On June 26, the troll account Team Saath, which often gangs up against Twitter handles that do not side with its ideology, demanded the arrest of the author and Professor Anand Ranganathan for quoting MK Gandhi. In a tweet, Team Saath wrote, “Now this man should be dealt with in a court of law. Someone must come forward and take the bull by the horns.” They tagged Congress, Supriya Shrinate, Pawan Khera, and Ashok Kumar Pandey. There was a screenshot of Prof Ranganathan’s tweet included in the post.
Anand Ranganathan quoted MK Gandhi
In a tweet, Prof Ranganathan wrote, “Hindus should not harbour anger against Muslims even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If Muslims established their rule after killing all Hindus, we would be ushering in a new India. – Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the nation, April 6, 1947.” In the attached video, Prof Ranganathan opposed the idea of giving Gandhi prize to Gita Press over the notion that Gandhi was anti-Hindu.
Hindus should not harbour anger against Muslims even if the latter want to destroy and kill us all. We should face death bravely. If Muslims established their rule after killing all Hindus we would be ushering in a new India. – Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the nation, April 6, 1947. pic.twitter.com/mK6vkbed6C
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) June 25, 2023
His tweet was a direct quote from MK Gandhi. On April 6, 1947, Gandhi made a speech at the prayer meeting. During the meeting, he expressed his dismay over the fact that Hindus fought back against Muslims in Bihar. He accused Hindus of killing “Nationalist Muslims”. He said, “Hindus should not harbour anger in their hearts against Muslims even if the latter wanted to destroy them. Even if the Muslims want to kill us all, we should face death bravely. If they established their rule after killing Hindus, we would be ushering in a new world by sacrificing our lives. None should fear death. Birth and death are inevitable for every human being. Why should we then rejoice or grieve? If we die with a smile, we shall enter into a new life; we shall be ushering in a new India.”
What Prof Ranganathan said was a direct quote from MK Gandhi. It is available easily as part of ‘Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi’ and can be downloaded from Gandhi Ashram Sevagram’s website. The quote can be found in the last paragram of page 248 in “Volume Ninety-four : (February 17, 1947 – April 29, 1947)”.
In his statement, prof Ranganathan said, “To have a Gandhi prize, to begin with, is an insult to India.” He then narrated the story of Gandhi’s niece Manu who was forced to walk 30 miles amid ongoing riots to retrieve a scrubbing stone. The story was documented by Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi in his book ‘The Man, his people and the Empire“.
Page 560 of the book read, “Discovering the loss later in the day (15 Jan.) in Narayanpur, Gandhi asked Manu to walk back alone to Bhatialpur and retrieve the pumice stone. Though an old woman had thrown the stone away, Manu located it and hurried back.
Saying, “Take your stone,’ she threw the object before Gandhi, who laughed and said that Manu had passed a test. He added: If scoundrels had seized and killed you I would have danced with joy, but I would not have liked it a bit if you had run back out of fear… I said to myself, “This girl sings ‘Ekla Chalo Re with enthusiasm but has she digested the message?’ … You can see how hard I can be… I also realized it.“
He mentioned several of Gandhi’s quotes to prove how Gandhi Prize should not have existed. While all the quotes mentioned by prof Ranganathan are available in public domain, Team Saath targeted him for “insulting” Gandhi.
Now this man should be dealt with in a court of law.
— Team Saath Official🤝 (@TeamSaath) June 26, 2023
Someone must come forward and take the bull by the horns. @INCIndia @SupriyaShrinate @Pawankhera @Ashok_Kashmir pic.twitter.com/58GcPqok5b
Though there are speculations on social media that actor Sushant Singh is inextricably linked to the account ‘Team Saath‘, they clarified that Sushant Singh is not the group’s founder but rather ‘The Goodwill Ambassador’. The account, the tweet said, is run by one ‘The Linguist’.
Recently, Team Saath targeted filmmaker Ashoke Pandit just days before the release of the film ’72 Hoorain’ that Pandit has co-produced. His account was suspended and continues to remain under suspension.
