The ambivalence about Gandhi: South Asias difficulties with Gandhis legacy Ashis Nandy Nobody calls Gautam

Buddha a Nepali, even though he was born at Lumbini in Nepal. If the Buddha seems too august or distant, neither is Rabindranath agore!s citi"enship ta#en very seriously. If it were, there would have been at least some scattered demands for changing the Bangladeshi national anthem, now that the country has both a well$ developed %uslim nationalism and a budding fundamentalist movement. %ohandas &aramchand Gandhi!s case is different. Although much of the rest of the world may not emphasise his Indian origins, many 'outhasians do ( and they do so in a particular fashion. 'outhasians constantly offset his ideas against his political practices, which they find contaminated by his Indian$ness and )induism, and find him wanting. After Gandhi!s assassination, no less than Albert *instein said that future generations would find it hard to believe that such a person had wal#ed the earth. %ohammed Ali +innah, however, mourned his death only as that of a great )indu leader. ,arts of 'outhasia are more ambivalent towards Gandhi than even the modern -est ( his avowed target ( has ever been. his ambivalence has to do not only with Gandhi!s politics, but also with the fact that he was a political figure. In recent times, 'outhasians have come to believe that the term ethical politics is an o.ymoron/ that politicians tal#ing about ethics have to be either hypocrites, romantic visionaries, or irrelevant to the 0real! stuff of politics. -hen applied to the li#es of Gandhi, in India too 1despite its pretensions to the contrary2 this belief is certainly not confined to a small section of )indu nationalists or .enophobes3 it includes a large number of radicals, liberals and globalisers. Gandhi tried to disinherit and decentre the middle class/ the memory of that still hurts. 'outhasia has lost something in the process. I am not a Gandhian, but as a psychologist and political analyst, I have wor#ed off$and$on with Gandhian principles for many years. It has paid me rich dividends. I did not come to Gandhi willingly. Li#e most Bengalis, I maintained a healthy distance, and my discomfort with him was tinged with a touch of hostility. his unease was aggravated by my parents! admiration for Gandhi3 in my childhood, Gandhi represented authority. )ow many other 'outhasians may have a similar story4 The reluctant way Li#e many others, I was pushed towards the maveric# politician and indigestible thin#er during the *mergency of 5678$77, when ,rime %inister Indira Gandhi suspended civil liberties. -hile loo#ing for clues to political authoritarianism in India 1which I thought was not possible2, I discovered in Gandhi a thin#er who had dared to defy some of the basic tenets of the worldview that had powered the *uropean *nlightenment and modernity ( as well as their wholesale dealers and retailers in Asia and Africa. his

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opened up for me a number of pathways to what I can only call dissenting visions and baselines for political and social criticism. Gandhi was never politically and academically correct/ he also demanded the right, on behalf of the 'outhern hemisphere, to envision and to e.periment with alternative human futures. I never became a Gandhian. Indeed, as I moved into new studies and got more deeply entangled with public concerns and social movements, I became increasingly convinced that my earlier discomfort with Gandhi was fully @ustified. )e was not only a negation of the core tenets of 'outhasian modernity and the region!s contemporary elite/ he also invited everyone living with the certitudes of middle$class life in a modern 'outhasian metropolis to set up an anti$self as a critiAue and a warning. At every step, he reminded me of the German philosopher heodor Adorno!s belief that one moves closer to truth when one!s intellectual wor# hurts one!s own interests and those of one!s class. Around that same time, I also concluded that any thin#er operating from within 'outhasia is doubly handicapped. 'outhasian thin#ers not only have the disadvantage of location, but are at all times e.pected to be fully correct, both politically and academically. ,eople wonder, BIf he is really that good, why is he wor#ing in Nepal, rather than at )arvard or C.ford or in the Dnited Nations4E -hen dealing with a 'outhasian activist$scholar, they also refuse to separate the wheat from the chaff. In 'outhasia, ,lato gets away with his blatant advocacy for buggery of children/ *mmanuel &ant and &arl %ar., with their open and unalloyed racism/ and %ilton, with child abuse. he public, after all, has other aspects of these wor#s upon which they can concentrate. his cannot happen in the case of a 'outhasian activist$scholar, however, because the aim is ultimately to disvalue his or her contributions. Beyond the trees It is from a vantage point mar#ed out by these considerations that I enunciate the following propositions, for the sa#es of those young 'outhasians who have #ept away from Gandhi on the grounds of his specific policy choices and political acts, or for his occasionally puritanical personal life. Gandhism ( not as an ideology, but as a reasonably well$integrated normative position in public life, and a particular #ind of social vision ( is greater than Gandhi the man. Gandhi himself would have happily admitted this3 he believed that the ideas he espoused, particularly non$violence, were as old as the hills. Nor was Gandhi a perfect Gandhian/ it was not possible for him to be so. )e was an active politician, a fact that he never forgot. Indeed, he could be credited with creating both the centrality of politics in British India, by ta#ing mass politics to the villages, and with establishing militant non$violence as a viable global political force. his emphasis on politics guaranteed that he would ma#e mista#es. If politics is the art of the possible rather than a sure science, assessments of the range of those possibilities can at times go drastically wrong. Gandhi himself discussed some of his blunders, and I am sure that future generations will tal# about many others.

