Is it time to replace Mahatma Gandhi’s Picture on Indian currency notes

Introduction

Ever since the birth of our Nation and the tumultuous process required to achieve that freedom from the hands of the British, there have been innumerable controversies regarding various topics that have yet to be resolved even today. The most controversial figure, perhaps — loved unconditionally by previous generations, scrutiny against him always side-lined — has only recently begun to face criticism against him in the mainstream.

There is indeed no introduction needed. The name Gandhi itself, truly has been given a legendary status, a status that was unquestioned for years and years, while any critics were instantly shunned by the masses that have lived in the shadow of the Godlike pedestal on which Gandhi has been placed. Even today, his name alone has given the Indian National Congress some sort of legitimacy. Truly impressive in every sense.

In order to truly analyse this topic, we must begin with the Man himself, and go through the controversial parts of his life, analysing each incident that accumulates and in turn creates a snowball effect of controversy.

Early Years In Politics South African “Adventures”

To truly unravel this mystery, we must first begin with his early years in the political arena. His entry into politics began from his South African past, so it is fitting to begin from there.

Gandhi’s own grandson, Rajmohan Gandhi, also his biographer, explains how the Young Gandhi arrived in South Africa, a 24 year old Lawyer, and in his own words was undoubtedly “at times ignorant and prejudiced about South Africa’s blacks”. He argues that “Gandhi too was an imperfect human being”, but the “imperfect Gandhi was more radical and progressive than most contemporary compatriots”.

A fair point by his grandson, but this is not the end to Gandhi’s “mischievous” racially motivated side quest in South Africa.

In 1893, Gandhi wrote to the Natal parliament saying that a “general belief seems to prevail in the Colony that the Indians are a little better, if at all, than savages or the Natives of Africa”.

In 1904, he wrote to a health officer in Johannesburg that the council “must withdraw Kaffirs” from an unsanitary slum called the “Coolie Location” where a large number of Africans lived alongside Indians. “About the mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel most strongly,” he wrote. During the Durban plague of 1905, he expressed his displeasure at Africans and Indians “herded together indiscriminately at the hospital”.

Not only all this, Gandhi firmly believed in the “Aryan Brotherhood” theory, which indeed ranks whites and Indians above the “blacks” on the civilised scale.

“But if Gandhi was part of the racist common sense of the time, then how does this qualify him to be a person that is seen as part of the pantheon of South African liberation heroes? You cannot have Gandhi as an accomplice of colonial subjugation in South Africa and then also defend his liberation credentials in South Africa.”. This was said by Ashwin Desai, Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg.

There are many more such incidents that display the “divine and impartial” mentality of Gandhi’s young mind.

While all of these are true, we could suppose that the man was just young, and was simply influenced by the indisputable British rule back home, simply a product of what the British wanted to dish out from their Indian colony; that his South African “stint” was just a product of propaganda and young immaturity. There is, however, a lot more to discuss.

The “Indian Arrival” Gandhi having finishing his “stint” in South Africa, set sail for his motherland from Cape Town on 19 July 1914 and reached Mumbai on 9 January 1915.

Gandhi had been invited by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a very well respected man within the Indian National Congress, a man with the liberal approach based on British Whiggish traditions. Gandhi was largely influenced by Gokhale’s ideas and took charge of the INC in 1920.

Gandhi was a very confusing man in terms of his vision to achieve freedom, a huge example is in the following:

“Gandhi raised an Ambulance Corps during the Second Boer War. Though he sympathized with the Dutch, he backed Britain. This was before Gandhi’s ideas about resistance to imperialism took shape. He believed that if Indians demanded rights as British citizens, it was also their duty to participate in the defence of the Empire. It was this reasoning that made him volunteer the services of Indians during the World Wars as well.”

A man so sternly against the Empire and yet pushes for conscription among his fellow Indians? What a man indeed.

An Era of Politics The Khilafat Movement

The Khilafat movement, which sprung about after World War I, as a movement to support the Ottoman Empire, an effort to essentially unite all Sunni Muslims under the Turkish Caliph and to realize the ever-long Muslim dream of creating an Islamic “Ummah”.

We are told that Gandhi had only pure intentions and since he looked upon all Indians as his fellow brothers and sisters, he supported the movement to “help” his Muslim Community of brothers and sisters.

