As the nation celebrates the 154th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi today, it is painful to discern a pattern – rather, an obsession – of the ruling regime at the Union government to limit Mahatma Gandhi to the idea of cleanliness alone.
This blinkered approach on the part of the regime links him with its flagship programme Swachh Bharat Abhiyan all the time. This transmits the message that Gandhi represented a fine example of an icon of our freedom struggle upholding the ideals of sanitation and hygiene. But these are not the only ideals he upheld.
The regime has grossly limited the representation of Gandhi’s worldview. Gandhi’s tenets were multiple and included communal amity, economic equality, women’s empowerment, farmers’ welfare, tribal upliftment and the eradication of untouchability.
Which is why, year after year since 2014 it is distressing to see Gandhi getting reduced to the cleanliness idea.
The Modi government represents the cleanliness mission with a logo in which one lens of a pair of glasses has the word ‘Swachh’ written on it and the other has ‘Bharat’.
Those two words written on the two lenses block our vision to a considerable extent when it comes to understanding Gandhi’s holistic ideals which affirmed an all encompassing worldview.
The threat to communal unity
One of the defining aspects of his extraordinary life, marked with the arduous quest for freedom, was to promote communal unity and harmony cutting across all faiths and other primordial identities.
Gandhi lived an exemplary life upholding communal harmony and eventually laid down his life in defence of that cherished ideal. Had Gandhi been alive today he would have been distressed to see the laws enacted in several BJP-ruled states of our country to target the so called ‘love jihad’ and very coercively deal with the inter-faith couples bound by matrimonial ties or aspiring to do so.
Such laws enacted to prevent people to opt for matrimonial relations cutting across faiths is severe blow to communal unity which Gandhi flagged as indispensable to make India free from British rule.
The ruling regime initially took a stand that ‘love jihad’ is a non-existent issue and statements to that effect were made in the parliament by senior ministers of the ruling regime.
Now several other ‘jihads’ such as ‘land jihad’ and ‘UPSC jihad‘ have been coined by Hindutva groups to exclude Muslims from the collective life and reduce them to a status where the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights are denied to them with impunity. While ‘land jihad’ misinterprets the legitimate settlements of Muslims in the land or area lawfully acquired by them as a method of conversion, ‘UPSC jihad’ refers to the entry of Muslims to civil service by qualifying in the written test and via voce conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
Also read: A List of All the False Claims Made in Sudarshan TV’s ‘UPSC Jihad’ Show
Such venomous interpretation given to the selection process based on merit and worth of candidates regardless of their faiths constitute an attempt to foster deep seated prejudice and hate against Muslims so that they get excluded from the civil service. Never ever in the history of India have such vicious and venomous terms been coined to exclude a section of citizens on the basis of their faith and assault the unity of our people professing diverse faiths. So the ruling regime, while invoking Gandhi in the context of Swachh Bharat, is deliberately trying to push to oblivion the ideal of communal harmony which constituted the foundation of India’s architecture of Swaraj.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Tea and water
He wrote with anguish about the obnoxious practice prevailing in pre-Independent India where vendors in public places and railway stations used to sell “Hindu tea” separate from “Muslim tea” and “Hindu pani or water”, separate from “Muslim pani.”
He had wondered how unity among Muslims and Hindus would be established if the division was so deep that even water and tea got divided on the basis of Hindu-Muslim binaries. He wrote in his booklet Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place, published in early 1940s: “The first thing essential for achieving such unity is for every Congressman, whatever his religion may be, to represent in his own person Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Zoroastrian, Jew, etc., shortly, every Hindu and non-Hindu”.
He pleaded: “In order to realize this, every Congressman will cultivate personal friendship with persons representing faiths other than his own”.
Remarking that such regard for the faiths of others would create a happy situation and there would be no disgraceful cry at the stations, of “Hindu water” and “Muslim water” or “Hindu tea” and “Muslim tea,” Gandhi described the action to be taken by Congress men as the beginning of a revolution which should have no political motive and persuasively argued that “political unity will be its natural fruit”.
But it is worthwhile to note that ‘Hindu tea’, ‘Muslim tea’, ‘Hindu pani’ and ‘Muslim pani,’ were being sold in pre-Independent India not at the behest of the government.
Those were by products of religious prejudices which often got manifested in divisive narratives, impacting several aspects including beverages. Had Gandhi been alive he would have been happy to note that in independent India the practice of selling water and tea thus is no longer prevalent. However, he would have been deeply hurt to note that in the BJP-ruled state governments have employed legislation and taken administrative decisions against the bogeys of ‘love jihad‘ and ‘land jihad‘ and Hindutva leaders called for genocide and comprehensive social and economic boycott of Muslims and minorities.
Such frightening developments endangering the very idea of India are sustained by relentless spread of hate. Those controlling the state apparatus are maintaining a deafening silence on the issue. This is so in spite of some of the recent judgements of the Supreme Court that states must take suo motu cognisance of hate speeches and adopt strict legal steps to neutralise the threat arising out of those sordid developments.
The powers that be spin communal narratives and subtly use them as dog whistles to target minorities. A helpful media then transmits hatred day in day and out.
Permeation of hatred
Hate has permeated to deeper levels of society and larger collective life to such an extent that it was recently manifested in the killing of three Muslim passengers in a moving train by a Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable who, it is understood, identified them by their religion and shot them. He had also reportedly stated that to stay in India one has to vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath.
Hate on grounds of religion was evidenced in an ominous manner in a class room in a school in UP where a Muslim boy was beaten by his classmates on the express instructions of a teacher who pointed fingers at the faith of that child.
It is shocking that BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri used abusive language against Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali in Lok Sabha and made highly derogatory remarks on account of his Islamic identity. Even though all those remarks have been expunged from the proceedings of the House by the Speaker he has not taken any action against the erring MP except referring the matter to the Privileges Committee and issuing a warning that strict action would be taken against him if he repeated such conduct.
Mahatma Gandhi who wanted not just political unity but the unity of hearts among all religious groupings of India would have been appalled to see state apparatus used in independent India a calculated manner to generate, sustain and spread hate for electoral purposes by consolidating votes on religious lines.
The gathering crisis of communal upsurge engineered by powers that be in a very calibrated manner can be remedied by the people.
Such a remedy was recommended by Mahatma Gandhi on October 8, 1947, almost two months after India attained independence. While addressing a prayer meeting in New Delhi he referred to the emergence of press as a powerful medium and pointed out that several newspapers indulged in dirty propaganda, published unfounded reports and incited people on religious lines.
“…[W]hen we have become independent”, Gandhi said, “it is the duty of the public not to read dirty papers but to throw them away”.
“When nobody buys those papers they will automatically follow the right path”, he asserted.
Now in India, large sections of corporate-controlled media is hand in glove with the government of the day and is engaged in spreading hate propaganda against people in the name of faith. Gandhi’s 1947 call to the public to “not to read dirty papers but to throw them away” assumes greater significance.
On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mahatma while paying tributes to him one fervently hopes that his vision of inclusive India would triumph over majoritarianism and polarisation.
S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India, K.R. Narayanan.