“We live in a visually-dominant world today, not a textual world. So, it is important to make sense of a visual representation of M.K. Gandhi in the last seven decades, since he still occupies a large place in the Indian imagination.
“Even those who hate him can’t ignore him. Such is his impact,” said Vinay Lal, author and professor of History and Asian American studies, UCLA, in a lecture here on Friday.
Titled ‘What’s in an image? Gandhi and the Politics of Representation’, it was part of Prof M. Anandakrishnan Endowment Lecture Series at Roja Muthiah Research Library on Friday in Chennai.
Through the canon of cartoons, paintings, photographs and public statues, Professor Lal examined M.K. Gandhi’s life, as he provided insights about how his image had been used in far away places, such as U.S., United Kingdom and even Botswana.
“Just 30 miles out of Chicago, there is a place called Skokie, where a Gandhi statue is installed. Interestingly, it is also a place where neo-Nazis, in an attempt to intimidate the Jews, take out a rally every year. Therefore, different sections have their own idea of Gandhi. This is true of the RSS and the Dalits as well,” he remarked.
Despite M.K. Gandhi being unmissable in public sphere, he said Indians had nevertheless shut him out. “He is in the rupee note, in the forms of statues everywhere. Yet, we have shut him out,” he said.
Unlike his critics, he underlined that Gandhi criticised modernity and modern knowledge, but didn’t envision India as a ‘nation-state’, which is ‘militarily strong and marketised’.
“This doesn’t mean that he envisioned a ‘bullock-cart’ India. I believe that he was dreaming of an India that is radically equal on the ground,” he said, admitting that “the critics of Gandhi's politics have to be properly accounted for.”
UCLA professor talks about his image, impact and different ideas people have of him in faraway places
