From Indias largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the Times of India podcast. Gandhi film Bani curiosity. It was part of a larger answer about the opposition parties failing to take pride in Indian heritage. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi statement on Mahatma Gandhi has
sparked a whole lot of outrage. In an interview to a television channel, the Prime Minister claimed that during prior non BJP governments, the contributions of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi were not adequately publicized and it was the release of the 1982 film Gandhi that took his inspirational life story to the world.
In today's episode, Make Tali Galka Dukar is in conversation with Tushar Gandhi about the continuing legacy of the man who we refer to as the Mahatma. Tushar Gandhi, who is the great grandson of the Mahatma, explains how the world still views the man credited with leading India to freedom from colonial rule. Alka started by asking him how he views the Prime Minister statement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the world got to know about Mahatma Gandhi after watching Richard Attenberg's film, which was made in 1982. What is your response to the Prime Minister who has linked Gandhi's legacy to a film? It's reprehensible. But Alka, you know my first response when this was brought to my notice and I saw the excerpts of his interview, I burst out laughing because unless one treated it with humour, it was too disturbing.
I said, what else do you do when you realise that for 10 years we have such an ignorant person as our Prime Minister? What else can you do? You know, it's such a tragedy otherwise, and to think of it that, you know, even he made that allegation, but he doesn't even bother to realize that in his own statement, he has given all the clues to point out or catch out his lies. He named Martin Luther King and Mandela as being more, more popular than Bapu.
And both of them have always, in their writings and in their speeches, have credited Bapu as being their iconic leader, their inspiration and having worked according to the ideology and practices of Gandhi. Prime Minister Modi has also said, and I quote that in the last 75 years, was it not our responsibility to let the whole world know of Mahatma Gandhi? I'm sorry, but nobody knew of him.
What is your response or opinion about Modi's comment that in the 75 years India failed to take Gandhi's legacy forward? And he gave an example that it was only Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi that brought him to the World Centre stage. And the world suddenly realized, Oh my God, there's Gandhi. You know, I was, it's very ironical.
One of my friends sent me a cartoon by RK Laxman which had appeared in Times of India. Must have been around the time when the movie was released because it shows a theatre and it shows two Neta types walking out. And the poster above says, you know Gandhi, the film is being screened and one of them says what a fantastic film. And he says, I believe it's based on a true character kind
of thing. And so when I got that, I tweeted that and I said Modi coming out of the theatre after seeing Gandhi the film, because it was appropriate that he would
say that. Now, having said that, you know, he blames the Congress for not doing enough for popularising Bapu. But the film got made because finally Indira Gandhi and her government invested money into the making of the film when nobody was willing to produce it. Even that allegation that the Congress didn't do anything and it was just the film, well, the film was produced by the government headed by the Congress. These kind of things are very
easily found out. Forget about everything else. Forget about the fact that from 1930 onwards, Bapu was featured on the cover of Time magazine multiple times. In 1930, Time magazine voted him as the person of the year. He was featured in Life magazine after 1930. Most of the documentary news producing companies of the West used to have a crew following him wherever he went.
And there's so much footage of his, even when you see the film Gandhi at certain places, Richard Attenborough has used what was at that time the Royal News Bulletin, where they used to make these documentaries and show them. He was constantly in the public limelight. I don't know where what prompted him to make such a stupid statement on TV. But I, you know, I marvel at the
anchors, the three of them. They sat through that whole program listening to this man and not a emotion flickered on their face. If I was in that room, I would have been rolling with laughter on the ground. Tushar Ji, could you tell us about records of correspondence between Gandhiji and world leaders? Just one instance when he was murdered in 1948.
If you Google world tributes to Gandhi, you'll get a list of so many documents and you'll realise that tributes poured in from all across the globe to Bapu. Not just politicians and political leadership, but social leaders, iconic people, writers, poets, wrote poetry expressing their grief from all over the world. Common people sent messages and things. They're all there in the collected works, a lot of them that is on Google, available on Google.
And you realize that people really from all walks of life were admiring this man and were grieving his loss and justice. That shows it couldn't have been just that. You know, one day news came and everybody thought, no, no, this news I have to link with it was a heartfelt outpouring of grief. And in his lifetime, he was corresponding with world leaders. He was corresponding with government heads. He was correspondent with eminent philosophers. Parliamentarians would meet him.
