KOCHI: Mahatma Gandhi was completely opposed to the idea of treating Ramayana or Mahabharata as historical texts and abhorred the idea of making Hindu deities like Ram and Krishna historical figures, says eminent historian, Dr Vinay Lal, professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. In an exclusive interview to this newspaper, Prof. Lal said Gandhi was also opposed to the idea of nation-state as it was understood by many fellow nationalists.
Prof. Lal, in Kochi to attend Cochin Conference on Metaphysics and Politics, organised by Backwaters Collective, said these views of Gandhi is intimately linked to the original critical distance he had developed towards what can be called as the modern knowledge systems. “It is true that the oeuvre of Gandhi cannot be reduced to any singularity, but one of the basic themes underlying his work and life is his rejection of the world of knowledge that has appeared as part of modernity,” Prof. Lal said.
The idea of a nation-state is part or outcome of this notion of modernity which Gandhi had rejected in an explicit manner. The conventional social scientist may be puzzled that a person who has rejected the notion of a nation-state becoming the leader of Indian nationalism.
“We needed to cross conventional boundaries of knowledge systems to understand the real significance of how Gandhi dealt with these issues,” Prof. Lal said. “That is why I have mentioned in one of my articles that Gandhi is impenetrable to historical and other social sciences discourses,” Prof. Lal said. So the attempt by the Hindu Right to appropriate Gandhi by using the nation-state paradigm or its variants has to be opposed vigorously and critiqued, Prof. Lal said.
“The attempt by Hindu Right to appropriate Gandhi would be certainly a savage and brutal attack because the votaries of Hindutava glorifies Indian civilisation based on colonial paradigm of knowledge. Their level of intelligence is pathetic,” he said.
According to Prof. Lal, Hinduism is a liability for advocates of Hindutva. Mr Savarakar has clearly made a distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva in his writings and said on record that he is completely unaware of what is Hinduism. Although Gandhi is one of the greatest personalities of history as an individual he was completely indifferent to history as a discipline, Prof. Lal said. This was evident in Hind Swaraj, one of his earlier texts written in 1909, Prof. Lal said.
Gandhi differed from other Indian nationalists in his treatment of history, he pointed out. While other Indian nationalists tried to develop a nationalist narrative of Indian history, Gandhi was remarkably indifferent in this regard. In a critical reference to the English style of history writing Gandhi has observed, “They write about their own researches in most laudatory terms and hypnotise us into believing them. We in our ignorance then fall at their feet.”
