Wednesday, February 22, 2006

From CSSS Mumbai on 30th Jan 2006

Gandhiji Martyrdom

Mahatma Gandhi was martyred today in the evening during all religion prayer meetings. A fanatic Nathuram Godse shot him dead.

Unfortunately Gandhian values have been totally forgotten by politicians hungry for power. Gandhiji unflinchingly stood for non-violence and made the unique contribution by developing the concept of Satyagraha (Insistence on truth).

Satyagraha, as Gandhiji defined it, required self-purification and total control over oneself. If our inner self is polluted by desire for power he or she can never become a true non-violent Satyagrahi. A Satyagrahi has to be wedded to concept of non-violence. This was a great contribution to 20th century politics when politicians all over the world had forgotten morality and violence was order of the day.

Our politicians do not hesitate to provoke caste and communal violence to grab power. Today Gandhiji’s philosophy of non-violence and Satyagraha is most relevant and should be actively propagated. The age of globalisation has increased our greed and nation like America who never tired of talking about “Our freedom and democracy” do not hesitate for a fraction of second to commit aggression against other nations with highly destructive weapons and kill thousands of people without a pang of conscience.

Einstein had rightly pointed out that coming generation would not believe that a man called Gandhi walked in flesh and blood on this earth. We need Gandhi the apostle of non-violence much more today to show a mirror to Bushes and Blair of this world.

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Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai.
E-mail csss@mtnl.net.in
Website: www.csss-isla.com

From Anand Sarup asarup@yahoo.com

My dear Delia,

It is always nice to hear from you to learn of whatyou are currently doing. About Gandhiji,I wish todraw your attention to something I realised long ago.Gandhiji was an iconoclast and a person who continuedto grow in his mental and moral stature chieflybecause he refused to be imprisoned by his own andother people's views of yesterday. If he were alive, he wouldnt have been repeating whathe was saying at the time of his death. He would havegrown in his wisdom and would have been saying thing profound and relevant to what is going on now.In these circumstnces, we have to learn to update hisview.Not easy but nonetheless necessary.I am attaching a powerful comment on what has happenedin Kalinganagar. How do you think Gandhiji would havereacted to it? With regards,Sincerely,Anand Sarup

asarup@yahoo.com