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Philosophy, views

Racism against the Africans?

Indrani Bagchi, Ghanaians want univ statue of `racist' Gandhi pulled down, Sep 20 2016 : The Times of India

Anger Against Mahatma's Use Of Slur For Africans In Writings

Three months after President Pranab Mukherjee gifted a statue of Mahatma Gandhi to the University of Ghana, a group of professors and students have started a petition to bring it down.

The opposition centres around their belief that Gandhi was “inherently racist“ for his depiction of native black Africans as “kaffir“ (considered a racial slur in Africa) in his early writings, when he was fighting for the rights of Indians in South Africa.

According to reports, some members of the university , led by a former director of the Institute of African Studies, Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, have started a campaign to get the institution to pull down the statue, which was unveiled during a visit by President Pranab Mukheriee in June. natures, which comes as an embarrassment to the Indian government.

The campaign carries the slogan `Gandhi Must Fall' and `Gandhi For Come Down' (pidgin for Gandhi Must Come Down), inspired by the “Rhodes Must Fall“ campaign against a statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford University .

The statue was installed at the recreational quadrangle of the university's Legon campus in Accra.

Apart from a campus agitation, a petition to the university authorities on change.org has already attracted 872 signatures in a bit of a quandary . The site was chosen by the Ghana foreign office when the President went for a visit in June. While there are some voices preaching moderation, the ministry of external affairs is also waiting to see whether the campaign gathers steam.

The offensive passages

One of Gandhi's writings that have been cited in the petition reads thus: “A general belief seems to prevail in the Colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than savages or the Natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.“ (Dec 19, 1894) A second, more damaging (Sept. 26, 1896) one reads: “Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.“ (The petitioners have sourced the quotes from Gandhi and South African Blacks http:www.gandhiserve.orgecwmgcwmg.htm ) Putting an international spin to their petition, they listed a number of colleges and universities around the world seeking to remove the overt symbols of racism.

Satyagraha and The Three Monkeys

The Times of India, Oct 02 2015

K M Gupta

One way of fighting evil is not to shut it out from our senses

Granted, there is so much evil in the world ­ corruption, nepotism, terrorism, for instance. But it is beyond us to change what is widespread. We have seen even well-intentioned people entering politics to cleanse it and then getting sucked into its vortex. It is a misconception that the world was good in the past, and it has worsened only now. The world was always the same and will be always so, perhaps.

So, do we accept evil, surrender to it?

Certainly not. There is a passive way of fighting evil and making the world a little more beautiful. In Japan, Kobe College's department of psychology conducted an experiment: they divided students into two groups. The first group was required to do nothing but carry on as usual. The second group was asked to just observe the good deeds done by people around them ­ helping an elderly person to get into or out of public transport, feeding birds and animals, nursing a hurt bird or animal, and indulging in other acts of compassion and kindness. Small things; not great sacrifices or exceptionally kind deeds. After some time, it was found that the happiness levels of the second group registered a marked jump. The conclu sion was: even just observing the kind deeds of others increases one's happiness level.

In science, the term `observer effect' refers to the effect an observer has on the observed by his act of observation.For example, to check the pressure in an automobile tyre, a little air needs to be released.This affects the pressure in the tyre. That is the observer effect.The result of the Japanese study is the reverse of the observ study is the reverse of the observer effect. The observed influences the observer's mind.

So we can raise our happiness level free of cost. There are small streams, though not great rivers, of the milk of human kindness flowing all around us.Just by observing them, our happiness levels rise. Money and materials can create conditions conducive for happiness, but cannot exactly conduct it.

This influence of observing good deeds can, and does, go beyond just a rise in one's happiness level.

As we observe good deeds of others, not only does our happiness level rise, we start aping the good deeds of others unconsciously . We begin to radiate the goodness we experience. The observed becomes the observer.

When we are good at heart, in thought, word and deed, we start lactating the milk of human kindness. We start from observing the goodness of others and aping it and end up being aped by others. This cycle of goodness boosts the happiness level of society as a whole. The more the absorption and radiation, the less would be the evil around us.This is one silent but viable way of fighting evil, and it is not difficult.

