Is the Mahatma for Today?

Published in Pioneer, Chandigarh on 6/10/12. Link: http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/99770-could-the-mahatma-survive-these-times.html

By Amit Shekhar

            It has happened with many great men. Mahatma Gandhi is one of them. There is a story about a messiah who became the founder of a religion with followers all over the world. About 2,500 years after he died, he felt concerned about the pathetic state of the world. He had lived and not just preached his message of tolerance, love, fraternity and forgiveness till his death and was pained to see the world and even the people running the religion in his name steeped in corruption of all sorts. He decided it was time to visit the world again and show it the way. So he took form as an ordinary peasant and went to a woodcutter working in a jungle close to a village.

            "I am the saviour you appeal to in your place of worship. I have come to guide you again. Take me to your village," the messiah told the villager.

            The villager sized up the stranger in common clothes and thought, "He sure looks benign. But he must be crazy to call himself my saviour, The Saviour." He told the messiah, "Look here, I am not sure about these things. It is the village preacher who is an expert in these matters. If he designates you as our saviour, we will accept you as one."

            "But it is me whom the preacher professes to follow," the messiah said.

            "I don't know about that, but it is the preacher who decides these matters for us. We just do what he says in matters of faith."

            So the villager took the messiah to the preacher and after one look at him, the preacher asked the villager to summon everyone in the village to the place of worship. When the villagers had assembled, the preacher pointed to the messiah and told everyone, "See, this man says he is our saviour. I tell you, with my hand on the sacred book of the real saviour, that this man is a crook and a cheat. He is out to mislead you. He will be imprisoned immediately. Nobody needs to think about him anymore. Beware of frauds who proclaim to be saviours. Go back and earn your honest bread. And keep coming here with your donations for the cause of God and his people."

            The villagers dispersed and the messiah was put in a dungeon. Work went on as usual the whole day. Around midnight, the preacher went to the messiah in the dungeon and fell at his feet.

            "Oh holy Lord," the preacher said. "I recognised you the moment I saw you. But if you come again amidst us, our game will be over. Who will listen to us once you are here? I plead you, forgive us our sins and go back to your heaven so that we can carry on our business here."

            And the messiah left for heaven.

            I wonder if Mahatma Gandhi would also receive the fate of the messiah if he came to the world again to serve and guide it. Aren't there enough good people around who are hustled, jeered and pinned into helpless corners where they can't do anything? Wasn't a distressed Gandhiji himself pushed into singing Tagore's "Jodi tor dak shune keu na ase tobe ekla cholo re" (If they answer not to your call, walk alone.) while pacifying the raging fires that accompanied Partition? The games of power that began once a free India started looking like a reality relegated him to a distant background even in his lifetime.

            It is as if great men come with a mission and once their job is done, they become irrelevant for all practical purposes. But their name has immense appeal and it is common to raise institutions in their name that often stray into all kinds of misconduct but bear the stamp of probity and dignity because they profess to function with the sanction of a sanctified individual. It is like lying right, left and centre after placing a hand on the Gita and pledging to speak only the truth in a court of law.

            Official India routinely invokes the Mahatma in letter by having his garlanded pictures on walls, his quotes in huge fonts on tables, his life-size statues at public places, his name for important roads, welfare schemes and institutions and, of course, his birthday as a dry day. But Gandhiji in letter, in form, in figure fell years ago to bullets. His spirit has the promise to abide because the values he lived and died for are infallible.

            Gandhiji does not look relevant today because principles such as truth and non-violence which were a way of life for him do not seem very pragmatic or worthwhile today to common people. That would have been the case for many followers of Gandhiji even when he was alive if he had not proved his ideals to be immensely effective by practising them judiciously and sincerely. The genius and greatness of Gandhiji was that he showed how noble principles that look other-worldly, impractical and impossible to live by to common people can be made potent, accessible and workable remedies for worldly problems. With wisdom and insight, Gandhiji turned lofty principles into useful everyday instruments of common life.

            Today's world is entirely different from the one in which Gandhiji lived. Values that marked his life and work may still be relevant, but it is for today's world to interpret and apply them in ways that address today's context and issues. Universal and timeless values such as truth and non-violence need to be modified to deal with the specific realities of different times and places. They also undergo subjective interpretations. Truth, the cornerstone of Gandhiji's life, is by nature unassailable and unavoidable. India's tryst with destiny will finally have to be a tryst with truth. And today's world will have to conduct its own experiments with truth. That, essentially, is what being Gandhian is all about.