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Obama & Gandhi: A poseur as a
hero
Dr. Amrik
Singh,
Sacramento
 Norwegian Nobel
Peace committee applied a different yardstick to award 2009 Nobel
Peace Prize. It was more for the possibilities and prospects of
peace in the nuclear-armed, terror-ridden and fiscally-starved world
than for any accomplishments in these areas. Diplomacy in the 21st
century is no more a play of tricks, but a commitment to high ideals
of integrity, honesty and humanity. The lack of the same in the last
two centuries brought much manmade havoc on humankind. Agent
provocateurs, secret societies and pseudo divines only made this
planet more vulnerable to devastation. Unethical standards in the
shape of scientifically proven policies were more to control one
kind with the other. Warfare is no more the same old strategic
advantage. The meanings of heroism and patriotism have changed and
compel a point of departure from old immorality of conflicting
times.
Only a ‘no
strike principle’ can save the planet from impending nuclear
annihilation. Who can instill such a moral responsibility even in
ones who are ready to blow themselves up for their heavenly dreams?
Who can stir the conscience of invisible terrorist mentors in
administrative set-ups, religious orders and welfare clubs who
thrive on people’s money and hog media attention for their
diplomatic acumens? Maybe, no one, but if there is a possibility,
then it can only be the US president.
 While accepting
the honor, President Obama measured up to verbal expectations in his
highly analytical speech. He divested himself from all hangovers
that he had used in his famous speeches before and after assuming
the office. He realized it was necessary to distinguish rhetoric
from reality. War has been a determining factor for making or
unmaking of nations. Regardless of horrors, “just war” as a last
resort has to be waged against evils. Fighting nation enter treaties
to protect human rights, end genocide and secure liberty in the hope
of establishing “imperatives of just peace.”
During
primaries, Obama referred to Martin Luther King, Jr. as his hero for
he waged a battle for civil rights through peaceful means. Since it
has some connections with Gandhi’s struggle for Dalits of India,
Obama made frequent references to both King and Gandhi. But while
accepting Nobel Peace Prize, he disassociated from both Gandhi and
King by clearly making a statement that they could not be his
leaders in his fight against terrorism.
To submit to
terrorism and allow terrorists to annihilate all symbols of life and
liberty with the hope that they will renounce violence themselves
one day sounds totally unrealistic. Unchecked Hitler would have left
a different world than the one that we see today. Baruch Spinoza
rightly puts that peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a
state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and
justice. According to Malcolm X, “you can’t separate peace from
freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has freedom”
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Arthur Koestler termed Gandhi the greatest “anachronism” of
twentieth century, and said the Indian establishment attempted not
only to suppress his last “experiment with truth”, but even a
conspiracy of silence seems all pervasive to wipe out all
inconsistencies of Gandhi’s character. |
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Arthur
Koestler’s essay “Mahatma Gandhi - Yogi and Commissar: A
Re-valuation” provides profound insights into Bapu’s “Himalyan
inconsistencies” in advising Jews to become sacrificial goats to
Hitler’s ire. Even in the wake of six million gas victims, Gandhi
advised that the Jews should have offered themselves to the
butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea
from cliffs…it would have roused the world and the people of
Germany. When asked how he would meet the atom bomb with the
non-violence, Gandhi said he would bare his chest to the pilot who
would change his mind in throwing the bomb. Koestler points out that
the Indian establishment attempted not only to suppress Gandhi’s
last experiment with truth, but a conspiracy of silence rules the
roost to wipe out all inconsistencies of Gandhi’s character.
Koestler terms Gandhi as the greatest “anachronism” of twentieth
century and emphasizes, “It is equally pleasant but futile to argue
with intellectuals who adhere to the Gandhi cult and pay a lip
service to a philosophy easy to eulogize and impossible to realize.”
