I’ve broadened my Hinduism by loving other religions as my own’, claimed Gandhi, articulating that one could be a better Hindu by giving respect to, and creatively drawing from other faiths. This is in sharp contrast to the Hindutva politics of today, which not only defines India as exclusively Hindu, but also wants all Indians to be subsumed under the rubric of Hinduism. Clearly, Gandhi attempted to bring about a religious and spiritual cohesion to the freedom movement, while today’s politics of Hindutva centres on a militant Hindu chauvinism. In 1923, the Arya Samaj and the Hindu Mahasabha launched the programme of Shuddhi (purification; Hindu movement to reclaim those who had converted from Hinduism to other religions) on a large scale in north India, particularly Uttar Pradesh. Touted as a movement to reclaim the ‘victims’ and protect the ‘faithful’, it had a definite communal character. It produced and enforced notions of a primordial religious identity, whereby everyone were perceived as Hindus, while Islam and Christianity were ‘denationalised’. An Arya Samajist tract declared: Shuddhi karwane se apni jo koi is dam chukega, Wah bhrasht hamesha bana rahe, sansar usi ko thukega (Whoever fails to perform Shuddhi this time, will always remain corrupt and the world will condemn him) The movement also critiqued the principle of ahimsa with these words: ‘The sermon of ahimsa has emasculated the Hindu nation.... We do not need Gandhi’s advice. We have to follow the teachings of Lord Krishna of Mahabharat’.
Expressing his serious objection to Shuddhi, Gandhi wrote in 1924: ‘In my opinion, there is no such thing as proselytism in Hinduism…The modern method does not appeal to me. It has done more harm than good… It has degenerated into an appeal to the selfish instinct…My Hindu instinct tells me that all religions are more or less true. All proceed from the same God, but all are imperfect because they have come down to us through imperfect human instrumentality…The best way of dealing with such propaganda is to publicly condemn it’. He again stated: ‘Through the Shuddhi movement we only encourage corruption and obstruct worthwhile reformation among the Hindus. The present movement has absolutely no rational basis’. Gandhi recognised that the rhetoric and language of Shuddhi was not motivated by a desire to promote Hindu spirituality and religious values, but by a strong anti-Muslim instinct, which also fostered a creed of violence and Hindu masculinity. Significantly, Gandhi was also attempting to invert, or at least challenge, prevailing notions of femininity and masculinity by his emphasis upon ‘feminine’ strengths. Gandhi’s reflections were both far more nuanced than present attempts at implementing anti-conversion laws on the one hand and celebration of ghar wapsi or reconversion into Hinduism on the other. Let me take another example. The cow emerged as a potent and sacred symbol of the Hindu nation in north India, particularly between 1880 and 1920, when there was a flourishing of gau rakshini sabhas and gaushalas, and cow-protection movements acquired a new importance, with violent agitations and riots around it.
Involving struggles over sacred symbols and spaces, with appeals to the icon of the cow as a universal mother, the movements relied upon and further generated a parochial definition of the Hindu community, with a marked anti-Muslim (and anti-Dalit) feeling. While deeply committed to gauraksha, Gandhi reflected: “Hindus must not imagine they can force Mussalmans to give up cow-sacrifice. They must trust, by befriending Mussalmans, that the latter will of their own accord, give up cow-sacrifice…Nor must Mussalmans imagine they can force Hindus to stop music or arati before mosque”. He also regarded the ‘cow protection societies’ as ‘cow killing societies’ due to their inherent violent nature. The debunking of a language of force and violence, and the articulation instead of a dialect of persuasion, understanding and mutual consent, advocated by Gandhi, is even more pertinent in today’s context, when there have been serious attempts to exploit the emotional fault lines of a section of Hindus, and vigilante groups have been violently attacking minorities in the name of cow-protection. My third example draws from Gandhi’s use of Hindu idioms, particularly that of Ramarajya. He stated that if the said word offended anyone, it could be replaced with Dharmarajya, imparting it a different meaning, and squarely equating it with his ideas of freedom, including khadi, refusal to pay the salt tax, and Swaraj. He declared Ramarajya to be a “moral government based upon truth and non-violence, in other words universal religion”, and a rule under which “the poor will be fully protected, everything will be done with justice, and the voice of the people will always be respected”. While using a symbol that could potentially spell alienation for some, he nonetheless appropriated it to signal a long utopian tradition in India and then cleverly intermeshed it with contemporary political desires of a just, equal and free society. Rejecting Hindutva’s exclusivist interpretation, Gandhi’s conception encompassed not only the mythical, ancient rule of Rama, but also the medieval, Mughal system of urban production and economy, and then went beyond it to provide a language of hope, dignity and rights for all. These three brief examples illustrate that in Gandhi’s Hindu spiritual ethics, religion was not an abstract doctrine, but a living body of thought, which was redeployed by him to express an ethical way of political practise.
