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On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gandhi, the Indian historian Ramchandra Guha publishes "Gandhi: The Years That Changed The World" (Penguin, 2018). This is the second volume of a voluminous biographical project that reports on the epic of a life out of the ordinary, located at the confluence of politics, social reforms and the spiritual. Opus more than 1,000 pages, this new book focuses on telling the Indian years of Gandhi, staging the alliance of strategy and the moral force of non-violence that freed India from servitude colonial. Questioned by RFI, the author returns to the secrets of his hero, his truth, his paradoxes and his posterity. Interview.
In 1914, Gandhi is 45 years old. His law firm in South Africa is a flourishing business. He decides to tackle everything and come back to India. Why ?
All aspects of Gandhi's life are documented in detail, except for the reasons for his departure from South Africa. No one has yet found an empirical justification for such a decision. In these conditions, the biographer that I am is reduced to advance by stating hypotheses, hypotheses likely, of course. For my part, I believe that Gandhi left Johannesburg because he felt he had reached the limits of the action he could now take. He had established himself as the undisputed leader of his community. But this country had only a small Indian population of some 160,000 souls. Under these conditions, the activist Gandhi could hardly make a great political career by staying in South Africa. His experience of activism had allowed him to evolve in terms of both political and personal reflection. So he thought it was time for him to take the fight to a larger scale. Gandhi was not devoid of political ambition. Like Trump, Modi or Macron, Gandhi was ambitious. He wanted to be the most influential Indian politician of his time. As he knew he could never achieve this ambition in South Africa, he returned to India.
When you say his thinking had evolved, what exactly are you referring to ?
By living in the diaspora, Gandhi had become aware of the extraordinary linguistic, cultural and religious diversity of India. His first client was a Muslim from Gujarat, his partner was a Parsi by the name of Rustomji, there were also many Tamils among the expatriates. They came as contract workers, before deciding to settle in their adopted country. It was this meeting with the Indian diaspora that prepared Gandhi for pluralism in India. He understood that if he were ever to engage in political life in his native country, the success of his actions would depend on the affirmation of this diversity. His generous and pluralistic vision of what it means to be Indian, Gandhi owes it to years spent in South Africa. For him, Indian identity is the sum of a number of fundamental democratic values, it is not necessary to be of Hindu obedience to be Indian. I'm not sure this open-mindedness, Gandhi would have acquired if he had made his career in Mumbai, India. The South African interlude had expanded the moral and political imagination of the future father of the Indian nation.
Once back in India, Gandhi will take the head of the Party of Congress which was then a party of notables. How does he succeed in changing this elitist club into a national liberation tool ?
The Congress, as I wrote, was a party of notable urbanized people. The discussions between the members were in English. Gandhi transforms this English-style club into a pan-Indian party, which has its roots in the countryside, in the districts and regions where the majority of the population lives. It will democratize participation so that ordinary Indians can join the party. The result is not long in coming, with millions of Indians coming to swell the numbers. Bapu's personal charisma was not totally foreign to Congress's growing appeal to the general public. From now on, the debates take place in the vernacular languages. Between 1919 and 1922, in the space of three years, Gandhi managed to transform the Congress.
Despite the popularity of the civil disobedience campaigns he will launch from the 1920s, Gandhi will not succeed in forcing the British authorities to quickly loosen their grip on the country. Was not that the limit of the Gandhian strategy?
Gandhi's three mass protest campaigns, the non-cooperation campaign in the 1920s, followed by the 1930 Salt March and popular mobilization around the Quit India call in the 1940s. , have broadened the popular appeal of Congress. The appearance on the political scene of hundreds of thousands of young men and women ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the liberation of their country bears witness to this. Inspired by Gandhi's words, these men and women worked for communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims, the abolition of untouchability and the emancipation of women. Even if the campaigns launched by Gandhi do not succeed in tearing away the independence in the immediate future, they will participate in rooting the ideals of democracy, pluralism and social justice in the heart of the Indian population.
The partition of India may have been Gandhi's biggest failure. How do you explain that Gandhi did not understand the strength of Muslims' aspiration for a separate state?
In my opinion, it is necessary to find the reason for this in the perception difference between expats like Gandhi when he was in South Africa and the nationals who never left India. In the diaspora, religious distinctions are blurred. Indian expatriates in South Africa were first Indians, before being Hindu, Muslim or Parsian. Having lived for a long time cut off from India, Gandhi may have underestimated the complexity of the situation. That said, I think you're asking the question wrong. It is impossible for an individual, whoever he may be, to triumph alone against the heavy tendencies of history.
In an India dominated today by Hindus, does Gandhi and his ideas of communal harmony and of the unity of man beyond races and castes are doomed to oblivion?
The first thing to know about Gandhi is that Gandhi does not belong to India. His thought is part of the common heritage of humanity. In particular, his ideas on non-violence, inter-community harmony and sustainable development resonate throughout the world. As for the Indians, they chased the Buddha out of India, they can very well evict Gandhi from their memory. Unlike Nehru, De Gaulle, Churchill or Roosevelt, who were first and foremost national leaders, Mahatma Gandhi was a political figure with a global influence.
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" Gandhi: The Years That Changed The World" , by Ramachandra Guha. Penguin, 2018 (not yet translated into English)