FB Discussions - Gandhi (2)

Nirmalangshu Mukherji  Yesterday at 9:53am · 
 
In response to one of my recent posts, Aparna Krishnan dared to write, "The ordinary people (subalterns?) I think tune into Gandhi, as his own wisdom was drawn from the very people of this land."
  
I'd suggest, near the end, Gandhi had almost become one of the 'ordinary' people, a total misfit in the nationalist-liberal pomp. The liberals got rid of his share of history by turning him into an icon, printing his profile on bank notes, and using his name to mark the government, the latest being MGNREGA. Modi put the final nail on this coffin by identifying Gandhi with cleaning of latrines. Done.
Now it is the turn of yellow 'radical' 'scholars' to lower the coffin into the grave. They all unite in a common cause. 

Comments

Aparna Krishnan Why 'dare' ? I have no one to please. I live in a village, and I do my work, thats all.

Nirmalangshu Mukherji Of course, you 'dared'. How dare you in the face of definitive radical opinion aired in high-profile global forums. You never know, maybe even Noam Chomsky has started believing in those things.

Aparna Krishnan I need nothing from anyone, and I also have nothing to give anyone. Apart from family, village and some close friends. I can table my understandings without worrying. And can also correct it the next day if I need to.

Aparna Krishnan Global forums are meaningless to me, and are also essentially meaningless. Except for that they issue diktats that in one sweep change the rules of the games in villages. That far, and only that far, they need to be taken on. While also tabling one's opinion of their essential uselessness and inanity.

Aparna Krishnan Gandhi held a mirror. It takes courage and humility to look into the mirror - and I am discovering that both, and especially both together, are not easy to come by. The Right and the Left and the Liberals fail the test. All are too arrogant about their perfectness.

Aparna Krishnan Also to permit oneself to understand Gandhi means accepting one's own deep complicity in the crisis, and the need to start addressing that. All the above three love to see the Other as the enemy. Highly dishonest positioning and posturing.

Nirmalangshu Mukherji Please write in more prominent places. Do you have a blog? Start one if you have the time after attending to the people.

Aparna Krishnan Hah ! Let people read Gandhi directly. He hardly needs me to paraphrase.

Nirmalangshu Mukherji They won't. This is blog-first age.

Aparna Krishnan Anyway there are some interesting Gandhi writings in the blog here. Have not really had time to do much more writing. Even this time I feel I should be spening in doing more essential work in.

Aparna Krishnan http://paalaguttapalle.blogspot.in/p/blog-page_22.html

Aparna Krishnan What I have learnt is from my village. Twenty years. Five years went in my trying to 'help'. Then as I realized the educated person's essentially inability to 'help' except by stopping the vast damage he was unleashing to the rural fabric, I started to learn. I got some perspectives. And they match 200% with what Gandhi says. Because Gandhi's own understandings are form the people of this soil.

Dipankar Ghosh ...this great man, Gandhi accidentally took birth centuries ahead ( as described by Albert Einstein ). Now man is still under evolution , asess him as per his own inner stage of evolution......