As an icon, Gandhi has been a figure of all seasons, who has been invoked for very different ends. A simple nostalgic invoking of Gandhi as a figure of non-violence and traditional values in today’s times of Hindutva nationalism may not take us very far. Further, while we need to reflect on some of the inherent contradictions in Gandhi’s attempts to reform Hinduism from within, communalism cannot be countered by a simple condemnation of religious consciousness. As Bhikhu Parekh argues, Gandhi’s Hindu intellectual space and perspective, with all its limitations, marked a critique from within, which underscored how communal understanding profoundly corrupted and ultimately destroyed the ethics and integrity of religious consciousness itself. The language of secularism in its western paradigm, and of a secular modern citizenship, may have few takers in present day India. There is much we can learn by revisiting the complicated and contested legacies of Gandhi. The reiteration of Hindutva nationalism in contemporary India, along with vilification of our syncretic dynamism, makes this imperative. Our vocabularies today need to recuperate ideas of moral legitimacy, fluidity, unity and plurality of religious faiths, along with an inclusivist ethical humanitarianism, and a belief in nonviolence and peace, to carry forward Gandhi’s legacy
2.
The coming of the Gandhi Raj
A dwindling community of just 10,000-odd people clings to the past and waits for an uncertain future
While Gandhi Jayanti is officially celebrated in different parts of the country to mark the birth anniversary of Gandhiji and the day is declared to be a national holiday, in a remote corner of the country and among Oraon adivasis of Jharkhand, there is another way of remembering the ‘Mahatma’. ‘Gandhi Baba’ is a deity included within the pantheon of their deotas by the Tana Bhagats, a dwindling community of about ten thousand people as they estimate for themselves, who belong largely to the Oraon community. October 1 and 2, are the most celebrated dates in their calendar. More than a hundred years ago, in April 1914 as colonial records indicate, Jatra Oraon of Gumla, Ranchi, proclaimed that he had received a divine message from Dharmes, the God of the Oraons. Jatra was to be a king and his followers, the Tana Bhagats, were to share his kingdom. Reciting what he claimed to be were divinely inspired mantras, Jatra advocated that Oraon religion should be freed of evils like ghost-finding and exorcism, belief in bhuts and animal sacrifice, and the consumption of alcohol. From the 1920s, fresh injunctions were issued to the Tanas: followers were to carry the Congress jhanda, wear khaddar, and take vows in Gandhi Maharaj’s name. Stories developed around the miraculous powers of Gandhi Baba, his charkha and swaraj. The Tana Bhagats became members of the Congress and attended its annual sessions, participated in processions and hartals, organised panchayats, supported the non-co-operation thanas, spun the charkha, and participated in the no-rent campaign advocated by the Congress during Gandhi’s Non-Co-operation and Civil Disobedience movements. On 1 October every year, Tana Bhagat adivasis from Ranchi, Hazaribagh and Palamau assemble at night in the remote village of Chingri in Bishunpur where Jatra Oraon, the first leader of the Tana Bhagats was born and where a statue was erected of him in 1989.
Clad in white sarees or kurtas made of khaddar if they can afford it, and of synthetic if they cannot, with Gandhi topis on their heads and wearing a janeu or sacred thread around their neck, they clap their hands as they chant their invocations in obeisance to Jatra and Gandhi. The chants of mantras and the sound of the conch-shells pierce the stillness of the night; the smell of dhup or incense is overpowering; the smoke makes vision hazy. As the chanting continues, some of the women get possessed. With their heads shaking, they bend before the statue as they continue with their singing. On the following day, the birth anniversary of Gandhi, below the statue of Jatra Bhagat is placed a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi Baba, deemed to be a powerful deity, is worshipped amidst smoke, the smell of incense, the sound of chanting and the clapping of hands. Linked then through this worship is Jatra Bhagat, the founder of the Tana Bhagat movement, with Gandhi, the ‘Father of the nation’.
