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The Sabarmati Ashram |
Now that India has proved its might to the world by
flexing her muscles on its pet enemy’s national borders as well as TV screens, she
can get on with regular affairs like rewriting history. One of the places where
history is going to be reshaped is Mahatma Gandhi’s own beloved Sabarmati
Ashram. A sum of INR1200 crore (12,000 million) has been allocated for the
purpose.
The Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson,
Tushar Gandhi, has filed a petition against the project in the court saying
that “the proposed project will alter the topography of the century-old ashram …
and corrupt its ethos.” Some 200 buildings in the place will be destroyed or
rebuilt. In other words, Sabarmati won’t have anything to do with Mahatma
Gandhi’s spirit after the project is completed.
In other words, the project aims at evacuating
Gandhi from his own home.
Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon is preserved as a museum and tourist destination. All efforts have been made to maintain and restore the historic buildings and artifacts.
Russia maintains Tolstoy’s legacy at
his birthplace through the Yasnaya Polyana estate which is now a museum and
cultural centre dedicated to the writer. The Yasnaya Polyana estate
The above are two examples from
pre-Gandhi history. Gandhi may lose his soul from his own beloved Sabarmati
when the new project will be completed in two years from now because the
project doesn’t intend to keep the old buildings. New and ostentatious ones
will come up. Gandhi’s ideals of simplicity, austerity, and non-materialism
will be taken over by a sanitised, tourist-friendly monument. Gandhian
minimalism and self-reliance will be cast into the Sabarmati River.
Gandhian scholars and the ashram
associated have not been taken into confidence while the project was planned by
the Modi government. Instead people associated with the Ashram as well as
families who have lived and worked at the ashram for generations face eviction
and loss of their traditional roles in the place.
Well-known Malayalam writer Gracy opines
in her brief article in a periodical that the project is part of a political
conspiracy to replace Mahatma Gandhi as the national father-figure with someone
else. She doesn’t say who will occupy the position. Let’s hope it won’t be
Mahatma’s assassin. Source: India Today
Post-Script
The state of Gujarat, where this
gargantuan project is being enforced, is grappling with significant issues of
poverty and malnutrition, particularly affecting children under five. A
substantial number of children in the state are underweight and a significant
percentage of women face anaemia. For details: Gujarat
Among Worst In Child Nutrition And Hunger: NITI Aayog. Recall that the
Mahatma was a person who viewed poverty as a moral collapse of society,
stemming from what he called ‘seven social evils,’ including wealth without
work and commerce without morality.
Hari Om
ReplyDeleteI had not heard of this plan - and am gobsmacked (though on some levels, unsurprised, given the pattern of such choices already executed by Modi et al). The song choice on my blog this morning fits this nonsense so well! YAM xx
Yes, "They made us eat the tainted crop..."
DeleteHope the sites are documented as history before being rewritten.
ReplyDeleteDocuments vanish at snap of the finger.
DeleteWe are bad with all these things. We know how to mess such things up. I don't know why history can't be left to itself.
ReplyDeleteMessing up history is what's going on now. Every chaiwalla wants a 10 second place in history.
DeleteFascism survives on rewritten histories, doublespeak, culture of construction of alternative facts and Post-Truth.
ReplyDeleteSadly, this sort of thing has been done all throughout history. It's definitely a rewriting of what came before, by those that want history to reflect what they believe it should be.
ReplyDelete