Once in a while

Mohan das Karam Chand Gandhi

It must be the most apt time in the year to write this post. Tomorrow is October 2nd, Gandhi Jayanthi, or the so-called "Dry Day" ( refer - Lage Raho Munnabhai! ). As usual I put a disclaimer in the very first paragraph. I am not an expert on Gandhi, his teachings, his life. My knowledge is based pretty much on, Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, on snippets I have read in school, the first 150 pages of "My experiment with truth", of which I remeber only about 50 pages, and from what I have heard from my Dad, who is an admirer of Gandhi.

In spite of such a limited knowledge, I think I understand what Gandhi believed and have thought about how he was able to mobilize a whole nation behind him. In of my HS courses, "Indian National Movement", Prof. Dilip Veeraraghavan said something which though obvious is very profound. He said Gandhi believed that the definition of "truth" for a person is constatntly being modified based on his experience and as he grows in experience he begins to understand different facets of truth. He truly believed that the British were just at heart, and once they realized the truth that they were oppressing an entire nation, they would leave the nation and go. That is why he believed in non-violence, and called it "SatyaGraha". He believed that if you just bear the inconvinience caused by some one else, and show him that you were doing so, the other person will back down himself.

The greatness of Gandhi lies in his simplicity, and the ability to truly follow what he preaches. He was secular in the true sense of the word. Though his teachings were very idealistic, he tried to follow each and every one of them. When people saw this, I think they tried to incorporate his teachings in their lives as much as they could. After all whateverhe said has been known to the world for centuries, he just showed people that it could also be practiced.

Another striking quality is his courage and his tenacity to stick to what he elieved in. In the movie, "Gandhi", there is a scene in South Africa, where Gandhi calls all the Indians living them and urges them to burn their permit ( requiered to be had by him at allpoints of time ). He is the first to burn it, in presence of police officials and then when no one steps forward, he goes around collecting a few permits and burns it. He is savagely hit by the policemen but continues to burn the permits till he passes out. That is almost a child-like stubborness. It was this stubborness that kept him going against the British, that helped him fast for insane number of days.
He also immense amount of courage to apologize when he did something wrong. He used to hit is wife out of frustuation, but later realized that he had made a mistake and apologized to his wife for his behaviour. He apologized to his dad when he stole money from him. He took back the Non-co-operation Movement when it turned voilent, even though a lot of people felt that the nation had been galvanized enough to go all the way. Some may think that this delayed freedom by twenty to twenty five years, but his goal was a peaceful movement and he wouldnt budge from it no matter what. He didnt ask anyone to follow whatever he said. He left the people to decide the way they wanted to achieve freedom. Even when he took back the movement, he just said he would fast till death if it wasnt stopped. The whole nation calmed down after that. That was the power he was able to amass by such simple means

At the end of the day, he was just a simple man with his heart in the right place. He truly believed in human beings being just and tried to unearth that feeling in most of the people. There a lot of people who have told me that he really isnt that great, and that he too had stolen and had gone to a whores house, but his greatness lies inthe aility to realize that he was doing a mistake and the courage to back away , no matter what people thought of it.

There is always a question about how relevant Gandhi's way of life is in this era, whether all disputes can be settled by non-violence. For these questions I dont really know the answer. Would a Gandhi be able to stand up to a Saddam Hussain, no one can tell. His way of life has been used world over and people have been successful. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, all have truly followed Gandhi's principles and achieved their objectives. It may work with Saddam too. I guess only Gandhi can answer that quetion. Questioning Gandhi's teaching is questioning whether truth is really powerful in todays world. I do believe that non-violence is the way to settle any dispute. With more violence comes more uneasiness and more hatred. Any peace achieved through violence is an uneasy one , agreed by parties out of compulsion. Through non-violence, peace is reached because both sides want to live in harmony.

I believe Einstein once said that a hundred years from now, no one will believe that a person like Gandhi ever existed. I hope such a day never comes. By rememberig Gandhi, we remember what he stood for. That is more important than knowing where he was born or where all he went at what point of time. Thankfully, there is one day in the year when people will remember that Gandhi existed and that he was an Indian.

posted by Mahesh.R @ 3:53 AM