04-03-2008, 09:51 PM
Book Review from Pioneer, 3 April 008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India failed Gandhi
While Bernard Imhasly is right in concluding that India has mostly failed Gandhi, he needs to question the yardstick itself. Why should this vast country yield to any human being, however great he might be, asks Lata Jagtiani
Goodbye To Gandhi
Author: Bernard Imhasly
Publisher: Penguin/Viking
Price: Rs 425Â
<b>Prior to their arrival in India, foreigners have the image of this country as a land of snake-charmers, elephants, rajas, poverty, Taj Mahal and Mahatma Gandhi; however, the sooner they step out of the airport their jaws drop, as do their images. At once they are taken aback, often disgusted, surprised, delighted, awestruck and even perplexed.</b>
No 200-page book can contain the details of India without failing. <b>Every chronicler finds himself reduced to a Lilliputian when confronted by the vastness of the country. No wonder Switzerland's Bernard Imhasly, accustomed to neat, easily definable countries like Switzerland and Germany, falters and stumbles.</b>
Imhasly admits, "The mammoth Indian subcontinent that covers 3.3 million square kilometres... far exceeds the limits of a book... The cultural diversity, socio-economic and religious faultlines, the sheer mass of humanity defy extrapolation." He adds that it is because of this that he moves from India to Gandhi, stating that the book is "an account of travels in modern India, with Gandhi as my guide".<b> He measures current issues against Gandhi's life and ideas, and observes if India has adopted his idealism or ignored it. </b>
But the moot question is, can and should India be reduced to Gandhi? Mrs Indira Gandhi tried to narrow India down to "India is Indira, Indira is India" only to find herself thrown out of power in 1977. <b>Also, India wouldn't have been a global power today had it blindly followed Gandhi's vision of swadeshi and self-sufficiency.</b>
<b>In his essay, "Reflections On Gandhi", George Orwell observed, "There is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British Government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity... he believed in 'arousing the world', which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing."</b> Orwell points out that Gandhian methods were doomed to failure while dealing with lunatics or with misguided fanatics of the Hitlerian kind. In that event, how would one deal with terrorists and suicide bombers?
<b>Imhasly's Goodbye to Gandhi is a loving yet bleak portrayal of a country that has gone way off the Gandhian mark.</b> Well written and painstakingly put together, <b>the book covers the writer's journey through some parts of the country. One wonders why he has mostly focussed on non-Congress States, as if he wanted not to offend the sensibilities of the Congress. He interviews Narendra Modi, Praveen Togadia and KS Sudarshan, but never talks to a single Congress leader.</b>
Imhasly finds proof that Gandhi is more irrelevant than relevant; more honoured in the breach than in the observance. His excellent style of writing and succinct descriptions make the book easy reading. Apart from a few oversights, such as the absence of notes to explain foreign italicised terms, such as "weltanschauung" and "schadenfreude", and the complete absence of a Bibliography and Index, the book is interesting. Its high point is the chapter, "The Mothers of Manipur", in which Imhasly reports on his attempts to meet Irom Sharmila, who, on November 2, 2000, decided that she would protest against the killing of innocents by going on a hunger strike. She was arrested on November 11, 2000, and has been under custody to this day.