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)owever, this also means that Gandhi cannot be shelved as a dreamy$eyed spiritual leader who occasionally strayed into public life as a hobby or pastime. hat is why his name is still invo#ed, in admiration and in hatred, nearly si.ty years after his death. I cannot resist the temptation of citing once again what was arguably the finest obituary of him ( not the one by Albert *instein, but the one by the British economic historian Arnold oynbee. After Gandhi, oynbee wrote, human#ind would e.pect its prophets to live in the slum of politics. I remember I first heard that from the poet Dmashan#ar +oshi, who used the Auote to e.plain to the philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi that saints were a dime a do"en in 'outhasia. Gandhi!s ability to politically empower his vision was what was so uniAue, and which ensured the long$term survival of his ideas. Beyond the borders hat vision transcends the boundaries of the nation state called India. hat is why the three greatest Gandhians today are neither Indians nor )indus3 Nelson %andela, Aung 'an 'uu &yi and the Falai Lama. Incidentally, the first two of these started as radical social democrats. hey turned to Gandhi only after people started referring to their politics as Gandhian. A combination of long$term moral vision and practical politics brought them to Gandhi. he Falai Lama, on the other hand, does not have to call himself a Gandhian, even though he says that Gandhi has inspired him ever since he was a small boy in ibet. Li#e Gandhi!s, his life is his message, and that message happens to be Gandhian. In any case, I do not see the reason to impute to Gandhi superhuman visionary powers, nor a saintly status. Foing so would only ma#e him less relevant and accessible to contemporary times by elevating him beyond mundane, day$to$day politics and everyday life. hat is the line the Indian state has already ta#en. It has hi@ac#ed him and turned him into an official symbol and a totem of the Indian state ( 0the father of the nation!, as the officialese goes. he less the Indian state has to do with Gandhi and his ideas, the more it becomes a conventional, hard, hyper$masculine nation state, by re@ecting one$by$one all of the elements of Gandhian thought. In so doing, the more it is forced to tal# of the beautiful legacy of the nation!s 0father!. hat thousands of political and social activists have begun to wal# the path of Gandhi ( while neither #nowing the man, nor claiming to be Gandhians ( is a tribute to a person who re@ected the hyper$individualist and consumerist certitudes of our times. 9irtually every ma@or modern dissenting movement has drawn inspiration from Gandhi. he movements for environment, alternative science and technology, eco$feminism, human rights, anti$consumerism, and resistance to nuclearism and globalisation ( they have all directly or indirectly, #nowingly or unwittingly, drawn upon Gandhi!s legacy. I am told that 5G states in the world today do not have armies. Not that they have all turned Gandhian, of course ( few would li#ely even #now Gandhi!s famous line that armed nationalism is no different than imperialism. Gandhi!s political vision, after all, was not a by$product of British liberalism and its tacit theory of colonialism$with$a$ humane$face. Rather, it was forged in the crucible of an undeniably racist regime ( the

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authoritarian police$state called 'outh Africa. Gandhi!s vision bears the imprint of its origins. Foes militant non$violence wor# in situations where one confronts an antagonist or combatant who is completely dehumanised, who can only laugh at such 0comical!, 0effeminate!, 0impractical! counter$modernist protest movements4 Han it wor# when one of the parties to a conflict considers the other infrahuman, no different from a lifeless ob@ect, to be manipulated, e.ploited or #ic#ed around4 here can be no final answer to this Auestion. )owever, militant non$violence did wor# the one time that it was tried in Na"i Germany. Nathan 'tol"fus writes about the Rosenstrasse protest in Resistance of the )eart ( a boo# that does not mention Gandhi even once. )e would have li#ed that.