When the scorching heat of the Indian summer gets beyond unbearable, the monsoon rains arrive. No matter how little or how abundant the rains are, they carry with them the promise of life.
Like the summer heat, people suffer growing oppression as a test of their patience. Eventually, a hero emerges, overthrowing the oppressors.
If that sounds too filmy a tale, how do you explain the rumours in Champaran in 1915-16 about a “chamatkaari baba”, a saint with miraculous powers, who would soon arrive in Champaran?
The farmers of Champaran were undergoing great suffering under the British. They tried to do something about it. They filed cases, they tried civil disobedience on their own, only to get beaten up.
What they needed was a hero, and rumours started spreading that a hero was about to arrive in Champaran, a messiah from the heavens. They knew the messiah’s name, Gandhi, who had demonstrated his magical powers for Indians in South Africa. He knew how to get his way with the Englishmen, and some in Champaran were convinced that he was going to arrive in this remote Bihar district – one had to take an elephant ride from Patna to reach Champaran.
Mind you, Gandhi had not even heard of Champaran in 1915-16. He was travelling across India, attending Congress sessions, speaking against princes and Congress leaders and the British alike. A farmer from Champaran went to Gandhi in 1917, followed him around from one city to another, and dragged him to Champaran on an elephant. Gandhi spent more than six months in Champaran, leaving only after he had freed the farmers from the oppression of the British indigo planters.
Also read: Can India have a liberal mass hero ever again?
Cometh the hour, cometh the man
Today, India is witnessing oppression and injustice in all corners. The Hindutva forces that did little to overthrow the British are now in power. They want to disenfranchise millions of Muslims and put them in detention centres. They have already turned the Kashmir valley into one large detention centre. They are bringing economic ruin to the people, causing job losses and decline in incomes. They enable lynch mobs, protect rapists, put opposition leaders in jail, disallow protests, muzzle truth and dissent with police cases, turn heroes into villains and villains into heroes. We have a government that openly wants to make India a one-party system with one religion and one language.
There are rumours, once again, that a Chamatkaari Baba will arrive and put an end to this oppression of majoritarianism. We do not yet know the name of the hero, or when s/he will come. The heavens will send one, that much is certain. There’s no better time than the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi to believe in heroes, and to hope. The greater the repression, the bigger the Mahatma that will be born. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, as someone famously said.
Newspapers across the world wrote in awe of what a figure Mahatma Gandhi had become in India. An American paper in 1931 insisted he was inspired by Jesus: “Somebody gave him the Bible in London. He picked up the Old Testament, read through Genesis and the rest put him to sleep. He picked up the New Testament and was wide awake. Jesus enthralled him. The Sermon on the Mount went straight to his heart.”
Also read: What Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could learn from Mahatma Gandhi
‘If you do as I tell you’
It doesn’t matter if Gandhi was inspired by Jesus or Buddha, what’s more important is that he was being compared to them in his lifetime. There’s a quality about heroes, real or mythical, that is immediately recognisable. Heroes believe, above all, in their own ability to bring change. In 1921, urging farmers in Gorakhpur to shun violence and follow his path of non-violent civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi said, “I want to tell you, if you follow my programme – I want to assure [you] if you do as I tell you, we shall get swaraj by the end of September.”
The 21st century Mahatma may not come from any of the current political parties. S/he might, who knows, alight from a ship from South Africa via London?
The task ahead is so onerous that the 21st century Mahatma will not look forward to European vacations. Instead, s/he will look forward to going to jail. That’s how Gandhi chose Sabarmati as the site of his ashram in Ahmedabad: “Its vicinity to the Sabarmati Central Jail was for me a special attraction. As jail-going was understood to be the normal lot of Satyagrahis, I liked this position”.
Our modern Mahatma will probably read what Mahatma Gandhi had to say about his times and realise the more things change, the more they remain the same. Gandhi wrote about his first impression of the Indian National Congress in 1901: “The Congress would meet three days every year and then go to sleep”. If that sounds a lot like the opposition today, we know what it needs is a Mahatma.
