“India cannot possibly make more progress leaning only on the spirit of Gandhi, but neither can it do so without it”.
– Jan Oberg, director of TFF.
Gandhi was murdered in New Delhi on Friday, the 30th of January, 1948. The next day his body was carried on a gun-carriage to the river Jamuna to be cremated, escorted by 4,000 soldiers, one thousand air force soldiers, and as many policemen. It was not a mere coincidence that the regime of the day “honoured” the country’s father of non-violence in this manner. I also think that there are obvious connections between this and the India of our days, with all its corruption, elitism and its nuclear weapons.
I happened to arrive in Delhi on the 29th of January and I went to Rajghat, which is by the Jamuna river, to see the monument, Gandhi Samadhi, a giant cube in black marble with an eternal flame and an inscription of Gandhi’s last words: “He Ram!” – Oh God!
The cube is lying in the middle of an enormous lawn. It is an aesthetically cold memorial, pompous, and in inverse proportion to Gandhi’s modesty.
A guard on duty told me that the place was now closed and would not open until the next day. When I returned, the memorial looked more like a battlefield. Soldiers had rolled out enormous green carpets. I saw a mess of chairs all over and flowerpots being carried to and fro.
Already during my second day in India I realised that Gandhi is actually a sort of persona non grata, who is impossible to ignore, today, just as in 1948.
The elite celebrated Gandhi first, in the morning, and then it was time to let in the crowd. The ideals Gandhi represented do not make much difference these days in the official politics of India; however, I was happy to see that so many people came there that day, 53 years after he died, lots of ordinary people from Delhi, thousands of plainly clothed peasants, old and young.
Gandhi is dead! Long live Gandhi!
Mr and Mrs Honda
On my way out I came across Mr Honda and his wife. That day they were selling Gandhi-literature, but otherwise they run a day-care home for children from the slums. Honda is a tall, pot-bellied and waddling man in a khadi and sandals.
“The future of India is still the spinning-wheel”, he says with complete conviction. “Look at them! These are our children who are just learning how to spin and sew their own clothes. We have spent all these years saving them from the slums, now they have an education and can make their own living. These boys will not be alcoholics as many of their fathers were and the girls will not be prostitutes. We give them decent food as well”.
I can imagine how it works in practice. Of course India cannot possibly continue to make progress leaning only on the spirit of Gandhi and the use of spinning-wheels, but I begin to understand that they can’t make progress without them either.
Gandhi Darshan and the National Memorial Museum
Past Mahatma Gandhi Road and a couple of hundred metres down on Powerhouse Road you can find Gandhi Darshan (International Centre for Gandhian Studies and Research, http://www.gandhismriti.org), a giant complex of plain buildings housing exhibition halls, workshops, institutions of education, a museum, a research institute, sculptures and handicraft. All is presented with the intent to preserve Gandhi’s way of thinking and make his perspective relevant to even present day society.
On Gandhi Road you find also Gandhi Book House, an extraordinary bookstore, and the Gandhi National Memorial Museum with its exceptional collections and research library.
I went to see a temporary, quite unique, exposition about Kasturba, who got married to Gandhi at the age of 13 and lived with him throughout her life until her death in Puma in 1943. The old pictures show a strong woman who had to face a little of everything, including Gandhi’s decision to abstain from sex. I was able also to read her sorrowful and wise letter to one of their sons, when he, whom Gandhi treated as a pariah, was arrested drunk and disgraced the whole family in public.
There is also a permanent exhibition that shows photographs, letters, personal belongings and a replica of Gandhi’s workroom. The Memory Hall focuses on his last days, the murder and the funeral. You can see the watch he was wearing, as well as the bullets that killed him, his blood-stained clothes and the urns from which his ashes were spread over India. In the small, dusty Literature Centre behind the museum you can also buy a multimedia CD which contains a 30-minute long film, 550 photographs, 15 minutes of Gandhi’s voice, and Gandhi’s entire literary output of more than 50,000 indexed pages, as well as special sections where the fundamental principles and the most important events in Gandhi’s and India’s history are illustrated. (“Mahatma Gandhi”, US $60).
The museum is located in a small park beautifully surrounded by big trees and sculptures of Gandhi. Indoors everything is dusty and yellowed with age. All of the objects are kept in old wooden showcases and the books are standing or lying on big grey metal bookshelves as in a mechanical workshop. But the whole thing feels exceptionally genuine. It’s like being there at the time when it all happened.
Gandhi’s mode of thinking, the philosophy of non-violence, and his economic theory must nevertheless be “translated” in order to meet the needs and challenges of the present day. Gandhi must not become a museum, because then all that he stood for would die.
India’s problem with Gandhi
During my journey in India, I began to realize what problems Indians might have in relation to Gandhi. He died without a fortune, title, property, academic honours, and, of course, without a Nobel Prize, in his private capacity. He is just too great and too difficult to live up to. It is well-nigh impossible to become a “Gandhian”. But it is entirely possible to turn him into a museum exhibit, honour him once a year, and otherwise just forget about him.
Of course, Gandhi has no Mecca of his own. Still, he feels present everywhere, not least in the hearts of the Indian people. But those interested who reach Delhi start naturally with these institutions. Each of them gave me an unforgettable experience. However, Birla House or Gandhi Smriti, where Gandhi spent his last 144 days in life and was shot, remains the most important for me. In my next article I’ll tell you why. Until then, please have a look at
Translated by Alice Moncada
Translation edited by Sara E. Ellis
