Nation pays homage to Mahatma Gandhi on his 66th death anniversary

TrueSpirit1

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@feathers Do you want to discuss his legacy & contemporary relevance in Indian politics, society & life ?
 
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Blackwater

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Nation seems to forget sardar Patel who was the real hero
 

Ray

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How not to remember Gandhi

Ramachandra Guha

Working in the archives in Delhi, i came across a file of newspaper clippings collected shortly after Mahatma Gandhi's death. These dealt with various schemes to honour the Mahatma's memory. Thus, for example, in its issue of March 3, 1948, a paper named New Orissa reported that one Purnachandra Mitra introduced a resolution in the Bihar legislative assembly demanding that India be renamed 'Gandhistan'.

Meanwhile, the East Bengal Times of March 22, 1948, noted that a meeting of Hindu and Muslim ladies of Sylhet resolved to establish a Gandhi Memorial Hall, where "they would conduct a women's library, club, introduce cottage industries and would propagate the teachings of Gandhiji".

A far more ambitious scheme was reported in several national newspapers on March 1, 1948. On February 29, the Jam Saheb of Nawanagar had laid the foundation for a statue of Gandhi on top of a hill 15 miles north of Bombay, adjacent to a village named Chandivilli. The report noted the actual height of the hill - 694 feet - as well as the height of the proposed statue, 79 feet, presumably one for every year of Gandhi's life.

At this time, the Jam Saheb of Nawanagar was the rajpramukh (or governor) of the Union of Kathiawari States. Now, watching him lay the first stone for a statue of the greatest son of Kathiawar was his chief minister, the veteran Congressman U N Dhebar. The former rulers of Rajkot and Porbandar (states associated with Gandhi) appear to have been absent.

However, the Maharajas of Bhavnagar and Morvi were present at the ceremony, as were the lawyer-politician K M Munshi, S K Patil (the influential president of the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee), Dahyabhai Patel (son of Vallabhbhai) and the sheriff and mayor of Bombay.

The summit of the hill was to be named Gandhi Shikhar. If/when it reached its full height of 79 feet, the statue would be seen from miles around. The scheme also envisaged the construction of 79 pillars or stupas. These would be placed, at suitable intervals, around the foot of the hill, punctuating a one-and-a-quarter mile long perambulation or pradakshina. Each pillar would contain details (presumably in Gujarati and English) of an important event in Gandhi's life.

The scheme was the idea of Amritlal D Sheth, then editor of the Janmabhoomi group of newspapers. It does not appear to have gone beyond the foundation ceremony. A well-known Bombay historian, who lives in the city's northern suburbs, says he has never heard of it. Googling Gandhi/Chandivilli throws up no results either.

These many and various (and grand and sometimes crazy) schemes to honour Gandhi distressed those with a deeper understanding of his legacy. Social worker S Muthulakshmi Reddy complained that Gandhi himself would have wished not for statues and temples in his name, but instead for the furtherance of "his constructive programme for social and national service".

The then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, also deplored the mania to name so many things after Gandhi. The current craze, if not checked, might lead to thousands of roads, parks, squares named after him. This would be both empty symbolism as well as bad aesthetics. It would "not contribute either to conveniences or to the glory of the father of the nation. Only confusion will result as well as a certain drab uniformity. Most of us will then live in Gandhi roads in Gandhinagars or Gandhigrams".

Some ordinary citizens were disenchanted by this frenzy as well. In its issue of March 1, 1948, The Statesman printed a letter to the editor from an Indian resident of Rangoon named V Raman Nair. This presciently observed that the desire to memorialise Gandhi would be followed by similar proposals to honour, after their own deaths, other leaders of the freedom movement. And so "perhaps some hundred years hence the name of Mahatma Gandhi will stand for a town in Madras, of Pandit Nehru for a river in the Punjab, of Sardar Patel for a hair-dressing saloon in Bombay, and so forth".

Nair observed that "our renaming enthusiasts evidently forget that almost every existing name has a cultural and historical background, or may already be perpetuating someone's memory. To change that name is to attempt to perpetuate one memory at the expense of another. If every age had the same craze for christening and rechristening the Ganges, the Himalayas, and the Taj Mahal would now be known by a hundred cacophonous names. All the romance associated with them will vanish if Sabarmati and Santiniketan, for instance, are renamed after their founders".

I'd like to end with the views on the subject of Gandhi's foremost southern disciple, C Rajagopalachari. At the time of the Mahatma's assassination, 'Rajaji' was governor of West Bengal. Like Nehru and Muthulakshmi Reddy, he asked for social action, rather than statues or buildings in stone, to honour their dead leader.

Speaking on All India Radio, Calcutta, on February 28, 1948, Rajaji pointed out that Gandhi had lived and died for the cause of religious harmony. Therefore, the establishment of Hindu-Muslim amity would be the "only worthy and satisfying memorial over his ashes". And so it still remains.

The writer is a historian, author and essayist. Today is the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

How not to remember Gandhi - The Times of India
 

Ray

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Nation seems to forget sardar Patel who was the real hero
I heard that total fool with a woman like voice, Kancha IIaiah, whine that Patel's statue is OK, but what has he done for the Nation compared to Ambedkar and Nehru.

He wants a higher statue for Ambedkar because he was for social equality, which Patel cannot claim to be an equal.

This whiner should realise that if there was not the India in which he lives, thanks to Patel, then he would not have had the space to whine.

I fail to understand why this man brings in caste in all matters that he discusses on TV.
 

feathers

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So, it is paid. Right ?

Or, do you expect something more to be posted in this thread ?
What more can be posted in this thread other than paying homage to Father of the Nation.



The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee paying homage at the Samadhi of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi at Raj Ghat in New Delhi on January 30, 2014 on the occasion of his 66th Death Anniversary
 

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