Well, this post is intended to convey many things that i ve been thinking of the past few days now. Lets start one by one.
2 nights ago, we had quite a fruitful discussion over dinner. Every night, I used to talk about the orkut communities and what people are talking about reservation . I elicited a response but got none. Alekh is too involved in his theoritical computer science to think of such things( though he has great brains and good fundas, but they don't concern him, not superficially atleast). Suri is the cribboo types who will make irrational deductions on any topic, and then pass it off as it being 'his opinion'. He is judgemental, impulsive, cribboo..........unfortunately the traits of so many punjabis i ve seen. Tanmay again holds the 'moral' and the 'correct' virtues. He is about to make his life as an Oxford scholar and i won't be suprised if he wins a noble prize in medicine some day. But he wants to devote his life to basic research(not to industry research-making shampoos to stop falling hair and stuff), and it is more important to him than serving the nation or serving his fellow countrymen.
I am not being judgemental. I am not calling them 'bad' or ' insensitive' or 'selfish'. I would have been one of them had I not opened my eyes to the real me some time ago. Anyways.........
Anyways...the discussion revolved around several issues, and finally reached to 'Gandhi' vs 'Hitler'. Suri compared gandhi to hitler in the way that both had a great influence over the people, thanks to their mass appeal. But , in my opinion, the only way we can compare them is in this manner. They were different men, and different leaders in any other way.
Now, Suri said, that Hitler used his power( I'll define power as the ability to influence other people, their thoughts,actions and decisions) to kill Jews. Gandhiji used his power to make people kil themselves. By making people follow his ideals of non-violence, gandhi was killing them, or at least hurting them. And he is as guilty of being 'immoral' as hitler is.
Tanmay vehemently oppoised this by saying that killing is not the same as letting oneself hurt. Suri said its the same( the Tit-for-tat mentality i ve seen in so many people..the ego...which gets passed off in the name of self-respect. "Saale tune mereko gaali di...teri ma, behen$%#$$#%#$, YEh reservation maangne aa jaate hai saamay cle, mera dost to saaala SC ho ke car mein ghoomta hai and what not.." ) According to Suri, taking a life is as 'bad' as giving one. And then he took the examples of Lala lajpat rai who didn't respond to the lathicharge at Lahore because he was a follower of gandhi( and extremist, but no revolutionary was he), and he refused to respond to him.
And then he blabbered about the post-partition riots,and how gandhi was nothing but a propaganda man, who delayed our independence for so long because
a) he was 'representing' india in a way. He was there in all the round table conferences, the irwin pact, the mountbatten pact and what not. His popularity meant that alternative leaders and ideologies were not much sought after.
(b) His meekness meant that the british could delay our independence. He was not threatening or blackmailing them( as , some historians say, jinnah did to snatch independence for Pakistan).
Maybe it is true that Gandhi was merely a propaganda man. Maybe he was just another man who luckily stuck upon a novel way of revolting-Satyagraha; whose initial rebellions evoked a huge response, bigger in scale than the 1857 revolution or any extremist action till date. Maybe like all men of power, he wanted more power and sacrificed several thousand lives, so as not to compromise his relationship with the british.
Maybe he was like Hitler in this respece. A good leader, a rational man....who gave his country just what they needed, The germans needed to blame somebody for their voes and hitler gave them the Holocaust. The Indians needed a leader, a common roof to fight the British(Remember india was highly fragmented. There were a large no. of princely states, each asking for its own independence), and Gandhi gave them the will to fight, an ideology to uproot the british.
Historians say( and i belive too) that the Brits would have left hte country anyway, thanks to the World WAr II. I have read and heard of the precarious situation London was in, and England was just not able to withstand any more of struggle from the indians. HAd India been a profitable colony for them, then they would never have let it go. But they had to pump so much money and resources to sustain india, which could have been used to rebuild england.
Atlee and churchill were great statesmen, and again it is no joke that the British divided india before they left. The seeds of communalism, laid down by the British, but nurtured by indians themselves, had now grown so much that more than 10 lakh( maybe its too less) people died in the subsequent riots.
