The five lives of Narayan Desai
Narayan Desai, who died last month, was the last living link to Mahatma Gandhi (picture), the last person still around who knew him well and at close quarters. He was born in December 1924, the only child of Gandhi's gifted secretary, Mahadev Desai, and his wife, Durga. Narayan grew up in the Sabarmati Ashram, with his parents following the Mahatma to Sevagram when he moved there in 1936.
In the winter of 1933-34, Gandhi undertook an 'anti-untouchability' tour of southern and eastern India. Towards the end of the tour, when they had reached Odisha, Gandhi and Mahadev were joined by their wives. During the day, the men toured the countryside, preaching against the pernicious practice of untouchability. At night they returned to their camps, where their long suffering wives were waiting for them.
One day, while their husbands were away preaching, Kasturba and Durga learnt that their camp was merely a few miles from the great Jagannatha temple in Puri. The two ladies, devout Hindus dedicated to prayer and to worship, decided to go visit it. As Kasturba Gandhi and Durga Desai set out for Puri, they were dissuaded by a nine-year-old child, the child of Durga and also of Mahadev. Narayan Desai told his mother and (adoptive) aunt that 'Bapu' would be very cross with them for going to the temple, since its priests forbade Hindus born in 'untouchable' castes from worshipping there. They went regardless.
Kasturba and Durga had their darshan of Lord Jagannatha and returned quietly to the camp. Later, when the men returned, the boy Narayan told them what the women had done. A row broke out, with Gandhi scolding Kasturba for the transgression. How could he ask Hindus to rid themselves of untouchability when his own wife gave legitimacy to temples that practised untouchability?
Mahadev Desai once joked that "To live with a saint in heaven is a bliss and a glory/ But to live with a saint on earth is a different story". It was tough being Gandhi's secretary, and even tougher being Gandhi's wife. It is hard not to sympathize with Kasturba for not wishing to give up the only chance she had of visiting the Jagannatha temple. On the other hand, one has some sympathy with Gandhi too, for expecting that his own family would first adhere to the wider social reforms that he wished to bring about.
In August 1942, Gandhi gave the call to the British to "Quit India". The Mahatma was arrested at once, and incarcerated in the Aga Khan Palace in Pune with his wife and secretary. A week later, on August 15, Mahadev died of a heart attack. Meanwhile, his 18-year-old son had courted arrest, as one of tens of thousands of Indians who gave up their liberties in order that their country may be freed.
When, in August 1947, the country gained its independence, many erstwhile jailbirds became ministers and members of parliament. Narayan Desai, however, joined the fewer (and far less known) group of freedom fighters who chose to focus on constructive work instead. With his wife, Uttara (daughter of the remarkable Odia Gandhians Nabakrushna and Malati Chaudhuri), he set up a school for tribal children in Vedchhi in south Gujarat.
As a social worker, Narayan Desai was active in rural education and in land redistribution through his participation in Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan movement. He was also a precocious critic of the country's nuclear energy programme. Because it has the power to make bombs, the Atomic Energy Commission has always held the State and powerful politicians in thrall. But to Narayan Desai, the AEC's military potential did not make its civilian programmes immune to scrutiny. He was not convinced that nuclear power was economically viable. He worried about the cloak of secrecy that surrounded the industry, and the dangers this complex technology posed to human health and ecological integrity. The questions he raised 30 years ago have never been satisfactorily answered by the country's nuclear establishment.
In the 1990s, Narayan Desai was persuaded by his friend, Mahendra Desai, to take a break from social work. Although the two Desais were unrelated, they shared a great deal in common; both had grown up in the Sabarmati Ashram (Mahendra's father, Valji Desai, had joined Gandhi even before Narayan's father did), and both had gone to jail during the Quit India movement. Mahendra now urged Narayan to write a life of Mahadev Desai. Although closer (and arguably more important) to Gandhi than Raja ji, Patel, Nehru or Azad, the self-effacing Mahadev had so effectively written himself out of the Gandhian narrative that unlike those other men he had been largely forgotten.
Narayan Desai's biography of his father presents a many-sided picture of Mahadev, the writer and scholar, traveller and seeker, patriot and partisan. The original, Gujarati version of the book won the Sahitya Akademi award; it is also available in English under the title, The Fire and the Rose. Its success encouraged Narayan Desai to write a biography of Gandhi himself, this likewise published in Gujarati as well as in English. While in the first instance a close study of Gandhi's life and campaigns, it ends with a moving evocation of the Mahatma's relevance to our times. Thus Narayan Desai writes: "Those young men and women, who under the leadership of Dubcek bared their chests before the Russian tanks in Czechoslovakia; the black and white men, who [during the Vietnam War] stood before the Pentagon with flowers; … the brave women of Karnataka, who courted death by jumping into the foundations of a nuclear reactor at Kayaga" – these were among the hundreds of experiments in satyagraha inspired by Gandhi, "where injustice was fought with justice, where tyranny was resisted with love".
In February-March 2002, there was a pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat. Visiting the state shortly afterwards, I was told by a veteran Gandhian that what had occurred was akin to "the second assassination of Mahatma Gandhi". Narayan Desai himself was deeply disturbed by the violence in his native state. Already in his late seventies, he thought he was too old to lead a campaign against the perpetrators of the pogrom. Instead, he would seek to mould popular opinion by rendering the Mahatma's ideals in a form comprehensible to the contemporary generation.
By 2002, Narayan Desai already had four careers – Ashramite, freedom fighter, social worker, and author – and acquitted himself admirably in each. Now began his fifth career, that of bard and story-teller. He created a "Gandhi Katha", where, through poetry, songs and stories, he took the Mahatma's life and message to audiences across Gujarat. Later, he also did some renditions in Hindi. These performances were widely appreciated, and are now available on DVD. As Narayan Desai's close colleague and translator, Tridip Suhrud, writes, the "Gandhi Katha is an act of faith. It seeks to reaffirm faith in [the] quest for Truth, for non-violence, for the essential sameness of all religions and in the primacy of dialogue as a means of resolving conflict in modern civil society".
I shall end with a personal memory. In 2007, I attended a meeting in Sevagram, convened by the culture ministry to discuss the identification of Gandhi Heritage Sites. It was chaired by Narayan Desai. After the meeting ended, the officer sent by the ministry went around with a sheaf of forms, asking the participants to claim their TA/DA (travelling and dearness allowance). As the rest of us filled in our flight details, Narayan Desai waved the forms aside. He had, he told the earnest official, come by train from Ahmedabad via Mumbai on his freedom fighter's pass. The babu, undeterred, asked him to at least claim his taxi fare from Wardha station to Sevagram. Narayan bhai answered that he had in fact travelled this last section by bus, adding: "Does one need to be compensated or reimbursed for coming home?"
e.mail : ramachandraguha@yahoo.in
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150404/jsp/opinion/story_12470.jsp#.VR-43mbyqcY