Gandhi. The ashes are scattered...

“The world is large enough to satisfy the needs of every person, but too small to satisfy human greed.” The man who said these words - Mahatma Gandhi - turned 140 years old in October.

The date is not very round, so it passed almost unnoticed. However, it's obviously not just a matter of date. Indeed, even in India itself, the anniversaries of Gandhi, who is called “the father of the nation” here, are celebrated less and less solemnly over the years. The world is changing, and the attitude towards the great dreamer politician is changing.

From Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, nicknamed Mahatma (Great Soul) in the Indian national liberation movement, his descendants inherited the idea of ​​​​non-violence, as well as the strange International Day of Non-Violence, which set his birthday on October 2 (by God, I can’t imagine how it should be celebrated ). And, of course, his wonderful statements.

For example, this one, addressed to political leaders: “It is a bad habit to assert that others think wrongly, but only we think correctly, and that those who hold different views are enemies of the fatherland.” (Alas, this “bad habit” seems to be firmly rooted in Russia, and not only in it.)

Or here’s another: “A small body, possessed of spirit and inspired by an unquenchable belief in its mission, can change the course of history.” The best illustration of this aphorism was Gandhi himself. Short and thin, always dressed in a traditional Indian dhoti (due to Gandhi’s passion for national dress, Winston Churchill even called him “that half-naked fakir”), stooped, with a staff in his hand, he was able to challenge the entire British Empire. And he won.

In fact, Gandhi did not invent the concept of nonviolence at all - it is found in Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. And the Mahatma himself, protesting against the term “Gandhism,” admitted that he only took what had existed in Indian religious thought for more than one century. However, Gandhi was truly an innovator—he was the first to bring the idea of ​​nonviolence into modern politics. Moreover, the Mahatma made non-violence a key slogan of his political program.

At the same time, he had to withstand opposition even from his comrades in the national liberation struggle - among them there were many supporters of decisive action. For example, one of his former comrades, Subhas Chandra Bose, almost unknown in Russia, but still very popular in India, even created the first Indian National Army, which sided with Hitler and fought against the British in Burma and the Andaman Islands. However, this army failed to achieve any serious successes.

Gandhi understood perfectly well that a powerful and well-armed power cannot be defeated by force - with cannons and rifles. In this case, freedom fighters turn into simply armed separatists in the eyes of everyone. Moreover, he did not want freedom for India, won by blood and murder. He taught that violence should not be resorted to even in the name of the highest ideals, since violence would certainly discredit them.

But if you cannot win by force, you can win morally. The Mahatma proclaimed satyagraha (perseverance in achieving the truth) and non-cooperation with the colonialists, with a complete rejection of armed struggle, as the main method of struggle, since human life, in his opinion, is the highest value. Gandhi called for rejection of British goods, British education, payment of taxes to the British treasury, etc. He sought the abolition of the British monopoly on the production of a number of vital goods, for example, salt (at his call, Indians began to extract salt using artisanal methods and organize non-state saltworks).

The Mahatma organized massive campaigns of civil disobedience. At the same time, the actions of the British colonial authorities could not be called peaceful - demonstrators were beaten with batons, arrested, and opened fire on them. “He who speaks of non-violence must be prepared for violence from another,” Gandhi said to those of his comrades who called for a response with force.

Gandhi himself often staged demonstrations against the British crown in order to end up in prison, and went on a hunger strike there. To representatives of the English Viceroy of India, he said what became one of his most famous aphorisms: “Just as a man will not care about life in another body than his own body, so people do not like to live under the domination of other nations, as no matter how noble and great those nations may be.”

Another innovation of Gandhi was the very nature of his propaganda. In a country where more than 80 percent of the population was illiterate, leaflets and newspapers of various anti-colonial groups and movements remained the property of the fringe of the educated community. Gandhi framed his calls in the form of a popular sermon, familiar and understandable to everyone. In the guise of a sadhu (Hindu sage), he walked on foot around various regions of India, where crowds gathered to listen to him. His words were then passed on from mouth to mouth throughout the country.

The third important component of “Gandhism” was the great dream of a new type of state. He called the people of India to Sarvodaya, a society of universal prosperity, where justice, prosperity and non-violence would reign. He declared all the problems of the world to be a consequence of the “philosophy of the colonialists,” which bring with them inequality, acquisitiveness and, of course, violence. India, relying on a great culture much more ancient than Europe, is capable of building such a state, the Mahatma was sure.

He didn’t even like the industrial innovations that the colonialists brought with them (although he believed that many of the technical innovations could be used to serve his country). Thus, Gandhi believed that in India it was necessary to develop not large-scale industrial production, but handicraft production, and argued that a traditional hand spinning wheel would allow each family to earn enough for a flatbread and a handful of rice and would save the country from unemployment.

This call for a “welfare society, Indian style” turned out to be one of the most attractive points of teaching for ordinary citizens of India.

