Karnataka’s Gandhi

Rajendra Chenni reflects on the impact of the visits and values of Gandhi on Karnataka

Communities in numerous places have enriched their cultural memories by narrating and recording Gandhi’s visits.

It is also significant that Gandhi visited Karnataka no less than 18 times from 1915 to 1936, covering many places in the princely state of Mysore, North Karnataka (Mumbai presidency), today’s Kalyana Karnataka and the two coastal regions.

Raja Rao, hailing from Hassan, created a classic sthala purana — Kanthapura (1938), in which Gandhi, who never visits the village, becomes an absent presence of kindling anti-colonial struggle as well as a conflictual consciousness of caste and class in the traditional village.

In Gandhi Banda by H S Nagaveni, Gandhi’s visits are narrativised, blending history and imagination. What is remarkable is that in both novels, Gandhi is a revered but subversive figure. In Gandhi Banda, the marginalised Dalits see him as a symbol of the power which can bring emancipation to them. 

C N Ramachandran, who has edited the volume on Gandhi in Kannada Literature, an English translation of the compilation of Kannada writings on Gandhi, also summarises the changing perspectives on Gandhi reflected in the shifts in styles — from eulogy to interrogation and then to critique.

The historic visits of Gandhi to Karnataka as recorded are fascinating in providing glimpses of Gandhi’s own multifarious personality and growth through his endless experiments with truth.

During his first visit in 1915 at the invitation of D V Gundappa, soon after his political and cultural ‘education’ through his travel across India at the suggestion of his political mentor Gokhale, he addresses a large gathering at today’s Government Arts and Science College auditorium. He is already a legend, and a political hero returned from South Africa.

At the tumultuous reception at the railway station, he refuses to climb on to a carriage which enthusiastic students want to pull, and instead walks. He is a Satyagrahi and a spiritual practitioner, but also a social reformer dedicated to khadi and his ideals of Swaraj. 

The car used by Gandhi during one of his tours in Karnataka.

Numerous visits

Interestingly, in the next visits in the two following decades, Gandhi addresses women’s groups, initiating them into the freedom struggle, visiting Dalit student hostels, and Dalit localities in Mysore.

In Mysore, the locality known then as Chikka Holeyera Bidi was renamed later as Ashokapuram. His confrontations with Baba Saheb Ambedkar have shaped his agenda of Harijan emancipation, and he misses no opportunity to make it the subject of his public addresses and conversations.

His long stay at Nandi hills for recuperation was also punctuated with discourses on the ‘curse of untouchability’, education in the regional language and his own educational philosophy of ‘nai talim’ (new education). Hundreds of young men who were fortunate enough to talk to him became Gandhians for a lifetime. 

H Narasimhaiah, the great rationalist, and Patil Puttappa, the journalist, were among those who went through such baptism. The one visit which made the biggest impact was the visit to Belagavi in 1924 to preside over the Indian National Congress conference, the only one which Gandhi presided over in his career.

The Karnataka unification movement, which had started towards the end of the 19th century and gathered momentum in the early decades of the 20th, was energised by Gandhi’s visit.

Gandhi’s strong preference for the regional language and the forming of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee was celebrated as a victory and drew thousands to the movement. It also went a long way in correcting the notion that the unification movement and Congress politics were forums only for the Brahmin elite. Both the language and freedom movements now emerged as nationally recognised political engagements. 

Gandhi’s visits to Badanavalu, Shivamogga and Vidurashwatha were all commemorated with the planting of trees. Decades later, freedom fighters in Shivamogga established colleges named after Kasturba and Kamala Nehru in memory of Gandhi’s promotion of education for women.

Of course, Gandhi never had any hesitation in asking women to gift away their golden ornaments to help finance the national movement and social reform activities. 

Gandhi crosses the Udyavara stream in Udupi in 1932.

Core beliefs

As Gandhi admitted and George Orwell famously wrote, Gandhi was a baniya and saint who chose to live in the slum of politics. In every visit to Karnataka, without any pretentions, Gandhi was his real self — or the many selves we have attributed to Gandhi.

While in Shivamogga, he was so angry that his visit to the Thirthalli was cancelled without his knowledge, that he started walking towards Thirthalli! He said that he admired Karnataka and its people, but also commented that “They are lazy; I am told they wake up at 7 am.” Someone must have been carrying tales to Gandhi!

Gandhi mattu Karnataka, edited by Siddavanahalli Krishna Sharma, is a treasure house, a compendium of events and a record of the innumerable conversations Gandhi had with all sections of society in Karnataka and a compilation of what Gandhi himself and Mahadev Desai wrote about the visits.

What emerges from the book is the figure of Gandhi as an incessant communicator with individuals and communities. He speaks obsessively about his preoccupations — Khadi, abolishing untouchability, private and public conscience as ethical norms, the decolonisation of education and eradication of poverty. A significant section of the book comprises memoirs by individuals who met Gandhi in Karnataka. 

Gandhi’s power was to transform individuals by suggesting actions which seemed ordinary, but had profound impact. At Motebennur, Gandhi met Nagamma Patil, wife of Sardar Veeranagowda, and suggested to her that she should bring up Dalit girl children with her own.

She went on to do so for a life time. She established Harijana Balikashrama which later became the Mahila Vidyapeetha at Hubballi, with several institutions for the education of girls from backward communities.

In another reminiscence, Andaneppa Doddameti remembers his conversation with Gandhi under the mango tree at Yerwada Jail about the emancipation of Harijans. Gandhi concluded by saying, “There is nothing new to tell the people of Karnataka. I am only continuing what Shri Basaveshwara had done 800 years ago.”

When he visited Karnataka later, Andaneppa organised many programmes during which Gandhi would sign in Kannada for those who wanted, but charged five rupees for each signature! All for the Congress and its social activities.

Whatever happened to Gandhi’s Karnataka and Karnataka’s Gandhi?

(Rajendra Chenni is an author and literary critic.)