It was indeed a strange coincidence that just when Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook a train journey in South Africa on Friday, from Pentrich to Pietermaritzburg, to relive Mahatma Gandhi's transformative moment in life, a wave of violence swept across the Kashmir Valley following the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani and two of his associates.
As Modi concluded his trip to South Africa on Saturday, which he aptly described as a pilgrimage to pay obeisance to two of the greatest men that walked on earth – Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela – violence had claimed over a dozen lives in clashes between the security forces and protesters in Kashmir.
Irony often plays a critical role in defining the life of a nation. In 1893, Gandhi wrote in his book 'Satyagraha in South Africa' that he had gone to South Africa on the invitation of Dada Abdulla, as an aspiring brief-holding lawyer. "The atmosphere of intrigue in Saurashtra was choking me," he wrote while explaining the reason behind him choosing South Africa as a destination.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets flowers at the bust of Mahatma Gandhi next to Gandhi's granddaughter Ela Gandhi at the Gandhi settlement in Phoenix, Durban.
Till then, Gandhi was not an idealist and had entertained the dream of pursuing a golden bubble of affluence like any other professional lawyer. "Being a barrister-at-law, I was well dressed according to my lights and landed at Durban with due sense of my importance," he says in order to point out his ordinariness. Then the transformative moment came when he was thrown out of a train by a police constable at Pietermaritzburg.
The subsequent experiences of Gandhi gradually changed his life radically and transformed him into a Mahatma. Indian traders who came to see him after his humiliation tried to comfort him by saying, "they had made it a principle to pocket insults as they might pocket cash". In another reference, he said, "trade and sensitivities can ill go together".
Though Gandhi was still tentative about his stay in South Africa, he was persuaded to take up the case of Indians who had been legally disenfranchised. This was the beginning of Gandhi's struggle in South Africa, where he discovered many facets of his life in his 21-year stay in the nation. For instance, he loved South Africa at first sight and found that cows and animals in the country were treated in a much better manner than in India. Nowhere in the country he found emaciated animals abandoned on the streets, as was the case in India.
Similarly, he doggedly insisted on cleanliness when he learnt that Indians in South Africa were seen as unclean, and as a tight fisted society which prefers to live in discomfort and favour thriftiness. He learnt not to bear any grudges against his assailants, though he faced murderous attacks several times.
But the most interesting aspect of his discovery was 'Satyagraha', which loosely translated as 'passive resistance'. Gandhi invited suggestions from his followers about the apt translation of his mode of protest and found Maganlal Gandhi's suggestion of 'Sadagraha' to be quite apt. But he himself improved on it, to make it 'Satyagraha', based on the principles of 'truth and non-violence'.
He was so convinced about the efficacy of his mode of struggle that he wrote in the concluding part of the book that, "had it not been for this struggle and for the untold suffering which many Indians invited upon their devoted heads, the Indians would have been hounded out of South Africa". "Satyagraha is a priceless and matchless weapon and that those who wield it are strangers to disappointment and defeat," he wrote, in his conclusive remark about his sojourn in South Africa.
Modi's brief journey, that retraced Gandhi's travel to the status of Mahatma must have been a humbling experience. In a series of interactions with politicians and heads of the state, he emphasised the priceless gift South Africa had given to humanity in transforming an ordinary "Mohandas" into a "Mahatma", nearly 123 years ago.
In essence, his speeches in South Africa were no less important than his address to the US Congress, not for strategic reasons but for the sake of human history. But sadly, back in India, this extraordinary effort to connect with South Africa, Gandhi, Mandela and India got eclipsed by the violence in Kashmir.
India of 2016 and its political culture has acquired features that Gandhi abhorred. Its craving for super-power status is guided by its desire for a matchless machismo and pragmatism that fits into the new world-order. Equally, those fascinated by guns to pursue their idealism, be it religious or political, find romanticism in the life and death of a misguided youth, Burhan Wani. In such a context, it would be curious to know how Gandhi would have responded to the challenge? Perhaps the PM's pilgrimage to South Africa may have given some clues on how to take the country out of this madness.
Source: India's unfortunate reality: Burhan Wani encounter eclipses Gandhi's journey
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