Heads of states would meet him. Royalty would meet him. So it wasn't as if nobody knew about him, and it wasn't as if the Government of India had to, you know, do a publicity campaign for the world to notice him. He was noticed in his lifetime itself, early enough in his lifetime to become a world iconic leader. I keep repeating myself, but I think we must all pity our Prime Minister for his pettiness. This is an example or an
exhibition of his pettiness. You know, he can't fathom the greatness of people before it, and he's continuously taking potshots at them. Could you talk about what you meant by this pettiness? And also, why would you think that exists presently? See, The thing is that the pettiness arises from the fact that he feels that Gandhi needs a prop to be popular. He's almost making an allegation
that his work meant nothing. That is the pettiness where you don't realise that the man had earned his iconic status by his actions in his lifetime. He did not need a PR department. He did not need a government sponsorship. He did not need a fund allocation to be made into an iconic person worldwide. He had earned that through the sheer dint of his work in his lifetime. So the pettiness is that that statement of Narendra Modi attempts to negate a whole lifetime of revolutionary work.
So Tusharja, as we know Gandhiji had stayed in Gujarat, Pune, Delhi, Vardha, then Mumbai. So could you give us some information or some say examples or anecdotes that how many people are visiting these places now, even after so many years of Gandhi's assassination, so that can tell us something about his legacy and how many followers he has? When I go to Ahmedabad, I used to go and sit.
Now, I won't be doing it unfortunately, but I would go and sit in Sabarmati Ashram at Radheikunj, just quietly sit in a corner and watch people. And I would see the amount of people voluntarily coming over there every day, whether it was a weekday, whether it was vacation time, whether it was holiday, it didn't matter. There was a constant stream of people walking in, paying their respects, looking at the house
and things. I've gone to Wardha, then every time I go there, I've seen people, groups of people coming there and spending, you know, half a day or a full day over there, picnicking over there and things going into Bakutir, going into Bapukutir. And you know, it was almost like a pilgrimage. And as soon as they would find out that I was on the campus, they would start looking for me and come to line up everywhere. Porbandar, the same thing.
Manibhavan. Whenever I go to Manibhavan, now that tourist guides know of me, if they spot me and if they've brought a group of tourists with them, they'll tell the tourists that he's the great grandson. And then everybody comes and mobs me. So there is this innate curiosity that I have seen, and I've seen a lot of people getting very emotional also by just being in those places. Even after so many years when these places are mostly sterile
monuments. There is nothing of the life of Bai and Bapu in anyone of them and yet you see them getting very touched by the whole experience kind of thing. And talking about Gandhian philosophy, do you have any idea like how many countries are following the philosophy or how many languages the Gandhi's books have been translated so far and since when? His biography has been translated into most, almost all major languages spoken by by
mankind. Between the time that he was murdered to the centenary in 1969, all this thing was happening very well. It's very difficult for countries and governments to function with honesty, the Gandhi's ideology in total, because if they were to, then they would have to completely scrap their defence budget completely, get rid of their armed forces and things. And practically that's not possible today. Business schools teach Gandhi as a managerial example.
There are Gandhi study centres in many universities all over the world. There are Gandhi reference sections in universities all over the world, and so in the academic world the study of Gandhian ideology is worldwide. You have been invited at many places to speak about Gandhi's legacy and Gandhian philosophy. Your recent book also basically chronicles what happened in his last days. Let's kill Gandhi. So could you tell us about where all you have been to speak about Gandhiji?
Oh, I've forgotten. You know, people look at my passport and they they say, why do you travel so much? I've got stamps from all over the world. You know, I'll give you an example. We had gone to Jordan and we had a free day from the conference, so we decided to go to the market. So we walked into a dry fruit store and there was this old man who was the owner and we were looking at the drive routes and we were fascinated because of the range of drive routes.
And once again amongst each other we were talking in Hindi and the old man looked at us and he said India, Yes, India. He came out from behind the counter and he says, Gandhi's children. And he hugged us. And I quickly signalled to the others. I said, don't tell him who I am. So after we bought everything and we left, you know, one of my companions couldn't resist it. So he sneaked back into the shop.
And he said, you know, the guy who bought the dry fruits just now from you is Gandhi's great grandson. And that man ran out of his shop. He hugged me and he cried. He said I'd never imagined that I would meet a descendant of Gandhi. He would come to my shop. I've had these experiences many places, and not one of them said that they discovered Gandhi because of the film made by Richard Attenborough.
What lesson of Mahatma Gandhi's is the most relevant for you in this present time in India and for the world? Post Modi's time, I think the only lesson that we have to relearn is being honest and truthful because we have institutionalized lying. So I think that's the most important lesson that we need to reteach India to be truthful. Today's episode was produced by Jayaraj Singh and Sahil Gupta.
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