કવિ અજમલ સુલતાનપુરીનું કાવ્ય ફેઈસબુક પર આવ્યું. સાંભળતાં જ હું ભૂતકાળમાં સરી પડી. એ હૃદયસ્પર્શી કાવ્ય સાંભળવું એ મારો પ્રાતઃકર્મનો એક હિસ્સો બની ગયો છે.

હું જે ભારતમાં જન્મી, ઉછરી અને કામ કર્યું એ ભારત હિન્દુ, મુસલમાન અને બીજી અનેક કોમનું પોતીકું વતન હતું. હું જે ભારતને યાદ કરું છું તે અખંડ ભારતની વાત છે. ત્યારે ભારત પાકિસ્તાન કે બાંગ્લાદેશની સીમાઓથી વિભાજીત થયેલું નહોતું.

એયને અમે કાચી સડક પર ધૂળ ઉડાડતાં ખેતરો વચ્ચેથી નાચતાં-ગાતાં મિત્રો સાથે નિશાળે જતાં એ યાદ આવે છે. ત્યારે અમારા મિત્રોની નાત-જાત કે ધરમ વિષે અમે સભાન નહોતાં. જેમ જેમ અભ્યાસ આગળ વધ્યો, તેમ તેમ હિન્દી, ઉર્દૂ, અંગ્રેજી અને સંસ્કૃત ભાષા અને તેમાં રચાયેલ સાહિત્ય ભણતાં ગયાં. તુલસી, મીરાં, સૂરદાસ, કબીર, જાયસી, રહીમ, રસખાન, મોમીન, રહમત અને ગાલિબની રચનાઓ વાંચતાં રસતરબોળ થઇ જતાં એ સાંભરે છે.

મારું બાળપણ લાહોર, કરાંચી, કાશ્મીર, ઢાકા, શ્રી લંકા, દ્વારિકા કે આસામ એ તમામને એક હિન્દુસ્તાનની શૃંખલાના મણકા તરીકે જોવાને ટેવાયેલું હતું. આ એ હિન્દુસ્તાનની વાત કરું છું જે ગરીબ નવાઝ હતો, જેની પવિત્ર માટી સહુને સમાવી લેનારી હતી. એની સોંધી સુગંધથી મારા દેશનો બાગ ફોરતો હતો.

આજના ભારતને જોતાં મારા સપનાનું ભારત ક્યાંક ખોવાયાની વેદના કોની પાસે વ્યક્ત કરું એમ થતું હતું, ત્યારે ‘ઓપિનિયન’ના વાચકો જેમનાથી સુપરિચિત છે તેવા દીપકભાઈ બારડોલીકરને મળવા જવાનું નિરધાર્યું. એમનાથી વધુ સહૃદયી અને સંવેદનશીલ માન્ચેસ્ટરમાં બીજા કોણ મળે? પરસ્પરની કુશળતા પૂછ્યા બાદ, આ કાવ્ય તેમને સંભળાવ્યું, તેઓ સાથે સાથે ગાવા પણ લાગ્યા.

તેમણે પોતાનું બાળપણ અને શિક્ષણ બારડોલીની ધરતી ઉપર કેવું સુખદ હતું, ગાંધીજી, સરદારશ્રી અને મોરારજીભાઈને બારડોલીના એ ચોતરા પર બેસીને સંબોધન કરતા તે યાદ કર્યું. અમે બંનેએ હરિપુરા કોંગ્રેસ સમયે દેશભક્તિથી ધબકતા વાતાવરણની વાતો વાગોળી. બંનેની આંખો ભીની થઈ. આજના ડહોળાયેલા રાજકારણને પરિણામે સામાન્ય જનતા કે જે સંપીને રહેતી તેની વચ્ચે ઊભા થતા તનાવ વિષે ચિંતા વ્યક્ત કરી. કવિ અજમલ જે હિન્દુ-મુસ્લિમની જાન સમા પૂરેપૂરા હિન્દુસ્તાનને શોધે છે, એ જ હિન્દુસ્તાનને અમે પણ શોધીએ છીએ એવો અહેસાસ લઈને છુટ્ટા પડ્યાં.

અહીં એ મુલાકાતની યાદ રહી જાય તેવી છબી, લખાણ મદ્યે, અને એ ગીતની કડી આ નીચે પ્રસ્તુત છે.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFoMgbwyZm8&feature=em-share_video_user

मुसलमा और हिन्दू की जान वो प्यारा प्यारा हिन्दुस्तान मैं उसको ढूढ़ रहा हु!

प्रेषक : सईम नास्सर

e.mail : saroj.anjaria@gmail.com

In the course of my life I have had the good fortune to get to know many of the world's leaders and in my career to have served with many men of outstanding talent. In the long catalogue I recall only a few that I would describe without hesitation as truly great men. I have no hesitation however in placing Mahatma Gandhi in this very short list of the elect of our times.

