Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter, Ela Gandhi, who spent a part of her childhood with Bapu, puts across a new, softer side of the ‘Father of the Nation’; both as a grandfather and as a husband to Kasturba Gandhi. Ela Gandhi reveals how MK Gandhi was a ‘Feminist’ and also speaks about what his views could be, about the Women’s Reservation Bill in an exclusive conversation with India.com..
New Delhi: A lawyer, nationalist, political leader and the Father of the Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2nd 1869 and today marks his 154th birth anniversary. On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, Ela Gandhi, the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, who fondly remembers him as a loving and caring grandfather, exclusively speaks to India.com. Born in 1940 in the Phoenix Settlement in the Inanda District, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, Manilal Gandhi and Sushila Mashruwala’s daughter Ela Gandhi is a social activist. She began working for Child Welfare in 1965 and was elected as the Vice President of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in the 1970s. Ela Gandhi was also part of the United Democratic Front where she interacted with Nelson Mandela, Descom Crisis Network and the Inanda Support Committee. Bapu’s granddaughter also took a strong stand against racial oppression, against Apartheid, and was banned in 1975 from political activism. She was subjected to house arrest for a total of nine years. Founder of the Gandhi Development Trust, she has also been Member of Parliament in South Africa from 1994 to 2004 where she was aligned with the African National Congress (ANC) Party.
In an exclusive conversation with Ananya Srivastava of India.com, Ela Gandhi brings a totally new side of the world-renowned leader Mahatma Gandhi. Ela Gandhi speaks about her ‘loving grandfather’, his softer side, and how he was with his family, his relationship with his wife Kasturba Gandhi, and how he was a ‘Feminist’ even before this word was as important among other things. Excerpts from the conversation…
1. You have had the privilege of meeting and spending time with Mahatma Gandhi. Tell us how you remember him today?
Well, I did spend time with him when I was about six-seven years old. So, its not as an adult that I have spent time with him or had discussions but as a little child, I remember him as a loving, wonderful grandfather. That is how I remember him, very warm and very loving.
2. Are there any anecdotes, that you’d like to share with us, things that you cherish and are still fresh in your memories?
Well there are many memories with him; I remember spending time with him between 1946-47 when I was seven years old. Both those years were very traumatic times in India, in the history of the country; there was so much of stress at that time because of the Partition, there was making of the new Constitution of India and lots of other things. Gandhiji’s mind would have been occupied with all those things but what I remember, I was in India at that time with my family and he made sure he took out time to spend with us. Its astonishing and mind-boggling to think that being such a leader and people coming to see him at that crucial time, he still spent time with us, his children. That is one of the things that I remember and was awed by. I left India in about October 1947 and reached South Africa by November 1947 (as we travelled by ship), and in January 1948, he was assassinated. In those couple of months in 1948, he wrote a letter to me, a seven-year-old child. It showed the extent of his love and concern in the midst of all those things that were happening at that time. It’s amazing. The letter is now in the National Gandhi Museum in India.
3. Kasturba Gandhi, Bapu’s wife was part of several Civil Disobedience Movements during the Indian Freedom Struggle. How would you describe the support he extended to his wife?
I never had the opportunity of meeting my grandmother and that is a really sad thing for me but my mum used to constantly tell us stories about her; I have also read some of the books about her. What Gandhiji had to say about Kasturbaji in his books, was that she was a powerful woman in her own right and quite a few years ago in South Africa, we felt it was important to recognise her contribution, especially in 1913, when the big Satyagraha Campaign happened here; my grandmother actively took part. She had said that she had nothing to think about, she was fully determined to join this campaign and would find a way. Taking that into consideration, a lot of people say that she was oppressed and that Gandhiji didn’t give her freedom, but in his books, Gandhiji constantly wrote about how he learnt a lot of things from her and how extremely courageous she was.
Even in the early years of marriage, when her husband stopped her from meeting her friends after dark or from attending various functions, she refused to listen to him and went wherever she wanted to, without bowing down to his domineering attitude; it reveals her courage. She also did Satyagraha before Mahatma Gandhi; also, when she was imprisoned in South Africa, she went on a hunger strike because they refused to give proper vegetarian diet to the prisoners. Gandhiji says that she was the first person to start the idea of fasting and he learnt that from her.
4. Feminism as a term has been continuously evolving and sometimes misconstrued also. Back then, in Bapu’s time, it wasn’t specifically defined, but did the idea behind it exist?
We do have feminists and we share a common aspiration that there would be equality between men and women but we saw that very often, the feminist movement looked at how they can ape or copy the men; we said that we must not lose our feminist attributes in our fight to equality. Gandhiji also emphasised on the many attributes that women have like compassion and a caring attitude and so women must not try to copy the men and lose those attributes. To us, feminism is important, many feminist groups have done a lot of work despite feminism and we admire them for the work they have done.
I also feel that we have women who get into positions of power and occupy high offices but at that time, there’s something the women should do. I would like to emphasise on the fact that women who occupy high offices, must use that as an opportunity to improve the women below you and when I say ‘below you’, I do not like the idea of vertical or hierarchical positions but just women who are not at the higher positions. I believe it is an important responsibility to ensure that the problems of other women are catered to and they are helped with education and other employment opportunities; they must not be discriminated against, only because they are women. But the reality is that there are many opportunities which are also accessible for women but the women in higher positions mostly only think about themselves and are harder/harsher than men.
5. What was Mahatma Gandhi’s stance on women taking lead and working on the forefront? How supportive was he, what was his thought process and can we say that Bapu was a ‘Feminist’?
