When Gandhi met Modi

When the regret of the past meets the crimes of the present.

• History
• Play
• Fiction

								
(India, a nation built from philosophies, ideas and culture has lost its definition. Are we a nation of Gandhi? A nation of peace, truth and simplicity or are we a nation of Modi? A nation of stance, firmness and complexity.
We are living in a dilemma when Gandhi would have prayed for his country to awake and Modi would have prayed for his country to rest. In such a dichotomy of India’s very identity, what would be the conversation between the supposed leader of the beginning and the presumed leader of the end?)
(In a forest somewhere, sometime in INDIA.)

Modi:- And there goes the approval for the missile plan for Pakistan, tax reforms for the economy and demonetisation of the currency. And now, who are you?
Gandhi:- I am Gandhi. Surprisingly, you don’t know me as I’m literally on the notes that you demonetised.

Modi:- Well, what I intended to do is to make the father of the nation aware of a grown daughter. Quite beautiful isn’t she?
Gandhi:- Despite your actions, very.

Modi:- And here all I wanted was your guidance and support. We’ve developed India to the level that no country can undermine us anymore. Pakistan is now wary of our power, and peace and prosperity are finally there in the Kashmir Valley. I am not the one who saw my country split and enable such a partition for the power motives of two men.

(In the background the muffled yet loud sound of Air India Radio reporting the deaths 2 terrorists and 6 soldiers in the Kashmir Valley in the last 2 hours)

Gandhi:- You created peace. Peace is not enabled by missiles and threats. Peace is a bliss achieved by the sacrifice of human passion. What you’ve done is drag my country to constant war with our neighbour. You’ve distorted what Bharat, what India means.

Modi:- Peace is an absence of conflict and power is fear in the eyes of the enemy that kills any motive for conflict. India is not a country that bows before its enemies to gain peace. India means authority and simplicity. But your statement does beg the question, what is India?

Gandhi:- India is chaos. But there’s a rhythm in this chaos as well. India is its people. It’s the people of Assam with tea on their backs, the people of Rajasthan with colours, the people of Uttar Pradesh with their food. You’ve made the essence of this country dependent on its land and not its culture. That is the single biggest tragedy of Modern India.

Modi:- Agreed. When we imagine India, we imagine it with the Mountains of the Himalayas, the forests of the North East and the Thar Desert. Simply put, it’s impractical to imagine a country with unprotected borders. Our CULTURE is safe within these borders and thus, these borders need to be secure. We can’t give up territory for peace to be established. Peace is a cooperative idea which can’t be based on the sacrifice of a nation.

Gandhi:- Peace is just PEACE. It’s not something that should be treated as an addition to the current situation. What should be in the interest of the people is always and should always be the priority.
Modi:- I think we’ve found a common ground. My actions, too, are guided by seeing the public as the main priority. The territorial integrity of a country affects its development. I agree with you that non-violence is important. But you also have to agree that Non-Violence has to be subjective based on circumstance rather than being a constant.

Gandhi:- Bharat, India, Hindustan is a CONSTANT. The basic essence of this constant is peace. This value can’t be normative. These Himalayas without nomads, the northeast without the tribes and the Thar without colours are incomplete. This country is its people. This government, too, is dependent and powerless without the compliance of the people. The leadership of any nation can’t and shouldn’t be the sole creator, preserver, and destructor of the nation.
(In comes the Assistant to the Prime Minister to hand him the newspaper. The headline demonstrates the government’s claims about the crimes of Congress and Nehru in the partition of India.)

Modi:- You know, we are having a very lopsided conversation. It is easy to determine and predict anything in the future. It is also then easy to escape the future’s responsibility because, after all, the conversation is a prediction. You can to some extent, hide the crimes of the past or defend them. But how do you erase the burden of negligence? Negligence has destroyed families.

Gandhi:- What sort of error have I made that I have to listen to such an analysis? If you have a grievance with me, say it directly. Do not fret; the press is not here.

Modi:- Why should I fear? This is entirely about you alone, not me. How could you allow the personal aspirations of two men to DIVIDE a nation bonded together since time immemorial? Why was Jinnah allowed to lead his divisive plans to form Pakistan, and why was Nehru’s lack of sternness given reigns of the most sensitive moments of the nation?

Gandhi:- You require a revision of history to make such a statement. I did go against the partition. Even if I was unsuccessful in stopping it, no one could blame me for having peace and satisfaction with the very action. I cannot be written with the wrong ink in this chapter of history.

Modi:- Surely not! After all, you are the father of this nation. No child would want to write about the crimes of their parents. That’s why I am talking about your negligence. You had immense ability and ample opportunities to stop the partition. But alas, you did not utilize any of them.

Gandhi:- Which opportunity have I not attempted to utilize?

Modi:- Shimla Conference 1945. An ideal scene where the partition could’ve been prevented with discussion only. And yet, because of your lack of will and Nehru and Jinnah’s avarice, nothing happened. Riddle me this: if you could fast to death to stop the riots,  couldn't you fast to death to stop the partition itself?

Gandhi:- You don’t understand. The situation was beyond negotiation. We were dealing with impending doom. All we could have done was minimize it. Nevertheless, the actions of the past don’t define the wrongs of the present. We were talking about YOUR actions of distorting India and your inability to recognise the role of the people in it.

Modi:- Yes, we were. And the enlightening conclusion that I have found is that your negligence is in some part responsible for the perceived crimes by me. IF fighting with Pakistan for Kashmir is a crime, IF protecting our borders in the northeast against China is wrong, then the stage for such circumstances was created by you only in the past.

Gandhi:- Bravo! 

Modi:- What now?

Gandhi:- I have experienced diversion from the main topic, the creation of propaganda first hand! I must say you’ve swept the attention from yourself in a very swift manner. Is that what politics have become in modern India?

Modi:- Exactly! Modern India cannot live in the policies of the past. If there is definite war in our footsteps, we are going to respond to it with all means necessary. And frankly speaking, PEACE with a neighbour like Pakistan is NOT AN OPTION.

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