It was on a trip to South Africa in 2006 when I started to comprehend the greatness and popularity of Mahatma Gandhi. Interestingly, I was visiting Durban for an art show on Gandhi. It wasn’t just the Gandhi admirers who visited the show, but the people of South Africa had shown faith in us, even saying, “You are from the land of Gandhi, we trust you.” Gandhi had lived in Durban, almost a century ago, but people knew him through the speeches of Nelson Mandela, their beloved leader. They were aware of the fact that they were indebted to Gandhi—although indirectly—for the freedom that they were enjoying. The modest plaque at Pietermaritzburg station declares in a soft tone that this is where a young immigrant barrister named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was thrown out of a train. Sitting alone at the station, the barrister resolved to fight prejudices till the end.
As we know, the tools of Gandhi’s struggle against prejudices were based on Indian theories of ‘ahimsa’ or ‘non-violence’. ‘Satyagraha’ or the ‘truth-force’ was sharpened in South Africa along with the successful experimentation of the Gandhian philosophy of life. As a young immigrant, he endured racism in South Africa and withstood it merely with his faith in the power of truth and love. Ela Gandhi writes in Gandhi@150, a book which celebrates 150 years of Gandhi: “His initial encounters with racial prejudice and discrimination affected him tremendously—being treated rudely when he refused to take his turban off in the South African court; being thrown out of the train on the Pietermaritzburg platform because he refused to move to a van compartment; being assaulted because he refused to sit on the footboard of the coach; being refused overnight accommodation at a hotel simply because he was not white. All this happened within a fortnight of his arrival and must have been overwhelming for a young man alone in a strange country. It would have filled any other young man with hate and anger, but not Gandhiji.” Gandhi paved the way for racial emancipation and economic liberation through non-violent ways, initiating the Satyagraha in Durban.
In India, Gandhi is somehow dragged into political controversies and debates on the relevance of Satyagraha, primarily because the creation of the icon of Gandhi which was not based on the philosophy of Gandhi. Rajkumar Hirani, the director of Lage Raho Munna Bhai, the popular Hindi film which made Gandhi and “Gandhigiri” popular and cool again, makes a valid point in Gandhi@150: “When I was growing, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was just another chapter in our school history books that we had to learn by rote for exams. We saw his face in frames on the walls of government offices and on the rupee bills. He was around but he was invisible.” A few years ago at Delhi airport, I got into a taxi and told the driver to take me to Rajghat. His reaction was, “Where is Rajghat?” On the other hand, the old man at the Sarvodaya book stall at Ahmedabad railway station (there used to be one there) got excited when I asked for the books on Gandhi. With trembling hands, he rummaged through the dusty pile of books and produced the autobiography of Gandhi with a toothless smile comparable to Gandhi himself.
During my childhood in Payyanur, a small town in north Kerala, I had many opportunities to interact with senior citizens who shared, with glittering eyes, their experience of seeing Gandhi. Many of them had seen him in close proximity—not through traveling thousands of miles—but in Payyanur town itself when he came for a “personal visit” to meet his friend and disciple Swami Ananda Theerthan, a pioneer in the movement against caste-based prejudices and atrocities. Swami Ananda Theerthan had established an ashram at Payyanur for students from the weaker sections of society, probably enthused by the recognition of the town as the centre of the Nationalist Movement.
Even prior to Gandhi’s visit in 1934, Payyanur had been identified as an active centre of the movement. Jawaharlal Nehru visited the town in 1928 and ignited the spark of nationalism. Soon after Gandhiji started the Dandi March and the Salt Satyagraha on March 12, 1930, the leaders in Malabar wanted to replicate the Salt Satyagraha. The place they chose was Payyanur. The struggle for social equity had already started making ripples in the Nationalist Movement in India, which urged Gandhi to establish the All India Anti-Untouchability League. His visit to Payyanur was part of the promotion and fundraising for this. Gandhi spoke in a paddy field near the Payyanur bus stand, which is now known as Gandhi Maidan. He also took part in the auction to raise funds, even cheerfully mimicking the auctioneer in Malayalam.
After the auction, he met Swami Ananda Theerthan in his ashram. The latter established the Sree Narayana Vidyalayam or Ashram as it was known locally in 1931. Ananda had met Gandhi in 1928 at Sabarmati Ashram and remained in contact with him. So, when Gandhi was travelling for the promotion of the struggle against untouchability, he had found his best foot soldier in Swami Ananda Theerthan. Gandhi visited the ashram and planted a mango tree which is known as ‘Gandhi Mavu’. The tree has a differently-shaped mango which the people of Payyanur named ‘Gandhi Manga’ (Gandhi Mango).
Years later, in Baroda, somebody offered me a mango known as ‘totapuri’. I looked at the mango with reverence because it wasn’t just a mango for me—it was a symbol of Gandhi’s visit to my small town. And I said to myself: “Here I am, holding the Gandhi Manga in the land of Gandhiji.”
Dr Jayaram Poduval
Head, Department of Art History & Aesthetics, Faculty of Fine Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat