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Remembering the Mahatma

M.A.S. Molla
MOHANDAS Karamchand Gandhi is the full name of the great Indian lawyerpolitician whom the world knows as Mahatma Gandhi. He was born in Porbandar (otherwise called Sudamapuri) Gujarat, India in 1869 to Karamchand — alias Kaba Gandhi --and Putlibai. The family was a Vaishnava one, having very conservative attitude towards many things.
Mahatma Gandhi was a rare combination of a number of laudable characteristics like simplicity, frankness, truthfulness, firmness and perseverance. He was instrumental in realising the freedom of the Indian subcontinent from about 190 years of British colonial rule. That is why he is regarded as the father of Indian nationhood. But this great man was assassinated while going to evening prayer on January 30,1948.
M.K. Gandhi titled his autobiography "The story of my experiments with truth." I knew about it in my adolescence, and the phrase "experiments with truth" attracted me much, but I could not find the book in Bangladesh. Only recently could I find the 505 page book published in 1957 by Beacon Press, Boston, USA. This book is a document of his candid expression of truth.
Although born to a state minister of India, Mohandas led a very simple life all through. He used to eat bread and vegetables, even when studying for Matriculation and Law in England. He walked 8-10 miles daily both to keep the body fit and to limit his expenditure to the minimum. During the climax of his social movement (called non-violent non-cooperation), he wore a dhoti and was ready to have even a short one (of 30 inches width, if the weavers failed to make a required 45 inches Khadi cloth for him). One is amazed to see most of the photos of this great leader bare bodied!
As a member of Vaishnava family, Mohandas was a vegetarian. His school friends used to eat meat and even tried to convince him of the "goodness" of a carnivorous diet. Once, in his high school days, he and his elder brother started eating meat. This event he termed a "tragedy," and could come out of it because he had the conviction that he could not tell a lie to his parents, and if eating meat was really essential to have enough strength to fight the Englishmen to have Swaraj, he must do that "openly." Even in a cold country like England, where most people eat meat and drink wine, he successfully avoided these "forbidden" (by his mother) items by dint of conviction and truthfulness (to his mother). Instead, he organised a Vegetarian Society in England and campaigned for vegetarianism.
If he fell ill he would treat himself and the members of his family with indigenous methods like water treatment and fasting. Once in South Africa, he was attacked by diarrhea and was about to die. But no physician could convince him of the need of a carnivorous diet or of modern medicine. Instead, he treated himself with fasting and vegetarianism.
Being a barrister, he liked to travel by train in the first class. But the white British railway officers would not let a "coolie barrister" (the word "coolie" was used for Indians in South Africa because most of them worked as labourers there) travel by the first class. While traveling from Durban to Pretoria, he had a first class ticket, but the officer in-charge asked him to get out and board a van compartment. At one point, the officer was pushing him from the train while he clung on to the brass rails of the coachbox. He was determined to keep the hold even at the risk of breaking his wrist bone.
He practiced perseverance throughout his life. This virtue was most expressed in advising and practicing it during his patronisation of the movement against obligatory indigo cultivation and the less than adequate wages for mill workers. The downtrodden workers were on strike, and he told them that under no circumstances should they break strike before realisation of the legitimate demands. But at one point the strikers grew impatient. Then he himself fasted until the strikers' firmness on the demand came back.
Another appreciable characteristic of this great man was his containing capacity. He knew well of the white people's prejudice against the darker Indians and also of the economic injustice done by the Britishers to them. Yet, he helped the Britishers in WW-I by recruiting both African and Indian volunteers. Although he had firm belief in Hinduism, he always respected others' beliefs. When he attended the War Conference arranged by the Britishers, the Ali brothers (Maolana Mohammad Ali and Shawkat Ali) were in jail. Gandhi demanded their release several times. Lastly, it was his greatness in preaching Hindu-Muslim brotherhood that was said to be the alleged reason (from the assassin's point of view) for the assassination of this great leader.
In short, Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence, his firmness on truth and the passion for independence began a drive for freedom that doomed British colonialism. We in East Bengal had to strive for freedom (due to our short-sighted leadership in 1940s) again in 1971. Tajuddin Ahmad — the Prime Minister of Bangladesh during our Liberation War -- was a student leader in 1948 when Gandhi was assassinated. Yet Tajuddin could realise the greatness of the Mahatma and wrote in grief the following lines in his diary: "Sun declined and beacon light of humanity declined too. Is it darkness then? Light and darkness, darkness and light; night comes after day and day chases the night."
Here our "star politician" Tajuddin termed Gandhi a "sun." The sun "declined" but day really chased the night in India (through establishment of functional democracy); the "star" had also been made to "decline" (on November 3,1975), but has the day started chasing the night or the night is still too long in Bangladesh?
The writer is a freelance contributor on social issues. E-mail: momas71@yahoo.com