Relevance
of Gandhian Principles Today
“Satyameveswaro Loke Satyaddharma Pratishtitaha
Satya Moolani Sarvani Satyam Nasti Param Padam.”
{This world is based on only one thing i.e satyam
(Truth), there is no other better place than satyam itself.} –Mahabharata
The 20th century has
seen one of the greatest and well-known personalities in the person of Mohandas
Karamachand Gandhi. He is known today as the father of our nation because of his love for this our nation and its citizens. He
became well-known not solely for his educational qualifications, but for the
principles and values he believed in and lived by, values which shaped the
entire movement of freedom struggle of our country. At this juncture in the
history of our country, I believe, we need to turn to him and his values to
reshape our history.
In my opinion, we are
in a troubled world today. At the global
level there is a lot of unrest, fear, anger, hatred, discontent, despair….. At
the national level, religious conflicts
seem to be taking the upper hand as political parties continue to
promote their own ideologies, resulting in confusion and chaos, leading to ethnic
conflicts.
As we celebrate the
birth day of Mahathma Gandhi, his political and social philosophy could be our
starting point to reshape and reorient our nation to a peaceful society. The teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, in his own
words, “I have nothing new to teach the World. Truth and non-violence are as
old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast
scale as I could,” is nothing new. Gandhiji tried to revive the old teachings
and apply them to his social and political context. His favorite concepts such
as truth, nonviolence, love, though look abstract, he showed how to use them as
the strongest weapons to uproot the social and political evils of the time. This attempt of realizing the abstract
principles in real life drew many followers all around the world.
In 2009, when Barack
Obama was visiting Wakefield High School in the US, a ninth grader asked the
would-be President: “If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who
would it be?” Obama chuckled and answered: “Well, dead or alive, that’s a
pretty big list. You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero
of mine.” Nelson Mandela, great leader of the South African people and another
giant of the 20th century anti-colonial struggle, often cited Mahatma Gandhi as
one of his greatest teachers: “Gandhi’s ideas have played a vital role in South
Africa’s transformation and with the help of Gandhi’s teaching, apartheid has
been overcome.”
Even to this day whenever
people need justice they often have recourse to protest marches or candle light
processions, with patriotic slogans of freedom struggle, we are reminded of the
Gandhian principles and their effectiveness even today. One example is that of Jessica Lal’s case.
Through peaceful protests in the form of candle march almost all over the
country, justice was delivered.
It seems to me that the
concept of Truth or Sathya was very dear to Mahatma Gandhi. The importance of Truth
is underlined by the fact that the Mahathama’s autobiography was given the title by himself: The Story of My Experiments with Truth.
In one of his letters, Mahathma says, “Generally speaking, Truth is understood
merely to mean that we must speak the truth. But we in the Ashram should
understand the word Satya or Truth in a much wider sense. There should be Truth
in thought, Truth in speech and Truth in action.” Therefore we can conclude
that the concept Sathya or truth had much wider and deeper sense for Gandhiji.
It means truth at the level of thinking, of talking and acting.
It is sad to note that
today India has sidelined the core principles of Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhian
ideals. Gandhi Jayanthi to a great extent has merely become our national
holiday. Somewhere somehow something has
gone wrong in our way of life. Today our
country is witnessing violence based on religion, caste and gender. The gap between the rich and the poor is
horrendously wide. Violence and hatred of dalits and minorities are justified
by the majority and the powerful. Law and order has taken the backseat signaling
a frightening future for our generation and for generations to come. It seems that crime and violence are helped
to become legalized practices in our country by silencing the social activists.
Let me conclude with a
tribute to Mahathma Gandhi by Albert Einstein, “Generations to come, it may
well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood
walked upon this earth”.
Gandhi taught us to promote Swatchtha in heart not only one day in a year walking with a broom and taking photos for publicity...
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