Would Gandhi Be Called Anti-National Today? If Mahatma Gandhi Were Alive in the India of Hindutva

India remembers Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi everywhere. His face is printed on the nation's currency. His birthday is a national holiday. Government leaders visit Raj Ghat. Schools teach children about ahimsa. Streets, universities and institutions bear his name. But a harder question than whether India remembers Gandhi is this: Could India tolerate Gandhi if he were alive today? Not Gandhi the photograph. Not Gandhi the statue. Not Gandhi reduced to a quotation about cleanliness or peace. Could contemporary India tolerate the actual Gandhi—the stubborn old man who challenged majorities as readily as minorities, defended Muslims when Muslims were endangered, condemned Hindu communalism despite being deeply Hindu, opposed hatred even when hatred was politically popular, challenged governments and insisted that patriotism could never justify injustice? That Gandhi might prove considerably more troublesome than the national icon. Some might even call him anti-national.

Gandhi Was Not Ashamed of Being Hindu

Any serious comparison between Gandhi and contemporary Hindutva must begin with something often forgotten: Gandhi was profoundly Hindu. He loved the Bhagavad Gita. He invoked Rama. His vocabulary was intensely religious. He did not believe secular public life required abandoning faith. Writing in Young India in 1921, Gandhi compared his attachment to Hinduism with his attachment to his wife. He recognized its faults, yet described an “indescribable bond” connecting him to it. But the Hinduism Gandhi loved was strikingly inclusive. He wrote: “Hinduism is not an exclusive religion.” He explained that it contained room for the prophets of other religions and allowed each person to worship God according to his or her own faith. That sentence alone presents a challenge to any political ideology that seeks to measure Indian belonging according to religious identity. Gandhi did not believe that loving Hinduism required fearing Islam. He did not believe that respecting Muslims diluted his Hindu identity. On the contrary, his Hinduism gave him a theological reason for respecting them.

What Would Gandhi Say to Hindutva?

Hindutva and Hinduism should not simply be treated as synonyms. Hinduism is an enormous and internally diverse religious civilization encompassing multiple philosophies, practices, and traditions. Hindutva is a modern political conception of Hindu national identity. Gandhi might therefore ask today's advocates of religious nationalism: Why does Hindu civilization need an enemy in order to know itself? If Hinduism contains the Upanishads, the Gita, Vedanta, Bhakti, Yoga and centuries of philosophical argument, why should its greatness depend upon the political weakness of Muslims? Why should the chanting of Rama's name be strengthened by someone else's fear? Why should a Hindu feel more Hindu because a Muslim feels less Indian? Gandhi left us words with which to answer that question. In September 1945 he wrote: “Man cannot worship God and at the same time despise his fellow-beings.” He immediately added: “The two are irreconcilable.” Imagine Gandhi repeating that sentence today. He might say to a Hindu who hates Muslims: Your hatred does not protect your religion; it contradicts your worship. And he might say exactly the same thing to a Muslim who hates Hindus.

Would Gandhi Be Accused of Muslim Appeasement?

Almost certainly by some. He was accused of essentially that during his own lifetime. In the terrible months surrounding Partition, Gandhi's moral position was straightforward: a threatened Muslim deserved protection from Hindus, and a threatened Hindu deserved protection from Muslims. To the communal mind, however, impartial compassion can look like betrayal. If Gandhi were alive today and visited the family of a Muslim killed in communal violence, social media might erupt: Why does Gandhi always speak for Muslims? If he condemned hateful language directed against Muslims, someone might call him an appeaser. If he defended a mosque, others might accuse him of ignoring Hindu temples. If he opposed collective punishment, he might be told that he cared more about minorities than about the majority. And Gandhi might ask exactly the question he forced Indians to confront during his lifetime: Must justice cease to be justice when the victim belongs to another religion? His answer would be no. The victim's religion did not determine Gandhi's conscience. Human suffering did.

Godse Already Answered Gandhi Once

The argument is not merely hypothetical because Gandhi encountered its most extreme form in his lifetime. Nathuram Godse assassinated Gandhi on January 30, 1948. Godse regarded Gandhi's approach toward Muslims and Pakistan as damaging to Hindu interests. His solution was not merely to criticize Gandhi but ultimately to eliminate him. The pistol ended Gandhi's life. It did not settle Gandhi's argument. Today, a relatively small but visible group publicly admires or tries to rehabilitate Godse. It would be unfair to describe every Hindu nationalist—or certainly every Hindu—as a Godse supporter. These are different categories and should not be casually collapsed. But admiration for Godse raises a profoundly disturbing question: What exactly is being admired? A man disagreed with Gandhi's vision of India and answered that disagreement with assassination. Gandhi had something striking to say about fanaticism: “Dying for religion is good; for fanaticism, neither dying nor living.” That observation was recorded in September 1946, little more than a year before his murder. Today it reads almost like an epitaph.

