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More than a saint

For many of his countless admirers and followers, the greatest tribute to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is that he was a Mahatma — a great soul who led an exemplary life with a once-in-a-millennium commitment to the practice of non-violence and the pursuit of truth. A saint among political activists is rare indeed. But to raise Gandhi to the level of demigod by overemphasising his saintliness at the cost of his politics is to do him, and India's complex freedom struggle, gross injustice. The Mahatma was first and foremost a leader of millions of ordinary men and women in the cause of India's freedom, who displayed a genius for mobilising a whole people and an inchoate nation against colonial rule. The political movement he spearheaded succeeded because its ideals were drawn from the prevailing situation. Satyagraha and civil disobedience were potent tools of agitation against oppression, not attempts to dress up passive resistance in moral attire. Gandhiji did privilege self-sacrifice as a lofty ideal but this was in opposition to violence, the infliction of hurt on others. His appeal to Indians thirsting for freedom was based on a combination of enlightened self-interest and self-sacrifice. Everyone had a place in the movement — not just those ready to give up life and livelihood for the cause. Gandhi was no spiritual guru holding up hope of rewards in another world in return for sacrifices made here and now. As he once wrote: "To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare appear is work and promise of food as wages."

For Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a political leader of unimpeachable personal integrity, the visit to South Africa where Gandhiji developed the philosophy and method of satyagraha a hundred years ago was an opportunity to reiterate the continued relevance of the Mahatma's ideals (although not all his ideas) in a volatile age. Satyagraha became a winning political weapon in India's freedom struggle. Even today in India, fasting is the preferred mode of protest of the powerless against the state. `Gandhigiri,' which the film Lage Raho Munnabhai has popularised, will not work in all situations but it continues to have moral resonance and mass appeal. A satyagrahi is an agent of change, drawing strength from his or her convictions placed in context. Thus the `this-worldliness' of Gandhiji's thinking, placed in context, is crucial to the appeal the greatest Indian of modern times commands across regions and generations.

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