Commentary/Amberish K Diwanji

The Mauling of the Mahatma

It is one of the ironies of life that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, revered in India and worldwide as the Mahatma is criticised in India by many people and politicians. In fact, the critics of Mahatma Gandhi have stretched across the political spectrum -- Communists, right-wingers, and even members of the parties representing the dalits. Each of them have their pet grouse against Mahatma Gandhi, which they unhesitatingly invoke.

At the outset, it is important to note that the Mahatma was a politician, and like all politicians, he made deals and compromises that many find hard to forgive. Once, when someone told him that he was a saint in politics, the Mahatma had replied: 'I am a politician trying to be a saint.' There are many who find it hard to forgive the Mahatma's refusal to decry the Partition plan on the fateful day in June 1947. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi's acquiescence finally let Partition become a reality, something for which the right-wing never forgave him.

The dalits have now stopped using the name he gave them: Harijans, saying it was patronising. Perhaps. But they forget that in the absolute casteist times of the earlier part of the century, when dalits could not even draw water from the public wells and sat separately in schools, such a word was in itself a big step forward. Reforms are never achieved overnight, and each step is significant.

And the left-wing has often considered Mahatma Gandhi as a 'reactionary bourgeoisie' out to protect the capitalist classes. Their greatest evidence: Mahatma Gandhi calling off the 1931-32 agitation because the capitalist classes were suffering major loses due to the ongoing strikes and agitations.

Yet, not one of these accusations can really stand the test of time, or reason. And the fact remains that millions revere the Mahatma for his ideals and vision, which years later, remain akin to gospel truth. So should one be surprised at the accusations of someone as petty as Bal Thackeray. Even to put them together in the same article seems sacrilegious, but given the recent utterances of the latter, it seems pertinent to do so.

Bal Thackeray is a demagogue, who has often praised Hitler (maybe because doing so ensures immediate response in the press), and is responsible for the massacre of hundreds of people in the Hindu-Muslim riots of December 1992 and January 1993.

Thackeray is free to praise any leader, or criticise anyone in his private capacity. He made two disparaging remarks against the Mahatma: first, that he was a hypocrite who spoke of celibacy while always walking with two young women next to him; and second, that Thackeray does not consider him as the Father of the Nation.

Regarding the first, Manu and Abha, the two young girls on whose shoulders the Mahatma's hands would rest, were his grand-nieces, about 40-odd years apart. It takes a sick mind to think of anything non-platonic, which is saying more than enough about Thackeray's views.

As for the second, Thackeray is welcome to his own Father of the Nation. Thackeray says that he considers Vallabhbhai Patel as his hero, forgetting that Patel in turn was devoted to the Mahatma. Moreover, Patel, had he been alive, would have brokered no nonsense from someone like Thackeray and his ruffians in Bombay. But it is easy to praise, or criticise, dead people because they cannot speak back.

The tragedy is that Thackeray considers Patel, called the Iron Man of India, and Chhatrapati Shivaji his idols. But they both possessed one aspect that Thackeray sorely lacks: courage. Patel and Shivaji both faced their enemies head-on, Thackeray sits in his house and lets Manohar Joshi do all the dirty work because he is not capable of facing a hostile Congress in the legislature.

It is the people of India who called Gandhi Bapu, meaning father. And the title of Father of the Nation was given to the Mahatma by a man who opposed the Mahatma, who was forced to quit the Congress because of his differences with Gandhi, a man who, though left-wing, is today the idol of India's right-wing parties: Subhas Chandra Bose.

It was Bose who appealed to the 'Father of the Nation' to give the call to throw the British out, and which message the Mahatma heeded, leading to the heady days of August 1942 and the Quit India Movement. Bose made this appeal after having escaped from India.

Thackeray is a petty man. He opposed naming a flyover after former prime minister Morarji Desai, simply because as chief minister of the then Bombay state, Desai had ordered policemen to stop the pro-Maharashtra state demonstrations. In the melee, over 100 people died, and who have been honoured by a huge memorial for them in the heart of Bombay city. There is no doubt the death is tragic, but it was Desai's duty to maintain law and order, even if it caused a few deaths. Not controlling the agitations could have led to even more deaths, and this, more than anyone else, Thackeray knows.

The tragedy is that few have stood up to this paper tiger. His own chief minister has proven flexible enough to survive, showing that for power, pride and character matter little. Regarding the controversy about Abha and Manu, Joshi had to pretend that he did not hear what Thackeray had said despite sharing the dais with him!

Joshi enjoys being a puppet on a chain, which is the sorrow of Maharashtrians whose history is one of bravery in opposing the tyrannical Aurangzeb. But those were the days of Shivaji, not Thackeray and Joshi. Unfortunately, Maharashtra (great nation) is now a katputlirashtra (puppet nation).

An even greater tragedy is that Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Pramod Mahajan was present at the press meet where Thackeray denounced Gandhi as not being the Father of the Nation. The BJP, which reveres Bose, later stated that this was Mahajan's personal view. But the views of BJP members is beyond the scope of this article.