We mock Gandhi daily     

New Delhi now has a war memorial but there is no peace memorial anywhere, where people can be reminded of Gandhians and Gandhian movements. Jai Prakash Narayan’s words come to mind. JP had said sarcastically that New Delhi was a graveyard of Gandhi in more ways than one. Delhi had witnessed much violence even before the Mahatma’s assassination.

A bomb was thrown at the Mahatma on January 20, 1948 as well and leaders of free India were burning midnight oil to save the situation from spinning out of control. Had they failed, history would have taken a turn for a lot worse, one suspects. Gandhi was 80 years old when he was killed. But killing his ideas continued unabated. He advocated decentralised power and economic structure; we opted for centralisation. He favoured village-based development; we have opted for smart cities. He wanted us to harness locally available resources and talent, but we paid no heed.

He wanted the palatial residence of the Viceroy to be turned into a public hospital. We turned it into Rashtrapati Bhavan. He favoured an austere government and said public servants in free India should live modestly. We can see everywhere in Delhi how our leaders live and how ostentatious the government is. Gandhi spoke of social responsibility and growth from the bottom. We chose a top-down approach.

He wanted education to be useful, productive and equal for everyone. We made it discriminatory and easier for the rich and the well-off to buy better education. Inequality is such that the rich even determine the poverty line.

Just one per cent of Indians control 73 per cent of the country’s wealth. The four pillars of democracy, rather than supporting each other, are busy colliding with each other. We, therefore, need to rediscover Gandhi within ourselves, not outside.