#3 Mahatma Gandhi
Mar 9th, 2008 by third_eye
Indians love Gandhi, because he is called Mahatma. Indians also love to think him as the father of many things, especially of non-violence. They are ready to fight until death against anyone that questions non-violence. They staunchly follow his teaching of no-cooperation even today. All Indians refuse to cooperate with everyone: professionals with their clients, merchants with their customers, manufactures with their consumers, government officials with citizens. And if anyone insists on getting cooperation, Indians get violent. Non-cooperation trumps non-violence. Violence is the only exception to the principle of non-cooperation: Indians enthusiastically cooperate to promote violence - destroying properties, burning buses, killing people of different religion, inciting communal riots.
To Indians Gandhi is saint superstar. He was the first one who caused hysteria among young girls of India way before the Beatles came along. Wherever he went he was followed, surrounded, and supported by shy young women. Like any superstar, Gandhi experimented a lot in his life, and later wrote a book about it titled The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Due to his popularity, Indians never question whether it was ethical to use truth as a guinea pig, or how much truth suffered during his experiments.
His popularity also cost him dearly: disregarding all intellectual copyright protection, Indian poor stole his style of minimalist clothing which he worked so hard to come up with. The theft is incontrovertible, since before him Indian poor wore elaborate silk dresses with golden jewelry. But the poor never paid any royalty, gave him credit, or even offered an apology.
The love is so deep that Indians regret their lack of biological connection to Gandhi, the father of the nation. In their jealousy, they have decided never talk about his own kids, and let only those with the last name Gandhi that are not biologically related rule the country. As a retaliation, Gandhi’s eldest son Harilal converted to Islam, became an alcoholic and an embezzler, got frequently arrested for public drunkenness, and ended up destitute.
Like any true love, Indians’ love for Gandhi is unconditional. They turn a blind eye to his many indiscretions such as his role in partition, his dislike for democracy, religious intolerance, hunger for power, and superstition. “He did not mean any harm”, Indians say. They forbid the mention of names such as Bhagat Singh or Subhas Bose. “We tell you what, those boys were just trouble makers, and we never liked them anyway.”
Like any pure love, Indians’ love for Gandhi is unconditional. They never blame him for the mess he left behind in his native state of Gujarat. They forgave him for his stance on industrialization that Indians today enjoy so much.
Like any lovesick child, Indians cannot survive a single moment without looking at his image. Indians always carry his headshot in their wallet: on a stamp, on a paper note, or if they are too stingy then on a coin. Indians though genetically incapable of planning, let alone planning ahead, came up with a backup plan in the event of a pickpocket, which is prevalent in India. This is a rare case of love over biology. They erected his statues with more extensive coverage and density than all the modern day cell phone services combined. Indians never again have to lose sight of his image. Nor they can.
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