When he started his non-violent movement in South Africa, Gandhiji first named it passive resistance. Then he felt the term to be tame and likely to be misunderstood and so he switched to the term satyagraha. The silent absorption and radiation of goodness discussed above is close to Gandhiji's idea of passive resistance.

Observing the goodness around us and absorbing it as a habit requires shutting our senses to the evil around us as far as possible. That is where Gandhiji's Three Apes come in: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. In Japan, the three mystic apes are called Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru.

Sex: Kusoom Vadgama on Gandhi ji and sex

`Gandhi was obsessed with sex ¬while preaching celibacy to others'

The Times of India Aug 16 2014

A controversy has erupted in Britain over the proposed second statue of Gandhiji in London, this one in Parliament Square. Kusoom Vadgama, the doughty historian (born: 1932) and former `Gandhi worshipper', told Bachi Karkaria at age 82 why she is leading the fight brigade against the statue.

On Gandhi's `debasement of women' by his experiments with sexual self-control.

Kusoom Vadgama: Men in position of power take advantage of their status. They have no qualms about abusing minors or women. All his life Gandhi was obsessed with sex ¬while preaching celibacy to others. No one challenged him. He was the nation's `untouchable' hero, his iconic status eclipsed all his wrong doings. The protest against yet another statue of his in London, just two miles from the one in Tavistock Square, is a perfect opportunity to speak the truth about this other people's Mahatma.

Gandhi never made a secret of sleeping naked with his greatgrand daughter and the wife of his great-grand son. It may have been his way of testing his control over his sexual drive, but these women were used as guinea pigs. If he had used other adult women, it would have been nothing more than interesting gossip. But Gandhi chose a teenage blood relation and a great-grand-daughter-in-law for his sexual whims. I have no fear or hesitation in telling the truth about him. Ironically , it was he who instilled in me the mantra of `satyameva jayate'.

Gandhi's darker side was ignored but never forgotten.

But Gandhiji did give a great deal of space to women in the freedom struggle. For them it was a personal liberation.

Kusoom Vadgama: Gandhi mobilised the women of India. One of the reasons for his success was that his political rallies were called prayer meetings. Women attended in thousands not only to listen to him but also to have the `darshan' of the saintly man.

Earlier, Kusoom Vadgama too `worshipped Gandhi'.

He was Kusoom Vadgama’s God in Nairobi,Kenya, where both her parents were deeply involved in India's free dom movement.

In school, Kusoom Vadgama stud ied the glory and great ness of the British Empire, but spent all her time outside in protest marches and dawn processions, ordering the British out of India. she even shouted `Jai Hind' to the English school teacher, and thought she would be expelled.

Spirituality: How it shaped Mahatma Gandhi

IANS | Jan 29, 2014

Title: Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography

Author: Arvind Sharma

Publisher: Hachette India

Pages: 252

Price: Rs.550

This work captures the spiritual side of a man who played probably the most important role in helping India to become a free nation. The weapons he used were unique: truth and non-violence. This, author Arvind Sharma says, was part of his innate spirituality.

For Gandhi, morality and religion were synonymous. He made it amply clear that what he wanted to achieve was self-realization, "to see God face to face, to attain Moksha". His earliest influences came from Hindu lore. His parents were devout worshippers of the god Vishnu. It was part of this influence that Gandhi learnt to repeat the name of Rama - a Vishnu 'avatar'- to get rid of his fear of ghosts and spirits!

But Gandhi was no Hindu fanatic. He respected all religions equally. The New Testament made a definite impression on him. Theosophy made a deeper impact. He battled for Muslims. He was a true religious pluralist. But "if he did not find Christianity perfect, neither did he find Hinduism to be so". It was his faith in spirituality that clearly gave him the courage to act the way he did on so many occasions, even when it looked as if he was treading a lonely path.

