The world needs Gandhi in 2018 

Mahatma Gandhi needs no endorsement from any government because his principles of truth and non-violence in politics have inspired humanity across the globe. He not only inspired leaders in various countries like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, but a large number of people from almost every walk of life. He remains one of the tallest figures of the 20th century to have left his imprint on human history, an imprint that mankind continues to follow in the 21st century. The beginning of his 150th birth anniversary is an occasion to not just remember him but is an opportunity to invoke Gandhian principles in these times of hate that politics is promoting in India and in many parts of the world.

As is well known, Gandhi has often enough been described as a saint among politicians and as a politician among saints. Gandhi is, in fact, an enigma. He is a Mahatma for many who see him more as a spiritual figure. Some find him a great politician who used religion as a strategy to mobilise millions for his political ends. Howsoever you may like to look at Gandhi, you cannot deny that he was a politician to the core but who also believed that politics cannot be devoid from moral principles rooted in one’s faith.

It was a unique idea in times when Karl Marx was inspiring the youth with his concepts of class war and historical materialism. Marx considered religion an opiate for the masses and a means of the ruling classes to put down the downtrodden. Gandhi lived in times when science and technology were pushing humanity towards politics divorced from religion and morality. Politics, for most of its practitioners, has all along been a ‘pragmatic’ profession, wherein notion of morality does not mean much. The entire concept of European secular politics was based on separating state from the Church or religion. In such times, Gandhi blended religion with politics to move millions in 20th century India, culminating into the country’s independence.

But his religion was the religion of satya and ahimsa, truth and non-violence, the core of every faith, and his strategy to achieve his political goals was satyagrah. His religion was beyond rituals and scriptures. It was a strange political concept that was unique to Gandhi alone. He made this unique idea of peaceful agitation a means for millions, not only in this country but in foreign lands for all times to come.

I think only Gandhi could have thought that agitations might also be peaceful despite the contradiction in terms. He, himself, practised and made others to accept it and follow in his footsteps to succeed. Gandhi would not even mind terminating his own agitation against British rule if it turned violent as he did following violence at Chauri Chaura in 1922.

Imagine Gandhi soon after the bloody Partition starting a fast-unto-death in 1948 with two demands: first killing of Muslims must end in Delhi and they must be allowed to return to their houses and secondly, Government of India must give Pakistan its due of ₹55 crores. Only Gandhi could have dared to do it in those times when hatred swept across India in the aftermath of the partition that led to one of the worst ethnic cleansings of modern times. And, while he succeeded in his mission, he paid for it with his life as Hindu fanatics felt that Gandhi had turned pro-Muslim. Imagine, the tallest Hindu leader of India dying for a Muslim cause. Only Gandhi could have done it because he stood for truth irrespective of faith or followers it might favour. Gandhi’s ‘Truth’ was for universal good and not for the welfare of any particular sect.

This is what distinguished Gandhi from other leaders and transformed him into a Mahatma. Humanity once again needs Gandhian principles of truth and non-violence in the prevailing political atmosphere. We are living in times when hate is the new normal. If you look around, you find Hindutva sweeping all four corners of the country. How different is the RSS Hindutva from Gandhi’s Hinduism? His Hinduism taught him to celebrate the Bhajan ‘Vaishnav Jan to tene kahiye, je peer parayee jane re…’ (One who is a Vaishnav knows the pain of others) while the Hindutva of RSS cannot feel peer parayee and therefore cannot accommodate minorities. While Gandhi is inclusive, RSS is exclusivist, as Prof Irfan Habib pointed out in a recent lecture in Delhi.

Exclusivist politics is not just unique to Indian politics of the day. It’s indeed overtaking large chunks of humanity across the globe, including the United States and Europe, once cradles of democratic and liberal politics. The Economist, celebrating its 175th anniversary last month, lamented: “People are retreating into group identities defined by race, religion, or sexuality. As a result, the common interest has fragmented. Identity politics is a valid response to discrimination, but, as identities multiply, the politics of each group collides with the politics of all the rest…. leaders on the Right, in particular, exploit the insecurity endangered by immigration as a way of whipping up support… The result is polarisation. Sometimes that leads to paralysis, sometimes to the tyranny of the majority. At worst it emboldens far-right authoritarians.”

This passage from The Economist aptly sums up 21st century politics that has engulfed the globe where far-right leaders like Donald Trump, Erdogan and Narendra Modi are thriving by exploiting the latent insecurities of the majority against an imagined and invented threat from the minority. The use of hate against the ‘other’ is increasingly becoming familiar across the world. Humanity seems to be losing its moral core to an engineered fear of the unknown.

These are dangerous times. It is in such times that the need of a leader like Gandhi is felt most acutely. Politics of revolts, revolution and violence have lost their utility in these times when the world is armed with nuclear weapons. State power is increasingly being used by authoritarian rulers who can go to any extent to engineer violence against those whom they want to subjugate.

Peaceful Gandhian resistance is the only means left to fight back against the rise of the far right. You need to agitate for the truth and invoke the spirit of inclusiveness. One needs to build alliances in this battle of truth through non-violent means to bring the majority back to liberal politics. This is the now the global need of the hour.