GANDHI - The Nation’s Father?

(This article does intend to hurt people’s sentiment (if possible) and opposes the view of many)

                               GANDHI - The Nation’s Father?

Our country has always held Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as the greatest human being ever to take birth. He is the considered to be the one who gave our nation freedom from the British rule. He is also the role model for many leaders and people. However, is he really that worthy or deserving?

Firstly, he has been excessively over-hyped by everyone. Everyone believes that he single handedly fought the nation and bought us our freedom. Well if he did then he should also be held responsible for the death of the millions due to the Partition of our country, the prize we had to pay for our freedom, which he accepted. People overlook or even do not take consideration this fact because Gandhi never promoted violence publicly. But then too people were killed and if he is credited for our freedom even though he was not the only one then the murder of all these people due to the partition should be on his hands.

In addition, many people before him were fighting for our freedom but their struggle is never acknowledged properly. He is also to be blamed for the communal divide caused. People reading this might think that he never himself killed anyone or never supported the divide but neither did Hitler murdered anyone in the Holocaust nor did Modi (proved not guilty) did publicly support the communal riots of 2004 in Gujarat but they are still blamed by many. Therefore, either we have double standards or ignore these things.

Secondly, Dr. B.R Ambedkar and Sardar Vallabhai Patel and many other leaders were more instrumental during and after our freedom. Dr. Ambedkar was the one who empowered dalits and also formed our constitution. Vallabhai was the one who united various regions to form the country also many other leaders and common people fought for the freedom but we do not even remember the name of many. The person always credited has been Gandhi when he must have spent the least time fighting and created many failed movements. In addition, even though this fact might be false but when his son was accused of raping someone all he did was write letters to his son. He either was preaching non-violence or was just trying to publicise himself as a just man.

Lastly continuing from the last line Gandhi has publicised himself a lot. He would have been the first leader to write about his struggles in order to motivate other people or was just trying to advertise himself as a being a person who is self righteous captivating the generations with his greatness and people believed him.

Also Congress might be the one responsible for the over-hype of such a ordinary leader as they were the one who made him the face of our freedom struggle after our independence and still publicise him even to this either this day either as celebrating 2^nd October as a auspicious day or making him the face of our currency. Moreover, congress has always been a Gandhi family party so this should come as no surprise as anyone would like to capitalise on a famous family member’s name. So either it was Gandhi who publicised himself or his family members did but the fact remains that he was just a leader like everyone else but is and will remain over-hyped until we start acknowledging others contribution and to me he does not deserve to be called the father of our nation.