Absolutely! It’s because of him that so many women participated in the freedom struggle; not just in leadership programmes but also in the smaller fights like picketing and the Khadi Movements among others. He tried to empower women as much as he could. Even for Kasturbaji, he insisted that she must be educated and should at least learn to read and write because that is the basic skill that everyone should have and helps you acquire other kinds of knowledge. Even though Kasturbaji wasn’t too keen on being educated initially, she did so on her husband’s insistence and then benefitted from it later. Definitely, Mahatma Gandhi was a feminist.
6. You were an honorary member of the Parliament of SA and a fighter against the Apartheid Movement. What do you think has been the impact of MK Gandhi on South Africa and its fight against racial segregation?
The legacy he left in South Africa was of non-violence and it was accepted initially by the Indian Community; he wouldn’t impose his leadership on any other race group unless they wanted him to be involved. Over here, he worked with the Indians who led the Non-Violence, Satyagraha Movement that defined the campaigns in South Africa; these campaigns happened with the African community along with many political parties. It was a non-violent struggle for liberation, communities were also mobilised overseas and even though we did have an underground, liberation army, in majority, masses were mobilised as non-violent activists.
7. Nelson Mandela was greatly inspired by Bapu and you’ve had the privilege of interacting with both the leaders. How similar or different were they in terms of ideologies and their respective fights?
Nelson Mandela was the person who started the underground movement and opted for changing from non-violence to underground activities and violent options. Before going to Robin Island, while interacting with people like Albert Luthuli, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the Congress people, Nelson Mandela started appreciating the value of non-violence. That was one of the things he learnt from Gandhiji.
Secondly, Gandhiji’s non-violence wasn’t just absence of physical violence, it was a whole lifestyle which included simplicity and working with people without hierarchical ideas. Working with Nelson Mandela, you could realise that he had no ideas around him being greater than somebody, like Gandhiji- for example, while campaigning in Phoenix Township, we invited him for one of the meetings, I was assigned as an MP and it was for Municipal Elections, not the national ones; one of the candidates hired a big truck and had all the banners and people in that truck. When Nelson Mandela came with his entourage, he was so attracted to the truck that he left his security personnel to be on the vehicle; this shows his simplicity.
Nelson Mandela On The Truck During Campaigning (Photo Credit: Ela Gandhi)
Thirdly, when Nelson Mandela got married for the second time, he asked me to recommend a Hindu priest to bless the marriage. He had priests of the Hindu, Muslim, Christian and all other religions to come and bless him. This is similar to Gandhiji’s idea of inter-faith and respect for all religions and faiths. To this date, at the inauguration of the President in South Africa, there are inter-faith prayers; this pattern was established by Nelson Mandela.
8. Women’s Reservation Bill has been passed in India recently. How do you think Mahatma Gandhi would have reacted to it?
You know, Gandhiji never believed in reservations and he was opposed to caste or any kind of reservations. He believed that we must work from the grassroot level and liberate people; everyone must be given the opportunities and then they must be put into a powerful position on the basis of their capacity and not because of their reservations; they should not be pushed up just because you belong to a particular caste, gender or community. In my opinion from the little I have read about Gandhiji, I believe that he always was against differentiation on the basis of a caste or community; on this, he was against Dr Ambedkar who asked for reservations and separate electorates.
To this, Gandhiji said that for eradicating caste from the society, once you create a reservation, it means that you have to have people of a particular group and then you’re not given the opportunity to choose the best. It shows that people cannot or will not be able to be eligible on their own capabilities. He said that we have to provide extra time and schools to those who have been disadvantaged, that is one thing but to promote them and create reservations is something else; he strongly opposed that.
9. Your views and reaction on the Women’s Reservation Bill; the representation of women in Parliament and the state assemblies.
For me, reservations don’t work; here (SA) also, many women who stood on their own grounds individually, got elected; these are women that can make it on their own and for me, that is a much higher position to be in than simply being put in a position because you’re a woman. If you want me to talk about the Bill as such, I have not read the bill but have heard many criticisms about it and since I don’t know about it, I will not be able to make a comment on that. Speaking of reservations in general, I believe that they create an entitlement and once someone is entitled, you tend to not bother to excel in the work that you are doing and take it for granted; that I am a woman, I will get the job or I belong to a certain community and I’ll get the position. So you are not motivated to excel in whatever you have done and it doesn’t also give you pride because this means that if I got a position simply because I am a woman, I would feel very bad about it and that I’m not capable; I’d feel inferior all the time.
I would also like to say that being in Parliament myself and having worked as a social worker, I know that women have a greater responsibility towards their children than men do and that is the social norm; mothers naturally and also as part of the society’s culture have to manage the family and children which doesn’t enable us to do and participate in what the men do in positions of power. To enable the women to carry out her responsibilities to the best of her abilities, we have to begin to create facilities that empower women- like childcare facilities where women feel happy to leave their children, good healthcare facilities and better opportunities for women inside the Parliament to better themselves, access to library, etc. In many countries these facilities are provided at state-levels for all women and assist them; these facilities in real sense, empower women and also help in improving their mobility with respect to job situations. For me, these facilities must accompany reservations to actually empower them.
10. How do you think we as Indians can pay tribute to the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi in today’s times?
The first thing is to return to the non-violent philosophy, which is a way of life. People must look at what exactly ‘non-violence’ means because our society is getting more and more violent and in South Africa while we have many laws to uplift women, the domestic and social violence is still there and what are we doing about that; this is also there in India. We have to teach respect towards women and the girlchild from childhood and change the whole mental attitude towards girls and women. Only when this mental attitude changes, we will be able to make the real change.
Apart from women, even generally, there have been many kinds of violence and there is intolerance which is totally against the Gandhian beliefs. If we are to promote the Gandhian beliefs and philosophies, we have to promote tolerance, respect for each other, respect for the different groups of people, respect for other religions and race groups and also talk to people with courtesy; communication and attitude must be respectful. Only then can we say that we have promoted Gandhian policies.