A Note

Please note that the following blog is not meant to be a dialogue on whether Gandhi's ideas are relevant in today's world. Also, the blog does not intend to idolize Gandhi or make claims that he alone won our freedom. In fact, it intends to do something quite contrary to that. I intend to humanize Gandhi and see him in the light of the man that he was, and not in the light of the mahatma that he is forced to be.

Please remember that one man going on a fast, satyagraha or non-cooperation would have made absolutely no difference to the British, and hence, Gandhi alone certainly did not win our freedom. It was only because three hundred million Indians stood with him that we won our freedom. This is what the following article tries to bring to notice.

Gandhi I

Seldom has there been a name more powerful, more symbolic, and more epoch-making than ‘Gandhi’. Unequivocally, across cultures, countries and religions, that name brings the same images to every mind, even 60 years after the bearer of that name passed away: a frail old man, walking the dusty plains of India armed with nothing but self respect and throwing off the biggest empire in the history of mankind without even once lifting his hand in violence of any sort. Now that’s an image that shall not be equaled for centuries to come.

Today, that name and the message of its bearer have become lost. His own countrymen today think of him as old-fashioned. Its astonishing how an idea as powerful as “satyagraha” lost all support and backing within hardly a few months – (a few months!) of it having delivered the biggest victory of the first half of the twentieth century against the largest empire via the most peaceful means! Yes, to all those who take objection to the title of India’s victory against the British Empire as being “the biggest victory of the twentieth century”, let me remind you that by the measure of the population emancipated, the long standing effects on the global economy, and the causal effect towards the independence of other Asian and African countries and to the eventual proverbial “setting of the sun on the British Empire”, India’s victory does merit that title.

But then, why did it all become so obsolete to the following generation, why did his name become equated with, of all things, weakness?!! A man whose idea destroyed a 250 year old empire certainly can be anything else but weak! I’m not going to enter the debate of Gandhism and its message, but in fact going to make an effort to put that man under the microscope and try to see what he actually did. Yes, he was a man, nothing but a man, who all his life denounced the title of “Mahatma” and should hence be studied in that light, which will do more justice to his work than putting him on a “Mahatmian” pedestal and dismissing his work as passé.

Until recently, I too like my generation Y (generation X having been dismissed around the millennium!) was misled into thinking that Gandhi was in fact a spiritually inclined, pure-souled Mahatma, whose ideas were hence outdated in today’s age. Then, I read his autobiography and read a wonderful book and saw a marvelous motion picture that capture the real Gandhi, the man behind the falsely and forcefully imposed mask of Mahatma, the book: Freedom at Midnight and the movie: Gandhi. I now have a clearer and truer picture of that man and his ideas. Without taking too much of your time, I’d like to explain those two things in a little detail.

The man was, like everyone else, a product of his time. His time was one where British law, and British rule was considered monolithic and just. Hence, he too like many others of that time went to England, and became a barrister-at-law. Although, this step is generally dismissed as just preliminary information about Gandhi, I feel that this was in fact a very important step. Deep knowledge of the British law actually armed the young Gandhi with the weapons necessary to use that same law against its very creators. What do you think satyagraha actually is? You think it is some weak-kneed approach to achieve the end? No. Absolutely not. Satyagraha is the shrewdest technique invented to fight a government following the western law and philosophy of life. It is a technique in which you can use the very founding principles of law over which the government stands to defeat it. Gandhi was a very perceptive man, and that is very aptly captured when General Jan Smuts (the General in South Africa when Gandhi started satyagraha) told a reporter that “Gandhi is as shrewd a man as any that you will meet!”

Years after I first read about Gandhi, I read a science fiction novel from the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, in which the lead protagonist says “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”. And that my friends, is what Gandhi practiced all his life. Come to think of it, violence was not at all the desired solution to throw off the British regime. It is amply captured in the movie ‘Gandhi’ in the conversation between the British viceroy and Gandhi, after the Amritsar massacre. The viceroy asked Gandhi, if he was suggesting the “preposterous” idea that the British simple walk out of India. Gandhi very calmly tells him: “Yes, in the end Sir, you will simply walk out, because one hundred thousand British men simply cannot control three hundred and fifty million Indians if those Indians refuse to cooperate. And that is exactly what we intend to achieve. Peaceful, nonviolent, non-cooperation, till you yourself see the wisdom of leaving.” Do you see the brilliance of the plan? This is not some hogwash of a coward old man, No Sir! This is a discerning mind propounding a simple yet powerful trick to win a victory.

