Prof. Mithilesh Kumar Sinha
Finance Officer Nagaland University, Lumami
Gandhi dreamed of world without wars, a society without superstition, factories without forced-labour, non-violence and non-exploiting social and economic order, education as an agent of change. But unfortunately the world is always in apprehension to march towards wars. Even today superstition exists in society. Social and economic order is still exploiting-oriented.
He always made struggle for the improvement of the poor. Gandhi often said, in India, if God were again to appear in my form, has he would appear in the form of a loaf of bread. If Gandhi were to choose between bread and God, he would choose the former. For in any case, for an average poor Indian bread was sent by God and was, therefore, synonymous with the Almighty. But what is happening in India? Still one-fourth of the population is facing starvation and far from quality of life.
One may ask, how can people, who has not seen “Gandhiji” relate oneself with the vision he nurtured, followed and envisaged as the guiding force of the people of India? Mahatma, as a moral being, may not be present along us, but he has been constantly guiding as an inspiration, an illuminated light on almost all the diversified issues that an individual, a society or the state may come across. Mahatma Gandhi need not be seen as an individual, but as a movement, a phenomenon and a light removing darkness from each and every walk of life. Wherever there is a struggle for survival, wherever there is injustice, poverty, hunger, illiteracy, inequality and darkness, Gandhiji showed a road to light.
It is unfortunate that Gandhi’s positions on religion, secularism, democracy, modern economy and politics have been misunderstood by both his supporters and opponents in independent India. Much of the misunderstanding stems from the fact that people have sought to understand Gandhi on the basis of isolated statements, torn from their context. The ambiguities created thus have been utilized by politicians and others to their own advantage and taste. To understand Gandhi properly, it is necessary to link his statements to the context in which he made them, and to focus on the underlying unity of his thoughts and action.
Great injustice has been done to Gandhi, by Gandhians, who defined him and made him into some kind of cult figure; by his opponents who simply dismissed him as obscurantist, outdated and irrelevant; and by those who have used him as a stamp to justify and legitimized their own agenda. Gandhi needs to be rescued from all three. That would do justice to him.
In reality, Gandhi made a crucial distinction between what he called Religion which he understood as a moral code of a social order, and specific religious (Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, etc.). He called Religion the tree and religions as different branches of the same tree. In 1946 he advised his followers: there are many religions but Religion is only one. You should follow that one Religion. Whereas he supported politics being based on Religion, that is a moral order, he was against denominational religious entering politics. In an interview to Louis Fischer given in 1942, he said; “religion is a personal matter which should have no place in politics.”
The tragedy of post-independent India is that we have lost our sensitivity to and sensibility towards the quality of life and become oblivious of the sense of values that should enrich and sustain it. All right thinking people in India are fully aware of the many things which are going wrong in India.
We have a large number of educated, highly specialized and capable men in our country today. But they are all working in an uncoordinated and directionless manner, without being inspired by a larger vision and animated by a larger purpose.
Thought revenue generated through various duties and taxes compensate social programmes, but what is the use of this revenue which goes in the maintenance of law and order because of crime caused by liquor drinking. There were a number of communal riots in India during post-independence. This is indeed a persisting blot on democratic and pluralistic India. How one wishes Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi were in our midst now!