Gandhi would say that the thread of life was in the hands of God. But unlike most Hindus he did not believe in idols. At the same time he worshipped the Bhagavad Gita - calling it his "mother" in later life. Even Nathuram Godse saw Gandhi as a saint - but a saint gone wrong and deserving to die.

The book has one gaping hole. There is surprisingly no reference to Paramhansa Yogananda, an iconic Indian saint whose "Autobiography of a Yogi" (published in 1946) is still considered a spiritual classic. Yogananda moved to the US in 1920 and for three decades preached Kriya Yoga and meditation to tens of thousands. On a short trip to India, he spent time with Gandhi at Wardha and taught the Mahatma and his aides Kriya Yoga. It was probably the only yoga Gandhi learnt. A self-realized guru, Yogananda called Gandhi a saint. I am surprised how Sharma overlooked this important spiritual chapter in Gandhi's life in an otherwise informed book.

Friends, international

Hermann Kallenbach and Gandhi

The Times of India, Sep 30 2015

Kounteya Sinha

Kallenbach was Gandhi's `wailing wall': Researcher

 Priceless documents discovered in Israel have revealed, for the first time ever, the role a Jewish architect played in creating the phenomenon that was Mahatma Gandhi. When Lithuania unveils the statue of Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach in Rusne on October 2, researcher Shimon Lev of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, who has extensively studied the archive, will reveal to the world the story of the deep friendship between India's father of the nation and his “soulmate“. Excerpts from Lev's exclusive interview to TOI:

How did you get your hand on the Gandhi Kallenbach documents?

Some years ago, I wrote a series of articles about a hiking trail across Israel. During my hike, in a cemetery near the Sea of the Galilee, I went to see the neglected grave of Kallenbach.I published a few lines about him, which resulted in an invitation from his niece, Mrs Isa Sarid, to “have a look“ at Kallenbach's archive. The archive was located in a tiny room in a small apartment up on Carmel Mountain in Haifa. On the shelves were numerous files carrying the name of Gandhi. One of the less known chapters of Gandhi's early biography was waiting for a researcher to pick up the challenge. Finding an archive like this might be the fantasy of any historian.

You call Gandhi and Kallenbach soulmates. Were they truly?

Their friendship was characterized by mutual efforts towards personal, moral and spiritual development, and a deep commitment to the Indian struggle. On a personal level, Kallenbach provided Gandhi with sound emotional support. He was Gandhi's confidant, with whom Gandhi could share even the most personal matters, such as troubles with his wife and children. Gandhi's letters to Kallenbach and documents in the archive reveal their relationship to be an extremely complex and highly unconventional one, with elements of political partnership and surprisingly strong personal ties for two such dissimilar men.

Any interesting anecdotes fom their lives that show their proximity to each other?

Kallenbach was Gandhi's “wailing wall“. When Harilal, Gandhi's eldest son, ran away to Delgoa Bay on his way to India in an effort to get the formal education his father denied him, it was Kallenbach who was sent to bring him back.

What was the unique historical significance in their encounter?

I think that one of most important contributions of Kallenbach is the establishment of Tolstoy Farm in 1910.It is impossible to over-emphasize the influence of the experiment on the formulation of Gandhi's spiritual and social ideologies. But what made their story even more unique was the “second round“, which took place in 1937, when Hitler was already in power. Kallenbach was asked by future Israeli PM Moshe Sharet to brief Gandhi on Zionism, hoping to get his support for a Jewish homeland. That is when Gandhi came out with the disturbing proclamation, The Jews, in 1938, in which he called the Jews to begin civil resistance and be ready to die as a result. Gandhi used Kallenbach as an example of the tension between his nonviolence doctrine and what was going on in Europe.

“I happen to have a Jewish friend...He has an intellectual belief in non-vi olence. But he says he cannot pray for Hitler. I do not quarrel with him over his anger...“

So the chronicles of their relationship traverse the dramatic events of the first half of the 20th century.

What was unique about this relationship and why isn't their relationship so widely known?

Kallenbach was Gandhi's most intimate European supporter. He was the one who Gandhi could mostly trust.

