A Gandhian Correction !

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As we walk further and further from the time Gandhi walked on Earth, we find him becoming more and more relevant. Decentralized democracy, movement for socioeconomic equality and non violence are rapidly becoming a social necessity. Perhaps on his 150th birth anniversary, India could give itself a gift of a Gandhian correction -- even if it is six and a half decades late.

Violence in any society is directly proportional to the inequality in it. Inequality may be social or economic.

Violence need not always be physical. It can be at the plane of thought. Any attempt to impose one's thought on another is psychological violence. And there may even be a spiritual violence. Any attempt to forcefully vacate one's consciousness of thought or any attempt to climb the so called spiritual ladder by modifying the content of consciousness through a technique is also violence.

And if physical violence is terrorism, then psychological and spiritual violence is also terrorism.

Division is violence. Division of people into religious communities or economic classes. Division of consciousness into clusters of thoughts related to ideologies, ambitions. All division has violence integrated.

And non violence was Gandhi's master key. Non violence requires an ending of inequalities in society. It requires an ending of ideologies in society.

But we of the mankind, by our very nature, are violent. Over centuries of existence, the habit of thought has been firmly installed in the brain of man. Thought is self preservative in nature. Thought is also self propagator in nature. Hence children think less than adults. Thought is self interest. Self-interest is division. And division is violence. Thought is therefore always violence, although it can imagine non violence.

Gandhi therefore becomes the most misunderstood of all public figures of yesteryear.

On the other hand it is quite easy to understand terrorism and violence. Thanks to thought which justifies selfishness, physical, psychological and spiritual violence comes naturally to man. There is never any difficulty in understanding God and Godse. Both are violent and full of self interest. Both mirror the thought of man.

Power is violence. Hence Gandhi stayed away from power. He renounced the membership of the Congress and also renounced the opportunity to occupy the highest position in the government of independent India.

Nationalism is violence. Hence Gandhi's aim was not political independence or power to India. His fight was against the exploitation of one section of humanity by another.

To a mind that is stuck in the habit of self preservation, holistic concept of global humanity (Gandhi's Jai Jagat) becomes incomprehensible. Nationalism, regionalism and such other communal-ism is the easy way out and appeals to the fragmented mind as reasonable.

Non violence made Gandhi's approach to life unique. He could easily take an untrodden path. He could easily envisage and construct meaningful alternatives in every sphere of life.

Gandhi was fully exposed to the Western model of industrial development and found it unsuitable to a highly populated and socioeconomically debilitated country like India.

In a similar fashion, Gandhi was opposed to the centralization of authority through a representative democracy. He regarded the decentralization of power to the Gram Panchayats and the strengthening of cottage industry as the core of development process in India. Most Congress leaders did not share Gandhi's ideas of decentralization and social reconstruction on decentralized, village centric lines. Since 1937, Gandhi was not even an ordinary member of the Congress.

When the Constitution was drafted in the Constituent Assembly, Gandhian principles were largely left in the lurch and Western model of representative democracy with industrial development adopted.

At the fag end of framing the Constitution, Dr Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly wrote to B.N.Rao, the Constitutional Adviser to recast the Constitution to accommodate the Gandhian view. But the Constitutional Adviser politely declined saying it was not possible to recast the Constitution at the last minute.

As we approach the 150th birth anniversary of the Mahatma we find people of India disenchanted with centralization, violence, divisions of our society and unequal development. We find our people troubled with superstition, religious fanaticism, gender and caste related discrimination.

As we walk further and further from the time Gandhi walked on Earth, we find him becoming more and more relevant. Decentralized democracy, movement for socioeconomic equality and non violence are rapidly becoming a social necessity.

Perhaps on his 150th birth anniversary, India could give itself a gift of a Gandhian correction -- even if it is six and a half decades late.

Jai Jagat !