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‘Thank You, Gandhi' Reimagines the Mahatma as Moral Compass in Fractured India
Published : Aug 05, 2025 21:48 IST - 5 MINS READ
In 1969, the Gandhi centenary year, Jainendra Kumar, the eminent Hindi writer, noting the possibility of Gandhi being forgotten, envisioned a future when he will be 'reinvented not as an individual, but as a non-personal, almost mythical presence' and hoped from that point in time 'a new era of human history will begin'.
Presented in a form which is part interesting novel and part intense reflections, Thank You, Gandhi is essentially a set of conversations among two boyhood friends and with Gandhi 'the almost mythical presence' and above all with 'India's deceptive selfhood'.
Thank You, Gandhi
By Krishna Kumar Viking Pages: 210 Price: Rs.599
The two friends, Viresh Pratap Singh (nicknamed 'Munna') belonging to a minor royal household in Bundelkhand, and 'K,' the narrator, underwent their primary education under the Gandhian Nai Talim method infused with ideals of the national movement. Later, K went on to become an academic, and Munna joined the IAS to fulfil the 'dreams of nation-building along Gandhi and Nehru's vision of a modern yet kind, considerate nation which was also determined to alter its old self'.
A gradual distortion
Both Munna and K are witness to the gradual distortion of this vision. The landslide victory of an ardent admirer of Godse and a terror accused from Bhopal in the Lok Sabha election serves as a take-off point for anguished reflections on the distressing developments over the last decade. In this period, not only have the leaders of the national movement been vilified, but there have also been concerted efforts to destroy the vision of 'modern yet considerate nation' that inspired not only Munna and K but many, many more. This is most frighteningly evident in the officially sanctioned propagation of lies, the normalisation of violence, the apathy towards mob lynchings, and the heartlessness on full display during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Munna himself succumbs to COVID-19 while helping its victims and leaves the task of editing and publishing his reflections on contemporary India with 'Gandhi as a moral compass' to K, who does it with his comments at places, thus continuing his conversation with his friend, who is physically no more.
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Munna puts down his reflections in words, because 'We can't stretch Gandhi. He is no plastic figure. His metal and stone busts are mere selfie spots now. Words alone can protect him from predators.' In the age of visuals dominating all kinds of communication, this faith in words is poignantly edifying.
Gandhi is a moral compass because his experiments with truth 'could hardly be all about truth in the common sense of fidelity to facts'; these experiments led him to 'playful reversal'—from God is truth to Truth is God. He perceived 'truth as a symbol of the ideals he saw as ingredients of morality'.
Such appreciation does not, however, imply endorsing all his perceptions. Thank You, Gandhi is not a sentimental eulogy but a probing conversation. Munna unhesitatingly notes Gandhi's failure in recognising the implications of the fact that 'Jati is the real structure and Varna an idea'. Ambedkar was obviously closer to reality on caste oppression. Similarly, Gandhi's comment that 'citizens of Hiroshima could have prayed for the bomber pilot before they perished' was 'vacuous'. Gandhi writing a letter to 'dear friend' Hitler 'tells us how ignorant he was and how innocent too. This he would have acknowledged had he lived long enough to visit Dachau or Auschwitz as a tourist.'
Critical empathy
What Munna concludes about Hind Swaraj would be completely applicable to Gandhi's perceptions and actions taken as a whole: 'It was a code, politically encrypted but essentially moral. It was a new version of old ideas from different philosophical sources, but also from traditions that were still alive in villages and small towns.' Approaching this 'whole' with critical empathy will likely lead to neither deification nor vilification but to a genuine gratitude.
These reflections contain a trenchant critique of deliberate attempts being made by Hindu nationalist forces to destroy democratic institutions and norms of civilised behaviour. More importantly, it also underlines the genealogy of moral apathy leading to acceptance of or indifference to these attempts. Munna, a retired civil servant, reminds us: '...handling the ravages of the Union Carbide leak in Bhopal included muzzling the truth and editing of ghastly experiences of thousands of poor people so that everything could be neatly adjusted in the grand narrative of the government.' Therefore, '[i]t is hard to wake up when you are rolling down a gentle slope at a comfortable speed. That is how India was, Bhopal was, before Gujarat happened.'
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Munna's reflections are quite pessimistic. At the very end, K longs for his friend to hear him say, 'India is a great teacher my friend and it never fails to teach whoever tries to bend it.' Despite feeling closer to Munna, this reviewer would like to endorse K as 'where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it'.
This book is indeed 'uncategorisable' (as mentioned in the blurb) for the library cataloguing system, but for anyone concerned with humanity's present and future, it undoubtedly belongs to the category of essential.
Purushottam Agrawal is a historian of early modern bhakti poetry and a well-known public intellectual. He has engaged with Hindu nationalism for five decades. His recent books include Who is Bharat Mata? (Speaking Tiger), a collection of Nehru's writings and writings about him with a long introduction. He is currently writing a book on the Mahabharata.
