Gandhi's Legacy

Gandhi’s greatest achievement was to be able to mobilise vast masses of people for non-violent struggle, but do his thoughts and actions still impact today’s political scenario?

- Lord Meghnad Desai

MOHANDAS Karamchand Gandhi’s political legacy is more preserved in worship than in practice. He has been deified, put on the currency notes (wherewithal for black money deals) and largely ignored but for two days of the year— October 2, his birthday, and January 30, the day of his demise.

Gandhi’s legacy is hard to separate from his living presence. He was able to do many things by the sheer force of his personality. For 20 years, between 1920 and 1940, he led the Congress with an iron hand. Grown-up men and women agreed to suspend their judgment and critical faculties and followed him, believing that he will deliver independence. In the final phase, 1940 to 1948, his influence began to wane. When independence came, Congress leaders agreed to the Partition against his best wishes. He had to fast against the new Congress government to get justice for Pakistan. Unlike when the British ruled, there was no longer universal sympathy for this gesture. He was killed by a fellow Hindu.

Gandhi’s greatest achievement was to be able to mobilise vast masses of people around a message of non-violent struggle. These struggles were unarmed, but they were never as non-violent as he wanted them to be. This was to lead to shifts in his tactics over the years. In a timorous people, he planted the idea of political action by way of non-violent protest even at the personal risk of physical injury from police violence and jail.