Speaking at the India Unites Convention last month, acclaimed author Nayantara Sahgal shared her experience of being under Gandhi’s influence “to illustrate the spirit of those times which we have not seen since,” and lambasted the recent spate of communal violence and the right-wing rhetoric of India being a ‘Hindu country’.
Sahgal said, “Inclusiveness has become a rally and cry now because it is under ferocious attack. We are told that India is a Hindu country. And all others are foreigners, outsiders and enemies. Let’s throw this ignorant rubbish in the rubbish heap. Let us recall how inclusiveness became an integral part of our modern identity.”
Explaining the significance and inclusiveness of the the Indian independence movement, she said, “The demand for freedom from under Gandhi was the first pan- Indian phenomenon in the Indian history and the first political event that can be called ‘national’ because it cut across all possible divisions of region, religion, caste, class, language and gender. But it was also the first time in any country’s history that class and mass came together under one political banner.”
Sahgal added, “He (Gandhi) was the first political leader, anywhere, anytime, who brought class and mass together on the same political platform. His understanding of inclusiveness and the ways that he put it into practice demonstrated that it was not, for him, a political issue. It was a cry for human dignity and equality.”
She explained that the present regime attacks the inclusive fibre of the nation “by taking control of university, and all aspects of knowledge and culture, Hindutva is making nonsense of history, science and arts. Those who dissent are persecuted. Arrested, and killed.”
The veteran author mentioned the assassination of senior journalist Gauri Lankesh and condemned the RSS-BJP nexus saying, “Let us pay tribute to her memory, and of others’ who have been shot dead because they spoke truth to power. Let us support all those who keep speaking the truth to power.”
Sahgal highlighted the persecution of minorities and the poor during her address, particularly in the light of mob lynchings. “Defenceless poor working- class Indians, carrying out their routine jobs, have been tortured and lynched because they are Muslims,” she said.
On fighting this assault on India’s constitutional values, she said “How can we combat this frontal attack on our constitution, the secular democratic republic that it created, and the liberty and equality it guaranteed every Indian?” Sahgal answered her own question, saying, “We can do what Gandhi did. Unite in civil disobedience. Speak, write, act from our various fields of activity, together or alone, to reject the lies that we are told and to oppose the evil that we see.”
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She added, “Writers, painters, filmmakers and others in the creative arts, and very crucially teachers, have a greater role to play because their work to a larger extent reaches out to the public…These people can refuse to be commanded by the state or by the mob.”
In 2015, Sahgal returned her Sahitya Akademi Award to protest “increasing intolerance” and to support right to dissent in the country, following the murders of rationalists Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar and M.M.Kalburgi, and the Dadri mob-lynching case.
“India Unites for Non –Violence and Harmony”, a citizen-led initiative, was organized in Mumbai from January 23 to 30th to commemorate the 71st anniversary of Gandhi’s martyrdom.