On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's 70th birthday
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.’
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 ever be able to capture the imagination as
the Mahatma did.
Why is that so? Perhaps, it is because of his
simplicity, obduracy and brutal honesty. Which political figure discusses his
sex life in public with such candour? None. Political and public figures
masquerade their personal lives to maintain their Teflon coat.
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 the 7th 1893.
Gandhian 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 (the
British rulers).
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 aggression were 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.
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.
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 close to his heart and he was tragically felled by the
bullets of an assassin while trying to maintain communal harmony.
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, Satyagraha and Civil
Disobedience which he pioneered in the Champaran.
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. 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 the 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 tactic 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 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 some more at Noakhali, that fateful night …
It would be interesting to mention that there were
two occasions when the Mahatma did not undertake a fast. 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 prevalent circumstances.
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 wage a struggle for civil liberty; be it Martin Luther King
Jr, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Barrack Obama,
and more recently in India- Anna Hazare.
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