Today, January 30, is the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination.
For Mahatma Gandhi, two temples – Birla Mandir and Valmiki Mandir – on Mandir Marg in the heart of New Delhi proved to be his laboratory to fight against the despicable practice of untouchability and scourge of caste.
Mahatma Gandhi inaugurated Birla Mandir on March 12, 1939. He inaugurated the temple on the condition that people of all castes would be allowed to enter there. There is a plaque on the main gate of Birla Mandir announcing that anyone can enter this temple.
Gandhi was committed to the rights of so-called lower caste Hindus and wanted commitment from the Birla family that entry in this temple would not be restricted on the basis of caste.
He was of the opinion that there must not be any ban on any community in temples of learning, as well as temples of worship. He wrote in the journal he started, Young India, in April, 1925: “Temples, public wells and schools must be open to Untouchables equally along with caste Hindus.” He also started the journal Harijan, through which he advocated his ideas. He called the practice of untouchability a moral crime.
And just on the other side of the Mandir Marg, Gandhi had stayed for 214 days from April 1, 1946 to June 10, 1947 with Valmikis. That was perhaps the first and only time when he became a teacher in true sense of the word. Of course, he knew that the life of Valmikis can transform only through education.
B. Louis Fischer with Gandhi at the Valmiki Mandir campus. Photo: By arrangement.
When Gandhi moved to Valmiki Mandir, a very large number of Valmiki families used to live in the slums there. They worked as sweepers in areas like Gole Market, Irwin Road (now Baba Kharak Singh Marg) and Connaught Place. Once Gandhi shifted to the Valmiki colony, he started interacting with Valmiki families as well. He was shocked that they were all illiterate. Nobody had even stepped into a school. Then he asked local residents to send their kids to him so he could teach them. Elders started sending their kids in his classes.
Krishan Vidyarthi, the caretaker and priest of Valmiki Mandir, says, “Gandhi ji ensured that his classes took place both in the morning and evening without fail. He was such a conscientious teacher that he often used to delay his meetings with stalwarts of the freedom movement in order to finish his classes. Those classes would start before prayers.”
Louis Fischer in his brilliant biography of Gandhi The Life of Mahatma, wrote, “Once I reached at the Valmiki temple from my hotel Imperial to interview him. But, he met me only after the prayers.” Fischer had spent over one month in Delhi to collect notes for his biography in 1946.
Gandhi was a hard task master. He used to chide students if any of them attended his class without having taken a bath. Not only the residents of Valmiki Colony, many students studying in schools like Raisina Bengali School, Harcourt Butler School and Delhi Tamil Education Association School also attended his classes from time to time. It was free for all. It is said that he knew all students by their names.
Those lucky students of Bapu are not around to narrate their experiences, but their kids do.
Also read: With Mewat in Flames, Remembering Gandhiji’s Visit to the Region in 1947
When you visit Gandhi’s small room inside the Valmiki temple, you would see several old sepia coloured photographs of him with Lord Mountbatten and Lady Mountbatten, Acharya Kriplani, the ‘Frontier Gandhi’ Abdul Ghaffar Khan, C. Rajagopalachari, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and Jawaharlal Nehru.
However, one painting would tell you the story of this venerable room. In this fading painting, several kids are talking to Bapu in a very animated manner. While the name of the painter is not there, but he has done wonderful job to reflect the mood of the room with a great past.
Here in this carpeted room, you would also find a wooden desk in the centre that Gandhi used to write on. And on its right is the bed that Gandhi would use. Gandhi’s charkha is also there, close to his bed. Everything is where he left it, in the same position.
Krishan Vidyarthi, 63, cleans Bapu’s classroom and blackboard there daily without fail. It is here that his ancestors used to study more than 75 years ago. For Krishan, this room is a sacred place.
“Of course it is not an ordinary classroom. My father was also taught by Gandhi here,” Krishan says, while preparing for the all-religion prayer that takes place outside the room.
Gandhi classes ended when he left for Birla House a couple of miles away from here on the advice of Nehru and Sardar Patel, as Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan had started living on the campus of the Valmiki temple after the Partition of the country.
Vivek Shukla is a journalist.