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Letter
from New Delhi
Mahatma
Gandhi, India and Mauritius
--
Atul Dev
I
am sitting down to write this week’s letter on 2 October
2006, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday anniversary. In India this
day is observed annually as a national holiday to remember
the Father of the Nation. It is a sheer coincidence that
this year 2 October is also the date for Vijay Dashmi
or Dussehra. Not-withstanding the name you give it,
depending on which part of India you celebrate the occasion,
it marks the victory of good over evil. The day of Dussehra
marks the triumph of Lord Rama over the demon king, Ravana.
Lord Rama was known for his strict abidance to truth, virtue
and righteousness. His main role was to exemplify the laws
of virtue. Lord Rama, thus, symbolised a perfect life and
those who follow the path laid by him, it is said, will
enjoy peace. Dussehra marks the end of a long-drawn
war, the beginning of an era of peace and in contemporary
times Mahatma Gandhi is best remembered as the world’s
greatest apostle of peace. Isn’t that a great coincidence
that these two dates coincide this year?
In
Mauritius as in India, the festival of Diwali is
celebrated to mark the return of Lord Rama with his wife
Sita and brother Lakshmana to Ayodhya after the great
victory over Ravana. To celebrate their return, people lit
oil lamps along the way to light their path in the darkness.
Thus began the tradition of the festival of lights, which is
also called Deepavali by many. Diwali is
celebrated exactly 21 days after Dussehra. The dates
for Dussehra and Diwali are based on the Hindu
calendar, which has solar sidereal years and lunar months.
Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, on the other hand, is
celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar and thus is
always on 2 October. It is hoped that the coincidence this
year will augur well for everyone.
To
mark this day this year, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan
Singh has travelled to South Africa. He retraced the steps
taken by travelling on the train Mahatma Gandhi was pushed
out of. The four-coach train, with its cushioned first class
compartments and its wooden slatted third class, is the
exact replica of the one that Mahatma Gandhi, then a
24-year-old lawyer, started his journey from Durban, on a
first class ticket, to Johannesburg, when he was thrown out
of the train because of his skin colour at Pietermaritzburg
railway station en route. A plaque on the platform of this
small, and now disused, railway station marks that event
that put Mahatma Gandhi firmly on the path of satyagraha
(philosophy of non-violent resistance), truth and firmness.
The plaque simply reads… “In
the vicinity of this plaque M.K. Gandhi was evicted from a
first class compartment on the night of 7 June 1893”.
To
readers of Mauritius Times, it is no great revelation
that most Asians in South Africa have descended from
indentured Indian labour brought by the British from India
in the 19th century, mostly to work in white-owned sugarcane
plantations. Thousands of poor and illiterate Indians were
thus contracted to go to South Africa with promises of
attractive wages and repatriation after five years or the
right to settle in that country as free men after the
indentured period. This is a story identical to that of all
the people of Indian origin in Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana,
Surinam and Trinidad & Tobago.
To
revert to our story Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, then a young
24-year-old barrister, arrived in South Africa in 1893 to
represent an Indian trader in Natal in a civil suit against
an Indian trading firm in Pretoria. Within days, he
encountered bitter humiliation because of his skin colour
such as the experience of being thrown out of a first-class
train compartment and even being assaulted for walking on a
footpath marked “For Whites Only”. These experiences
made him mentally and emotionally stronger. He decided never
to accept or be resigned to injustice due to racism, but to
resist it with all his might.
There
was a time when people associated the practicing of
non-violence only with rishis (saints and sages) of
ancient times. It was thought that non-violence was suitable
only for sanyasis (monks) and sadhus (ascetics).
Mahatma Gandhi, perhaps for the first time, declared that
non-violence is not an individual but a social virtue. He
proved that it could be practiced by all, not just by
individuals, but collectively as well.
Satyagraha
and Sarvodaya (welfare of all) are Mahatma Gandhi’s
most significant and revolutionary contributions to
contemporary political thought. His strength lay in the way
he fused truth and non-violence in both theory and practice.