It is a symbolic act that entangles the history of the Tana Bhagats with the history of the nation: the date of birth of Gandhi determines when the Tana Bhagats would pay obeisance to the founder of their faith. Both Jatra and Gandhi are Babas, deities in the Tana pantheon of Gods; their making reflects the ways through which the Tana Bhagats relate to the divine world and to their everyday world. And Gandhi, a historical figure and a leader of the Congress who had led the freedom struggle and had outlined ideals that the Tanas claim to uphold even today, is elevated to the status of a Baba, a Maharaj, due to his allegedly extraordinary powers to deliver divine justice. Non-violence’ is a Gandhian ideal that the Tana Bhagats claim for themselves, which links their past with Gandhi and that of the Indian nation, on the basis of which the Tanas claim special privileges from the sarkar and negotiate with the present. Proudly will a Tana Bhagat who had participated in the national movement display his free railway pass or a badge indicating that he was a swantantrata senani, a freedom fighter. Recognising Tana commitment to Gandhi, the Congress had given them a hearing; inviting them for visits to Delhi over the years were Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. In order to give land back to those Tana Bhagats who had lost land in auctions during the Gandhian phase of the national movement, the Bihar government implemented the Ranchi District Tana Bhagat Raiyats’ Agricultural Lands Restoration Act, 1947, which was subsequently amended. However, in Tana perception, this Act could not address their grievances. Beleaguered by the protocols of a legal system, many of the Tana Bhagats could not provide any patta as ‘evidence’, or a legal document, to support their claims for compensation.
Through the twists and turns of a long journey that has spanned over a hundred years, the Tana Bhagats continue even today to battle for their rights, expressing enthusiasm but largely distress. Wearing clothes made of khaddar and with Gandhi topis on their heads, they walk in processions down the streets of Ranchi blowing conch shells; they sit on dharnas and hartals and submit petitions before government officials, demanding for themselves land that they claim they had lost for their participation in the Non-cooperation, Civil Disobedience and Quit India movements. For the Tanas who lead their difficult lives in scattered pockets of Jharkhand, it is their link with Gandhi that empowers their community and enables them to negotiate with the state as they talk about promises that were never fulfilled by the sarkar. They claim to be, as followers of Gandhi, worshippers of truth and non-violence; they claim also to be, as part of the larger adivasi community, the original inhabitants of the land. Caught between an almost lost past, a difficult present and an uncertain future, and finding many of their practices economically unviable to sustain, they ultimately carry on with their belief in Jatra Bhagat and the Mahatma. Theirs is a long battle that is being patiently fought, but still remains to be won
3.
Need for a Gandhi movie was never more urgent
While his contemporaries like Lenin regarded cinema as “the most important of the arts,” Gandhi viewed cinema with contempt
In a questionnaire submitted to the Indian Cinematograph Committee (1927-28), Gandhi wrote, “Even if I was so minded, I should be unfit to answer your questionnaire, as I have never been to a cinema. But even to an outsider, the evil that it has done and is doing is patent. The good, if it has done any at all, remains to be proved.” He wrote in Young India dated 25 November 1926: “…I have never once been to a cinema and refuse to be enthused about it and waste God-given time in spite of pressure sometimes used by kind friends. They tell me it has an educational value. It is possible that it has. But its corrupting influence obtrudes itself upon me every day. Education, therefore, I seek elsewhere.” (CWMG, 37:65). The possibilities of cinema as a propaganda and educational tool in a country of widespread illiteracy did not intrigue Gandhi. It is reported that Gandhi watched only parts of one film in his lifetime, Vijay Bhatt’s Ram Rajya (1943), more suitable to his taste. But he expressed his distaste in a letter written to Kanam Gandhi, dated July 25, 1944.
