02 February 2013, 02:42 AM IST
On January 30, the anniversary of the day when Nathuram Godse pumped three bullets into the chest of Mohandas K Gandhi in 1948, I began trawling the net around noon. It was already night in India but Gandhi was still attracting "likes" and "unlikes" on the social media. Some were attacking the RSS "for killing Gandhi"; some were attacking the Congress party for "dumping" him; some were attacking the government for giving too much "importance to Gandhi at the cost of Dr B R Ambedkar"; and some were attacking India for 'failing" Gandhi. It was strange to see groups of people attacking each other using Gandhi. There was not much discussion on Gandhi -- his principles and politics.
But I had a different experience in this city, where people still seem to take Gandhian ideas seriously. To be honest, I didn't have any idea about Gandhi's Brazilian connection when I travelled to this vast country of 200 million people for the first time a few years ago. It was Carnival time in Rio de Janeiro and everyday was a party. At a neighbourhood party called bloco, I came across a man dressed in a turban and a white Indian-like dress, with images of Gandhi printed on it. He was a member of Flihos de Gandhi (the Sons of Gandhi), the biggest Samba school in Salvador, the capital of Bahia state. Founded in 1949, a few months after Gandhi's assassination in India, the all-men members of this group dress in white sheets and towels as fancy Indian robes. During the Carnival, more than 10,000 members of this group, inspired by Gandhi's principles of non-violence and peace, throng the streets singing songs in African languages and paying tributes to Gandhi amid the beating of drums by a battery consisting of hundreds of people.
(Ms Lia Diskin with Indian diplomats at Gandhi's statue in Ibirapuera Park in the heart of Sao Paulo on January 30.)
When you see this amazing spectacle, you can't help wonder why on earth people in this part of the world -- never visited by Gandhi -- get inspired by the Indian leader?
I got some clues to the answer on January 30 at an excellent panel discussion on Gandhi organised at the Indian Cultural Centre by its director Kamaljit Singh. As Eduardo Jorge, a local politician, Carmen Silvia Carvalho, an educator, and Joao Signorelli, a Brazilian actor who has been performing a monologue on Gandhi for nine years, spoke about and discussed "Gandhi is inevitable", it became clear why is Gandhi increasingly becoming popular here. The first hint came from Eduardo Jorge, who said that the world doesn't have any global icon other than Gandhi as all other "greats" of the 20th century -- Lenin, Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, etc -- have gone out of circulation. Think about it. In 2011, when the Egyptians were agitating at the Tahrir Square in Cairo, one could see several of Gandhi's sayings written on the walls at the square. During the Arab Spring, from Tunis to Sanaa, people could be seen carrying images of Gandhi (also of Che Guevara at some places). Gandhi's biggest contribution to India was that he turned India's freedom struggle into a mass movement. Before that the Indian National Congress leaders used to meet at their conventions and give speeches, which hardly reached the people. But Gandhi took his message to the people across the country and even housewives came out to protest and went to jail. The message that unarmed and non-violent mass of people is the greatest force on earth that can shake the biggest empires has been internalised by generations of people across the world.
There is no mass movement happening in Brazil. It's a stable country with a rapid growth rate and excellent social justice policies. In the past 10 years, more than 55 million people have been lifted out of poverty in this country. By 2014, there won't be any extreme poverty in Brazil. But there are serious takers for Gandhi's ideas here. At the ICC gathering, the auditorium was packed to the capacity. One of the persons present at the meeting was Lia Diskin, a Brazilian who has done excellent work here to promote Gandhi's work and philosophy through her institute Palas Athena. At a roundtable at the institute here on October 2, a group of Gandhian experts discussed how Gandhi's ideas have "inspired what we now call cooperative economy, local empowerment, equality of gender, and peaceful conflict resolution." These are the buzzwords -- and objectives -- of those who wan to make the globalised world a better place to live.
(Joao Signorelli, the actor who has been playing Gandhi in a monologue for the past nine years, speaks at the discussion on "Gandhi is inevitable" in Indian Cultural Centre, Sao Paulo. Photo: Elza Cohen Soares)
But, as Lia Diskin says, since Gandhi gave life to his ideas by means of his own example, the institute has been working with the local correctional facility in charge of young offenders (12–21 years). The interns, who study and learn art, theatre and music, etc at the units across the state of Sao Paulo have been introduced to the life and values Gandhi through painting of panels, graffiti, discussions and talks by volunteers. Just imagine, young men learning about the futility of violence from a man who existed in a land thousands of miles from here in a different century.
Gandhi may no longer be a living force in India, but he is doing much better in the land of Samba.
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