Modern-day Mahatma will not come and blame an unfriendly media. Mahatmas create their own vehicles to reach out to the masses. Gandhi edited and published his own newspapers. He wrote in his memoirs about the newspaper he ran in South Africa: “The tone of Indian Opinion compelled the critic to put a curb on his own pen. Satyagraha would probably have been impossible without Indian Opinion.”
Our modern-day Mahatma will not be an Anglophone, but speak the language of the masses. Gandhi repeatedly chided the Congress party for speaking in English. His criticism of the Congress party in the early 20th century would be apt for today’s opposition as well. He wrote about the Congress session he attended in 1901: “The volunteers were clashing against one another. You asked one of them to do something. He delegated it to another, and he in his turn to a third and so on; and as for the delegates, they were neither here nor there.”
It will take a Mahatma to put the opposition’s house in order. Such a saviour will not take it for granted that the opposition has lost its mass connect. S/he will go around creating cadres and seeking volunteers. Gandhi wrote in 1918: “Really I am recruiting mad. I do nothing else, think of nothing else, talk of nothing else… save one on recruiting”.
Also read: What unfolded when Gandhi met a playwright, a fascist, a comic legend, a Nobel laureate
Not all heroes wear loin cloth
Gandhi wore the loin cloth because he wanted to be the same as the poorest of the poor. He wanted to be one with them. Our modern-day Mahatma may not wear a loin cloth. Perhaps, she might wear a saree. What s/he will definitely have in common with Gandhi is the commitment to the masses. S/he will think about the people, and not his or her own comforts.
For all his criticism of the Congress, he ended up joining it and even presiding over it for a year. He noted as early as in 1901: “Public work in those days meant Congress work”. Gandhi thought that after Independence, the Congress party should do ‘public work’. For this purpose, he felt the party should transform into a “Lok Sewak Sangh,” an organisation in the service of the people.
“The voice of the people is the voice of God,” Gandhi wrote. After his first meeting with the farmers in Champaran, he wrote: “It is no exaggeration, but the literal truth, to say that in this meeting with the peasants I was face to face with God, Ahimsa and Truth”.
When we see a politician who understands this, we will be able to say that a Mahatma has arrived.
Also read: When Mahatma Gandhi washed Kasturba’s soiled petticoat
Views are personal.
I am happy that 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi raises hope for a better future. If an individual thinks and acts that he or she can live the change what they expect from others, leader is born. That will be a meaningful remembrance of Gandhi Jayanti.
Agree with all the problems that you have listed but they dwarf in comparison to these three each of which could make the life on earth extinct –
1. Climate change
2. Nuclear war
3. Technological disruption
And none of the three seem too far away. Extinction in our lifetime?
And we don’t need messiahs – we already have an imposter messiah running out country – and see what is happening.
Maybe if the world had flowed the important points of Gandhi’s teachings, it wouldn’t be in the state it is in.
Indian Railways doesn’t have money to pay for cleaning trains. It is facing a shortfall of Rs. 30,000 crores.
https://www.financialexpress.com/infrastructure/railways/indian-railways-faces-cash-crunch-innovative-steps-being-taken-to-fight-revenue-shortfall-details-here/1721899/
Howdy Modi? What’s up?
Former Rail Minister Dinesh Trivedi had raised a note of caution when IR started borrowing heavily, including from LIC, for capital expenditure on projects of unverified viability. In Bombay, it is too short of funds to keep foot overbridges safe.
This is a very, very serious problem. Every sector has these enormous debts. How can it go on?
“Today, India is witnessing oppression and injustice in all corners. The Hindutva forces that did little to overthrow the British are now in power. They want to disenfranchise millions of Muslims and put them in detention centres. They have already turned the Kashmir valley into one large detention centre. They are bringing economic ruin to the people, causing job losses and decline in incomes. They enable lynch mobs, protect rapists, put opposition leaders in jail, disallow protests, muzzle truth and dissent with police cases, turn heroes into villains and villains into heroes. We have a government that openly wants to make India a one-party system with one religion and one language.” – this is precisely the bombastic language that’s so easy to write…general, sweeping, judgemental. It can only be an opinion piece of a journalist that lurks on the surface rather than taking on the challenge of going into the field.
