IS GANDHI IRRELEVANT? SHOULD INDIA CHOOSE A NEW FATHER OF THE NATION

Gandhi is Called the Father of the Nation

It isn't just gratitude. It is conviction.

India needs a new soul.

Who stands tall enough

Inspire India to become a Developed Country by 2047

Gandhi was not called the Father of the Nation merely as a tribute to his role in India’s independence. That would reduce the title to a token of gratitude. He was honoured because he embodied values that stirred a nation’s conscience. Whoever we honour now must not only reflect the spirit of our times — but also inspire the generations yet to come.

India is young — and getting younger.

Anyone below the age of 55 today — that’s nearly 65% of India — never saw Gandhi’s India.

For most, his values are distant. His voice, unfamiliar. His legacy, textbook material.

And this number is only growing. Within a decade, over 80% of Indians will have no living memory or cultural imprint of Gandhi.

Not because they reject him — but because no one reintroduced him in a language they could understand.

Does it mean he has become irrelevant?

🔴 THE EMOTIONAL GAP

Gandhi remains the Father of the Nation — but only in form, not in feeling.

His presence exists in currency notes and statues, not in conversations.

We don't erase him. We just don’t relate to him.

The Gandhian values of non-violence 

🔴 THE BIG QUESTION - WHO SHOULD FATHER THE INDIAN NATION?

Redefining Legacy Beyond One Name

Some questions are too important to be left unquestioned.

Like this one: Who truly deserves to be called the Father of the Indian Nation?

The phrase is largely associated with Mahatma Gandhi.

Reverence has hardened into ritual.

But what if India’s vast, layered history demands more than one lens?

What if other architects — across time — contributed equally to its philosophy, structure, soul, and survival?

Non-violence, celibacy, khadi, self-denial and austerity don’t resonate with a generation raised on ambition, access, and acceleration.

You can't expect a 17-year-old to draw strength from salt marches and spinning wheels when they're dealing with AI anxiety, startup culture, and cultural fragmentation.

So here’s the question we must ask:

What is the use of keeping a national father figure with whom 65% of the population — soon to be 80% — cannot emotionally connect?

What’s the point of preserving values that were contextually relevant 80 years ago, but have no practical anchor today?

This is not about erasing Gandhi. This is about moving forward without inherited obligation.

Let us examine five towering figures including Gandhi — across centuries — who arguably shaped India in ways no less foundational than Gandhi.

We judge them not by sentiment, but through a quiet matrix: Vision, Nation-Building Impact, Moral Authority, Timeless Influence, and Power to Unify.

🔴 LET THE NATION RECONSIDER.

🌍 Chanakya (4th century BCE) Before there was India the Republic, there was Bharat the Civilization. Chanakya envisioned a united, secure, and strategically governed subcontinent. He was the chief advisor and architect of the Mauryan Empire, the first true pan-Indian state. As author of the Arthashastra, he wrote doctrines of taxation, foreign policy, espionage, and civil administration still studied by modern strategists. Often rightly called the Father of Diplomacy, it would not be an exaggeration to say that much of modern statecraft — from alliance balancing to psychological warfare — has roots in his writings.

🌍 Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) The name that has, by default, worn the crown. Gandhi gave India its moral grammar in a century of violence. Through satyagraha and ahimsa, he created a civil resistance model that overthrew an empire without picking up arms. His ethical philosophy gave the freedom struggle its soul, and millions their dignity. But Gandhi was not a state-builder. His vision was spiritual and moral, not institutional. For many, he is the conscience of India — but perhaps not its architect.

🌍 Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) If Gandhi gave India a soul, Ambedkar gave it a spine. The principal architect of the Constitution, Ambedkar built the moral infrastructure of equality into the legal DNA of the Republic. A fierce critic of caste injustice, he refused to let India’s future be built on its past sins. He ensured that India would not just be independent, but just — not just a democracy, but a humane one. For millions of oppressed Indians, Ambedkar is not only the Father of the Constitution — but the father they never had.

🌍 Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950)The Iron Man of India gave the Republic its geography and governance. As the first Home Minister and unifier of 562 princely states, Patel stitched together a nation out of fragmented loyalties. His administrative decisiveness and unshakable realism saved India from Balkanization. If Gandhi was the spirit, Ambedkar the law, Patel was the glue — holding the nation together with steel in his spine and silence on his lips.

🌍 Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015)He didn’t found the nation, but he reignited its dream.A scientist who became President, a missile technologist who spoke in poems, Kalam became the modern Indian role model — humble, futuristic, inclusive. He made patriotism aspirational. In a cynical age, he restored sincerity. In a divided polity, he became the People's President. He may not have birthed India, but he nurtured it into the space age with moral clarity and scientific confidence.

🔴 WHAT THE WORLD DID

Other nations have moved forward without erasing their founders:

• The U.S. layered Lincoln, JFK, Reagan and Obama over George Washington

• China revered Mao, but modernized under Deng Xiaoping

• Singapore respects Lee Kuan Yew but builds for today

• South Africa remembers Mandela, but its youth struggle with his relevance

India, meanwhile, clings to Gandhi without translating him — and worse, without daring to evolve.

🔴 SO, WHO THEN SHOULD BE THE FATHER OF THE NATION?

India doesn’t need emotional re-anchoring. It needs emotional liberation.

Call it a new “Father.” Or call it civilizational succession. But today’s India needs leadership that:

• Embodies courage, not just sacrifice

• Reflects enterprise, not just austerity

• Inspires action, not just nostalgia

Icons like A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Sardar Patel, Swami Vivekananda and Dr. Ambedkar don’t just complement Gandhi — they surpass him in relevance to today’s India.

India is not a museum. It’s a civilization in motion.

🔴 FINAL WORD

Gandhi gave India freedom.

But he never gave this India a way to belong.

It’s not disrespectful to ask:

Has India emotionally outgrown its founding icon?

We don’t need to discard Gandhi.

But we must stop using his memory as a moral crutch.

🔴 OUTRAGEOUSLY YOURS BELIEVES:

You cannot build the future with the emotional software of 1947.

India doesn’t need a re-anchored Gandhi. It needs a new soul.

The question is: Is he the right figure to inspire the India that’s coming?

The question is not whether Gandhi was once relevant.

- A democracy trying to scale 2047 with values frozen in 1947

- A culture increasingly seeking icons abroad, not at home

- A generation that finds no emotional footing in its so-called “Father”

This disconnect is no longer academic. It has consequences:

India’s emotional operating system has changed. But its symbolic leadership hasn’t.

India’s dominant value system today is technology-driven, ambition-led, and deeply tied to innovation and economic aspiration. Its emotional core no longer orbits around khadi or satyagraha.

Seventy-five years later, the world has evolved, and so has India. Five generations have since then. Technology has replaced toil. Wealth has replaced sacrifice. And Gandhi’s once-sacred ideals no longer reflect the lived reality of a nation that now competes to be a superpower.

The time when Gandhism ruled the nation has passed

It made sense, when India became independent. Most Indians of that era could relate to him — they shared his poverty, his fearlessness, and his lived experience under British rule.

He was chosen because his value system — of non-violence, austerity, self-restraint, and simplicity — offered the newly free Indian people a moral and emotional compass. He wasn’t just a liberator.

He was a civilizational guidepost for an India in recovery.

Gandhi was not referred as the Father of the Nation merely to honour his role in securing India's independence. That would reduce the title to a thank-you gesture — and that’s not how nations choose their symbolic heads.