Ramesh Pandita
Individuality of a person is something that neither can be substituted nor replaced. Given this fact, there can never ever be another Gandhi. The teachings and ideals of Gandhi are something which one can cherish long after his gone but to follow footsteps which he has laid for our easy cakewalk have become an equally herculean task for a modern man. Philosophy of Non-Violence, rather the hymn “Ahimsa Parma Dharma”, consecrated by Gandhi sounds as beautiful as the moral of every Holy book, as fresh as the morning dew and as pure as ambrosia. In his own words, ‘Ahimsa is the highest ideal. It is meant for the brave, never for the cowardly’. Everybody knows the magic these three words played, be it in South Africa or while liberating India from the clutches of Britisher’s. I believe people across world in general and India in particular are somewhat indebted to Gandhi for his teachings and philosophy about life. Indeed we all should give life a reason to be rated as a human in true sense. The indebtedness of this burden can never ever be overcome, but surely by simply following his footsteps and trying to live his philosophy will be a true testimony to Gandhian teachings. Gandhi believed that ahimsa ennobles both the victor and the vanquished
The golden words of Gandhi ‘Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him/her’ should always resonate in the minds of policy maker and should recall it every time before proceeding ahead with decisions of public interest. Being born as a human is indeed a great privilege, and thereon to be jeweled with healthy mind acts simply as cherry on cake, but the sorry state is, most of the time we engage ourselves in the acts, which are contrary to the instincts what nature has inherited us with. The dichotomy of nature always makes us to see both at brighter and darker side of the object. We believe in two schools of thought and for that matter if one section of the society believes that boarder is a line of separation and another section at the same time believes that boarder is a line where we meet. People despite being more open and liberal towards the new global order still fail to uphold the Gandhian perception, where instead of embracing it with open arms we have got distracted from it.
With regard to relevance of Gandhian Philosophy, fact remains that those who believe in Gandhian philosophy, deem it much ahead of the time and to them with every passing day it becomes more and more relevant and readily applicable and to those who disbelieve it, have in fact got distracted from it. Harsh truth is Ghandhi is still alive with us through his teachings and philosophy and above all its importance and relevance in today’s life gets better corroborated by the fact that, we discuss him in our course books, watching quickies on his life, making movies on him and many more. The better part of the Gandhian teaching and philosophy is that, it not only mattered during the era he lived but is needed and more relevant today.
The way Gandhi came to the rescue of people in South Africa and led the freedom struggle in India from front, his philosophy has to do the same today and the time again it will have to do so. Being aware of the fact that world is a temporary place but to let coming once live in peace and tranquility, Gandhi left the world leaving behind some priceless and immortal virtues whereby humankind can always sense his presence around as a source of great inspiration. With his philosophy, he attained immortality and showed the world the path of Non-Violence. This is for the fact that none of us can substitute Gandhi but what we can simply do is to follow his footsteps and it is then we can discover Gandhi in ourselves and in order to realize all this in ourselves, we must always try to drag pleasure in following his footsteps.
The simplicity of Gandhian philosophy hacked the mind of every common man one or the other way, be it about offering another side of face to a man who slaps you or preaching a child to not to eat sugar, all this may appear simple by far but we all know how difficult it is to live by. The Gandhian philosophy holds much weigh to that of those whom we revere. The Swedish academy fails to justify, that what exactly worked against Gandhi to be a non-recipient of the noble-peace prize despite being nominated four times for it and the academy is not in position to make it table, the big question mark on its face. What perturbs the most is, won’t it be disturbing the noble laureates of peace all across the world when they do not find the name of Gandhi among them or how would they be trying to justify their being noble laureates of peace without Gandhi or when Gandhi may be crossing their minds. Else, they may be feeling happy about the man not being the recipient of prize for peace perhaps the Gandhi was above it, putting them in same club would have definitely been great injustices to persona and stature of Gandhi, as such makes him peerless.
Right goes the saying that ‘it is not enough to be good one must show ones goodness’. If we are good, how does it matter unless we are not making its use of our goodness for others? Many a great man in past do have taught that ‘to face the discrimination without retaliation is as good a sin as doing the discrimination.” But, it was Gandhi who taught and advocated the path of retaliation through non-violence. Person with selfish motive nurtures non-violence, disbelieves in humanity, and seeks ways to create all sorts of divide and those who believe in humanity always work for the welfare and betterment of people and to them non-violence is the hymn which is not to be chanted but is to be acted upon.
An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind, is a slogan of modern man but fact remains people are far away from its actual essence. If we go through Vedic period or other sources, great men in past have advocated of taking to arms to fight injustice. Evidences are there that these great men of past most of the time have themselves got involved into the acts of violence. They fought wars, they won and lost territories, but Gandhi contrary to all this renounced every such practice of violence, which may even be involved in the protection of one’s interest. Gandhiji believed, ‘the power of unarmed nonviolence is any day far superior to that of armed force’.
How long and what exactly it will take Gandhi to serve world and humanity and to be remembered as ‘Elysian’. What will take it us to be like Gandhi, perhaps nothing and the only thing one need to do is follow the footsteps and philosophy of Gandhi. There should be no second thought in Gandhi being a demigod and he deserves to be revered and remembered like the one. To a common person existence of God is nothing more than the fear of unseen, of heaven and hell, of dooms day, of decree of faith on the judgment day, as the good and evil of earthly lives, the faith that we all have developed through ages. Why can’t we uphold this for those whom we have seen, which is an established fact and contrary to unseen and blind, which is still living with us, through his philosophy which has not yet become obsolete and is still very much fresh and applicable and the need is to discover Gandhi in our selves.
( The author is Assistant Librarian, BGSB University, Rajouri, J&K)
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