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IN
GANDHI'S FOOTSTEPS
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| By B.R.
Nanda Even in
Mahatma Gandhi's lifetime, people had wondered if his thoughts could
inspire the masses. There was a feeling that Gandhi was too idealistic.
That nonviolence would not work. |
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In
the year 1931, actor Charlie Chaplin asked Gandhi what he felt about the
rapid technological
advancements.
Gandhi said: "My primary concern is the gravity of chronic unemployment of millions in India's villages." Chaplin suggested: "But if you could find other work for your unemployed and ensure equitable distribution of wealth, you would not then despise machinery?" "Certainly," replied Gandhi. So, Gandhi was not necessarily anti-technology. But his priorities were different. Take, for example, his hunger strikes. Fasting struck the British as a thinly disguised method of coercion. Gandhi was aware that his fasts exercised a moral pressure but the pressure was directed not against those who disagreed with him but against those who loved him and believed in him. He sought to prick the conscience of the latter and convey to them something of his anguish at a monstrous social tyranny. If his self-crucifixion could demonstrate his sincerity to the teeming millions of India, it was worth it. To Gandhi, his fasting was, in his own words, "the same kind of coercion which Jesus exercised upon you from the cross". In retrospect, the revolution brought about by Gandhi's nonviolent mass struggle was a unique historical event. It was not quick. Or easy. It took him 25 years to conduct this campaign. And he had to count out the primary emotion that usually leads to such freedom struggles-hatred for the oppressors, and the violence accompanying it. He had to educate people, conduct the campaign in such a way as to change the psyche of the masses. So, anybody who desires to follow his path has to understand his methods, his strategies and acquire something of his courage and faith. |
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The concept
of nonviolence is more relevant for the present because if we cannot
counter the forces of violence there will be no future for mankind.
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