If the
Gandhians have decided to keep conspiratorial silence on Gandhi’s murder then
you can’t blame others for the same.
Will
Gandhian speak up on who killed Gandhi and Why
Ekta
Parishad has launched its ambitious Jai Jagat 2020 march from Delhi to Geneva
on October 2nd 2019. The Yatra will culminate at Geneva on October 2nd 2020.
Activists from nearly 16 countries who are working on the land rights
issues, came together in solidarity with Jai Jagat campaign. While, Ekta
Parishad’s movement started with talks of land reforms but it looks now
‘Love’ and ‘Peace’ is the main theme, perhaps, to commemorate, Gandhi’s 150th
birth anniversary.
Ambiguities
in the ideological traits of Ekta Parishad
Like
Gandhi’s work, there is some ambiguity in the ideological traits of Ekta
Parishad but none can doubt their mobilising capacity, a disciplined cadre and
well-connected networking.
Who is Ekta
Parishad founder?
Ekta Parishad
founder Shri P V Rajagopal has done numerous ‘walks with massive mobilisation.
His first walk was in the Madhya Pradesh Bundelkhand region, followed by the
one in 2005, 2013 and last year in Madhya Pradesh. Each Yatra showed their mobilisation
skills as well as well-oiled network both with the government as well as the
opposition parties. In 2013, they had an agreement with the then government
about the Comprehensive Land Reform issues but it look now the current
government has just thrown that document into dustbin. Ekta Parishad too seems
not focusing on that too much.
Jai Jagat
2020 march Delhi to Geneva
This time
the yatra is from Delhi to Geneva. It is over ten-thousand-kilometre-long and
has about fifty yatris in which about 15 are from different parts of the world.
The yatra
focuses on spreading love and against hatred. It talks about building peace. So,
love and peace have to be spread.
Ekta
Parishad founder Mr P V Rajagopal has been speaking on the Gandhian Economic
and environmental model. On 4th October, we all marched from International
Youth Centre to Tees January Marg, where Gandhi was assassinated, singing song
: Jai Jagat Pukare jaa which is really a beautiful song.
During the
march, many of the social media activists recorded many small interviews with
the marchers. A young activist asked me what is your message and hope.
I have said
many times that I will never agree to Gandhi’s sainthood or ‘spiritual’
‘philosophical’ work but I respect his efforts to bring people together. It is
not easy to bring so many thousand people together and talk of unity.
What was best
part of Gandhi ji
The best
part of Gandhi was from 1947 to 1948 till his death. I felt that Gandhi is
surviving not because he has a ‘philosophy’, I feel it never was, but because
he created a new generation of leaders. No other political leader was able to
do so.
There are
various reasons for that too but it is a fact that Gandhi was able to bring
diverse opinion political class at one platform which was no mean task given
the nature of India’s diversity. So, for me when any one is organising a yatra
in the name of Gandhi, the first thing should be that it must focus on focusing
the biggest challenge that the world face it today. Climate crisis and all
other things are there but why to keep your eye close on the growing hatred.
How will you build peace when there is no social justice, when caste and racial
hatred continue, when one kind of people are born with privileges and other
with debt.
When we
speak of peace, it is not possible without asking the privileged people leaving
their privileges. Among the Gandhian, it was actually Vinoba, who could do so
asking people to donate land for Bhudan.
There are
many ifs and buts about his campaign but at least he started a campaign and was
able to get a huge chunk of land under Bhudan. Now, Vinoba cannot be faulted
for failure of subsequent government and their inability to distribute that
land to landless and agrarian communities. Also, Gandhians too forgot that
agenda and were satisfied in singing Ramdhuns and Vaishnav jan te. Government
converted Gandhi into God and Gandhian organisations loved it as they had
government patronage so all the people’s issues were forgotten.
Gandhi never
was an ‘environmentalist’ or ‘economist’
After the
Gujarat 2002, we saw how people started keeping silent. Gandhian started
talking of Gandhian environment, Gandhian sanitation, Gandhian economy
thus converting Gandhi into an ‘environmentalist’ or ‘economist’ which he never
was.
Some
Gandhian started with anti-drugs campaign. Gandhi against smoking or liquor.
All this is good but a deliberate effort to evade the real issues for which
Gandhi was murdered.
An issue
which opened my eyes yesterday was raised by Subhash Gatade, in All India
People’s Forum conference as why most of our young students, political leaders
visit Rajghat where he was cremated but none visit to Tees January Marg, where
he was murdered.