But anyone with any sense of how politics works, knows the true intent behind that innocent halo that has been shielding Gandhi for decades.

The entire support for the Khilafat movement was merely a political play in order to garner the largely lacking base of support from the Muslim community, a way to show to the Muslims that he too cared about their beliefs and interests.

Indeed, in the beginning it had the intended goal achieved but it did have mixed reactions. The initial jubilant support that he garnered from the Muslims later became more subdued, while others such as Hindu leaders including Rabindranath Tagore questioned Gandhi’s leadership because they were largely against recognising or supporting the Sunni Islamic Caliph in Turkey.

Now this seems no different from any political figure merely playing on people’s beliefs to achieve their selfish ambitions, but what really stands out in this movement, is the beginning of Gandhi’s support for the Muslim community, while still playing on the innocent loyalty of the Hindus.

Now you may ask the question on why his favouritism to the Muslims matters even slightly.

An answer itself could be a question: Why is Jinnah blamed for the partition, why not Gandhi?

Gandhi is put through fiery criticism for unfairly leaning towards Muslims. The blames were ignited even further when Gandhi suggested Jinnah’s name for the first Prime Minister of independent India. But, according to Gandhi, that was his attempt at preventing the nation’s partition.

Gandhi’s alleged favouritism towards Muslims and Pakistan was among the major factors ultimately leading to his assassination by extremists in post-Partition, Gandhi went on a hunger strike, demanding Rs. 55 crores to be given to Pakistan. However, the sum mentioned was part of the terms of division of assets and liabilities between the two nations, post the separation. So who was to be blamed for Partition, and the innumerable headaches and wars that we still face today due to the partition? You decide.

Gandhi’s Alignment

“There were 17 PCC’s (Pradesh Congress Committee) back then and the British while leaving India asked Gandhi to choose the PM. Gandhi asked those 17 PCCs to write the name of the person whom they want to operate in the PM capacity. 15 out of 17 PCCs have mentioned the name of Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Only one mentioned Nehru’s name and the other was blank. Despite these results, Gandhi chose Nehru as PM because of his alignment. This has resulted in the Kashmir debacle which we are enduring till now”

Not only this but there are many other incidents, like the hanging of Bhagat Singh, that are a major indicator of the viscous hatred Gandhi held for those not aligned to his ideas and ideology.

Caste

To begin this most wonderfully controversial subtopic, let’s begin with a quote by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd:

“Gandhi was not a caste abolitionist. He was an abolitionist of untouchability. Gandhi was against abolition of caste and varna order because he knew that the caste/varna institution is the soul of Hinduism.”

We constantly live in the illusion that Gandhi was opposed to the Caste system. This is one of the biggest delusions that every Indian who has truly not understood his stance on caste lives on.

Gandhi explicitly recognized the “calculated degradation” to which upper-caste Hindus had subjected “the depressed classes” for centuries. However, at the same time, he saw the caste system as a kind of “divinely mandated social glue” of Indian society. For Gandhi, the unity of Hindu society was more important than equality for the Untouchables.

An example would be that in 1936, Gandhi argued that “Manual Scavenging”, the manual collection and removal of human waste, was “a most honourable occupation” and one of many vital services upon which Indian society was sustained. Gandhi suggested that a manual scavenger “does for society what a mother does for her baby — a mother washes her baby of dirt and insures his health”. The job of the scavenger was for Gandhi, to protect and safeguard “the health of the entire community by maintaining sanitation for it”.

This is true, it is indeed an essential job, but what is misunderstood, is that this was the job of the lower castes and untouchables, and Gandhi very much supported this “castely” responsibility. At the same time, he was also clear that the duty of the (upper caste) Brahmin was to “look after the sanitation of the soul”.

Gandhi may have wanted greater respect for India’s Untouchables within Hindu Society, but he wanted to achieve this by “Hinduizing” them. He wanted to avoid their political awakening, and by claiming that Harijans were “sacred” and “pure”, and appropriating the menial, disgusting tasks that were assigned to the Untouchables, Gandhi could support caste hierarchy and oppose Untouchability without any apparent contradiction. Gandhi’s idea (at least for the time-being) was to allow the caste system to carry forward, while also trying to integrate the lower castes into the same society that continually, systematically discriminated against them.

