Does Gandhi still matter?
Source: WSJ (1-31-08) [Mr. Tripathi is a writer based in London.] Fresh garlands were placed on portraits and statues of Mohandas Gandhi yesterday, as India remembered its founding father on the 60th anniversary of his assassination. In India, Gandhi is everywhere: Town squares, streets and hospitals are named after him; most currency notes in India bear his image. Many Indians feel proud that one among them found a creative way of passive, nonviolent resistance to fight injustice. But does Gandhi really matter anymore? In 2008, India is further than ever from Gandhi’s vision of the country at independence in 1947. His India lived in villages, which he hoped to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. People wore homespun clothes, lived simply, and used handmade objects. Machinery was avoided and foreign goods shunned. Gandhi wanted the Indian National Congress — the political movement that spearheaded the freedom struggle — to dissolve, its workers becoming volunteers working for rural
