Let’s be mature when it comes to our icons: 6th April 2011: DNA

Indians as a rule like to deify individuals to the extent that their images become larger than life. Next, we seek perfection in these images, which means that nothing that they do can be wrong and consequently these creations are superimposed on the individual.

Now, they become icons of perfection to be revered. Third, once these icons are created, we are not allowed to criticise the same and getting even faintly critical of these creations is blasphemy.

And last, while all other perverse acts such as communal animosity or corruption are tolerated in our society, these heresies are punished with violence, and the freedom of expression is choked.

This is a systemic observation in our evolution and it is not surprising that Joseph Lelyveld has gotten on the incorrect side by making observations about Mahatma Gandhi, though they are supposed to be based on letters from the official archives. We have seen such instances in the past too, where any such pointers against any of our predefined icons have led to wide scale damage of property and the consequent banning of books.

There are three aspects there. The first is that we are rarely able to separate the issue from the individual. Gandhi played a very important role in India’s independence, and our discussions should surround this issue only. The personal habits or proclivities, even if true, and apparently deviant in the conventional sense are irrelevant. It is here that we err as once we convert the human form into a symbol of virtue (very broadly defined in very orthodox terms) we get intolerant to further discussion.

We need to change our way of thinking. If we like Keith Richards or Lady Gaga, it should not matter what they do to their personal lives, as it is only their music which counts. The same happens with our cricketers where Tendulkar is deified and nothing that he could do can be incorrect. Recall when ex-Austrailan cricketer Adam Gilchrist had in his autobiography said something about the sporting spirit of the genius, it created a stir because we cannot accept that our God-like cricketer can behave humanly at times!
The second is who is it that makes a noise about such things? It is invariably the lumpen elements of society, which includes politicians hoping to gather electoral support, who like to raise a storm. The man on the street does not really bother about such things. These elements use the occasion to get closer to their constituency and the best way is to point out to the masses that their gods are being challenged and they are protecting India’s honour by indulging in violence. It is assumed that this works, and maybe politically fulfilling. The effective way of showing dissent is to beat up the distributors or publishers and fight for a ban. This high disruptive nuisance value always wins as the loss on account of damage to property is a high cost to incur for preserving the sanctity of a book.

The third is why do people invite such controversy? While Lelyveld’s intentions are not clear, very often controversy is good publicity as it invites interest of people who would otherwise have been indifferent. Both Advani and Jaswant Singh saw their books do well at the counters by making controversial remarks even though they invited wrath from the BJP.Gilchrist too released his book when a match was being played in India, which meant that lots of Indians would have bought the book to know what was written. Salman Rushdie too knew that he could not get away that easily as did James Laine.

The first question is whether anyone cares? The present generation’s knowledge of the Freedom Struggle is limited to the history textbook and treats Gandhi just like say the earlier generation looked at the World Wars or our parent’s generation, the Mughal dynasty. Values have changed and the modern gods are Microsoft and Facebook. What Gandhi or anyone else did, if at all it is true, is of no consequence. The illiterate would however find value in such actions while the unemployed now have some work to do in indulging in arson like activity.

The second is whether a ban would work? The answer is straight forward no. In this day and age, banning any form of literature transfers eyeballs to the internet, which would otherwise not have shown much interest. A mature approach would be to simply ignore what is written and let historians argue the same at their conferences. Gandhi will remain a global icon for his contribution to India’s independence. Nothing else matters really.