Let’s get it right. Mahatma Gandhi is a misfit in the idea of India that is all about imagining India from everyone’s eyes except those of Hindus. This “idea of India” is espoused by the “Adarsh Liberals” who waste no moment in supporting a Kashmiri separatist or a Naxalite – both having no respect to the actual idea of India – but would frown upon the idea of India where Hinduism lies in its civilization roots.
On this day i.e. 30th January, when Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by Nathuram Godse, this idea of India gang pretends to love him. And that’s the only reason why they love him – because Gandhi’s death is used as a political and ideological tool by the Adarsh Liberals to paint their adversaries as murderers.
And their dislike, almost hate, for Gandhi is betrayed on other occasions. Two years ago, Arundhati Roy, one of the torchbearers of Adarsh Liberalism, had called Mahatma Gandhi a casteist and racist person. She was being honest about her beliefs in public, a trait that is rare among Adarsh Liberals.
Incidentally, her open attack on Gandhi came after Narendra Modi announced his intentions of starting the Swachh Bharat campaign dedicated to Bapu. Just a few words of praise by Modi exposed the dislike Adarsh Liberals have for Gandhi, and had Godse not killed Bapu, Adarsh Liberals would have surely murdered his memories after Modi endorsed him.
The reason why Adarsh Liberals are uncomfortable with Gandhi is because of the fact that unlike them, he never declared Hinduism as the reason for everything that is wrong in this country – something that’s the most “intellectual” thing to do for the idea of India gang. Any article that can randomly link Hinduism is to any evil, is a guaranteed hit in this circle.
Mahatma Gandhi was not that type. Remember, even Godse, who murdered him, didn’t question the “Hinduness” of Bapu. To his last breath, Gandhi remained a religious Hindu, who was conservative about many Hindu customs and beliefs. However, Godse felt that Gandhi had made Hindus weak and neutered due to his overemphasis on non-violence, which resulted in Muslim aggression, mass murders of Hindus by hands of Islamists, and finally creation of Pakistan.
Not only that, Godse believed that Mahatma Gandhi had reached a position where it was no longer logical to debate with him, and that he had become the judge and executioner. Incidentally, even Dr. Ambedkar felt so. This is what he wrote about Gandhi’s death:
Mr Gandhi had become a positive danger to this country. He had choked all the thoughts. He was holding together the Congress which is a combination of all the bad and self-seeking elements in society who agreed on no social or moral principle governing the life of society except the one of praising and flattering Mr Gandhi. Such a body is unfit to govern a country. As the Bible says that sometimes good cometh out of evil, so also I think good will come out of the death of Mr Gandhi. It will release people from bondage to supermen, it will make them think for themselves and compel them to stand on their own merits.
Obviously, these concerns doesn’t justify the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, however the point to be noted here is that Godse was not the only one uncomfortable with Bapu’s beliefs. Adarsh Liberals have their own reasons too.
While Godse thought that Gandhi was not Hindu enough, the Adarsh Liberals believe that he was too much of a Hindu – the reason why they feel Gandhi’s beliefs and history should be questioned but beliefs of someone like Nehru has to be beyond criticism; the latest example being their paranoid reactions to the truths coming out of the declassified Netaji files.
With Congress moving more and more towards Adarsh Liberalism, one can safely say that the Congress under Sonia and Rahul Gandhi is no more Mahatma Gandhi’s Congress. But obviously, they will pretend so.
Today, Rahul Gandhi is joining a hunger strike by some students in Hyderabad, who share the same beliefs about Mahatma Gandhi that were echoed by Arundhati Roy a couple of years ago (mentioned above in this article). Many of the ideological leaders and mentors of these students, such as Hyderabad based Kancha Ilaiah, have openly called Mahatma Gandhi casteist and someone who held back progress of dalits.
By showing solidarity with them time and again – earlier he reached IIT Madras campus to support a similar group called Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle – Rahul Gandhi has virtually declared that the present Congress has disowned Mahatma Gandhi.
Mahatma Gandhi had wished the Congress party to be dissolved after Independence. Today, on his death anniversary, Rahul Gandhi surely has dissolved the Congress of Mahatma Gandhi.
RIP Mahatma Gandhi. RIP Gandhi’s Congress. Om Shanti.
