S

through my senses -- most likely senseless

Thursday, April 14, 2005

why Gandhi bashing.....

its has become more or less a fashion for many people to take a dig at the Mahatma. "what has he done for the country", "he didn't get us independence", "it was because of him that Pakistan is creating all the trouble"..... and many more.

its very sad to see how ignorant people are. well to tell the truth, I was like that while in high-school and early college years. what people don't realise is that Gandhiji created a movement. A movement that had no shape or structure, but a movement that resided in people's hearts. non-violence and non-coopertaion, these are not easy to follow. Gandhiji practised before preaching them, and that made him a Mahatma. it was quite a big movement, led by a man with a singular vision.

had we (that includes pakistan as well) only listened to him properly, we wouldn't be suffering today.

15 Comments:

Blogger Amrita said...

hi saranyan, actually you are right. people jump to criticise before they can appreciate first. Gandhi did create a movement. Being a journo we too have been told about the various controversies surrounding Gandhi, but that apart gandhi definitely created a movement.

11:22 PM  
Blogger Chakra said...

well said mate... very well said!

1:08 AM  
Blogger jack said...

Gandhi worked on a higher level.He had mastered his emotions and needs, and above all he cared for every living thing.It is hard for lesser mortals to understand him.

I always remember the einstien quote on gandhiji.
"Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth"

8:11 AM  
Blogger Sudarshan said...

Saran
I have been wanting to write about this for a long time but my post is still under research. Bashers are usually arm chair intellectuals who talk a lot and do little

11:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

paran,
i totally agree with you. but at the same time nobody is perfect and above criticism.
We shouldn't use Bush logic here and classify people as 'against Gandhi' and 'for Gandhi'.

11:30 AM  
Blogger Narayanan Venkitu said...

Saranyan,

Can you please tell me, listening to what? and what suffering would have been solved ?

11:56 AM  
Blogger saranyan r said...

Narayanan, listening to his preachings on non-violence.....and learn to forgive. He never cared as to who started all the communal riots first, he only pleaded for it to stop. if people had listened to him then, and practise non-violence even now, we wouldn't be seeing all this communal riots.

12:03 PM  
Blogger saranyan r said...

yes law should bring down and not the affected people. non-violence doesn't mean that nothing should be done against evil-doers. you shouldn't take the law in your own hands. look what happened in Gujarat, thousands of innocent people died. for what????

2:20 PM  
Blogger saranyan r said...

no, Gujarat was the perfect example. the Modi govt was basically a hindu fanatic govt and they encouraged the riots. had they not done that, people's lives could have been saved.
Gandhiji couldn't stop as none listened to him. people were power hungry.

2:58 PM  
Blogger Harish said...

I seem to agree with Jagan here..

4:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jagan > Even Gandhi couldnt save lives, during the indo-pak seperation.

Gandhi was a one-man army preventing bloodbath in Bengal. I think most of you guys would have heard about Noakhali, now in Bangladesh, where he stayed to pacify people. Unfortunately, Gandhi wasn't like the Lord Krishna otherwise, he would have appeared simulatneously across the subcontient to stop the riots.

Jagan > Nonvoilence is not the solution for all problem...thats my point.

I think what Saran suggested was that Gandhian ideas are relevant today and should be applied to solve our problems. Nonviolence is but one. I agree that nonviolence may not work with everyone.
Gandhi, educated in England had a great belief in the English justice and fairplay. That probably made him choose a method which a high moral ground.

I will quote 2 instances, one in which it succeeded and another in which it failed.

1) Black civil rights: Martin Luther King and (White) American Government are analogous to Gandhi and England.

2) Sri Lankan Tamil Movement: Till 1970's S.J.V.Chelvanayagam was the preeminent leader of the SL Tamils and he was deeply influenced by the Gandhian methods. Unfortunately the Sinhala politicians didn't have the same sense of justice and worsened the situation, thinking that the SL Tamils won't respond to their terror tactics. This led to the rise of LTTE and what an unbelieveably tragic result we have when it failed.

7:13 PM  
Blogger saranyan r said...

anand sir, good points. as for the LTTE problem, if only the tamils had shown more patience we wouldn't have witnessed this blood bath. Its difficult to not to counter-attack when someone keeps attacking, but it only adds more fuel to the fire. I'm not saying "Don't do anything". it should indeed be resisted, in a much meaningful way.

8:23 PM  
Blogger Vani Viswanathan said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

1:41 AM  
Blogger Vani Viswanathan said...

hmm...guess there are different ways to look at the same thing...why can't we take just the good things he talked about..obviously, as jagan lee says, non violence is almost a no-no today...but well, why don't we see the things he has done instead of criticising many things he hasn't saying, it's because of him that we face problems with pakistan? didn't he handle a really difficult job of controlling the riots in and around calcutta during independence!
sure, he did have a lot of flaws which did show up often....but when he's a man people all over the world respect for his ideals, why don't we do it!!!

1:42 AM  
Blogger Prabha said...

Iam not a big fan of Gandhi myself..But we have no right to criticise him..After all he fought a lot for us..Anyways we really cannot avoid such things.It happens when a person is popular and talked about a lot

7:56 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home