Some more reflections on a Saturday afternoon…I

There is a serious concern among many in India that Narendra Modi may become the next Prime Minister. This concerns stems primarily because of his unapologetic advocacy of the Hindutva ideology and his resolute refusal to apologize (or be remorseful) for the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.

The media was abuzz all of last week as some of the biggest names of India’s business world gathered together to shower encomiums on him for his “spectacular achievements,” with the Congress spokesperson reminding the world that the German corporate sector shared a similar fascination for Hitler in the 1930s, and while doing so conveniently forgetting the party’s instrumentality in at least two equally gruesome massacres in the past.

The social media was fervently discussing ‘isms’. A particularly interesting debate involved capitalism and how the “capital class” in India by endorsing Modi is encouraging communalism.

The ideologies that espoused class struggle became obsolete because they fell short of two fundamentals requirements of human life – freedom and development.

The proponents of the ideologies claim that they remain relevant even today and protest that it was the practice of these ideals that subverted freedom and failed to deliver the promise of development.

Perhaps, they are not wrong.

Individual freedom is at the heart of this debate, and was at the basis of the differences between two eminent French writers Andre Gide (1869-1951) and Roman Rolland (1866-1944).

Both supported communism – Gide briefly and Rolland during his lifetime.

Rolland is known in India because of his association with Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, and because Swami Vivekananda’s interpretation of the Vedanta influenced him. Along with Leo Tolstoy and Gandhi, Rolland was a firm believer in non-violent non-cooperation.

Rolland was an early advocate of the Soviet Union and its form of communism. He remained a lifelong supporter (surprisingly) even of Joseph Stalin.

It may said in his defense – if it is necessary – that the worst excesses of Stalinism remained concealed until Rolland’s death, and the West took note of the autocratic intolerance of the Soviet state only after the Second World War ended. 

On the other hand, Gide supported Soviet Communism for a brief period but rejected it after a visit to Soviet Union in 1937.

Frederick John Harris’s Andre Gide and Romain Rolland Two Men Divided details the differences between these two French writers over many issues including the most crucial one – the interpretation of what constitutes art.

The book also discusses the different interpretation they gave to the role of the individual and individual morality in a society, and how the communist ideology as practised in the then Soviet Union dealt with this crucial question.

Harris notes, “…both believed that the communist revolution would necessarily achieve harmony and the general well-being of humanity, for this was mankind’s destiny and its truth. Both recognized the value and the necessity of liberty in a well-developed society, and both knew before going to Russia that Soviet society would not in all respects live up to their own personal aspirations. Rolland, however, returned convinced just as he was before his departure, that despite all, Soviet Russia was on the right track; Andre Gide returned with the impression that the Soviet experiment had derailed somewhere along the line.”

Continued in the post below...

Gide & Rolland: Two Men Divided

Smokers Corner in Mumbai is an unusual bookshop. I don’t remember when I visited the place last. Many years ago. 

But a couple of decades back, I was a regular visitor. It offered a good bargain, and very unusual books. Books difficult to find elsewhere.

One of the books that I bought from there was Andre Gide and Romain Rolland – Two Men Divided by Frederick Harris.  

I was familiar with both Gide and Rolland, but had not read their writings. I haven’t even today. Rolland is much admired among a particular set of Indian history aficionados because of his biography of the Mahatma. 

Gide was a major Marxist intellectual.

Both are Nobel Prize winners for Literature. Rolland in 1915 and Gide in 1947. 

Rolland's book came to our house via a rather strange route. Meghnad had managed to get the book from N.J. Lakdawala. Lakdawala was the father of my father’s colleague at his workplace, and the entire 

Lakdawala library came to us for reasons which I’m not familiar with. But it had incredible books. The six-volume history of World War II by Winston Churchill, for instance.

Gide's books came from Meghnad's uncle Prabodhchandra (Nanu-kaka; more about him a little later). Gide was a regular Marxist and a staunch supporter of Soviet Russia for a considerably long time.

Nearly two decades after Communism’s comprehensive failure, I often wonder what was it about this tendentious philosophy that so fascinated the French intellectual giants of the mid 20th century (1930-1970). Rolland, Gide, Sartre are names we are all familiar with.

Both Rolland and Gide were proud of their Marxist leanings, but developed differences in the manner in which the Soviet Union curbed personal freedom. 

Harris’s book is an interesting account of the differences between them over this and other issues.

The thing about these giants of the last century was the erudition with which they expressed their views, and the civilized manner in which they engaged in a debate over differences. 

Rolland and Gandhi correspondence is legendary, as is the correspondence between Tagore and Gandhi. Rolland's and Gide's differences are also of a similar nature. 

We are in an age when leaders seem so diminished in comparison. Obama’s articulation seems so refreshing and all together old-worldly.