Most Indians would get into trouble for airing less-than-reverential opinions about national icons - even self-styled ones. This is evident in the way in which criticism against the prime minister or the dispensation he leads is quelled. Members of that dispensation, however, are free to assail the stature of national figures whom they wish to diminish in order to construct the new narrative they label history. Perhaps this is why the Bharatiya Janata Party chief, Amit Shah, deemed it fit to call M.K. Gandhi a "chatur (wily) baniya" who predicted the Congress's downfall and used the party as a mere 'special purpose vehicle' to secure independence. It is troubling enough that a comment reducing Gandhi's identity to the mercantile class into which he was born can be made so blithely in a nation where citizens are regularly subjected to caste-based discrimination. More important, Mr Shah's simplistic assessment of Gandhi's foresight, ideals and actions is at odds with the truth. Gandhi's thinking was far more complex than Mr Shah gives him credit for. His experiments with truth and non-violence are well-known: he never stopped testing and questioning - and sometimes even moved away from - his own ideas, such as those about self-rule, peaceful non-cooperation and mass mobilization, as well as about social customs and sex. Opinions on his actions vary, but there is no doubt that he enacted a life of philosophical questioning. It is also unclear how the Congress could have been an SPV for Gandhi. An SPV is an entity created solely to serve a particular function. Gandhi, however, did not create the Congress. It was founded in 1885; Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915, and, attracted by his political mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, joined the party some time after that.

Mr Shah's comment is not only in keeping with the ruling party's purposeful editing of history, it also fits in with the fraught relations the BJP's parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, shares with Gandhi's legacy. While the BJP chief calls Gandhi names, the prime minister launched the Swachh Bharat campaign as a 'tribute' to Gandhi and his vision of a 'clean India'. These double standards are congruous with RSS policy, which is largely centred on making use of public figures and historical events as long as they serve the organization's own interests. This requires a kind of wiliness that Gandhi may not have possessed.