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| Hey Ram! Gandhi is alive in name but dead in spirit | | | Early Times Special Correspondent
Jammu | Oct 1
While observing Gandhi Jayanti today, we are reminded of many paradoxes and ironies about our evaluation and admiration of the Father of Nation. While Gandhi still lives in name, Gandhi is dead in spirit. Though he was killed physically on December 30 1948, his spirit has died later. Today Gandhi ji's relevance and admiration has crossed the territorial limits and even ideological divisions, but his name gets more of lip sympathy and praised as a rhetoric than with any sincerity.
Even those who were opposed to Gandhi ji during his life time and indulged in hate campaign against him, due to his alleged policy of appeasement towards Muslims as well as Pakistan after the partition, today claim to be the great admirers of Gandhi, his values and preaching. What can be more ironical than the fact that BJP has chosen the birthday of Gandhi ji, October 2, to launch countrywide movement for protection of Ram Setu and run down those who question the historicity of Ram? The argument advance in favour of selecting Gandhi's birth anniversary for propagating Ram's existence is that Gandhi ji was an ardent worshiper of Ram and even his dying spontaneous utterance was, "Hey Ram". The RSS, the mother organization of BJP and Jan Sang, opposed Gandhi ji during his life time, as he was alleged to be more sympathetic towards Muslims as well as Pakistan which was created in the name of Islam. Gandhi ji fast unto death, to force Nehru led Congress government, after the partition of the country, to release huge amount of money to Pakistan as well as desist from blockade of water flowing to that country from rivers having their source in India, as a reprisal to Pak aggression in Kashmir, which had since exceeded to India, perhaps was the last straw on camel's back for a Hindu fundamentalist to shoot at and kill Gandhi ji.
RSS has today become so staunch supporter and admirer of Gandhi ji that it has incorporated Mahatma Gandhi's name with all the praise showered on him in its morning prayer recited in camps and other functions, called "Pratasmaran", wherein the names of all the great personalities as well as places are recited, in the early morning. Admitting that they had wrong notions about Gandhi ji earlier, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, presiding over a BJP plenary session while adopting economic resolution, based on Gandhian economy, had remarked, "we have reevaluated Gandhi ji".
But what is equally ironical is that those who claim to be inheriting the legacy of Gandhi ji (not those who have any blood relation with Gandhi ji, but who have only assumed Gandhi as sir name, to have sole claim over his legacy) are daily killing Gandhi ji's spirit, practicing and advocating all that is anti Gandhi. As is amply described in the recently released film, "Gandhi My Father"' the eldest son of Gandhi, Hiralal, had strained relation with his father as he entertained the grouse for Mahatma Gandhi having not recommended his candidature for getting admission in United Kingdom for higher studies in law, although Gandhi ji was authorized to nominate few candidates for the purpose. Instead nominating his own son, Gandhi ji opted for more deserving candidates, who had no relation and closeness with him. In contrast to this, appointment of Rahul Gandhi as General Secretary of the Congress party by her mother Sonia Gandhi, as a sequel to grooming the prodigal son for being projected as the future Prime Minister of the country, in the next elections to the parliament. Nepotism and favouritism, which Mahatma Gandhi scrupulously kept at bay and avoided even at the cost of his own sons entertaining grudge and bitterness against him, has become the chief characteristic of those who stake claim over his legacy and use his sir name. No wonder that Gandhi ji's family members and their descendents are today in complete oblivion and hardly anybody in the country knows them, while dynastic rule of his so called inheritors of legacy is sought to be perpetuated upto fourth generation. |
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