Mars and modern India
The Congress was an instrument that Gandhi adapted to mass struggle,but under his dictatorial rule.
The Congress was an instrument that Gandhi adapted to mass struggle,but under his dictatorial rule.
More than a century ago,two Indians met in London. The older one had come from South Africa to fight the case for the rights of Indians living there. The younger one was an intense person dedicated to overthrowing British rule in India as fast as he could. They had a long argument about the future of India. The young man was a keen student of Mazzini and Garibaldi who had achieved independence and unification for Italy. He was to translate a biography of Mazzini in Marathi. The young man wanted India to emulate Europe,to industrialise and modernise. The older man was horrified. He wanted India to reject modernity,machinery,Western medicine and urbanisation. When they parted,the older man on his return trip to South Africa wrote his first book arguing for India to reject modern machinery. The book was called Hind Swaraj.
Over the next 40 years,the paths of the two diverged. The older man became Father of the Nation and was credited with having achieved India’s independence. The younger man spent years in solitary confinement,and then some more in jail and then retired into writing and propagating. From a moderniser and Westerniser,he turned back to the glories of Hindu past. He was implicated in the assassination of the older man. His fame is furtive and divisive. The older man’s fame is global and inclusive.
Gandhi and Savarkar argued about the path an independent India should take in those early days in 1909. Gandhi wanted India to be a country of village republics,with handicrafts and a minimal government. India worships him,but has firmly rejected his recommended path. Nehru,his best disciple,was of the same view as Savarkar. He wanted modernisation and industrialisation for India. In sending the Mangalayan on its way,India has yet again rejected the Gandhian path and chosen the Westernisation model of Nehru and Savarkar. Savarkar is no longer identified with modernity but with Hindutva. Yet,his ambitions for India were just as growth oriented as anyone else’s.
The Congress was an instrument that Gandhi adapted to mass struggle,but under his dictatorial rule. Congressmen followed him,but were never Gandhians. They welcomed Gandhi’s leadership until Independence. Then they passed him by and made the Congress into an instrument for ruling India and did not dissolve it like he wanted. The Gandhians alone believed in his theories,but they dwindled once he was gone.
India is today a presence in the world,not just as a spiritual or moral power but as an economic and military power. That spacecraft tells the world that India is capable of leapfrogging ahead many other nations when it comes to modern technology. The programme was consciously begun by Nehru and Subhas Bose even before Independence when they established the National Planning Committee of the Congress. Bose was soon displaced by Gandhi,but Nehru continued the programme. It was Nehru who understood the importance of science and technology. As India’s first Prime Minister,he used all his power to displace the Gandhian nostrums of economic policy and raced ahead with modernisation. He grasped the significance of nuclear energy and established a programme for nuclear research by giving Bhabha his go-ahead. Vikram Sarabhai was another scientist,link between Nehru and Gandhi since it was his family which supported the Sabarmati Ashram when Gandhi was in despair about how to keep it going. Sarabhai was crucial for the space programme.
Thus it was that India was committed to industrial growth as well as the Green Revolution. It has scaled heights in IT services. It has now demonstrated its capabilities in space technology. After all,former President Kalam reminds us how much India values those who work in the defence technology area.
The consensus in Indian politics is about the primacy of growth and technology,about eradicating poverty. Savarkar and Nehru were different from each other as any two people can ever be. But India chose well in following their path. Let us by all means pay Gandhi homage for his moral courage and his leadership of the Congress. Read Hind Swaraj but do not see it as a blueprint for India.
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