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Gandhi: In His Time And Ours By David Hardiman Permanent Black Price: Rs 595Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi towers over Indian history as no othe...

Gandhi: In His Time And Ours
By David Hardiman
Permanent Black
Price: Rs 595

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi towers over Indian history as no other person has, with the exception of his sometimes disciple, Jawaharlal Nehru. In the eyes of the world, and of many Indians, he was India itself. The interweaving of Gandhi8217;s life with that of the freedom movement led to the rise of two situations 8212; the response of historians and non-historians alike was to treat Indian independence and Gandhi8217;s death as a cutoff point; moreover, it was highly emotive, either negative or positive to Gandhi.

David Hardiman is well-known as a member of the Subaltern Studies group, with his studies of the peasantry in western India. His study of Gandhi is the first in Permanent Black8217;s series, The Indian Century, under the editorship of Ramchandra Guha and Sunil Khilnani, which hopes to bridge the gap between studies of pre- and post-1947 India, and treat Indian history as a whole, not in fragments. This purpose is manifest in Hardiman8217;s subtitle, 8220;in his time and ours8221;. Gandhi is not studied only in the context of his time, but also in the impact he had on generations after, in India and outside.

Hardiman approaches Gandhi as one who established a relationship with others through the process of dialogue. The dialogic process took place in many forms 8212; letters, statements, articles, books, and personal discussions. But this process was in itself unique 8212; as Gora a follower of Gandhi unjustly forgotten pointed out: 8220;Gandhi was bored by those who always agreed with him. He always enjoyed discussion and argument when there was a basis of agreement which made the exchange of differing ideas meaningful.8221;

This is where Gandhi8217;s dialogue was always partly successful, whether it was within the context of his family, the assertion of the dalits and adivasis or inter-religious discussions. In the immediate, historical circumstance, dialogue failed to achieve its ends, because of Gandhi8217;s use of a specific idiom, or unwillingness to go beyond his own understanding, even while stressing the relativity of all ideas, ideals and opinions. By a strange quirk of history, this near inflexibility makes him immediately relevant to us today. We find ourselves engaged with Gandhi 55 years after his death at every turn, on issues which we believe to be crucial.

Hardiman is particularly effective in linking Gandhi to us today, and offers a lucid, fascinating account of the use of Gandhian techniques and understanding of his philosophy by Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi, Petra Kelly, and the unlikely Malcolm X. He gives an incisive overview of activism after Independence inspired, in one way or another, by Gandhi, focusing on the JP movement and the agitation against the Narmada dam and anti-nuclear activism. But here his scholarly detachment is overridden by his personal empathy with those fighting the dam and the bomb. The result is that this section degenerates into a tortured and pointless attempt at labelling activists and commentators as Gandhians, a label, he himself points out, they have never applied to themselves. What is the need to place such a label on anyone? To apportion legitimacy of a kind? Surely it is possible to sympathise, empathise and yet maintain scholarly detachment and integrity without descending into incoherence.

The value of Hardiman8217;s critical approach to Gandhi lies in bringing home to us Gandhi8217;s great lesson, which we are all to apt to forget or ignore. That even when we believe that we have in our hands The Truth, there are other alternative Truths. Gandhi once wrote, 8220;God is Truth8221;. Rather than trying to crush the god of others, we need to understand them and let them be. This inclusiveness is Gandhi8217;s ultimate, transcendental truth. And, after his life, his greatest message.