Of Guevaras In Gandhian Land...

New post... been long, I know. Only, my thought processes are getting more tangled than ever. So free... to the topic, then.

I was never a big worshiper of the Gandhian ideology, nor was I particularly interested or impressed with his life till recently. Back at school, studying history, I spent hours dozing off trying to read about our struggle for independence... the darn salt satyagrahas and Quit-India slogans were complete/alien crap to a guy like me, who had been raised on daily doses of gut-wrenching action and violence, courtesy, the good ol' cable-tv revolution.

My dad gifted me 'My Experiments With Truth' for my birthday... it spent a whole year in my bookshelf, crisp and untouched. Then, during my 1st year at college, something happened. Mouli man, always the one for a controversial comment, entertained us with his views on Gandhi...

"Over-rated, man. Thats all he is. We would have attained independence long before, had we waged a complete war like heroes. The guy slowed the whole thing down, with his non-violent 'I won't eat, I won't speak' crap."

Now, I was accustomed to Mouli's extreme views... the guy's sole aim is to contradict popular perception, but what infuriated me was the ease with which his comments were accepted. One guy went so far as to tell me that Mouli's comments had totally changed his views on Gandhi, and had influenced him. So I dug deep into some history again, confused over my generation's disdain for Gandhian values.

Fact of the matter is, we have no right whatsoever to even comment on the man who worked day and night for his country, toiled and struggled with a mighty empire, and brought it to its knees, fetching us our freedom in his own way. The guy LIVED his ideals. Compare this with the materialistic Indian of today, basking in the IT glory, living the Apple i-Lifestyle, working for Caucasian bosses, dancing like a puppet without caring about who pulls his strings, as long as he gets the money to buy his next i-Phone.

Truth and non-violence may seem trivial and laughable today, but the man gave these values a new makeover. I hear voices, voices echoing half-baked notions of protest that they have been programmed into believing as true. A guy told me:

"I hate Gandhi, man... I read that guy's autobiography. Jeez, man... You won't believe the SHIT he's done when he was a teen. I mean, goddamn it, he did everything he stood against later in life. Shit, he was doing his wife when his dad was dying, man!"

Yes, Gandhi had done stuff, I told him. He had sinned( if the religious rules imposed by our vedic ancestors centuries ago are held to be supreme, then yes). But he had the courage to admit his mistakes, on record. How many of us are willing to do that? Do you have the courage, I asked the guy, to go to your dad this very moment and tell him that you have been stealing from his purse for the past two years? Gandhi had nothing to hide. His life was an open book.

Unlike other revolutionaries, Gandhi did not force his philosophical views on anyone. He did not play the blame game, he criticized none, and he did not give up when the British Empire ridiculed him, unable to digest the fact that a thin old man was slowly, but steadily axing his way through the mighty oak their Empire was. He had the nerve to walk inside the Buckingham Palace, dressed in his usual single dhoti. Such nerve is a rarity now.

How many inspirational leaders can Indians boast of, anyway? In a country of a billion people, how many can we count up and say 'They lived for the country's pride, and died for it!'. Very few. In a land of leaders who suck up the blood and money of the citizens, leaders like Gandhi, Tilak and Vallabhai Patel are revelations.

Some people think that Gandhi was too mild, his methods were too soft. Well, these methods worked eventually, did they not? Look what happened to Subash Chandra Bose, a man who believed in fighting might with might, and disappeared off the face of Earth. Look what happened to Bhagat Singh. These leaders fought, yes, their commitment was never under question. But they failed to achieve their life's aim of seeing an independent India. Gandhi lived to see that. But he wasn't happy, because he saw an India torn by religious and cultural differences. He couldn't bear to see his countrymen killing each other, vandalizing and rioting in the name of religion and caste. Anyone can take up arms to rebel against the existing system, but to destabilize them by peaceful means requires nerves of steel.

Many Hindus believed that he was biased towards the Muslims. His advice to the Hindus was simple: ' Do not harass the minority, because every Indian has earned his freedom'. The seperation of Pakistan came as a blow to him.

The man inspired other great leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King with his ideals and his undying spirit. And what did we do to him? We shot him dead. Are we so pathetic a country that we remember the most singly influential man of our nation only through a series of comedy capers like Lage Raho Munnabhai and on television polls going 'Is Gandhi a social icon in Emerging India?'..?

Emerging India is a myth built around decades of poverty, communal tension, corruption and unemployment, by the ever changing forces of chance, lop sided growth and mere opportunistic buy-it-while-you-can commercialization and consumerism. The country is bleeding, reeling under obscene levels of inflation, while the so-called new generation Indians look around at the Mercs and Skodas cruising around their urban locale and convince themselves that everything is all right, and their country is rising fast, just behind China.

You have to be on the rural side to see the real picture. The hunger, the pain, and the incredibly corrupt bureaucrats.

Gandhi-bashing is not cool. Any self-respecting Indian has to think twice before mindlessly criticizing Gandhi over the other 'cool' alternatives like Guevara and Hitler. Trust me, half the guys who voice their admiration for Hitler's command and Guevara's attitude have no idea of what they are talking about. They care not about history, its the In-thing that matters.

I hope Indians learn to respect their own heroes... we are losing our identity in a flash of globalisation ... let us not lose our icons too.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win."- MK Gandhi

This is me, signing off. Peace.