2nd October is Gandhi Jayanti, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. It is also one of the three mandatory holidays in India, and one that is a “dry day”. In India, dry day means that no liquor can be sold at all, retail, wholesale or whatever. Unfortunately, this is the one characteristic that has come to hallmark this day more than anything else. There are PSAs all over facebook, twitter, whatsapp, reddit et al about 2nd October being a dry day and a reminder for people to stock up on the 1st. There are very few people alive who have met this man, fewer who want to acknowledge his legacy and even fewer who want to have some respect for him.
You can read about his life on Wikipedia, you can read his autobiography and several articles about him. You can also read about the hundreds of controversies around him. You can blame him for Nehru becoming the PM of India and not Patel (as if that would’ve magically fixed everything). You can blame him for where we are today as a nation instead of another fanciful place that may be better or worse. You can blame him for everything that is wrong with the country today.
Except that none of us ever knew the man. We’ve never lived in the times he lived in, never been in the situations he was in. But if you want to admire what he did, look at all the countries around you today that are trying to gain freedom from oppression. See how difficult is it. And appreciate the effort of this great man (and a lot of others like him) to get us our freedom.
And for fuck’s sake, not drinking alcohol for a day will not kill you!
Rightly pointed out that we can blame him for all the wrongs but had we followed him. He was ignored even during his life time that he preferred to resign from congress in 1930’s and he was not willing to pay four anna for membership. After independence we had made him symbol of materialism though he was fighting against materialism. Now he is a party to our all crimes done by us by give and take of his photographed currency notes. Now u can blame him for our crimes too. we 125 crores are moving behind this photograph or currency note but none of us had ever seen his talisman as printed on the first page of NCERT Books. Then why was it printed. Even if we had seen we had never read it, If read we had never understood it. If understood we had never followed the same. why our political leaders will have to answer this question. even than carry on here also we are need of it.