Every Gandhi Jayanti for the last few years, I have asked myself the same question. Even now, after seven decades of Gandhiji’s assassination, his stature in the world has not diminished. He is still seen as a global symbol of non-violent resistance, as a man who proved that war and bloody revolutions were not the solutions to the world’s problems.
In India, however, there has been a systematic attack on Gandhiji’s legacy, and attempts are constantly being made to glorify his assassin, Nathuram Godse. So here’s my question: what has changed so much in India that it is an open season on the ‘father of our nation’?
Most of us have a broad answer to that question—Hindutva has gained in influence, and it has become fashionable for some of its advocates to attack the memory of Gandhiji.
It is not an inaccurate answer. Indeed, many of those who attack Gandhiji have Hindutva leanings. But, as an explanation, this does not go far enough and raises many other questions of its own to which there are no logical responses.
PM’s love for Gandhiji
First of all, the attempts to vilify Gandhiji run counter to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own position. Not only has Modi often praised Gandhiji, he has treated him as a great son of Gujarat—a position that most Gujaratis would endorse. On Gandhi Jayanti, he hailed ‘beloved Bapu’ in a post on X, adding, “We will keep following his path in our quest to build a Viksit Bharat.”
So why does the PM’s high regard for Gandhiji make no difference to many of his supporters?
Modi has shown a willingness to call out those who praise Godse. For instance, when Pragya Thakur called him a ‘deshbhakt’, he publicly criticised her (as did Rajnath Singh), and in 2024, she was denied a Lok Sabha ticket from Bhopal. Even this has not deterred so many Hindutva loyalists, which is unusual and probably unprecedented.
Secondly, to a great extent, the attacks on Gandhiji are a symptom of poor education. Those who abuse him hold him responsible for Partition. In truth, as anyone who has studied the history of that period will know, the sequence of events that led to Partition was complicated, and the creation of Pakistan was hardly Gandhiji’s idea.
But even if the claims about his responsibility for Partition are accurate, then why should Hindutva types think that the creation of a Muslim homeland was such a bad thing?
The position of many of Gandhiji’s abusers is that Muslims are untrustworthy characters who always seek to harm Hindus. Do they not realise that without Partition, India would include the population of Pakistan (around 255 million) and Bangladesh (around 180 million)?
Hindutva loyalists have enough trouble getting used to the idea that 230 million or so Indian Muslims are full-fledged citizens of our country. How would they cope with an India with 680 million Muslims? Hindus would still be in the majority, but Muslims would form such a significant part of the electorate that the BJP would never come to power, and all talk of a Hindu Rashtra would not fly in a nation with such a large Muslim population.
So didn’t Partition actually work in favour of the Hindutvawalas?
In any case, it was not Gandhiji who propounded a Two-Nation theory. It was VD Savarkar, the original Hindutva advocate.
Also read: Political MK Gandhi failed, caused harm. Gave Congress its tradition of backseat driving
Godse, India’s original terrorist
Third, if the attacks on Gandhiji are meant to be an attack on secular politics, then the Hindutva supporters are barking up the wrong tree. I can understand why Jawaharlal Nehru represents everything they fear and resent. But Gandhiji was proud of his Hindu faith, spoke of creating a Ram Rajya, and regularly used Hindu references in his speeches. Even today, the BJP falls back on the Gandhian idea of swaraj as a symbol of self-sufficiency.
So why fear his legacy so much? Only because he was not a prejudiced bigot like the people who abuse him?
Fourth, even if you disagree with many of Gandhiji’s ideas about governance (as I do), how can you possibly venerate a murderer like Godse? At a time when all of India is fighting terrorism (defined as violence against civilians in the pursuit of political ends), how can a section of the Sangh Parivar possibly glorify a man who was India’s original terrorist?
None of these questions is easy to answer. I know because I try and find the answers every time Gandhi Jayanti comes around, and the abusers start off again.
Perhaps all of it has to do with a desire to protect the RSS. But even that emerges out of ignorance. Yes, Sardar Patel banned the RSS in the aftermath of Gandhiji’s assassination. But the ban was later rescinded, and no significant official figure in the RSS says that the assassination was a good thing. That’s the preserve of the social media abusers and loonies like Sadhvi Pragya.
At the time of Gandhiji’s assassination, Godse and his guru Savarkar were members of the Hindu Mahasabha, not the RSS. So there is no need to abuse Gandhiji to defend the RSS. And if the ban on the organisation is what creates the apparent connection between the Sangh and the assassination, then the Hindutva guys should attack Sardar Patel. But bizarrely, Patel is a hero to the Hindu Right!
I have given up trying to find explanations for these strange and contradictory positions. I guess any attempt to impose logic and reason on bigotry and hatred is doomed to failure.The haters have their own way, but fortunately, India still has Gandhiji’s way. And his way “transformed the course of human history.” He demonstrated how “courage and simplicity could become instruments of great change.”
Who said that? Why, Narendra Modi, of course, on Gandhi Jayanti this year. You can figure out the contradictions in the Hindutva position for yourself!
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)