Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad is in serious controversial news now. The controversy has surfaced over a grand plan approved by the Government of India with an estimated cost of Rs 1,265 crore to redevelop the Ashram. This makeover plan of the Ashram, the Government claims, is intended to make Gandhiji's Sabaramati a world class tourist attraction. As per the project plan, a big Gandhi Memorial will be buillt on 53 acres of land out of the total 100 acres of land of Sabarmati Ashram. A new museum, a food park and shopping centres will be built there. Several structures which have been constructed after Independence will be destroyed.
But the original ashram which stands on 47 acres of land where Gandhi remained with Kasturba for 17 years will remain unchanged, the Government thus clarifies.
This 'Gandhi Ashran Memoirial and Precinct Project' has been tendered to an experienced Ahmedabad based firm which presently is undertaking the construction of Delhi's Central Vista project and Ayodhya's Ram Temple. The idea to redevelop the Sabarmati Ashram originated a couple of years back in 2019 when the country was observing the 150th birth year celebration of Mahatma Gandhi. But the proposed grand Gandhi memorial project now does not satisfy the Gandhians, and the Gandhi sympathisers.They apprehend that it is a strategy to appropriate and commercialise the great Gandhian institution.
Hriday Kunj, where Gandhi and Kasturba spent their life in the ashram will lose its sanctity. Apart from the Hriday Kunj, the Vinoba - Mira Kutir, Magan Niwas, ( Maganlal the nephew of Gandhiji) and Khadi Udyog will also be pushed to the corner and lose their historical importance by the new museum, food courts and shops.
The present ashram now attracts lakhs of tourists, school children and foreign visitors every year. What more world attractions the Government desires about the Gandhi ashram, the Gandhians question.
The recent Jallianwalla Bagh renovation has also added apprehension about the future of Sabarmati Ashram. Jallianwalla Bagh renovation comprises a sound and laser show which has been set up to display the horror events that happened on April 13,1919. This makeover tends to erase the memory, the historians apprehend.
The Sabarmati Ashram has a glorious history, and splendid memories too. The asram was associated with two great Gandhian Satyagrah movements , one of which was Non- cooperation movement in 1920 and other was the Salt Satyagrah, (the Dandi march) in 1930. Gandhiji had himself planned, designed and executed these movements from Sabarmati Ashram.
The ashram had witnessed how Gandhiji sitting alone in his one cell room had written his autobiography, "The Story of My Experiments with Truth".and how Miss Madeliene Slade, the daughter of a British Admiral, became Mirabehn here who gleefully became involved in the country's freedom movement later. After spending almost 22 years in South Africa Gandhiji returned back to India on January, 9, 1915 and was eager to set up an ashram like Phoenix and Tolstoy Farm, he had set up in South Africa. Initially he set up his ashram in Kochrab in 1915 and shifted his ashram to a place near the river Sabarmati in 1917 when the plague broke out in Kochrab.
In the ashram, Gandhi's house faced the river and there was an open space where prayer meetings were held an hour before sunrise and again after sun set. He slept in an open verandah in front of the house which had five small rooms.
This was his headquarters for 13 years. " Our creed was devoted to truth," Gandhiji wrote in his autobiography, "and our business was the search for truth. I wanted to acquint India with the method, I had tried in South Africa. So my companions and I selected the name Sabarmati Satyagrah Ashram as conveying both our goal and method of service. " For individual and social purification, the ashram for its inmates, fixed eleven vows such as Ahimsa( Nonviolence), Satya ( Truth,), Asteya ( Non Stealing ), Bramhacharya (Self Discipline), Asangraha ( Non possession ), Sharirshrama (Bread labour ), Aswada ( control of palate ), Sarvatra bhayabarjan (Fearlessness ), Sarva Dharma Samantva ( Equality of religion ), Swedeshi ( use of locally made goods ), Sparshbhabana ( Removal of untouchability).
Sabaramati, therefore, was an experiment of Gandhi's ideas. It was a laboratory to test and apply Satyagrah for Swaraj. For launching the Non cooperation movement, Gandhi was arrested on March 10, 1922 at 10.30 PM night from the Samarmati Ashram.
The then Viceroy, Lord Reading had ordered his arrest. After singing a hymm in that night in a gay mood Gandhiji had walked to the police car and was taken to the Sabarmati prison. Next morning Kasturba sent clothes, goat milk and grapes to her husband. And exactly after 10 years in 1930 Gandhiji launched his second mass campaign, the Civil disobedience movement from Sabaramati in the form of Dandi March.
Dandi march was a 240 miles long march from Sabaramati to Dandi at sea coast which Gandhiji with his other 78 Ashramites covered on foot to break the salt law that monopolised the production and sale of salt by the British Government. At the outset of his march Gandhiji had promised that he would not return to Sabarmati Ashram without achieving the Swaraj.
Swaraj was not achieved in 1930. And till August 15, 1947 when India got Independence , Gandhiji had not returned to Sabaramati. Unluckily Gandhi had never visited Sabarmati too till January, 30 1948 when he was assassinated. The Sabarmati Ashram is not a mere hermitage. It is a place of living vision of Mahatma Gandhi. It is a site where some thing very historical had happened. The visitors when they visit the Hriday Kunj where Gandhiji lived, very happily sit on the earthen floor ; lean on to the pillar and fill in their hearts a sombre sense of remembrance.
But the proposed new memorial Gandhi project at Sabarmati, it is feared, is well designed to make it an amusement park, a theme park with features and attractions for entertainment.
Article 49 of the Constitution of India says that it shall be obligation of the State to protect every monument or place of historical importance from destruction, disfigurement or spoliation. Let Gandhiji's memories live in Sabarmati with unaffected simplicity.
(The writer is a Gandhian author and a lawyer. Mob: 9861469328)