Mahatma Gandhi had been in South Africa at the center of a civil movement for more than two decades but he kept coming to India to attend Congress sessions. There was not much depth in those visits.
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Originally published in News 24 on 1 October '23
Mahatma Gandhi had been in South Africa at the center of a civil movement for more than two decades but he kept coming to India to attend Congress sessions. There was not much depth in those visits. So when he left South Africa for good and landed in India in the middle of the second decade of the last century, Gopal Krishna Gokhale told him, no public life for you for at least one year. Yes, you have been an outstanding leader in South Africa and you had victories and you have the capability to mobilize people and rally them behind you. Just abstain, observe, watch, travel. Read this country because there are just too many things at too many places. You cannot blindly rush into anything. At the same time, you cannot wait for long. You are already in your 40s and you are well equipped to do something. The kind of experience, the repository that you have cannot be allowed to go to waste. It must be put in the service of the nation. It cannot be immediately rushed.
Gandhiji followed Gokhale’s advice. He just kept studying and then he started to get a handle on things. Then came the Champaran movement. It’s not that he had consciously selected to be in Champaran. That too was a kind of an accident. When you are prepared, then very solemn accidents and the right things happen to you. So Gandhiji knew that there was something that needed to be done but I don’t yet know what it is that needs to be done. There are so many things happening everywhere. It’s a very vast country. What do I put my hand into?
