Crime and Punishment

The Leftist magazine Mainstream in a recent issue carried a very interesting article by Shree Shankar Sharan, representing a Gandhian organization Lok Paksh. The article offered a constructive and rather innovative solution to deal with the Naxalites of Andhra Pradesh, a festering sore that refuses to go away. Drawing on their experiences in dealing with Maoists in Bihar, they suggested that the Naxalites be dealt with using Gandhian tactics (no not Gandhigiri!). Considering the relevance that we give Gandhiji and his methods today, and especially the questions that were often raised as to whether his methods and ideas would work with anarchist groups, it could have been thought to have been a utopian idea unworthy of any serious consideration.

As I think about it, I wonder why I or any one else should think of the idea as so far fetched and why we have always looked upon the Naxalites and other forms of extremist violence as something to be countered by force and not by any other means. There was a time when another group of people who were as lawless were actually won over to the path of peace through peaceful methods. In fact , one of Jayaprakash Narayan’s lasting contributions which has lasted(the Janata Party experiment of course did not last!) was to bring about a mass surrender of the Chambal dacoits in 1972. It was an event that TIME magazine, no friend of India then, deigned to cover it in fair detail.

Nor was JP’s effort the first of its nature. Our story goes back to the 1960's when Tehsildar Singh, son of legendary dacoit Man Singh wrote a letter to Vinoba Bhave from his cell in Naini Jail. He was serving a death sentence and wanted to see Vinoba once to discuss the problem of dacoity in Chambal and how to rid it of the curse. Although Vinoba was on a padyatra in Kashmir at that time, Tehsildar Singh's letter drew him to the Chambal. In May 1960, he went round the valley, spreading his message of truth, love and compassion Twenty dacoits surrendered their arms before him: it was a triumph of non-violence and human good sense. The dacoits were prepared to face the law courts and jail sentences courageously. The specially constituted Chambal Valley Peace Committee helped them in their efforts. After their release, they were given Bhoodan lands to lead a simple and peaceful life---they had no ambition of becoming film stars or politicians or gaining cheap publicity”

The story was again repeated when Arjun Singh was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh when the then bandit chieftain Malkhan Singh surrendered and then possibly for the last time in 2005 when a gang led by Arvind Gujar surrendered to the Madhya Pradesh police. The surrender was slightly different in the sense that the police admitted that the surrender took place as a result of as a result of pressure mounted by the police. Surrender enforced at gunpoint is not exactly the Gandhian method but perhaps still a better method than encounter killings, deaths and counter killings in retaliation. In fact after this incident, the whole route of peace and reconciliation seems to have been abandoned and all that one hears of are deaths, killings, ambushes and an ever increasing number of orphans and widows. Perhaps the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister should pay heed to the letter from the Gandhian leader and open the door for repentance and reconciliation and talks rather than go down the path of ruthless revenge that every one else seems to be taking.

Vinoba Bhave -Social Entrepreneur or Sacred Fool ?

A couple of days ago on the 11th of September was the 112th birth anniversary of a man who has now become so obscure that even the usual speech and garland the statue routine that we are so used to was dispensed with. In fact, it has been that way for many years now. Recently he appeared in the news because the well known author V.S.Naipaul has lambasted him in his book " A Writer's People" soundly calling him a “fool parody of Gandhi”. Yet in his time, he made it to the cover of TIME magazine, won the Ramon Magasaysay award for community leadership in its inaugural year(this year P.Sainath received it) and has been called one a great social entrepreneur by the Asoka Foundation along side the likes of Florence Nightingale. And to top it all, he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna.

Was Vinoba a fool or an eccentric entrepreneur? By the time, I came to know about him, he was past his prime and was derisively known as the “Sarkari Sadhu” the state approved holy man who could be brought forward to bless unpopular and controversial decisions. I remember two. When Mrs. Gandhi imposed the emergency in 1975, and was vehemently opposed by JP, Acharya Kripalani and a few other surviving Gandhians, she promptly paraded Acharya Vinoba Bhave who declared that the period of emergency was actually Anushashan Parva, a time of discipline. But because by that time, Vinoba Bhave was more or less considered senile, his pronouncement carried little clout.