<b>However, Imhasly takes the usual 'secular' turn several times. Although at least 3,000 people were killed after the assassination of Mrs Gandhi in 1984, it is not Rajiv Gandhi but the "Congress party goons" who are regarded as guilty despite his infamous "when a big tree falls" remark. The author, however, does not give such benefit of doubt to Modi for the post-Godhra violence in 2002.</b>
While Imhasly is right in concluding that India has <i>mostly</i> failed Gandhi, he needs to question the yardstick itself: <b>Why should this vast country yield to any human being, however great he might be? Even Ramana Maharshi, Gandhi's contemporary, did not join hands with him, his path being that of a jnani, and not of a karmayogi. Gandhi could as little contain Ramana Maharshi as Ramana Maharshi could contain Gandhi, and they were just two of the many worlds that co-exist in diverse India.</b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India failed Gandhi
While Bernard Imhasly is right in concluding that India has mostly failed Gandhi, he needs to question the yardstick itself. Why should this vast country yield to any human being, however great he might be, asks Lata Jagtiani
Goodbye To Gandhi
Author: Bernard Imhasly
Publisher: Penguin/Viking
Price: Rs 425Â
<b>Prior to their arrival in India, foreigners have the image of this country as a land of snake-charmers, elephants, rajas, poverty, Taj Mahal and Mahatma Gandhi; however, the sooner they step out of the airport their jaws drop, as do their images. At once they are taken aback, often disgusted, surprised, delighted, awestruck and even perplexed.</b>
No 200-page book can contain the details of India without failing. <b>Every chronicler finds himself reduced to a Lilliputian when confronted by the vastness of the country. No wonder Switzerland's Bernard Imhasly, accustomed to neat, easily definable countries like Switzerland and Germany, falters and stumbles.</b>
Imhasly admits, "The mammoth Indian subcontinent that covers 3.3 million square kilometres... far exceeds the limits of a book... The cultural diversity, socio-economic and religious faultlines, the sheer mass of humanity defy extrapolation." He adds that it is because of this that he moves from India to Gandhi, stating that the book is "an account of travels in modern India, with Gandhi as my guide".<b> He measures current issues against Gandhi's life and ideas, and observes if India has adopted his idealism or ignored it. </b>
But the moot question is, can and should India be reduced to Gandhi? Mrs Indira Gandhi tried to narrow India down to "India is Indira, Indira is India" only to find herself thrown out of power in 1977. <b>Also, India wouldn't have been a global power today had it blindly followed Gandhi's vision of swadeshi and self-sufficiency.</b>
<b>In his essay, "Reflections On Gandhi", George Orwell observed, "There is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British Government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity... he believed in 'arousing the world', which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing."</b> Orwell points out that Gandhian methods were doomed to failure while dealing with lunatics or with misguided fanatics of the Hitlerian kind. In that event, how would one deal with terrorists and suicide bombers?
<b>Imhasly's Goodbye to Gandhi is a loving yet bleak portrayal of a country that has gone way off the Gandhian mark.</b> Well written and painstakingly put together, <b>the book covers the writer's journey through some parts of the country. One wonders why he has mostly focussed on non-Congress States, as if he wanted not to offend the sensibilities of the Congress. He interviews Narendra Modi, Praveen Togadia and KS Sudarshan, but never talks to a single Congress leader.</b>
Imhasly finds proof that Gandhi is more irrelevant than relevant; more honoured in the breach than in the observance. His excellent style of writing and succinct descriptions make the book easy reading. Apart from a few oversights, such as the absence of notes to explain foreign italicised terms, such as "weltanschauung" and "schadenfreude", and the complete absence of a Bibliography and Index, the book is interesting. Its high point is the chapter, "The Mothers of Manipur", in which Imhasly reports on his attempts to meet Irom Sharmila, who, on November 2, 2000, decided that she would protest against the killing of innocents by going on a hunger strike. She was arrested on November 11, 2000, and has been under custody to this day.
<b>However, Imhasly takes the usual 'secular' turn several times. Although at least 3,000 people were killed after the assassination of Mrs Gandhi in 1984, it is not Rajiv Gandhi but the "Congress party goons" who are regarded as guilty despite his infamous "when a big tree falls" remark. The author, however, does not give such benefit of doubt to Modi for the post-Godhra violence in 2002.</b>
While Imhasly is right in concluding that India has <i>mostly</i> failed Gandhi, he needs to question the yardstick itself: <b>Why should this vast country yield to any human being, however great he might be? Even Ramana Maharshi, Gandhi's contemporary, did not join hands with him, his path being that of a jnani, and not of a karmayogi. Gandhi could as little contain Ramana Maharshi as Ramana Maharshi could contain Gandhi, and they were just two of the many worlds that co-exist in diverse India.</b>
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