IN BLACK AND WHITE BY VIKRAM MUTHANNA
Yesterday was Gandhi Jayanti. It is also the day the United Nations observes it as the International Day of Non-Violence, perhaps the greatest global tribute ever paid to an Indian.
Ironically, in India, it has become fashionable to dislike Gandhiji. Among certain circles, criticising Gandhiji has become an ‘intellectual flex’.
We question the prefix ‘Mahatma’ in Mahatma Gandhi by scrutinising his personal life.
We scrutinise his experiments with celibacy, his treatment of Kasturba, his early writings on race in South Africa, his support for the Khilafat Movement and his role during partition.
Much of that criticism is legitimate and history should never be beyond scrutiny. But somewhere along the way we forgot a simple truth: Gandhi was a human being before we made him a Mahatma and like all humans, he too is deeply flawed.
The problem with hero worship is that we first strip great men of their humanity by placing them on a pedestal. Then, when we discover they were merely human, we then relish pushing them off that same high pedestal.
For all his imperfections, Gandhiji accomplished something extraordinary. He transformed India’s freedom struggle from an elite political movement into a people’s movement.
Before Gandhiji, nationalism largely belonged to lawyers, intellectuals, political leaders and revolutionaries. After Gandhiji, it belonged to ordinary Indians.
Through Satyagraha, Ahimsa, the Salt March and Khadi movement, he gave millions of ordinary people a way to participate in the freedom struggle without picking up a gun or a book. Few leaders have ever converted moral philosophy into political action on such a scale.
It is indisputable that it was Dr. B.R. Ambedkar who gave India its Constitutional architecture; it was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who gave India political integration and it was Jawaharlal Nehru who helped shape our democratic institutions.
But Gandhiji gave India something equally important if not more: He gave a civilisation divided by language, caste, religion and region a shared political conscience.
That achievement does not deserve blind worship, but it also does not mean you can dismiss him based on his personal choices.
Unfortunately, we now live in ‘binary times’ where a public figure must either be a saint or a villain, a Mahatma or a Duratma.
A mature civilisation understands that greatness and fallibility can coexist in the same person. An immature one weaponises a leader’s mistakes to erase his achievements or uses his achievements to excuse his mistakes.
In Gandhiji’s case, both have been done. The same with Nehru and the same will be done with Modi too.
Gandhi Jayanti now feels like an orphaned birthday. The Father of the Nation belongs to everyone, which, in today’s identity politics, means he belongs to no one.
So, Gandhiji can be abused and mocked with relative impunity. Try doing the same to an icon revered by a particular community and the backlash is swift, severe and unforgiving.
Perhaps that explains why Governments enthusiastically celebrate an ever-growing list of Jayantis of leaders from various communities.
Karnataka has 29 Jayantis every year! And every Chief Minister who comes adds some more Jayantis. They do this not so much for the love and reverence of the leaders, but more for the love of votes.
B.S. Yediyurappa added Basava Jayanti to honour the 12th-century social reformer, who is followed by Lingayats; Valmiki Jayanti to honour the author of Ramayana, who represents Nayaka community and Kanaka Jayanti to honour the devotional poet Kanakadasa, who is considered the patron saint of Kuruba community.
Oh! Who can forget how Siddaramaiah added Tipu Jayanti to appease Muslims and then added Hemareddy Mallamma, considered the patron saint of the Reddy-Lingayat community! This he did just before he stood for election in Badami, where this community has an electoral presence.
Love and respect for great leaders cannot be legislated through Government notifications or public holidays. It must be displayed through imitation and emulation.
That is precisely where we have failed Gandhiji.
As Pavan K. Varma observed in ‘Being Indian’: “Indians respect the powerful… Those who renounce power are worshipped, not because their example should be emulated, but in sheer awe of their ability to transcend the irresistible.”
Nothing captures our relationship with Gandhiji more accurately.
Many of us admire Gandhiji, we quote him, we garland his statues and we name roads after him, but we rarely emulate him.
The good aspects of him, such as cleanliness, simplicity and non-violence, remain only as points in annual Gandhi Jayanti speeches rather than daily habits.
Perhaps that is true not only of Gandhiji but of almost every icon we celebrate — from Ambedkar to Patel, from Basavanna to Kanakadasa. We preserve their birthdays, but we neglect their beliefs.
Perhaps the greatest tribute we can pay the Father of the Nation is not another garland on Oct. 2, but a little more Gandhism on Oct. 3 and after.
e-mail: vikram@starofmysore.com
This post was published on October 3, 2026 7:30 pm