And I believe that although all the politicians after him dismissed him, the common man of India had understood the power that this man embodied. Show me any other man who managed to capture the attention and command the obedience of three hundred million people without using any force. Gandhi was as brave a man as any there have been.

Gandhi II

Gandhi was achieving two goals with one act. He had realized that in a nation more populous than any on earth, preaching violence to achieve independence was simply the most disastrous thing you could ever do. What kind of leaders will such preaching throw up? You instigate millions to take up arms today for a noble goal, and tomorrow, they adopt that course by nature to achieve their local and at times pithy goals. I’m not simply guessing here, but this is actually what we are seeing in some countries around the world, where the population is taking to guns so easily, that nobody but chaos actually rules in those nations. For generations, those people have been bred on violence for one reason or another. Is that what you would want for India?

Playing by the rules of violence requires great maturity of thought – something that you cannot expect to be present with equal uniformity in hundreds of millions of people of a nation. Laws of mob behavior and group action simply do not allow that. When some brave people like Bhagat Singh adopted that path, it was with great thought, maturity and purpose. I salute Bhagat Singh for that. His actions can be justified, and respected. But only because they were done by a select small group of people who were mature enough to understand what they were doing. These are not the principles to be preached to a population of hundreds of millions. Hence, when in today’s “Bhagat Singh” movies, when Gandhi is ridiculed, I feel sad that people are actually being made to believe that Gandhi was a coward to suggest non-violence as against Direct Action by some others. It is a very common, and sad misconception that violence is a short-cut to achieve political goals.

Another of Gandhi’s action which people ridicule nowadays is the Swadeshi Movement. All we learn in history books in school is that Gandhi proposed that everyone wear khadi cloth and burn British goods. With such absurd depiction of history, all we learn about that movement is the dates when they burnt stuff, and the fact that Gandhi remained half-naked all his life. What we do not see is what Gandhi achieved with Swadeshi. British law and British economy were the two pillars on which the Indian British empire stood. With satyagraha, he had started destroying the former, and with the swadeshi, he was eating away at the latter, till as he said to the viceroy: “….. you see the wisdom in leaving…” Figures indicate that Indian cloth trade made a big contribution to the British Treasury. The cloth mills of Lancashire and Manchester practically depended on Indian cloth imports. Swadeshi had actually started putting these big industries out of business.

Once again, Gandhi was showing his shrewdness in mass politics. He was making it a grossly loss making, treasury draining and face losing venture for the British government to maintain a ruling government in India. Faced with this trio of problems, the British did not even have a prayer. He made India’s independence inevitable, rather than a drawn out bloodbath.

Lastly, to conclude my article, I would just like to say that looked in this light, Gandhi’s ideas are not at all obsolete, but in fact extremely interesting and as we have seen in the case of India, South Africa and MLK’s struggle in USA, highly effective.

I remember this incident in South Africa, when in a meeting of Indians to oppose a law the British were imposing there, a young and rash Indian stood up in the crowd, and said: “I’m ready to die for my respect…….These British won’t understand like this, let us kill a few British officers before they disrespect our homes”. To this, Gandhi, himself a young man then, said “There are many causes for which I’m ready to die, but no cause for which I’m ready to kill….” He was shaking the common beliefs that violent opposition would achieve the result. He was accused of advocating passive resistance, to quote Gandhi himself, he never advocated “passive” anything, only that his idea of aggression was a lot different.

In ending, I would just like to quote two people, first, Gandhi himself, and second, Dr. Albert Einstein who met Gandhi for a few moments:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Think of it. Always.”

- Gandhi

“Generations to come will scarce believe, that such a one as this, ever in flesh and blood, walked upon this earth.”

- Albert Einstein (talking about Gandhi)