But then historians have found so many to blame for this. The indians blame jinnah. (atleast in the 9th standard NCERT books). Then some 'wise-cracks' say Nehru was responsible for it( especially after his inability to tackle the Kashmir situation and the fact that india lost the 1962 war because nehru did not know the attack capability of his own air-force).
Maybe Gandhi was just a father figure elevated by congress to god-hood so that they could stay for another 40 years in power. The congress banners even today carry his portrait. Maybe Gandhi wasn't THAT great. Maybe he was just one of the many leader instrumental for india's victory- but the unique way in which he did it(non-violence) and the fact that he was affiliated to INC, has made him as big as he is today.
Maybe what they say about the feuds between him and Subash chandra bose during 1930s is true.
My point is , even if the history that we know is factually incorrect, what difference does it make now?? Knowing hte real facts will only being more trouble. People will feel cheated. The history, however distorted it is, has served its purpose. The indians got a leader, a father figure, a man they could look up to and be proud of and brag about and what not.
I read an 'ekanki' in 10th. It was called "Mahabharat ki ek saanjh" and it was by Shri Bharat Bhushan Agarwal( Tanmay's grandfather incidentally). In it, the author nearly convinces the reader that the Kauravas were more 'correct' (dharm-pakshi) than the Pandavas. From Bhim's blow on duryodhan's thigh to krishna telling duryodhan not to go naked in front of his mother to the way they killed dronacharya to ashvathama to the killing of karn( highly 'akshatriya ' on arjun's part i believe) to the fact that yudhisthar put Draupadi on the cards, the Pandavas were wrong all through.
But my question is, SO WHAT?? So, one side was right and one was wrong. The story served its purpose- good over bad. It is meant to teach us something, and it does. Though Pandavas' actions are still not highly appreciated by everybody, and thats why Ramayana is considered a more revered book than Mahabharata. In ramyana, one kills a demon, in mahabharata, one kills humans, one own brothers, but it is justified by the recital of Bhgwad Gita.
Similarly, it shouldn't matter if Gandhi was wrong or Hitler was right. What they did was ultimately shown to be good/bad. Gandhi fought against colonisation and thus he has to be shown as good. Hitler killed people and so he must be shown as bad.This is nothing in fact. During the cold war, the entire concept of Capitalism was shown as 'bad'. So much so that many russians and chinese still proclaim communism over capitalism( notwithstanding the many civil liberties that they lack........its the history they have studies which makes the difference.)
a more striking example is that while Jinnah is shown to be responsible for the partition, he is worshipped as the father of the nation in Pakistan. There cannot be a better example of distorting history for one's needs. That is why, once Nehru was glorifies, his role in the creation of LOC is still not known to many people.
Now, I understand the importance of our history textbooks. For a long time( before Wikipedia and the internet in general), my knowledge of history has come from my history text-books, especially in 9th and 10th. And yes, they were highly similar to the NCERT text books. I am fortunate enough to look at these things the way i am looking now. But many of us do not want to budge from our stands ,and perceive things from a narrow point of view.
Its views and opinions like these only which lead to communalism and conflicts and religious fundamentalism.
Sometimes i wonder what prevented this world from turning into the nightmare that George Orwell surmised in 1984. Or what we see in so many sci-fi movies. Is it because human rights are still alive. Is it because of UNO. I am sure it is not because of USA, for sure. Even if it is against communism, it is still powerful and like all men with power, it wants more power. I know that the world is heading towards a uni-polar world. I know that no matter how powerful individual countries become, there will always be a country which is more powerful than that. I know that the next war will not be fought with nuclear weapons, but neither india nor pakistan would want 10 lakh deaths on its frontiers. Then maybe some foolish guy will pull the triggger, and somebody will drop a nuke. I know that there will be riots in France, and another genocide of Muslims like the ones in Rwanda and Algeria. I know that one day USA will attack Iran and then Syria and then Oman and then Saudi Arabia for Oil, and this will kill more lakhs and create a lakh more oppressed, destitute, homeless and angry frustrated palestinians vowing for the blood of the americans. I know that there will be huge riots between hindus and muslims in India, very soon.....and no matter how sane i sound now, my best friend will get hurt in it....and i will become a fanatic too.
I know its not too late to be human. We just have to open our eyes!!
