THE MAHATMA REVISITED ... 1

 THE MAHATMA REVISITED ... 1

Gandhiji's role is very difficult to understand for commoners with a coarse conception of history. Thus, we are all apt to debunking him as a compromised character of sorts who made common cause with the British along with his protege, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. But, perhaps, there is room for reeducation in us before we rush into making such hazardous statements about the seminal figures of our freedom struggle who even Netaji and Rash Behari Bose accorded a great deal of respect to and, for Gandhiji, even reverence bordering on the highest. Thus, despite damaging disclosures about the character attributes and the ludicrous leanings of the Mahatma to indulgence in extreme experiments in continence (brahmacharya) which have cast a cloud over his pure personality, we must be more circumspect in our judgement of a person the like of whom history has rarely thrown up. We must be careful that we, in our over-zealousness in support of the revolutionary cause and a like adoration of the heroes that gave shape to it, do not seriously misjudge the greatest figure of our freedom struggle and, perhaps, the greatest figure of the 20th century the world over. Our study of this lustrous being must be deep and not founded on online superficial deliberations. Only then may we arrive at an unbiased assessment of the 'Father of Modern India' but for whom our freedom struggle may never have gained the solidarity it required to precipitate conditions for the eventual eviction of the British by revolutionary effort.

The elitist Congress was transformed by Gandhiji into a mass-based truly representative national organisation, and all this, almost alone and single-handed, by the sheer power of personality and intense sympathy with all that was best in the indigenous culture. Gandhiji's absolute identification with the masses in attire and attributes was not a gimmick, as is mischievously portrayed by so many these days, but it was an overflow of his commitment to his motherland where he felt that he and his brethren in the toiling masses were one. He most effectively represented and actualised a fraction of Swami Vivekananda's ideals but, for reasons of the existing social reality and his personal philosophical persuasions and temperamental tendencies, had to reject the remainder of the Swami's message in armed revolution that was implicit in some of his sayings, and which also Gandhiji must have been exposed to in the direct exhortation of the Lord in the Geeta. There was tortuous text-torturing of the Geeta done by Gandhiji, true, but in essence may it be fairly said that he, as Netaji in his 'The Indian Struggle' has pointed out, was ever caught in the dilemma of his dual role as national leader and world teacher. Netaji's analysis of Gandhiji, his greatness and political failings, must be studied well before one hazards judgement on the Mahatma. In a like manner Rash Behari Bose's writings on the Mahatma must be studied as well and so must Sri Aurobindo's carping comments be read about the 'Sage of Sabarmati' as being sort of a cracked character with pronounced activity in his vital sheath and a Russian Orthodox Christian pacifist attitude with little resemblance to the orthodox Hindu.

Without proper study and analysis thereof we are prone these days, amidst a plethora of dubious derivations online about leaders like Gandhiji and Pandit Nehru, to forming opinions about them which merely expose the shallowness of our knowledge and do not in any way go to seriously undermine either their historical contributions in the eyes of the wide world or taint their efforts with ulterior motives. Had Netaji successfully returned to India at the head of a victorious Indian National Army, all these misgivings would have been dispelled by the leader himself.

We must remember that Netaji is being distorted by his so-called modern followers online by dubious assertions and associations which are not only unhistorical but grossly unfair to the hero himself. Netaji had the utmost reverence for Gandhiji right till his known end and harboured cordial relations with Pandit Nehru despite pronounced ideological differences with the Mahatma and his protege. Netaji had named two of his INA brigades after Gandhiji and Nehru and no better tribute could have been given by way of lending solidarity to his movement from abroad with the mass movement within the motherland. But this naming of the brigades as 'Gandhi Brigade' and 'Nehru Brigade' was not merely an opportunistic exercise by Netaji of sublime selflessness but was by way of a genuine effort to foil British attempts at sowing dissensions within the Indian polity through malicious propaganda. Also, the naming genuinely expressed the continuing camaraderie between Netaji and his politically estranged Congress colleagues -- for there was never any hint that all relations between them had been severed for good -- and was a mark of the deep affection and honour in which he held Gandhiji and Pandit Nehru despite the political perfidies that were perpetrated against him at the behest of the Mahatma who was apprehensive of Subhas Chandra Bose ruining the country's future with unbridled incitement to prospective mass violence following the prescriptions of revolutionary regimes across the world.

Well, this is my submission as of now and I leave it here for you to deliberate and decide for yourself how you perceive the politics and the politicians of the day who brought us freedom, men who were veritably titans in their times.

Written by

Sugata Bose