Gandhi had a showman’s flair for symbol & spectacle
Sunil Khilnani | Director, King’s College London India Institute
The Times of India
As ideas of Mahatma Gandhi become more “abstract and banal”, it becomes harder for people to understand why they are still important to engage with. The best way to honour Gandhi’s memory is to remember some of his arguments, Khilnani writes.
The Khilafat, Non-Cooperation, Dandi and Quit India movements achieved their goals by “shrewd manipulation of crowds, advanced media-spinning technique, and a showman’s flair for symbol and spectacle”, he writes.
Of his many battles, Gandhi tried to end caste stigma even as he failed to understand B.R. Ambedkar’s insight that caste was structural and needed to be dismantled by Dalits themselves.
He wanted to separate religion and violence. He highlighted the dangers of ecological catastrophe due to Western industrialisation. And nearly a century before the emergence of social media, he warned about the mind’s addiction to distraction.
Gandhi’s 150th birthday, writes Khilnani, is a chance to “unwrap him” and to “keep on arguing with him”.
Windows before walls
Ela R. Bhatt | Founder, SEWA, and chancellor, Gujarat Vidyapith
The Indian Express
Bhatt writes that India doesn’t “need Mahatma Gandhi today”, as it has “killed him, his ideas and his imagination”.
The origins of Bhatt’s understanding of Gandhi’s ideas, she writes, are twofold — the poor women workers in the informal sector in Ahmedabad and India at large, and “her wonder about if and how Gandhiji’s ideas can be or will be of use in addressing that reality”.
She writes that his ideas helped Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) find a “just, dignified, and secure future of work” for thousands of disadvantaged working women across India.
Automation and mass production have become the most important factors in accelerating economic growth, but this could make tribals, minorities, ethnic groups, women, unorganised sector workers “extinct” — Gandhi had warned of this nearly a century ago. He also created a “visual vocabulary” through khadi, ashrams and padayatras. Bhatt writes that this vocabulary is “underutilised”.
“He is with us, but are we with him?” asks Bhatt.
Gandhiji’s name etched in the history of independent India, writes Mohan Bhagwat
Mohan Bhagwat | Sarsanghchalak (leader), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Hindustan Times
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat writes that Mahatma Gandhi’s efforts were not limited solely to politics, but extended to ensuring righteous behaviour in society.
He quotes Dr K.B. Hedgewar as saying once that there was no gap between Gandhi’s words and actions, and he was a “sacred soul”.
According to Bhagwat, just verbal glorification of Gandhi wouldn’t further his mission, emulating his values would. Gandhi was against “slavish mentality” borne out of “dependency”, and believed in a “pure swadeshi” (made in India) vision. He was against the blind acceptance and imitation of Western values, issues that persist event today.
Gandhi had visited a Sangh camp in 1936, and an RSS shakha during Partition, and expressed his “joy’’ with the discipline of the Sangh swayamsevaks and “the complete absence of the divisive feelings of caste and creed in them”, writes the RSS chief.
After his death, his name was added to the morning hymns recited by the RSS to recall his life and values. On his 150th birthday, a pledge must be taken to “emulate his sacred, dedicated and transparent life and swa-centric life vision”, concludes Bhagwat.
Mahatma Gandhi 150th birth anniversary: Gandhi has not spoken his last word
Ramin Jahanbegloo | Director, Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace, Jindal Global University, Sonipat
The Hindu
Jahanbegloo writes Indians should reflect on Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence today. With the rise of populism and nationalism, the question is whether there is space for “Gandhian moral courage and dissenting criticism”.
Gandhians who made history include figures like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr and Abdul Ghaffar Khan, but today’s world lacks such leaders. Populist leaders of these times “uncritically” follow masses, while being followed by “simple-minded” masses.
This is the opposite of Gandhi’s politics, which comprised a “Socratic approach of questioning and dissent”. Gandhi’s yearning for truth and justice meant relenting questioning and examination as an act of “thinking and living dangerously” — his assassination was a testament to this, he writes.
For all those who believe in non-violence, “the Gandhian legacy of doubting, questioning and overcoming remains a force”, adds Jahanbegloo.
The economic consequences of Trump’s Twitter-happy ways
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha | Academic board member, Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics
Mint
Ever since US President Donald Trump took office, he has made almost 10,000 “erratic” tweets contributing to the “highest levels of US economic policy uncertainty in six decades”, explains Rajadhyaksha.
POTUS’s latest tweets on the US-China trade war and US Federal Reserve show financial markets “have moved” according to what he tweets.
Rajadhyaksha makes a special mention of JPMorgan Chase’s “Volfefe” (combination of “volatility” and Trump’s infamous “covfefe” tweet), an index that has identified keywords like “China”, “products”, “billions” and “Democrats” that have caused the most trouble. This is part of a global policy uncertainty which peaked in July, according to the global monthly policy uncertainty index, he writes.
India has steered clear of major policy uncertainty, he explains, at a time when the world is “being rocked by issues such as trade wars, financial stress and Brexit”.
Economic policy should be predictable, writes Rajadhyaksha, and “open mouth operations” are a step towards communicating policy changes with clarity.
The way forward for public sector banks
Y.V. Reddy | Former RBI governor
Business Standard
Reddy analyses the Modi government’s decision to merge the 10 public sector banks (PSBs) into four.
“Banking system in India is predominantly government-owned or foreign-owned,” he writes. The recent recapitalisation of PSBs by the government has increased its shares in many banks, while most private banks are foreign-owned. Further, “the share of PSBs in the outstanding credit of all scheduled commercial banks declined” and banking system in general has been unable to meet the credit requirements of the commercial sector.
Aside from the PSB reforms announced, Reddy recommends four ways to improve these banks.
First, ownership should be made neutral — PSBs and cooperative banks are jointly under the central government or state government and RBI. Second, PSBs should constitute 30-40 per cent of banking sector. Third, policies should be reviewed to ensure adequate domestic shareholding in all banks. Finally, it should be ensured that “the primary focus of PSBs is social banking with adequate and transparent fiscal support for the purpose”.