Weekend Edition with Rajdeep: What would Gandhi do?

THE SAVIOUR? Gandhi's first concern would have been to alleviate pain and then to work with the communities.

    

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The blasts in Ahmedabad have left the city shaken and shocked. But amidst all the violence, Sabarmati Ashram remains an oasis of peace. The ashram where Mahatma Gandhi spent a significant period of his lifetime stands a quiet witness to the horror that unfolded on July 26.

What would Gandhi have done in the times of terror?

Noted historian Dr Ramchandra Guha and Gandhian scholar Dr Tridip Swaroop debated this on the show Weekend Edition with Rajdeep Sardesai.

Dr Ramchandra Guha said that he thought that Gandhi would have certainly advised restraint and he would have tried to calm down feelings and sentiment.

"We should remember that without the Gujarat Muslims, there would have been no Gandhi and maybe even no India. His first funders, his first promoters, the office-bearers, the activists of the Natal Indian Congress, the leaders of the Satyagraha Movement were all Muslims and Parsis and later on South Indians. So I think Gandhi would have reminded us that we are country that is a wonderfully diverse and rich mosaic. We don't know who is behind the terror attacks - they could be Indians or foreigners. Whichever be the case, Gandhi would have counseled restraint and would have reminded us of this unique diverse fabric," Guha said.

Dr Swaroop said, "Gandhi would have told us to understand pain and to be empathise with those in pain. That understanding of pain is missing in our present day political and social leadership. Unless you have a theory of pain, you cannot have a theory of healing and that's where I think Bapu was so good."

He said that Gandhi's first concern would have been to alleviate pain and then to work with the communities. "If he were in Ahmedabad now, a Hindu Ahmedabad and a Muslim Ahmedabad could not have been created on such impermeable terms in the first place. If Gandhi had been a living presence in Ahmedabad, we would not have been talking of two Ahmedabads in the first place."

"The fact that we speak of two Ahmedabads is also proof that Gandhi is no longer available to us as a social imagination in Ahmedabad," Swaroop added.

But Gandhi was in the days of no terror, when ahimsa (non-violence), could have been used as a weapon. Would ahimsa work in the day of the hi-tech bomb against terrorists?