 Martin Luther
King, Jr. went to India in 1959. He wanted to get inspiration from
Gandhi’s life for civil rights movement. That Gandhi lived a life of
full of contradictions, that British invested in his making, that he
grabbed Dalit baton forcibly from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, that he got the
role of a Mahatma only when Krishna Murti had rejected Annie
Besant’s offer, that he was the creation of the Theosophical Society
are altogether points of a different story. For deification of
Gandhi, the role of Ambedkar, Sikh and Muslim freedom fighters had
to be not only driven underground, but also to be discredited. For
making the relevance of non-violence with Vedic overtones, theatre
of violence has to be established; for testing his abstinence from
sex, a sexual scenario has to be masqueraded with young women.
Gandhi is known
to have got inspiration from Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy
wrote a “Letter to a Hindu” (1908). It was a reply to Tarak Nath
Dass who was the Editor of Free Hindustan. Tolstoy castigates
Indians in the following words. “A commercial company enslaved a
nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from
superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What
does it mean that thirty thousand men, not athletes but rather weak
and ordinary people, have subdued two hundred millions vigorous,
clever, capable, freedom loving people? Don’t the figures make it
clear that it is not the English who have enslaved the Indians, but
the Indians who have enslaved themselves?
“If the people
of India are enslaved by violence it is only because they themselves
lived and have lived by violence, and don’t recognize the eternal
law of love inherent in humanity.” Gandhi later got permission to
translate this letter in Gujarati and also wrote an introduction to
it. Tolstoy’s oblique references to support violence of the ruler
conceal a hidden desire to unleash violence.
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Leo
Tolstoy on India’s subjugation by the British: “A commercial company
enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a
man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these
words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand men, not athletes
but rather weak and ordinary people, have subdued two hundred
millions vigorous, clever, capable, freedom loving people? Don’t the
figures make it clear that it is not the English who have enslaved
the Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves? |
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Two books,
Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity by G.B. Singh and Gandhi:
Under Cross-Examination by G.B. Singh and Tim Watson examine
Gandhi’s masked divinity. Their research has questioned many
premises of Gandhian philosophy. They claim that his entire
philosophy is based on a ‘lie,’ the lie that was needed by the
British to steady their shaky foundation and that more suited to lay
the foundation of Indian nationalism.
According to Dr.
B.R. Ambedkar, most movements that Gandhi pioneered turned out
violent. On 28 December 1931, when Gandhi came back from Round Table
Conference, depressed classes welcomed him with “Our Charge sheet
against Gandhi and Congress” “Enough of patronizing attitude and
lip sympathy. We ask for justice and fair play.” Depressed classes
came with black flags. This led to a clash that killed forty people
on both sides. Ambedkar writes, “For the first time Mr. Gandhi was
made aware that there could be black flags even against him. When he
was asked about it later in the day, he said he was not angry, the
Untouchables being the flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. This
is of course the Mahatmic way of concealing the truth.” George
Orwell in his reaction to Tolstoy’s criticism of Shakespeare
characterized Tolstoy – and other would-be saints like Gandhi – as
forbiddingly inhuman in their attitudes.”
The world
accepted Gandhi as he became synonym for peace, non violence and
civil rights. But it was more for rhetorical purposes than adapting
non-violence in social and political discourses. In the Indian
context, non-violent poseur inspired non-alignment on the one hand
and an alignment with former Soviet Union on the other. It helped
India in international image making and at the same time rejecting
any offers of mediations in their disputes. Nelson Mandela was
snubbed once when he suggested resolving
Kashmir
issue. Similarly, many other countries have to eat humble pie when
they offered to mediate in disputed territory. Despite ritualistic
vows to non-violence and civil rights, flagrant violation of
citizenship rights takes place unchecked ever since
India got
freedom. India
 has
smartly dodged any International pressure to sign NPT and ratify UN
Convention Against Torture. According to bureaucratic circles such
contradictions only establish India’s unique position in world
affairs.
President Obama
was honest enough to make it clear to the Nobel committee that
though he used King and Gandhi in his addresses as the guiding North
Star, yet they can’t be his leaders to deal with the reality that is
more complex, intractable and challenging.
6
January 2010
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