I only came into contact with him at the end of his life at a point when, in political terms at any rate, his power was beginning to wane or at least he was withdrawing from the front line of responsibility. The unavoidable accent on parti­tion in the Transfer of Power meant a bitter frustration of his life-long aims and ideals to him it appeared more as vivisec­tion than victory. In such circumstances of partial eclipse he might have left a blurred impression, or appear to have done so; but from the first encounter my wife and I were both aware that here was a unique personality, one whose authority transcended the normal bounds of human leadership; one who quickly became a real friend.

His role in the momentous events covering the last year of his life is now a part of history. He knew where his duty lay, and that it went beyond participation in the actual negotiations.

Essentially it involved his exerting, his overwhelming influence upon the people themselves when the communal frenzy threat­ened to engulf the whole social order. I do not exaggerate when I say that Gandhi on the Maidan in Calcutta in August 1947 was one of the great incidents of the century, a personal tour de force bordering on a miracle.

For those engaged in the study of mass psychology here is a supreme case history. With their passions roused and knives poised hundreds of thousands were diverted from seeking release through blood and revenge and were brought to re­cognition of their brotherhood through the love Gandhi, their physical captive, was able to instil in them.

Such an example was the manifestation of his power as a Mahatma and far transcended mere political authority. It involved the assumption of personal responsibility which turned the final sacrifice of his life by assassination into a martyrdom that helped to heal the wounds of others.

In his death the meaning of his life was finally justified for all to see. As they came in their thousands to pay their last respects by the banks of the Jumna and witnessed his frail body being consumed in the flames, the cry of "Gandhi is immortal" was a shout of triumph. I shall never forget that scene, and have often reflected subsequently on just how it was that Gandhi impinged so deeply on our era. The shock waves of his death reached out across the world.

I think the secret was that he symbolized a profound challenge to the prevailing trends of the 20th century. Not for nothing has it been described as the age of violence, with every conceivable technique of personal and public pressure exploited to achieve the objectives of material power.

I think there was a universal recognition that his response to this challenge was highly original. His whole concept of confronting force with non-violence was not just the dream of a visionary but an approach to the heart of the matter, a call to the conduct and aspiration of the individual and a demand upon self-control without which civilization, however sophisticated in other respects, must ultimately collapse. When asked his views about the desirability of having an Admiral for Viceroy I am told he pointed out that he did not object to dealing with military men, for their stock-in-trade was discipline, and controlled force as used by armies and navies was at least preferable to the uncontrolled violence of the mob.

He commanded world attention and respect not only be­cause of the originality of his approach to the grave problems confronting his country but also because he was throughout consistent.

The suggestion that he was devious and unpredictable is, in my submission, based on a failure to follow the longsequence of his words and deeds. Like other great revolutionaries before him he sought to conserve and not to overthrow. Remarkable evidence in support of this contention is to be found in his attitude to Swaraj in so far as it might affect the future rela­tionship of a free India with a Britain whose power he was striving to remove and supersede.

When the time came in 1947 to find a formula in which the Transfer of Power could be contained we revived the concept of Dominion Status. Acceptance of the idea by all the parties concerned was regarded by many, at the time, as startling. But as long ago as 1924, in his Presidential Address to the 39th session of the Indian National Congress at Belgaum, Gandhi uttered these prophetic words:

The above sketch presupposes the retention of the British connection on perfectly honourable and absolutely equal terms. But I know that there is a section among Con­gressmen who want under every conceivable circumstance complete independence of Britain. They will not have even an equal partnership. In my opinion, if the British Government mean what they say and honestly help us to equality, it would be a greater triumph than a complete severance of the British connection. I would therefore strive for Swaraj within the Empire but would not hesitate to sever all connections, if severance became a necessity through Britain's own faults. I would thus throw the burden of separation on the British people. The better mind of the world desires today not absolutely independent States warring one against another but a federation of friendly, interdependent States. The consum­mation of that event may be far off.

What better example could there be of his political insight and moral judgment which of course was reflected in his great disciples Nehru and Patel?

Without relying on any of the modern techniques he was a supreme master of mass communication. Instinctively he knew the appropriate place and time to perform the appropriate symbolic act which could bring all to an awareness of his aims. This attribute alone had the hallmark of genius. In achieving this unison he was deeply suspicious of all artificial aids. He once told a member of my staff that he was really too old to master the mysteries of radio: he was not, he said, in principle against using it altogether, but he had to know whom he was addressing, whether it was five or five lakhs. So when he finally consented to speak over All-India Radio at the time of the Punjab crisis he asked to do so on the basis that he was addressing his audience in this instance the refugees at the Kurukshetra Camp directly and exclusively. Here again, far from being old-fashioned, he was probably ahead of his time. The sincere message may well need the closed circuit.

In the dark and difficult days ahead the light of his example continues to shine and his still, small voice to be heard above the din of rival ideologies and insults.

He had the greatness to embody the oppressed and their sufferings, and to seek truth wherever it might be found. By his standards a change of heart could be even more important than a change of mind. To borrow the famous phrase of Anatole France, "He was a moment in the conscience of mankind."

