Gandhi — Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Gandhi in my mind is one of the most misunderstood transformational leaders in the world (with a comparable lack of effort to understand him and his philosophy).

For one who almost a hundred years back has given a unified identity to a country as disparate as India (plagued by abject poverty, illiteracy, divide along caste and religion, and a hostile occupier), in most cases what I see are cavalier comments/interpretations trivializing the person and his philosophies. We take the easy way out to brand Gandhi as anti-technology/ industry (which the developed countries are now revisiting as progressive development), poo-pooed his sustainable village concept (which aging is back as integrated urban and rural development), and take his unusual candor (“My experiments with Truth”) out of context and put our moral glasses to assassinate the character.

We have trivialized non-violence (forgetting what Gandhi said, that real non-violence takes more courage than violence — Nelson Mandela and South Africa proved that), made him responsible for partition, and had our glee named the exits used by ticketless travelers at railway stations as “Gandhi Gate”, and Gandhi topi with corruption.

If only we take the synopsis of Gandhi’s philosophy as “Be the Change you want to See”, and practiced that as individuals rather than advising others — I think we would be giving a fitting tribute to the man whom we probably do not even have the intellectual stature to fully appreciate.

In India which is going through a transformation, there is a need for genuine appreciation of what Gandhi said and did — it can provide us guidance for the next 100 years.