Arguing with Gandhi, reassessing the Mahatma

Amartya Sen in ‘The Argumentative Indian’ argues that India has a deep, perhaps insufficiently acknowledged, tradition of public reasoning, disagreement, debate and intellectual dissent. Given that Gandhi was an arguer par excellence, an untiring writer of simple prose, an editor-publisher of magazines, one whose Ashrams were open to all manners of visitors, one who was not keen on playing to the gallery, whose argumentative concerns were not only immediate, expedient and instrumental but also futuristic, moral and universal, one willing to engage with his detractors and most of all, one who at the Centre of the freedom struggle found himself arguing with a great number of other freedom fighters and ideologues whose ideological persuasions and sense of tactical possibilities sharply differed from those of Gandhi, it is inevitable that his ‘Experiments with Truth’ will spawn arguments that raged during his lifetime and continue to be debated even today. Ramchandra Guha in ‘Arguments with Gandhi’ (Fourth Estate) seeks to come to terms with the arguments with which Gandhi was and continues to be associated and which continue to be relevant not only for India but also beyond.

Rationale and making sense of the arguments

Guha points out that Gandhi inspired, catalysed or participated in the central debates of the modern world. Racism, colonialism, democracy, socialism, secularism, fundamentalism, feminism, environmentalism, the role of technology and of the state, definitions of the ‘good life ’-Gandhi addressed these questions clearly and directly. Further, Gandhi was not merely an ideologue but a practising politician and, given the complexities involved in praxis, Gandhi is viewed not only with reference to abstract ideas but also in relation to the consequences of his action. The transcontinental range of Gandhi’s life adds a salient element of universalism.

Even further, the fact that the Indian National Congress under Gandhi was a dominant but by no means the sole force driving the freedom struggle, and there were competing ideas, strategic vantage points and tactical possibilities on offer, broadens the gamut of arguments. Even the Congress was not a monolith and dissent was not uncommon within the party.  Guha also seeks to wrestle with the afterlives of the arguments and their sense of relevance or obsolescence as the case may be. This inevitably brings the question of legacy to the fore. In dealing with the arguments, Guha divides the book into four parts, including violence versus non-violence, the pursuit of justice involving caste, gender and race (was Gandhi a racist?), debating faith and lastly, Gandhi and the intellectuals and his precocious environmentalism. Guha moves backwards and forward in time, travels across countries and continents in search of Gandhi’s influences and legacy, and deals with the ideas of those who agreed with and those who differed from Gandhi. Gandhi that emerges through this exercise is not a character in black and white but a complex, chequered character who kept evolving, who kept experimenting with truths and who did not set great store by consistency.

Was Gandhi a racist?

In October 2018, a statue of Gandhi, installed at the University of Ghana in June 2016, was removed, following sustained agitation for the same.  The central objection was that Gandhi had expressed racist views about Black Africans during his years in South Africa, particularly in his early political career. The installation of a Gandhi statue in Johannesburg also attracted controversy. Guha argues that the views of Gandhi in regard to racism evolved over a period of time from a misplaced sense of superiority to empathy and later, inter-racial solidarity. Guha finds fault with Gandhi’s views regarding race in his formative years in South Africa. He quotes Gandhi,” A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better than, if at all, than savages or the natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.” Guha seeks to put it in perspective. One, having been born in an upper caste home in India, he might have been taught to regard fair skin as denoting cultural superiority. Two, Gandhi in S. Africa in 1893 was barely 24, and his worldview was influenced by the predilections and prejudices of his upbringing. Three, his sectional concern for the small Indian community- at the receiving end of harsh racism- would make him campaign for the better treatment of Indians from the British rulers, even as he sounded parochial and pejorative against the Africans. Guha argues that those who brand Gandhi as racist do not care to see how Gandhi’s ideas evolved in regard to race. In later years, Gandhi would tell a delegation of South African Indians, “The slogan today is no longer Asia for the Asiatics or Africa for the Africans but the unity of all the exploited races of the earth.” This is reflected in the way ANC acknowledged its debt to Gandhi in no uncertain terms, despite the fact that ANC took to violence after its disillusionment with non-violence against apartheid; the fact that it chose reconciliation over retribution after the end of apartheid- had Gandhism written all over. Martin Luther King Jr., also called ‘American Gandhi’, followed Gandhian ideas much more closely in leading the civil rights movement in America.

Consistency- not a virtue

“I make no hobgoblin of consistency. If I am true to myself from moment to moment, I do not mind all the inconsistencies that may be flung in my face”, said Gandhi. Guha’s plea is to study Gandhi in his entirety, in terms of the way his ideas evolved. In relation to race, Gandhi’s ideas traversed a long way “from disdain for black people to cautious respect and an appreciation for their predicament to a call for a ‘real moral bond’ between Asians and Africans”.

In regard to untouchability, Gandhi- between 1915 and 1920- attacked it without questioning the caste system itself. As he grew more certain of his acceptability, he began to encourage intermingling, inter-dining and eventually, what Ambedkar had recommended for the abolition of the caste system, inter-marriage. Again, it is true that the differences between Gandhi and Ambedkar were fundamental, but without Gandhi, the issue of untouchability might not have achieved the salience that it did. And again, Guha so perceptively points out that no other stalwart of the freedom struggle was able to understand the centrality of the untouchability question for the freedom struggle. In terms of gender, Guha highlights his progressive evolution, which was considerably progressive and yet, his adherence to patriarchal prejudices of man being the ‘bread-winner’ and woman being the ‘home-maker’ makes Gandhi fall short of contemporary feminism.

Gandhi, afterlives and legacy

Guha has written copiously on Gandhi. ‘Gandhi before India’ (2014), ‘Gandhi: The Years that Changed India’(1914-1948) and ‘Arguments with Gandhi’ overlap considerably in terms of details. His arguments with his friends and disciples on the one hand and rivals- Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, Subhash and most of all, Savarkar on the other hand are eclectic, nuanced and conducted in a democratic fashion.

A chapter in the book titled ‘Gandhi’s Precocious Environmentalism’ has been dealt with by Guha in his immensely readable book ‘Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism '. So the book under review does not speak of novelty. One question that Guha leaves for the readers is whether Gandhi would meet the same fate as that of Buddha in terms of widespread traction abroad but diminishing/diminished appeal within India. One is not sure. But it could be worth mentioning Sanjay Suri’s book ‘A Gandhian Affair: India’s Curious Portrayal of Love in Cinema’. Suri explores the influence of Mahatma Gandhi on Hindi cinema, arguing that Hindi cinema’s classic male hero is an unexpected descendant of Gandhi’s ethos of celibacy and austerity.

Sanjay Kumar, IAS Officer, Bihar Cadre; Views presented are personal.