सत्य + अहिंसा = विजय
But “Victory” over whom? The Self.
And that is the essence of Gandhism. Let no one tell you otherwise.
This “truth” is more important than Gandhi himself, and I have a feeling he’d have been the first to admit it. So, discard the chaff, for it has neither nutrition nor value, and collect the grain.
Was Gandhi perfect? Far from it.
He would have fit right in with the Hindutvawadis today, with his emphasis on (Hindu) religion, cow protection, anti-technology, casteism, weird sexual morals, and obscurantism.
But interestingly, he’d have fit perfectly in with the progressives with his non-violence, insistence on truth, frugality, empathy, cleanliness, insistence on self-help (yes, including cleaning latrines), concern for the little man (and woman), and soft-spoken but firm stand against absolutely any kind of authoritarianism/imperialism/colonialism.
In effect, he was a complicated man of his times with all the associated flaws and in many ways, self-centred behaviour. But he was also a man far ahead of his times with ideas that even today are seen as progressive, while managing to create and mentor the first line of leaders for independent India with magnanimous unselfishness.
It is completely up to us which parts we should hold up as ideals and which to scrutiny.
I choose to see his philosophy of सत्याग्रह (the insistence on truth) and अहिंसा as ideals to work towards while discarding the rest as the ramblings of an ignoramus.
Say what you want, one way or the other, he affected and continues to affect billions with his life and thoughts today, and has been instrumental in affecting the course of history in recent times.
Gandhi Jayanti may mean just another day in another year. Celebrate it, disparage it, or ignore it. The actual day is irrelevant. It is the ideals that matter.
Then, of course, we come to the other person who embodied Gandhism: Lal Bahadur Shastri, the soft-spoken but tough leader who rallied the country and guided us during difficult times. Truly, “जय जवान, जय किसान” was more than just a slogan for him, unlike today’s “leaders”. Interestingly, he was one amongst many “right person for the right job at the right place at the right juncture of history in India” that we seem to have been blessed with by serendipity. At each point in this country’s modern post-independence history, we have had people doing jobs they were seemingly born for, and we have been riding on this luck for over 70 years now. Shastri was the quintessential Napoleonic “lucky General” who made his own luck, and with it, the country’s. I doff my hat to his pluck, determination, and resolve. Which brings us to the fact that he idealised Gandhism his entire life, as in death (which must be probed now that the world has changed, to bring some closure to our hearts), and it is only fitting that he shares the date with the most deserving Nobel Peace Prize recipient never to win a Nobel, for if Shastri had indeed lived, he would have as richly deserved the said prize as his mentor, Gandhi himself.
My salute to the two heroes and true “सुपुत्रs” of India.
Later edit: Another emotion I have learnt as I read more about him is that of निर्भयता. For Gandhi, this was the foundation of सत्य and अहिंसा. Being a Gandhian requires tremendous courage, a sense of calm inside, and the strength of being comfortable with what one is without reference to the external world or its pressures or opinions.
It isn’t for the cowards who are being eaten inside by their insecurities and (inferiority) complexes and who are easily swayed from the path of truth by what others think or say about them.
Gandhi was, as I have said, not perfect. Far from it. But in the balance, he had more positive things we could learn from him and put into practice in our daily lives than negative. No one needs to accept him as a “Saint” or “Mahatma”. That would indeed be quite un-Gandhian. But you can take his ideas and adopt & adapt them to your lives, especially those that the world remembers him by. Today, of all times since independence, we need his ideas of सत्य, अहिंसा, and निर्भयता. You can use these ideas without reference to him, if you so please. But please consider trying to inculcate them in your lives if you want to keep this society and this nation great.
That would really be a patriotic thing to do.
