A Letter To My Father

Respected Father,

“The darkest places in Hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis” – Dante Alighieri

If Dante is to be believed then we Indians have been living in the shadows of a fake “Father”. You were the Mahatma; the “great soul”; then how did you remain notoriously silent during the most devastating instance of moral crisis in Indian history- the partition of 1947? 

You were the one who lambasted “moral weakness” as the worst ailment of mankind throughout your life, then why did your morality not cry out in anguish like thousands of other Indians then?

Whether, despite commanding immense respect from a population of million or more, you couldn’t or didn’t persuade Jinnah and Mountbatten to cancel the orders that prescribed the partition of India as a cure for her religious maladies, shall forever remain the most painful unanswered question that single handedly shaped the future of two nations. As two newly born nations tried to helplessly adjust to the rawness of religious turmoil , the blood of both Hindus and Muslims scalding the divided earth and the earth itself reeking of hatred , you chose this improper moment in history to respect silence as golden. As an Indian who was born exactly 47 years after this event, who still feels the cataclysmic reverberations of your silence in the pathetic existence of one brother amidst daily terrorist attacks, growing old amidst suicide bombers and drone attacks; of the other brother amidst religious atrocities and political scams, as an Indian denied the opportunity to see Wasim Akram and Sachin Tendulkar sing the same national anthem before ripping apart the cricketing world , as an Indian who thinks Jinnah would have been a better and more far-sighted Prime Minister , I ask you why ?

Perhaps you didn’t want the blood of a few rioters to stain your “great soul” and your khadi dhoti. Perhaps you feared speaking out would reduce your support base. Perhaps Nehru had been pulling the strings. Whatever the reasons your lack of ability or lack of desire in keeping India united showed and the signs were picked up by disappointed Hindus and Muslims alike , who in the absence of an able leader followed Darwin’s Laws of Survival to the t. This was definitely the moment when India needed the demigod that you were to stand up more than ever before and run a healing hand through the subcontinent which had been so brutally ripped into two. But you chose instead to fast. As a young boy confounded and pained alike by the decision more than 50 years later, I ask why?

You, my father, told all of us, your children, to not practice violence, not to fight fire with fire but instead to fast and actively protest against the cause of the fire while we allow the fire to rage on, allow it to burn us. Admirable teachings, indeed father which made the world gasp and take note and continue to charm many even today. As a confused son, I therefore ask of you this- when a rapist disrespects the dignity of my sister or any of my girl-friends, then should I push another into his path representing the other cheek, should I at that moment choose to calmly explain to him the depravity of his sinful act or should I proclaim that I will not consume any food because of what has happened?

You , father talked of principles and righteousness yet when a younger and more able leader won the Congress Presidential Election in 1939 you proclaimed it “more my loss than Bose’s victory” . Did such comments reflect the principles you treasured, the saintly image you projected or did it betray the very same and reek of jealously? Was refusing to work with the man who had the same dream as you once did, the best way forward for the nation desperately seeking direction? Was that the legacy you wanted to leave behind for young leaders wishing to emulate their “Father”?

You dreamt of an India, father that few dared to dream at that time. A dream that was later shared by many- a dream of an independent India that had her foundations in peace and Satyagraha. Indeed it was a brave dream, utopic some may call it but a dream nonetheless. But father, did you yourself lose sight of the ultimate aim when you suspended the Civil Disobedience Movement in light of the Chauri Chaura incident ? Did the dream of a “Gandhian India” supersede the dream of an “independent India”? Did you start relishing your dream while it was yet to be achieved, perhaps a little too ambitiously? Is this the legacy you wanted to leave behind – to destroy everything for one’s selfish needs? Is this what you wanted the future to inherit from you?

Your teachings of non-violence greatly influences me, father. It is only pride that fills my heart when the international press lauds your impact on the American Civil war and other world movements. When stories of your resilient march to Dandi to make salt in a non-violent betrayal of British laws are told in history classes even today, they make me feel proud. Yet father, as a confused child, I fail to understand how , you who sympathized with the downtrodden in society –the Harijans , you asked the Jews to submit themselves to the power of Hitler , to allow themselves to be slaughtered like sacrificial lambs at his foot to cleanse the human race ? How could you be so hypocritical and support this purgatory act of Hitler’s? 

My father, the reports of your alleged homosexual relationship with German bodybuilder Kallenbach doesn’t bother me .Neither do the stories of your sexual experiments with your nieces because I live in a world far more receptive of a human being’s sexuality than you did. It may be all rumours and news bites, all lies and tales but one can’t help but trust them considering the sources are the victims themselves. What, however does bother me is why you chose to hide all of this in your autobiography? Why do I have to hear all of this from someone else? Did you not trust your children enough to reveal the truth, “Truth” being the cornerstone of your life? You could have been the idol for thousands of people who faced humiliation in their workplaces in the coming years due to their sexualities. You could have been a beacon of light in the dark world of repressed sexualities. Yet, again, you chose silence father. You could have stood up for the truth but you didn’t. Why, father, why?

You are the closest thing to God that your “children” ever knew and yet you hid so much from them, betraying them in times of need. Was the need to be God so great that you forgot at times to be human? Was following your own principles so difficult, Father, that you yourself often betrayed them? Were you, Father, yourself a true Gandhian? Or did you like many others fall along the way to salvation as did the Pandava heroes on the way to theirs?

More than half a century has passed since you left us with the name of Ram (perhaps the most cynical God in Indian mythology) on your lips and yet you left so many questions unanswered. Sometimes I just wish for a human Father, o Mahatma, rather than a demigod one. Atleast he wouldn’t be, misanthropic of his nation and his children. Atleast he wouldn’t shroud himself in a cloak of lies and secrets. Sometimes we don’t need a God, we need a human being. Sometimes all one needs is the truth.

“Satyamev Jayate”

Yours truly,

A son.