New Delhi: Talking about the past is risky, for it can “take away attention from what is happening in the present,” said historian Rajmohan Gandhi last week at Jawahar Bhawan. Yet he avoided that trap by tying a lecture on India’s founding fathers to current realities, from Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York to a Muslim child being slapped in an Uttar Pradesh classroom.
At ‘Invitation to Yesterday’, the opening chapter of the Dastan-e-Nehru series organised by the social platform Nehruvian and the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Gandhi spoke about Jawaharlal Nehru, MK Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, and BR Ambedkar not to retreat into nostalgia, but to challenge the “falsehoods that mystify the founding fathers of our nation.”
The audience was filled with students and history aficionados, including distinguished guests such as Syeda Hameed, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Prashant Bhushan, Neerja Chowdhary, and Mani Shanker Aiyar.
One by one, Rajmohan Gandhi traced a chronological account of the lives of the contemporaries of his grandfather MK Gandhi, starting with Sardar Patel.
“His schooling was from the humblest of places, yet he performed better in his law practice in London than Nehru and Gandhi,” he said. He credited Patel’s practice in India for this distinction.
The anecdotes and vignettes were carefully chosen. All seemed relevant to the present day. One such story was about Patel’s daughter Mani, who once donated all her jewellery to MK Gandhi’s ashram without her father’s permission.
“This is the story of thousands of families. One idea of the kind of life they lived,” he said, adding it was this kind of solidarity toward a greater cause that enabled India to win its freedom.
While it is well-documented that Patel and Nehru didn’t see eye to eye on many issues, this did not mean a dearth of respect or loyalty.
Rajmohan Gandhi noted that on 11 December 1950, Patel told his cabinet colleague NV Gadgil, “I am not going to live, make me a promise, whatever your differences are with Pandit Ji, never leave him.” Four days later Patel died.
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Principles that united
No conversation about MK Gandhi or Nehru would be complete without the mention of Jinnah. The nationalist spirit burned brightly in him too.
Rajmohan Gandhi narrated how in 1909, when Jinnah entered the Imperial Legislative Council as a member from Mumbai, he spoke with indignation and horror at the harsh and cruel treatment of Indians in South Africa.
He also described Jinnah’s 1918 protest against the plans of officials to erect a statue for the retiring Governor of Bombay presidency, Lord Willingdon.
“Jinnah went to the Town Hall with his wife Rattanbai and hundreds of Hindu, Muslim, and Parsi supporters,” Gandhi said.
It was here that Jinnah is said to have bellowed that the protestors had challenged “the combined forces of bureaucracy and autocracy.” The moment made Jinnah a hero at the time.
From Jinnah, Gandhi moved to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who Sarojini Naidu once said “was fifty years old on the day he was born” because of his store of knowledge.
The historian cited Azad’s insistence that unity mattered more than political power, quoting: “I should give up Swaraj but not Hindu-Muslim unity. For if Swaraj is delayed it will be a loss to India, but if Hindu-Muslim unity is lost, it will be a loss for mankind.”
But it was Nehru who took the metaphorical centrestage. The lecture series, a member of the organising committee said, is geared toward curbing the misinformation being spread about him.
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To foreground Nehru’s stature and contemporary significance, the historian quoted MK Gandhi: “Who am I to venerate Jawaharlal? The world will venerate him.”
This was in 1924, but it still holds true, according to Rajmohan Gandhi.
“A hundred and one years later, Zohran Mamdani quoted Jawaharlal Nehru in his victory speech in New York. Gandhi was right, Nehru’s legacy transcended the fabric of time and space, to find its echoes in contemporary politics,” he said.
He reminded the audience that Nehru stood for Hindu-Muslim unity as much as for Swaraj. Back in 1925, the RSS, which celebrated its centenary this year, was launched.
“This was the time when the drive for Hindu-Muslim polarisation was being organised,” Gandhi said.
He turned to the religious fractures that have deepened across India in the current day, even as racist rhetoric in the US and UK targets people from the subcontinent with equal vehemence.
“Who is entitled to human rights?” he asked the audience. “Should Hindus show friendship to Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Buddhists because they are also Indians? Are people of Indian origin in the US and UK entitled to basic rights because they share the same DNA as the whites there? Or is it because they are human beings?”
The question left the audience in quiet reflection.
As the talk wound to a close, Gandhi condemned the communal violence that, as he put it, “infiltrates our minds today”. He recalled an incident in Muzaffarnagar, where a video went viral of a teacher commanding students to slap a Muslim classmate.
“Nobody had the guts to say this is terrible,” he said, breaking down in tears. “And if we feel the pain and we feel the shame at the horror of what’s happening and what’s not happening, we must not look for a formula or a handbook, but rather the will in our hearts that something can be changed.”
During a short Q&A after the talk, a senior audience member told Gandhi, “The atmosphere here in Jawahar Bhawan feels like Lahore’s Bradlaugh Hall,” referring to the old hub of the freedom movement.
Ankita Thakur is an alumna of ThePrint School of Journalism. She interned with ThePrint.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
All Nehruvian gathered and remembered Mujaffar Nagar teacher incident!! Bravo!! They forgot Delhi Bomb blast by Jihadis near Redfort !! Do they have any answer? Or RajMohan Gandhi and his ilk; will shut their eyes and ears ?? Hypocrites of highest level , don’t command any credibility and respect in society!!