DH Toon | He! Ram

Gandhi-phobia isn’t confined to prominent individuals and groups; it appears to be a government programme. Ashrams set up by him and his followers, which form part of the heritage of our freedom movement, where people go to see how Gandhi lived, are either being transformed drastically (the iconic Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad) or bulldozed (Sarva Sewa Sangh in Varanasi).

Both cities have a special connect to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Why couldn’t the country's most powerful person have stopped this desecration? Are we being naive in holding such expectations from a politician who started off as an Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak and has never strayed from its ideology?

There could be no ideology more diametrically opposed to Gandhiji’s than that of the RSS, from its opposition to the freedom movement to its belief in militant Hindutva which relegates `others’ to second-class status.

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