Gandhi in His Time and Ours, by David Hardiman

 

Deceitful Means to Dishonest Ends

After the flood of multivolume hagiographies written by his followers abated, reasoned critiques of Gandhi’s failures by international scholars began to gain recognition. Of these, the works Koenraad Elst, Jad Adams, and Joseph Lelyveld stand out. As a response to this, in the early 2000s, many scholars, led by the redoubtable Rajmohan Gandhi (the Mahatma’s grandson) and Ramachandra Guha ploughed into Gandhiana once again to give currency to their hero, by writing voluminous tomes themselves, and sponsoring others to do the same. The objective? To reinstate Gandhi in the new millennium. The book under review is one such early effort, sponsored by Guha, published in 2003, predating Guha’s own books on Gandhi.

Post a twenty year hibernation on my book shelves, a decluttering exercise (some call it death cleaning) uncovered this book from the proverbial dung heap, and was honoured by my attention before being tossed away, not so much for the quality of its contents but for the dishonesty of the author. Let me explain.

 What is the politics of this author?

In the Preface (page xii), the author writes: “I took up the idea [of writing the current book] because I felt that Gandhi’s beliefs, practice and legacy were due for reassessment in the light of many disturbing developments that had occurred during the 1990s both in India and the world, and no more so than in Gandhi’s home region of Gujarat, where Hindu chauvinists carried out murderous attacks on Muslims in 1992. The events of 2002 in Gujarat- when the same elements launched a carefully planned pogrom against Muslims, and then months later swept the polls in the state elections through playing on fears of ‘Muslim terrorism’- have strongly reinforced my feelings in this respect.”

The above paragraph is misleading on many fronts. Let us recall the facts chronologically as they occurred.

(1)   On 6^th December 1992, a mob comprising Hindus (kar-sewaks in their self-image) demolished the disputed Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhumi structure in Ayodhya.

(2)   In 1992, there is no record of any communal riots in Gujarat.

(3)   Communal riots occurred in distant Mumbai in December 1992, and January 1993 in two phases. In the first phase starting 7^th December, the violence was at the instance of Muslims. The second phase of violence which occurred between 6^th and 20^th January was a “Hindu backlash to the killings of Hindu Mathadi workers by Muslim fanatics in Dongri area, stabbing of Hindus in Muslim majority areas, and burning of six Hindus, including a disabled girl in Radhabai Chawl” (Justice Srikrishna Commission Report as quoted in Wikipedia). In any such violence, it is not politic to count bodies of different communities, but in the context of the slanted comments of the author, it is necessary to point out that the dead included 575 Muslims, 275 Hindus and 50 others. It was clearly not a one-sided affair.

(4)   The author fails to mention the March 12, 1993 Bombay blasts which resulted in 257 deaths, and 1400 injuries. These blasts took place in majorly Hindu dominated areas, and places of commercial importance. In investigations into this event, over a hundred perpetrators, most of them Muslims associated with the Dawood Ibrahim gang (also called D-Company) have been convicted. Among those absconding are individuals proclaimed as terrorists by competent authorities both in India, and the USA.

(5)   The author also fails to mention the February 27, 2002 burning of a train in Godhra in which 58 Hindu pilgrims were burnt alive on their way back from Ayodhya where they had gone on a pilgrimage. This was caused by Muslim miscreants (Islamic chauvinists or Islamic terrorism?). The 2002 Gujarat riots mentioned by the author were a reaction to this gory event, not a precursor to the State elections as suggested by him.

The events mentioned by the author, and those concealed by him are inalienable links within the same chain of events. Those events he enumerates would not have happened if those he conceals had not taken place. One expects that a writer whose subject happens to be the very ‘apostle of truth’, should at the very least be factual in his narration.

Who set this chain of events in motion?

This Reviewer would like the Readers to go back in time, and remind themselves that the whole chain of events leading up to those that distressed the author were set in motion by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of the ‘secular’ Congress Party, who had the locks of the disputed Ramjanmabhumi-Babri Masjid complex opened in February 1986, facilitating the Hindus to offer Puja to the idols of Ram Lalla. These locks had been in place since 1949. Rajiv Gandhi in 1989, on the eve of the general elections, also permitted the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to conduct the Shilanyas (foundation stone laying ceremony), the permission communicated by the then Home Minister Buta Singh, himself to the VHP leader, Ashok Singhal. By this single act, Rajiv Gandhi provided the impetus to a chain of events that eventually led to the consecration of the new Ram Temple in January 2024, an event seen by many ordinary Hindus as a moment of civilizational revival. What is Rajiv Gandhi then- a guardian of secularism in the mould of his grandfather Jawaharlal, or a closet Hindu chauvinist, an illicit progeny of the RSS?

The author should realize that Indian politics is complex, and does not fit into his ideological straight jacket.  It is difficult to believe that the author is unintelligent, or uninformed of the whole gamut of facts. He is more likely dishonest, and the book is intended to promote his partisan agenda.

What is the author’s agenda?

The author makes this quite clear in the very first paragraph of the Preface. He writes: “Political cultures- both democratic and authoritarian- have had a tendency to give rise to a populist demonising of people who are considered to be ‘different’ in one way or another. This may be directed against an external enemy, or it may be engaged within a society against minorities or those who lack social and political power. Often, though not necessarily, it is associated with a chauvinistic nationalism. Many examples may be cited, of which the case of Nazi Germany is only the most striking. In India, in Gandhi’s own time, Hindu extremists spouted a hate-filled bombast against Muslims and Christians, who were depicted as ‘traitors’ and ‘antinationalist’.” (Emphasis added)

One wonders how this conflation of Nazis with Hindu ideologues of the freedom movement, even if they could be called ‘extremists’, got past Guha’s editorial oversight. In an interview to Arthur J Pais (rediff.com, May 16, 2014), Guha says, “To call the BJP or its leaders fascist is historically untenable. We should be careful about using labels as ‘fascist’, ‘genocide’, etc which originated in historical contexts and epochs very different from contemporary India.” In other words Guha is saying that the wanton use of terms such as ‘fascism’ in unrelated political situations does a deep injustice to the victims of actual fascism. Nazi violence was so unique, so extreme, and carried out with such dispassionate mechanization (remember the gas chambers) as in a modern abattoir, that victims had no scope of either escape or redemption even after their destruction (for more on this see, Ashis Nandy Ed. Science, Hegemony and Violence). This kind of violence is without parallel in history.

If any link however tenuous should indeed be drawn between the events of 1930s-40s Europe and contemporaneous Indian history, it is between Hitler’s call for ‘lebensraum’ (living space for Germans), and Jinnah’s call for a ‘homeland’ for Muslims. The author is silent on this.

There is reason enough to toss this book aside. As someone said elsewhere about another book: It cannot lightly be laid aside, it has to be thrown away with great force.