Gandhi is here to stay
It’s not uncommon to hear that Gandhi is obsolete and that he doesn’t fit in our real world anymore, and yet Gandhi stands tall today. Even in the present-day India, high on the nationalistic fervour, Gandhi is the force behind the largest social movement of the day: the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan. It is in his name that the movement has gone on.
That one of the largest social movements of the day, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, is being carried on in Gandhi’s name is tell-tale of his relevance in present-day India, highlighting that Gandhian thoughts continue to be among our guiding principles. That sanitation and hygiene are good has been universally known but it was Gandhi who mobilised people around it. Gandhi pioneered the art of mobilising people, and it was he who made the Independence movement really a mass movement, which had earlier been an elite movement largely confined to lawyers and landlords. Once Gandhi came to be at the helm of the movement, he took it to people at the roots and touched their lives at a very basic level, and people, literate and illiterate, urban and rural, alike joined the movement en masse.
In Gandhi’s footsteps, Swacch Bharat Abhiyan tied hygiene with dignity and the issue of toilets with women’s honour, and the result was that a government program became a mass social program that has since transformed so many lives across the country.
Before Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, there was another mass movement rooted in Gandhian ways that shook the foundations of the government of the day, that of Anna Hazare. The government of the day was rocked with one corruption scandal after another, and Anna Hazare, in who people saw shades of both Gandhi and JP, came out to fight it. He went on hunger strikes, mobilised people on a scale unseen in recent memory, and led non-violent protests. If a participant of Gandhian movements was to be spawned in Anna’s movement, one may not even realise they are in different times!
So how do I say that Gandhi has become obsolete when he is all around us? Gandhi’s way of life continues to guide us on our pursuit to many shades of justice, social, economic, and environmental. Gandhi is still the force that legitimises both the governance and the resistance from across the sociopolitical spectrum. How do I then say that Gandhi is obsolete? Gandhi is thus as relevant today as ever and he is there to stay.
