Introduction

In this last chapter of the book, I wish to come back to Mahatma Gandhi. Not just Mohandas Karamchand, but Mahatma, the great soul. In contrast to this exaltation of Gandhi, it would be useful to bear in mind that his nearest and dearest called him by a much more intimate appellation, Bapu, or father. When I speak of the availability of the Mahatma, I am also simultaneously speaking of the availability of Bapu, a father, an ancestor.

Much of this book has been about India, especially the nation that is India today, how it sought and found altered destinations, becoming in the process what it uniquely is. No single individual has been more important in this seeking and finding than Bapu. It was he who taught us how to stand up to greater power without being afraid, thereby reversing the usual order of things as we know it in the material world. No wonder Bapu is most important to my own project of reclaiming India and redefining its priorities today.

But Bapu is no longer available to us as he was to his close followers or even to previous generations. There's a huge gap between his time and ours, as there is in his thinking and ours. That is why in order to formulate what I would call a Neo-Gandhian praxis, I would like to consider the broader issue of the availability of tradition, before turning more specifically, to the availability of Mahatma Gandhi himself.