For Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s birth anniversary today, a Cuddalore-based people’s collective, Kaani Nilam, has come up with a rather unusual way to celebrate the Mahatma.
The collective, co-founded by Paras Banjara, is organising ‘Us in Gandhi’, an audio-visual presentation that will help understand Gandhi from a multilateral historic context.
Sanjeev Kumar, member of Kaani Nilam and curator of this exhibition says, “The idea behind putting together this collection of cartoons related to Gandhiji is to re-politicise him in the contemporary context. There have been successful attempts to merely prop him up on the ‘Mahatma’ pedestal since his death. However, this collection attempts to give an insight into how Gandhi’s ideas and politics were seen, and understood from different perspectives during his own time.” The collective will also hold a panel discussion, ‘Pop goes Gandhi’ — a dialogue on perceptions of Gandhi in pop culture.
Founding member and activist Radhika Ganesh says, “We are creating a platform to showcase the opinion of the public and the mass media practitioners of that time, regarding Gandhi.”
The panellists participating in the discussion include Madhan, cartoonist, journalist and film critic; Raj Mohan, writer and orator; and Karthik Kumar, artiste, standup comedian and entreprenuer.
Radhika and her collective hopes to introduce the different facets of Gandhi to the current generation, and explore his various ideologies.
“Gandhi himself was highly experimental. He never said he was 100 % correct and understood that failure was part of his sociopolitical career. I hope our youth also take inspiration from his life,” Radhika says.
Kaani Nilam explores cultural identities, and the need to expand political action to preserve these identities. It works on mobilisation and ideological awareness, with the vision of creating a deeper socio-political impact within communities. “Our collective has built great relationships, induced community participation, and stoked dialogue and advocacy, apart from starting a one-of-a-kind documentation process of cultural practices, arts, crafts, livelihoods, socio-political structures, and lifestyles,” says Radhika.
Looking ahead
Radhika aims to politicise the youth through her collective. “A larger understanding of politics by young people is the need of the hour. To achieve this, we make use of every opportunity to involve the youth in relevant topics for discussion, and our current event is one such,” she explains.
“When it comes to the Mahatma, people either eulogise him or are immensely critical. Many cartoons which criticised Gandhi have been published; he himself has seen some of them and laughed out loud. We are taking the effort to create public opinion, whatever it may be. In our society, acceptance and tolerance in the political arena is non-existent. We need freedom and liberty to criticise political leaders, and we wish to highlight that through this event.”
According to her, Gandhi is, by far, the most celebrated Indian public figure around the world. “Time and again, Gandhi, his ideas, and his imagery have influenced great thinkers and artistes. Constantly assimilated into popular culture of social and satirical commentary, Gandhi has played an important role in inducing politics into the arts.”
Us in Gandhi (10 am to 8 pm) and Pop goes Gandhi (6 pm to 8 pm), will be held at Ranga Mandira Academy, RA Puram, today. For details, 7727855512.