On many other occasions, Hindu sants would go on an agitation demanding a ban on cow slaughter. This was some thing that Vinoba Bhave too was passionate about. But while the other sants were generally hostile to the government Vinobaji after a couple of days of token fast would be assuaged with some vague assurances and a glass of lime juice and often because Vinoba Bhave had a much higher stature than the typical Sadhu, the back of the agitation would be broken.
But there was a lot more to Acharya Vinoba Bhave than the eccentricities of his old age. He was the original Padyatri”, a man who was deeply learned in Eastern philosophy and skilled in mathematics. His utter simplicity of manner and dress belied the fact that he was at home in 18 Indian and foreign languages, including Persian, Arabic, French and English

Bhoodan is Acharya Vinoba Bhave’s lasting contribution, though in retrospective analysis, it was a movement that failed. But it is the sheer effort of the man that and the nobility of his motives that attracts attention. Writing as far back as in 1953, when TIME put him on its cover the magazine says that his popularity ranked next to Pandit Nehru in the post Gandhi era.

Vinoba Bhave and his followers vowed to collect 50 million acres of land from India's landlords by the simple process of "looting with love." The largest single gift was 100,000 acres from a maharajah. The smallest was one fortieth of an acre donated by a Telengana peasant who owned only one acre himself. By the time the Bhoodan movement petered out, Vinoba had walked 13 years, over 36,000 miles, accepting over 4.4 million acres of land.

Vinoba was a communicator, a simplifier, a translator of Gandhian thought. Though he had not one bit of Gandhi's humor or charisma, he could convince anyone. Bandits laid down their weapons at his feet and repented. As he himself said of himself and perhaps most of us – “Though we are small men we can stand on the shoulders of giants and perhaps see a little farther……” In today’s times, when so much of the unrest in our country is about land rights and unequal land distribution and the agitation is being fuelled by Naxalites and proponents, it is a pity that Bhoodan has not been given another chance.

Gandhi: An icon in History's dustbin

Every time a famous person passes away, I hear the familiar phrase “An era has come to an end”. May be yes, when such things happen, an era does come to an end. Celebrities who live long and illustrious lives often represent the aspirations and ideals of a generation and when they die, some thing of that time does pass into oblivion. Still the phrase has become a bit of a cliché, one has to admit. But I did feel that an era had indeed passed when I read in CNN-IBN that the British government doesn't think that Gandhiji is historically not relevant any more. A new national curriculum prepared for British secondary schools has recommended dropping of Mahatma Gandhi, among others, from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching.

Albert Einstein paying tribute to Mahatma Gandhi had said” Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood. Years later Gandhi was the person deemed as the Person of the 20th Century by Time Magazine. Einstein was right. A generation has come today in India and else where which scarcely believes that he existed or if he did exist that he has any thing to say to us today. And so slowly, the recollection of him is being rubbed out so that an age arises which will know nothing of his heroic contribution to the practice of ethical resistance and non violence through Satyagraha. And this truly is the end of an era for certain.

The Bible recounts the story of Joseph, who was kidnapped into Egypt, served as a slave and then eventually rose to be the Prime Minister of Egypt. At a time when the nation was under threat of seven consecutive years of famine, using God given wisdom and superb organizational skills, he was able to store and distribute food through out Egypt and its neighbors. Yet when the famine days were over and the victory was won and a new generation and a new king arose, they knew nothing of their history. For a while, it looked all was fine and all that history was irrelevant but in reality, without knowledge of the past and ignorant of its value in the present, their future was that of doom and destruction.

