‘Defiling
the Mahatma and Deifying his Assassin’
Albert
Einstein said “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one ever
walked in flesh and blood on earth”. Some others predicted, a hundred years
hence people will build temples everywhere for him and pray. Whom were they
talking about? The one and only Gandhi the Mahatma! And what did he actually do
to deserve these words?
I for one would pick his warning
“Nature has enough for everybody’s need but, not enough for anybody’s greed” as
his greatest realization and contribution to the war torn world. Analyze any
issue and it will boil down to the havoc caused by greed and/or welfare achieved
by the non greedy/selfless. He said these words a good hundred years before
phrases like environmental degradation, global warming were even coined and
entered the vocabulary of common people, nearly half a century before the worst
ever crime was unleashed on the humanity – the dropping of ‘Atom Bombs’ on the
innocents citizens after the war had already ended. It does not refer to
environmental issues alone. It is all encompassing, the very way of life.
Replacing the word Nature by ‘God’, it represents the whole gamut of religion. It
is the essence of Vedas and Bhagawath Geetha. In Tamil we say ‘Manh aasai,
Pon aasai, Penh aasai’ are the reasons for all sufferings of mankind.
Wars are results of greed. War
cannot end war. The analogy of a thorn to remove another does not apply here. End
of one war is just the seed for the next and more deadly war. Truth is need,
untruth is greed. Freedom is the need of all but slavery is due to the greed of
some. Terrorism cropped as a reaction to the greed of some – mainly US – to
control the world. Terrorists have killed much fewer [few thousands] than the
US military [few millions]. No amount of arming can put an end to terrorism.
Only stopping harming can do that. Socialism is the need of all. Capitalism
[call it market economy if you don’t like the old world word] is the result of
greed. Idea of ‘superpower’ emanates out of greed of some to control others.
Idea of ‘subeeksha’ emanates out of concern for all. ‘Sarvodhaya’
targets to achieve ‘subeeksha. Vegetarianism is the need, while Meat
eating is greed.
When someone asked me what is ‘Gandhiam’
[Gandhism or whatever] I said ‘I can write volumes about it, or an article
running to pages or just tell in a single word ‘Naermai’ – honesty or
forthrightness. Practice of ‘Naermai’ in thought, word and deed is Gandhiam,
nothing more and nothing less’.
‘He practiced what he preached’ is
the common refrain. In fact not just practiced in personal life, he proved it
is possible to practice truth and nonviolence in political/public life too. In
fact this makes him stand out even among the greats ‘Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi’.
Truth applied to humanity’s struggle against social evils, injustice and
atrocities, took the shape of ‘Sathyagraha’ – nonviolent struggle using only
truth as the weapon, not to coerce the enemy but to convince the opponent by
self suffering.
When
India joined the devils band wagon by testing the nuclear device, I noted ‘The
history of the world is clearly on cross roads now. We have to choose between
violent annihilation of biological matter on this planet and peaceful
perpetuation of life. Violence has been the way of politics all these ages,
until Mahatma Gandhi gave us the tool of Nonviolence. The future story of the
world can be written only with Nonviolence, as otherwise the humanity will not
exist to record it. We have to reverse this madness of misuse of science
and replace it with con-science (conscience)’.
Not just
India, the whole world has accepted him as the greatest advocate of peaceful
coexistence. He is much above Bharath Rathnas and Nobels. He was much above the
religions of the world. The post ‘Hiroshima
– Nagazaki world’ has not yet been shattered in to tiny fragments mainly
because of the efforts by his followers – Rajaji, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajaji’s
son Narasimhan, Vijalakshmi Pandit and others at the UN and other forums, in
spite of holding more than 20000 bombs, each many folds more powerful than the
‘Little Boys’.
He gave a voice to the down trodden – the dalits –
calling them Harijans. The word untouchability has vanished from our
memory and vocabulary now thanks only to him. It was nothing short of a miracle
that the scourge of untouchabilty, a few thousand years old practice in India,
was eradicated by him practically single handedly, not by any power of
administration but by Atma Sakthi – fasting and driving the message in to the
hearts of the caste Hindus. His contribution to the emancipation of women is
unparalleled. He re established the pride to the workers, craftsmen and even
scavengers. Even saints and religious heads recognized him as the greatest
saint – they called him ‘Gandhi Baba’.
Now some disparate elements have gathered the courage to deify
the one who assassinated this ‘Avathara Purusha’ whom many regard as the
greatest person ever to have lived on earth, if not as an Avathara –
incarnation of the lord [as I do]. They want to erect thousands of statues for
the murderer. The communal forces among a great people are turning to be
another ‘Taliban’. Afghanis Taliban destroyed the statue of another ‘Avatara
Purusha’ – the Buddha – and now the Indian and unfortunately Hindu version of
Taliban is erecting statues for Nathuram Godse – mind you, it will not stop
with that, it will only be followed by destroying the statues, memorials and other
memorabilia of the Mahatma.
Even using his name for the ‘Pravasi Bharathiya Divas’
is belittling him. NRI’s haven’t gone out to bring glory or wealth for India. If
they do that it is just incidental. It is to satisfy their own self interests
that they go out [run away from their mother, father and mother land] that too
after being born here, fed and educated here at our [RI’s] cost. The very
celebration of ‘Pravasi Bharathiya Divas’ is unfair and an insult to the
Indians living back home. Using Gandhi’s name for this is detestable and
deplorable to say the least.
