Barely a contrast

WALKING FROM DANDI: IN SEARCH OF VIKAS IS YET ANOTHER HAGIOGRAPHY OF M K GANDHI THAT UNCRITICALLY ROMANTICISES AND MYTHOLOGISES THE HISTORICAL FIGURE

- AKSHAT JAIN

IN FEBRUARY 2019, Harmony Siganporia, associate professor at a business school in Ahmedabad, retraced in reverse the route M K Gandhi took during his Dandi March of 1930. During her walk from Dandi to Ahmedabad, Siganporia travelled roughly the same distance the march covered every day, tried to stop at the same places where the march halted, and talked to people to find out how the march is remembered and thought about today. Walking from Dandi: In Search of Vikas is her account of that journey. The book, however, has turned out to be yet another hagiography of Gandhi that romanticises and mythologises the historical figure.

Let me give an example. The author says, "Gandhi lived his life more keenly aware of context and the need to adapt to it than most." But she forgets to mention the dark side of this "adaptation". In Africa, the context was anti-black and so Gandhi took that stance, arguing it was necessary for the success of his fight for the rights of Indians nationals. In India, the context was pro-caste (or pro-varna, as Gandhi might say) and so Gandhi took that stance "in the greater interest" of the movement. Discussing the context in which the Dandi March took place, B R Ambedkar, in his book What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (1945), says that while on the one hand Gandhi and his fellow "Congressmen were engaged in fighting for Swaraj which they said they wanted to win in the name and for the masses, on the other hand and in the very year they were committing the worst outrages, upon the very masses by exhibiting them publicly as objects of contempt to be shunned and avoided."