Gandhi for the world, Godse for India?

The Principle of Political Convenience

One of the most striking images of the recently concluded G20 diplomatic spectacle in New Delhi was of world leaders gathered at Rajghat, Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial. Gandhi was cremated here after being assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu supremacist with ties to right-wing Hindutva groups. Gandhi remains India’s biggest global “brand.” At the G20, US President Joe Biden voiced a heart-felt tribute to the Mahatma’s notion of ‘trusteeship’. The BJP has used the Mahatma’s spectacles to publicise Swachh Bharat, and PM Modi has been photographed spinning a charkha. However, in a supreme irony, while the ruling party appropriates Gandhi and his legacy to build its image abroad among international leaders, at home, it lends tacit support to the cult of Gandhi’s assassin, Godse.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, United Kingdom's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Indonesian President Joko Widodo pay homage at Mahatma Gandhi's memorial Rajghat on the final day of the G20 Summit, in New Delhi, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023.

Every year on January 30, the day Gandhi was shot dead, social media armies aligned to Hindutva groups circulate tributes to Godse. There is almost a note of celebration over the death of Gandhi, whom they hold responsible for Partition. In fact, in 2021, Modi announced that August 14 would be marked as ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’ to remind future generations of the Hindu-Muslim riots that accompanied Partition, a tragedy for which the Hindu right has always blamed Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Yet, however much the Hindu right seeks to constantly vilify and attack Gandhi, it is he who is responsible for the respect and goodwill that India attracts worldwide, which was so evident at
the G-20 meet.

The BJP propagates Gandhi abroad but nurtures those who support Godse at home. In 2019, the BJP’s Bhopal MP Sadhvi Pragya Thakur praised Godse as a patriot, remarks for which she was later forced to apologise. Modi said at the time that he would never forgive her, but beyond that, there has been no action against Sadhvi Pragya.

Modi welcomes world leaders to Rajghat and invokes the name of Gandhi for his personal leadership cult. But do Modi and his party believe in upholding Gandhian values of non-violence, communal harmony or reconciliation and dialogue with rivals and enemies? At Rajghat, the Modi government arranged for all world leaders to sign on the ‘Peace Wall’ in the Leaders’ Lounge. Do Modi and his government uphold the central Gandhian belief of upholding peace between religions?

In 2017, Modi said :“If land is given to kabristan, shamshan must get it, too,” an openly religious-tinged statement ahead of the UP elections, referring to Hindu and Muslim burial grounds and cremation sites. In 2019, Modi declared that those creating violence “could be identified by their clothes.” In 2019, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asserted, “If they have faith in Ali, we have Bajrangbali.” Adityanath described the 2022 Assembly polls as a battle between “80% vs 20%” in an open reference to majority Hindus and minority Muslims. In 2014, campaigning in Delhi, BJP minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti said voters must choose between ramzadon and haraamzadon. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma recently blamed ‘Miya Muslims’ for price rise.

Are these calls to communal politics and these not-so-subtle hints at Hindus and Muslims being in perpetual civil war, aligned to the values of Gandhi? At G-20, the hymn Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram was played. Gandhi popularised this bhajan and added the line, Ishwar Allah tero naam to underline his passionate conviction that ‘God is one, and Truth is God’. It’s all very well for a smart BJP government to play this hymn to impress visiting world leaders, but does the BJP endorse the line, Ishwar Allah tero naam, or a belief that every religion is a manifestation of the same divinity?

The ruling establishment has gone out of its way to endorse the personality cult of V D Savarkar, a fierce opponent of Gandhi. The BJP has held Savarkar Gaurav Yatras in Maharashtra. Modi has lauded Savarkar publicly as a “great freedom fighter” and hailed his “sacrifice, courage and resolve.” Modi also said he had been to Savarkar’s jail cell in the Andamans. No doubt, for many, Savarkar was a revolutionary thinker, but his notion of a militant Hindutva-inspired nationalism had nothing in common with Gandhi’s passionate ideals of the co-existence of all faiths.

Gandhi believed fervently in reaching out to adversaries in a spirit of reconciliation and dialogue, as he did with B R Ambedkar and M A Jinnah. But does the Modi government follow this Gandhian principle? No. Instead, the Modi-led regime is known for its particularly ferocious relations with the Opposition, a refusal to dialogue across the aisle and even give the highly undemocratic call for an ‘Opposition-mukt Bharat’. Unleashing enforcement agencies on the Opposition, refusing to invite Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to the G-20 official dinner, or refusing to dialogue with the Opposition on the upcoming “special session” of parliament, are acts of petty political hostility, the very antithesis of Gandhian principles of solutions from dialogue. Gandhi said: “Resist me always when my suggestion does not appeal…I shall not love you less for that resistance.” The Modi dispensation invokes the phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam or ‘the world is
one family’ abroad, but bullies its opponents at home.

Gandhi believed both means and ends must be moral and ethical. Gandhi called off the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1921-22 when violence broke out at Chauri Chaura. For Gandhi, without the benchmark of ethical and moral means, the ends degenerate into power lust. Does the Modi-led BJP follow this Gandhian principle of means and ends? Not really, as seen in the rather brazen way governments are toppled and defections are engineered, simply for the sake of securing power. Non-violence was a cardinal principle for Gandhi. Today, when the political establishment in BJP states sanctions the use of bulldozers to raze down homes without due legal process, the principle of non-violence is bulldozed, too.

Reducing Gandhi to an international photo-op for world leaders, while at the same time practicing domestic politics which is antithetical to Gandhian
principles, is nothing but egregious political hypocrisy.

(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator based in Delhi)