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It is now 50 years since India won its independence
and almost the same time since the Father of the Nation departed.
Much of what Gandhi did has been compiled in his Collective Works.
There is a growing feeling that he and his economic philosophy are
becoming more and more irrelevant to the needs of a progressive new
world.
It is true but many
people think that the Mahatma and his views against the machine and
wanted India to adapt to charkha or the spinning wheel as its
symbol. This they feel makes him quite irrelevant considering the
impact that science and technology have had on the rest of the world,
including the so called third world.
If this was indeed the
case and the spinning wheel is the only legacy of Gandhi, then may be
they are right too. But is this his only, or even his main, legacy?
Is Gandhi minus the spinning wheel nothing?
In a way, yes but that is
only if the spinning wheel is taken as a mere machine. For Gandhi it
was more than that; it was a symbol. For Gandhi symbols were
important; so much so that many of them became part of his very
being. Like shedding his upper garments (for identification with the
poor) or his vows of celibacy or the selling of a handful of salt at
Dandi. For many people Gandhi has become irrelevant because they have
forgotten, or not cared to know, the truth behind these symbols. In
fact it is people who care more for the symbols than for the truth
behind them that have made Gandhi irrelevant.
It is my firm view that
only if we care to find out the true meaning behind the symbols that
we can understand the true Gandhi; it is only then that we can find
solutions to many of our present day problems.
It is a well known fact
that Gandhi called the Sabarmati Central Jail his other ashram.
What is not so well known is the fact that he believed that jail
conditions be accepted as suffering for truth. In that case we shall
never weary of jail going. He wrote when the whole of India has
learnt this lesson, India shall be free.
On the eve of the
independence of the country, he was in Calcutta calming down the
communal frenzy that was gripping the city. It was then that the new
Bengal cabinet came to seek his blessings. Warning them of the
corrupting influence of power, he advised them to be humble,
forbearing and ceaselessly strive for truth and non-violence. He went
on: This is a testing time for you and now is the real test: do not
be trapped by power and the pomp and show that goes with it. Do not
forget that power is for the service of the poor folk in the
villages. One wonders how many remember this message now though, if
anything, it is even more relevant now than it was at that time!
Gandhi often said that
his sayings and words should be burnt at his pyre and his life should
be allowed to be his message. What did he do with the donations that
he got? Once he was traveling for the Congress Session to Calcutta.
Everywhere the train stopped on the way, the multitudes greeted him.
He spread out his palm before them for donations and all of them for
donations and all of them, according to their mite, contributed, some
as low as an anna or two (an anna was equivalent to four
paise).
On the way, in between
stations, he would meticulously make an account of all the donations
received-sometime these would number more than 5000 during the course
of a single journey-writing them down on the backs of envelopes or
any other paper that he had. During this Calcutta trip too he
collected a lot of such donations. As soon as the train reached
Howrah station, he summoned, from out of the rush assembled there, Dr
B.C.Roy (later to be Chief Minster of West Bengal) and asked him to
take charge of the cash as also the various sundry slips of paper on
which he had written the accounts.
What Dr Roy suggested
that he would do so after the public reception that had been arranged
outside the station, Gandhi would have none of it. First the public
account and then anything else. It was only after every paisa was
account and then anything else. It was only after every paisa was
accounted for in the books of the West Bengal Congress Committee that
B.C.Roy was allowed to attend the public functions.
It was early days for
Gandhi in India after his last return from South Africa. He had set
up an ashram near Ahmedabad on the lines of the ashrams that he had
started in South Africa. Unlike Africa, where he had the support of
rich Indian expatriates, his source of funds soon dried up. Situation
came when his financial position was so precarious that he had no
option but to wind up the ashram.
Most of the luggage and
other items had been packed up and dispatched; now he awaited the car
that would take him to his new home. Suddenly a black car drove in a
and out stepped a diminutive dhoti clad person. He walked to
the Mahatma and bent low before him. When he straightened up, Gandhi
found a wad of notes at his feet. Even before he picked up the money,
the diminutive character got into his car and drove away after
telling the Mahatma that running the ashram was more important than
many other things that he could do with the money.
Gandhi immediately accept
the gift, got it entered in the ashram accounts and the ashram was
again in business. How would you classify this gift? A bribe? A
donation? It became a donation the moment Gandhi got it entered in
the accounts of the Ashram. Till then it could be anything, even a
bribe! I’m saying this because the identity of the anonymous
donor is now known: he was none other than industrialist Jamnalal
Bajaj.
Most of what Gandhi said
or did has relevance today especially his views on what true freedom
means. For Gandhi political freedom alone was no the swarajya of
his drams. In his poorna swarajya resolution moved on January
26, 1930 at the Lahore session, freedom meant freedom from want.
Look at the sort of
people that Gandhi was able to discover; from nowhere he would
conjure a leader. From the Hindus and from the Muslims, from the
upper and the lower castes, from the poor and from the affluent, from
the north and from the south.
While many today still
remember Gandhi fondly, what we have forgotten is his use of symbols.
Injustice exists as much today as it did in the time of Gandhi; what
we have forgotten is the way Gandhi countered it. That is the true
significance of his smilingly going to jail. Or his spinning of the
wheel in the face of the gravest crisis. Or his hours of silence or
his fasts or even his humility. Understand now why he got out of the
train to get a cup of tea for his sleeping mate? Or why he gave his
commode to Nehru when he joined him for a few days at Noakhali even
through he himself found it difficult to squat? Or why he took off
his leather chappals when he got out of the train in Noakhali and
decided to complete the tour barefoot?
It is true that much of
Gandhi’s symbolism came out of genuine conviction and belief but
is it also true that he clung to the symbol as much as he did to the
belief that gave rise to it. It is also true that we in India cling
to many of his symbols without believing in anything deeper. Still,
the fact that we have given up many if not most of the symbols of his
era is symptomatic of our drift. If nothing else, let us at least
revive some of the symbols of his age.
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