નારાયણ દેસાઈ

 
 અલવિદા, લોકાયની ! ગાંધીચરિત્ર તેમનું શિરમોર કામ

લોકાયની ગાંધી કથાકાર નારાયણ દેસાઈ લય પામ્યાનું સાંભળ્યું ત્યારે ઉત્કટપણે થઈ આવેલું સ્મરણ કવિ મૈથિલીશરણ ગુપ્તની એ મતલબની પંક્તિઓનું હતું કે "રામ, તમારું ચરિત્ર સ્વયં એક કાવ્ય છે. તે આલેખતાં કોઈ પણ કવિ થઈ જાય એ સહજ સંભાવ્ય છે.' એમને જ્યારે પિતૃચરિત્ર માટે દર્શક એવોર્ડ મળ્યો ત્યારે એમની અનુપસ્થિતિમાં એમનો પ્રતિભાવ વાંચવાનું મારે હિસ્સે આવ્યું હતું, આ પ્રતિભાવમાં એમણે મૈથિલીશરણની પેલી પંક્તિઓ સંભારી હતી.

દેશની અનવસ્થા વચ્ચે વારણ અને લેપન તેમ નૉળવેલ માટેની મથામણમાં એ સમગ્ર ગાંધીચરિત્રના લેખન તેમજ ગાંધીકથા સરખા લોકમાધ્યમ તરફ વળ્યા હશે એમ સમજાય છે. 2002ના મહાપાતકની સહિયારી જવાબદારીથી માંડી સાહિત્ય અકાદમીની નષ્ટ સ્વાયત્તતા જેવા નિર્દેશો પ્રમુખીય મંચ પરથી એમને કારણે શક્ય બન્યા.

વિદ્યાપીઠના દીક્ષાના સમારોહમાં આત્મનિરીક્ષણપૂર્વક એક પછી એક જે વિષયવસ્તુની ચર્ચા કરી છે તે આ સંસ્થાને સારુ હાથપોથીની ગરજ સારશે. શાંતિ-ન્યાય સાથે ચાલે, ભેદની ભીંતો ભાંગે તે એમની આજીવન મથામણ રહી. શિરમોર કામગીરી જો કે ગાંધીચરિત્રની લેખાશે. આ ચરિત્ર પછી એમની સ્મૃિત બીજા વિધિવત્ સ્મારકની મોહતાજ રહેતી નથી. એ અક્ષરશ: અ-ક્ષર જ હોવાની છે.

સૌજન્ય :  “દિવ્ય ભાસ્કર”,  16 માર્ચ 2015

Like all true Gandhians, Narayan Desai lived a life of simplicity and dedication

Mahatma Gandhi touched the lives of millions when he was alive, and he continues to do so long after departing from this world. But there are few left whom he had physically touched, an experience many have described as a rare privilege in their lives. Last month I met Patil Puttappa (96), an eminent Kannada journalist, who has described this experience in his memoirs as “life-changing”. As a student-volunteer, Puttappa had received the Mahatma’s pat on his back when the latter visited his village in Karnataka. A couple of years ago, Justice Chandrashekhar Dharmadhikari, another 88-year-old Gandhian, recounted a similar experience on a widely appreciated episode of Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate.

Narayanbhai Desai (90), who passed away in his native village, Vedchi, in Gujarat on March 15, had an even closer physical and missionary association with the Mahatma. First, he was the son of Mahadev Desai, Gandhiji’s legendary personal secretary. The Mohan-Mahadev relationship was so special that after the latter’s untimely death on August 15, 1942, during their imprisonment at Aga Khan Palace in Poona in the wake of the Quit India Movement, Gandhiji remarked: “The whole life of Mahadev was a poem of devotion… Remaining the disciple, Mahadev became my guru.” As such, Gandhiji showered his love, affection and attention on young Narayan, who spent his early years in Sabarmati and Sevagram ashrams.

Second, Narayanbhai himself became a widely respected populariser of Gandhiji’s life, philosophy and mission through his performances of “Gandhi Katha”, week-long discourses in Gujarati, Gujarati and English conducted in the traditional Bhagawat Katha style with music and songs. He rendered more than 100 such programmes in India and abroad. In 2011, the Ahmedabad Management Association published the English translation of Gandhi Katha, with a foreword by Rajmohan Gandhi, who writes: “This book is your ticket to a noble age. India then seemed to be the world’s moral leader… No one can take you closer to Gandhi than 86-year-old Narayan Desai. He has lived longer with Gandhi than anyone else living today. He has understood Gandhi better than anyone else. He has an amazing memory. He has a gift for telling stories; he is a poet, too.”

We should be truly grateful to people like Narayanbhai, his father and also Pyarelal (who worked devotedly with Mahadev Desai and later became Gandhiji’s chief personal secretary in the final tumultuous years of the Mahatma’s life) because they were not only first-rate Gandhians but also first-rate scholars and writers. Narayanbhai wrote 40 books, including My Life is My Message, an epic four-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi, which was ably translated by Tridip Suhrud.

The Fire and the Rose, his biography of his father, is a gem. It holds a mirror to Mahadev Desai’s extraordinary life of service and sacrifice. If the world knows a lot about Gandhiji’s incomparably transparent life, including the smallest details, it is due mainly to Mahadev Desai’s meticulous recordings in his diaries. Again, I take recourse to Rajmohan Gandhi’s brilliant foreword to The Fire and the Rose. “His [Mahadev’s]diaries recorded Gandhi’s doings, conversations, political parleys, ethical dilemmas. Sometimes his articles and briefings interpreted Gandhi’s mind better than Gandhi’s own pen or tongue. Waking up before Gandhi in pre-dawn darkness, and going to sleep long after his Master, Desai lived Gandhi’s day thrice over — first in an attempt to anticipate it, next in spending it alongside Gandhi, and finally in recording it into his diary.”

