How Relevant is Mahatma Gandhi Today?

Till few years ago no one could have even dreamed of asking the question suggested in the title to this article. How can Gandhi be the subject of a debate! His achievements are so obvious. But after two decades of reforms, India is a different country. Indians, as a people have changed, our aspirations and our ambitions have changed. Now we are ready to take a new look at our historical past and perhaps glean new perspectives from it. Imbued with a new iconoclastic streak, we are no longer ready to accept leaders at their face value; now we yearn for a healthy debate over their contribution to our society.

Though Gandhi died within few months of independence, it is his philosophy that guided the young nation during its formative years. His philosophy of non-violence, temperance and simple living may not have led us on the path of being a superpower, but it did help us survive those tumultuous years. Amongst many nations that became independent during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, only India remained a democracy, where reasonably free and fair elections get held on a regular basis. Most other nations in Asia and Africa succumbed to the lure of communist or military dictatorship.

Indian democracy survived and became stronger over the years, only because we had something that other nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh and China didn't. We had Mahatma Gandhi and his message - "that the answer to violence does not lie in violence; that hatred should not be countered by hatred; that the moral imperative must prevail; that right ends can be obtained only by right means; that eradication of poverty and service of the poor through education and effective empowerment ought to be the priority goals of economic policy; that there is no clash of civilizations but only a pressing need for the celebration of diversity, pluralism and mutual tolerance."

Despite the breathtaking changes taking place across the nation, India continues to live under the tutelage of Gandhian philosophy. We cannot dream of making a big break from the Gandhian way and still survive as a nation. Due to his seminal role in establishing India as a nation, Mahatma Gandhi is relevant to the country as a subject of study. His role as "Father of the Nation" makes it even more imperative for us to take an unprejudiced look at everything associated with him and his ideals. It is a shame that many of his documents and letters remain unexplored. Every figment of Gandhian thought needs to be exposed to the incisive gaze of writers and thinkers.

Few years ago Noble laureate V S Naipaul stunned the nation by saying at a public function, "Mahatma Gandhi was a failure in South Africa." But the fact remains Gandhi could not have succeeded in South Africa, he was meant to succeed in India only. Only after he had successfully led the freedom struggle that Gandhi became relevant for the whole world. Since then Gandhian principles have played a part in inspiring similar movements throughout the world, removing dictators over the last few decades in countries as far apart as the Philippines and Poland, while providing the inspiration for the American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King.

At a more cultural and social level Gandhi has been coming under lots of scrutiny and criticism because of his teachings on fasting and on sexuality. His troubled relationship with his children, especially with his eldest son, Harilal Gandhi, has become the subject of many biographies, plays and films. Then there are the rightwing ideologues that accuse Gandhi of practicing pseudo-secularism, while those on the left side of the political spectrum accuse him of having a patronizing attitude towards lower caste Indian people. Well, it comes naturally to politicians to try to use or abuse Gandhi to further their own narrow political ends.

However, it becomes abhorrent when third-rate Bollywood potboilers start using Gandhi to draw audiences to the cinema hall. That is what has happened in case of a film called Lage Raho Munnabhai. The film stars Sanjay Dutt, who has been accused of serious criminal charges. Do we really need a film like Lage Raho Munnabhai to reawaken the nation's youth to Gandhian ideology? What Sanjay Dutt stands for in his flamboyant life of a film star, who is crony to some of India's most hardened criminals, is poles apart from what the simplistic Gandhi stood for when he led the nation towards freedom. Surely we don't need anyone like Sanjay Dutt to teach us about Gandhi.

What we need is a refresher course in history. History needs to be revisited, the years of freedom struggle and the times before that need to be reopened to the gaze of young Indians who are eager to have a new look at their own past. Bollywood scriptwriters with their flights of fancy, and politicians with their politically motivated speeches, will not be of help. We need real historians who can interpret Gandhi as the man who foresaw the emergence of an independent India many years before the independence movement actually took off.

In that sense Gandhi was a visionary. But he was also a leader who possessed the moral courage to lead from the front. And he was also a human being, as all of us are, and so we should not expect him to be perfect in everything that he did. To answer the question that forms the topic of this article - Gandhi is relevant today because most Indians understand that without him India, as it exists today, would not have been possible.