That was the persona of Gandhi. Still his life ended as one of the biggest political assassinations of the 20th century — reason being “hatred”!
Nathuram Vinayak Godse, member of Hindu Mahasabha (a right wing organisation), shot Gandhi in the chest at point-blank range on 30th January 1948. He held Gandhi responsible for conceding to the demands of Muslims community which eventually led to partition (dominions of India and Pakistan). Godse told the court during the trial “I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus”.
Many Indians didn’t like the idea of partition; many senior Congress members didn’t approve of it then. They expected Gandhi, the biggest crusader this world had ever seen, to resolve this internal issue with maturity. Gandhi was not just the leader for Hindus, he was an undisputed leader and face of entire India, irrespective of him being out of the active politics in 1947. He was known to be a stubborn person to many, including senior Congress leaders. Aurobindo Ghosh, once called him a dictator like Stalin. Gandhi’s view was final with no dissent whatsoever within or outside the party. With this, there was no or little reason to believe that Gandhi couldn’t have convinced the Muslim community or leaders to remain united OR atleast have a less ‘bloody’ settlement if he really wanted to. So, we kill him — is that justified? Does that take away all he did for the nation? Does this anyway make his contribution to India’s freedom struggle insignificant?
India has grown leaps and bounds since independence and has made significant progress in almost every aspect of life. India is producing some of the best brains in the world — leading doctors, scientists, engineers. Indians are at the helm of affairs at large corporations globally — Google, IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Mastercard, to name a few. There is a genuine respect for India and Indians around the world when it comes to honesty, work ethics and hard work. But how are we doing at home? Have we really grown as a society? Or have we become too intolerant to diverse views around us?
I often try and reflect on these questions in an increasingly polarised world & the feelers I get are disturbing, to say the least. I believe, our threshold for tolerance is at an all time low but then I look at Gandhi’s assassination and realized it was always like this. One could draw an easy conclusion that since we live in a world of ‘24x7 media’ and ‘social media’ — everything can be sensationalized for sake of it. OR it’s all about politics and your affiliation. But I don’t think it’s that simple and we can just turn a deaf ear. My core concern is the blind hatred for a particular point of view, a person, an ideology or a nation for that matter. The hate that’s so blind that it doesn’t see any good whatsoever is not good at all. Liberal democracies are all about co-existing of diverse views peacefully and look for a possible middle ground (or closer to consensus) to solve an issue. I study two political personalities in India to drive this point home — current Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and his predecessor Dr. Manmohan Singh.
Modi won the second term with huge victory in general elections in 2019. He is the 3rd Prime Minister to get re-elected with full majority after Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi in last 70 years. He represents right wing ideology and is seen as a pro-reforms leader. He belongs to a national political party, BJP, which expresses its commitment to Hindutva, and its policy has historically reflected Hindu nationalist positions. Modi, as expected, rolled out several reforms which will benefit Indian economy in the medium to longer run. Some of them are structural reforms and few are administrative in nature. A unified tax system like GST is as fundamental to economic integration as constitution to maintain rule of law in any country. Modi government launched GST and created a framework around it which ensures that it can be changed as and when required with the consensus of various stakeholders. The new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) provides the ultimate economic freedom, the freedom to exit to businesses. It is often described as the “biggest” economic reform in recent years by industry experts. Modi is a marketing genius and has taken a leaf out of Gandhi’s book to make every socio-political reform a mass movement. Whether it’s an emotional appeal to people to ‘give up’ subsidies so that less fortunate ones can have free govt. services or leading an all India campaign to build toilets to get ‘Open Defecation-Free’ status by striking a cord with the women in the rural areas more on ‘respect’ factor than the‘hygiene’ — Modi knows the trick. Also, he is never shy of taking political mileage out of our military strikes in the neighbouring country and boasting about it in public rallies — playing to the gallery.
So, does this make Modi God? Absolutely not! Every point mentioned above needs improvement and needs to evolve with time. There is no dearth of scams in awarding toilet contracts, IBC resolution has been very slow, the liquidation time needs significant improvement. Look at the status of infrastructure projects, it’s sad to say the least. Govt needs to support banks to lend for these infra projects which are inherently risky and have long gestation — this requires capital, serious patient capital. No one should be allowed to politicise the military achievements of our armed forces. But that’s not the main problem. Modi has an image issue. He is a Hindu nationalist leader and has an anti-minority (esp. Muslims) image. He is very authoritative in nature, he is famous for by-passing his own ministers and speaking to their secretaries directly on various projects. He is being called mass murderer by his political opponents. He is least interested in improving his image — at least his actions don’t reflect it. There is an industry of Modi haters that seem to find flaw in everything he does. We don’t have to be a cheerleader of the sitting Prime Minister but can definitely acknowledge the initiatives taken by him which should have been taken decades ago. But what do you do with blind hatred!
Let’s talk about another personality. Dr. Manmohan Singh was India’s Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014. If just a glance at his profile doesn’t impress you, then I am not sure what will. Doctorate in Economics from Oxford, Chief Economic Advisor to Govt. of India, Governor-Reserve Bank of India, Head-Planning Commission, Union Finance Minister, chief architect of the first structural reforms in 1991, led the liberalisation of Indian economy and many more. He was the perfect man for the job. When he got ‘elected’ as a PM, people like me were ecstatic. He brought in some of the key legislations like Right to Information Act, established UIDAI (basic framework for AADHAR, providing every citizen with a unique number), created world’s largest employment guarantee scheme, etc. etc. But he could not bring in the much needed second wave of big reforms. He blamed it on to the coalition government, in his own words — “some compromises have to be made in coalition politics’ — as he was heading Congress led UPA government. Given his credentials and track record — that was a disappointment for many. He was called names — puppet, underachiever, remote controlled PM, 10 Janpath (official residence of Congress President) messenger, accidental PM, etc. etc. On top of it, his government faced lot of corruption charges involving his own senior cabinet colleagues. He was again accused of remaining silent and ‘looked the other way’ while corruption flourished under his nose. But can we really undermine his contribution to Indian economy, I guess no. As Dr. Singh once said — “History will be kinder to me than media”.
Let me be clear, I am not against criticism if it’s a constructive one. Infact, a healthy criticism is imperative for a vibrant and a young democracy like India. But when criticism takes the shape of hatred which is then fueled by media, social media and various interested parties — it becomes dangerous and definitely unhealthy. Going back to my initial question — have we really grown as a society? If we have made so much progress, can we not move to an issue-based support or opposition to people, ideas or ideology rather than creating an atmosphere of distrust just because we hate someone? Remember, it’s easy to sell hate but it takes some effort to sell love — let’s make that effort for our future generations!
I ask lot of questions to get few answers. Did Gandhi single-handedly lead India to freedom? Definitely not! But he was the first person who took the concept of freedom and made it a country wide mass movement which was earlier limited to the elites of the society (Tilak tried something similar but was limited to few areas). There were many leaders and founding fathers of this nation but Gandhi’s position is undisputed. Respect!
My last question —Do we need Gandhi today? I don’t know the answer but I know that we don’t need Godse for sure.
Thanks,
V.V
