How I see it

As I begin what I hope will be a regular column, let me acknowledge that We Are One Humanity (WAOH) was my idea. I wanted to remind anyone willing to listen that our planet’s human beings were connected to one another, and that our humanity made all of us, in essence, similar as well as equal.

Propelling this wish was my awareness that the current global push against democracy and for supremacy was driven by a theory that we’re not the same underneath, that some people – born into the “right” race, religion, caste, or tribe – are intrinsically superior, nobler, better than the others. And that some other people, born or raised in a “wrong” or “inferior” place, merit harsh or in any case second-class treatment from their government, compatriots, and the world.

This broad push for supremacy/downgrading, along with the assumption behind it, has in recent years made headway in India as well. Evidence of this headway, and also aiding it, is the fact that most of India’s newspapers and TV channels (with a handful of magnificent exceptions) have found it expedient to minimize or even deny space to voices for democracy and equality.

The mood has altered somewhat following June this year, when Narendra Modi, who had “announced” that his party would win more than 400 seats in parliament, finished up with only 240. Though he is prime minister once more, Modi’s standing has taken a visible hit.

Nonetheless the climate produced by the drives against democracy in the world and in India deeply troubles many Indians. I am definitely one of those troubled.

It’s not hard to see why. The New Delhi home in which my siblings and I were raised long ago -- in the late 1930s and early 1940s -- was an apartment on Connaught Circus belonging to the Hindustan Times newspaper, which my father Devadas Gandhi (1900-1957), who was Mahatma Gandhi’s youngest son, was editing. On the floor right below our apartment were the paper’s editorial offices. Below that floor, at ground level, were the printing presses.

In our home, and everywhere else in that building, I was surrounded by newspapers from across India and the world. You could say that as a child and a young adult I danced to the beat of a vigorous press.

And to the beat of a national struggle for independence. I was seven in 1942 when my father was arrested for the sixth and last time, the cause of freedom spurring all his imprisonments. After ten days, he was released. He had also been imprisoned in the previous year, 1941, for a few weeks. His incarcerations in the 1930s had been longer. In the 20thcentury’s first half, thousands of Indians embraced the sort of life-trajectory my father had invited for himself.

One of my clearest childhood memories is of two white police officers, both of them khaki clad, entering our apartment and taking away my father. I cannot say for certain whether this was his 1942 arrest or the one occurring in 1941. What I know for sure is that his 1941 arrest had resulted from his refusal to name the source of a report he had published.

My father had stood up for press freedom.

JOURNALIST MAHATMA

At times my grandfather, the Mahatma, called himself, with some truth, a weaver and a farmer. However, more than most things he too was a journalist. During the long span between 1902, when he first published Indian Opinion in South Africa, and 1948, when he was killed just ten hours after composing fresh notes for his weekly Harijan, Gandhi’s pen went silent only when his journals were banned by the British.

In 1975, almost thirty years after India’s independence, attachment to press freedom compelled me and my associates on the Mumbai weekly Himmat to oppose Indira Gandhi’s emergency and endure the unpleasant consequences of our choice. The emergency ended early in 1977, but, unable to compete with titillating magazines, Himmat had to wind up before the end of 1981.

Thereafter I wrote books, mostly biographies and histories. For many years I taught, mostly in the United States but also on some Indian campuses.

If now, at 89, I am starting, with the aid of friends, We Are One Humanity and its website, it is because the world’s population is migrating and mixing as never before, because the push against democracy is certainly not limited to India, and because even tiny sounds in favour of democracy, equality, and goodwill are worth making.

I may add here a fact the world witnesses every day: Indians are no longer confining themselves to India. The whole planet is now their home, as it is the home of the people of so many other nations, including those adjacent to India.

In our AI times, in this age of the internet, WhatsApp, and other marvels, it is beyond silly for us, whoever we may be, to remain ignorant of our kin in humanity’s family. “Know your ignored relatives on this planet” will therefore be as much WAOH’s message as “See how democracy is being defended – or attacked” and “Find out how equality is being subverted – or strengthened.”

I am very glad that among the contributors to the website as it starts are eminent thinkers from Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, and the U.S., to name the countries alphabetically. I am grateful to all of them. Each of course expresses her or his independent views, which may or may not coincide with WAOH’s opinions.

Sadly several parts of the world lack a voice on this site. This shortcoming is linked to the limitations of the very small team that produces this site. Step by small step, we will try to fill some of the gaps.

I should add that responses that comment on, dissent from, criticize, or support what is written on this website will always be welcome.

May I urge viewers/readers of this site to remember that our resources are slender? If we are found unable to respond promptly to letters or inquiries, or to make the best use of comments, lack of the necessary staff will probably be the reason. When WAOH is able to hire a person with the required competence, our efficiency will shoot up. Any help to make this possible will be most welcome.

THE MIDDLE EAST

The physical obliteration of Hassan Nasrallah by Israel’s U.S.-aided military in the Hezbollah leader’s “secret” space deep beneath Beirut’s ground may be viewed by some as a spectacular success for Netanyahu. However, that obliteration, and accompanying and subsequent bombings in Lebanon, seem to have enlarged the already wide section of the world alienated by Israel’s refusal to cease the continual deaths its bombs are causing in Gaza.

As of writing, the scale of Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, begun on Tuesday, is not known. And word has just come in of Iranian missiles fired at Israel. It is a time of suspense and anxiety for the world as a whole.

HARYANA AND KASHMIR

In India, there is considerable excitement over provincial elections currently being held in the state of Haryana and also in Jammu & Kashmir, which was a state of the Indian Union until it was demoted in 2019 to the rank of a union territory. Counting of votes and declaration of the result is slated for October 8.

Ground reports suggest that Mr. Modi’s party, the BJP, which has been running Haryana for ten continuous years, may lose to the Congress in that Hindi-speaking state which borders on Delhi and could influence other Hindi-speaking states of northern and central India. These are the areas where the BJP has enjoyed its maximum support.

Jammu & Kashmir, India’s sole Muslim-majority state, was not only demoted in 2019; its constituencies were rearranged in order to give additional seats to Jammu (the territory’s Hindu-majority half), where the BJP is strong. Moreover, J&K’s lieutenant-governor, an appointee of the central government, was given the authority to nominate 4 or 5 individuals to the territory’s legislature.

In other moves, a few radicals imprisoned for opposing New Delhi’s laws were released on election-eve so that in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley they could contest against the Congress Party and its ally, the National Conference and deny the Congress-NC alliance a majority.

It will be interesting to see if this elaborate engineering enables the BJP to form a government in the union territory. No matter who become ministers in J&K, real authority will in any case remain with the L.-G., who has been running the territory without an elected government, and with the army’s help, for more than five years.