How the Idea That Killed Gandhi Has Slowly Taken Over

Source: newspapers.com

India and the world are celebrating the 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. I call him the Mahatma because I believe he was a great soul, an extraordinary man. The current Indian government would also refer to him as Mahatma Gandhi or a more affectionate “bapuji” or dear father. But do they really think he was a great soul? Or even a great leader whose ideals should be followed?

The words from the Indian Prime Minister in his New York op-ed are very encouraging. He reminds why the world, and especially India, needs Gandhi more than ever. But the revival of the Hindutva ideology under his leadership since the disastrous leadership crisis in the Congress Party, the soul of the Indian democracy has never been the same.

As somebody who is currently a citizen of Pakistan, who was born in Pakistan, not only do I understand Indian nationalism, even the fears and desires behind the Hindutva ideology, but also the pain of the partition of India. Perhaps the most underrated and ignored political concept in India is the deprivation of Indian nationalism to the millions of people living under what is Pakistan and Bangladesh today. So I write this more as an Indian than as a Pakistani.

The greatest triumph of the Congress Party was to establish India as a Secular Republic, which immediately established its moral superiority over Pakistan, which was precisely established for the purpose of the Muslim majority. This was not something that Gandhi or the Congress did for their health, but it was a hand forced on them by the British colonists leaving in a hurry, who prevented India from recognizing its nationalist potential. These colonists thought that they were treating communities fairly while ignoring what kind of a humanitarian disaster they were creating.

These are the quoted words of Nathuram Godse after he killed Gandhi to quote a piece from the Hindustan Times.

“I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus,” Godse told the court.

He added: “I bear no ill will towards anyone individually, but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.”.

The RSS that nurtured Godse, which by the way is not the “Nazi Party” the Pakistani leader Imran Khan and his political party PTI assert, has become the dominant force in Indian politics today. Its members in Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have firmly gripped the helm of its leadership and they are mobilizing the Hindu community to vote as one bloc across North and Central India. While this still does not affect the Secular character of India, it has started threatening it.

The same RSS member Narendra Modi has written a piece preaching Gandhi’s values to the world. However, slowly, they are closing the breathing space for the minority populations. The retaliatory politics that gave rise to the Two-Nation theory also gave rise to its Hindutva ideology. And both of them run counter to the kind of pluralist, secular, liberal India that was envisioned by its fathers.

Fortunately, for both these ideologies, which might have always found an opening in the manifesto of the BJP, fed off each other thanks to a belligerent and increasingly Islamist Pakistan. Despite the almost fatal blow to the Two-Nation theory after the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, the animosity of the Two-Nation theory remained as the bone of contention of Kashmir which had triggered wars even before the conflict had ever come to Bengal. Even today, you would find Islamist fanatics in Pakistan quoting obscure traditions about a “Ghazwa-e-Hind.”

Over the years of the Secular Indian government’s regressive concessions to theocrats in India and Pakistan’s constant intrusions in India, somewhere the dent was made in the wall of the classical secular pluralism which had become synonymous with the Indian Republic. Which despite its problems of poverty, inefficiency, and corruption was still one of the most exemplary nations in terms of its harmonious reason-to-be. Slowly, the belief in the principles of Gandhi’s India started to dwindle.

And despite a lack of major communal riots, there is silent persecution underway that is closing the space to the minority communities claim an equal right to India, let alone flourish. There are rampant mob-lynching by almost legally sanctioned gau rakshaks who are getting off the hook after beating people to death.

Perhaps this is why discourse such as controversial BJP MP Pragya Raj calling Godse a patriot became possible in an election season. It is why statements, as quoted in this news report, has become possible in India without consequences.

BJP leader Rajeshwar Singh says Islam and Christianity will be finished in India by 2021.

