The dramatic entry of him
Or “Watching Gandhi”
By Karunakaran
There was (is) always a drama in Gandhi: The life of his been woven with chain of events when India historically engaged to emerge as a ‘nation’. Later, Gandhi became ‘Father of Nation’.
The drama that was, not acted even in a ritually enriched Sathyagraha, a kind of political act in Gandhi’s case. His simplicity in life and in discourses dramatically engaged the mass in act : To India, freedom struggle was the first in series of shocks in chain it had ‘as a nation’. Or, ‘put together’ was the life, that struggle, tried to live. Gandhi was not the first leader who understood India in its complexity. There were many. From Tagore to Phule. But Gandhi was one leader who pin pointed the ‘Indian drama’ India lived those days, he coined political struggles from language a society lived then.
The word ‘Harijan’ was one . The word, he claimed well again, meant to the dearness to god. Hari is God, ‘Jan’ is the people : thus the word coined to one to show its meaning in a different way in a different period. They were the untouchables of India. The word ‘Harijan’ later become more political even in post independent period of India. Mostly because the democratization of the country do happen, too, in its political language. This is what ‘the new’ in Gandhi’s leadership.
Otherwise, the language which does not hang with ideological burdens is more political when it start works in its social context. Gandhi with this word, one may argue that, did not promise the ‘untouchables’ the ‘political rights’ in the making of the country. Its true but. However, he surely challenged a system to ‘touch the untouchables’, where, ironically, the system stood hesitant. And, he never seized himself from that act, like an actor who forgets that the character he played well already been passed him. True, the leaders always get the “Character roles” to play : after all, the politics, is an exchange of lives between good and bad. The ugliness prevail where this exchange withdrew to no good no bad. The drama in the language plays well of the language because its acts deliberately.
The quality of Gandhi’s political language we all know that it rooted in its culture. Historically one could say that the culture he understood and tried to speak of was more complex than the ideologies, the political world experienced then, socialism etc., could explain. Through out his political life, Gandhi, like a street player in a crowded place, performed well of the drama of politics he chosen to.
And, also, people around the world loved him. They loved him passionately because he always made a dramatic entrance to their hearts with his costumes : the round glass, the bald head, the smile of the toothless, the half naked body, the stick in hand, the watch he hanged in his waste, the leather chapel,- and children loved, found easy, to imitate him in schools to get a first prizes. Moreover, with his political slogans (language, of course): Disobedience, Salt, Sathagraha, Harijan, Quit India.
So, when Vijay Mallaya ‘brought Gandhi’s belong – the costumes – to India from an auction in USA by giving a huge amount in dollars to the auctioneer, he said he acted his own and for his country. Everybody was relaxed in India, even Thusar Gandhi, the grant kin, himself.
Finally, Unny, one of the finest cartoonist of our time, drawn a cartoon in Indian Express. Gandhi is watching “IPL matches on” in television, sitting in front the TV, of course with his ‘costumes’ – the caption was :AND THANK GOD I’VE SOMETHING TO WATCH.
Yes, we were (are) watching “GANDHI”.