He wrote, “I have had enough of watching the cinema all by myself without my compatriots at Sevagram. When I am out and engaged in some good activity, I would remember all of you. There was no such thing in the present case. Hence nobody has lost anything by not witnessing the show. On the contrary, I have lost something after having seen the picture.” (CWMG, 77:420). Nevertheless, filmmakers were not discouraged by his contempt for cinema. Some noteworthy documentaries on Gandhi include The Light That Shone (1948), Rajshri Vishwadeep Gandhi, a three-reeler, directed by Dwarka Khosla (both not available), Gandhi: The 20th Century Prophet (available in parts on YouTube, the Gandhi Heritage Portal), and Vitthalbhai Jhaveri’s Mahatma — Life of Gandhi 1869 –1948 (1968, a 5 hour 9 minute documentary available on http://guides.library.cornell.edu/gandhi/films). Mark Robson’s much-controversial Nine Hours To Rama (1963, a British-American production) was perhaps the first feature film depiction of the Mahatma. He appeared in few scenes, as the film mainly revolves around his assassin Nathuram Godse. Gandhi (1982, Richard Attenborough), The Making of the Mahatma (1996, Shyam Benegal), and Gandhi: My Father (2007, Feroz Abbas Khan) are possibly the only three feature films that directly deal with the Mahatma.
While Attenborough’s much-controversial as well as celebrated 3-hour feature film covers the length and breadth of Mahatma Gandhi, Benegal’s film highlights the influence of South African years on Gandhi. Khan’s film, however, depicts Gandhi as a father, and his relationship with his son Harilal Gandhi. Other films depicting the Mahatma, with regard to his contemporaries, and his philosophy customised for the contemporary times, are Sardar (1993), Jinnah (1998), Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (2000), Hey Ram! (2000), Veer Savarkar (2001), The Legend Of Bhagat Singh (2002), Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero (2005), Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (2005), Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006), Gandhi To Hitler (2011), and more recently, Viceroy’s House (2017). While much has been written on Attenborough’s Gandhi, and other films in the list given above, I wish to share some details particularly about three films, which do not directly deal with the Mahatma: Nine Hours to Rama, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, and Veer Savarkar. Nine Hours to Rama is based on a novel written by Stanley Wolpert. The book and the feature film revolve around Nathuram Godse’s life and his growth as the future assassin of the Mahatma. While the film humanises Godse, it presents Gandhi as a caricature. Most of his scenes are from his last days spent at the Birla House, in January 1948. The film shows Gandhi forgiving Godse for the “crime” he had committed, before succumbing to the bullets. In a Christ-like gesture, Gandhi says, “I forgive you my brother. I bless you. Hey Ram!” Godse is shocked with these words, and kneels on Gandhi’s feet, murmuring and crying, “I killed him, and he blessed me.” While he is dragged away from Gandhi, he murmurs, “Bapuji.” Nehru was reported to have said in Rajya Sabha (1963) that the film did not reflect the ‘dignity of Gandhiji’. He said the film was ‘mistakenly made’, and he was sure that the director’s ideas were not in any way aimed directly at defaming Gandhiji or anything in India. Nevertheless, the government refused to approve the film’s exhibition in India. In Jabber Patel’s Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Gandhi is depicted vis-à-vis Ambedkar, during their first meeting in Bombay at Mani Bhavan, then at the Round Table Conference meeting, and at Aga Khan Palace, during the deliberations on the Poona Pact. Gandhi is seen through the eyes of Dr. Ambedkar, portrayed as a Sanatani, a religious Hindu leader, whose only aim is to protect Hinduism and not the emancipation of the depressed classes. Ambedkar fights the Mahatma to claim the position of being the sole voice and representative of the depressed classes in India.
Veer Savarkar (2001, Ved Rahi) tries to recreate the second, and the last, meeting between Gandhi and Savarkar in Ratnagiri in March 1927 at Savarkar’s house. They had first met in London’s India House in 1906. The 1927 meeting revolved around the issue of caste reforms, untouchability and Shuddhi movement. While Gandhi opposed Savarkar’s Shuddhi movement or reconversion to Hinduism, Savarkar differed with Gandhi on his insistence on maintaining Varna system. They never met again, in real or reel after 1927. One has also read quite a bit about Savarkar’s role and narrow escape from being charged in Gandhi’s assassination. It is indeed unfortunate that the genre of biopics have not been honestly explored in Indian cinema. They have either succumbed to popular demands of glitter and glamour or to a (non) sense of (hyper) nationalism. The recently released feature film on Rani Lakhsmi Bai, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi (2019), is an apt example of it. The films centring on Gandhi’s adversaries, some real, some “manufactured”, like Ambedkar and Savarkar, and Bhagat Singh and Bose, have exploited and validated the popular histories of the differences between Gandhi and these leaders. India is celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of the Mahatma. But the Indian film industry has so far been immune to these celebrations. While it is busy registering titles on Kashmir, Article 370, Moon and Mars, etc., Gandhi and his message is found un-cinematic. The message of non-violence and truth seems to be too old-fashioned for a generation living in a post-truth era and fed on lynching
4.
