Like most things in Mahatma Gandhi’s life, his ashram in the Indian city of Ahmedabad was simple and austere. Yet between 1917 and 1930, these modest white bungalows, set on the bank of the Sabarmati river in the state of Gujarat, were the beating heart of Gandhi’s non-violent freedom struggle against British rule and his experiments in upending India’s oppressive caste system.
Gandhi – who would eventually lead India to independence and remains a global icon for peace – left the Sabarmati ashram in 1930, never to return, and in the years since, it has become one of India’s most sacrosanct sites. It is where Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu and most recently Donald Trump all paid a visit to during their trips to India.
But recently, it has been at the centre of an outcry over a grandiose plan by the government to redevelop the site into a “world class tourist destination” at a staggering cost of 12bn rupees (£117m). Descendants of Gandhi, historians, scholars, Gandhian institutions and lifelong ashram residents have accused the government, led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, of attempting to co-opt and politicise Gandhi’s legacy to suit their own Hindu nationalist agenda and turning the Sabarmati ashram into a flashy Gandhi “theme park”.
“This is the first time any government has actively interfered and imposed their own vision on a Gandhi monument,” said Gandhi’s great-grandson Tushar Gandhi. “This is part of a sinister design by Modi to obliterate Gandhi’s legacy and rewrite the history of India where he and his politics have no place.”
Tushar Gandhi has filed an appeal in India’s highest court to halt the development. “If bapu [spiritual father] were alive today, he would never agree to this,” he said.
Situated in what is now the centre of Ahmedabad, a city of eight million people, over the decades the ashram has fallen victim to the pressures of urbanisation. Its once sprawling 48-hectare (120 acre) grounds have been eroded to around two hectares and busy four-lane road was built through it. The surrounding area became filled with ramshackle housing, concrete hotels, roadside restaurants and garish shops selling cheap tourist wares. Squatters moved into the residential areas and businesses incompatible with Gandhi’s teaching – a cow artificial insemination centre being one – were set up in the ashram grounds.
Discussions on how to restore the Sabarmati ashram grounds have raged for years but with the site being controlled by six different trusts with differing interests and agendas, nothing ever moved. That was until, the Indian government stepped in and took over.
Under their new development plan – which unusually is being run directly from the prime minister’s office – the ashram site will be expanded to 20 hectares, given a sleek makeover with new Gandhi museums and monuments erected and other structures knocked down.
Yet the government has faced considerable criticism over a lack of transparency for the redevelopment, including the unilateral appointment of Modi’s favoured architect for all his flagship projects, and lack of consultation with Gandhi scholars and institutions.
Most worrying for some is the complicated relationship that Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) have with Gandhi. During his life, Gandhi was vehemently opposed to the Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] politics now espoused by Modi and the BJP, which believes that India should be a Hindu rather than secular state.
Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Gandhi, had been a member of the RSS, the right-wing paramilitary organisation that gave rise to the BJP and to which Modi and many BJP politicians also belonged to. Within RSS circles there is still great disdain for Gandhi and under Modi’s premiership, reverence of Godse, Gandhi’s killer, has now become mainstream in India.
Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s most eminent historians and biographer of Gandhi, was fiercely opposed to the ashram development. “Everything that the BJP stands for is antithetical to what Gandhi stood for,” said Guha. “This is a cynical project to whitewash Modi’s dark record.”
Ashoke Chatterjee, a trustee for the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust – one of the six trusts that look after the ashram, made assurances that the redevelopment plans were still in their very early stages and that, through a “relatively collaborative” process, they government had agreed that the original ashram ethos and heritage buildings would remain preserved.
Speaking in a personal capacity, Chatterjee said the trustees had already batted away what he termed “some incredibly stupid ideas”. One proposal was that there should be a hologram of Gandhi that would rise out of fountains on the Sarbarmati river at night, and another that they would build a huge steel spinning wheel in the ashram that would be so big it could be seen from aeroplanes flying over the city – “one ridiculous notion after another”.
Nonetheless, Chatterjee said the trustees were well aware there maybe be “hidden agendas” behind the ashram development. He cited the government’s recent decision to remove Abide By Me, Gandhi’s favourite hymn, from the celebrations of India’s Republic Day – thereby erasing the only association with Gandhi left in the ceremony – as “a warning of what the ashram is up against”.
“We have seen all these efforts to take ownership of the Mahatma and convert him into something else that they can manipulate,” he said. “We know that we have to be vigilant.”
IK Patel, a state government official, denied any politicisation of the ashram. “There is no political agenda from the government,” said Patel. “We are restoring the ashram so the next generation can properly experience the history and values of Gandhi ji. This will honour Gandhi ji’s legacy.”
The redevelopment has also faced criticism over the decision to evict the 400 or so families living in the ashram grounds, some whom are descendants of the Dalit families brought there by Gandhi himself. Gandhi left explicit instructions that these families should be allowed to stay in perpetuity and that the ashram should for ever work for the uplift of Dalits, the lowest in India’s caste system who were referred to as “untouchables” in Gandhi’s time.
For almost two years, the residents protested against their eviction but now over half have accepted what the government described as a “generous” package: either 6 million rupees compensation, or a new four-bedroom high-rise apartment. Yet behind closed doors, several residents spoke quietly of being intimidated and pressured to accept compensation and leave against their will by a small resident’s committee that has ties with the state government.
One lifelong resident said she was “habituated to live a simple life, like Gandhi ji. I do not know how to live in a high-rise flat away from the ashram and the trees and the river. It makes me very sad to be forced to leave my birthplace.”
“I have lived here since I was 10 years old, I don’t want to leave my home and everything I have built here but I am being forced,” added Jadi Dhabi, 85, another resident. “Everybody is afraid of Modi so we have no choice.”