At the same time, Gandhi’s strength lay in the fact that he was absolutely trusted. In his environment at different stages of his activity there were different, sometimes very ambiguous people, but the Mahatma’s hands remained absolutely clean. The property remaining after Gandhi's death consisted of simple clothes, worn-out sandals, several books, glasses and a staff. And this despite the fact that he received huge funds from all over India for the needs of the national liberation movement. But he didn’t take anything for himself.

At one time in South Asia there was a lot of debate about whether Gandhi was really a Hindu saint who came into politics, or whether he was simply a smart politician who realized that in those conditions the image of a saint was more suitable for India. The author of the article, who became interested in the Gandhi phenomenon while still a student, gradually came to the conclusion that, after all, the Mahatma was first and foremost a politician. Quite tough, by the way, but at the same time a dreamer politician (this also happens).

It is also very important, of course, that Gandhi was opposed by the colonial machine of a country like England, with its democratic traditions. The activities of the Mahatma were heard in Britain itself. Reports of Gandhi supporters putting their heads under police batons without responding to blows shook the metropolis. The Mahatma turned out to be right - if the Indians had shot at the British, public opinion in England would hardly have supported them. And then the British realized that they, accustomed to consider themselves bearers of the “white man’s burden,” were opposed by a force claiming moral superiority. The popularity of imperial ideas in the metropolis was declining. There were various reasons for this, but the activities of the Gandhis were one of the most important. “We don’t want to be resigned, miserable asses, kicked out to conquer other unfortunates!” wrote one English journalist then.

After World War II, in 1947, Great Britain left India. The reasons for this departure were different, including economic and political, but Gandhi’s role here was also high. In addition, the Mahatma did everything to keep some of his supporters who were going to give the British a “hot send-off.” All this later allowed the famous English historian Arnold Toynbee to write that Gandhi rendered an invaluable service to the British, allowing them to “retire without hidden enmity,” since, as the historian rightly noted, “it is much easier to own an empire than to get rid of it with dignity.”

Gandhi, it would seem, could celebrate victory. But…

But the reality turned out to be far from expectations. Indian independence turned into a monstrous Hindu-Muslim massacre. The country split into India and Pakistan along religious lines, confessional nationalism on the streets turned out to be stronger than Gandhism - monstrous atrocities were committed by both sides. Hundreds of thousands of people rushed to different parts of the country, fearing that they would end up in the “wrong” state. As a result of interfaith clashes, more than half a million (!) people died. And many researchers consider this figure to be underestimated. No country in history has known such a bloody collapse.

Gandhi was horrified. He even pointedly refused to attend the independence ceremony when the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, raised the flag of independent India over Delhi. The Mahatma did not need such independence. He began to wander around the country, convincing everyone to stop the massacre. At the end of 1947, the Mahatma returned to Delhi, where clashes continued, and went on a hunger strike - “until the madness stops.” Gandhi's comrades had difficulty persuading him to start eating.

On January 30, 1948, Gandhi walked out to a crowd standing outside the house in which he lived. Suddenly a young man approached him and shot him three times at point-blank range. Gandhi was assassinated by a certain Nathuram Godse, a member of the pro-Hindu radical group Hindu Mahasabha. The radicals did not forgive the Mahatma for preaching peaceful coexistence between Hindus and Muslims. A Hindu fanatic killed a Hindu saint.

Mahatma could not teach the world anything. After his death, “Gandhi’s path” remained only part of the history of the Indian national liberation movement. From time to time, here and there, politicians appear who declare themselves followers of Gandhi, but none of them managed to lead any kind of mass movement. And most supporters of independence prefer to simply take up arms - from Timor to Chechnya, from the Basque Country to Sri Lanka. At one time, the famous Balkan politician Ibrahim Rugova openly declared himself a follower of Gandhi, but in the Balkans, as we know, everything did not end according to Gandhi. The unique experience of peaceful moral confrontation was not in demand.

For the Mahatma, it would probably be most offensive to learn that his India, the independence of which became his life’s work, also considers his ideas only as part of history. The country is rapidly building capitalism, albeit with national characteristics, and is actively developing industrial production - the economy of the hand spinning wheel is a thing of the past. India has a very high unemployment rate and poverty remains an acute problem. There is no Sarvodaya in India and is not yet expected.

Gandhi would probably have been horrified to learn that India had developed and tested its own nuclear weapons and was openly knocking on the door of the nuclear club—the Mahatma considered the atomic bomb a “satanic weapon.” It is unlikely that he would have approved numerous Indian programs for the acquisition and development of various weapons, or the purchase of an aircraft carrier from Russia. Relations between the two parts of the once united country, India and Pakistan, remain tense.

One Western observer wrote back in the 90s: “Gandhi has been put in a museum along with a hand spinning wheel.”

He got it after his death: he bequeathed that his body be burned and his ashes scattered. After the cremation ceremony, the ashes were divided and placed in several urns, which were transported throughout India so that people could say goodbye to them. Most of the ashes were poured into the country's rivers back in 1948. But it turned out that some of the urns were stolen, others were lost, one was discovered ten years ago in a provincial bank, where it had simply been forgotten at one time. Last year, the Gandhi family sued another urn. Possibly the last one to be discovered. And the ashes of the Mahatma were scattered.