Like all true Gandhians, Narayanbhai lived a life of utmost simplicity and dedication. And most of it was spent in constructive activities, which were an integral part of Gandhiji’s mission. He was a close associate of Vinoba Bhave in the Bhoodan Movement, and of Jayaprakash Narayan in his Sampoorna Kranti campaign. He called his residence in Vedchi “Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya”, where he experimented with Gandhiji’s ideas about “Nai Talim” education. He was also active in the worldwide movement for peace and nuclear disarmament.

In 2013, Narayanbhai invited me to deliver the Kamalnayan Bajaj Memorial Lecture on “Technology and Nonviolence” at Gujarat Vidyapeeth, of which he remained the chancellor until his demise. My lecture at the university (founded by Gandhiji in 1920) was based on the theme of my book, Music of the Spinning Wheel — Mahatma Gandhi’s Manifesto for the Internet Age. Narayanbhai did not sound convinced with my argument that Gandhiji was not opposed to modern science and technology. Nor did he agree with me that tools of the digital era, if guided by the moral philosophy of the spinning wheel, can be helpful in ending the death and destruction man has inflicted on nature as well on members of his own species. Nevertheless, he listened to my views with an open and curious mind.

After the lecture, Narayanbhai’s close aides and I discussed an important project with him — the need to create a digital library of all the available audio and video recordings of his “Gandhi Kathas”, coupled with some fresh recordings to fill the gaps. Unfortunately, this project could not commence because of Narayanbhai’s failing health. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who condoled his death in a tweet, should ask his government to execute this project. The legacy of Narayanbhai and Mahadevbhai is too precious to be lost to posterity due to societal and governmental apathy.

March 17, 2015 

The writer was an aide to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee

photo courtesy :  Parthiv Shah

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/mahatmas-storyteller-narayan-desai/

Mahatma Gandhi's grandson has said that the father of the doctrine of non-violence would have adapted to modern times if alive, to counter the terrorism of ISIL (Islamic State). A day before the unveiling of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the historic Parliament Square by prime minister David Cameron and India's finance minister Arun Jaitley, TOI decided to quiz him on the relevance of Gandhi in modern times.

How relevant is Mahatma Gandhi today?

As much if not more that when he lived. Not just because he had the answers to our ills but because he was willing to acknowledge that he didn't have all the answers, that he was fallible, a mere experimenter with truth and not with its patent holder. Gandhi said in Delhi in Nov 1947 when the city was reeling under communal rights that whenever he sees a crime committed, he thinks he is the culprit. That is where his relevance comes in. Instead of saying I am not guilty or saying I am the answer, we need political, religious and corporate leaders to take responsibility. Thereby they must make other culprits accountable. If these leaders had the attitude of Gandhi what a change that could bring. How do you think his reaction would be to terrorism and ISIL for example? Can a Gandhi still be a force to face them and defeat them with the doctrine of nonviolence?

Gandhi's nonviolence was not static, it evolved and adapted to changing situations. He said a frightened submission to the bully was no part of nonviolence. Intimidation of cunningly lethal terror is such a formidable challenge that one can legitimately ask if the victims and targets of this kind of ISIL brutality which we have witnessed have anything to gain from Gandhi. Gandhi is a benchmark and not the last word. The courage of men and women who have been executed in recent times give examples of the courage that Gandhi would have said exceeds his own standards.

Do we need a modern day Gandhi?

Gandhi has done more than what one man can do in his lifetime. What we need is not a modern Gandhi but the inner power that he wanted to see in us to do what is right for us today.

Many people who are working to protect the woman and the vulnerable child from exploitation, to stem the sway of weapons manufacture and the arms market, the rapacity of the world's mineral and forest decimated, water and air contaminated, coastline mutilators and cruel traders in wildlife are doing Gandhi's work as well as he would have done or even better without using or being aware of Gandhi's name. Let us be inspired by them than to look for a modern Gandhi.

Are you happy with UK's decision to unveil the state? What does it mean for UK India ties?

It is an act of rare political and historical imagination. Mahatma Gandhi worked tenaciously against British raj calling its rule "satanic". He harrowed its structures both political and administrative for over three decades and during WW11 when Congress' terms of cooperation were not accepted, he escalated the resistance. Now, six and more decades on Britain eased those proceedings into perspective of world history aided no doubt by the fact that Gandhi's struggle was nonviolent and he bore not a shred of ill will for Britain or the British people. How many countries have honoured a man officially and at the highest level of participation who fought against it? I can't think of many or any and so I laud and applaud Britain for this unusual gesture to celebrate a man whose cause was just and whose means were fair.

Are you disappointed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't come for such a prestigious event?

Let us not regret absences on a day which has powerful presences. From history, the statue of Abraham Lincoln right behind where Gandhi will stand or Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela. From society of so many Britons of different backgrounds and ethnicities. And from politics, Britain's prime minister, minister of culture and India's finance minister who has a great sense of history. PM Modi is in Mauritius right now near South Africa where the epic process of decolonisation started. Gandhi's leading political colleague in South Africa Thambi Naidoo came to him via Mauritius and so our PM being there too on this day is a felicity in itself.

TNN | Mar 13, 2015, 10.46 PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/Interview-with-Gopal-Krishna-Gandhi/articleshow/46558334.cms