for him there was hardly any difference between various religious professed and practised by the denizens of this country. While he may have worn the sacred thread around his body, he was deeply opposed to untouchability and the caste system which had engulfed India.

As he appreciated divisive forces at work, Bapu devised his political philosophy, techniques and programmes to encompass all forces and different sections of the society. He rejected communism and the Marxian ideology as he was a practising Hindu and a firm believer in religion and spirituality.  To him religion was not an opium of the masses. Hindu- Muslim unity was extremely dear to his heart and he was tragically felled to the bullets of an assassin while pursuing to maintain communal harmony in the country.

Gandhiji was deeply committed to the demands of peasants, and impoverished farmers, the rights of women and co-operation among various social groups in the country. He undertook a fast unto death opposing the Ramsay MacDonald Award in 1932 which attempted to create a schism among caste Hindus and the Harijans. This culminated in the Poona Pact between him and Baba Saheb Ambedkar which guaranteed a larger representation to the Harijans  in the State legislatures.  One can call him a traditionalist or a status quoist, but Gandhij’s strategy was not to divide the society any further. He espoused the cause of a united front against the oppressive imperialists.

The potent weapon of Satyagraha which achieved astonishing success in South Africa had convinced his robust mind that all sections of the society could join hands and embark upon the freedom struggle in unison. In his arsenal was the Direct action which he pioneered in the Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad movements.

The imagery of Gandhiji was to establish a direct contact with the masses. The apparel worn by him was similar to those worn by the toiling masses of the lugubrious countrymen.   He cast away the British stitched clothes and exhorted people of India to participate in mass bonfires of alien and foreign goods. The template and cornerstone of his political and social philosophy became establishment of Ram Rajya (not a euphuism for a Hindu state but as an ideal and egalitarian society) through the 3 Ss- Swaraj, Satyagraha and Swadeshi.   

Likewise, non-violence, non-cooperation and civil disobedience were a three-pronged strategy he unleashed from his arsenal. In the magazine of his armoury were also the twin missiles of truth and fasting. This was a comprehensive positive mind-set of the Mahatma to achieve the desired goals of political and social emancipation of an enslaved India.

However, he was a deeply disillusioned man when Pandit Nehru spoke those immortal lines, ‘At the stroke of midnight as the whole world sleeps……….’. He was deeply anguished with the partitioning of the country. He shed a few tears in solitude and wiped of several more at Noakhali, that fateful night…..

It would be however significant to mention that there were two occasions when the Mahatma did not undertake a fast unto death. One, to stave off the capital punishment awarded to Bhagat Singh and others and secondly when the country was partitioned. Even the Mahatma realised the futility of undertaking such an exercise under the given circumstances. His life was precious then to the humanity and country.

In the ultimate analysis Gandhiji gave the nationalist struggle a deeper connotation and meaning. His strategy, philosophy, technique proved efficacious in approach and nature. More importantly, it fired the imagination of several leaders across the world to fight for civil liberty; be it Martin Luther King Jr, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Barrack Obama, many more and more recently in India- Anna Hazare.