Gandhi in Noakhali, East Bengal (now Bangladesh) c. Feb.1947
October 2, 2008
Today is Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday in India commemorating Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's birthday. Mahatma[1] Gandhi was born on this date in 1869. The outlines of Gandhi's life and philosophy were depicted very well in Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi . But the movie, of necessity, elides many major events in Gandhi's life and India's history. One such was his Peace Pilgrimage to Noakhali.
Noakhali 1946-47
Noakhali is a remote rural, agrarian district in the Ganges delta, some three hundred kilometres east of Calcutta, the capital of Bengal. In the fall of 1946, in what was still the British Raj but after the plan for partitioning India along religious lines had been bruited, large-scale communal (sub-continental euphemism for Hindu vs. Muslim) violence had broken out there. This was a majority Muslim area which would become part of East Pakistan, subsequently independent Bangladesh.
Gandhi decided he would walk to Noakhali on a mission of peace. This was to be a test of the principles of Satyagraha (which translates powerfully and resonantly as Truth Force), not against the Raj but among his own people.
Gandhi, notionally a Hindu, and his companions of all creeds went to Noakhali in early 1947. Among them was my maternal grandmother, Suchinta Devi.
My Didima
My Grandmother 1930's
Didima was already widowed by the time she went to Noakhali. She had had a respectable Bengali middle-class life (my grandfather had been an doctor, he died fairly young); she not only knew how to read and write -- fairly uncommon for women of that era -- she knew most of Tagore's [2] and Nazrul's [3] poems and songs by heart (more of this later). And she broke most of the taboos for widows, many persisting to this day, by actually going out of the house by herself and engaging in the life of the community. Though part of the Freedom Movement, she saw herself more as a peace activist and (that dreaded term) community organizer rather than a political activist.
It took the peace marchers some five days to reach Noakhali. The area was rent by violence; arson, murder, mutilations were visible; rumors of rape were rife. Yet within a week or two, the area was calm and peaceful. "What did you do?" I used to ask.
"We walked from village to village. We stayed with whoever would put us up, Hindus, Muslims, high caste, low caste, whatever. Bapuji (Gandhi)[4] would talk to everyone. He played ball with the children. We would sing bhajans, kirtans (Hindu hymns); some would recite verses from the Quran, chant Muslim hymns. But I think they liked my songs the best, Tagore and Nazrul, love songs, revolutionary songs, songs of Bengal. After all, we were all the same, sweetheart. All one. All Bengalis."
This seems too damn simple. Over the years, I've researched the Noakhali march and this is pretty much what happened. The power of Satyagraha, the force of Truth. The same power that emanated from MLK Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
Didima, 1984
Didima in her Prayer Room
My grandmother's (and Gandhi's) favorite hymn was:
Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram....
Ishwar Allah tera naam,
Sabko sanmati de Bhagwan[5]
(which roughly translates as: O Lord God; your name is Ishwar [5], your name is Allah [5]; grant us all wisdom).
The second line of the hymn, emblematically, led to the murder of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist assassin who believed Gandhi had betrayed his religion. It was less than a year after Noakhali, less than six months after Indian independence.
My didima fasted and prayed on January 30 till the end of her days.
Raj Ghat, Delhi
Gandhi memorial by the banks of the river Yamuna in Delhi. The inscription reads "Hai Ram" (Oh God), said to have been Gandhi's last words.
Notes:
[1] Mahatma literally means "great soul", an honorific believed to have been bestowed by Tagore on Gandhi and now used by virtually all Indians in referring to him.
[2] Tagore: Rabindranath Tagore , Bengali poet, Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1913, author of the Indian National Anthem ("Jana Gana Mana") and the Bangladesh National Anthem ("Amar Shonar Bangla Desh").
[3] Nazrul: Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet and freedom fighter, notionally a Muslim (important in the above context), but beloved of all Bengalis.
[4] Bapuji: Bapu is a term for father. Ji is the equivalent of "sir".
[5] Ishwar: Sanskrit word for God (as is Bhagwan in Hindi) - thus a term used by Hindus. Allah is, of course, the name of God used by Muslims.
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Comments
Thanks for sharing your grandmother's story.
When I went back a few years ago troops were massing on the border with Pakistan and the leadership was assuring the people that nuclear weapons were at their disposal. The name Gandhi made people frown. It was incredibly disturbing to see how little of his message was left. Thank you for reminding us of the man I think was the greatest in the 20th century.
There is an even bigger untold story here, isn't there? The story of the huge role women played in the Indian independence movement. And not just as behind-the-scenes handmaidens. They were on the front lines, in what must have been war zones, and their stories are so little known.
And another Cover! Congrats, you deserve 'em.
WOOF
Wayne: his message is indeed one of peace, and yet all around us turmoil and war. Like you, I have tried to use his message and the Ramdhun to at least try to quell my own lack of peace.
UK: That's a beautiful quotation. Tagore was a great mystic, and his poetic imagery unsurpassed, at least in my readings.
Julie, Donna: My grandma was indeed an inspiration to us. How this tiny woman - and in old age she was even tinier, bowed over by osteoperosis (I think) - could embody such a giant spirit has never ceased to amaze me. As CCC points out, the freedom movement was replete with such women who faded back into the woodwork, for the most part, after independence, and their stories need to be told.
CCC: Thank you. Woof :).
Thank you, and you are spot on. Indian documentary film-maker Lalit Vachani in his "In Search of Gandhi" traversed the very parts of Gujarat you were in and comes up with the same damning indictment. It's a short film well worth watching.
As you probably know, Gujarat recently was the scene of some of the most horrible communal violence in post-independence India. Thousands of Muslims were killed while the State Police, under the control of the Chief Minister Narendra Modi stood idly by. Modi belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), an offshoot and political arm of an organization known as the RSS. (Think of their relationship as analogous to BJP = Sinn Fein and RSS = IRA).
Nathuram Godse, Gandhi's killer, belonged to the RSS. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Thx, Julie. I know Deepa Mehta slightly through come Canadian friends. She's a very good film-maker. If you haven't seen them already, her Earth and Fire are also worth watching. She doesn't go over well with many Indians ("washing dirty linen in public") but I like her because, for the most part, she tells the truth with a very poetic eye.
Tagore: author of the National Anthem of two countries - India and Bangladesh. The only poet I guess to have this unique honor.
Rajghat looks lovelier in your photo, I visited when it was practically burning in May.