Mahatma Gandhiji is my ‘mansik guru’. I admire him with much reverence. According to me no other Indian can stand near to him. Compared to his life, the rest of our lives in India (may be everywhere in the globe) is nothing but a dwarf before him. Of course he too has his own limitations and shortcomings. But as Bakshi rightly said, ‘Formal history, … had done Gandhi an (p.14) injustice. It lauded him for choosing to live in poverty. This entirely missed the essence of Gandhi’s striving. For one, Gandhi’s lifestyle decisions were small manifestations of a deep inner journey. They were not strategic moves aimed at any external audience. He liked the mud house because, for him, it was synonymous with indigenous creativity, not poverty and squalor. The Kuti’s {hut’s} comfort and ambience are living proof to this.’(Italics original)—Rajni Bakshi, Bapu Kuti: Journeys in Rediscovery of Gandhi, New Delhi, Penguin Books, 1998, pp. 14-15.
At the back side cover of this book, it is written:
Bapu Kuti, at Sevagram Ashram, Wardha, is the mud hut which was Mahatma Gandhi’s last home. Half a century after Bapu was killed, the Kuti is alive with gatherings of people who share his dreams. They do not call themselves ‘Gandhians’. Yet, as they search for solutions to the many problems of modern India, these activists find themselves coming to the same conclusions as Gandhi.
In this collection, Rajni Bakshhi explores the world and lives of twelve such people who have turned their backs on lucrative professions to embark on a search for practical and humane ways of political and social transformation, rooted in the faith that a new India with prosperity for all can be built on the strengths of cooperation and community. In Rajasthan, for instance, through a rare community effort, villagers make a creative livelihood instead of migrating to urban slums; in Andhra, impoverished weavers gain new life by reviving their dying craft; in Bhagalpur, Bihar, a movement is launched to ‘liberate’ mother Ganga.
These images of passionate creativity present an India seldom seen in the mainstream media. They challenge the pervasive cynicism of our time to show that idealism did not die with Gandhi. Affirming humanity’s ceaseless striving to evolve to higher levels of being, they anticipate an age when conciliation must replace confrontation for building a more just future. (Italics original)
So when I started to read this book, I received the following interesting message sent by one of my friends:
I thought you’d be interested in this article.
Gandhi’s image and influence are much stronger abroad than in India. Socially, you never see a photo of Gandhi in dalit areas, only Ambedkar. Economically, India has followed Nehru’s vision, not Gandhi’s. Politically, he is put on a pedestal, used, and then ignored. With a unified India, the subcontinent would have avoided debilitating wars, much suffering, and become a world power.
God bless.
Dr HH
From The New York Times:
In India, Gandhi’s Halo Glows Less Brightly for Hindu Right and Lower Castes
While Gandhi’s global influence is still enormous, in contemporary India he is no longer so awe-inspiring and his legacy is subject to criticism from across the political spectrum.
As I continue to read the book by Bakshi I recalled the above message from the New York Times. I haven’t read this article so far. I have yet to complete my reading of Bapu Kuti. But after reading a few more pages, I began to reflect on this topic.
There is some truth in the message sent by both my friend and The New York Times. I recently heard on TV news that only a few hundred Indians share the wealth of the rest of the average Indians. The rich become rich and the poor become poor. Even in ‘the world and lives of twelve such people who have turned their backs on lucrative professions to embark on a search for practical and humane ways of political and social transformation, rooted in the faith that a new India with prosperity for all can be built on the strengths of cooperation and community,’ remain mere idealism, however one claims that, ‘They challenge the pervasive cynicism of our time to show that idealism did not die with Gandhi.’
The so-called strengths of cooperation and community to bring prosperity for all works for only a few to become relatively richer than the rest in the community. As I continue to meditate on this subject I got the inspiration and wrote this song.
According to me, Gandhiji lived a life of inner journey which naturally brought such ‘strategic moves aimed at any external audience (p.15). All the slogans that we live for others look like mere idealism or propaganda to parade the so-called ‘sacrifice’ of such life to inspire and challenge others. In fact, I would say that even those twelve people who ‘turned their backs on a lucrative profession’ could have done it without an ‘inner journey’ first.
This does not mean that I am criticising such ‘sacrifice’ on the part of those twelve or in the life of Mahatma. Yes, for me I would call Gandhi only as ‘Mahatma’ as I am not even qualified to take his name on my lips. He is really a ‘great atman’ as Tagore rightly gave that title to him [some claim that even before that Dr Mehta called him Mahatmaji]. All those, like these twelve who embarked ‘on a search for practical and humane way’ deserve our gratitude for keeping alive the idealism of Mahatma not allowing it to die with him.
However for me, unless one first begins her ‘inner journey’ to live for the satisfaction of her atman, she can never work selflessly for others. As I often say, we can never live ‘for’ others, but only ‘with’ them. Only when we live with others, then we get our identity of any kind beginning from an ordinary ‘human’ to become a ‘mahatma’.
Each one has to live her life first. In fact this is what we all are doing. When one lives such a life for her own soul’s satisfaction, she needs not to define or explain it to others. Of course when one first learns to live for her own ‘soul’s satisfaction, then such life (like that of Mahatma) naturally brings a ‘strategic moves aimed at any external audience’, not remaining mere idealism. But for that one should understand the secret of the life that each one first has to live her life for her first. Otherwise the entire claim that one does not live for her but only for others will become mere idealism.
###
Mathigiri, 28-1-2019
Leave a Reply