Here, there, everywhere: Gandhi in your world
From street art to T-shirts and restaurant bills, Gandhi’s ideals – of truth, purpose, simplicity – continue to permeate our everyday.
His face is on every Indian currency note, a stamp of trust. He features on postage stamps, and in our road signs. Over and over, in the early years of independence, major cities christened streets or neighbourhoods after him (MG Road; Gandhinagar).
Children dress up as him at fancy-dress events. His words find their way into ad slogans and school assemblies, T-shirts and Instagram posts (“Live as if you were to die tomorrow”).
His spectacles alone feature in campaigns, indicators of truth, purpose, dependability. They are the logo of the central government’s Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission.
His message — of truth, non-violence, simplicity and self-reliance — turns up in conversations, debates, editorials, arguments about the idea of India; and in moral-science lessons in schools.
How else does he continue to permeate our daily lives?
Graffiti, murals, movies
Images of the Mahatma, and words attributed to him, feature in murals and fine art, on public walls and in graffiti. There are statues of Gandhi across India and as far away as Denmark, Austria, Spain and a beautiful memorial, a statue of his figure striding with tall stick, in Washington DC.
His story has been retold in films ranging from the award-winning Gandhi (1982) by Richard Attenborough to the Sanjay Dutt-starrer and box-office hit Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006). His image, his words and his ideas are often used as plot-determiners in mainstream Bollywood: a reminder that Gandhi is watching as a villain does villainous deeds; a reminder to the man on the fence, the good can win in the end.
Non-violent protests
Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha (non-violent resistance / civil disobedience) lives on, and continues to drive change. Peace marches, candle-lit sit-ins, even pride parades are variants of his idea that when people gather in large enough numbers to insist, “This is who we are, and this is what we want our world to look like”, no force can withstand their power.
Khadi clothing
The hand-spun cloth that he popularised lives on, promoting ideals of self-reliance, sustainability and the dignity of labour. This original Make in India campaign turned the screws on an empire, and encouraged the wealthiest Indians to switch away from Parisian silks and Egyptian cottons. They remain statement fabrics, as a result of the movement he launched.
Parliament, panchayats, politics
Before every session of Parliament, India’s leaders visit Raj Ghat, the Gandhi memorial in Delhi, to pay tribute before proceedings begin.
His vision of gram swaraj (village self-rule) is embedded in India’s governance systems.
Many politicians invoke his memory and his ideals (usually, it must be said, in entirely hollow ways), in attempts to ascribe to themselves ever-popular Gandhian values.
India’s peace prize
The Gandhi Peace Prize is awarded annually by the Government of India to individuals or organisations that promote peace and non-violence. Winners include the Japanese businessman and philanthropist Yohei Sasakawa, head of The Nippon Foundation, for his efforts to eradicate leprosy around the world; and Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania.
A running tab
On a lighter note, in Tamil Nadu, a fight over an unfair bill may involve the words “Gandhi kanakku (Let Gandhi pay for it)”. The term dates to the Salt Satyagraha of 1930. As the nation banded together, people who were headed north to join the march were offered free meals at restaurants along the way.
Many restaurants followed this policy through the freedom struggle, offering free meals to those thronging protest sites and sit-ins. All the individual had to do was say “Add it to Gandhi’s account”. Today, it has become slang for: “That’s absurd; you can’t possibly expect me to pay.”
C’est la vie. And Jai Hind.
(Ambi Parameswaran is a brand strategist and best-selling author of 11 books. His latest, All The World’s A Stage, is a personal branding story)
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