Mahatma and the spinning wheel
Sakhi sab mili charkha chalabahu, jug paltabahu he (Dearfriends, let us spin the wheel, Let us turn the world upside down) —A Bhojpuri village song
There are several such songs in different languages of India focused on the spinning wheel that was central to Gandhi’s dream of Swaraj. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “For me, nothing in the political world is more important than the spinning wheel”. For him, it was not just a tool for politics but also a metaphor for an ancient work ethics. Curiously, at the time of writing The Hind Swaraj, Gandhi had neither seen a spinning wheel nor did he understand the difference between loom and the spinning wheel. It was in London in 1909 that he felt first that without the spinning wheel there was no swaraj. He was convinced that ‘everyone had to spin’. He had realised quickly enough that in India weaving and spinning were much more than simply an indigenous way of producing textile goods. Spinning was a part of everyday lives of women of almost all sections of society. In 1921, when Gandhi gave his consent to have a Swaraj flag, he insisted on including an image of the charkha in it. He visualized the flag with strips of three colours: white, green and red. For Gandhi green and red represented Muslims and Hindus as they were deemed to be sacred colours by these communities. But since India as a nation comprised many faiths and communities, he wanted to have a third colour white, representing all other communities of the country.
However, when communal violence reared its head, communities began pressurising the Mahatma to include other sacred colours in the flag. Thus, it became imperative for the Congress to distance the party from the colour scheme and its communal connotations. It decided to adopt a party flag instead, Initially, the Flag Committee recommended a single saffron colour flag with a charkha at the centre. This surprised and irked a large number of people, and in 1931, when the All India Congress party finally came up with an official flag, it included the colours saffron, white and green. A blue spinning wheel continued to occupy the central place in the flag.
For Gandhiji, the charkha represented the common man and their sufferings and their fight against the colonial rule. However, when the design of the flag for the independent nation was adopted and unanimously approved in the Constituent assembly of India on 22 July, 1947, the spinning wheel was replaced by the Ashokan wheel, irking Mahatma to no end. In the beginning, Gandhiji had himself reacted bitterly over the issue of the removal of spinning wheel from the flag. He wrote, “… I must say that if the flag of Indian Union will not contain the emblem of the charkha, I will refuse to salute that flag...” He further wrote, “if we neglect the charkha...we will be acting like a man who remembers God in sorrow and forgets him when he showers happiness”. It may be worth noting that earlier he had even suggested a design of the tricolour with a little Union Jack in the corner of the flag.
He said that this would represent our humble gesture toward our own past ruler. This was a broad and inclusive vision of the Mahatma in which there was no exclusion, no enemy and no otherness. In Gandhiji’s scheme of things, charkha was never a tool for e statecraft, instead in his model of swaraj, state and the society were never separated from each other. Sadly, at another level, the charkha acquired a plurality of meanings, in some cases even connoting corruption! In a song from Phanishwar nath Renu’s celebrated novel, Maila Anchal we find a fagua (Holi) song: Jogi ji, tal na tute jogi ji teen tal par dholak baje jogi ji taak dhina dhin! Charkha kato, khaddhar pehno, rahe hath me jholi Din dahare karo dakaiti bol suraji boli Jogiji sar...ar...ar...ra...! (O pure hearted! Don’t break the rhythm, O pure hearted! The drum will be on three beats, Jogi ji tak dhina dhin, spin, wear khaddar, keep a bag in your hand like a saint or a beggar, but carry out daylight robbery with Swaraj on your lips, jogi ji sar...ar...ar...ra!) Here, the spinning wheel is emptied out of its original meanings and historical purpose assigned to it by the Mahatma. Here is an image of corruption and exploitation of the downtrodden. What remains in this process is a kitsch and the husk of a symbol
5. Gandhi in the songs, folklore of Orissa
A fascinating account of how Gandhian ideas spread in the state of Orissa in British India
There was a resurgence of interest in Gandhi after 1920, judging by a marked rise in literary output in Odiya journals. They were mostly authored by little known, small time authors and poets. Composed mostly as songs and bhajans, they projected Gandhi as a new avatar (incarnation) who had been born to liquidate evil from earth and whose birth signaled the arrival of a new age.
