What does one think when he or she says the name ‘Gandhi’ in his mind? How does one see him - as a man, a phenomenon or a myth? Whatever you suppose him to be, how do you approach the entity, how do you make sense of him and his legacy, how do you understand what to do with it, how to put all of it together and even sum it up, if possible?
It is far from easy. Not just for an inexperienced, relatively uneducated youth like me but also, it seems, for people who have spent a lifetime ruminating over him.
The Gandhi Ashram today was not quite its normal, serene self. There was an air of activity around, more people than usual to be seen in the museum, around and inside Gandhi’s kutir, and on the edge of the Sabarmati River, admiring the view.
It was his 60th death anniversary, and there were to be a series of events taking place in his memory, from the morning Prayer to talks by eminent sociologists and Gandhians during the day. I reached the place at around one (thanks to three silly lectures in the morning), long after the Prayer and the first round of talks, missing the opportunity to listen to none other than Ashis Nandy speaking.
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to listen to some other esteemed speakers, including our own professors Tridip Suhrud and Ganesh Devy. Some talked of his relationship with religion and secularism, some of his take on nation-building, and some on counterfactual questions such as how different history would have been, if he had lived 125 years, as he jokingly (or maybe not) said he wanted to. I listened with unwavering attention, trying to grasp and understand as much as I could. And I daresay I followed much of the discussion.
But now, as I try to think of what I learnt from the day, how much it helped me to understand the man, his life and thought, I find myself at loss yet again. As before, when I try to gather my thoughts on him, to sum him up, there is nothing that comes to mind.
All blank.
And why is it so? Perhaps, the biggest reason why he eludes all reason is because Gandhi simply could not be classified. Humans rely on classifications for their understanding. We find it convenient and surer about a person once we see him as a part of something bigger. For example, the labels we put on the friends around us (like ‘Oh he’s a politician’ or ‘Saala nerd hai’) ease our mind, helping us to understand the person, seeing him as what we have defined him as.
In this sense, it is impossible to classify or label Gandhi. What would you call him – a religious thinker, a politician, a social worker, a designer, an educationist? What, if anything, defines him? This is almost beyond me to determine. And until I’ve decided on that, the approach, the man will continue to escape my understanding.
For some time to come anyway!
It is far from easy. Not just for an inexperienced, relatively uneducated youth like me but also, it seems, for people who have spent a lifetime ruminating over him.
The Gandhi Ashram today was not quite its normal, serene self. There was an air of activity around, more people than usual to be seen in the museum, around and inside Gandhi’s kutir, and on the edge of the Sabarmati River, admiring the view.
It was his 60th death anniversary, and there were to be a series of events taking place in his memory, from the morning Prayer to talks by eminent sociologists and Gandhians during the day. I reached the place at around one (thanks to three silly lectures in the morning), long after the Prayer and the first round of talks, missing the opportunity to listen to none other than Ashis Nandy speaking.
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to listen to some other esteemed speakers, including our own professors Tridip Suhrud and Ganesh Devy. Some talked of his relationship with religion and secularism, some of his take on nation-building, and some on counterfactual questions such as how different history would have been, if he had lived 125 years, as he jokingly (or maybe not) said he wanted to. I listened with unwavering attention, trying to grasp and understand as much as I could. And I daresay I followed much of the discussion.
But now, as I try to think of what I learnt from the day, how much it helped me to understand the man, his life and thought, I find myself at loss yet again. As before, when I try to gather my thoughts on him, to sum him up, there is nothing that comes to mind.
All blank.
And why is it so? Perhaps, the biggest reason why he eludes all reason is because Gandhi simply could not be classified. Humans rely on classifications for their understanding. We find it convenient and surer about a person once we see him as a part of something bigger. For example, the labels we put on the friends around us (like ‘Oh he’s a politician’ or ‘Saala nerd hai’) ease our mind, helping us to understand the person, seeing him as what we have defined him as.
In this sense, it is impossible to classify or label Gandhi. What would you call him – a religious thinker, a politician, a social worker, a designer, an educationist? What, if anything, defines him? This is almost beyond me to determine. And until I’ve decided on that, the approach, the man will continue to escape my understanding.
For some time to come anyway!
5 comments:
Don't worry. Everything remotely philosophical, sociological or psychological has the weird habit of seeping down the orifices of our sub conscious, however hard we might try to effect the contrary.
And I think it's best that way. Earlier we think about living. Later on, we start living to think.
I can empathise with you, and I wonder if every one trying to have a peek into Gandhi's life gets the same result. The more books I read or the more 'Gandhians' you listen to, more confused you get. I guess the solution lies in treating gandhi as what he always wanted him to be treated, a simple man. That puts into place most of the intriguing questions about his persona.
Nice post, you have brilliantly put into words what I tried to figure out for the past one year :)
@Marvin
I wonder if I've already started living to think. One can never be sure.
@Tarun
True. But his simplicity shone in everything he did. What he was trying to do, and what he actually believed in and why is the confusing question.
