Prema Jayakumar

‘Generations to come will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.’ That was Albert Einstein on Mahatma Gandhi.
It is usual to quote what various people said about Mahatma Gandhi around this time as it is to wash the his statues and make them presentable, around the thirtieth of January, named Martyr’s Day, when he fell to an assassin’s bullet. As also on the second of October when he was born. Even to those of us of the generation that came after India became independent, he was an inherited figure of worship. The Mahatma, the Father of the Nation, all these descriptions are enough to weigh down a personality. Especially an awkward personality like our very own sage. We Indians have had an uneasy relationship with this man who serves as a conscience for the nation, a standard against which we find ourselves failing again and again. We have found a convenient way of dealing with him. We have made statues of him and placed them in various places, named at least one road in every city after him, and recited his favourite hymns and bhajans on appropriate occasions. The statues may get dirty and overwhelmed by green creepers or even dried up ones, the people who sing the songs might have forgotten the right words. Still, we are satisfied that we are honouring him. Two days in a year, the day of his birth and the day of his death, are celebrated with various degrees of intensity all over the country. One should think that this is sufficient to keep an old icon quiet and satisfied.
But beside being a sage and a visionary, Mahatma Gandhi was also a mischievous soul. He delighted in getting a rise out of people around him. His family, of course, found him almost impossible to live with. And if you look through narratives of Gandhiji’s life and the lives of the people who framed this life, if you read through what they said at various times, the most constant thread is one of exasperated affection. Even while they venerated him, they were irritated by him, vwexed by his fads, his stubbornness, troubled by his willingness to risk his life at a whim. As for his determination to live a simple and frugal life, this often became a nightmare for people who had to arrange his travel and stay. Sarojini Naidu is supposed to have asked him in exasperation, ‘Do you know how much it costs to keep you in poverty?’
He was never the kind of guru who led his disciples into a peaceful life. Even when he observed silence and fasted, spun thread or read the Bhagavad Gira, the people around were always in a turmoil. They were caught up in the events that the teacher had set in motion.
One would think that a person would quieten down after death. But Mahatma Gandhi refuses to be forgotten and embodied in just statues and rituals. Someone, somewhere, quotes him as authority for civil disobedience or the practice of nonviolence, or the theory of simple living. He was way ahead of his time in his belief that ‘small is beautiful’ and that the earth ‘has enough for every man’s need, but not for his greed’. This, if unusual, would be bearable. But he also comes alive every now and then in some controversy or the other. Or, someone does something to remind people of the living Gandhi rather than the ossified Father of the Nation. Around this Republic Day and the death anniversary, it was the dropping of his favourite hymn from the Beating of the Retreat. It is as though people get reminded every now and then what he stood for and why he mattered. The special talent he had for embracing the world in its entirety comes alive again.
Other great men may have statues and monuments dedicated to them, but sometimes you get a leader who gets entangled in the hearts and minds of the people so that anyone who has heard of his deeds, read his works, or even just heard stories about him absorb a little of him, a little of the stuff he was made of. And a perceived attack on him, causes indignation. In spite of his long absence from this earth.
One can’t even paraphrase King Henry and call out, ‘Canst none rid me of this pestilential man?’ because how does one get rid of someone who is dead already?