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Should we ban books that criticize Gandhi?
On a fellow blogger’s site, I went through a small discussion on why India is obsessed with the Nehru/Gandhi family. The blogger, evidently a big fan of the Nehru/Gandhi,Congress/Sonia, very passionately argued why the “Sangh Parivar” sucks and why everybody was wrongly obsessed with the Nehru/Gandhi family and why they so unjustly criticize Sonia Gandhi. What started as a comment on his article, ended up as this post on angryindian.com
The blogger in concern went on to describe a book he had happened to chance upon. The book was “The Men who Killed Gandhi”. The book apparently had described that Gandhi’s killer was a hero to millions. I am yet to go through the book, will have a post on that as soon as I’m done reading it (Yes, Yes, I’ll buy it today). Our blogger apparently could not take this lying down.
An excerpt from his post:
“I am aghast at how such books do not face censorship in India. Are we taking this tolerant attitude, this freedom of speech thing too far? Are we going to allow a generation of youngsters who do not know the truth to read this crap, and believe that Gandhiji deserved to be shot & that that despicable low-life who shot him was a hero??? Like I’ve said before, History is fair! The likes of fawkes, hitler, booth, oswald & godse will always be remembered as cold-blooded, mentally ill men, but despite that, this book is taking things too far. I’d say give it a miss. The writer doesn’t deserve any reading. May he too be remembered as a traitor!”
While his admiration for Gandhi is admirable…:-) , I would not favor a censor (the word turns me off), simply because it would mean killing freedom of expression. There is nothing called too much freedom. Generation of youngsters I believe are quite intelligent folks and will continue to be. I think we should let them read both sides of the story and figure out the truth for themselves. It need not be drilled into their brain the way it has happened in the last 60 years.
Tragedy is that Fawkes, Booth, Oswald, Hitler and Godse died before their “mental health” could be determined by a doctor. Though I am not a supporter of what these people did - or rather what was told to me that these people did, I believe history was written by human beings and they might have erred in their judgement. I leave open a small window in my head which asks questions like “Maybe historians were biased? Maybe these killers were not as bad as they were made out to be?” There is no definitive answer I get. However I sleep content realizing I am not prejdiced, at least not completely.
I am not in love with Gandhi, I am in love with the philosophy he advocated. Personally, I respect him because of his ideals, but don’t revere him. I am open to the idea that historians might have created a concoction of fallacies and fed it down my throat. Personally I keep that window open because I know for a fact that Godse was denied a public trial. Why was Nehru apprehensive in giving him a trial, where he could speak to the public of this country why he did what he did?
So at the end of the day, the author of the book, Manohar Malgonkar may not be branded as a traitor. For there are people like me who are interested in the non-Congress version of the truth as well. I am glad we live in a country where we are not burning Godse’s effigies as they’re burning Guy Fawkes’s in the west.
My name is not relevant and I am the Angry Indian
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12 Responses to “Should we ban books that criticize Gandhi?”
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angry indian…
I’m honoured at my post having inspired on from you.
I too have admiration for Gandhi’s ideals. The ideals make the man. Any man who lives life in accordance with such high ideals and has contributed to our freedom, and has influenced international thought the way he has (Einstein, Mandela etc.), probably deserves to be called more than just the Father of the Nation.
Your allegation that you’ve been fed “a version of history” has been argued here earlier:
http://mutiny.in/2008/05/03/history-lies/
Some historians may be bought, but history is never written by 1 historian. History as we know it today is a compilation from many “validated” sources. Despite that if you’re bent on considering the possibility that you’ve been “fed” history for 60 years, you have a rethink coming. I’m sure Historians will take offence to what you’re propounding.
Try & read this on “history”, “freedom of speech” etc. as well:
http://mutiny.in/2008/02/27/jodhaa-akbar-on-ndtvs-the-big-fight/
And what exactly is a “public trial”? How is it different from an ordinary trial that any accused gets?
And if you feel that generations of Indians are intelligent enough to gauge for yourself, you should hear young people talk about Gandhi today… Go to Orkut & see the number of members that the godse community has & compare it to the numbers in Gandhiji’s community.
I think that people in certain parts of India have been “fed a different version of history”.
rss schools in UP have a course prescribed novel that has a character like Gandhi (without naming him) getting assassinated in the end, and the killer being proclaimed as a hero. I’ve heard this first hand from a friend who had the misfortune of studying in one such school.
Next thing you know, this new book will find it’s way into the course material of rss schools all over the country. And a new generation of Indians will arise! Do you want that kind of Indian living among you?
Think again.
I would very much like your view on this one as well. For some strange reason all the uber-nationalists have stayed away from reasoning:
http://mutiny.in/2008/03/05/on-indias-national-symbols/
Maybe I too should’ve responded in post form instead of comment form… but I’d just be repeating my posts…
Though I know History cannot be completely fabricated, I am just open to the idea. You proved my point when you brought to notice that the RSS might be doing the very same thing by feeding people in UP with Anti Congress material in History books. If they are, shame on them.
Problem is, how do I trust either versions of the “truths”? How do I know the Congress didn’t do the same as what the RSS is doing now? I am sure the Average Indian also faces the same dilemma.
I think at the end of the day we are “taught” too much history. It should be more individual research driven.
