Gandhi: The man and the mahatma

Even when you are told to respect people as flawless, history gives us opportunities to reflect on that person and reinstate a proven fact - no individual is complete. 

We are taught to respect Gandhi right from childhood days. I too grew up as a kid, listening to the stories of him during my school days. There is a Malayalam poem 'Ente Gurunathan' aka My Guru by Vallathol Narayana Menon about why he admires Gandhi.

In my teenage days, I read Gandhi's autobiography. I was moved by his simplicity in life. Wearing a loincloth, travelling in third class compartments and the idea that he will move up if poor people in the country can do so was an eye-opener. Later I realised that Congress party, in fact, had to spend a lot of money to keep Gandhi's simplicity intact. Most of the train tickets will be booked by the party workers since there were death threats to Gandhi. The goat milk that Gandhi consumes daily is not available in all parts of the country. Sometimes, they have to get it from another village which is miles away. 

I was also appalled by his 'brahmacharya tests' and it did hurt me when I read Manu's revelations. My grandmother used to tell me, "Gandhi is what he is because of his wife Kasturba. She was a great human being." Gandhi in his quest for freedom and ahimsa often compelled his wife to do things that she doesn't like. After realising his mistakes, he later apologised to Ba. The plight of his elder son, Harilal Gandhi who wandered in the streets of Lahore was also because his father ignored his childhood. 

Handling sensitive issues

Many a time, Gandhi used fasting as the means to get what he wants. SC/ST representation and the pact with Ambedkar was compromised because Gandhi's health was weakening due to the fast and Ambedkar had to dilute some provisions to get Gandhi's satisfaction. According to Gandhi, he represented the impoverished people of the country than anyone else and he earned it through a life full of struggles. But when you look deeper, we can see in his writings that Gandhi was in favour of Chaturvarnya system, something which kept the SC/ST population in dark ages for long. Gandhi believed it helped in creating social order. During his fastings, the thought that his life is precious comes up. That's when the real issue gets cornered. Sometimes I feel that if Gandhi was not rigid, it could have helped the freedom movement further. People like Subhash Chandra Bose would have stayed within the Congress. 

Gandhi the politician

The first mistake he did was when he let the revolutionaries, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru die in hanging. It is true that he wrote letters to the Viceroy and other top officials but he conceded the fact that they were revolutionaries and their paths were different. Bhagat threw the bomb inside the assembly and stood there to face the arrest hoping that they can tell their views in the court. Their intention was not to cause harm but to communicate their ideas. We should not have let them die young! The reading that their death will be more heroic doesn't make sense when we are losing three high-spirited patriotic individuals. He could have stopped it because the Britishers often had to listen to him than anyone in the past. 

Gandhi's political ideas including truth and ahimsa are unparalleled and demand certain virtue from the practitioners. The spiritual, value-oriented politics works when people on the other side understand what you say. Did the Britishers comprehend his ideas well?  I doubt. For them, Gandhi was a national leader who could probably mend to their ways. It is only in the rarest of instances that we see him taking the crusade stand. There was a gap of 12 years between Dandi March and Quit India. Some may think that post the Salt Satyagraha, India had a great chance to gain Independence but it never occurred because of the differences within the Congress party. 

Gandhi's view was that it is too early to seek freedom because the people in the country are not prepared for it. He feared that poverty and miseries will rule the country. But when Britishers left, was there any difference? 

Hindu-Muslim unity

After the Chauri Chaura incident and Khilafat movement, Gandhi said he will dedicate his life to the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity. But the differences within the Muslim League and Indian National Congress was such that Gandhi could not bring peace between the two countries. In those debates, it was the emotion of Gandhi which got highlighted. He went onto the idea of suggesting Jinnah as the Prime Minister and Nehru being the Deputy PM. By that time, it was all clear that Jinnah wanted a separate country exclusively for the Muslims and he was not happy to be in the country. 

A leader of Gandhi's capacity, a person whom everyone listens, could not make peace with Jinnah. He saw his idea of Hindu-Muslim unity breaking into pieces during the riots which followed the freedom movement. 

Listening to the other voices

Gandhi was a person who believed his own voice. His conviction was often behind the decisions. But was he successful in sharing his ideas with people? He has had a troubled relationship with Ambedkar and Bose. Nehru too admitted that he sometimes had to stay silent in front of Gandhi because he would have already made up his mind. It is not to say that he is not welcoming other views. But he feels that his opinion is correct because he got it through his hard-earned skills, truth and ahimsa. Thus opposing voices does not influence him much. A leader is successful when s/he integrates the idea of the other person and make them believe that this is the right thing. But more often, it came to a scenario where people say, "Let's trust Gandhi," rather than fully understanding his ideas or convincing him their ideas. 

I would partially blame the Congress party for this because the hierarchical party culture created 'unquestionable characters' and this affected Gandhi too. His views were not disputed in Congress meetings. When they were, the opposing voices were treated as in to make them stay within the party rather than to discuss the points they were raising. 

We made him the father of the nation and idolized him. We did not explore the human side of him but made him a Mahatma instead. We keep worshipping the person, not his ideals.   

What could have made the difference

 If the thought that people were not understanding him had occurred to him, I am sure he would have changed his methods by himself. Unfortunately, the party, Britishers and the people created an environment that made him felt he was right. It would have been heartbreaking if he realised that he could have done much more than what he did. He had readily taken the hard path and walked all his life untiringly. But it also made him shut the door to outer realities. That is where Gandhi remains a puzzle for many. He spoke through his actions but that was not enough at that point to time. 

Even now, Gandhi is misrepresented and his followers have learnt to live with it. The party he was part of has changed its colour. People are taking him for granted to appropriate their hidden agendas. We made him the father of the nation and idolized him. We did not explore the human side of him but made him a Mahatma instead. We keep worshipping the person, not his ideals.