A poem entitled Gandhi Avatar O Gandhi Bhajan or Bharat Swaraj-Purana (1921) depicted Gandhi as the “partial incarnation” of God. The poem noted how the ‘almighty’ had informed devotees that Gandhi would be born in the pious land of Gujarat with which he had been associated earlier (as the Krishna avatar). He also assured the devotees that in his Gandhi avatar, he would improve the lot of Indians through the wheel of the charkha and weave Hindus and Muslims ‘in one thread’.
The poem blames “foreign rule”, “modernity” and “western civilisation” for creating anarchy in Indian society and eroding its “traditional values”. It exhorts people to take the name of Gandhi along with Tilak and Gokhale continuously and get involved in the making of Swaraj by discarding anything associated with British/western culture.
Another collection, Gandhi Mahatmaanka Gita (songs about Gandhi Mahatma, 1921), described the Gandhian ‘spinning wheel’ as the Sudarshan Chakra which helped people to become economically independent and help them overcome miseries of life.
Interestingly, it referred to the “cow” as the “God” of the Hindus and held the “Hindus” responsible for cow-slaughter as they – after utilising the cow in cultivation – finally, disposed them off to the butcher. Thus, while cautioning the “Hindus” not to sell cattle and absolving the “Muslims” of the “sin” of cow-slaughter, it advocated “Hindu-Muslim” unity.
Another book of poems, Kali Bhagabat (1933), was woven around the theme of “Age of Kali”. Kali Yuga, as conventionally understood, was seen as the last and the most degenerate of four Yugas or eras, which appears after the termination of three preceding Yugas called Dwapara, Treta and Satya. Kali Yuga literature invariably reflected a sense of acute anxieties prevailing everywhere in society due to terrible failures on the part of the people to conform to the right ritual and conduct, i.e. dharma.
A wandering Vaishnavite mendicant, Abhiram Paramhansa, appears to have been the author. He moved around the villages of coastal Orissa and preached to the “illiterate and uneducated” people the message of Gita and Bhakti through bhajans and songs during 1927-33, a phase coinciding with the Civil Disobedience Movement.
The book was proscribed by colonial authorities and he was sentenced to imprisonment for a year on the ground that the text sought to excite “hatred, contempt and disaffection” against British authorities.
Defined as the “story of strife and salvation” by the author, the poem is in the form of dialogue between Lord Chaitanya and “King Mana” or the mind personified. The narrative refers to Chaitanya’s ‘prediction’.
The poem dwelt on how foreigners were bent upon destroying Swaraj, and then proceeded to valorise the virtues of Congress satyagrahis and the Mahatma. The repeated reference to Mohan in the text and its identification with the person having mahat (noble) and atma (soul) is symbolic of Gandhi’s leadership.
The prescient poem predicted the unfolding of an ‘Indian drama’ over the 1939-42 period. As predicted, in this “Indian drama”, the satyagrahis would be grouped under the leadership of Mohan who would command the armies in the first war against George V. The Indian drama or the war in India would end with the Emperor along with all foreigners quitting and returning to their own country.
Yet another poem, Sangeeta Jobra Karakhana (1921), on Gandhi written under the pen name of NirdhumDhumaketu Mistry, illustrated an interesting reference to how a childless couple was blessed with a son after organising Gandhi puja.
When some of the relatives of this couple were arrested because of their involvement in the Satyagraha movement, the couple held Gandhi responsible for their imprisonment. This spelt doom for the family.
These popular poems and songs around Gandhi sought to imagine Gandhi in diverse ways: as an avatar; a partial incarnation of God; the conqueror of Kali or as a messiah, whose arrival saw the dawn of a new Satya Yuga.
