Mahatma Gandhi is the greatest Indian in the last 2000 years, in fact the greatest personality walked on this earth in the last 2000 years. He is a man who belongs to everybody and to nobody. No one tries to own him and no one can denounce him. No sect tries to portray him as their icon and no sect can ignore him. No one gets hurt if anyone owns him and no one worries for dis-owning him. Mahatma Gandhi-a devout Hindu himself can be admired by an atheist and a theist can be a better theist by learning him, indeed in the world driven by religious fundamentalism and equally aggressive atheism Mahatma Gandhi’s heterodox views and his compelled middle path are relevant today. Anyone can write anything on him- in favour, against or controversial without having the fear of being injured, hounded and vandalised. If anyone says something on Nehru, Congress would catch; on Bose, Bengalis would catch; on Ambedkar, Dalits would catch; on Maulana Azad, Muslims would catch; on Shivaji, Maratas would catch. This fear is in-existent with Mahatma.
He is the most influential and noblest person in the last 2000 years after Gautama Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth. He does not belong to one particular Nation, he is a Universal figure. He is an universal figure in regard to influencing other with his ideologies, reforms and morals during his times and times after his demise and also universal in regard to influences on him. He has been the most studied and followed in and outside the India. Even India forgets him, he will be remembered somewhere else. This is the uniqueness of Mahatma Gandhi which no other famous personality had or have. He is a prolific writer and trust-worthy journalist, he ran and edited three newspapers Indian opinion in South Africa, Young India and Harijan in India. The unique quality of Mahatma Gandhi is he reproduces writings of his critics in his own newspapers and carefully answers point by point to the criticism, and also ready to accept and correct his mistakes. He is a cultivator of friendships across the racial, regional and religious boundaries. He befriended with Muslims, Jews, Christians in South Africa and cultivated interfaith dialogue, understanding and acceptance and worked for religious pluralism and religious harmony in India. He lived and died for inter-faith harmony. A patriarch as like many during initial years but later evolved and worked for emancipation and empowerment of women. He brought more women into public life than any other activist. TIME’s magazine choose Albert Einstein as the ‘Person of the 20th century’ in 1998 and next to him Mahatma Gandhi. If Einstein would have been alive says Ramguha (the famous and liberal historian) ‘he would be embarrassed for placing him above Gandhi and he would for sure place Gandhi above himself’. The good thing happened with Mahatma Gandhi is he got the significant number of critics, which is making him away from idolisation otherwise he would also have been shelved like Sri Krishna, Gautama Buddha, or Jesus.
My previous blog on Mahatma Gandhi:
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