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Mahatma Gandhi was ‘greatest Hindu patriot of our times’, says book RSS chief will launch

‘The Making of a True Patriot: Background of Gandhiji’s Hind Swaraj’ tells the story of Gandhi's evolution as a ‘Hindu patriot’. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat will release the book on 1 Jan.

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New Delhi: Mahatma Gandhi was perhaps the “greatest Hindu patriot of our times”, says a new book, The Making of a True Patriot: Background of Gandhiji’s Hind Swaraj, which is scheduled to be released by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on 1 January.

The over 1,000-page book — based largely on extracts from Gandhi’s own writings from 1891 to 1909, including from his handwritten manuscript in Gujarati, Hind Swaraj — has been authored by J.K. Bajaj and M.D. Srinivas, founder-director and founder-chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies, respectively.

The book tells the story of Gandhi’s evolution as a ‘Hindu patriot’ — starting from his early days through his travel to Africa and England and his return to India in 1915; his “dislike” for Christian missionaries; the “extreme difficulty” in achieving Hindu-Muslim unity; treating Satyagraha as a religion; his “disillusionment” with the Western civilisation; and how associating education with English-education was a grave error.

‘Satyagraha was a religious instrument’

According to the book, Mahatma Gandhi was convinced that “no one who does not know his religion can have true patriotism in him”.

“The struggle of the Indians in South Africa was, for him and for the Satyagrahis he led, not merely a struggle to gain some particular privilege or concession. It was a struggle carried out with God as witness to preserve the sacred dignity of the religious person,” read excerpts from the book, accessed by ThePrint.

Religion, according to Gandhi, was at the core of Indian civilisation, while the Western civilisation was based in irreligion, the authors write. “The instrument of Satyagraha that he forged for this struggle was a religious instrument; and the cause towards which he used it was a religious cause,” the book says.

Speaking to ThePrint, Bajaj said, “We have tried to tell the story of the evolution of Hind Swaraj as a text of religious patriotism and of the parallel evolution of Gandhiji as the greatest Hindu patriot of our times.”

According to the book, at the peak of his struggle in South Africa, this religious patriotism of Gandhi had begun to shine through and become apparent to perceptive observers. “(Russian writer Leo) Tolstoy noticed it; and, for him, with his Christian universalist concerns, it ‘spoiled everything’ in an otherwise admirable and kindred personality,” reads the book.


Also read: ‘Hindu society was wronged’, time to end secularism debate over Babri demolition, RSS says


On his ‘dislike’ for Christianity

According to the book, while Mahatma Gandhi described the spirit of tolerance of diverse religious beliefs in his home and town in Gujarat, he developed, at an early age, a dislike for missionary activities at the same time.

“…many things combined to inculcate in me a toleration for all faiths. Only Christianity was at the time an exception. I developed a sort of dislike for it. And for a reason. In those days Christian missionaries used to stand in a corner near the high school and hold forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their gods. I could not endure this…” the authors quote extracts from Gandhi’s writings.

The authors say both the tolerance for diverse faiths and the dislike for proselytising of any kind, especially by the Christian missionaries, remained with Gandhi throughout his life.

High society London events ‘banquets held by Rakshasas’

The book also talks about Mahatma Gandhi’s “disillusionment” with the Western civilisation and how his experience in England left him with a “sense of frank disgust” for the civilisation it represented, going to the extent of calling the British “half-crazy”.

The book quotes Gandhi’s letter to H.S.L. Polak, his colleague in Johannesburg, a couple of weeks after he arrived in London, where he compared a high society event that he attended to “banquets held by Rakshasas (demons)”.

“…The people whom you meet on the way seem half-crazy. They spend their days in luxury or in making a bare living and retire at night thoroughly exhausted. In this state of affairs, I cannot understand when they can devote themselves to prayers…” the book quotes Gandhi as writing.


Also read: ‘The walls are closing in again’ – Why I’m losing hope in India


On Hindu-Muslim unity

Mahatma Gandhi was aware and concerned that the British would not allow Hindus and Muslims to come together, but he took a principled stand that India would continue to be one nation notwithstanding the presence of Muslims or Parsis or Christians, the book says.

Gandhi also had a “pragmatic assessment” of the “extreme difficulty of achieving Hindu-Muslim unity, as also of the unavoidable necessity of doing so”.

The book adds that Gandhi also allowed for the possibility that Muslims may sometimes be unreasonable — for instance, in the matter of killing of cows. “But, the necessity of Hindu-Muslim unity is so great that he even recommends letting go of the cow if the Muslim persists with the killing,” the authors say in the book.

The book quotes Gandhi’s writings on this in Hind Swaraj: “…the only method I know of protecting the cow is that I should approach my Mahomedan brother and urge him for the sake of the country to join me in protecting her. If he would not listen to me, I should let the cow go for the simple reason that the matter is beyond my ability.”

On Macaulay education

The authors say in the book that Mahatma Gandhi had complete clarity that education has to be in the mother tongue.

Gandhi, they write, was of the opinion that exposing children to a foreign language amounted to a betrayal of the children and the country. In his writings on education in Hind Swaraj, Gandhi insisted that associating education with English-education was a grave error, the book says.

