Understanding Gandhi’s Re-emergence in Indian Opposition Politics

Mahatma Gandhi is back at the center of Indian opposition politics and the public imagination. On the evening of October 8, MPs from the INDIA bloc, including Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, launched a protest against India’s Chief Election Commissioner at Raj Ghat, the Mahatma’s memorial in New Delhi. At protests in Mumbai on the same issue on 2 October, Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke called Gandhi the “soul of India”. Protesters dressed as Gandhi appeared across the country.

Civic activists such as Uttarakhand resident “Mohammad” Deepak, who have defended members of the minority community from violent communal elements, claim to be inspired by Gandhi. And Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj party, which opened its legislative account in Bihar and expanded to Delhi, uses Gandhi as its central inspiration alongside BR Ambedkar.

These are significant examples. The protests the country has experienced in recent months are the strongest and potentially most challenging in years. Mr Rahul Gandhi and MPs for the INDIA block seem to be effectively mobilizing against the establishment. And Jan Suraaj’s focus on education and responsibility is refreshing in a region where social justice has descended into cynical politics based on caste, religion and patronage. The world’s largest democracy is experiencing a storm—as illustrated by cross-regional protests, the mobilization of opposition lawmakers, bold citizen action, and the emergence of a new party with a strategy to break the mold of regional politics in the Ganga region. That Gandhi is at the heart of this passing testifies to its usefulness to those who want to bring civility and decency to Indian public life, mobilize the masses for systemic change, and redefine electoral issues.

Gandhi returned despite concerted efforts to diminish it. These efforts come from the political right and the purveyors of identity politics who dominate the progressive intellectual space in Indian universities, media and public forums.

On the right, the ruling establishment recast Gandhi as a symbol of the cleanliness of physical spaces – streets, offices, transport and hospitals. The Swachh Bharat campaign put Gandhi on government letterheads. It made Gandhi visible, but it changed what he meant in the public imagination: he was not the supreme political leader of modern India and the source of political renewal, but a symbol of the country’s effort to heal itself of its own filth. It was an attempt to depoliticize Gandhi, to erase the fact that he had ideas for radical political change.

The Battle of Legacy

The right wanted to replace Gandhi in the imagination of the national public with VD Savarkar, the ideologue of Hindutva. The establishment sought to elevate Savarkar’s status by diminishing Gandhi’s status, mainly by projecting him as a weak figure who liberated Hindu society and appeased Muslims, resulting in the partition of India, loss of territory and geopolitical disadvantage. In contrast, Savarkar was positioned as a champion of Hindu strength and uncompromising nationalism. India’s former Information Commissioner Udaj Mahurkar called him the “father of national security” and claimed in 2021 that India had entered the “Savarkar era”.

Intellectuals and identity politics activists pointed their guns at Gandhi because of his views on race, caste and women. Soon, Gandhi entered the imperial notion of a hierarchy of humanity based on skin color, placing blacks below brown Indians. On caste, while Gandhi opposed untouchability, he was unwilling to renounce the varna system which necessarily produced untouchability. And Gandhi’s early views on women, along with his experiments with sexual restraint in old age, became associated with misogyny. To identify political intellectuals, Gandhi is the most regressive public figure imaginable: a racist, a misogynist, a casteist and a hypocrite. Its non-violence is seen as a cover that supports the “structural violence” of racism, casteism and patriarchy.

While both groups wanted to reduce Gandhi’s global standing, the right in India has failed, given that the establishment finds him useful in projecting India as a nation that rejects war and promotes sustainable development internationally. They also had to meet Gandhi’s appeal among foreign governments.

Nevertheless, the adherents of identity politics have successfully diminished Gandhi’s status in academic and intellectual circles in India and abroad by placing him in intersectional politics. It is argued that European colonialism created a global structure of subjugation called the nexus of caste and race, which Gandhi embodies most fully. Just as there were calls in the West to remove statues and monuments of racist figures, such as the campus activism surrounding “Rhodes Must Fall,” these critics welcomed Gandhi’s fall. While the right sought to replace Gandhi with Savarkar, for intellectuals and identity politics activists, that figure is Ambedkar. And yet Gandhi returned.

The case for relevance

Citizens of India need not idolize Gandhi; he must be judged for the things he said and did in his time, some of which are offensive in our changed context. But Gandhi is more than just his problematic views. His public career spanned five decades. He has remained relevant for so long, not because of his views, but because of his fundamental understanding that to change politics, we must work at its foundations: society, community, and the individual. This is what the right wing in India has vigorously done, taking advantage of the fact that Gandhi’s successors left this space after independence. The forces that want decency and civility in public life and accountability in politics have found that they must begin by changing what society should expect from politics, and that individuals should see themselves as citizens with the right to demand accountability rather than as subjects who must do as they are told. Not surprisingly, they found Gandhi useful. It helps them develop these ideas and, most importantly, gives legitimacy to nonviolent protest. It is proof that Gandhi lives on in the Indian collective consciousness. It remains relevant to any social force seeking bottom-up political change, for which India’s neighbors have also shown a keen desire.

(The writer teaches International Affairs at Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR)

Published – 09 Oct 2026 08:30 IST