The rise of Hindu nationalism is an affront to the legacy of pacifist Mahatma Gandhi, his great-grandson laments, on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the assassination of the hero of Indian independence.
Gandhi's murder dates back to January 30, 1948, during a multi-religious prayer where a zealot named Nathuram Godse shot and killed him, accusing him of being too conciliatory with the Muslim minority.
The assassin was executed the following year and remains widely reviled in India, but author and activist Tushar Gandhi, one of the peace icon's best-known descendants, sees Godse's views gaining traction .
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“
This philosophy has now captured India and the hearts of Indians, the ideology of hatred, the ideology of polarization, the ideology of division
,” he explains in his Bombay home.
For supporters of these doctrines, “
it is quite natural that Godse should be their ideal patriot, their idol,
” he adds.
Tushar Gandhi, 63, attributes the turnaround to the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
According to him, Modi and his government, in power since 2014, are challenging the secular multicultural traditions that his family, especially his illustrious ancestor, worked to protect.
Modi's success "
was built on hate, we have to accept
that", says Tushar, saying the prime minister "
knows that what he is doing is stoking a fire that will one day consume all of India
".
Temple in honor of Gandhi's assassin
Gandhi's assassin is now venerated by many Hindu nationalists who are campaigning for his actions to be reclassified.
A temple in his honor was built near the capital New Delhi in 2015, a year after Narendra Modi was elected.
His worshipers even campaign for a town to bear his name.
Godse was a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a still active far-right Hindu formation, whose members carry out military maneuvers and participate in prayer groups.
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Disassociated from Godse a long time ago, the RSS remains a powerful party at the origin of the foundation of the BJP, created decades ago to carry the Hindu cause in the political sphere.
For his part, Prime Minister Modi has regularly paid tribute to Gandhi and failed to get involved in the campaign to rehabilitate the independence hero's killer.
"Keep fighting"
As for Tushar, he continues to fiercely defend his ancestor's legacy, built on "
honesty, equality, unity and inclusion
".
He has notably written two books on Gandhi and his wife Kasturba, regularly recalls the importance of democracy at public events and filed legal motions in the Supreme Court to defend his country's secular institutions.
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In his home, a post-colonial era apartment in a quiet area of Bombay, there are many portraits and statuettes of his great-grandfather.
There sits a small spinning wheel, a pedal-powered spinning tool symbolizing the autonomy embodied and defended by Gandhi.
Faced with the absence of a plausible adversary, his descendant resigned himself to seeing Narendra Modi re-enlist for a new term, after the elections scheduled for next year.
"
The evil is so deep and they are so successful that I don't see my ideology triumphing in India for a long time
," Tushar said.
"
But it gives me the determination to keep fighting
."
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