“To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave them. The foundation that Macaulay laid of education has enslaved us,” Gandhi is quoted to have written in Hind Swaraj.


Also read: You need Machiavelli, not a Mahatma to outwit Modi, Arnab Goswami told me about Rahul Gandhi


 

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Is Bhagwat aware that even as a Hindu patriot, Gandhi placed his life on the line to save thousands of Muslims from mobs in 1947 ? same goes for Nehru and a few other Congressmen. That is the true face of a Hindu which RSS can never fathom.

  2. British left India but their pet dogs still follow their principle of divide and rule policy. Why did they kill Gandhi? Stop fooling in the name of religion.

  3. “Patriot? His Swaraj only meant dominion status within the Empire. Whatever his words, his acts spoke louder: as a Brit loyalist partaking in Boer & Zulu wars & WW 1.” – @Koenraad_Elst

    M K Gandhi, by his own admission, was a राजभक्त, a loyal servant of the British Empire, at least up to 1920. He was also formally awarded as a loyal servant more than once for his services to the Empire. He saw no reason for British to leave India. In fact, in his famous ‘Hind Swaraj’ Gandhi expressly asked British to continue rule India. THIS was his position.
    Even after the great ‘Swadeshi movement’ led by SriAurobindo, Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai already happened which demanded complete independence, Gandhi was a राजभक्त, in favour of British rule and British empire.

    In view of such clear history, calling Gandhi ‘greatest patriot’ is a travesty of truth. As a matter of fact, Gandhi was considered ‘our man’ by the British till the end. A fact mentioned by the great George Orwell in his piece written in 1949.

  4. It’s merely another instance of the RSS illegitimately appropriating a liberal icon of modern India, and remaking him in saffron. No matter what, they will never succeed in legitimizing their regressive, extremist agenda.

  5. Gandhi was a stubborn person a spoilt brat who would resort to hunger strike to get his way.

    He had given his word to Moti LAL Nehru to make his son as president of Congress

    A great disservice to India to impose J L Nehru as PM whereas Sardar Patel was the elected choice of all. Gandhi was selfish person

    • Gandhi’s choice of Nehru as PM designate had a practical aspect to it. By 1947 , Nehru was just 60 years old while Patel was 14 years older. It made sense to have a younger person at the helm, though Patel would also have made a great Pm.

  6. What an infantile assertion! How can a person be called even a patriot upto his 50 years of age, when he himself self-identified proudly a ‘raj-bhakta’? Gandhi’s services for the British empire was duly recognised by the medal he recieved, for exactly the same, after the WW1.
    Writing 1000 pages another repeatative hagiography of Gandhi is a mindless waste of time and energy.
    Only RSS, ‘the greatest collection of duffers on earth’, in the words of Sitaram Goel, can do/propagate it.
    Even in the WW2, Gandhi’s position in 1942 and after was hardly patriotic. He seemed unmindful to replace democratic British with Nazi Hitler-Tojo. That, to a large section of Indian intellectuals and sages, was a patriotic war – for which great poet-thinker SH Vatsyayan (Ajneya) even joined the British Indian Army! But Gandhi opposed that war, again harming national interest, albeit indirectly.
    Gandhi was a very poor thinker, bad politician, and no example to emulate in practically all fields of life.

  7. For RSS is it a late realization of GANDHI’S patriotism and core Hinduism and respect for other religions too. Tallest personality he was, united huge country for Freedom struggle against British an unparalleled accomplishment in the history of mankind👍👏👏🙏

    • Winston Churchill’s second world war policies of diverting all foodgrains, pulses, vegetables n other essential commodities from the erstwhile East Bengal n West Bengal for all those fighting the war under d British n allies command in Europe, Asia n elsewhere, resulted in the one n only man made famine in the history of mankind n subsequent death of millions of Indians mostly Bengalies due to starvation. Gandhi supported British Winston Churchill in second world war that resulted in d death of millions of Indians by starvation n abt 1.7 lakhs deaths n many permanent disabilities of Indian army personnel fighting under British command. The Gandhi’s state of Gujarat was also not divided n affected by the partition n subsequent independence of India which d British gave as a beggars’ gift for supporting them in world war two. History will never pardon Churchill for his misdeeds which is second only to Hitler.

  8. How can Gandhi be patriot then who is Nathuram Ghodse ? Either of the both will be patriot.Sadhvi Pradnya praised Ghodse as patriot No one heard RSS chief condemneding it or asking for some action agaist her .The r.s.s is doing lip service in the heart of heart og every sanghi Nathuram has a special place .

  9. Hope this author would justify why they “exterminated” their hindu patriot..and their “patriotic contributions” since 1925 to the freedom struggle.

  10. RSS has become a turncoat. Another foolish assertion by the Sangh Parivar. They have not read anything after Golwalkar published his “Bunch of Thoughts” in the mid 1960s. Look at the writings of people from RSS until about 1980. It is full of tirade and sarcasm against Gandhi. Not that I am admirer of Gandhi. I think he was more of a christian and he showed a great love for christianity while in South Africa. His ahimsa is not inspired by Hinduism, but the christian martyrs who braved Roman persecution between 1st to 4th century CE. But, it would be foolish of me to expect the Sangh Pariwar writers to study history and write.

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