Walking the thin line of tolerance

Two places have stood out for me personally whenever I wanted to be within myself or more often than not without The first is Mani Bhavan in Mumbai and the second is the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad Both are humbling experiences but they are not belittling ones I balk at using the word ldquoinspiringrdquo because few if any of us can claim to have achieved anything close to the man and the thought behind both institutionsEvery so often there is an argument in India about why M K Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize And every so often we come to the same conclusion which is his achievements are neither diluted nor diminished because he did notThe truth of it Gandhi is one of the few men in India who faced both criticism and adulation in his lifetime and after much unlike the sort of heroworship that Indian society bestows regularly on film stars cricketers and the occasional politician Representation PicPTIIt is also true that Gandhi is one of the few men in India who faced both criticism and adulation in his lifetime and after much unlike the sort of heroworship that Indian society bestows regularly on film stars cricketers and the occasional politician Gandhi asked uncomfortable questions held himself and others especially those close to him to uncomfortable standards and did not spare himself when it came to searching scrutiny A man who calls his autobiography My Experiments with Truth is not a man who would choose a fan club over his own contradictionsBut what about Gandhirsquos assassin Nathuram Godse Was he a much misunderstood cutiepie who did just one wrong thing in his whole life and has been damned and hanged for it since Ever since the Hindu Mahasabha announced that it is going to put up statues of Godse all over India some Indian intellectuals have come out batting for Godse The argument often is that as a ldquogood liberalrdquo you have to respect all points of viewIndeed So what did Godse do He shot dead a frail unarmed old man The reason was at best a political disagreement and at worst religious hatred Assassinating Gandhi did not at that time help Godsersquos cause And ironically today Godse has admirers and the Indian polity pays lip service to Gandhi while ignoring most of what he stood for Can we indeed pat ourselves on the back for our immense tolerance of all viewpointsFor some in the BJP and the Sangh Parivar though the Hindu Mahasabharsquos call for Godse statues is a trifle embarrassing since Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been trying to appropriate Gandhi for his party And then therersquos the man whom the Sangh Parivar has long tried to appropriate Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who banned the RSS after Godse assassinated Gandhi The connections between segments of the Sangh Parivar are not as tenuous as their friends outside like to pretendThe Hindu Mahasabha may not be as influential as it once was but it is an essential block in the history of the Hindutva movement Not quite the ldquofringe elementrdquo we are being made to believe And all segments of the larger Sangh Parivar have found the loudspeakers ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre in May 2014 Regressive thought processes fantastical history religious supremacism antiminority rhetoric and action itrsquos all back at centre stageBack to Godse then who had no doubt that he would pay the price for what he had done He made no excuses unlike his currentday apologists and his explanation for killing Gandhi rests almost solely on what he considers Muslim appeasement he refers to Gandhi as the ldquoFather of Pakistanrdquo In that phrase lies the kernel of every insult that every person in India who does not hold allegiance to the Hindutva ideology has to hear every day Godse killed on a hate principleMistaken controversial difficult though Gandhi may have been but he still stands at the opposite end of the hate principle In spite of every effort made by Indian politicians Indian society wannabe intellectuals and the might of the Hindutva army he withstands Killing Gandhi did not take help Godsersquos cause Making excuses for Godse is an even weaker attempt But itrsquos alright A few moments alone in Mani Bhavan or the Sabarmati Ashram might make you feel better Try it Being tolerant after all cuts both waysRanjona Banerji is a senior journalist You can follow her on twitter ranjona