Between 2 pm on October 1 and 10.30 am on October 2, Central government offices in New Delhi remained closed. Why? Because Prime Minister Narendra Modi, concerned about widespread filth in India, is “launching” the nation-wide “Swachch Bharat” (Clean India) campaign today. Today, because it is the 145th birthday of the man I consider — strengths, warts and all — the last great Indian: Mohandas Gandhi. Good way to observe the day, cleaning up. Especially after Mr Modi spoke eloquently about Gandhi in New York and visited his memorial in Washington.
Except, I think Gandhi himself would have approached this cleaning business differently. But hold that thought while I digress briefly. In an interview, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked Mr Modi about Al Qaeda entering India. Mr Modi rubbished the prospect. Al Qaeda can never establish roots in India, he said, because Indian Muslims will “live and die for India.”
For many who remain critical of Mr Modi, this was a remarkable statement. After all, this should have been my countrymen’s default assumption about this country’s Muslims from August 15, 1947, as it is about every other Indian. Yet year in and year out, too many of us — Mr Modi’s own party, allies and hangers-on included — are too ready to question Indian Muslims’ loyalty to India. To assume the worst about them. To ostracise them. To proffer mealy-mouthed comments that pose as praise but really just amount to more suspicion. So yes, a remarkable thing for Mr Modi to say. Good for him.
Still, on this 145th birthday, I wonder about all this. For you can argue with much of what Gandhi stood for — as many do — but you can’t accuse him of being underhanded in what he said. No pulling punches, no beating around bushes. Always, he spoke his mind, fearlessly. In particular, he was greatly troubled by the relationship between India’s Hindus and Muslims. He didn’t pretend there were no tensions, but tackled them with immense courage and imagination. This is why I like to speculate on how he would react to various remarks we hear about Muslims, Mr Modi’s included.
Take the Shiv Sena. On September 22, an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamna suggested that Mr Modi had given “a guarantee of the community’s love for its motherland”. Therefore, “Muslims must not let him down.” They should sing Vande Mataram and “accept India as their motherland,” for India’s progress was “hampered” by the “ignorance and non-cooperation” of Indian Muslims. In one editorial that passes as an endorsement of Mr Modi’s statement, the Shiv Sena managed to underline every prejudice, repeat every lying slur on Muslims that they have dealt in for years.
What would Mohandas Gandhi have said?
Go on to what politicians of Mr Modi’s own party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, have said about this year’s Navratri festival. Like Indore MLA Usha Thakur, who said Muslims should be kept out of garba events. Expanding on that theme, one Jaimin Shah of Gujarat’s “Hindu Asmita Hitrakshak Samiti” loosed this flood: “Muslims are always against anything related to India, be it national anthem, national flag, and they largely keep themselves away from Hindu festivals, then why should they be so keen on participating in garbas? They do so to lure Hindu girls. We are here to oppose such intrusions and stop them.”
The same Muslims, note, who Prime Minister said would “live and die for India”. They’ll do that, but they must be kept out of garbas.There have been many such examples since Mr Modi came to power, and all beg the same question: What, indeed, would Mohandas Gandhi have said? Let me suggest some answers. Faced with the call to keep Muslims away from garbas, that last great Indian would have stayed away from garbas, too. Because there’s nothing remotely Indian about a festival that seeks to exclude a whole set of Indians from its celebrations. “No culture can live”, Gandhi once said, “if it attempts to be exclusive.”
Faced with calls for Muslims to sing a particular song, he would have said that if this was going to be a test of loyalty, he would himself not sing the song. “My life is my message”, he once said. Faced with statements that Muslims are “against anything related to India”, he would have denounced this for the ignorant and scurrilous nonsense it is: he knew just how much his own Muslim colleague, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, for just one example, had fought for India’s freedom. “Truth is by nature self-evident,” he said. “As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.”
Indeed, I believe he would have said that if India’s progress is hampered by anything, it is by too many Indians’ irrational and hateful suspicions of other Indians. He would have warned us about men who arrogate to themselves the right to pronounce who is and isn’t patriotic, because such men only cause profound harm. He would have reminded us that Indian Muslims accepted India as their motherland on August 15, 1947, period. Just like every other Indian did that day, period.
You get the picture. Unlike nearly every leader we’ve had, Gandhi would have held these pronouncements — Shiv Sena, Ms Thakur — up as the mealy-mouthed viciousness they amount to. Above all, he would have said that nobody needs to “guarantee” anyone’s love for India, Muslims included. Think of this: if you simply assume that Indians “live and die” for India, why do you state out loud the same thing about some Indians? Doing that merely reinforces every deeply-held prejudice against those other Indians. Case in point: Shiv Sena.
That’s no “guarantee”. So let’s understand: If Al Qaeda is to fail in India, Prime Minister Modi, here’s why: every Indian will live and die for India. Period. Mohandas Gandhi knew that. And what would he have thought of a “campaign” to clean India? Easy: that you don’t need to close offices to “launch” a cleanliness drive on a particular day — least of all his birthday. That kind of showy fuss will never clean India. Instead, you simply start right now, quietly, in your home and the places you frequent. Period. And you keep at it until it becomes a habit. An attitude.
He knew that, too.
The author’s latest book, Final Test: Exit Sachin Tendulkar, will be out soon