Not just erase his memory; they are in fact trying to destroy
the very essence of Hinduism/ Sanathana dharma in the name of protecting and
fostering it. You can convert a person from one religion to another. But
Sanathana dharma is not a religion. It is a way of life. Everyone living by a
set of social rules – dos and don’ts – is a member of ‘Sanathana Dharma’. You
cannot convert a Sanathana dharmi in to a Sanathana dharmi. The others who
don’t live by rules including these elements are not even human to say the
least. You have to only try to convert – humanize – them.
Some people are trying to justify Godse based on
incorrect understanding of the history. They say Gandhi betrayed us by agreeing
to partition India. What a travesty of truth. First of all there was nothing
like India before 15th Aug 1947. It was a subcontinent of hundreds
of kingdoms and a large patch of the British Empire. The idea of ‘India’ as a
nation came in to being thanks only to the stalwarts of freedom struggle –
Gokhale, Thilak, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Bose, Azad and others. They worked for
coalescing the bits and pieces in to a nation. Gandhi declared ‘You can
partition India only over my dead body. You have Hindus and Muslim living in
every village. How can you partition each and every village?’ The idea of
partition was the poison sown by the British in the minds of some greedy Muslim
leaders. Even today almost every Muslim living in India is proud of being an
Indian and would only like to remain here and not defect to Pakistan. Only when
Nehru, Patel and others argued that ‘the situation is going out of control –
due to the direct action launched by Jinnah where scores of Hindus and as a
reaction Muslims were getting slaughtered’ and ‘if we miss this opportunity, we
may never get independence in the near future, let us at least retain the
portion other than Pakistan as prescribed by Jinnah’, did he submit to the
reality of the situation very reluctantly though. May be Godseyers would have
been happy if Gandhi had laid down his life then as he declared earlier. They
are repenting now as the blame for Gandhi’s death has fallen on Godse and RSS.
We should also not discount the fact that the very formation and activities of
RSS trying to make the nation a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ gave a major impetus to the
Islamic faction in Congress to form the ‘Muslim league’ and demand ‘Pakistan’
and the British used the opportunity to drive a wedge.
Godseyers feel he delivered a judgment on Gandhi.
Even God [call him by any name] would not dare delivering such a judgment on
such a person. Even the learned British Judge stood up in reverence when Gandhi
was brought in as an accused in a case. Going by the rules in vogue, he
pronounced a six year internment for Gandhi and added ‘if His Majesty [the King]
decides to reduce the sentence, no one will be happier than I’.
Tales of his detractors turning followers after
direct encounters with him are aplenty. They are talking of conversions now.
The greatest convertor of all times was/is not the evangelists of Christianity
or the marauders/invaders of Islam. Mahatma Gandhi converted the out castes – Daliths
who were in a huge majority – in to Hindus, by convincing the Hindu stalwarts
to allow them in to Temples – using no violence nor promise of benefits, but
just recognition as equals. Followers of Hinduism then were only a fraction of
what it is today in percentage terms. He has done more to Hinduism than all
these hinduthwa forces put together. His transforming the out castes in to
religious Hindus is the greatest act of social transformation in the world.
Godse was just the ante thesis of Gandhi in every respect.
I have been saying, ‘Life on earth is just a question of compromise. One’s
biography is only the chain of compromises he makes. Given an opportunity
everyone would like to keep sleeping. But the reality of having got to eat to
live, earn to be able to eat and so on make us compromise and get up, work and
earn. If you compromise untruth to uphold truth you become a Gandhi and if you
compromise truth for untruth you become a Godse. Every one of us is a mix of
these two extremes’.
Gandhians have been put in to a dilemma now. Should they not
protest installation of Godse’s statues? If they remain silent, will it not be
construed as approval or as their weakness? Should they not try to bring Godseyers
to their senses? Should they not contest Godseyers’ view, which for sure is not
good for the humanity? Gandhians should not entertain any malice against them. However,
should they not use their Gandhian inclination to guide the misguided? Did not
Gandhiji suggest resisting nonviolently social evils, injustice and atrocities?
He said Satyagraha does not mean remaining passive. It is only resisting
nonviolently using Satya as the tool. Instead of coercing the opponent, a
Satyagrahi tries to convince the opponent by his own suffering. Satyagraha is
not cowardice. It requires extreme courage to practice it and so on.
Showing resentment in Gandhian ways – human chain with covered
mouth, silent rallies, candle light gatherings and most appropriately with a
mass fast on Gandhi’s martyrdom day – when they are planning to
assassinate/obliterate his memory too, may be in order.
Not only the avowed Gandhians, humanity as a whole should rise
to stop this sinister design to defile the idea of Gandhi and deify his
assassin. Will they or won’t they? Only they can decide.
We may think, ‘only those who have sacrificed their pleasures,
wealth or life for the sake of others are revered. Even if a thousand statues
are erected for Godse, he will never be revered’. But these are days when
villains, anti social elements, criminals and even convicts are revered by the
ignorant. Have we fallen from Gandhian era in to Godsean era – only time can
tell.
K. Raja Rajan
[Technologist by qualification, Farmer by option and Gandhian
by conviction]
President
Gandhian Initiative for Social Transformation
Ph: 9444160839
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