The Living Gandhi Would Be Inconvenient

Imagine Gandhi returning to India. He does not arrive in a government aircraft. He has no security convoy. He carries no party flag. Suppose communal violence erupts. Gandhi travels first to a Hindu household where a son has been killed. He sits beside his mother. Then he walks to the Muslim neighborhood where another mother has lost her child. Television anchors surround him. “Gandhiji,” someone demands, “whose side are you on?” Perhaps he responds: I am on the side of the mothers. That answer would frustrate modern political categories. Our politics often asks first: Who are your people? Gandhi asked: Who is suffering? Our politics asks: Which community committed the greater crime? Gandhi asked: What wrong is my own community committing? That second question is far harder.

Gandhi Would Criticize Muslims Too

Gandhi should not be transformed into a sentimental champion of Muslims who excused everything Muslims did. That would falsify him. If a Muslim mob attacked Hindus, Gandhi would stand against the Muslim mob. If an Islamic preacher justified violence, Gandhi would challenge him. If Muslim politicians exploited religious identity, he would question them. If Muslims demanded justice for themselves while denying it to others, Gandhi would expose the contradiction. His principle was never: Muslims are right, and Hindus are wrong. His principle was closer to: Wrong remains wrong when my own people commit it. That is one reason Gandhi remains so difficult to appropriate completely. A Hindu nationalist cannot comfortably possess him. A Muslim communalist cannot comfortably possess him. A political left or right cannot comfortably possess him. Gandhi repeatedly demanded self-criticism before condemnation of others. His archive preserves this admonition: “Let us respect other religions even as we respect our own.” Notice the balance. He did not say, "Disrespect your own tradition." He said: extend to another person's faith the dignity you demand for yours.

Gandhi's Religion Was Moral Before It Was Political

Perhaps Gandhi's deepest disagreement with religious nationalism would concern what religion is for. He wrote in Young India: “My religion is based on truth and non-violence.” Elsewhere he argued that religion could never override morality: one could not be cruel or dishonest and simply claim God was on one's side. That principle is devastating when applied consistently. A Hindu slogan cannot sanctify cruelty. A Muslim slogan cannot sanctify cruelty. A Christian slogan cannot sanctify cruelty. A national flag cannot sanctify cruelty. Religious identity does not turn injustice into righteousness. Gandhi would probably ask those who invoke Rama politically whether their conduct is worthy of Rama. His recorded reflections include an especially pertinent warning: “It is useless to recite Ramanama without acting in a manner worthy of Rama.” That may be one of the most powerful sentences Gandhi could bring into contemporary India. The important question would no longer be how loudly one says, Ram. It would be: What kind of person does remembering Ram make you?

What Would He Say About a Hindu Rashtra?

Gandhi's India was not built upon the proposition that religious majorities acquire greater ownership of the nation. A democracy certainly recognizes majority rule in elections. But constitutional democracy also exists precisely to prevent numerical majority from becoming permanent moral supremacy. Were Gandhi confronted with the claim that India belongs more fundamentally to Hindus because Hindus constitute the majority, he might respond: Did a Muslim become less Indian by being born Muslim? Did a Christian become less Indian by praying differently? Does citizenship have a religion? And perhaps most importantly: If the strongest majority cannot protect the smallest minority, what is its strength worth? For Gandhi, restraint was not weakness. The strong willingness to protect the vulnerable was civilization.

He Would Also Disturb Today's Government

Gandhi would probably prove troublesome for virtually any government—not merely one party. He spent his life resisting unjust authority. Satyagraha assumes that the citizen possesses a conscience independent of the state. If a law were unjust, Gandhi would oppose it peacefully. If journalists were unfairly intimidated, he would object. If protesters were peacefully expressing grievances, he would defend their right to do so. If corporations accumulated enormous wealth while laborers remained destitute, he would question the economic order. If opposition leaders spread communal hatred, he would challenge them. If government leaders spread communal hatred, he would challenge them too. He would not ask whether criticism helped the government or opposition. He would ask whether it was true. This is why Gandhi as a statue is much easier to manage than Gandhi as a citizen.

