MK Gandhi has been deified in Bharat to such an extent that any attempt to critically analyze his follies, for which the Hindu society continues to pay a price to date, is seen as an insult to the ‘father of the nation’.

While Kalicharan Maharaj has stated that he stands by his comments even as he faces multiple cases in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh where the Shiv Sena-led MVA and Congress are in power respectively, it is time to take a look at the history of the ‘mahatma’ tag. It was an order promulgated by the Congress government in the Central Provinces on September 2, 1938, that required all officials, particularly British, to henceforth refer to Gandhi as ‘Mahatma’.

Ever since independence the Congress has put Gandhi and Nehru on a pedestal to promote them as the sole leaders of Bharat to the exclusion of every other leader from Patel to Savarkar to Bose and several others. The ‘Mahatma’ and ‘Father of the nation’ tags bestowed upon Gandhi by Congress is an attempt to shield him from criticism. Gandhi wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination and the numerous errors committed by him along with his protege Nehru should certainly be scrutinized.

His actions certainly don’t call for conferring the title of Mahatma. Over the years, many have shown that, yes, Gandhi was an ignoramus, deluded by his ego of our civilizational essence, over-riding its dharmic strengths with his mealy-mouthed vanities; deluded by his ego of the realpolitik of the abrahamisms and the history of their rapacious political ideologies; deluded by his ego of the divide-and-rule game in which the British missionary-colonials played him as their pawn; and deluded by his ego into converting us to the negative passivity of his Gandhi Giri, away from the positive activity of Chanakya Niti.

In his article titled “Is Gandhi a Mahatma” for the Marathi Magazine Chittra, Dr. BR Ambedkar writes “The politics of Gandhi is hollow and noisy. It is the most dishonest politics in the history of Indian polity. Gandhi was the man responsible for eliminating morality from politics and instead introduced commercialism in Indian politics. Politics has been denuded of its virtue”. “Gandhi is a European-truly, a Russian Christian in an Indian body.

And there are some Indians in European bodies! Gandhi a European.Yes. When the Europeans say that he is more Christian than many Christians (some even say that he is “Christ of the modern times”) they are perfectly right. All his preaching is derived from Christianity and though the garb is Indian the essential spirit is Christian.

He may not be Christ, but at any rate, he comes in continuation of the same impulsion. He is largely influenced by Tolstoy, the Bible, and has a strong Jain tinge in his teachings; at any rate more than by the Indian scriptures-the Upanishads or the Gita, which he interprets in the light of his ideas.”, Shri Aurobindo had opined.

Does one whose ‘experiments with truth’ bordered on pedophilia deserve the Mahatma tag? Is one who wanted Hindus to bow down before and silently bear the atrocities perpetrated on them by Islamists a Mahatma? Just because the Congress foisted a ‘Mahatma’ on the nation for its narrow political agenda doesn’t mean present-day Bharat shouldn’t introspect and reevaluate whether the leader is worthy of the tag. No leader, whether past or present, is and can be beyond criticism and that holds true for the ‘mahatma’ as well.

Father of the Nation! Absolutely not

Since childhood, we all have been taught that the great son of India, Mahatma Gandhi is the “Father of the Nation”. But surprisingly, the government of India does not consider Gandhiji as the Father of the Nation! According to the government’s documents, Gandhiji was not conferred with this title, constitutionally.

This amazing fact was revealed by the persistent efforts of the youngest RTI activist 10-year-old Aishwarya Parashar, who sought a response on this from the Central government. In a written reply, the government said that Mahatma Gandhi cannot be accorded the ‘Father of the Nation’ title by the government as the Constitution does not permit any titles except educational and military ones.

While giving reference to Article 18 (1) of the Constitution, the MHA had said that it does not permit any titles except education and military ones. The MHA had transferred Aishwarya’s appeal to the National Archives of India. The government of India does not consider Gandhiji as the Father of the Nation Unsatisfied by the government’s answers, Aishwarya had filed an appeal to the Central Information Commission (CIC).

Then, Central Information Commissioner Basant Seth had stated, “There is no order/document on record by which Gandhiji was given the title of “Rastrapita”. Last year, the reply to an RTI query came as a shock to all those Indians who believed that Republic day, Independence Day, and Gandhi Jayanti are national holidays. Apparently, these three dates were never notified by the government.

In an interview to the BBC, BR Ambedkar had said thus about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, quoted from ‘Dismantling Sainthood: Ambedkar on Gandhi’ by A Ranganathan: “I knew Gandhi better than most people because he opened his real fangs to me, and I could see the inside of the man. Gandhi was all the time double-dealing.

He ran a paper in English and another in Gujarati, and if you read them both you will see how he was deceiving the people. In the English paper, he posed himself as an opponent of the caste system and untouchability and that he was a democrat, while in the Gujarati one he supported the caste system and professed all the orthodox dogmas that have kept India down all through the ages.

Someone ought to write his biography by making a comparative study of the statements he made in these papers. The West reads only the English paper. Gandhi never wanted the real upliftment of the Dalits. All he cared about were issues of absolutely no consequence to us like temple entry. Gandhi was never a reformer.”

And yet, we address Gandhi as Mahatma, as ‘Father of the Nation’. If partition had to happen and if he was a true leader he could have facilitated peaceful partition and saved millions of lives that resulted from it. And the same policy of appeasement he followed continues till today! Since childhood, we all have been taught that the great son of India, Mahatma Gandhi is the “Father of the Nation”. But surprisingly, the government of India does not consider Gandhiji as the Father of the Nation! According to the government’s documents, Gandhiji was not conferred with this title, constitutionally.

(The article was published on Satyaagrah.com on January 03, 2022 and has been reproduced here)