Gandhi rewound and revised

In the waves of Gandhi worship that have engulfed us on his 150th birth anniversary, few have paused to consider what the Father of the Nation and Apostle of Non-Violence might have made of the celebrations and commemorations as birthday presents — or how and where he might have chosen to spend October 2?

Apart from the usual minting of coins and stamps, crocodile queues of schoolchildren hustled to samadhis, walkathons, and garbage clearing by politicians and release of prisoners, some of the memorialising is far-fetched. For instance, the BJP announced a four-month Gandhi marathon till his death anniversary on January 30 next year, with each MP expected to cover 150 km in 15 days, and collectively, 500,000 km. Luckily, no log book will be kept.

As political agitprop or art exhibit, Gandhi-mania also hit the high spots globally. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar presented a Gandhi bust to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi while a Spanish manufacturer of luxury porcelain was retailing Gandhi figures online. At one of the world’s most prestigious art shows, the Venice Biennale, Gandhi-inspired artworks are the theme at the 6,000 square foot India Pavilion. Interspersed with Nandalal Bose’s panels commissioned by Gandhi for the Haripura Congress session in 1938 are contemporary installations including a mural of wooden clogs by G R Iranna, glass cabinets filled with broken limbs by Atul Dodiya (whose forbears come from Porbandar), and Jitish Kallat’s video projection of a letter written by Gandhi to Hitler.

Repackaging and shape-shifting Gandhi as a totem of realpolitik, diplomatic nicety, and avant garde tradeoff is one thing — revising him ideologically is another. As fellow Gujarati and chief flag-waver of the Gandhi legacy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s exertions on October 2 were unparalleled. Between visits to Sabarmati Ashram and Raj Ghat, a flurry of tweets flowed, declaring rural India defecation-free (and in the process employing 7.5 million people) and also eradicating the single use of plastic by 2022.

Unquestionably, Mr Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and toilet-building venture have brought hygiene and sanitation into sharp national focus. But Gandhi’s intent and practice on bodily hygiene and latrine-cleaning were quite different. At Sevagram in Wardha, he not only insisted that ashramites clean the toilets themselves but he would “trudge along the tracks sweeping up the excrement that the villagers had left around like dogs, even by the well”. It was his way of teaching villagers the lesson he most wanted them to learn — “that human and animal filth was the main cause of disease throughout the land”. But he toiled at turning the waste into farm compost, not an employment opportunity.

Critics of SBM have noted that millions of toilets alone cannot eradicate waste, one reason the plague of human scavenging persists. Last month the Supreme Court hit out at governments on the subject: “In no country are people sent to gas chambers to die. Every month four to five persons are losing their lives in manual scavenging.”

Reduced 150 years later to a composite of pamphlets and porcelain dolls, Gandhi is often a challenging and contradictory figure. Although personally frugal in the extreme — an upturned Lifebuoy soap-crate served as his desk, no stub of pencil was ever thrown away — he needed, and courted, the support of moneyed men to promote his causes. The Sarabhais and Birlas were at his feet. Later G D Birla said, “He was certainly a bania … He sent me detailed accounts of everything he spent or was spent for him … but he had no business sense … I never agreed with his notions on economics. Gandhiji believed in a medieval economic system … but he was hallucinating.”

Despite his many oddities such as bodily tests of serial, dietary privations or pushing his homegrown remedies on all and sundry (he sent pots of curd to Sir Stafford Cripps daily when he developed stomach trouble in Delhi), he remained passionately engaged in championing two ideas till his last breath: Hindu-Muslim unity and upholding the rights of the marginalised. This is the polar opposite of the divisive politics that has gripped the country today.

In October 1946, despite dire warnings that he should not venture there, he insisted on going to Noakhali, a Muslim-majority rural district (now in Bangladesh) where the communal bloodletting of Partition was severe. “I am prepared for any eventuality,” he wrote — prophetically it turned out — to a cousin. “‘Do or Die’ has to be put to the test here. ‘Do’ here means Hindus and Mussalmans should learn to live together in peace and amity. Otherwise, I should die in the attempt.”  

Were he around today, the unreconstructed Gandhi would probably have been repulsed, and perhaps a little amused (for he had a sense of humour), at the plethora of feel-good promotions floated in his name. But of where he would have preferred to spend his birthday there is little doubt. He could have only been in one of two places: in Assam and Bengal to assure Muslims under threat of losing their citizenship — or in Kashmir to bring succour to the prevailing bitterness in the Valley.