An Obsolete Currency?

The other day my doctor friend Ajay had asked me on my views on Gandhiji. Tough job!

It is so much simpler to write on contemporary themes as we can easily relate to them, find them relevant enough for our ever-wavering attention.

Gandhi is not relevant in that sense. Yes, the name is all pervasive but either it is churned out to boredom by the dry government machinery or has been trivialized by us to the extent of becoming butt of jokes (how many would actually relate to and not scoff statements like, “If someone hits you on your right cheek, offer him your left too”).

To my mind, this is because we are missing the wood for the trees. We selectively and superficially pick his acts and sayings and use them completely out-of-context. Like, for example, we see ‘non-violence’ as an “act” and not as a “value.” If you perform a solitary act of non-violence, most likely you’ll be the one at the receiving end – it would have been true then, and it would be true now, as well.

But if one’s life is built on a core value then it is altogether a different thing. For Gandhi, ‘non-violence’ was as an intrinsic, ingrained value so when he was faced with even brutal violence, there was absolute clarity in his mind to respond through non-violence. No ambiguity, no conflict– but complete sync with his value and thus with his inner self.



That is where he would derive his energy and power from. His clear internal reservoir of peace (in absence of any internal conflict). This was Gandhiji. Because of this accumulated power, he could afford to offer his other cheek. The power from his inner-self was such that without any physical weapon he could seem dangerous to most powerful of the men.

It is not by chance that he sparked such a big revolution against the Brits. It was not a chance either, that he had such mass following across the whole country and that people trusted him with their lives against the ruthless, armed British soldiers. This could happen only because of that inner reservoir of power he had, practicing values like truth and non-violence. A true leader who led with his Principles and Values, much before the Stephen Coveys of the world wrote books about it.

In early years, one of the books which impacted me was –“My Experiments with Truth”. This explores the struggle between one’s inner values and expectations put by the society externally. It is the story of shaping of a character, of building of a powerhouse – The Mahatma. Whether it is the student which refuses to listen to his own teacher to do a wrong to impress the invigilator or whether a son who dares to own up his theft to his strict father – Mohandas always stuck to his ‘values’, even if it meant being at the receiving end. In longer run, this was all helping him to power his inner self.



In later years Gandhiji was accused of giving in to Jinnah, to the extent of being a responsible party in letting him have the nation split. He might have erred there, but we have to accept Gandhi in totality, we need to accept him as a human being who however great might be, would still have his weak spots. In Hindu mythology, even when the god himself demonstrated the virtues of a human being by playing ‘Maryada Purushottam Sri Ram Chandra’, he couldn’t get it all right. He couldn’t keep all happy. He might have done what he did as per the norms of his times but the generations would keep faulting him.

That is the curse of being Gandhi. When he tried to play fair between Nehru & Jinnah (between Hindus and Muslims), he was still living his “Secular” value but which at that time seemed weaker than the pushes and pull s of ambitions on either side.

He fought against untouchability. He championed the cause of lowest cast, down trodden people whom he referred as ‘harijans’. He was a leader who stood by his ‘values’ and won the hearts of crores of Indians and helped them win their Independence too.

Decades later, the name is still all-pervasive but has become less and less relevant. Just like plenty of Buddha statues all over- right from our drawing rooms to airports and the exquisite spas –idols of a man who was against idol worship! Same question again, are we not missing the woods for the trees?