How would you introduce Prabhudas Gandhi to readers who are unfamiliar with his work?
Prabhudas Gandhi was a freedom fighter, Satyagrahi, writer, translator and social worker. As a young man, he participated in the Non-Cooperation Movement, Bardoli Satyagraha, Quit India Movement and evaded arrests. In addition, he worked with Mamasaheb Phalke in Godhra for the upliftment of sweepers in 1921 and with Gulzarilal Nanda in the great strike of mill workers in Ahmedabad in 1923. Apart from his active participation in Gandhian creative activities, he is known for inventing the Magan Charkha, a spinning wheel, named after his uncle Maganlal Gandhi, which could be propelled with the feet and used to spin cotton with both hands at a time. But his reputation in Gujarat is mainly based on his book Jivannu ProdhThis is a fascinating memoir of his years spent in the Phoenix Settlement in South Africa, where, as a child, he witnessed and participated in Mahatma Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement against the colonial, apartheid state.
What inspired you to translate his book from Gujarati to English?
I think the decision to translate the book was the result of a convergence of many factors and contexts; Some are immediate and some have been in the making for years. The immediate context was the long walk home of migrant workers following the national lockdown imposed in 2020 at four hours’ notice by invoking provisions of the colonial-era Act.
The scenes of enormous hardships they faced and the state’s harsh response broke my heart. Dejected and distraught, I searched through history for stories of the pain and suffering of migrant workers to understand what was going on in my country. A friend suggested Giriraj Kishore first indentured servant and Prabhudas Gandhi Jivannu Prodh. I was the first to get my hands on the latter.
Reading the book helped me find the answer to Gandhiji’s question, which was being sharply criticized by scholars and insensitive trolls for years; Specifically, accusations of being racist, racist, patriarchal, etc. during his South African years. I felt that this book complicated my understanding of Gandhi’s early views on caste, ethnicity and gender. I needed to make it part of a bigger debate.
On the other hand, an epidemic of rising intolerance, mindless consumption, appalling state of education and decline of media-managed public discourse has gripped India. To my surprise and satisfaction, the book also contained answers to many of these maladies.
How did the process of translating this book affect you emotionally and intellectually?
It is said that translation is an intimate act of reading and writing. but like a book Jivannu Prodh In fact, someone absorbs you inside himself. One not only translates it, but in the process inspires him to read and re-read other books with whom he is interacting. The outcome of such diverse studies is extremely sobering and humanitarian. Apart from rich intellectual stimulation, the translator undergoes an emotional transformation, confronts his prejudices, blind spots and mistrusts and begins to weave his ‘self’ anew. In my opinion the translator has been doubly fortunate. Because he not only encounters word-mediated pictures of another’s experience but ultimately creates similar and equally powerful pictures of those experiences in a different language. This double whammy of experience makes one a more settled person, if not a better one.
What do you think about Prabhudas Gandhi’s writing style and his relationship to the Gujarati language during his years in South Africa and after he came to India?
Prabhudas Gandhi’s narrative in Jivannu Prodh follows Gandhian instructions on language usage and literary writing. Again, the format of the book, the fact that the voice speaking in the book is that of a young boy of 10 or 12, may require a tone of innocence and the use of readable Gujarati. This way, the source text flows in simple, accessible language that enables uninterrupted, continuous reading. But often the simplicity and innocence, as the reader discovers, are deceptive. For Prabhudas Gandhi, a subtle and yet sharp critique of human follies, institutions, and structures emerges when the reader is not looking for it, or at least not expecting it. With scholarship, allusion, a systematic exploration of child psychology and argumentative reasoning, this book stands shoulder to shoulder with the best non-fiction from around the world. These traits of the author’s creative practice are also echoed in his later writings and translations, for example, in his extensively researched book Otabapa no Vadlo (The Family Tree of Otabapa), which appeared in 1982.
When you were working on the manuscript, what kind of support did you get from Trideep Suhrid, Rita Kothari and Prabodh Parikh, all great literary figures in their own right?
I am grateful to Trideep Suhrad for clearing away the clutter and giving us our Gandhi back, to Rita Kothari for the vast and insightful work done in translation studies, and to Prabodh Parikh for his unconditional friendship and moral support. They were all looming on my horizon while I was working on the manuscript, which is about as meaningful as an editor’s real-time intervention in the translation process.
In the introduction, you mention that caste was “unequivocally central” to MK Gandhi’s “project of equality and social reconstruction”. How did his years in South Africa, where he faced racism, shape his view of the caste system in India?
Contrary to popular belief, Gandhi was thinking about the caste question from the very beginning. Some of my Dalit friends argue that there is not even an iota of mention of caste and untouchability in Hind Swaraj. In the book, there is a detailed chapter titled “Toilet Cleaning”, where Prabhudas Gandhi gives a brilliant account of how MK Gandhi subjected all ashram residents to the experience of negotiating filth as a way of sensitizing their ‘selves’ to the degradation and dehumanization of the ‘other’, an entire community condemned to a life of squalor and unbearable misery. I have come to call this phenomenon “ontological habituation.”
It defies belief that a man who was fighting for the rights of poor indentured servants in South Africa was oblivious to the question of caste discrimination in India. Or that he could not see the structural similarities between race and caste. The Don Life forces the reader to complicate his view of the Gandhian politics of caste and race. For example, the way a young Prabhudas sees the superior humanity of the Zulus living on the outskirts of Phoenix is instructive and confirms Gandhi’s position on racial discrimination.
We should not forget that, once in India, Gandhi was the only person in the Indian National Congress who gave the caste question the same status as the question of independence. His decades of well-intentioned movements against untouchability, temple entry, education for the outcasts ultimately culminated in his support of inter-caste marriage. And once that happens, you know, the caste is destroyed.
You have translated Dalpat Chauhan’s work – vultures (2022) and fear and other stories (2023). It is a mirror of the violence sanctioned and perpetuated by the caste system. What was it like to encounter MK Gandhi’s views on caste after Chauhan’s writings?
This was the other way. It was the ideas of Gandhi and Ambedkar that led me to Chauhan’s novel and now, to the non-fiction novel of another Dalit writer-activist, Chandu Maheria. Maheria’s memoir is titled An Essay That fellow, Gandhido Which delves into the reasons why we cannot trust one or the other proposal between Gandhi and Ambedkar when it comes to imagining a casteless society. Eminent Kannada scholar DR Nagaraj also brilliantly points out how these two leaders complemented each other on the question of caste. Why caste still persists today, despite the struggles waged by Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhiji, is a question I ask with Dalpat Chauhan and Chandu Maheria, a question we all must ask ourselves, our families and friends in the 21st century.
In the Acknowledgments section, you write about your belief in “the power of words and ideas to make this world a better place for everyone.” When did this belief take root?
As a bilingual poet, translator, editor and cultural critic, I couldn’t imagine otherwise. I think Fidel Castro was already conscious of the arrival of the post-truth era when he called for a “battle of ideas” in his speech at the University of Havana in 2004. I have seen words and ideas touch and change lives, as well as harm and destroy societies. The challenge is to take advantage of the right moments and present them to the audience at the right frequency, the way Gandhi did. indian opinion in South Africa and later through several newspapers which he edited in India. Tukaram puts it brilliantly in Dilip Chitre’s translation:
words are the only jewelry i have words are the only clothes i wear words are the only food that’s what makes my life Words are the only wealth I distribute among people tuka says be a witness to the word he is god i worship him with words
Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, teacher, journalist and tree hugger based in Mumbai.
