2nd October, 2003
Older Indians, those who were alive and adult in the lifetime of the Mahatma, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1861- 1948) remember him as a part of their everyday life and thought. Like his being a member of the millions of families inhabiting the country.
When he was killed on 30th January 1948 by three bullets fired at point blank range into his bare chest, tens of thousands Indians and many Pakistanis in both the East and the West wings went without food and prayed and wept for most of the day of the assassination and through the next day, 31st January 1948, until he was cremated. Faiz Ahmad ‘Faiz’ and Miyan Iftikharuddin were amongst those who came from Pakistan to attend the obsequies and followed the cortege bare headed and without shoes all the way from Birla House on Albuquerque Road to Rajghat.
Just before the event Gandhi had fasted for nearly three weeks to make Hindus and Sikhs see reason so that peace could return to riot torn Delhi. Students of the University took out many processions to show their solidarity with him and his viewpoint.
The slogan shouted by them was
Gandhi say pehlay:
And the response was a full -throated
Hum mareyngay!
Before Gandhi is allowed to die; we shall lay down our lives.
A large Sardar joined the procession near Edward Park (Now Subhash Park) and participated by shouting
Mur Jaaoa! Mur Jaaoa!
all the way up to Birla House where Gandhi was fasting. This caused considerable embarrassment to the students.
The heckler’s position changed with the murder of Gandhi on 30th January 1948.
Students took out a procession to condemn the RSS and headed for the office of their newspaper in Daryaganj. The same Sardarji who had opposed them and Gandhi in earlier days joined them in all they did including the shouting of anti-RSS slogans, brickbatting and arson.
Today India is ruled by the RSS and they want to obliterate all vestiges of Gandhi. This cannot be done as easily as killing him. Obfuscation and distortion are easier.
The ‘Think Tank’ of the RSS are therefore devising means to erase or at least make illegible the legacy of Gandhi by splitting his followers and playing the ‘If Only!’ game. This consists of suggesting that Vallabhbhai Patel should have been Gandhi’s heir and not Jawaharlal Nehru.
This ignores the fundamental differences between Gandhi and Patel especially on communal issues. The example of Somnath will illustrate the divide.
At Independence the princely state of Junagadh in Gujarat opted for Pakistan although it was, like Haidarabad, totally surrounded by Indian territory. The ruins of Somnath fell in Junagadh.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel went to the area to identify with and supervise the army take over. On 12th November 1947 he announced that the Somnath temple would be rebuilt. He added ‘The restoration of the idols would be a point of honour and sentiment with the Hindu public’.
The moving spirit behind the project was Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi. who had visited the site in 1922 and written a novel called ‘Jai Somnath’.
Munshi left the Congress in 1941 as he felt they were not doing enough to oppose the idea of Pakistan. He rejoined in 1946, became a member of the Constituent Assembly and moved the resolution making Hindi the national language of India. In 1947 he was still celebrating the Hindus who had resisted Mahmud of Ghazni at Somnath in the 10th Century A.D.
An attempt was made to have the government of India finance the rebuilding of Somnath. Gandhi intervened and it was decided to fund the venture through public subscription. Another controversy arose when the temple was to be opened for worship.
The President of India Dr Rajendra Prasad although advised against performing the opening ceremony by the Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, insisted on attending in his personal capacity.
Patel felt close to the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS and wanted them to join the Congress. Nehru thought quite otherwise. In December 1047 he wrote to the heads of provinces
‘We have a great deal of evidence to show that the RSS is an organization … in the nature of a private army…proceeding on the strictest Nazi lines, even following the techniques of organization…It attracted by its superficial trappings and strict discipline considerable numbers of lower middle class young men…who are normally not too intelligent and for whom life appears to offer little…’
Perhaps because of their lack of vision and their dividing humanity into Hindu Muslim etc Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad and KMMunshi were never able to capture the imagination of the people and become household names. They could not be Gandhi’s heirs. For the people’s song for the relationship between Gandhi and Nehru said
‘He who was Arjuna with Gandhi and Lakshmana with the Lord Rama is Jawahar to Gandhiji. Their goal is to remove the sorrows of Bharat’
Shree Krishna kay sung joa Arjuna thhey,
Shri Ramchunder sung Lakshman thhey
Shri Gandhiji sung Jawahar heiyn
Bharat kaa kusht mitaaney koa.