'Mahatma Gandhi 100 Years', Gandhi Peace Foundation, 2009.

courtesy : http://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/mahatma-gandhi-a-real-friend.html?utm_source=Gandhi-Journal&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Gandhi+Journal+Article-II+%28+January+2017+%29+-+MAHATMA+GANDHI+%3A+A+real+friend

Prof. Nirmal Kumar Bose (1901-1972) was a radical anthropologist, for whom social reconstruction was more important than building sociological theories.  He was a humanist, a Gandhian and a great visionary.  Bose made original and lasting contribution in the field of anthropology and the concept of culture.  However, his academic pursuits did not touch the heights it would have as he plunged into the freedom struggle.  He made a choice, he preferred the harsh prison sentence to the luxury of intellectual pursuit at a time when every man was rising to meet the call of the nation for freedom from foreign rule.  The loss of the world of academics was the gain of the independence movement.

Q. Is love or non-violence compatible with possession or exploitation in any shape or form? If possession and nonviolence cannot go together, then do you advocate the maintenance of private ownership of land or factories at an unavoidable evil which will continue so long as individuals are not ripe or educated enough to do without it? If it be such a step, would it not be better to own all the land through the State and place the State under the control of the masses?

A. Love and exclusive possession can never go together. Theoretically when there is perfect love, there must be perfect non-possession. The body is our last possession. So a man can only exercise perfect love and be completely dispossessed, if he is prepared to embrace death and renounce his body for the sake of human service.

But that is true in theory only. In actual life, we can hardly exercise perfect love, for the body as a possession will always remain with us. Man will ever remain imperfect, and it will always be his part to try to be perfect. So that perfection in love or non-possession will remain an unattainable ideal, as long as we are alive, but towards which we must ceaselessly strive.

Those who own money now are asked to behave like trustees holding their riches on behalf of the poor. You may say that trusteeship is a legal fiction. But if people meditate over it constantly and try to act up to it, then life on earth would be governed far more by love than it is at present. Absolute trusteeship is an abstraction like Euclid’s definition of a point, and is equally unattainable. But if we strive for it, we shall be able to go further in realizing a state of equality on earth than by any other method.

Q. If you say that private possession is incompatible with nonviolence, why do you put up with it?

A. That is a concession one has to make to those who earn money but who would not voluntarily use their earnings for the benefit of mankind.

Q. Why then not has State-ownership in place of private property and thus minimize violence?

A. It is better than private ownership. But that too is objectionable on the ground of violence. It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and will fail to develop nonviolence at any time. The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence. Hence I prefer the doctrine of trusteeship.

Q. Let us come to a specific instance. Supposing an artist leaves certain pictures to a son who does not appreciate their value for the nation and sells them or wastes them, so that the nation stands to lose something precious through one person’s folly. If you are assured that the son would never be a trustee in the sense in which you would like him to be, do you not think the State would be justified in taking away those things from him with the minimum use of violence?

A. Yes, the State will, as a matter of fact, take away those things, and I believe it will be justified if it uses the minimum of violence. But the fear is always there that the State may use too much violence against those who differ from it. I would be very happy indeed if the people concerned behaved as trustees; but if they fail, I believe we shall have to deprive them of their possessions through the State with the minimum exercise of violence. That is why I said at the Round Table Conference that every vested interest must be subjected to scrutiny, and confiscation ordered where necessary with or without compensation as the case demanded.

What I would personally prefer would be not a centralization of power in the hands of the State, but an extension of the sense of trusteeship; as in my opinion the violence of private ownership is less injurious than the violence of the State. However, if it is unavoidable, I would support a minimum of State-ownership.

Q. Then, sir, shall we take it that the fundamental difference between you and the Socialists is that you believe that men live more by self-direction or will than by habit, and they believe that men live more by habit than by will; that being the reason why do you strive for self-correction while they try to build up a system under which men will find it impossible to exercise their desire for exploiting others?

A. While admitting that man actually lives by habit, I hold that it is better for him to live by the exercise of will. I also believe that men are capable of developing their will to an extent that will reduce exploitation to a minimum. I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor.

Q. But have not those cases of trusteeship which you sometimes cite been due to your personal influence rather than to anything else? Teachers like you come infrequently. Would it not be better, therefore, to trust to some organization to effect the necessary changes in man, rather than depend upon the casual advent of men like yourself?

A. Leaving me aside, you must remember that the influence of all great teachers of mankind has outlived their lives. In the teachings of each prophet like Mohammed, Buddha or Jesus, there was a permanent portion and there was another which was suited to the needs and requirements of the times. It is only because we try to keep up the permanent with the impermanent aspects of their teachings that there is so much distortion in religious practice today. But that apart, you can see that the influence of these men has sustained us after they have passed away. Moreover, what I disapprove of is an organization based on force which a State is. Voluntary organization there must be.


The Hindustan Times, 17-10-1935

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Nirmal Kumar Bose met Gandhi on November 9 and 10, 1934. The report was published after correction by Gandhi.