Chats on the Charles

“Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are great examples of fantastic nonviolents who died violently. I can never work that out.”

– John Lennon

Every January as we celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King and commemorate the death of Mahatma Gandhi we are reminded of the sad irony of their lives, articulated so tragically by John Lennon a few years before his own assassination. Both Gandhi and MLK fought non-violently for the disenfranchised, yet paid the ultimate price. For me, the ironies don’t end there.

Gandhi was killed by a Hindu extremist because of his championing of the cause of India’s Muslims and untouchables. The fanatic was defending an ancient brahminical order that had systematically discriminated against large parts of its own citizenry. He was killing in my name.

Martin Luther King, inspired by Gandhi, was killed by a white extremist for working to advance the civil rights of all of America’s residents, regardless of the color of their skin. MLK was killed fighting for people like me.

As somebody born to India’s privileged class, I crossed not only geographical but social boundaries when I moved to the United States. My move would not have occurred without King or Gandhi. Gandhi allowed me to be born a free citizen and enlightened me to five thousand years of discrimination I benefited from. King in fighting for my civil rights, including my ability to immigrate to this great nation, allowed me to build my life in the United States.  King’s civil rights successes led directly to the Immigration Act of 1968, removing highly restrictive barriers to immigration into the United States from non-northern European countries.

Today India and America, two of the world’s largest democracies, are trying to move away from the legacies of these great men. The political descendants of Gandhi’s killer’s Hindu nationalistic ideology are now the party in power. And here in the United States, we have seen a candidate espousing white euro-nationalism become the President of United States. It may take some time, but both these movements will fail.

The reason is fairly simple. Constitutional democracies like the United States and India are based on ideas and institutions, not individuals, ethnicities or religions. And in the long arc of history the ideas of freedom, equality, rationality and secularism will eventually prevail. They win because they maximize the intrinsic potential of all of a country’s citizens.

The current period is an aberration brought about by the social and technological changes of the last few decades. The vast majority of the people in both countries do not subscribe to the insidious ideologies of exclusion. Yet their lack of engagement in the political process makes the extremists’ ascent possible. This has to change. We the silent majority must commit this January to make the aberration as brief as possible.

In the timeless words of Lennon, “you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one!!”