In 1922, “Mahatma” Gandhi wrote this about the Caste system. He wrote that the caste system was:

“…responsible for durability of Hindu society, seed of swaraj (freedom), unique power of organisation, means of providing primary education and raising a defence force, means of self-restraint, natural order of society,and most important of all, eternal principle of hereditary occupation for maintaining societal order. ”

Gandhi also wrote:

“The callings of a Brahmin — spiritual teacher — and a scavenger areeq ual, and their due performance carries equal merit before God, and at one time seems to have carried identical reward before man. Both were entitled to their livelihood and no more. Indeed one traces even now in the villages the faint lines of this healthy operation of the law.”

To Counter this confusing stance, Ambedkar wrote:

“If the Mahatma believes, as he does, in everyone following his or her ancestral calling, then most certainly he is advocating the Caste System, and in calling it the Varna System, he is not only guilty of terminological inexactitude, but he is causing confusion worse confounded.”

A befitting statement to a man who not only advocates for the installation and further application of the caste system on Indian society, but influences poor, illiterate “untouchables”, to believe that their status and responsibilities are equal to that of the Upper Castes.

During the 2018 Jaipur Literature Festival, Dalit writer Sujatha Gidla also iterated Gandhi’s casteism. Gidla said:

“Mahatma Gandhi was a casteist and racist who wanted to preserve the caste system and paid lip service to Dalit upliftment for political gains. He really wanted to preserve the caste system, and why he paid lip service to the upliftment of untouchables is because Hindus needed a majority against Muslims for political representation in the British government.”

Scholars and historians argue that Gandhi’s outlook on caste changed over the decades, especially after interactions with other leaders and politicians across the country. Nevertheless, his thoughts and words had already had a lasting impact on society, particularly as he was hailed as the most prominent figure in the fight for freedom.

Women & Gender

To truly understand a Man’s respect and view on women, we must look at the way he treats his wife.

Let’s begin to look at the way Gandhi treated his wife.

Gandhi’s sexual perversions were, according to him, a means to resist carnal temptation. However, he also practiced celibacy in his marriage. Kasturba, his wife of over two decades, was denied sex for years after bearing his children. Critics have also pointed out how Gandhi had mistreated his wife. In some cases, he had forbidden Kasturba from keeping gifts that were meant for her. Earlier in their married life, Gandhi was said to have compared his wife to a cow. Gandhi said he could not bear to look at Kasturba’s face, because it gave the impression of a “meek cow” trying to say something.

In 1943, when Kasturba had contracted an illness and was haemorrhaging badly, Gandhi allegedly wrote to her: “My struggle is not merely political. It is religious and therefore quite pure. It does not matter much whether one dies in it or lives. I hope and expect that you will also think likewise and not be unhappy.” Gandhi also forbade doctors from giving his wife penicillin, arguing that it was an alien medicine and stating that: “If God wills it, he will pull her through.” God did not will it. His wife died on February 22, 1944, after months of suffering. The same terms did not extend to him, however — weeks after the death of his wife, he was cured of malaria with quinine.

In 1946, Gandhi asked his 19-year-old great-niece Manu to sleep in his bed in order to test his sexual desire and vows of celibacy. He was in his 70s then. These “experiments” began when his wife had passed away.

“Bapu is a mother to me. He is initiating me to a higher human plane through the Brahmacharya experiments, part of his Mahayagna of character-building. Any loose talk about the experiment is most condemnable,” is what his niece wrote in his personal diary about these experiments.

In her book Sex and Power, author Rita Banerji, writes that Gandhi, “believed menstruation was a manifestation of the distortion of a woman’s soul by her sexuality.”

Gandhi also held strong views on women and rape. He wrote, “I have always held that it is physically impossible to violate a woman against her will. The outrage takes place only when she gives way to fear or

does not realize her moral strength. If she cannot meet the assailant’s physical might, her purity will give her the strength to die before he succeeds in violating her… It is my firm conviction that a fearless woman, who knows that her purity is her best shield can never be dishonoured. However beastly the man, he will bow in shame before the flame of her dazzling purity.”

Gandhi’s behaviour around females would eventually become very, very odd. He took to sleeping with naked young women.

