Thinking of Gandhiji today leaves you in a state of despair, as the voices of sanity and civilised conduct in our public life have been pushed into the margins, if not extinguished. We watch with utter disbelief how aggression and violence govern every walk of our life, how every form of dissent is muzzled, how freedom continues to be curtailed, leaving the civilised populace in a helpless limbo. Let’s not forget that Gandhiji practised a humane behaviour in his public and private life, listened to those who often reviled him, upholding their right to differ with respect and humility.
His absence is sorely missed in this world that has turned increasingly violent. I’ve often turned to Gandhiji in my work. I quoted him in a dialogue with Kabir, with both at opposite ends of an ark floating in an endless ocean. His Satyagraha and Ours (2006) show Gandhiji as a young lawyer before he returned to India from in South Africa. In the triptych Gandhi and Gama (2014), Vasco da Gama faces a young Gandhi contemplating the collapse of the British rule across a mappa mundi
