c. 1996 Religion News Service

AHMEDABAD, India (RNS)-On the eve of national elections in India, someone hurled mud over a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, the storied advocate of non-violent disobedience who led his country to independence from Great Britain.

It was not the first time that Gandhi monuments, found throughout India, have been treated with disrespect. The surprise was that the mud-slinging took place in Gujarat, the western state where Gandhi was born, and in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main city and the center from which Gandhi waged his long struggle with the British.

The desecration is emblematic of the fading importance that Gandhi holds in this conflict-wracked nation of 940 million. His message of self-sacrifice and asceticism fails to resonate with many of India’s impoverished residents. And in a country where religious violence, notably between Hindu and Muslim extremists, is endemic, Gandhi’s legacy of pacifism and non-violence often goes ignored.

“Fifty years have gone by since Gandhi died, and nobody cares about his ideas anymore,” says Dinesh Patolawala, a Hindu who manages an institute Gandhi established in 1924 in Rajkot, the town where Gandhi grew up. “There is a generation gap, and for the young, Michael Jackson has more interest than Gandhi.”

Adds Sidharth K. Desai, a Hindu disciple of Gandhi in Ahmedabad: “Half the people in our country are illiterate, but what is worse is that all the old Gandhian ideals have gone out the window. The only ideal in India now is making money.”

It was in Ahmedabad in 1918 that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi-best known by his title Mahatma, or “Great Soul”-founded an ashram, or religious retreat, established on the lines of the idealistic Tolstoy Farm, an earlier community he had set up in South Africa.

At the ashram he encouraged devotees to make homespun cotton, hoping the endeavor would encourage a revival of village life. It was also here that he preached his philosophy of non-violence and developed his belief in the equality of all religions. Each day he would devote equal time to reading the Jewish-Christian Bible, the Muslim Koran and the Hindu Bhagavad Gita.

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On a visit to India in March 1995, first lady Hillary Clinton visited the ashram to mark the 125th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth. In the visitor’s book she extolled him as “one of our greatest leaders.” Her comments reflect the spread of Gandhi’s ideas in America; there are statues of him in most major U.S. cities, and in Jersey City, N.J., a public school was renamed for him in 1992.

Desai, a caretaker of the ashram, was a follower of Gandhi during the last six months of his life and was close to him when he was shot dead by a Hindu extremist in New Delhi on Jan. 30, 1948.

“Even the government has given us only a small amount to keep this ashram running when we had asked for much more,” Desai said. He spoke as he sat on the floor of the ashram hand-spinning coarse cotton material-ever loyal to Gandhi’s ideals.

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Shujauddin Kadri, a leader of a half million Sunni Muslims in Ahmedabad and secretary of a school for orphans, said he had great respect for Gandhi, who had been a champion of Muslims in India. But he added that Gandhi’s efforts to heal the rift between Hindus and Muslims, and his philosophy of nonviolence, have come to nothing in Ahmedabad.

“Hindu-Muslim violence in this city has been among the worst in the country in the last few decades, although I blame politicians for causing the hatred,” he said.

Since the 1960s, thousands of Hindus and Muslims have been stabbed and burned to death in religion-related violence in Ahmedabad. When a Hindu mob destroyed a mosque in north India in 1992, it sparked fresh violence in the city. Muslims, who make up 70 percent of the most impoverished residents of the city, were vulnerable targets.

Amid burning shacks and murdered victims, the Rev. Cedric Prakash, a Catholic priest, treated the wounded, picked up bodies from the streets and set up relief camps for the homeless. Three times he has been beaten by Hindu extremists.

Prakash, who recently won a national award for his work, said it is hard to find Gandhian ideals in Ahmedabad, “a city of ruthless commercialism, awash with land sharks and politicians manipulated by gangsters.

“Gandhi had beliefs that are hard to relate to now,” added Prakash, director of social projects for his diocese. “He opposed using typewriters, and his belief in spinning wheels is of no use to slum people, as it’s impossible from this to earn a living.”

But Prakash said many still revere Gandhi because of his “value system, which promoted harmony and respect for all human beings. His simple dress and ascetic lifestyle were something that brought him close to many Indians.”

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Nonetheless, Gandhi has inspired his share of criticism in this complex country.

Many blame him for the bloodshed and bitterness that resulted from the separation of Pakistan from India in 1947, a move designed to form a state for India’s Muslim minority.

Gandhi once appeared to oppose the partition, but found events slipping out of his control as India’s Muslims began to fear what would happen under a Hindu-dominated government independent of Britain.

With Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah insisting, “I will have India divided or India destroyed,” partition was forced through. Always wishing to be even-handed, Gandhi persuaded the Indian government to give a large payment to the newly formed Pakistan, but this only angered Hindus who felt he was siding with Muslims.

At least 500,000 people died in the conflict over the Pakistan-India partition, and 12 million fled in opposite directions.

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Even in the towns and streets that helped shape Gandhi’s earliest convictions and memories, his ideals are largely forgotten.

In the port town of Porbandar, Gandhi’s birthplace, there is a towering memorial known locally as “Gandhi’s temple” that stands next to Gandhi’s house. On one wall of the house can still be seen images of 10 Hindu gods that were painted by Gandhi’s father.

But the Rev. Jose Thumbelettu, parish priest for the Catholic church in town, suggested that little of Gandhi’s peace-loving spirit remains in Porbandar.

“What prevails here is gangsterism, not Gandhianism,” he said.

The town has one of India’s worst reputations for protection racketeering and other criminal activities, which have included threatening people to vote for certain candidates during elections. Two local politicians await trial on charges of links to gangs.

“There is no interest in Gandhi in this town, as most people are businessmen and they see no money to be made from Gandhi’s name,” Thumbelettu said. “Instead of idealism, there is avarice. People here look down on education, as there is no money to be made from it.”

MJP END MURPHY