Goodbye to all that

That image found its complete synthesis in the Gandhi cap. Gandhi never wore it after he became a public figure. But for his followers, it was a visual shorthand for his entire political philosophy. A curiously declassed descendant of thecourtier’s cap, it spoke of the importance of simplicity, of the village economy, of frugality in a land where nothing was ever in plenty. It asserted the need to live life on a human scale, to refuse to accommodate the larger needs, the questionable `economies of scale’, of the megamachine. It was also of utilitarian value, for it rendered difficult the act of forelock-tugging. But principally, it was an icon that reminded both wearer and beholder of the primacy of moral and political philosophy over expediency.

Over the years, Gandhi’s followers have repudiated these values. They have also renounced their traditional icon in favour of more contemporary images, such as the PVC suitcase (preferably with keys). In the AICC sessions of the past, the venue was a sea of Gandhi caps. In the one just concluded, where the party decided to introspect — something it is no longer accustomed to — among the prominent, only P.V. Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesari wore their caps. Khadi, too, is giving way to sweatypolyester and the administrator’s bandhgala. It’s little wonder then that P.A. Sangma recently recommended that the Congress party jettison this sartorial embellishment.

Today, to encounter the Gandhi cap, you would have to watch a B-grade Bollywood product (where either the villain or his sidekick will definitely affect one) or you would have to travel to exotic destinations. You might find it on small railway platforms in Uttar Pradesh, off the express routes, dignifying the heads of channa-masala sellers. Or you might see it on the catwalk in a spiffy Delhi hotel, modelled by a woman who’s worth Rs 50,000 on the hoof. And you would have seen it in the newspapers, lending respectability to the head of one Arun Gawli, worthy Mumbai-based social activist. He is the only one to put it to political use, other than his caricature in the movies. The Congress, the party that first used dress as political statement, has lost the art altogether.

Let’s go back to seven years before Dandi, to March18, 1923. At high noon, in the Sessions Court of Allahabad, Sir William Strangman, advocate-general for the Bombay Presidency, begins the case for the prosecution against Mohandas Gandhi, sometime Kaiser-i-Hind — with a medal pinned on by Lord Hardinge himself for service to the Crown at the relief of Ladysmith — and now the Mahatma.

The prosecutor wears regulation court attire, and therefore sweats profusely as he tells the court why Gandhi is personally responsible for the massacre of policemen at a hitherto unknown post in the United Provinces called Chauri Chaura. The accused first confuses him by demanding the imposition of the highest penalty available under the law. Then, paradoxically, he implies that he is not guilty at all. And in his defence, he trots forth the thoroughly bewildering concept of non-cooperation. It is a defence as unacceptable to the legal mind, trained to believe that human relations are necessarily adversarial, as the dress the defendant has chosen to wear. What could possessa man of the Bar to appear in court dressed as a common peasant?

One year after the Dandi March, the world got a first-hand taste of the power of Gandhi’s nonverbal communications. Will Rogers, America’s original pop philosopher, captured the defining image of the London Economic Conference thus: "Our delegates went by special boat. Dressmakers worked for months before. But a skinny little fellow with nothing on but a breechcloth, with a spinning wheel and an old she-goat comes there representing more humanity and with more authority than all the high hats in the world. It’s sincerity versus diplomacy."

With the Round Table conferences came Churchill’s patent discomfiture about dealing with a "half-naked fakir". And Reynolds, the cartoonist, immediately reacted with a double frame. One showed a self-satisfied Gandhi decked out like a Bradford millionaire in a silk hat, with cane, patent-leather briefcase, cigar and spats; the other, a disturbed Churchill in a loincloth, trying to cover his nakedness witha half-open umbrella.

Over the years the Congress has lost the humanity and authority that Gandhi had brought it. It has lost sight of his most important lesson: the political power of the enduring image. Today, it relies on poster-work at its meeting venues: a garish Gandhi and a self-satisfied line of late, lamented Nehru-Gandhis. It has no access to the simple, universal images that defined its success during the freedom struggle: a cap made of homespun, a pair of spectacles, a handful of dirty salt. And thereby, it has lost all claims to being the universal party of India, the purest expression of its national will.

This, the oldest party in Asia (save a long-defunct organisation in Japan), deliberately positioned itself as a universal party. To join, a prospective primary member had to be at least 18 years old and had to subscribe to its ideology. There was no other requirement. At the age of 21, he could become an active member simply by donning khadi. There was one other requirement: he would haveto spend some time every day doing `constructive work’ in at least one of 25 possible areas. Only three of these — organising youth, farmers and workers — had immediate political implications. The Congressman’s life was simple, ruled by wholesome, ordered certainties.

The problems began with Independence. Gandhi anticipated them and called for the dissolution of the party. The Congress was probably the first political organisation in the world to design the levers of power and operate them as well. The mechanics that made the first phase a success were not equal to the demands of the second. Today, the Hindutva combine is discovering that a legacy system of grassroots activism and compulsory social work does not prepare an organisation for national power. The Congress learnt that lesson long ago. And in its eagerness to change, to reclassify legacy as mere history, it lost the moral authority to rule, along with its most abiding image, its visual shorthand — the Gandhi cap.