Thursday, October 2, 2008

Is Gandhism Dead?

Today we celebrate the Birthday of a man- a common man who established his own empire agianst the british empire and defeated them. But more importantly, today there will be a national holiday!!

And if you have some extra time in your hands you can even go to your local Khadi stores and get 25% discount on this special occasion. And if you are lucky they will even throw in a pair of goodies with foreign labels which Gandhi would have burned in streets.

Today, politicians will garland Gandhi’s ubiquitous golden framed photos and will give speeches on non-violence to the contract audience , but more importantly , will distribute sweets !!... and if we are lucky we might even get specials in our lunch !

So, Gandhi was a good man…fine. Gandhism established itself as a form of revolt…fine. Gandhism is one of the most ethical and strong form of non-violent protests…very fine. Will you practice it..? Ahem…

Or the question is …Will anyone listen to you if you adopt Gandhian methods?
So the question is -Is Gandhism relevant today? …or even if feasible?


I don’t want to discuss much….i just want everyone to make their own view…I just want to give some food for thought-

Narmada Aandolan protesters adopted the non-violent route and they haven’t got a success yet after 2 decades.

AIIMS doctors and thousands of students adopted a non-violent route to protest against the reservation regime proposed by Arjun Singh. Protests went for weeks including hunger strikes and included lathi-charge and use of water cannon against the students. Final Result?- OBC reservation was implemented.

Gujjars turned violent asking for OBC status. They went on rampage damaging railway tracks and nearly isolated a whole state from rest of the country. Final Result? Within few days Indian Government bowed to Gujjars and gave them the backward status.

My questions to the elite think-tank (or so they say abt IIT-IIM guys) are:

Is Gandhism (or Gandhigiri for romantics) irrelevant today? Would Gandhi himself succeeded in the current world? Gandhi’s principles assume that oppressor will feel guilty at some point of time…is this assumption valid in today’s world?

Go Ahead...your views will be published as a post in my blog for discussion.

3 comments:

  1. It is not thakur...

    During Independance, we united as a nation.... now it is all about uniting as a caste or as a state or sometimes things as trivial as a sub-caste.

    The nation was united during the Kargil War do not forget that. What is missing is not gandhi.. but a common enemy.

    Is gandhigiri dead??? No, only Gandhi is.

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  2. Gandhi ji,
    he has done nothing for India nor for our independence....tell me one movement which run by gandhi ji and got success..everytime when they start a movement or so called "AANDOLAN" at the end he himslef stop it as a failure like ahinsa, asahyog etc.at the time independence because of his friend Mr. Nehru he want to rule india he agree to divide the nation....At the time of Bhagat singh he can stop the britishers by forcing but he has not even request them to stop it....there are so many other issue like after making of pakistan he said muslims can stay here from which today we are facing a serious problem of terrorism and blast....on kashmir he was agree for voting instead of saying no by Mr. Patel and at the end india loose that and every body knows it will happen but because of him we are suffering problem of terrorism in India....There are so many things which i can say here but i hope thats enough for opening your eyes....now you decide what you want to do with gandhi......

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  3. During Gandhi's times itself it was said Gandhism wouldn't work against a person like Hitler.It would work only against cultures like The English who had an answer to say to the world at large.

    If it is not yielding results now..there are only two reasons:
    Either the perpetrator is becoming insensitive.
    Or, the Victim is practicing 'false-gandhism'.

    I feel there is truth in both of these reasons!!

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