Questions have been raised in the past that Gandhi’s ideals were going to work only in the context of relatively genteel governments like the one the British provided or in the US civil rights movement where there was some desire to maintain a rule of law and basic fairness. Would it have worked against the Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union or the Nazi regime of Hitler? We don’t know for certain of course. There is always room for speculation that they might not have. Leaders like Netaji were possibly of the same or similar opinion – that they would either not work or take a very long time. How the Taliban might would have reacted to his non violence or may be the Naxalites? The fascist ideology fellow travelers that finally plotted and killed Gandhi provide us some clues of course of course about the kind of reaction that he aroused.

But then was Gandhi only a votary of non violence, a quaint but out dated idea whose time has come and gone? He was far more; at the least, he was a great mobilize of people, of a caliber that perhaps we may never see in a long while. A mediocre lawyer at best, he was able to get giants, aristocrats and commoners alike to take a relook at their lives and get them to undertake a costly and life long paradigm shift the likes of which are rarely seen. Besides he was an institution builder, a quasi spiritual leader an ethical conscience keeper and many other things beside. His Dandi march is considered one of the epic movements in civilization which connected with millions across of all of society.

It is possible to disagree with every thing that Gandhi thought and taught and still probably have to accept that Gandhi was an iconic figure. Such people will need to be understood and reevaluated in the context of the times they lived in and the times we live in , the audience they addressed and the audience before us today, the social realities and complexities today and then. All that is true. In 2007, we are evaluating the uprising of 1857 and so why not also apprise afresh Gandhi, who was born not too long after in 1869. Reassessing some one’s work, contribution and teaching from time to time is not only desirable but probably necessary. Declaring suo moto that some one is historically irrelevant is probably not

A Hymn to Ageing

Lago raho Munnabhai has by now become a Bollywood icon, well known for its bubbly, peppy and digestible presentation of Gandhian philosophy to a generation that knows little of and about him. For this, it has been applauded with good reason. But the attention to the Gandhigiri spawned by the movie has eclipsed the attention and spotlight that the film provides to another much needed focus – our senior citizens.

The attention and dignity accorded to the elderly through out the movie is truly laudable and there is even a lively, foot tapping song in the celebration of ageing. In fact the entire sequence around which Sanjay Dutt resorts to Gandhigiri is to restore to a group of senior citizens their house which has been unscrupulously seized by a builder. The bunch of happy go lucky senior citizens presented in the film have their travails all right but through the film , they are presented , not as objects of pity or charity but as people with their own rights to the pursuit of happiness.

Never does Vidya Balan as the vivacious and chirpy radio jockey cum part time care taker of the house ever reflect that her responsibility is a chore or the residents a burden in even the slightest of ways. The song Bara Aaane says it all .. That age , properly understood and supported is never a burden to be borne but a contagious joy to be shared.

This idea needs to be shared with increasing frequency. More and more people are living to longer lives but not all are living joy filled and purposeful lives. In fact a very large number are living out, empty, directionless lives without any other purpose other than simple sustenance from day to day. Often their families and our society itself is increasingly learning to weigh people by the thickness of their wallets and the length of their bank statements.

We have not yet found engaging roles for the wealth of experience, insight and life skills that they carry and that they can transmit to us and our children. After all, though their bodies may be frail, the minds are still sharp. Although globally, bodies like UNESCO, identify and celebrate "intangible human heritage", in front of our very eyes, men and women bearing the scars as well as memories of such epochal events of our history like the Freedom Struggle and the Quit India Movement of 1942, the Second World War, the monumental exodus of the partition, the witnesses of the wars of 1962, 1965 and 1971 walk before us day in and day out as repositories o our heritage, neglected, unwanted and uncared for.

There is much talk and justifiably so of the fact that we who live in the present are but custodians of the earth , its resources and all that God has entrusted to us so that future generations may inherit and use it. We are called to be responsible stewards to ensure that all of this happens. Munnabhai reminds us that we have some way to go.