The Congress came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday after he said that the world got to know about Mahatma Gandhi only after the 1982 film ‘Gandhi’.
In an interview with news channel ABP, Modi asserted that Mahatma Gandhi was a significant figure globally, yet suggested that his recognition beyond India’s borders was lacking. He questioned whether, over the past 75 years, it was not the nation’s duty to elevate Gandhi’s stature on the world stage.
Modi said, “Mahatma Gandhi was a great soul in the world. In these 75 years, was it not our responsibility to inform the world about Mahatma Gandhi? No one knew about him. Forgive me, but the first time there was curiosity about him in the world was when the film ‘Gandhi’ was made. We did not do it.”
The film ‘Gandhi’, an India-UK co-production directed by Richard Attenborough, was released in India on November 30, 1982. The film received 11 Oscars nominations, winning eight awards, including Best Picture, in the same year.
To this, Rahul Gandhi in a post on X wrote, “Only a student of Entire Political Science would have felt the need to see a film to know about Mahatma Gandhi.”
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh responded critically to the outgoing Prime Minister’s assertion about Mahatma Gandhi’s global recognition.
Ramesh said, “I don’t know in which world the outgoing Prime Minister lives where Mahatma Gandhi was unknown across the world before 1982. If anyone has destroyed the legacy of the Mahatma, it is the outgoing Prime Minister himself. His own government has destroyed Gandhian institutions in Varanasi, Delhi and Ahmedabad,” Ramesh wrote on X.
Ramesh further characterized the ongoing Lok Sabha election as a battle between the followers of Mahatma Gandhi and those of his assassin, Nathuram Godse.
“This is the hallmark of RSS workers that they do not know the nationalism of Mahatma Gandhi. Nathuram Godse killed Gandhiji because of the environment created by their ideology. The 2024 election has taken place between Mahatma bhakts and Godse bhakts. The defeat of the outgoing Prime Minister and his Godse bhakt companions is obvious.”