[There were widespread reports that a small container of Gandhi’s ashes were also missing from the memorial, suggesting that they had been taken by the vandals. But Mr. Shekhar said it was unclear if the ashes had been looted, and the matter was still under investigation. The memorial received a small urn of Gandhi’s ashes soon after his death and the urn is now missing, but it may have been moved years ago, he said.]
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Sameer Yasir
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Gandhi
seen here in 1940 went on to lead India to independence from colonial rule.
Much
of the country hails him as a hero, but to some Hindu nationalists he is a
traitor.
Credit Dinodia Photos, via Getty Images
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Police officials in Rewa, in central India,
where the memorial was attacked, said they thought it was an inside job. There
were no signs of a break-in, they said, and the thick green paint used to
deface the picture of Gandhi was being used by workmen at the memorial.
Given Gandhi’s global status as a titan of
peaceful resistance, the vandalism might seem unthinkable. But it appeared
rooted in the same kind of Hindu nationalism that inspired his assassin to
shoot him in 1948, and which has been on the rise in India in recent years.
Chanchal Shekhar, Rewa’s inspector general of
police, said that detectives were taking writing samples from the people who
worked at the memorial to see if they matched the scrawl found on Gandhi’s
picture.
There were widespread reports that a small
container of Gandhi’s ashes were also missing from the memorial, suggesting
that they had been taken by the vandals. But Mr. Shekhar said it was unclear if
the ashes had been looted, and the matter was still under investigation. The
memorial received a small urn of Gandhi’s ashes soon after his death and the
urn is now missing, but it may have been moved years ago, he said.
This is hardly the first such attack. In
June, a Gandhi statue in eastern India was decapitated.
Similarly, some right-wing Hindus have built
statues to Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, the Hindu religious fanatic who
shot him.
Ramachandra Guha, a leading Gandhi
biographer, said right-wing Hindus have hated Gandhi for a long time. But under
the current government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his popular
Bharatiya Janata Party, which is rooted in Hindu nationalism, “they have become
more emboldened.”
“It’s worrying,” Mr. Guha said. “Gandhi is
our greatest export. Gandhi is to India what Shakespeare is to England.”
Gandhi was a lawyer from an upper-caste
family who mobilized millions of Indians in peaceful protests in the 1930s and
1940s, pressuring British colonizers to leave. That set the ball rolling for
large parts of Africa and Asia to also seek independence.
His methods — boycotts, mass strikes and
seizing the moral high ground — inspired the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
Nelson Mandela and many other champions of social change.
But India’s far-right wing is still furious
at Gandhi for urging equality between Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of
Indian society, and Muslims, about 14 percent. Gandhi accepted the creation of
Pakistan, a Muslim-majority state that was also carved out of British India.
In a New York Times Op-Ed article published
on Wednesday, Mr. Modi commemorated Gandhi’s birth day and praised his
unswerving bravery, peaceful tactics and devotion to the poor.
“In Gandhi, we have the best teacher to guide
us,” Mr. Modi wrote.
But what was missing in Mr. Modi’s piece was
any mention of the religious harmony that Gandhi espoused.
Many Indian intellectuals believe India is more
dangerously polarized between Hindus and Muslims than it has ever been, and
they have been urging Mr. Modi to condemn hate crimes against Muslims. Mr. Modi
is unusually quiet; so far he has said nothing about the attack on the
memorial.
“Modi’s relationship to Gandhi is curious and
interesting,” Mr. Guha said.
When Mr. Modi was chief minister of Gujarat,
Gandhi’s home state, he did not talk much about Gandhi or make a big deal of
his birthday, Mr. Guha said.
But since he became prime minister five years
ago, Mr. Modi has channeled Gandhi as a way to appeal to moderate Hindus and
people outside India. He adopted the image of Gandhi’s famous circular glasses
as the symbol of his Clean India campaign, and has taken foreign leaders, such
as Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, to pay respects at memorials.
After Gandhi died, some of his ashes were
sprinkled in the Ganges River and dozens of small batches were given to
memorials around India.
Ram Kirti Sharma, an activist with the Indian
National Congress, the country’s leading opposition party, of which Gandhi was a
member, said he was shocked when he visited the memorial in Rewa on Wednesday
and learned the ashes were missing and the picture had been defaced.
“I just couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said.
“This can only happen in today’s India. It is sad; I feel disgusted, angry, but
also frightened.”
Gandhi died long ago, he added, but now
“people want to kill his ideas.”
Jeffrey Gettleman reported from Mumbai and
Sameer Yasir from New Delhi.
