Dr. Vishiesh Verma
Since Independence, India has been celebrating 2nd October as Gandhi Jayanti. But a few years ago, United Nations General Assembly in recognition of his role in promoting the message of peace around the world decided the birth anniversary of Gandhiji should be celebrated as International Day of Non-Violence. Most of the major member countries including Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany etc. (120 out of 191) adopted the resolution to this effect and now 2nd October is celebrated as International Day of Non-violence in almost all over the world.
Another Pride making news for India is that the statute of “Gandhiji” has been placed in Parliament Square in London alongside the statutes of Abraham Lincolin and Nelson Mandela. About Gandhiji Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru said, “Where he sat was a Temple, where he walked was hallowed ground.”
Gandhiji had observed a century ago that India’s Independence couldn’t be confined to political liberation. Freedom for him meant freedom from hunger, ignorance, fear of exploitation etc.were many issues. For him development meant unshackling the poor and downtrodden from bondage and providing access to opportunities for all round development of personality.
Although Gandhiji never set foot on American soil he was on Time magazine’s cover page in 1930,1931 and 1947 and was the runner up for ‘Time Person of the Century’. U.S President Barrack Obama has said that he considered Mahatma his real hero. Relying on western feedback Time Magazine and Reuters chose Albert Einstein as the personality of the millennium just ahead of Mahatma Gandhi and Karl Marx.
About Gandhi, Albert Einstein said, “——–Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood, walked on this earth”. To him ‘Gandhi possessed special quality of heart and mind. It illuminates the essential nature of human greatness. Gandhi felt a sense of moral responsibility for every one including his opponents and enemies. He considered it as a part of his duty to see that his antagonists or well-wishers did not push themselves into immoral positions’. Once Gandhiji wrote, “A follower of ahimsa would strive for the greatest good of all and die in an attempt to realize his ideal. Non-violence for Gandhiji was not a mere concept but it was for him soul force, an act of faith, a condition of existence and a cultural necessity.
For Gandhi, “The doctrine of Ahimsa implies living with active compassion refraining from violence in thought, word and deed”.
After repeated experiments Gandhiji concluded that Ahimsa is an infallible force and that ahimsa and Satya are part of our inherent nature. Man as an animal is violent, and as spirit is non-violent, violence is law of brute. The dignity of man requires obedience to higher law to the strength of the spirit. Ahimsa is an active force of love. Love of humanity is the unifying element in Gandhiji’s holistic vision of life.
Gandhiji was not a model or system builder. He was an action philosopher who united thought and action. He was a path founder with social and individual goals. His philosophy is the search of right path and desired this path to have maximum consistency with the goals. To him heart, intellect and soul are three essential components of man and every philosophy should necessarily take all these components into account.
Gandhiji on being asked by a disciple about the model of independent India replied,”I Shall work for India in which the poorest shall feel that it is their country, in whose making they have an effective voice. An India in which there shall be no high and low class of people. An India in which all communities shall live in perfect harmony……….thus there can be no room in such an India for the curse of untouchability, lower or upper classes. All will enjoy the same rights.” On another occasion he said, “I want the culture of all lands to be blown about in my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.”
Mahatma Gandhi started a movement for the removal of untouchability first at Godhra town in Gujarat in 1917. Scavengers suffered from this curse on account of their profession which involved manual removal of night soil. Gandhiji said, “It was wrong to damn these people actually; they were doing the highest form of service to society.” He made cleaning of one’s night soil, the condition for all inmates of his Ashram. Thanks to the public opinion created by Gandhiji’s campaign, untouchability was banned under article 17 of the constitution after independence. With a view to giving teeth to legislative enactments seeking to put an end to this obnoxious practice, laws were amended. Finally protection of Civil Rights Act 1955, was put on the statute book to deal with the problem.
Osama Bin Laden in a 1993 speech invoked apostle of peace Mahatma Gandhi as he asked his supporters to boycott American goods and seek inspiration from the Indian leader’s struggle against the British according to audio tapes of the slain al-Qaeda chief available after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Osama Bin Laden was forced to flee the city of Kandahar, where he had been based since 1997. Several compounds were hastily vacated, including one opposite the Taliban Foreign Ministry inside which 1,500 cassettes were discovered. The tapes date back to the late 1960s through to 2001 and feature more than 200 different speakers — Osama among them. Osama makes no mention of violence till 1996, according to the tapes.
Since Gandhiji wanted the poor and the deprived communities to be helped in free India to the maximum, he advised newly appointed leaders and administrators to give special care to them. He said, “Whenever you are in doubt…recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the steps contemplated is going to be of any use to him? Will he gain anything by it, will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny.” That test alone, he felt can make our plans and programs meaningful.
Once Gandhiji visited the famous educational institute established by Ravinder Nath Tagore at ‘Shantinikatan’. Tagore tried to exhibit Gandhiji every area of his interest: Plantations, Music, Education, Arts centers, surroundings of school etc. but Gandhiji was least provoked to appreciate. Tagore asked Gandhiji, “When in the early dawn, the morning sun rises, does it not fill your heart with joy to see its reddish glow? When the birds sing does not your heart thrill with its divine music?” To this Gandhiji replied, “I am not dumb or insensitive as not to be moved by the beauty of the rose or the morning rays of the sun or the divine music of the birds. But what can I do? My one desire, my one anxiety, my one ambition is when shall I seem the red tint of the rose on the cheeks of hungry naked millions of my people? When will that day come when the light of the morning sun will illuminate the hearts of the common man in India?”
For Gandhiji rights and duties were complimentary, a citizen who is not conscious of his duties has no right to think of his rights. He said, “If instead of insisting on rights everyone does his duties, there will immediately be the rule of order established among mankind…”
(The writer is a former Reader Coordinator of University of Jammu.)
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