In the din of farmers protest in and around the national capital region (NCR), a significant incident happened in the city of Davis in California, some 12, 524 km away from Delhi. Mahatma Gandhi, considered to be India’s father of the nation, became the soft target of anti-Indian groups, whose identity is yet to be disclosed by the local police.
Four years after Gandhi’s statue was erected in the Davis park, an unknown group desecrated it and broke the 6-feet -tall bronze statue into pieces. One would wonder, how was this relevant in India and why should people bother in India? After all, the US police are capable enough to crack the crime and decipher the motive behind it. Though for the Indian audience, this incident will somehow help understand the growing anti-India sentiments, which, unfortunately, runs deeper in society. Unfortunately, the statue of the father of the nation became the target.
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In an area that is dominated by the people of Punjabi and Pakistani descent, installation of Gandhi’s statue had become bone of contention.
People having allegiance to known Khalistan groups were opposing the installation of Gandhi’s statue, though the local administration installed it after the majority of the people favoured it in 2016.
It is a little perplexing that the statue was desecrated on January 27 in the US, the day India celebrated its Republic day. It was an uncanny coincidence that there was violence at the Lal Quila, where Indian prime minister hoists the national tricolour every year on August 15, on the same day.
By delving into this issue, I am just trying to connect the missing dots and nothing more. I am not drawing any conclusion, I am just talking about the coincidence, rest I leave on the law enforcing agencies, who are better placed to investigate the matter and book the culprits, whoever it may be. To connect the desecration of Gandhiji’s statue to the farmer’s agitation in India would merely be conjecture at this stage.
On February 1, a huge gathering of people from Indian origin showed up in the Davis’ park and expressed their sadness and anguish over the horrendous incident. While another group of people, identified as local Sikhs in the video, gathered in the park and said they were glad that statue was removed. Unfortunately, this happened in the US, which was defined as the land of the melting pot.
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The response from the White House came five days after the incident, offering a tepid condemnation. In America, a country that claims to offer free speech and respect diverse views, this incident should serve as an eye-opener.
For the sake of records, the city of California received a great number of Punjabi migrants since early 1900. They became successful farmers, entrepreneurs and businessmen over the years. These Jutt farmers, primarily from Punjab’s Malwa and Doaba area, fought against injustice and racial abuses and rose in the society. Now they play a very important role in US politics. Their success stories are numerous, who rose from being labourers to the owners of the largest chunk of fertile lands around California.
Like these Punjabi farmers, Mahatma Gandhi also fought against racialism early in his life in South Africa and became an icon worldwide. His Satyagraha and principles of non-violence affected global politics to the extent that he became become a hero like Martin Luther King Jr.
In 2019, when the world celebrated the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the US also expressed its gratitude for the role of Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas played in establishing and reshaping an equitable society. Though Mahatma Gandhi couldn’t visit the US, his idea of non-violence and Satyagraha played a vital role.
To quote Martin Luther King, “I found Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy intellectually and morally more satisfying than the whole pantheon of the European philosophers.”
And why to go that far, who can forget Mahatma Gandhi’s role in the Champaran Satyagraha, where he sounded the bugle against the imperialistic British regime, who were forcing farmers to produce indigo in their land in exchange for pittance. This was a mass uprising of the farmers in Bihar, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and soon engulfed a great chunk of India. Indigo was a crop used for the dyeing purposes in the United Kingdom and it rendered lands barren because of excessive consumption of water. Gandhi forced the British government to bring a new law called Champaran Agrarian Law (1918).
Today, we can pity those who term Gandhi as a Hindu, fascist and racial. Even after his death, Gandhi keeps on inspiring millions of people across the world. His principle of non-violence and civil disobedience still hold.
Gandhi abhors violence and true to his beliefs he had decided to call off the movement in Chauri Chaura in 1922, where a set of demonstrators had set on fire police stations resulting in the death of 22 policemen and three innocent civilians.
Appalled at the outrage, Mahatma Gandhi observed five days fast as penance as he believed his culpability in the bloodshed, but that was another time. Lal Quila violence followed by the desecration of Indian tricolour, destruction of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Davis in California and Mahatma Gandhi’s calling off his violence after Chauri Chaura reflects the agony of our times, which will remain etched in our memories, forever. Perhaps people will understand Gandhi better once they read about him more.
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