There may be a number of reasons for the general disregard of Kallenbach's contribution. Their forced separation due to Kallenbach's confinement in a British internment camp during World War I is partly to blame.Had Kallenbach gone to India, it is probable that he would have become the administrative manager of Gandhi's Indian ashrams. Moreover, the scarcity of first-hand sources regarding their relationship makes the study of his influence difficult.

Who inspired whom in the relationship and how?

Obviously, Gandhi was the one who inspired everyone else around him, including Kallenbach. He was the spiritual authority ­ no doubt about this. Kallenbach's Jewish family regarded him as one trapped by “Gandhi's spell“.

How will this statue help in telling their stories?

Well, definitely it will make their fascinating story more known. I claim that it is impossible to understand Gandhi without understanding his relationships with those close to him.Between 1906 and 1909, Gandhi underwent an extremely significant transformation, the result of which was that his doctrine became fully solidified. His partner in these crucial years was Herman Kallenbach.

Nelson Mandela on the Mahatma

Nelson Mandela, Divinely Inspired Extraordinary Leader, Jan 30 2017: The Times of India  

Mahatma Gandhi was no ordinary leader. There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort non-violence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimising the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and personal is at the heart of his philosophy . He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and society .

His philosophy of Satyagraha is both a personal and social struggle to realise the Truth, which he identifies as God, the Absolute Morality . He seeks this Truth, not in isolation, self-centredly , but with the people.

He sacerises his revolution, balancing the religious and the secular.He resuscitated the culture of the colonised; he revived Indian handicrafts and made these into an economic weapon against the coloniser in his call for swadeshi the use of one's own and the boycott of the oppressor's products, which deprive the people of their skills and their capital.

Gandhi's insistence on self-sufficiency is a basic economic principle that, if followed today , could contribute significantly to alleviating Third World poverty and stimulating development.

Gandhi predated Frantz Fanon and the black-consciousness movements in South Africa and the US by more than a half century and inspired the resurgence of the indigenous intellect, spirit and industry .

Gandhi rejects the Adam t Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality .

He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry .

He seeks an economic order, alternative to the capitalist and communist, and finds this in Sarvodaya based on Ahimsa ­ non-violence.

He rejects Darwin's survival of the fittest, Adam Smith's laissez-faire and Karl Marx's thesis of a natural antagonism between capital and labour, and focusses on the inter dependence between the two.

He believes in the human capacity to change and wages Satyagraha against the oppressor, not to destroy him but to transform him, that he cease his oppression and join the oppressed in the pursuit of Truth.

We in South Africa brought about our new democracy relatively peacefully on the foundations of such thinking, regardless of whether we were directly influenced by Gandhi or not.

Gandhi is not against science and technology , but he places priority on the right to work and opposes mechanisation to the extent that it usurps this right ... He seeks to keep the individual in control of his tools, to maintain an interdependent love relation between the two, as a cricketer with his bat or Krishna with his flute. Above all, he seeks to ... restore morality to the productive process.

At a time when Freud was liberating sex, Gandhi was reining it in; when Marx was pitting worker against capitalist, Gandhi was reconciling them; when the dominant European thought had dropped God and soul out of the social reckoning, he was centralising society in God and soul; at a time when the colonised had ceased to think and control, he dared to think and control; and when the ideologies of the colonised had virtually disappeared, he revived them and empowered them with a potency that liberated and redeemed.

Assassination

Godse’s first attack:1944 or 1947

Radheshyam Jadhav|Man who `saved' Gandhi in 1944 dies at 98|Jul 20 2017 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Veteran freedom fighter Bhiku Daji Bhilare, popularly referred to as Bhilare Guruji, who is credited in certain accounts with having saved Mahatma Gandhi from an attempt on his life by Nathuram Godse in Panchgani in 1944, passed away in Bhilar near the hill station on Wednesday . He was 98. In interviews given to several writers that have been published in the form of small booklets, Bhilare had said, “Everyone was allowed to attend Mahatma Gandhi's prayer meetings in Panchgani. That day , his associates Usha Mehta, Pyarelal, Aruna Asaf Ali and others were present for the prayers. Godse rushed up to Gandhiji with a knife saying that he had some questions. I stopped him, twisted his hand and snatched the knife. But Gandhiji let him go.“

According to records kept by Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi, Godse was overpowered by Bhilare and Manishankar Purohit, proprietor of a lodge.