Gandhi cemented, for another generation, the attitude that women were simply creatures that could bring either pride or shame to the men who owned them. For a man that is well known for championing the participation of women in the freedom struggle, his regressive attitude towards women comes as a shock, even for his time.

Partition

While many people staunchly claim that MK Gandhi was against the Partition of India, it was he who later supported the Congress, putting the blame of partition on the Hindu and Sikh community as well. “The Congress never asked for it. But Congress can feel the pulse of the people. It realized that the Khalsa as also the Hindus asked for it,” he was quoted.

Reportedly, Gandhi had at first proposed to make Jinnah as an interim Prime Minister of the country. He had made an attempt to satisfy Jinnah’s long-standing ambition to establish power and hence kept him away from his insistence on Pakistan. But, later Gandhi himself withdrew the offer as Jinnah had earlier rejected one similar proposal. It is Gandhi, in the end, who saw no option but to approve the partition of country.

Later in September 1947, after the partition, Gandhi also began showering his worries for Pakistan and the Muslims of Delhi. He claimed that Muslims were not safe in Delhi. He met Maulana Azad and laid down some conditions in favour of Islamists. He demanded that the annual fair (Urs) should be organized peacefully at Khwaja Bakhtiyar Dargah of Mehrauli. He also demanded that the 100 mosques in Delhi that have been converted into refugee camps – be brought back to their former status.

Apart from this, he demanded free movement of Muslims in Old Delhi. Non-Muslims should not object to Muslims returning from Pakistan. Muslims should travel fearlessly in trains. Economic boycott of Muslims should not be done. And Hindu refugees should be settled in the territory of Muslims only if they get permission from Muslims. Gandhi also blackmailed the then Government of India to lend Rs 55 crores to Pakistan.

In 1946, he had also famously said that “Before partitioning India, my body will have to be cut into two pieces”. Over the years, many accounts of the partition have claimed that Gandhi was more-or-less kept out of the loop of the final rounds of negotiations, hence, rendering him the role of a mere spectator.

Conclusion All these subtopics upon which the article is based are just a few of the innumerable controversies that Gandhi is infamous for, but we have touched upon the most important of them.

These subtopics are not to shame Gandhi, nor throw dirt on his legacy as a freedom fighter, but to merely answer the very question that has been the topic of this Article, “Is it time to replace Gandhi’s picture on Indian Currency Notes”.

The simple answer is Yes.

The importance of Gandhi in the struggle for Indian freedom, although racked with plenty of controversy, cannot be disregarded. Gandhi did indeed fight for our independence, but for a nation that has called itself home to the oldest civilizations in history, it seems as if us Indian people only recognize our history beginning from 1947.

Besides, Gandhi wasn’t the only freedom fighter, the truth is far, far, from that. He was just one of a huge amount of freedom fighters, but merely gained mass support due to “his” ideology. Attempting to suggest that his portrait be replaced with that of other freedom fighters is, again, a chore of great difficulty, for almost all his compatriots at the time most definitely had similar, regressive views — if not worse. Holding these personalities from a century ago to current moral standards is not fair, but neither is it wise to continue to glorify them at a time when their outlook on society can well be disregarded. An unavoidable end-result of any kind of “hero-worship” is that they are bound to face kickback against secondary, even minor controversies that they may have been part of. Discussions on Gandhi’s thoughts on race, etc., take away from his contributions in the struggle. It would be much easier for the masses to accept him to have been a flawed individual, just like everyone else, if he weren’t so glorified and patronized to be some seemingly perfect person.

We could argue that even by his own ideology, as a man so firmly based on the Vedas, who preached the Beauty of the Bhagwad Gita, that the amount of praise and worship that goes on over his name must be waned as that is against the so-called values that he taught.

In simpler words, the man lived a spectacular life, no doubt, and helped the freedom movement, no doubt. But India is far beyond just independence from the British, we are truly far more than just associating a country with the oldest civilizations, to one man who we aren’t even sure was a good man or not.

This is nothing short of truly shameful.

It is high time indeed to replace his image on our currency and replace it with images that boost the morale of Indians, that remind them of their irreplaceable heritage, images that truly make being Indian, a proud statement, not one that must be said meekly.

Thank You!