This morning, when the day started somewhat inclemently, a friend said to me: “You see even Nature is weeping not because Gandhi is dead but because we shall make hypocritical speeches today praising him and then forget him tomorrow!”
We had a Gandhi Centenary Year in 1969-70. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the “Frontier Gandhi”, happened to visit India at that time and, when he saw what he did in India, he made the following remark: “How soon we have forgotten Gandhi. I am pained to find that the country and the people whom Gandhi served so long had forgotten him so soon”.State capitalism
Professor Hugh Tinker, a well-known liberal writer about India, says similarly: “If Gandhi had survived the one hundred and one years he expected to live once, he would, I think, have been saddened but not unduly surprised by the India of 1969.”
So we Indians have a right to be proud of the fact that we had Gandhi with us. We also have reason to be ashamed that we have made so little use of this wonderful leader and prophet we had amongst us.In February/March 1977, the Janata Party’s Manifesto was full of Gandhi and to that extent we can claim that Gandhi came back into the centre of the picture. But if one studies what has happened since that Manifesto was published, one will have to concede sadly that that was a flash in the pan. In fact, they have turned their backs on Gandhi and gone back to Karl Marx, their real mentor.In fact, we have been more unkind to Gandhi than to Godse. The question therefore arises, is Gandhi relevant today? Gandhi is relevant today. In fact he is more relevant today than he ever was, not only in India but also internationally.Two lessons to learn