However, in the opinion of the Kapur Commission, “the correctness of the incident of July 1944 and even its existence is unproven“. In fact, when Purohit deposed before the commission, he said the in cident happened in July 1947 and not 1944; there is no mention of Bhilare appearing before it. The commission, incidentally , referred to only a disturbance created by a group of men during a prayer meeting in July 1944 in Panchgani.

The commission of Supreme Court judge J K Kapur was set up on March 22, 1965 to probe the conspiracy behind Gandhi's assassination. Shortly after his release from the Aga Khan Palace where he was incarcerated in 1944, Gandhi contracted malaria and had gone to Panchgani to take rest on his doctor's advice.

In 2008, Dhirubhai Mehta, president of the Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, told TOI that “one of the Godse brothers“ had tried to attack Gandhi at Panchgani in July 1944 and that the “attempt was thwarted by an alert youth“. Mehta had said this fact has been documented in the memoirs of Gandhi's close associate Pyarelal. It also finds mention in a book written by another Gandhian, Chuni lal Vaidya, Mehta had said.

N D Patil, veteran freedom fighter and senior Peasants and Workers Party leader, who is in his 90s, told TOI on Wednesday that Bhilare had become a hero for youths like him in those days. “The news of Guruji saving Gandhiji from Godse spread everywhere in Satara. I was 15 then. Many of us students went on our cycles to meet Guruji. He had become an icon for us. He lived a simple life throughout and followed Gandhian principles,“ he said.

Born on November 26, 1919, Bhilare was active in the “parallel government“ movement in Satara district run by revolutionary Nana Patil and others.

After Independence, Bhilare represented Jawali assembly constituency in the state legislature for 18 years.

Sikkim governor and former Satara MP Shrinivas Patil, who hails from Satara and was close to Bhilare, said, “He was a guiding light and a veteran freedom fighter who always kept Gandhiji company . Bhilare Guruji played a great role in shaping my career.“

Bhilare was cremated on Wednesday with leaders from across party lines and common people gathering in huge numbers to pay their last respects.

Did Mahatma Gandhi see his death coming?

The Times of India

TNN | Jan 30, 2014

AHMEDABAD: Did Mahatma Gandhi have a premonition of his death just hours before he was shot at by Nathuram Godse? Strangely, there were a number of instances in the last 48 hours of Bapu's life in Delhi's Birla house when the Mahatma indicated to near and dear ones that he wouldn't remain amid them for long.

On the afternoon of January 29, 1948, the day before the assassination, an agitated member of a group of villagers who had been recently rendered homeless due to communal clashes, confronted Gandhiji and claimed that he had done enough damage. "You have ruined us utterly. Leave us alone and take your abode in the Himalayas," the angry person had said. This disturbed Bapu very much. That same evening, while walking to his prayer meeting, he had confided to his grand-niece Manuben, "The pitiful cries of these people is like the voice of God. Take this as a death warrant for you and me."

A few hours later, that afternoon, a four year old Rajiv Gandhi accompanying Krishna Hutheesing, Jawaharlal Nehru's sister and Indira had called on Bapu. Rajiv placed some flowers at Gandhi's feet. To this, Gandhi had playfully chided the little boy and said, "You must not do that. One only puts flowers around dead people's feet." These recorded incidents are part of a new book by Pramod Kapoor, 'My experiment with Gandhi', that explores these and lesser known aspects in the Mahtama's life.