The theme of reward/punishment is also visible in some of these tracts. Thus, any defiance of Gandhi resulted in floods.
The Congress network in Orissa in the 1920s were non-existent but these folk songs carried ideas about Gandhi to the people.
The post-Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-34) in Orissa witnessed progressive deepening of the anti-British struggle which climaxed with the Quit India Movement in 1942. During the 1937 elections, petitions addressed to Gandhi were discovered in ballot boxes in Jeypore estate (Koraput district) backed by widespread rumour among tribals that if they cast their vote in the yellow box (colour of Congress), then Gandhi would be their Maharaja and they would not have to pay any rent in future.
Similarly, mobilisation of tribals in the estate was facilitated by the circulation of brief letters, drafted by Gandhi gumasthas and Gandhi naikos who headed the rural units of Congress organisation.
These “Gandhi notes” called upon people to assemble at particular points for picketing at haats and markets. Similarly, Gandhi khatoli (small wooden apparatus on which an image of Gandhi was installed) kept moving from village to village in Koraput district in 1939. People in the village kept the khatoli for a few days and made offerings to the khatoli before passing it on to the ne next village.
6
Gandhi and Bengal: A complicated relationship
Bengali literary journals between 1920 and 1930 actually reflect mutual respect and admiration between the Mahatma on the one hand and Bengali literary and intellectual leaders on the other
The allegedly ‘complicated relationship’ between the Mahatma and Bengal has attained mythical status, relished by most Bengalis using or rather misusing differences in opinion between him and legendary figures like Rabindranath Tagore and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and ignoring the basic similarities of ideas and the mutual respect for difference in approach to the same goal.
My research in contemporary writing in the journals show quite another approach to the ‘complicated’ question, where there is appreciation of both the charisma of the Mahatma as well as serious discussion on the issues of Khadi and Charkha dealing with both negative as well as their ‘positive’ aspects.
The 35 essays and poems published between 1916-1939 in Bangabani, Bharati, Bharatvarsha, Bichitra and Prabashi, and the newspaper Ananda Bazar Patrika, which followed the Tagore-Gandhi relationship between (1922-1932) coinciding with the prime time of the Gandhian movements in India reflect a Bengali viewpoint frequently ignored in discussions on the subject.
Gandhi’s relationship with Bengal began much before he became the Mahatma, starting with an article he sent for translation and publication in Bharati in 1902 on Indian Colonisation in South Africa. From 1921, regular poems and essays appeared — some in uncomplicated admiration of his persona, ideal of Satyagraha and hope for the future through poems by Satyendranath Dutta, Hemendralal Roy, Pyarimohan Sen Gupta’s Gandhi Bandana, and other poems on khadi and charkha including the famous song of Charkha by Kazi Nazrul Islam, and an article on the Salt March to Dandi by an enthusiastic volunteer from Bolpur, Akshoy Kumar Roy (Bichitra, 1931).
There were others which dealt in a more complicated manner on his advocacy for eradicating economic problems of the poverty-stricken rural and urban poor through charkha and khadi. Basanta Kumar Chattopadhyay and Sarala Debi Chowdhurani (Bharati, 1926) appeal to the educated and the wealthy who have forgotten their past in their present ambition to ally with the alien rulers for mere economic benefit, while essays by Jogesh Chandra Roy (Prabashi 1922) suggests that if the farmer could cultivate cotton, it would supplement his income, and his household’.
Hemendralal Roy (Bharatvarsha, 1925) reminds his readers that “during the floods in north Bengal, it was the charkha which provided the people sustenance.” Importance of institutionalisation was acknowledged and there were articles on Kalashala at Sodepur set up by Satish Chandra Dasgupta for propagation of khaddar.
The contentious issue of Gandhi’s relationship with some leading Bengali intellectuals was also dealt with in the periodicals but in all the articles it was their mutual respect which was highlighted and regret expressed on the issues of discord.
Bangabani carried a number of articles by Kalinganath Ghosh who discussed issues of difference between the Mahatma and Swami Vivekanada, concluding that similarities of idealism far outweighed the imagined differences.
