about non-violence

[swatkat]

On this day, 51 years ago, M.K.Gandhi was shot dead by a man who disagreed with his idea of an India without religious conflict.

I 'discovered' Gandhi a couple of years ago—through coursework, of all things. It was something of a revelation. And I do not use this word very lightly—it was a revelation. Here was a man—in a colonized nation—who talked about 'lasting peace', with such confidence, such firmness, such belief. It was almost too good to be true, too far-fetched for one to really comprehend—children of violence that we are, growing up under the shadow of war, of such fierce hate.

You might be wondering why I had to 'discover' him a couple of years ago. There are two distinct poles in which Gandhi is comprehended today in his own country: on one end he will be worshipped, his every word a mantra in itself; and on the other he is a figure to be mocked and derided, because he was, you see, a shrewd, effeminate and rather irritating old man. The first group puts him on a pedestal and keeps him there, while going about business as usual. For the second, it's fashionable to mock Gandhi. For both, knowing what he had to say and engaging with it critically is seldom an option. It's easier to worship or deride, after all. And so I grew up like that, forming my ideas of the foolish old man from the mainstream discourse where it is fashionable to laugh at his effeminacy and crack jokes about his 'experiments' and be angry about how he 'allowed' the Partition to happen. Until a couple of years ago, that is.

After that first earth-shaking encounter, I read more. Almost obsessively. I read his writings, I read history and what historiographers had to say about his politics, I read critiques. I devoured them. I learnt that I completely disagree on a number of things about Gandhi's politics, on the tactics he used and the ideas he preached, but you know what? When it comes to some very important things—things that make us human, things that make the world worth living in: he was right. He got it RIGHT. And it is convenient for our contemporary discourse to demonize him and mock him for his 'effeminate' espousal of non-violence (and maybe occasionally patronisingly discuss that quaint old man who was so out of touch with times—in fashionable circles, wearing khadi and chappals), because then we can justify things like our trigger-happy 'security' forces and our warmongering governments and the entire war industry, because then we can justify our own selfishness and our willful blindness, our inaction.

So as you go about your work today, eating and drinking and earning money and taking care of your own, think about him a little. Think about that crazy old man who took his 'experiments with truth' to unbelievable extremes, who may not always have been an ideal leader or the 'saint' he is claimed to be today—but who got some of the very important things right.

We could use some voices like his today.

Comments

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, it's a positive -- even important! -- thing that he wasn't a saint. Saints are unapproachable: ordinary mortals can't expect to emulate them, so why bother trying? But a fallible, maybe even sometimes wrongheaded human being who still stood for something important? That doesn't leave any excuse for the rest of us to wriggle out of responsibility.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

Saints are unapproachable: ordinary mortals can't expect to emulate them, so why bother trying?

That's why it's so convenient to brand him a saint and leave him on his pedestal. Because otherwise? You have to think about the things he talked about about and campaigned for all his life, and that is rather inconvenient.