Recollections of a Communicator: Mahatma Gandhi taught us how to" Clean India"

It was very thoughtful of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to observe Gandhi Jayanti as a "Swatch Bharat" day and arrange many functions to clean India, literally.

Very few of the present generation of Indians remember that Gandhiji told us that we should clean our surroundings ourselves. As students, we were witness to his efforts to gain freedom for India.

It came as a surprise to senior Congressmen when Gandhiji decided to visit Champaran in Bihar and take up the cause of indigo growing workers against European planters in 1917.

Each tenant in Champaran was bound by law to plant three out of every twenty parts of his land with indigo for his landlord, and it was known as the 'tinkathia system'.

Gandhiji, on the persuasion of Rajkumar Shukla, a local leader, was engaged to take up the case of the indigo farmers . He decided to visit Champaran . Initially , he was taken to the house of Rajendra Prasad in Patna. Rajendra Prasad was away on tour. There was strict untouchability in Bihar. He was told to use the indoor latrine, but the servants, who did not know what caste Gandhiji belonged to , asked him to use the outdoor one.

It was a surprise to the Congressmen that Gandhiji used the bathrooms and also decided to clean them himself.

Gandhiji, was told by the Champaran administration that he cannot take up the case of the farmers as he was an outsider and had no locus standi, but changed his stand and accepted that he can study the problem. His success in bending the administration , made thousands of followers join him.

Gandhiji was able to influence thousands of field labourers who were not ready to do their own scavenging , change their habits. He was able to mobilise volunteers who swept the roads and courtyards, cleaned out the wells , fill up the pools nearby, and lovingly persuaded the villagers to raise volunteers to do the task from amongst themselves.

Gandhiji was successful in getting the tinkathia system, which had been in existence for about a century, abolished, and bring an end to the planter's raj.

More than that, the new habits that Gandhiji could inculcate among the people , as he said in his autobiography 'took such deep root, that its influence in one form or another is to be observed even today'.

Champaran , which saw Gandhiji in action in India in 1917, was the beginning. He took up the cause of textile workers in Ahmedabad in 1918. World War I was in progress. Gandhiji was invited by the Viceroy to a War Conference in Delhi. Gandhji supported the resolution on recruitment for the Indian Army.

Britain won the war. But the Rowlatt Act and subsequent steps of the colonial government made Gandhiji take up the cause of Swaraj. The non-violent non-cooperation movement gathered momentum. The Salt Satyagraha followed in 1930. He did not support the colonial rulers during the second World War and the Quit India resolution was passed in 1942.

In the meantime, from Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad, he moved to Wardha in Maharashtra in 1936 . Wherever he lived, his own life, as the celebrated author B.R. Nanda, says '" has been one long struggle against the force of violence and Satyagraha was designed at once to eschew violence and to fight injustice."

Again, it has been proved that Gandhiji's method of non-violence can succeed anywhere in the world. It was followed by Martin Luther King Junior in the United States of America. During his visit to Washington, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his respects at the statutes of Mahatma Gandhi and at the memorial of Martin Luther King.

What is unique in Mahatma Gandhi's life is that as a young boy he was an average student and used to go astray. But in every case when he had gone astray, as Nanda says, he posed for himself a promise "Never again". And he kept the promise. And it is a lesson for all of us.

It is fitting that on his return from the USA , Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to take up the cause of ushering in a clean India on the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.

Mr. I. Ramamohan Rao is a former Principal Information Officer to the Government of India. he can be reached on his e-mail raoramamohanrao@hotmail.com

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