When we take up the name of
persons whom we revere, we think twice before we do it to see whether we are
competent to take up the name.
But day in and day out, we use
the name of Gandhi, both to claim his legacy as well as to denigrate him.
He was one person who had the
guts to say that his life is the message.
His life for that matter, was
an open book. He was his own bitter
critique. And as a result of his
perpetual self-criticism, he changed his views and said that which-ever was the
latest and if in contradiction to an earlier one, it is to be taken an as his
reviewed stand on any issue.
But that such contradictions
were not generated out of opportunistic views, would be evident from his
letters to close confidents like C.F.Andrews or his public debates in articles
or speeches.
One primary criticism was that
he was dictatorial and adamant. The
second, he was, to a point, particularly in getting convinced with sound logic
and reason, at least to his own best judgment, before accepting anything. But, when it came to politics, we see that he
was more than once vetoed by the Congress party. Considering that there could be no better
alternative in the said situation, he had to keep quite. The partition was once such big event. That he was dictatorial, becomes untrue due
to this reason itself. That he was open to suggestions, he would argue out his
case and most patiently try to make the other person see his view point and
never, ever, raised his voice to be heard or to suppress other voices. Yes, when he felt helpless and that he was
not able to compromise beyond a point, with the reality and what his inner self
told him was the right path, he subjected himself to a fast. For lesser mortals, such fasts were
instruments to black mail. But, for
someone to undertake an indefinite fast, or a specifically declared 21 day
fast, etc, are not gimmicks as of the present day. It was a conversation with his God. It was a way to come out of his spiritual
dilemma as to ‘how far one could go if the path to be undertaken was diagonally
opposite to what the inner self dictates’. He had declared that it was a moot
point, as to how far one could go on like that.
It was one reason why he quit the Congress itself.
That those who were around him
were not able to ignore his pangs, exhibited in the form of such fasts, was
only due to the fact that they were bound to him due to his magnetism of
‘purity and truth’.
Cleanliness, purity and truth,
were synonyms for him. They were not to
be exhibited, or practiced during specific dates or times. It was a condition of life to be practiced
and refined perpetually.
If he were to be really
understood for his ‘sadhana’, it could be done so only by understanding the
personality of Acharya Vinobha Bhave, whom Gandhi had said was his Guru who had
come in the form of his disciple. The
disciple was one of the foremost from the Brahmin community, who threw away his
caste, his educational qualifications and threw himself into the sarvodaya
movement, demonstrating what it really was, by carrying the human excreta of
others on his own head.
Compared to that, later, most
unfortunately, people who do not clean their own toilets or who engage others
to clean their own clothes and undergarments, come out in public and pose for
photos with brooms in hand and clear pre-planted garbage in some public
places.
But Gandhi, never sought
publicity. He never ran after journalists,
whether Indian or Foreign. He had his
own instruments to get in touch with the masses and if anyone wanted to test
him or question him, he always made himself available. More than anything else, he could speak even
through his silence.
He never prepared himself for
such meetings with journalists. Appointments were given and kept in the midst
of his routine work – whether spinning on the charka, whether when going
through the daily correspondence or whether when going for his routine
walks. If anyone missed an appointment
due to being late for some reason, he never found fault with them, but accommodated
them in the nearest possible slot which was next available, without putting
away the appointment given to anyone else. It is to be noted that he did not go out of the way to cut any one else's appointment, to accommodate a late comer, however big he or she might be.
Such grandeur on the part of a
half-naked-fakir, sitting for most of the part of his life in hut like ashrams,
or on some public places or in the jail, is something, that cannot be created
by PR work.
Though he never used severe
language against those opposed to his views or movement, his words were clear
and concise. They carried the weight of
his soul and hence, he need not have to repeat them, but those around him were
affected by it and repeated it like a mantra.
There are umpteen instances
where those who approached him had done so with doubts, cynicism, mixed
feelings, antagonism or curiosity, but were all drawn to his simplicity,
clarity, child like honesty and indomitable spirit.
If at all he was not having a
ready reply to a question posed to him, or if the question had been tormenting
him too and he had not been able to get an answer to it himself or if he felt
that the questioner would not understand the answer from his point of view, he
never tried to browbeat the questioner by any methods of arguing, shouting,
evading, posing a counter, etc. He
simply kept quiet.
Self confidence is often
criticized as egotism. But, real ‘ego’
is the effulgent self which cannot be destroyed by fire, water or anything
else. And those who do not know its
greatness are bound to confuse it with the arrogance of the mind.
When we think that such a man’s
name and legacy could be used for advertisement, self-projection, symbolism or
even for articulation of his complete anti-thesis, we can only blame ourselves,
for not having taken the pain to go through his life, which he truly called as
his message, in-spite of the entire life being recorded live, elaborately, by
himself and those around him, almost on a day to day basis.