Now, I can share this that, on 4th January, land rights activists visited to Gandhi Smriti, the old Birla House, where he was shot dead during the prayer meeting in the evening. We sat there and a veteran Gandhian talked about Gandhi’s last days there. He only gave us statistics that he was there for 144 days and it was a centre where national leaders would meet Gandhi. He used to pray there and he was shot dead in the evening.
Now, the
issue is why we don’t want to inform our children or those who come to India
and bow before Gandhi as who killed him and why? Isn’t it important for all of
us when we go on campaign for global peace, love that Gandhi was killed by an
ideology which spread hatred, which wanted India to be a Hindu Rashtra?
Gandhi’s murder is not a one-day affair. The right-wing Hindu organisations
wanted to kill him since 1935 and there were six attempts made on his life by
the right-wing Hindus which are well documented. These people felt that
Gandhi’s secular project would deny them the Hindu Rashtra of the Brahmanical
hegemony.
As I
mentioned earlier also that Gandhi’s philosophy if it is, has lots of
problems and it is not essential for us to follow them. But Gandhi was killed
by the people who have hatred in their belly and most of them visualise India
as per the diktats of Manu smriti. They have no faith in modern constitution
drafted by Dr Ambedkar. It is they who celebrate Gandhi’s death. It is they who
adore Adolf Hitler too. It worth writing here that after 2014, the two-best
seller in India was the books : Mein Kampf, the autobiography of Adolf Hitler
and Why I killed Gandhi, by Nathu Ram Godse, the man who killed Gandhi.
Gandhi’s killer’s
ideology and the person who killed Gandhi are not called terrorist ideology and
terrorist. It is very similar of what is happening in USA where whenever the
white supremacists kill the black, that is not a terror attack but ‘gunmen’ killing.
the headline changes according to your colour and religious identity. So, a
terrorist has to be a ‘Muslim’ otherwise the killings are simple crime and not
a terror act.
It is
important to know who killed Gandhi, what was the ideology that spread hatred
against minorities in India and what was their agenda and who are their
‘goal-keepers’ and ‘torch bearers’.
If the Gandhians have decided to keep conspiratorial silence on Gandhi’s murder then you can’t blame others for the same. As a person who has no faith in Gandhi’s spiritual work, I respect his martyrdom, his last six months when he travelled nook and corners of the country stayed away from the government programmes and celebrations. In 1947 Noakhali, now in Bangladesh, was burning and so were other places. Hindus and Muslims were butchering each other’s wherever they had the dominance and in such a scenario an old man move around, speak of his moral courage, ask for shedding hatred is simply remarkable.
Gandhi tried
to unite us against hatred that time. No other political leader had that
charisma to do so. India after independence, started building up. Gandhi build
leaders and his most loved disciple who never sung Ramdhuns and was an atheist
as well as a humanist started building up India. We did not go the way Pakistan
went. We did not follow the Manu wad officially as Pakistan started with Sharia
laws. Both countries got freedom same time and you see that India emerged
stronger, democracy took root as Nehru built institutions here, contrary to
Pakistan where no leader could complete full term in power. Military dictated
things.
Today, we
are competing with Pakistan in attempting to become a theocratic state. Our
institutions are collapsing and politicians are dividing society. Those who
were supposed to lead are now sowing the seeds of divisions. Minorities
particularly Muslims are unwanted, Dalits face violence in rural India and Adivasis
face dislocations. All of them combine together are nearly six hundred million,
more than the populations of many countries of the world. They face exclusion
and discrimination. So, when Gandhian walk for love and peace, the issue of
race and caste will come, issue of minorities and immigrants will have to be
raised. It is these people who suffer hatred. The Dalits, Adivasis, indigenous
people elsewhere, the immigrants who are now being vilified. Will the Gandhian
speak up on this or would follow Narendra Modi and his party who have converted
Gandhi to a ‘sanitation’ expert to divert the attention from the main issue of
who killed Gandhi and why?
Vidya
Bhushan Rawat
October 6th, 2019
ताजा समाचार/आलेख
- आज सुबह की बड़ी खबरें : मिजोरम में एनआरसी और नागरिकता संशोधन विधेयक पर बोलने की हिम्मत नहीं जुटा पाए अमित शाह
- मोदी ट्रंप का चुनाव प्रचार करने ह्यूस्टन गए? अच्छी हरकत नहीं ये
- सावरकर पर डाक टिकट अंग्रेजों से मिलीभगत से सावरकर को बरी नहीं करता है
- सुनो ‘हाउडी मोदी’ वाले ट्रंप जी केवल गाँधी ही भारत के राष्ट्रपिता हैं
- ‘गांधी’ को ठेंगा दिखा रहा मॉब लिंचिंग के खिलाफ पीएम को पत्र लिखने वालों पर देशद्रोह का मुकदमा