On January 30, Gandhi battled thoughts of death more than just once. Bapu was feeling unwell and had woken up at 3:30 am. He was 'unusually disturbed with the 'darkness' that surrounded him. The darkness being, partition woes and infighting in the Congres. At about 3:45 am, he had surprisingly asked for a rendition of a Gujarati bhajan, 'Thake na thake chhatayen hon/Manavi na leje visramo,Ne jhoojhaje ekal bayen/Ho manavi, na leje visramo (Whether tired or not, O man do not take rest, stop not, your struggle, if single-handed, continues.)," claims Kapoor's book.

Few hours later Bapu was asked to take some penicillin pills that his doctor had left for him to cure a bad cough. "If I were to die of disease or even a pimple, you must shout to the world from the house tops, that I was a false Mahatma. Then my soul, wherever it may be, will rest in peace. But if an explosion took place or somebody shot at me and I received his bullets on my bare chest, without a sigh and with Rama's name on my lips, only then you should say I was a true Mahatma."

Later that day Bapu was in a crucial meeting with Sardar Patel when two leaders from Kathiawar came to visit him unannounced. On being informed of their coming, Gandhi had said, "Tell them that I will see them, but only after the prayer meeting and that too if I am alive."

After finishing his breakfast Bapu rested for a while and got up on his own. When he started to walk towards the bathroom, it was a strange sight for Manuben, his grandniece who helped him walk. "Bapu, how strange you look?" she said, a reference to the fact that he had not gone anywhere recently without her. To this, Gandhi had quoted Rabindranath Tagore, saying "Ekla chalo, ekla chalo (Walk alone, walk alone)". This was eerily accurate as the walk towards the prayer meeting was, in fact, his last lone walk.

Murder of the Mahatma: The Mumbai trail

Let’s Kill Gandhi

Tushar Gandhi

Rupa &Co

Dawn

Mahatma Gandhi was shot in Delhi. But the plot to assassinate him was hatched here, in what was then called the Bombay Province. It followed, therefore, that the investigation of the murder was placed under the direct charge of the Bombay deputy commissioner of police, Special Branch, J D Nagarwala.

Jimmy Nagarwala was a dashing Parsi officer whom the eminent writer Manohar Malgonkar described in his book The Men Who Killed Gandhi as having a film star’s cut of features.

He was chosen as Special Investigation Officer not only for his investigative skills but also because, fortuitously, he was neither Hindu nor Muslim and therefore had the crucial trump card of communal neutrality. After all, the Mahatma’s killing was as much an act of religious hate as a political one.

But to wind back to the plot itself. It was not as if Nathuram Godse had broken from the crowd in a sudden fit of impulse and fired three bullets into Gandhiji.

The radio announcements, ‘A madman has shot the Mahatma’ gave the erroneous impression of an extempore, wildcard attack, and Godse too, in his statement to the police, claimed that he had acted alone. This was of course proved to be completely untrue.

As it soon emerged, the young Nathuram, who shot, from a crouch of obeisance an old man hurrying to prayer, was no more and no less than the human trigger: behind the barrel of that 9mm Beretta lay months of planning and logistics, and a supporting cast of players.

Bombay, as it turned out, was the city in which three of the conspirators were apprehended; it was also the city in which key links in the assassination plan had been forged, and where the weapon was purchased.

A number of buildings in which the conspirators stayed before and after the murder, where they were arrested, and which were associated with the trial in some way, still stand.

In Tushar Gandhi’s provocatively titled new book Let’s Kill Gandhi (Rupa & Co), which is being launched at the Delhi Habitat Centre on Tuesday, there is detailed information on the Mumbai murder trail.

Tushar Gandhi, with the help of local history scholar Sharada Dwivedi tracked some of the buildings whose names have changed. All the facts in the book are mentioned in police records.

On the anniversary of Gandhi’s death, we go back in time and through this building trail—of hotels, lodges, offices, and even a temple—trace the footsteps of Nathuram Godse and the others from Marine Drive to Parel to Crawford Market and Carnac Road. The information here is from the book.

