In the current mood of revisiting the tremors that 1857 set into motion I am tempted to look at the special relationship that developed between those who led us towards swaraj and those who followed them. In addition to this being a relationship of respect it was also one based on admiration and a deep affection. That it had these extra qualities can be seen from the titles that were given to these leaders and that soon became a part of the popular imagination. They were affectionate titles specially crafted to suit the personality of the person and to, in a sense, signify what they had come to mean to us.

These titles are not ones whose point of reference is the power of the state, or the glory of office, or the mark of high status, such as Dame or Lord or Baroness or Marquis or Viscount, or for that matter Knight of the Garter, but they draw their legitimacy from the love of the people. Thinking about this difference between ‘our titles’ and ‘their titles’, and what it means in terms of a political culture, I am reminded of W.H. Morris-Jones’ long forgotten essay on the three idioms of politics in India. I wonder whether this act of giving titles, their ready acceptance by the public imagination and their being owned by the people, belongs to what Morris-Jones referred to as the saintly idiom of politics.

Take the greatest of titles, ‘Mahatma’, which Tagore bestowed on Gandhi and which, in the several decades since it was given, has become an integral part of the global vocabulary of politics. The world knows only one Mahatma, and can know only one. To those who know what it means, and who have reflected on this meaning, the reference to ‘maha atma’ or ‘great soul’, produces a feeling of reverence that borders on the spiritual. Einstein quite rightly spoke for all of us when he said that generations yet unborn would marvel that a man such as this walked upon the earth. Mahatma was the only title that could be given a man who espoused a politics of non-violence and truth, who tirelessly and uncompromisingly lived a life embodying these values, and who steadfastly held that ‘means’ are as important as ‘ends’. The Mahatma showed us a part that we did not follow, and that we foolishly called utopian, but today, when we are faced by senseless violence and grim ecological crises we suddenly see him as relevant, even perhaps prophetic. But what the Mahatma could see, unfortunately, ordinary atmas cannot.

... contd.