Remembering Gandhi!

 

Gandhi was killed on January 30, 1948, barely months after India became independent, at a time when the country was still bleeding from a deeply painful and chaotic Partition. If there is a day to pause and think about him, his choices, and his sacrifice, it is today.

What troubles me deeply in recent years is the growing ease with which Gandhi is spoken about with disdain, even hatred, by friends and family I otherwise respect. The man once widely and instinctively called the Father of the Nation and Mahatma is now dismissed with startling confidence. The accusations are familiar. He was a British stooge. Nonviolence was weakness and armed struggle would have brought freedom faster. He appeased Muslims at the cost of Hindus. India was partitioned because he accepted British plans.

What disturbs me more than these claims is where they come from. Many of these ideas are absorbed unquestioningly from WhatsApp forwards and social media posts. They are repeated as settled facts, even when they are selective readings, gross distortions, or outright falsehoods. The habit of pausing to verify, to read deeply, to apply reason and historical context, seems to be vanishing. We judge past leaders without bothering to understand the constraints they worked under or the moral and political calculations they were forced to make.

I do not believe Gandhi was infallible. He was human. He made mistakes. There are decisions of his that I disagree with even today. But to reduce him to a villain, or worse, to erase his moral stature altogether, is intellectual laziness at best and wilful distortion at worst. India would simply not be what it is without leaders like him.

Over the last year or so, I have spent time reading Gandhi more seriously. In his own words. Through the eyes of those who worked closely with him. Through perspectives that emerge when reading about Gokhale, and even Tilak, who stood on a very different ideological ground. These readings do not demand agreement. They demand understanding. They show the impossible choices, the negotiations, and the compromises made in pursuit of a larger good. I may still disagree with certain decisions, but at least I understand why those decisions were taken.

From everything I have read, one thing is clear to me. Gandhi was deeply inspiring, morally demanding, and far better as a human being than most of us will ever manage to be. He does not deserve the casual contempt and venom that is increasingly directed at him. I am not asking anyone to change their opinion because I say so. I am only asking for honesty. Read authentic material. Read multiple perspectives. Think for yourself instead of outsourcing your judgment to forwarded messages and manufactured outrage.

Gandhi was a man of his times, with all the limitations that implies. But his evolution, from Gujarat to England, to South Africa, and back again, is one of the most remarkable journeys of self-transformation and moral courage we know. In three of my recent writing projects, Gandhi has played a central role. The reading and research that came with them have reshaped what Gandhi means to me. For that alone, I am grateful.

Today, more than ever, I feel it is worth saying this out loud.