Gandhi in Delhi

Harijan Sewak Sangh museum

The Times of India, May 17 2016

Harijan Sewak Sangh museum, Delhi; Picture courtesy: The Times of India, May 17 2016

Harijan Sewak Sangh museum, Delhi; Picture courtesy: The Times of India, May 17 2016

Harijan Sewak Sangh museum, Delhi; Picture courtesy: The Times of India, May 17 2016

Harijan Sewak Sangh museum, Delhi; Picture courtesy: The Times of India, May 17 2016

Harijan Sewak Sangh museum, Delhi; Picture courtesy: The Times of India, May 17 2016

Richi Verma

A treasure trove of memorabilia from the times the Father of the Nation frequented the campus with his wife, Kasturba, lies in utter neglect

In a decaying hall in north Delhi's Kingsway Camp, the only surviving docu ment of the Poona Pact, a 1932 agreement between Mahatma Gandhi and Dr BR Ambedkar on legislatives seats for Dalits, lies under lock and key . It is among the rarest of rare items of Indian history . Yet it is not on display and lies locked away in a decrepit cupboard. That's best perhaps, because many other historic documents, mounted behind a smudged glass case, are almost falling to pieces.

A look around the airy , redcarpeted hall at the Harijan Sewak Sangh would give archivists a shiver. There are no indications that historical artefacts in that room have even the basic protection given by humidity controllers or acidfree mounting for the precious photographs. In fact, the white paint on the walls are peeling to show a bluish undercoat, there are ugly seepage stains on the ceiling and ageing doors and windows allow the elements -heat, wind, rain, cold -to enter.

And yet in this unique museum, rarely visited by anyone, there is a treasure trove of Gandhi memorabilia, including a steel plate and bowl that the Father of the Nation used during his frequent visits to the campus in the company of his wife, Kasturba. The three children of Gandhi's son Devdas were born in this ashram. The Harijan Sewak Sangh still has a boastful number of rare photographs, including one showing Gandhi nursing a leprosy-afflicted elder, as well as letters written by Gandhi, but all are in decrepit condition, brittle and falling to pieces.

When TOI visited the place, it found this repository a vic tim of official apathy with a handful of people trying to keep a legacy alive against the greatest odds. A dusty glass case displays letters written by Gandhi, the handwriting faded, the paper yellowed, but his signature still intact. “We have the original Poona Pact signed by Babasaheb Ambedkar and Ma hatma Gandhi signed on September 24, 1932 in Yerwada Central Jail,“ said an official.But this document, probably the only one in existence, and some personal objects owned by Gandhi and his wife are locked in a cupboard and seldom accessed by scholars.

The 21-acre ashram, museum and library are managed by the Harijan Sewak Sangh, an independent non-profit organisation. It was formed in the wake of Gandhi's fast at Yerwada Jail that resulted in the Poona Pact. “Gandhiji opposed the segregation of what was then called the Depressed classes of the Hindu community into a separate electoral group. He saw in it a sinister device of the British government to create a split in the Hindu community in furtherance of its policy of `divide and rule', reads a backgrounder at the ashram.

Officials said that after Gandhi's death, all his personal belongings were sent to the Nehru Memorial Museum, but most were returned to the Harijan Sewak Trust. The organisation's officials told TOI that they had neither the funds nor the resources to maintain the museum. “It would be our pride and joy if people came to see our Gandhi collection, but lack of funds limits our ability to maintain the museum,“ said Hira Paul Gangnegi, secretary of the trust.

Taking government help was contemplated some time ago, but the organisation's management felt the body would lose its independence.

“We plan to approach the state tourism department in a few months because we want visitors to come to the ashram. Among other things, we have a Kasturba memorial exhibition as well as the foundation stone of a deityless temple that Gandhiji laid. Gandhi's value may not have as much importance in today's economy oriented politics. But there is a past that India has to conserve. Yet that is exactly what is on the endangered list at Harijan Sewak Trust.Gandhi's value may not have as much importance in today's economy oriented politics. But there is a past that India has to conserve. Yet that is exactly what is on the endangered list at Harijan Sewak Trust.

See also

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi: In South Africa