The only family photo-op of the G20 that was possible was at Rajghat, the place where the Mahatma was laid to rest after his assassination by Nathuram Godse. Western leaders at the G20 have refused the family photo involving any Russians, but Gandhi’s strong imprint on the world stage and his deep impression as the best thing India can present about itself to the world came through as the next President of the G20, the Brazilian President, Lula D’ Silva, made it clear how emotional he got when he went to the Mahatma’s memorial, referring to him as “dear Gandhi.” Lula told the media, “Everybody knows that in my political life, Mahatma Gandhi has great meaning because the struggle with non-violence was a role model that I followed for many decades when I was in the Labour Movement. That is why I am very much touched and emotional…”BJP and the Sangh Parivar have a grave Mahatma problem – one which has often meant invoking Gandhi abroad, but his assassin Nathuram Godse when in India. This came into sharp focus when the G20 was held.For the flag-bearers of the ideology that assassinated him, how to constantly discredit it, yet extract it and use it for the propagation of an idea of Gandhi-land is a dilemma that refuses to go away.Modi posted this on social media.The ideals of Mahatma Gandhi reverberate globally. pic.twitter.com/J4Ko3IXpe4— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 10, 2023It would be a routine thing coming from any other Indian prime minister. But a series of attempts have been made in the recent past to further take away and insult the Gandhian legacy of non-violence and composite Indian nationalism, going as far as to deify his assassin Godse. • This October 2, it is believed that the takeover of Sabarmati Ashram will be complete, with Modi present at the spot. Beyond the architectural reworking of the historical space, through a project criticised consistently by Gandhians, autonomous institutions passing directly into the Union government’s control make the takeover complete. Other Gandhian institutions, in Varanasi for example, saw “occupants of an iconic Gandhian institution thrown out and land taken over”, in July.• Meanwhile, Gita Press was given the Gandhi Peace Prize, 2021. But as Akshaya Mukul’s biography of the Gita Press outlines, the award was a way of trying to both distort and appropriate Gandhi, because the Gita Press was the biggest critic of Gandhian thought in Gandhi’s lifetime. They did not even refer to his assassination for months and their top people were amongst those arrested after Hindu Mahasabha and RSS associates were being picked up in the aftermath of the killing.Mukul writes:“[The Gita Press’ flagship magazine] Kalyan’s virulent attack on Gandhi, was to cause Poddar considerable trouble five months after Independence. Gandhi’s assassination on 30 January 1948 in Delhi’s Birla House by Nathuram Godse and others associated with the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS, resulted in the arrest of more than 25,000 people throughout the country—among them Poddar and his mentor Jaydayal Goyandka. G.D. Birla refused to help the two, and even protested when Sir Badridas Goenka took up their case. For Birla, the two were not propagating sanatan dharma but shaitan (evil) dharma. Strangely, the rich private archives in Gorakhpur contain no reference to Gandhi’s assassination.”• Gandhi being diminished with reference to the Khadi in the Khadi and Village Industries Commission calendar made news in 2017. “Modi deletes Gandhi from Khadi Gram Udyog calendars: No KVIC rules on photos, says government”, read this news report on January 13, 2017. PMO sources, according to India Today, “termed the Khadi controversy an ‘unnecessary’ one citing years from the past, when the KVIC calendars did not have the photographs of Mahatma Gandhi.”At G20, Gandhi seemed to have disappeared completely from the spinning section in the Crafts Bazar at Bharat Mandapam.Photo: DD social media.• The June issue of Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti’s Hindi language magazine, Antim Jan, features Savarkar on the cover. Author and journalist Dhirendra K. Jha, whose recent work is the book Gandhi’s Assassin: The Making Of Nathuram Godse And His Idea Of India told The Hindu that Savarkar was an accused in Gandhi’s assassination, although he was let off because charges against him were not corroborated.To invoke Savarkar there was a travesty, said Tushar Gandhi. It also shows their desperation to equate Savarkar with Gandhi. It shows how frivolous and shaky their conviction about Savarkar is. This is all very planned strategy of corrupting Gandhian ideology and creating a new narrative which is convenient for the present regime.”• It was Savarkar’s birth anniversary on which the new parliament held its controversial inaugural. No session has so far been held in the new parliament, despite its inauguration in May and an entire session going by.The challenges of trying to benefit from the ‘brand’ Gandhi and what it means for India and its identity, while trying to not hollow but reverse its values from within, haunts the BJP. All the while, the current BJP leadership battles charges of portraying Gandhi globally, and Godse, locally.The most recent public relations blitz around the G20, which somehow once again brought back the Gandhi question, means this is not going to go away anytime soon.
