Ramachandra Guha: Narendra Modi’s paradoxical claim on the legacy of Gandhi
The Indian prime minister is linking his name to a man his own mentor despised
India has established a committee to commemorate next year’s 150th anniversary of the birth of the “father of the nation”, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the members include politicians across party lines as well as some foreign representatives, among them the Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu and Al Gore. Hailing Gandhi as “India’s greatest gift to human-kind”, whose “name finds resonance across the continents”, the committee plans a year-long prog-ramme of celebration, commencing on his birthday, October 2, and ending on the same day in 2019.
Delhi Police Archive on RSS activity in October-December 1947
More threats and lies from the RSS
Mr Modi’s bid to
appropriate Gandhi is paradoxical. The prime minister spent most of his
formative years in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a hardline Hindu
organisation which reviled Gandhi for allegedly being too soft on Muslims. The
antagonism between the RSS and Gandhi was at its most intense in the months
after August 15 1947, when the subcontinent was freed from British rule but
also divided into the separate nations of India and Pakistan. Gandhi went on
peace marches and fasts to protect the rights of the millions of Muslims who
had stayed in India. He insisted that “India does not belong to Hindus alone”.
He told his compatriots that even if Pakistan persecuted its Hindu and Sikh
minorities, India “would be betraying the Hindu religion if we did evil because
others had done it”. His “basic creed” remained what it had always been - “that
India is the home of Muslims no less than of Hindus”.
See also
More threats and lies from the RSS
January 20, 1948. Mahatma Gandhi's speech at the meeting, where an attempt was made on his life
India has established a committee to commemorate next year’s 150th anniversary of the birth of the “father of the nation”, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the members include politicians across party lines as well as some foreign representatives, among them the Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu and Al Gore. Hailing Gandhi as “India’s greatest gift to human-kind”, whose “name finds resonance across the continents”, the committee plans a year-long prog-ramme of celebration, commencing on his birthday, October 2, and ending on the same day in 2019.
More threats and lies from the RSS
The RSS, on the other
hand, believed that, with the creation of Pakistan, there was no place any more
for Muslims in India. Their hatred of Gandhi emanated from the organisation’s
head, a polemical preacher named MS Golwalkar. In December 1947, as Gandhi
continued to campaign for inter-faith harmony, Golwalkar made a speech in which
he declared that “no power on Earth could keep” Muslims in India. “They would
have to quit the country.” Golwalkar went on to say of Gandhi: “We have the
means whereby such men can be immediately silenced, but it is our tradition not
to be inimical to Hindus. If we are compelled, we will have to resort to that
course too.” Six weeks later, Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu fanatic who had once
been a member of the RSS. Though this person may have been acting as a
freelancer, the speeches made by Golwalkar showed very clearly that the
organisation detested Gandhi.
Many RSS members were not sorry to see Gandhi
being “immediately silenced”. The RSS was banned after Gandhi’s death. The ban
was lifted a year and a half later, and in subsequent decades the organisation
grew steadily in strength and influence. Its political arm, the Bharatiya
Janata party, came to rule large parts of India. While the RSS muted their
criticisms of Gandhi, their hatred of Muslims remained intense. In his own
writings, Golwalkar characterised Muslims and Christians as enemies of the
nation.
When Mr Modi became
prime minister of India in 2014, he had been in public life for close to 40
years. Joining the RSS as a young man, he was weaned on Golwalkar’s ideas (and
prejudices) and even wrote an adulatory biography of him. There is no evidence
that he ever dissented from the RSS’s views of Gandhi, or of Muslims. However,
since becoming PM, Mr Modi has invoked Gandhi’s name often. He dedicated his
flagship programme to rid India of open defecation to Gandhi. And he has made
it a point to visit Gandhi’s ashram in the company of foreign leaders. He has
gone there with Chinese president Xi Jinping, with prime minister Shinzo Abe of
Japan, and, most recently, with the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This latest
celebration of Gandhi is just the most recent attempt by Mr Modi to link his
name with a man whom his own mentor cordially disliked. Might it be that he
recognises that Gandhi is the most widely admired Indian outside India? And
that he wishes to accrue credit for himself by association? That may be so, but
it is hard to see this exploitation of Gandhi’s legacy as anything other than
rank opportunism. In the four years that Mr Modi has been in power, Muslims
have been attacked by Hindu lynch mobs and verbally abused by serving cabinet
ministers. India has moved further in the direction of being a Hindu
majoritarian state than at any previous time in its history. How can Mr Modi
promote Gandhi abroad while at the same time denying what he stood for at home?
Ramachandra Guha is author
of Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World
https://www.ft.com/stream/9d6b9863-ca90-398a-9d6e-84c2b4c8575fSee also
More threats and lies from the RSS
January 20, 1948. Mahatma Gandhi's speech at the meeting, where an attempt was made on his life
