Gandhi Jayanthi - October 2

With the extravagance of hope constantly bumping up against the resigned acceptance of reality, could we conceive of a Gandhi Jayanti this year that is devoid of all hollow symbolism? A catalogue of recent visitors to Rajghat reveals a certain malleability in contemporary perceptions of the Mahatma. What use for instance, could the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, have for the principles that Gandhi lived and died for? And what message did he seek to convey to the world when he beat a path to Rajghat recently for his ritual obeisance.

When the clash of civilizations is quite the flavour of the season, do we have any patience with the painstaking process of dialogue? Is this a message that would sit well today with the votaries of unending struggle between the Manichean forces of good and evil and the inevitable triumph of their notion of the good? Does it corrode our moral sensibility to concede to one’s adversary the right to be heard? The current context gives these questions a special resonance. The answers are not self-evident but to excavate the message of Gandhi from the debris of history is to appreciate that dialogue is indispensable in these especially fraught times.

Writing in 1940, Nehru provided an arresting characterization of the two men who he regarded as emblems of hope for India’s future. In Gandhi he saw the earthy simplicity of the Indian peasant, unspoilt by artifice, yet able to confront weighty issues with an instinctive feel for what was right. In Tagore, he found the depth of a civilizational comprehension that went far beyond immediate circumstances, an understanding of certain universal aspects of the human condition.

Despite their divergent perceptions, Gandhi and Tagore managed to conduct a vigorous debate on the central issues facing India as it stood on the cusp between colonial servitude and national sovereignty. While Tagore stated the case for leaving all historical baggage behind in a quest for universal modernism, Gandhi spoke of building on the inheritance of tradition. The diversity of live human traditions was for Gandhi a fertile ground from which to seek guideposts for modern social organization. But Tagore remained skeptical of the rampant social abuses he saw being perpetuated in the name of tradition.

The two men agreed though in the indispensability of democracy. The superiority or otherwise of one tradition relative to another is not to be asserted as a matter of faith, but proven in practice. And there is no better testimony to the relevance of any tradition than its ability to engage with others that are different. For all his unshakeable sense of right and wrong, Gandhi was no moral absolutist. His windows, as he famously put it, were open for winds from all parts of the world to blow through … but he was not about to be swept off his feet by them.