Shivam Vij – you need role models. I can suggest Alex Crawford or Clarissa Ward. Both are women. Both outstanding journalists. Follow their path and then come back to your desk to write.
Umm. RR. Sure it’s written with passion and a bit of exaggeration. But most of it IS true. What are you objecting to, precisely?
Our friend RR is very averse to people who write good English. He thinks it reflects foliage, not fruit.
Ashok: actually RR himself writes good English. Pity about the content though ;).
Thanks for asking Rajiv. I read the article again and carefully, and this is my opinion: Shivam Vij is talking to himself, and his GOD, to deliver a messiah, because he strongly believes that India is in a HUGE mess. Fair enough. His belief. And he has a right to express his fears and share his prayers with the readers. However, what are his credentials? He is just a factory that churns out article after article. I have no idea of his background and CV, but assume that he is not very old. However, am quite sure that he is not scholarly because his writing is disjointed, uni-dimensional and quite short of good analysis. He is unable to synthesise in a sound manner.
Now if he wants to be treated as a journalist, and I again assume, that he is much less senior than Shekhar Gupta in age, then he should be getting into the field (just like SG did) and report facts. Arre baba, koi scoop lao, koi action report karo field se. He is trying to write like Kushwant Singh, but honestly he is not half as funny or acerbic. I mean, this is my personal opinion.
I faintly remember the news on Bhagalpur blindings, and the ‘India Today’ cover on Bhopal Gas tragedy. I have read about Naokhali communal riots which pained Mahatma Gandhi, and I distinctly remember anti-Sikh riots when we kept night vigil in our localities. Things happened then, things are happening now. Yes, it is important to question the government, but a good journalist gives evidence of his hard work in the field before writing his/her assessment. Otherwise, kursi par baithe to koi bhi likh sakta hai…hai hai kar sakta hai. Cerebral readers should expect good journalists to produce more than drivel. For example, Shekhar Gupta’s excellent pieces in India Today, including his report on ‘Operation Bluestar.’
ashok: my virtual friend, the reason I react to your comments is very similar to the reason I react to one of my relative’s arguments. We agree to disagree.
You have raised a lot of valid points. But don’t you think that there are different kinds of journalism? The world has changed since Shekhar Gupta reported on Operation Blue Star.
Currently there is an ideological battle going on in India, to redefine what Hindus and Indians are. For example, the worst enemies of Hinduism are the Hindutva brigade because they are trying to impose a sort of Christian /Islamic monotheism on a culture that is pluralistic.
And as far as I can see, Vij *is* in the middle of this battle and reporting from the front line.
Any journal will have different kinds of writers.
You may not like Vij’s style. Maybe even the way he puts forward his arguments. But he is raising valid points. In an atmosphere where even the Supreme Court is abdicating its responsibility, this is to be welcomed.
Read a grim column by Justice Markandey Katju in The Week, in which he expresses the fear that Kashmir could prove to be India’s Vietnam. Pray from the bottom of my heart that he is reading the tea leaves wrong. 2. See the domino like collapse of institution in the financial sector. First it was the NPA problem of the PSBs, growing like a tumour. Then ILFS, now this silly cooperative bank in Bombay that was the cash box of HDIL. The storied India Bulls. Demonetisation, more than anything else started the Avalanche. 3. Whether it will be Mahatma Gandhi 2.0 or the rebirth of Lord Krishna one cannot say. However, the State of the Union is not stellar.
With due respect, we had Anna Hazare – Arvind Kejriwal combo as recently as 2014. Was that only a teaser of what’s going to emerge or an illusion, a mirage that was not worth chasing? Regards.
The Print is banned in China. It will soon be banned in India too :).