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Magazine
PAST & PRESENT
The meanings of martyrdom
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
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A look back at an original and mesmerising tribute to Gandhiji organised by his grandson, at a time when Hindutva was beginning to rear its head.
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Photo: The Hindu Photo Library
Embodiment of Gandhiji’s ideals: Sheikh Chinna Moulana.
In the last quarter of 1989, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad organised Ram Shila pujans in towns and villages across northern India. Here, bricks were gathered and worshipped, in the hope that they would be used in the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. The ceremonies were often accompanied by intimidation and threats, these aimed at the minority Muslim community. Riots broke out in several places, the most serious in the district of Bhagalpur, in Bihar, where activists of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh led mobs in smashing looms of Muslim weavers and burning their homes. I report this not as hearsay but as information gathered by me personally, for I visited Bhagalpur as part of a human rights team soon after the violence there.
What I saw in Bhagalpur affected me deeply; for, I am a Hindu, and it is never very pleasant to be brought face-to-face with acts of murder committed in the name of one’s faith. In this I was not alone. Many of my friends and colleagues in Delhi (where I lived at the time) were likewise disturbed by the escalation of Hindu-Muslim violence in northern India. Among them was the late philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi, a man predisposed by both genes and culture to strive for peace and understanding between people of different faiths. A grandson of the Mahatma, he was also a considerable scholar of modern Hindu philosophy. He knew his Gandhi, of course, but also his Ramana, his Aurobindo, his Ramakrishna, and his Vivekananda.
Secular vision
Ramu Gandhi grew up in the India of the 1950s, when the Mahatma’s dream of an inclusively secular and plural India was given practical shape by the policies (and personality) of Jawaharlal Nehru. Now, 40 years later, this noble Indian organised an extraordinary event designed to reaffirm and underline the ideals of India’s founders. It was held on the night of January 30, 1990, at the place the Mahatma was murdered on the same day in 1948 — Birla House, now Gandhi Smriti, on Tees January Marg in New Delhi.
I write of this event from a distance of 18 years, but its main features remained etched in my memory. It began at six p.m. with readings of poetry. As the sun went down, music took over. There were, as I recall, some moving (as well as marvellous) bhajans in praise of Rama sung by Ghulam Mustafa Khan. Then Amjad Ali Khan — who, like Ramu, had grown up in the Delhi of the 1950s, and had in fact attended the same school — played some compositions on the sarod, among them an instrumental version of Gandhi’s favourite bhajan Vaishnava Janato.
High-point
The two Khans had performed inside the building. However, at about two a.m., Ramu Gandhi announced that we had all to shift to the garden. Here an impromptu shamiana had been erected, closed on three sides. We sat on chattais listening to more readings and more songs. It must have been four o’clock when Ramu announced that the next speaker would be the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan monk walked in, clad as usual in deep red robes. As he sat down, the curtains behind the stage were pulled wide open. The effect was dramatic; for, a hundred yards behind the Dalai Lama, in a straight line with his back, had been placed an illuminated picture of Gandhi. In his introduction to the speaker, Ramu spoke of what united the two men. The Tibetan leader was akin to the Mahatma, said the philosopher, in his principled adherence to non-violence, in his love of nature, and in his efforts to build bridges between people of different faiths (or of no faith at all).
For many in the audience, the Dalai Lama’s address was the night’s high-point. But there was a final treat awaiting us; for, at the break of dawn, the peerless nadaswaram player Sheikh Chinna Moulana made an appearance. Here was a man who embodied the Mahatma’s (and Ramu’s) ideals as well as any Indian then living. Born in a Muslim family in Andhra Pradesh, and a practising Muslim himself, his faith was capacious enough to embrace a deep devotion to Lord Ranganatha. By the time we heard him that morning in Delhi, he had lived for 25 years at Srirangam, making his home just outside the great temple there. Thus was one of the holiest of Hindu holy spots enriched by the presence, and the music, of this Telugu-speaking Muslim.
Fine tribute
The Sheikh, like the eminences who preceded him, had all come for love and friendship alone — love of Gandhi, and friendship for his brilliant grandson. A finer, more original tribute to the Mahatma has probably never been organised at any other time in any other place in the world. I shall remember that night as long as I live — so, I reckon, shall everyone else who was there.
ramguha@vsnl.com
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