The Death & Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi

Title: The Death & Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi

Author: Makarand R. Paranjape

Publisher: Random House India, 2015 (First published 2014)

ISBN: 9788184006803

Pages: 331

Mahatma Gandhi is the Father of the Nation. India never came across an abler leader than him in its long career. Without taking up arms, or raising his voice, or spilling British blood, he made the empire in which the sun never set see their folly and leave the country to its original inhabitants, but with Partition. Even today, Indians have not fully come to terms with the Muslim League’s premise that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations. Reviewing the post-independence history and observing the enormous chasm which separates the two countries’ political and social mores, one might wonder whether the League’s contention was indeed true. A country where Islamic law prevails is bound to be narrow-minded, bigoted and the minorities are accorded secondary status. Gandhi himself had to acknowledge this in an indirect way. When his program for Hindu-Muslim unity failed, he opted for amity, instead. When that too didn’t bear fruit, he settled for peaceful coexistence. Being a staunch devotee of god himself, Gandhi exhorted that religion should be uniting, rather than divisive. The bloody violence that followed Partition stunned the leaders. Gandhi’s efforts to stop the violence succeeded in India, while it continued unabated across the border. Moreover, he forced the hand of the Indian government to release Rs. 55 crores (nearly $ 1.2 billion in today’s money), which was withheld in the wake of Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir. This act of apparent treason prompted a few Hindu fanatics under the leadership of Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte to conspire to assassinate Gandhi. This heinous act was consummated on January 30, 1948. This book is an attempt to re-read Gandhi’s life and message, but also the idea of India by inquiring into the meaning of his death. Makarand R. Paranjape is a critic, poet, novelist and public intellectual. He has authored many books.

Gandhi’s ideals overwhelmed the domain of the political to flow into the spiritual realm as well. India reveres saints and ascetics, making its people somewhat naïve not to see through the plots of charlatans in the guise of religion. But Gandhi rightfully earned his place among the saints whom the people adore. His last words, ‘Hey Ram’, provided the icing on the cake, as a man who is devoted to the lord even in death. But, did he really utter those words? We have two testimonies in this book which are, however, contradictory. Godse testified that Gandhi uttered only a guttural cry of pain on being shot. Manubehn, on whose shoulders Gandhi was leaning while walking to the prayer podium clearly stated that he indeed whisper ‘Hey Ram’ while falling to the ground. Paranjape challenges Godse’s claim with the argument that the very loud shot of the pistol must have temporarily deafened the assailant and he might not have heard a thing of what the Mahatma said. But this point is applicable equally in the case of Manubehn as well, as three bullets were shot in quick succession in point blank range. In fact, the author himself quotes her as saying that “the bullets had been fired so near me, that for a while, my ears were deaf and I could not hear a thing” (p.15). How then could she lucidly hear the faint voice of the dying Mahatma? ’Hey Ram’ appears to be a clever stratagem in the posthumous beatification process of Gandhi, particularly when we know that he had publicly wished in many prayer meetings that “if somebody shot at me and I received his bullet on my bare chest, without a sigh and with Rama’s name on my lips, only then you should say that I was a true Mahatma” (p.109). This ironic comment made two days before the assassination might have been painful for those who loved him.

Most of the ideas and arguments Paranjape puts forward in the first half of this book is superfluous and pretentious. Godse’s motive in killing Gandhi is said to be the desire to bring about a Hindu Rashtra (nation) in India. But the removal of the father of the nation from the political scene in fact helped Nehru, who was a diehard secularist of leftist leaning, to acquire absolute power within the party and government. The assassination unsettled thinkers in a profound way as we see a comment in the book, reportedly made by Ashis Nandy, that the community of Chitpavan Brahmins, to which Godse belonged, should be targeted for the crime! The martyrdom of Gandhi has been so shocking to the national psyche which was not at all familiar with an act of patricide in its mythology, rich and varied thought it was. Consequently, it is referred to as a sacrifice or martyrdom, without referring to it straightforward as a murder. Assassination put a spell of ritual pollution on the country and we have been eulogizing his death than addressing the implications of his brutal murder.

Paranjape is a voracious reader and his familiarity with western conceptions of guilt and accountability related to the domain of psychoanalysis prompts him to churn out outlandish theories. Gandhi was the Father of the Nation. So when an Indian killed him, it must be an act of patricide. There are no instances of patricide in Indian mythology, but there is a convenient similar case in Greek mythology, that of Oedipus Rex who killed his father and wedded his mother, without knowing them to be his parents. Hence, what Godse did was a case of Oedipus complex and the author gets into a lengthy and dry hairsplitting analysis of two irrelevant theses put forward by Western thinkers like Girard, Deleuze and Guattari, Eugene W. Holland and others. A detailed review of the Bollywood film ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ is also given as if to prove the contemporary relevance of the Mahatma. Unrelated information like Godse’s alleged homosexuality is mentioned as if to place the last nail on his coffin.

The second part of the book on Gandhi’s last 133 days of his life spent in Delhi is neatly written, with his ideology put in sharp focus. His ahimsa (non-violence) is not the passive resistance of the feeble who dare not exhibit his violent temper before a formidable enemy, but the non-violence of the brave, who is not afraid to die for his convictions. He advised the Hindus and Sikhs of New Delhi against retaliating in the same coin in response to brutal murder, rape, pillage and loot inflicted on their co-religionists fleeing Pakistan for dear life. It is to be stressed here that rape of women began in Pakistan and Gandhi himself acknowledges this fact in his public speeches like, “it all started from there” (p.252), “after all, madness seized us only after it had seized people in Pakistan” (p.263) and ”if someone is asked to embrace Islam or be prepared to die, he must choose death” (p.273). But the Indians quickly learned the methods themselves and inflicted terror in equal measure on Indian Muslims fleeing to Pakistan. Later, the Mahatma himself became aware of the fallacy and sheer impracticality of his opinions like a truly chaste woman couldn’t be raped. In the end, Gandhi advocated violence as a measure of self defense, when Pakistani infiltrators attacked Kashmir in a bid to forcibly annex the state and claim a fait accompli. India airlifted its troops to Srinagar, obtaining the Kashmiri ruler’s signature on the accession pact in the bargain. Paranjape counters the arguments of the conspirators who killed Gandhi that he was weakening the Hindus and Sikhs and appeasing the Muslims. Several examples are cited, which prove the author’s point. The tone of the second part of the book is so fundamentally different from the first, so as to cause confusion among the readers on whether those are penned by different authors.

The book is gifted with a good index and extensive reading list. Notes section is comprehensive, but a few photographic plates would’ve added more interest to the readers.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star