Though the rhetoric of Gandhi being unsympathetic towards Bengali idol Subhas Chandra Bose, especially after the Tripuri Congress (1939), where lack of Gandhian support forced Bose to resign from presidency, has been the main focus of the Bengali angst, there is hardly any article in the contemporary journals on this subject.
The poet, Rabindranath Tagore, and Mahatma’s relationship has been the subject of discussion of scholars for a long time but it is more fruitful to follow Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP) right from the storm that broke when Tagore received a gold medal from the hands of the Governor of Bengal on the day of Gandhi’s imprisonment in 1922, to Tagore’s criticism of Gandhian ideals of Swaraj and khadi in 1923.To be fair to Tagore, his criticism was never personal and is more than proven by his interviews and speeches even during the Non-Cooperation Movement which he criticised.
“The greatness of Mahatma’s character is undeniable. His life is the epitome of sacrifice,” Tagore told the press in 1922 and a message of support during the Mahatma’s illness was sent through C.F. Andrews.
The Mahatma too never gave up on his attempts at retrieving his relationship with the poet and visited Bolpur and Sriniketan in 1925.
ABP also followed the debate between the Poet and the Mahatma over ‘the symbolic stress on charkha’ as well as Gandhi’s rejoinder in Young India on their relationship, which was also discussed by Sarala Debi (Bharati 1926) in ‘Clash between the Poet and the Worker (Kobi O Karmir Lodai)’ in the context of Tagore being heckled at the Gujarat Literary Conference in 1920 and warned the Mahatma about the dangers of believing in the confidence of supporters.
In 1931, Rabindranath Tagore joined intellectuals in Bengal led by Bipin Chandra Pal and Subhas Chandra Bose in signing an appeal to the people of Bengal to spontaneously join a gathering on Mahatma’s birth anniversary on October 2 to show respect to the great soul and acknowledge his impact on Bengal, and his self-sacrifice for the cause of India’s Independence. Gandhi Jayanti was celebrated in Santiniketan as well as in Calcutta.
Bichitra published Tagore’s speech in 1932 which hailed the Mahatma as a “great man, almost divine, a rare appearance in the world”, while in a similar spirit in December 1945, during a visit to Santiniketan, the Mahatma said, “Gurudev was like a great bird, wide and swift of wings, under which he gave protection to many...we all miss the warmth of his protecting wings...Santiniketan has been the abode of peace to me and since my family was given shelter on arrival from South Africa, it is a pilgrimage to me and whenever I got the opportunity, I came here to seek peace and tranquillity.”
No relationship can remain static or fail to evolve. They wind through twists and turns. The relationship between the Mahatma and Bengal too underwent changes and upheavals in response to dilemmas confronting Indians fighting the battle for Independence
7.
Dhanora Impressed by Kasturba Gandhi’s words, this village in MP has the same population for 97 years
In 1922, the population in Dhanora village was 1,700 and 97 years later the population continues to be the same
Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath in Dhanora village (File- PTI Photo)
Even as the population of the nation is rising, there is a village in Madhya Pradesh where the population has remained the same for the past 97 years.
This may seem unbelievable, but that is how it has been in Dhanora, a village located in Madhya Pradesh's Betul district.
In 1922, the population here was 1,700 and 97 years later the population continues to be the same.
How the village is maintaining its population may sound intriguing. But, there is a story behind this.
A local resident S. K. Mahobiya says that in 1922, the Congress held a conference here, which was attended by many dignitaries including Kasturba Gandhi. She raised the slogan of 'small family-happy family' here. The villagers were so impressed by her arguments that they decided to adopt and enforce the concept.
The elders of the village say that her message was so well taken by the all in the village that each family adopted the family planning concept. And, one of the good things that happened was that the villagers understood that there was no difference in the boys and girls. The families do not have more than two children and it did not matter whether the children are boys or girls.
Local journalist Mayank Bhargava said: "This village is a model in family planning. There is no gender bias in this village and families stick to the norm of having one or two children, even if the children are boys or girls only. The people here don't make a distinction between boys and girls."
Dhanora has maintained its population, but several villages around it have seen almost a fourfold population growth in these 97 years.
Health worker Jagdish Singh Parihar said: "There was no need to force anything on the villagers. They are so very aware about the concept and gains of family planning."
Dhanora is a small village in the landscape of India, but this village is a model of family planning not just for the country but for the whole world as well.
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