I wrote a similar post on my Facebook page a couple of years ago and I thought it was worth sharing on my blog on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti (2nd October). Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most popular at the same time one of the most widely criticized personalities in India. Some parties and people use his name and image for their political gain and at the same time, some criticize him for similar purposes. If one searches on the internet then one can find
many articles, blogs, social media posts, groups, and many other things about
Gandhi. People question his principles, question their relevance in today's world, various forums discuss how India benefited from his ideologies or how he ruined India's prospectus of
becoming super power by introducing this 'nonviolence' thing (Ahinsa, अहिंसा). There is an ample amount of food for thought related to his personality and ideologies. Both pro and anti-Gandhi groups are very good in
their arguments and try their best to prove their points by citing many examples
from history to show how he failed or excelled in certain situations.
To my surprise, some of his critics go to the extent of justifying his
assassination by Nathuram Godse and even claim that India benefited from this cowardly act of Nathuram.
No doubt that Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most influential and powerful personalities of the 20th century. He had a profound influence on the Indian independence movement. He believed in a certain ideology and he practiced that till the end of his life. His ideology for him was above everything, including his own life. I am really impressed by his solidarity toward his convictions and beliefs.
Gandhi is criticized for many things. His detractors often criticize him for his pro-Muslim stand, blame him for not trying enough to stop Bhagat Singh’s execution, blame him for the partition of India, and also think he was responsible for destroying the armed struggle movement for independence. I really feel surprised how one can blame a single person without any position of power for so many things. If one looks at Gandhi’s lifestyle he was a staunch follower of Hinduism (with all his prayers and vegetarian diet etc.) but he is considered as pro-Muslim? I just don’t understand this accusation against him, maybe this is related to his stance to give Pakistan 55 crores which India promised.
I can’t understand how people even think that he could have managed to stop the execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru. He was not part of the British judiciary system; he never practiced law once he returned to India from South Africa, then how?? By going on a hunger strike? By begging to British government for their pardon? What about many others who faced a similar fate, was Gandhi responsible for their deaths also? Both of them (Gandhi and Bhagat Singh) believed in certain ideologies and they followed them till the end of their life. I don’t think they needed or even expected each other's support because their paths were totally different. I don’t remember any of the armed struggle revolutionaries ever supporting Gandhi’s ideas and his views but they don’t get accused for not supporting Gandhi but Gandhi gets accused all the time for not doing anything for them. I don't know why? I don’t think people like Bhagat Singh even needed Gandhi’s support for their mission. All of them were great in their own manure and did great work and sacrifices for our nation, so what’s the point of dragging Gandhi into everything. It's very simple to understand that Gandhi never believed in their line of thinking and they didn’t believe in Gandhi’s, their ways were separate from the beginning, so one should not expect them to support or endorse each other even though their ultimate target was the same.
People often forget one very important thing, Gandhiji was a also politician and member of a political party (Indian National Congress, INC). His biggest contribution to the freedom struggle was that he took the freedom movement to the masses. He went where no political leader of the freedom movement had gone before. He went to rural India, stayed with common people, understood their problems, and solved them by getting those people involved. He showed them that they have power and can fight any injustice, that’s why he was so popular and his movement could attract people from all classes. The appeal of leaders like Lokamanya Tilak, Gokhale, Savarkar, Bose, Ambedkar, Nehru, Patel, and Maulana Azad was limited to a particular class of society like intellectuals and the educated young generation. I think this is one of the reasons none of them could control INC like Gandhi did even though they were active members of that party before him and spent their entire life in India (Gandhi arrived on the Indian political scene only in the 1920s, when he was already above 40).
Gandhi believed in non-violence totally. He made it his mission and preached it. Apart from non-violence, he believed in many other things like celibacy, self-reliance, etc. It is also true that many times he was very adamant and forceful about his views. There are some examples where he advised newly married couples to follow celibacy in their married life (JP Narayan is an example of this). After all, he was human like all of us, full of many good and some not-so-good qualities, and people often forget this fact when they praise him or criticize him. There are many instances like this about his private and political life but we look at them from by considering him as human not 'Mahatma' we can understand them in a much better way.
He tried his best to avoid India’s partition but failed and along with him all other political leaders and parties also failed to avoid it so all of them are guilty of that unfortunate incident. It's unfair to blame only him for this incident. He was against violence, so whether it was Hindus killing Muslims or the other way he was against it. It's wrong to blame him for the killings of Hindus during the partition. Rather he was the only person who tried his best to convince them to stop that madness. He lived his life based on his principles and died for them. Nathuram Godse killed Gandhiji because of ideological differences and I fail to understand how can people support this act in their wildest of dreams. I wonder how can one justify killing somebody just because they don’t agree with his/her ideology? Can any ideological differences be the reason for killing a person? Is violence the way to settle these types of issues? Godse took the easiest path available to him because he could not fight Gandhi ideologically. If Godse believed he was right then he should have convinced people of his ideas. People of India who supported Gandhi were not fools. If Godse was right they definitely would have listened to him as they did to Gandhi. So why did he murder Gandhi? Is this what we want our youths to follow? if you can't defeat somebody ideologically then murder them?