The Dead Gandhi Cannot Interrupt a Speech

Dead heroes are politically convenient. They cannot contradict us. We can quote one sentence and suppress another. We can place garlands around their portraits. We can name roads after them. We can praise their courage without permitting anyone to imitate it. A dead Gandhi can be turned into national decoration. A living Gandhi would interrupt the ceremony. Imagine a politician delivering a fiery speech about religion while Gandhi rises slowly and asks: Does your speech make Hindus better people—or merely angrier people? Imagine a Muslim cleric making an inflammatory speech and Gandhi asking: Does your Islam require hatred of your Hindu neighbor? Imagine him asking television anchors: Why do you profit from keeping Indians angry with one another? Imagine him asking wealthy Indians: How much do you really need while millions have too little? Imagine him asking ordinary citizens: Why do you forward a rumor before asking whether it is true? Suddenly Gandhi would no longer be comfortable. He would be Gandhi again.

“You Killed Me Once”

If Gandhi could address Godse's admirers directly, perhaps he would say something like this: You killed my body once because you believed my concern for Muslims betrayed Hindus. But I did not defend Muslims because I loved Hinduism less. I defended them because the Hinduism I understood would not permit me to abandon a frightened neighbor. You may call compassion weakness. You may call reconciliation surrender. You may call me anti-national. But I will not allow your hatred to define my Hinduism. Then perhaps he would turn toward Muslims: And you must not permit another person's hatred to manufacture hatred within you. If Hindu fanaticism turns you into a Muslim fanatic, fanaticism has won twice. That would be pure Gandhi. Resist injustice. But refuse to become its mirror.

Could Gandhi Be Called Anti-National?

Today the word “anti-national” can function less as an argument than as a weapon. Gandhi might therefore ask: Is opposing the government anti-national? Is defending a minority anti-national? Is demanding justice anti-national? Is criticizing one's own religious community anti-national? Is refusing hatred anti-national? If so, Gandhi himself would have failed the test repeatedly. He challenged the mightiest empire of his age precisely because he distinguished love of country from obedience to rulers. For Gandhi, patriotism without conscience was idolatry. India was not merely territory. India was its people. All of them.

The Real Test of Gandhi

The greatest question about Gandhi today, therefore, is not whether we celebrate Gandhi Jayanti. It is not whether his photograph hangs in government offices. It is not whether political leaders quote him. The question is whether we would tolerate him. Would Hindu nationalists tolerate Gandhi defending Muslims? Would Muslim leaders tolerate Gandhi criticizing Muslims? Would governments tolerate Gandhi organizing civil disobedience? Would billionaires tolerate his economic criticism? Would television tolerate his refusal to hate? Would social media tolerate his insistence upon patience? Would political parties tolerate a man they could not permanently enlist on their side? Gandhi wrote that Hinduism was not exclusive. He said worship of God was incompatible with contempt for fellow human beings. He urged people to respect other religions as they respected their own. He warned that fanaticism was not worth living or dying for. Those are not harmless museum quotations. Taken seriously, they are political dynamite.

Gandhi's Final Challenge

Perhaps Gandhi would leave today's India with one question: What kind of country do you want to become? A Hindu may remain proudly Hindu. A Muslim may remain proudly Muslim. A Sikh may remain proudly Sikh. A Christian may remain proudly Christian. An atheist may reject them all. But the republic survives only when no one needs to humiliate another to belong. Gandhi's genius was not that he discovered a way to eliminate differences. He understood that differences would remain. His challenge was far harder: Can human beings disagree deeply without learning to hate one another? Godse answered that question with a gun. Gandhi answered it with his life. The gun killed the man. It did not defeat the idea. And so, more than seventy-eight years after Gandhi's assassination, India still confronts essentially the same choice: Will religion become a path toward moral discipline or an instrument of political anger? Will nationalism enlarge our responsibility toward fellow citizens or shrink our sympathy to our own group? Will the majority demonstrate its strength through domination—or by protecting those in the minority? And if Gandhi walked through India today defending a frightened Muslim, correcting an angry Hindu, challenging an intolerant Muslim, questioning a powerful government and refusing to hate any of them— would we still call him Mahatma? Or would we call him anti-national? The answer may tell us more about today's India than about Gandhi.  

by Dr. Aslam Abdullah