I can help with the Nandy part...
Please go through it again and you will understand that Gandhi was not a problem in classification. You don not even try to classify the genius of a man... because you simply can't. Contexts of Gandhi change from time to time... Gandhi doesn't!
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The memory of Gandhi and the meaning of this absence in the 21st century is a question that needs a critique of his ideals and philosophy. The question that haunts the present generation is how to remember Gandhi without having any memory of him. When DNA asked the same question to Ashis Nandy, political psychologist and sociologist working at the Center for Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, he responded with anecdotes. The way Gandhi just started walking towards Dandi and was slowly and steadily accompanied by thousands of Satyagrahis without a single request for joining in stands a testament to the impact Gandhi had on India of the 20th century. “It is not his ideals that one should remember. Everyone may have their own interpretation of it. It is the stories that should be a part of his memory.” Speaking at the Gandhi Ashram on 30th January, Ashis went on to elaborate on his notion of Gandhi.
He started with a critique on the use of the phrase ‘Mahatma’ with Gandhi and said that, “Mahatma is not the term that should be used with Gandhi or even Gandhi‘ji’. The reverence that we show to him is more of an act of distancing ourselves from him.” What we need is to be closer to him and his ideals at least in thought. Putting him up on a pedestal would only make us forget what he believed in and all that would remain is reverence without a debate on his principles. “I believe that 30th of January is more important than 2nd of October. It should be seen as a day of mourning,” he said.
He moved onto to describe Gandhi as the one who conquered death by the act of dying. “The Puranas have documented seven people who are immortal… but there is a tacit difference between the immortal (amar) and those who conquer death (mrityunjaya). By being shot at a point blank range, Gandhi triumphed over death to gain a victory which he could not have in his life. In that sense, his assassin was his accomplice. Between the two of them they projected the concepts of what we could be and what we should not be.”
The talk then went onto a Karnataka based playwright Prasanna who had authored a play in which every character played Nathuram Godse for a brief span of time. The meaning of the entire play was to look at the idea that Godse is a potentiality in all of us and similarly Gandhi is also a potentiality in all of us. “If he could die at the hands of an assassin saying Ram as his final words, that would have been a perfect death of Gandhi,” he said.
To elaborate further, he went onto Satyagraha which was started in South Africa in 1906 on the 11th of September. On the same date in the 2001, a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda were made on America. The thing that connects these two is that Gandhi always believed that the Pathans were the best Satyagrahis that he had encountered in the Indian National Movement and it is the same Pathans who are now seen as the terrorist threat to the entire western world. “Pathans were as fanatic about non-violence as they are fanatic about violence. In the end, the choice is ours. No person or community is a closed system that does not allow for change. And this strengthens my belief in the idea that Gandhi is a potentiality in all of us.”
Borrowing from the obituary written on Gandhi by Arnold Toynbee, Ashis went on to say that, “Gandhi was one prophet who was willing to live in the slum of politics.” Once cannot imagine Gandhi outside politics. Ashis then narrated an anecdote about a meeting in which Ramchandra Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, was repeatedly talking about Gandhi as the saint who lived in India. Umashankar Joshi, an eminent poet reacted to this by saying that India has produced saints by a dime and dozen, the greatness of Gandhi lies in the fact that he was a politician.
Commenting on the current phase of Indian politics, he said, “Gandhian thought as a force in Indian politics has declined. In fact, the only people who seem to emulate the Gandhian philosophy are not Gujaratis, not Hindus, and not even Indians. They are Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi. Even though they might not have read Gandhi, one should recognize the fact that in their worldview and action, Gandhi is represented everyday.”
He called onto people to avoid looking at Gandhi with respect. It would be better to question what we take for granted about him because that would lead to the imagination of different public and private life. He added to this by saying that we have not produced another Gandhi and that we don’t need to produce another Gandhi. “In his death he ensured that he passed on the ideals that he lived for. Despite the fact that we may think that Gandhi was unrealistic and that he has no place in modern politics. One may also believe that armed forces are necessary for community security… one has to realize that this search for security has not given us a more secured environment… in fact the country with the biggest set of weapons and artillery happens to be the least secured.”
He concluded by saying that if one looks with a critical eye towards international politics, the idea of progress and development, nation and the social stratum, in its most fundamental level, one is picking up the challenge that Gandhi provided. “With that realization, I think the future is in our hands.”
Perhaps you have embraced more the real Gandhi, than most of his admirers, and many of his followers. Amazingly, no one has ever posed the question, "From where did this man and his soul come from prior to being conceived and born in 1869 in Hindustan?" He obviously had done something very great, during his previous incarnation, prior to 1869. It is not hard to see who he may have been, and after much study and reflection, I see the only choice. And now my choice is what to do with my discovery. From where did Mohandas Gandhi's greatness early in life come from, that radiance he was born with. The good baggage many of us limit and just call destiny and fate.
Keep thinking and writing for yourself.
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