Gandhi, 'Gandhi', And Modi

The media and the opposition have created yet another meaningless controversy over what Prime Minister Modi had actually said about Mahatma Gandhi and the 1982 Attenborough movie on the man.

On various occasions Prime Minister Modi himself had written about the influence of Gandhi on world leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

The fact remains that for the average person outside India, when discussing civil rights or passive resistance, the image that typically comes to mind is Martin Luther King Jr. rather than Mahatma Gandhi. Definitely Gandhi, the 1982 movie of Richard Attenborough changed that.

So much so that Christianity Today, one of the most authoritative magazines of the US Protestant religion, came up with multiple articles on the movie and one of the articles lamented that the movie would have a crippling effect on evangelism in India.

A Hindu convert working as an evangelist told Christianity Today:

In yet another article, the same magazine explored what a Christian should or could learn from the movie as well as the life of Gandhi.

Here, the writer felt that even the nearly three-hour-long movie only granted the man who changed the global landscape a few more fleeting moments in the eyes of mass media.

In that article, the writer quoted without hesitation Gandhi's effective rejection of Christianity from a Hindu perspective:

Before Attenborough's Gandhi, those who knew the Mahatma were either from the academia, media or polity and most of them were prejudiced against him. Of course, those like Martin Luther King Jr. derived their spiritual strength and methodology from him.

The movie set a benchmark for biopics and inspired higher-quality films about Indian freedom fighters. Many Indians lamented that it took a Britisher to make a film about one of India's greatest sons. The quality of biopics about Indian freedom fighters improved notably after Gandhi.

While some in the Neo-Hindu right wing exhibit a dislike for Gandhi, the mainstream Hindutva movement has always regarded him as one of its guiding lights.

In fact, the thoughts of both Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya and Dattopant Thengadi had strong Gandhian influences.

From social emancipation to a Hindu perspective of environmentalism, from resistance to conversion to visions of self-reliant and sustainable networks of communities, from alternative historiography of decolonisation to creating a holistic response to the civilisational challenge from the West, Gandhi is important to the Hindu civilisational story.

Part of the reason was the Nehru cult and the appropriation of the Gandhi surname by Nehru's successors. When Attenborough made his film, it was said that Indira Gandhi's government subtly influenced the director to portray Nehru as Gandhi's ideological heir, while Sardar Patel was shown as slightly comical and a hesitant follower.

When Modi pointed out that the West, not India, played a major role in popularising Gandhi worldwide, across all sections of society, it's important to understand the context and spirit of his message.

India needs Gandhi and his deep decolonising discourse. This will help it truly emerge as a civilisational counterbalance to the dominant models of society, history and development.

PM Modi only highlighted this issue and India's shortcomings in this field by citing the example of the 1982 movie.