letter to Mahatma Gandhi in 150 words
Dear Bapu,
You left this world or rather you were mercilessly snatched from us years ago, even before my father was born. Obviously, I never saw or met you. But my grandfather who had seen and heard you a couple of times would often talk about you. We would try to imagine you with the description he provided. "He was lean and thin but walked very fast (he was lean and thin but walked briskly)," my grandfather would inform. “But don’t get misled by his frail frame. He was a man of steely determination. "
Today’s generation, brought up on countless tales about you told through books, cartoons, movies, music, documentaries, and God knows what else, relate with you also through the cheeky chant: “Bande Mein the dum, Vande Matram.” This October 2 you would have turned 150.
As we celebrate your 150th birth anniversary, I imagine, just imagine, what if that original 'desh bhakat' Nathuram Godse had not pumped three bullets into you at point-blank range on that cold January 30 evening in 1948. That dark evening you were not on a joy walk; you were on your way to the prayer meeting.
My colleague and friend Vaibhav Purandare, in his new book 'Savarkar: The True Story of the Father of Hindutva', pithily captures the Mahatma's last moments: "Gandhi stepped out on to the garden lawns on the premises (of Birla House in Delhi). for his evening prayer meeting. He had hardly reached the lawns, with arms around his grandnieces Manu and Abha, when a man (Godse) in the crowd bent down to touch his feet and rose up in a flash and pumped three bullets into the Mahatma at point-blank range. ” Hey, Bhagwan!
What if Godse, just as he bent down, in the great Hindu tradition to greet and show respect to elders, to touch your feet moments before he killed you, had changed his mind. What if the revolver Godse used to perform the heinous crime had jammed. These are assumptions. The bitter truth is that evening the man with a diabolical agenda to finish off the apostle of peace succeeded in his mission. And if he hoped, Gandhi’s assassination would throw India into a communal cauldron (communal riots in the wake of the Partition had already singed the subcontinent), Nehru poured waters on it when he named the killer in the radio broadcast to the nation that evening.
I was made aware of the Mahatma’s murder quite early. To the young sensibilities, it appeared a completely senseless, mindless thing to kill a defenseless, old man just because he preached peace and communal harmony. But then, Godse didn’t kill the Mahatma alone. He tried to kill an ideology, the very idea of India.
A boy in our school had composed an elegy for the Mahatma and would recite the mournful poem in the beautiful local Maithili language of north Bihar, even describing the date and time of the senseless crime. "Shukrawar dinna cycle, January mahinma re / Gandhiji kemari deke Nathuram baimanma re (It was Friday and the month was January / The heartless Nathuram killed Gandhiji," went a line. The boy's lyrical lamentation had us, including the headmaster, in tears How could anyone kill the apostle of peace so cruelly? ”I often ask myself. Ok, they had certain grievances. But did the killing of Gandhi solve the problem?
Bapu, why did you refuse the offer of security search of those who visited you after a bomb had gone off at one of your prayer meetings just 10 days before you were killed? Declining to take security, you had reportedly said: "Those who preferred security to freedom had no right to live."
As I grew up and read some books, I also found that you invoked Lord Ram before you breathed last by uttering "Hey Ram."
Ram to you was not just a god. Ram to you symbolized an ethos, a value, an idea that described our pluralist, multicultural India. Much before some people tried to hijack Ram and pigeonhole him into an exclusive Hindu god, Ram belonged to all. Since he commanded respect from all, if there existed a dispute over the piece of land which many Hindus believe is his birthplace, it was unheard of in my childhood.
Bapu, did you know the poet Allama Iqbal? Yes, you did. At a prison in Pune, you recited Iqbal’s famous poem ‘Sare Jahan Se Achcha’ several times. And, mourning Iqbal’s death in 1938, you remembered how Iqbal’s poem kept you enthused and how your chest puffed with pride every time you heard this song. It gives us pride even today when we hear this song, especially the line: "Hindi hain hum watan hai Hindustan Hamara (We are Indians because India is our country)."
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