This is a member of India’s ruling party openly boasting of his government’s intent to ethnically cleanse 200 million Muslims and 28 million Christians. pic.twitter.com/TRMPdhosYE

— CJ Werleman (@cjwerleman) September 30, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
I still have faith in the modern Republic of India because I know it has fathers in men like Bhimrao Ambedkar. I still have faith in the robust Secular Indian democracy because it got its textbook right with a fair system of justice and politics. I still have faith in the BJP as a secular popular party, despite the growing malignancy of the RSS and Hindutva agenda slowly weakening Indian pluralism.

But let’s just say it’s a faith that would be too precarious for even an idealist and an optimist like Gandhi himself.

I am sorry for choosing to write something that centers more on Gandhi’s death on the occasion of his 150th birthday, but I feel as if his India is being slowly killed at this moment in history too.

What Has She Done?

Source: Niklas Elmehed/Nobel Media/nobelprize.org

So what has she done?

That pesky Malala.

What has she accomplished to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, you are asking? Especially, since she said she didn’t deserve it.

Here is what she has accomplished what I or any of you could not have.

Despite being a little girl, she stood up to a very clear and present threat from the Taliban, which actually jeopardized her very existence.

In case anyone had any doubts, the Taliban actually ended up shooting her in the head and it’s a fucking miracle she’s even breathing.

They still vow to go after her.

She just had to speak out an innocuous little thing to get all this attention that she just wanted to go to school. Yes, that’s all what it has been about.

But it snowballed into something gigantic thanks to the ignorance of her haters.

You think it’s all obvious? No, it’s not.

But she won the prize also because she was important enough for an activist to address the United Nations Youth Assembly. She has also been active for causes such as speaking for the Nigerian girls abducted by Boko Haraam and addressing the concerns of Syrian children refugees.

She is not just a local figure anymore, but a global figure.

What really matters is  that the world sees her as a global ambassador for education, for girls especially.

Now why girls? You know, why be a sexist? But you have to be, because in her culture, people do go out of their way to target women like her. To deprive them of education.

Now when does it prick the most that she has won yet another prize valued by the West? Well, when you constantly apologize for the Taliban, Islamism and obscurantist misogynistic forces.

But it probably happened for a plain reason that Malala has become a Gandhi like figure to the West. Right up there with the likes of Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa, and even Gandhi was not awarded this prize, thanks to his shocking Holocaust satyagraha statements.

And this is precisely why Malala is important to the world now, even if she is of no consequence to the social conservatives and Islamist nationalist conspiracy theorists in Pakistan.

So don’t be surprised if you find completely irrelevant babbling complaining why Edhi not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is such a disaster (as if they cared about that too) and sharing articles making ridiculous comparisons with a random girl testifying against drone strikes backed by an American congressman.

Source: Daily Telegraph

Which reminds me that part of why Malala is condemned is because she is backed by Western powers. Hell, even President Obama met her with his entire family. He never did that for the Pakistani Prime Minister. That’s really fucked up.

She even had the courage to criticize him to his face about the drone strikes of the Nobel Peace Prize recipient President.

But that’s how powerful Malala has become.

Maybe she has sold her soul to the devil.

I never really had tremendous respect for the Nobel Peace Prize anyway, because I had read somewhere that only a devil would put a prize on peace. Maybe George Bernard Shaw’s statement, not too sure.

But  I was greatly impressed when I saw the likes of President Carter, President Sadaat and Prime Minister Begin winning one for the Camp David Accord of 1979, and when I saw Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat receiving it.

You know, bitter adversaries working hard to attain some peace. Back then, I really found this shit inspiring. That part I still admire though.

But overall, the idea has been pretty empty and meaningless. You know what they say, hey, that’s the award that President Obama got for who knows what. And oh, even Henry Kissinger received it.

Must be something evil for sure.

I know this one, like all of them, is highly political. But who gives a fuck. Somebody said something nice about Pakistan.

But if I ever was delighted for a Nobel Peace Prize, for the first and most probably the last time, it is for Malala Yousafzai.

——————————————–

Donate to the Malala Fund please.