Letter writing
topic " Dear Bapu Mahatma Gandhi ,you are immortal "
in 1000 words
Answers
Dear Bapu,
You left this world or rather you were mercilessly snatched from us years ago, even before my father was born. Obviously, I never saw or met you. But my grandfather who had seen and heard you a couple of times would often talk about you. We would try to imagine you with the description he provided. “Woh patle duble the lekin bahut tez chalte the (He was lean and thin but walked briskly),” my grandfather would inform. “But don’t get misled by his frail frame. He was a man of steely determination.”
Today’s generation, brought up on countless tales about you told through books, cartoons, movies, music, documentaries, and God knows what else, relate with you also through the cheeky chant: “Bande mein tha dum, Vande Matram.”
My colleague and friend Vaibhav Purandare, in his new book ‘Savarkar: The True Story of The Father of Hindutva’, pithily captures the Mahatma’s last moments: “Gandhi stepped out on to the garden lawns on the premises (of Birla House in Delhi) for his evening prayer meeting. He had hardly reached the lawns, with arms around his grandnieces Manu and Abha, when a man (Godse) in the crowd bent down to touch his feet and rose up in a flash and pumped three bullets into the Mahatma at point-blank range.” Hey, Bhagwan!
What if Godse, just as he bent down, in the great Hindu tradition to greet and show respect to elders, to touch your feet moments before he killed you, had changed his mind. What if the revolver Godse used to perform the heinous crime had jammed. These are assumptions. The bitter truth is that evening the man with a diabolical agenda to finish off the apostle of peace succeeded in his mission. And if he hoped, Gandhi’s assassination would throw India into a communal cauldron (communal riots in the wake of the Partition had already singed the subcontinent), Nehru poured waters on it when he named the killer in the radio broadcast to the nation that evening.
Bapu, I don’t need to explain to you the word imam’s wider meaning. Imam is not just one who leads prayers five times a day at a mosque. Imam is one who has proven the ability to lead. You had a famous “imam” as your fellow traveller in the freedom struggle. He was Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who earned the title of Imam-ul-Hind (leader of India). How shabbily we have treated those Imams (leaders) in India down the ages?
There is a subtle attempt to marginalise the Mahatma in India. Many of his ardent followers see a deliberate design to cut the Mahatma down to size in the use of outline of his iconic specs to popularise Swachch Bharat campaign. Well, cleanliness was one of his traits undoubtedly, but Gandhi deserves much more than his specs on the billboards announcing anti-open defecation movement.
If the Mahatma still towers over others among the pantheon of freedom fighters, how did someone get away by building a temple for Godse? How did a self-declared nationalist get off the hook after shooting Mahatma’s poster as part of her revenge on the Father of the Nation?
Oh, did I say Father of the Nation? Just the other day wife of a state’s chief minister became subject of much ridicule and trolling on the social media when she called PM Narendra Modi “Father of the Country” on twitter. But bigger shock but no surprise awaited us when the US President Donald Trump hailed India’s PM as “Father of India” on the sidelines of United Nation’s General Assembly (UNGA) recently. Did you turn in the grave, Bapu, when you heard this?
You must be uncomfortable at the perilous path India is following. The values you lived and died for are in tatters. Your mantra of non-violence seems to have been tossed out of the window. Justice, another leitmotif that punctuated your persona, is receiving a mortal jolt at the hands of the seekers of “revenge”. You experimented with many things in life, including asceticism in loincloth and celibacy in the company of women. These are there your autobiography—‘My Experiments with Truth’.
And how can I forget to tell you, Bapu, how the media behaves in the new millennium. A prolific writer, you passionately used the platform of your journals to air your honest, truthful views. Now the truth is being murdered daily, mostly at the studios of news channels. News anchors have become executioners, outperforming each other at mouthing half-truths and fakery. For you, the news was sacred. For us, fake news is a reality we must live with and fight against. The border between fact and fiction has been blurred. Many conscience keepers of the nation have made profitable careers out of cannibalising facts.
And you might ask: “Why did I write this missive?” I wrote it because writing gives me a cathartic feeling; it has a therapeutic impact. Now that I have taken a lot off my chest, I feel better, Bapu.
Answer:
Mehrauli Gurgaon Road, New Delhi
3rd February 2020
Dear Bapu,
I am writing this letter to you to express my gratitude for inspiring me and for your immeasurable contribution to the freedom of our country.
I am starting with an important day for the citizens of India. Your birth anniversary, Gandhi Jayanti, is celebrated on October 2 as a national event across India. This day is celebrated by people across the entire world as the International Day of Non-violence.
Dear Bapu, in spite of the great danger from the British, you initiated and took the lead in the Salt March of 1930. It was an open declaration of civil disobedience to protest the British rule in India. Your action that day started off the massive wave of nonviolent resistance to the British colonial rule. Your non-violence and satyagraha policy lead India to achieve Independence in August 1947.
You believed that all human beings are God’s special people and must be treated equally irrespective of their caste, color, language, creed, region, and religion.
Dear Babu, you are immortal. You will always live in our hearts. We will always remember you for your selfless love for the country and her citizens. Today India is a sovereign nation and one of the greatest countries of the world. But we have not forgotten that we owe everything to you.
You are indeed the great soul, the Mahatma Gandhi. Your life, your selflessness, your simplicity and your noble principles have inspired me. You are my role model and I will always do my best to follow your footsteps.
Yours affectionately,
Amardeep
A proud son of India