Gandhiji is more relevant today .

Gandhiji was in many ways unique. His life was a mission to experiment with truth. He worked with people, fought for freedom and dignity. He fought against colonialism and imperialism.He struggled on the ground.He went to jail. He lived and died for his deep conviction.He was the best practicing Hindu in the modern times.That made him to embrace ideas and ideals from all religions.That made him to embrace people beyond caste and creed. He was the biggest threat to peshwa brahminism that paraded as Hindutva. When a brahminical fanatic shot Gandhi dead, Gandhi not only became a martyr but became a global icon for non violent struggles for freedom and justice. Marx spent 30 years in a library, reading books and writing influential books. While Marx was a great scholar and great philosopher who interpreted the world with brilliant insights, Gandhi sought to change through real life practice and struggle. Gandhiji lived fifty years struggling on the ground, beaten, went to jail and developed his own concepts and theory through meditative struggles. Gandhiji practised non violence. His philosophy of life emerged through practise. Hence he could say ' my life is my message '. His death too was a message. Gandhi never imported words from Europe to signify his ideas such as 'Satyagraha', , sangharsh' or 'samrachana' or 'swaraj.

Gandhi was far from perfect. Made mistakes. Learned from some of them. He is different as he kept on evolving. Gandhi of 1898 was not the Gandhi of 1947. The ability to evolve through practice and introspect and ability to take unpopular measures and make them popular made him unique. He has been critiqued by far right and far left. But there are not many parallels in his non violent struggles for freedom and justice which he paid with his life. But Gandhi too was hardly a saint. He practiced everyday politics with a deep sense of ethics. He still stands out in the history of political struggles in the last century.
 The establishment made Gandhi in to currency notes. All iconoclasts end up as icons. Such are the ironies of history.

The ideas, ideals and life of Gandhi is more relevant than ever in India and the world. Salutes to the great soul. ( FB post January 30, 2018)