Gandhism, in my opinion, is more of an attitude and a way of
life rather than an ideology. Some well-known authors of
today have noted and written that Albert Einstein, Martin
Luther King, Dalai Lama and all other world peace movements
have followed in his footsteps. Perhaps Nelson Mandela and
Seewoosagur Ramgoolam should also be added to the list of
these greats who followed in Mahatma Gandhi’s footsteps.
With
Bollywood production Lage Raho Munna Bhai having
revived interest in Gandhism, and even having given us a new
term Gandhigiri, the youth have suddenly become
willing to experiment with the idea. Gandhigiri, for
instance, inspired some youths in Lucknow to distribute
roses as their form of protest against a wine shop rather
than adopt any aggressive posture, which is indeed the norm
during such protests.
It
is an interesting point to conjecture whether Mahatma Gandhi
would have developed the same worldview that he did, had he
not had a chance to go to Britain. If we look at Mahatma
Gandhi’s choices, such as vegetarianism, celibacy, truth,
non-violence, giving up western
clothing in favour of the traditional Indian dhoti,
his emphasis on using the right means to achieve right ends,
it is quite clear that Western influences were not that
marked on Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, by comparison, he
understood Indian issues in the correct perspectives. Also,
going by what we read of Mahatma Gandhi’s childhood and
youth, the values of truth and non-violence appear to have
been inherent in his character right from the very
beginning. Even if he had not left the shores of the
country, chances are that he would have arrived at the same
conclusions albeit through a different set of experiences.
It
is well known that Mauritius’ first Prime Minister, Sir
Seewoosagur Ramgoolam was an ardent admirer of Mahatma
Gandhi. He followed in Mahatma’s footsteps to work
tirelessly for his country to gain independence from the
British without any bloodshed, thus earning for himself the most
affectionate and venerated title of
Father of the Nation.
It
was during his student days in London that Ramgoolam came in
contact with many famous Indian students and became a member
of the Indian Students’ Association where he made lifelong
friendships. In 1922, Ramgoolam, as a young medical student,
even took a leading part in the reception committee in
honour of Lala Lajpat Rai, the Lion of Punjab, who was
revered in India as a great nationalist and exponent of Arya
Samaj. Interestingly Ramgoolam soon got involved deeply
in the student movement in Britain for India's independence.
It is also well known that he was a regular reader of
Gandhi’s weekly newspaper -- Young India. Later he
even had the opportunity of meeting with and talking to
Mahatma Gandhi when the latter was in London to attend the
Round Table Conference in 1932. He was deeply impressed with
Gandhi’s method of non-violence, peace and harmony.
A
very perceptive and deep-thinking Ramgoolam saw the Indian
freedom struggle as spearheading the world's decolonisation
movement. He felt that all colonized countries, including
Mauritius, had the same fate and thus needed to stick
together. It has been reported that this deep conviction in
common goals and ideals was the basis of his firm
conviction, years later, in Mauritius joining the
Non-Aligned Movement, spearheaded by Nehru, Nasser, Tito and
Sukarno.
Soon
after Indian Independence, people in Mauritius were equally
impatient for political developments on their soil. On the
declaration of Indian independence, the Indian flag was
flown on the roof of many homes in Mauritius. The rural
population, composed largely of people of Indian origin,
identified themselves thoroughly with independent India, the
source of their pride, dignity and inspiration. In the same
year, Dharam Yash Dev, himself an active participant in
India’s freedom movement in Britain and India and a
staunch Arya Samaji, was nominated as the first
Indian High Commissioner to Mauritius. Sir Seewoosagur
Ramgoolam took this opportunity to ride on the popular crest
of Indian nationalism by associating himself closely with
the first Indian envoy. Thus was started a close
Mauritius-India friendship relationship at historical,
emotional and diplomatic levels which has stood the test of
times till today. This also laid the foundations of the
independence of Mauritius which was to follow some 20 years
later. Like India, Mauritius too had followed in Mahatma
Gandhi’s footsteps!
I
will conclude by simply stating that thoughts of Mahatma
Gandhi are still relevant in today’s modern world, whether
we call them Gandhigiri, as popularized by the
Bollywood hit Lage Raho Munna Bhai, or give them any
other name.
(Atul
Dev is a New Delhi based senior freelance journalist. He
writes a weekly column for Mauritius Times.)
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