E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

116 Contextualising Gandhian Thoughtalready characterised the Government as anti-people, whyshould they fight shy of saying so to the electorate? If theGovernment is anti-people, and they do not want anti-peopleregimes to rule in the name of the people, do they have no dutyto tell the electorate to avail of the specific opportunity that theelections gave them, to remove an anti-people governmentfrom power?I must confess I came away somewhat sad, and yetwiser; - sad at the power of cliches and fallacies to cloud clearthinking, and wiser about the reasons for our continuedineffectiveness in working for our declared goals. The object ofthis paper is to focus attention on some of these fallacies, whilereadily admitting that some of these subjects deserve a moreelaborate discussion than is possible in a paper of this length.IIThe first of these fallacies is about politics. To give theimpression that Gandhi was against participation in politics,and wanted his followers (Satyagrahis) to shun politics is tomisrepresent Gandhi most relentlessly. No one who has readGandhi's writings in the original can find a shred of evidence tosupport such a view. Quite to the contrary, to the very endGandhi insisted that politics was inescapable, unavoidable andessential to a seeker after Truth. To those who tauntinglydescribed him as a spiritualist who had strayed into politics,who solicitously suggested that he should retire from politicsand repair to a cave in the Himalayas, so that he might be abetter saint, and Indian politics may be more effective, hereplied that the people were his Himalayas; the question of hisretiring to a cave did not arise; in fact, he carried a portablecave with himself.This was not a piece of rhetorical flourish. Threedistinct streams of thought converged to determine his attitude