On occasion of Lal Bahadur Shastri & Gandhi jayanti, I came across this tweet from Anand Ranganathan today and he quotes Gandhi
“Hindus should not harbour anger against Muslims even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If Muslims established their rule after killing all Hindus, we would be ushering in a new India”
https://x.com/ARanganathan72/status/1841186249983607273
This seems genuine quote from collected works of Gandhi.
Regardless of the context, which no doubt will be mentioned by Gandhi disciples to defend this, let us change few words and see how it sounds. To reiterate, all below are fictitious based on Gandhi’s quote.
“Marathas should not harbour anger against mughals even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If mughals established their rule after killing all Marathas, we would be ushering in a new Maratha empire” – Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj
“Indians should not harbour anger against British even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If British established their rule after killing all Indians, we would be ushering in a new India” – Bhagat Singh
“Indians should not harbour anger against Pakistanis even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If Pakistanis established their rule after killing all Indians, we would be ushering in a new India” – Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
“Blacks should not harbour anger against whites even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If whites established their rule after killing all blacks, we would be ushering in a new South Africa” – Nelson Mandela
“Blacks should not harbour anger against whites even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If whites established their rule after killing all blacks, we would be ushering in a new America” – Martin Luther King Jr
“Jews should not harbour anger against nazis even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If nazis established their rule after killing all jews, we would be ushering in a new Germany” – Jewish leadership during holocaust
How does it feel now?
On that note, let us remember & honor a lesser celebrated but honest son of the soil of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri. More on this some other day.