Iski topi uske sar

So Kejriwal wants to rehash a last year story on Vadra and a 2-weeks-old cover story on Maharashtra's irrigation scam to come up with the earth-shattering conclusion that politicians shouldn't collude with businessmen, while he is himself flanked by Mayank Gandhi, accused of a graft in the redevelopment of 30 acres of a South Mumbai property, Prashant Bhushan, whose Kumud Bhushan Educational Society was allowed to buy 4.68 hectares of land in the hill-State of Himachal Pradesh in 2010 where land is a scarce resource and there is an embargo on outsiders buying it without government permission and Anjali Damania, who gallantly wanted the irrigation dam in Maharashtra near her plot to be shifted by 700 metres to save her own 30 acres! The funny part is, Kejriwal screeches his jholla-wallah rhetoric with a GANDHI topi on his head!

On the 10th of January 1927, Gandhi wrote this in a letter to Ghanshyam Das Birla, “My thirst for money is simply unquenchable. I need at least Rs 2,00,000 — for khadi, untouchability and education. The dairy work makes another Rs 50,000. Then there is the Ashram expenditure. No work remains unfinished for want of funds, but God gives after severe trials. This also satisfies me. You can give as you like for whatever work you have faith in.”  

G.D. Birla accompanying Mahatma Gandhi on his stroll from the Birla House, New Delhi

In the late 1920's, when Gandhi was fiercely advocating the use of hand-spun khadi, Birla contested his stand by writing to him, “Do you not think that you are unnecessarily exaggerating the results of the khadi propaganda? You could find this out yourself if you send hawkers with mill-made as well as shuddha khadi who may ask some villagers to select their choice after explaining the latter properly about the quality as well as the price of the cloth, I have not the least doubt that if you made the experiment you will find that 90 per cent of the consumers will pick up the cheaper and more lasting of the two stuffs. Mill khadi is popular because people find it cheap, durable besides it being swadeshi make.”  The mighty warrior that Gandhi was, he chickened out dutifully and replied thus to Birla in 1930, “I am convinced that the boycott will be successful only through khadi. This does not mean that the mills have no place in the scheme at all. The mills can have their deserved place by recognising the worth of khadi. The conception of God envelopes all Gods.” 

While we are at giving our dear departed national i-con a belated jhadu ki jhappi, it would be worth pointing out that Gandhi was a regular resident in the Birla household in Delhi since 1925, and he spent the last 144 days of his life in the erstwhile Birla House, which has now been converted into a Gandhi museum called Gandhi Smriti. Ha-ha-hi-hi-ho-ho.

Recall what the dainty Nightingale of India once tweeted, "It costs a lot to keep Gandhi poor." 

Who was the last ambitious i-con who started his political innings by heaping mud on other politicians? V. P. Singh.