No doubt that Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most influential and powerful personalities of the 20th century. He had a profound influence on the Indian independence movement. He believed in a certain ideology and he practiced that till the end of his life. His ideology for him was above everything, including his own life. I am really impressed by his solidarity toward his convictions and beliefs.
Gandhi is criticized for many things. His detractors often criticize him for his pro-Muslim stand, blame him for not trying enough to stop Bhagat Singh’s execution, blame him for the partition of India, and also think he was responsible for destroying the armed struggle movement for independence. I really feel surprised how one can blame a single person without any position of power for so many things. If one looks at Gandhi’s lifestyle he was a staunch follower of Hinduism (with all his prayers and vegetarian diet etc.) but he is considered as pro-Muslim? I just don’t understand this accusation against him, maybe this is related to his stance to give Pakistan 55 crores which India promised.
I can’t understand how people even think that he could have managed to stop the execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru. He was not part of the British judiciary system; he never practiced law once he returned to India from South Africa, then how?? By going on a hunger strike? By begging to British government for their pardon? What about many others who faced a similar fate, was Gandhi responsible for their deaths also? Both of them (Gandhi and Bhagat Singh) believed in certain ideologies and they followed them till the end of their life. I don’t think they needed or even expected each other's support because their paths were totally different. I don’t remember any of the armed struggle revolutionaries ever supporting Gandhi’s ideas and his views but they don’t get accused for not supporting Gandhi but Gandhi gets accused all the time for not doing anything for them. I don't know why? I don’t think people like Bhagat Singh even needed Gandhi’s support for their mission. All of them were great in their own manure and did great work and sacrifices for our nation, so what’s the point of dragging Gandhi into everything. It's very simple to understand that Gandhi never believed in their line of thinking and they didn’t believe in Gandhi’s, their ways were separate from the beginning, so one should not expect them to support or endorse each other even though their ultimate target was the same.
People often forget one very important thing, Gandhiji was a also politician and member of a political party (Indian National Congress, INC). His biggest contribution to the freedom struggle was that he took the freedom movement to the masses. He went where no political leader of the freedom movement had gone before. He went to rural India, stayed with common people, understood their problems, and solved them by getting those people involved. He showed them that they have power and can fight any injustice, that’s why he was so popular and his movement could attract people from all classes. The appeal of leaders like Lokamanya Tilak, Gokhale, Savarkar, Bose, Ambedkar, Nehru, Patel, and Maulana Azad was limited to a particular class of society like intellectuals and the educated young generation. I think this is one of the reasons none of them could control INC like Gandhi did even though they were active members of that party before him and spent their entire life in India (Gandhi arrived on the Indian political scene only in the 1920s, when he was already above 40).
Gandhi believed in non-violence totally. He made it his mission and preached it. Apart from non-violence, he believed in many other things like celibacy, self-reliance, etc. It is also true that many times he was very adamant and forceful about his views. There are some examples where he advised newly married couples to follow celibacy in their married life (JP Narayan is an example of this). After all, he was human like all of us, full of many good and some not-so-good qualities, and people often forget this fact when they praise him or criticize him. There are many instances like this about his private and political life but we look at them from by considering him as human not 'Mahatma' we can understand them in a much better way.
He tried his best to avoid India’s partition but failed and along with him all other political leaders and parties also failed to avoid it so all of them are guilty of that unfortunate incident. It's unfair to blame only him for this incident. He was against violence, so whether it was Hindus killing Muslims or the other way he was against it. It's wrong to blame him for the killings of Hindus during the partition. Rather he was the only person who tried his best to convince them to stop that madness. He lived his life based on his principles and died for them. Nathuram Godse killed Gandhiji because of ideological differences and I fail to understand how can people support this act in their wildest of dreams. I wonder how can one justify killing somebody just because they don’t agree with his/her ideology? Can any ideological differences be the reason for killing a person? Is violence the way to settle these types of issues? Godse took the easiest path available to him because he could not fight Gandhi ideologically. If Godse believed he was right then he should have convinced people of his ideas. People of India who supported Gandhi were not fools. If Godse was right they definitely would have listened to him as they did to Gandhi. So why did he murder Gandhi? Is this what we want our youths to follow? if you can't defeat somebody ideologically then murder them?
It's very easy to blame Gandhi but it takes some time and patience to understand him. People who blame him never give him any credit that he deserves. As a politician some of his actions were definitely questionable but that’s true with all politicians be it Nehru, Patel, Bose, Indira, or anyone else, that's a part and parcel of a politician's life. He made certain mistakes in his life like all of us do but unlike most of us, he showed courage to accept many of them. He totally believed in non-violence and practiced it himself and at that time many people in India agreed with his philosophy and followed him, we can not blame him for that. Just try to lead a peaceful protest of a few people and see how difficult it is to control the crowd and then imagine how easy it was for this man to guide the entire nation towards a non-violent freedom struggle.
Gandhi was a great leader but that doesn’t take away any credit from other freedom fighters. They all did their part and were also responsible for achieving India's freedom. I am not pro or anti-Gandhi, I don't understand why always we have to take sides. Can’t we take all the good qualities of all great people and try to make this planet a better place? These people fought with the British for our independence, instead of working towards building a strong nation do we want to keep on fighting among ourselves for them? Think about it.
Thanks for reading and your comments are always welcome.
(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)
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