A hymn for the heart

IN PERSPECTIVE

The summer heat of elections will follow a winter of extraordinary discontent. Not just of farmers who were at the gates of Delhi. Think of these, too: Christmas attacks on churches and worshippers, reckless accusations of ‘conversion’ and ‘love jihad’, of flawed account books at the Missionaries of Charity, of hijab-wearers prohibited entry to Karnataka colleges, of Indian doctors henceforth swearing oath on Maharshi Charaka and not on Hippocrates as their peers around the world, and of the removal, after all these years, of Gandhiji’s beloved Abide With Me from the finale of Republic Day celebrations.

A confident India that had its windows open to the ‘winds of the world’ is now pursuing purity through exclusion. Take that great hymn. It was apparently decided to do away with a ‘colonial legacy’ that had a tune and words that Indians cannot follow. We are to believe that the Mahatma, the greatest communicator of his century, selected a hymn that his fellow Indians would not understand! Or, is Gandhi’s understanding of universality, tolerance and inclusion offensive to an India being re-built as a ghetto?

Are the armed forces now to regard hallowed traditions as un-Indian relics of ‘slavery’? 75 years after British rule was overthrown under Gandhi’s leadership, with a wholly new relationship marking two nations bound by history, with over a million Indians clutching British passports and thousands of other Indians living under that flag and regularly topping the list of applications for UK citizenship, surely it is time to grow up.

Abide With Me was more than a sacrament associated with Gandhiji. The hymn has been part of ceremonies in Indian churches, at interfaith gatherings, and celebrated by defence units across the country. Abide With Me, rendered by massed bands, is believed to have first stirred Gandhiji a century ago at the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore. Translated into Hindi under the Mahatma’s supervision, the hymn is as Indian as We Shall Overcome transformed as Hum Hongey Kamiyab. To some, perhaps, the real threat is its reminder of a Gandhian truth: humanity is indivisible, and India is its reflection.

I recall a meeting decades ago, chaired by Indira Gandhi, then Minister of Information & Broadcasting. A citizens’ committee established for relief at the time of the 1962 border war was called in to consult on R-Day preparations. Indira Gandhi asked if the ceremonies needed renewal. Was military might the only or even the best way to represent a Constitution that was about ‘We, the people’? With the nation smarting under memories of Nathu-La, what symbols could reinforce determination and hope? Should parade tableaux be more inspirational? Perhaps more of the North-East in the parade as a message to ourselves and a warning to China? What other expressions of powerful Indianness could be explored?

It was then that a representative of the Defence ministry spoke of Abide With Me. At a time when issues of military might seemed to dominate over legacies of non-violent struggle, the armed forces represented an India united across contradiction and division. Abide With Me was symbolic of that reality. It had been carefully chosen as an uplifting conclusion to R-Day celebrations. Linked to military tradition inherited from elsewhere, yet as Indian as the man for whom the hymn was sacred. It was the only homage to Gandhi in the entire R-Day protocol, a reminder at its very end of what makes us who we are. It was, as the Defence ministry representative put it, a respect for peace and for humanity that the Mahatma and every Indian soldier shared, alongside their willingness to die for India and their hope to live for those they love.

That, we were told, was the significance of Abide With Me in Beating the Retreat, carefully positioned as a heart-stopping finale, as the setting sun vanishes behind Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Now, that is memory. Will it take an RTI petition to unveil the ignorance or vileness that removed a hymn so dear to Gandhiji?

At the other end of Rajpath, a statue will soon commemorate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose for whom Azad Hind meant binding together every faith in a reconciliation symbolised for him by a Mughal: “The great merit of Akbar was not only the political unification of the country, but what was perhaps more important, the working out of a new cultural synthesis…”

Across centuries and leaders, a shared dream of oneness, waiting to abide. Removed from Beating the Retreat at the magnificent Great Place on January 29, that inspiration returned the next day to the austere place of its beginning a century ago: Ahmedabad’s Gandhi Ashram. At the traditional prayer meeting on the anniversary of his martyrdom, Abide With Me rang out once again, this time in Gujarati:

Tu mari sang sang chal Hari/Saath hawe tu jhal Hari.

Abide with me, Oh Lord. Walk hand in hand with me.

(The writer is a trustee of Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust)