Gandhi: An Idea Bigger than His Time!

We live in a world progressively getting inflicted with narrow-minded, reactionary rightwing thought process. I have even come across people from severely marginalised  backgrounds (like Africans, lesbians, Indians) who you would expect to be champions of liberalism, talking tones of fascism. It is, hence, expected that a personality like Mahatma Gandhi would face severe criticism and, at times, even hatred even in his own motherland. 

Let us discuss a little bit about the real contributions of this man whom Churchill jeered as the half-naked fakir! Of course, no one is perfect. The Mahatma also made mistakes in his life. However, the greatness of a person comes from their attitude towards their own mistakes. This is where the Mahatma takes the first prize! He has clearly mentioned that his life is an experiment and he may make mistakes. Hence, his views and convictions would change with time (which they did). 

Also, let us get some facts straight. First of all, it was the great poet Ravindranath Tagore who started calling Gandhi as the Mahatma. Secondly, it was the revolutionary and charismatic leader Netaji Subhas Bose who first called Gandhi as the father of the nation. Netaji and Gandhi differed severely in terms of their political stands. However, Gandhi admired Netaji immensely and addressed him as "the prince among patriots" and Netaji respected the Mahatma a lot.

Now let us come to his contributions. Before that some facts. India is one of the very few ex-colonies which has had a non-broken tradition of democracy. How is this possible in a nation which was never really a nation? Of course, the idea of nation-state is very new. Still, in the nations where the idea of nation started (like France, Spain and the UK) there has been a lot of separatist movements. How did India, a new nation, become a nation? A big credit goes to Gandhi. 

He made freedom struggle a mass movement. 

How? 

He made it very easy for anyone from any walk of life to be a freedom fighter. 

How? 

He redefined freedom fighter with a new word "satyagrahi"! This word literally means one who aspires to have a truthful and fair life and society. Colonialism was definitely not fair nor truthful. Hence, protests against it was a big duty of a satyagrahi. In addition, it was also a duty of a satyagrahi to have a righteous life, to not discriminate based on caste or money or religion or language. Do you notice the master stroke here? Most freedom struggles are about fighting the oppressor. It does not fix the society off the inflictions which made it weak enough to be controlled by oppressors. By redefining freedom struggle as "satyagrah", Gandhi made it a holistic movement. 

The second master stroke was about what is required from the satyagrahis. If you want every freedom fighter to go and fight and do big sacrifices then you can only mobilise a small part of the population. A satyagrahi was expected to do only a few things but on a daily basis. For example, they were expected to weave their own threads. It was a symbolic protests against the British empire. For the British empire, India was a huge market for cloths made in the UK. By making their own cloths a satyagrahi was hitting the empire where it actually hurts the most! Let us take a moment to appreciate this master stroke. Anyone can weave. Gandhi even innovated a handy small spinning wheel called box charkha! When you spend at least an hour to spin your own thread and wear cloths made from this you feel empowered! Everyone in the country felt empowered and connected. Gandhi's cotton threads literally connected a nation of hundred languages and a million Gods!

In addition to the above Gandhi was a fountainhead of ideas beyond his times; be it sarvodaya or trusteeship in capitalism. His ideas around sustainable development were far ahead of his times and are extremely useful in the current era. 

The more I try to read about him (from the writings of him and his compatriots) the more amazed I become about this fountainhead! Let us try not be swayed by propaganda and Whatsapp University. Let us try to pick up some original writings from that era and try to know some facts about this great soul.