Mahatma Gandhi has not been rendered obsolete yet. Hence his birth anniversary is sure to get some attention. The Congress Party is sure to remember him. The ruling BJP may pay lip service unless it can conjure up the lexicon that can create a new discourse on the palimpsest of the country’s history and thus absorb Gandhi into its crowded pantheon. Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin and a member of the RSS, said in his defence during the trial that what he could not stomach was Gandhi’s “infallibility” to which the Congress had capitulated helplessly. Godse went on to describe that infallibility as “eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision.” And Godse was right! Gandhi was on a relentless pursuit of the truth. The more he pursued it, the more convinced he became of the correctness of his approach. Hence he imposed his will on many people. Didn’t every prophet, every messiah, impose his will on his followe...
Cerebrate and Celebrate