An educator to national unity, Gandhi
aimed at providing contemporary India with a new common
platform of work and thought. While certain points in his
program sounded familiar to all Indians, some others did
create problems of understanding specially in certain provinces
and among the westernized educated élite. Although
the wide and quick diffusion of Gandhi's campaigns made
it imperative for regional leaderships to get in tune with
the all-India dimension of the movement, leaders and activists
in different regions maintained a varied approach on account
of their respective cultural and social background. This
paper illustrates the experiences of prominent Gandhians
in Bengal, and focuses both on the educated Bengalis' perception
of the Mahatma, and on the most important institutions
of rural reconstruction in the province.
This paper aims at illustrating some significant
aspects of the Bengali variety of the Gandhian movement.
Bengal's case seems particularly relevant on account of
the coexistence in this region of a quite advanced, modernized
and politicized urban society, endowed with a fairly homogeneous
collective cultural outlook, and a largely backward, tradition-oriented,
economically impoverished and fragmented society in the
rural areas. I shall highlight some features of Bengal's
response to Gandhi: admiration for the Mahatma's self-sacrifice,
individualism, inquisitiveness, a spiritual-national quest
of the `shakta' type, advanced western education, the constraints
of colonialism at social and economic level, a pervading
politicization of urban life under the banner of nationalist
ideology, factionalism in the provincial Congress, and
the complex and varied impact of the Swadeshi movement.
These were, in fact, the basic constituents of Bengal's
history in that period. In his attempt at unifying the
different and at times diverging elements in Indian society,
Gandhi devoted special attention to Bengali bhadralok.
He tried to divert them from their westernized view of
India's present and future, repeatedly asked them to sacrifice
their lives for the reconstruction of rural society, and
often stressed their moral responsibility for the material
and cultural development of the `mofussil'. Gandhi's movement
was, therefore, capable of mobilizing and absorbing the
specific experiences of that province, just as it did elsewhere.
The response of the Bengalis was mixed, but even for sceptical
political workers there was no doubt that Gandhi was a
force to reckon with in the Indian scenario. Many were
attracted to his movement and tried to come in direct touch
with him. As a result, a number of Gandhian `ashrams' were
newly established in various districts of Bengal during
the 1920s, while some of the pre-existing ones adopted
the Mahatma's program. A comparison with other regional
dimensions may further confirm the initial hypothesis that
Gandhi's constructive movement was an expression of India's
tradition of unity in diversity.
The paper proposes an overview of various
cultural and social features of the Gandhi bhadralok dialogue,
which strongly conditioned the educated Bengalis' perception
of the Mahatma. It focuses on the most important institutions
of rural reconstruction in Bengal, and tries to illustrate
the experiences of prominent Gandhians. The political side
is perhaps the most well documented aspect of the Gandhi-Bengal
intercourse, therefore only a few remarks on it are made
in the paper. |
