Wandering in India, Mahatma Gandhi and other inspirations

I’ve started a page on my blog about my wanderings in India, Indian politics, Gandhi and anything else that might catch my fancy! 

On the 150th anniversary of the Mahatma’s birth, a portion of his ashes were stolen from Bapu Bhawan in Madhya Pradesh's Rewa. And his image was defaced. 

Later that day, I was talking with someone, a local man up here McLeodganj where I live, and he said in a kind of offhanded way, that Gandhi was overrated because he showed favoritism to the Pakistanis. The man is in his mid-30’s, and didn’t even know that Pakistan was only established in 1947, but he was using Pakistanis to mean Muslims. 

I was shocked. I’d heard that among some fundamentalist Hindus, like the ones who probably defaced Bapu Bhawan, and others who were rehabilitating the reputation of Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, were downplaying the role of Gandhi in the history of modern India, but I really didn’t expect to hear it from the secular Indians I know.

In my activism we revered the Mahatma and satyagraha. I still do. I’m finding the current attitude of the younger generation of Indians regarding their heritage.  

I found a piece in The Times of India, Mahatma@150: 4 questions Gandhi asked of himself, and all of us by a British historian, that presents a view of the legacy of the Mahatma, and I’m reposting Taking the Next Step, A Note on Activism as a Spiritual Practice, a piece I did for Intimate Meanderings that details my thoughts regarding activism and non-violent action.

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