Mahatma Gandhi's great-grandson fears India is once again entering a time of hate

Day 610:17Mahatma Gandhi's great-grandson on his family legacy, and India's future

Tushar Gandhi says that as politicians have used societal division as a political tool to get elected in India, hate has been normalized in the country.

Tushar is the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian lawyer who helped lead his country to freedom from British colonial rule in 1947.

But, after 10 years of rule by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Tushar Gandhi says his great-grandfather's legacy has been openly attacked and even vilified. 

Tushar says groups have blamed Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1948, for the violence that happened during the partition of India and Pakistan, and people have accused him of being a "Muslim appeaser" and "anti the benefit of Hindus."

And Tushar says he takes partial blame for the damage done to his great-grandfather's legacy, as well as the division in the country.

Tushar Gandhi is a writer, activist and the director of the Gandhi Research Foundation. He spoke with Day 6 guest host Stephanie Skenderis. Here is part of that conversation.

It's been 77 years since your great-grandfather and his generation won independence for India. When you think about that in the context of the last 10 years of Narendra Modi and his ruling BJP, what comes to your mind?

What we have managed — and I wouldn't blame only Modi and his government for this, but I blame all of us — is that in these 77 years, we have managed to create an India of our founders' worst nightmare.

And that is very sad, but a reflection on all of us who believed ourselves to be the carriers of the legacy of Gandhi and the founders of India. A pluralistic, inclusive India that they dreamt of, we have turned into an isolationist, intolerant and a brutal India, unfortunately.

Last week you went to participate in a Quit India Day event. Quit India was a movement started by Mahatma Gandhi in 1942. It demanded the British quit India, to leave India. Now, this is something you participate in every year. But this year was different, right? Briefly, what happened?

Well, suddenly the police considered us to be a threat to the law and order situation. And at the last minute decided that we would not be allowed to do our peaceful march, which lasts only about an hour, and so they served notices on our leaders. 

And when I left home to join the march, I was stopped and then taken to the police station and kept over there for three hours and only allowed to go after 11, three and a half hours later. And this was the first time that suddenly a bunch of peaceful citizens and not even a mob, just about 50 of us come together every year. And our leader [G.G. Parikh] is a 99-year-old freedom fighter. You know, we were considered to be a threat to the peace and the law and order situation. 

So it was surprising. But I guess we have to get used to these kind of restrictions on liberties.

What does that tell you about the state of things in your country?  

I pity our rulers who feel so threatened by a bunch of people whose only intention was to carry forward the message of love, to conquer hate, which is becoming predominant in Indian society, and which is tragically becoming very normalized. 

Hate and violence are becoming normalized very rapidly. And so we thought that we would use this Quit India anniversary to start a campaign of love against hate, and take the message of love as an antidote to the venom of hate. 

And so our slogan was going to be, "hate, quit India" and let's join hearts with love. And unfortunately, the administration thought that was a dangerous message to be allowed, and so we were stopped.

What is the hate that you're seeing? What are the divisions that you're seeing?

Indian society was never really united. We have always been divided on caste and regionality and languages. 

At the time of freedom, the division between religions resulted in the partitioning of our subcontinent, and the tragedy of the partition is still very much alive. Now we are divided right down to caste and gender lines, and those divisions are also threatening to, sort of, endanger the idea of India, which our founders had.

And despite all the disparities for 70 years, we lived pretty peacefully. It's only in the last eight years where hatred as a tool of political dominance has been very successfully used and we have succumbed to that. 

And I think it is because the prejudices were never dealt with. The prejudices remained and it was very easy for political opportunists to exploit them and ensure that they had electoral success.

I think for many people outside of India, your great-grandfather Mahatma Gandhi is totally recognizable, pretty synonymous with India, and is still broadly seen as a great historic world figure. What's happening to his image now in India? How is he being seen today?

His image now in India is an object of hate and ridicule and insult.… He is no longer the father of the nation and they refuse — very openly refuse — to accept that. And the new India that is being forged, the Hindu India that is being forged, doesn't deserve a person like Gandhi. 

How do you explain to people outside India how and why [Gandhi's] image has changed so much?

For a long time after having him murdered, the ideology that hated Gandhi carried on a campaign of disinformation against Gandhi. And unfortunately, Gandhians — people like me who claimed to be Gandhians — kept turning the other cheek and ignoring this campaign and saying that, you know, we don't need to respond. It'll go away.

Two or three generations grew up believing those lies to be the truth. Blaming Gandhi for the partition [of India and Pakistan], blaming Gandhi for the horrors that happened after the partition, blaming Gandhi for being a Muslim appeaser. Blaming Gandhi for being anti the benefit of Hindus. 

All these arguments and charges against Gandhi, two to three generations have grown up believing them to be the truth, and they are in the forefront of hating Gandhi. 

And unfortunately people like me, we behaved like ostriches and said that these people, the lunatic fringe, will go away. Lies don't last, truth lasts. But unless the truth is spoken of, it is not heard. 

That is where we are, and that is where we contributed to this situation, where today Gandhi is on the margins and we are even more on the margins because of our inactivity.

Do you see a way back from what's happening in your country? What do you think needs to change?

Being a believer in Gandhi, I am always an optimist. I never give up hope. And so as long as I am allowed, I will continue to keep fighting, spreading my message. 

Unfortunately, now, because we have less people willing to listen to our message in India, we have to take it out to the world. And so I based my strategy on the message that my great grandfather gave to the world in 1930 … when he, to a Canadian journalist ... gave this message saying, "I want world sympathy in this battle of right against might." 

Today, the liberal, secular, inclusive voices in India are fighting the battle of right against might. And once again, we need world sympathy in that.