History is the fertile field of interpretation. Anantkumar Hegde, serial motormouth and Sadhvi Pragya’s parliamentary colleague, is of the opinion that the freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi was “staged drama” and satyagraha was bogus. Truth be told, satyagraha was the first great Indian startup and Gandhi the first political innovator of the 20th century.
To understand Gandhi’s pragmatism is to realise that he had only one aim: the decolonisation of India. To achieve his goal, he adopted or created various methods. He used the civil disobedience movement and khadi tours to shape in his mould, the Congress, which until then was a feudalistic Angli-national party. He grasped the power of victimhood and exploited its helpless purity to create a global force, unlike political satraps like Motilal Nehru, a dynast who identified with the ruling class over the great unwashed. Gandhi wielded self-denial as a weapon of power and in the process elevated himself as a quasi-divine figure with the charisma to influence the masses to suffer for his sake.
He could convert an obstinate sulk into a lofty principle: after the Chauri Chaura incident, he suspended the civil disobedience movement. He went on fast as ‘penance’ for the policemen’s deaths. When communal riots raged through Bengal, he went on fast again, equating his suffering with that of the casualties of the carnage. He was an Indian Christ taking on himself the sins of his people. Each action of his, from the Salt Satyagraha to the Noakhali March, acquired greater significance since they were associated with him and him alone.
Tapping into the Indian gestalt, he appropriated the age-old charkha as a Gandhian symbol—today it is impossible to think or see an image of it without thinking of the Father of the Nation. Gandhi was the only superpower of the freedom struggle, in spite of perverse flaws such as his passion for his nieces which he self-indulgently described as wrestling with his biology. Gentlemen such as Anantkumar Hegde are no match for Mahatma Gandhi. Hedge is a political and intellectual picayune who has embarrassed his party and the government. Sadly, the BJP doesn’t currently have a leader of the stature of Syama Prasad Mukherjee or Deendayal Upadhyaya to question Indian history and its grandmasters.
BJP’s vigorous nationalism is an unruly young force which will take decades to become a stable influence devoid of the sound and fury. Until then there will be gadflies such as Hegdes and Pragyas who revel in such popularity stunts. The Congress simplified morality as the divide between Gandhi and Godse. The irony, as heretical as it may sound, is that both men fought for the Idea of India and died for it. One became a martyr and the other Judas. Hegde and his ilk don’t have the qualities to be either.
ravi@newindianexpress.com