FYI..a public trial is the ordinary trial that any accused gets, where newspapers, electronic media and the general public can attend if they want to. Godse’s was a closed-trial. Not even the media knows what defenses he used. Why is that so? Maybe what he said was just bullshit, maybe it made some sense. Why can we not know what happened in that trial room?
I’ll go through the articles you suggested and do some more analysis…:-)
My name is not relevant and I am the Angry Indian
angry indian,
If you leaf through (I wouldn’t advise anymore than that!) the book I speak of, you will notice that the author has quoted transcripts from the courtroom. If this wasn’t a public trial, how does he have access to those?
As for researching history instead of being taught it, it’s a noble thought. There are historians doing that for us. Each of us have a job & to a large degree I’d say we try & discharge it with honour. Historians are aware of their responsibility to society. I’m not saying they’re incorruptable, but with history being made up of various accounts being painstakingly compiled from multifarious sources (from Huen Tsang to our modern day NCERT researchers), I’m fairly confident that what we’ve been taught is not far from the truth.
Take Gandhi for example. He isn’t only a hero in India. He’s admired the world over! He was voted Man of the Century by Time (or was he second on the list?), nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice (never won it though). What motive do non-Indians have in glorifying him? Assuming that successive Cong. govts. had a motive, in the first place.
I personally find these accusations nauseating. It’s a classic method: Can’t argue with a man’s ideals, pull him down in the public eye.
Don’t you think that’s despicable.
Doesn’t it make you “angry”?
Gandhi has been idolozed in India and the West because of his ideals and the concepts that he brought to the table, not for any other reason. The ideals are respected world over, which is why people, consequently respect the person. It should not be the other way round.
All I’m saying is that people choose their idols. Just because someone does not share your idol does not mean shame on him.
We don’t live in 1970 anymore. We don’t have to agree with everything the Congress says.
My name is not relevant and I am the Angry Indian
angry indian…
No one says it’s the other way around. There is truth in the fact that the man is a superhero to millions outside of India (for what he did & stood for), right?
This truth I call history.
I never said shame to anyone who didn’t share my idol (ASSUMING that I idolize anyone!). I said shame to the people who kill good men in cold blood! Do you disagree with THAT??
We don’t have to agree with anything the Cong says. The discussion was about history & it’s distortion. I’m talking NCERT, CBSE, ICSE. I’m talking International A & O levels. None of these are Cong mouthpieces. Does the Cong even have a mouthpiece?? No.
Do some others? Yes.
Good Stuff Angry Indian . One has to keep an open mind , even for a hypothetical possibility that things were not as they seem . I am no expert on Indian History , but it does astound me as to why the other heroes of Freedom Struggle , namely Bhagat Singh , Chandrashekhar Azad , S.C. Bose etc. are not at the same footing as Gandhi or Nehru . Congress , I suppose ? Maybe , maybe not . Gandhiji was indubitably a great man , a world icon . But these other heroes were no less a patriot , so why are they not hailed as much ? Every city in India as an MG Road . I have no problem with that . But it seems that these other heroes got lost , nobody mentions them. I remember reading about an ICSE History textbook labelling Bhagat Singh as a terrorist . Appalling ! All this does bring up the question whether our own history has been doctored or not .
hello
i have heard about the book ‘the men who killed gandhi’ and looking forward to read it.
however i just finished this massive book by Tushar Gandhi - ‘lets kill gandhi’..that totally changed my perception towards whom churchill had once remarked as the ‘half naked fakir’..projecting gandhis killers as heroes is certainly wrong but then the person who wrote the post has to realise that if he is so much a fan of Gandhi then he too should not oppose it but accept it as a part of human right to express and try changing people through reasoning and not by harsh words..
please read the tushar gandhi book too..you would be surprised in more ways than one..
kislay…
Do name the ICSE history book you allude to. I’d like to see for myself, what in a Indian history text book could you possibly have misunderstood.
arun rafi,
I’m the person who wrote the post. Maybe you could go thru my comments in this forum if you seek to understand my point of view.
@1conoclast
I myself have not read the textbook . I read about it . Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev have been referred as terrorists in an ICSE 6th standard class in social science subject text book at page number 64 & 65 in Mumbai . Check out this link as well . http://www.netgautam.com/wordpress/2007/01/23/indian-freedom-fighters-shown-as-terrorists-in-text-books/
kislay,
I went to the link you provided. It’s another blog that talks about what you’ve brought up.
The Hindustan Times link that seems to carry the news article isn’t working anymore. I’ve tried to research it on the net, but haven’t come up with anything yet.
The one thing that did come up is that the chapter is probably titled “The rise of terrorism”, in which our 3 great freedom fighters are mentioned.
I don’t think they’ve been called terrorists directly.
The word Joshi also appears somewhere on your link. I’m assuming (I could be wrong, until I can find the damn article) that this is Murli Manohar Joshi who during his tenure as HRD minister was changing all the history textbooks. It is possible that he may have politicised the issue.
We used a lot of methods in our freedom struggle: war, assassinations, terrorism, civil disobedience & peace. The history book may just have been referring to this.
I will try & get my hands on the textbook to confirm this.
I agree with you, AI. banning and censoring freedom of speech is the avenue that cowards take.