An Unbearable Image
Recently an US Senator spoke at length about India when the first Hindu prayer was sung in the US Congress. He asked to think of Mahatma while thinking about India. Obviously for most people in this world that means a very good image for India. But is that our real image.
There were 2 fallacies. One, they think of Non-Violence while thinking of Gandhi. Non-Violence for peace in a terror ridden society is what they seem to be thinking. But what they forget is Non-Violence was not the driver for Gandhi's Actions. Gandhi's Actions were driven by Truth. But the world is not ready to take over that principle. Standing up for a principle and being ready to call out anything wrong irrespective of which side you are in is the driving force behind Gandhi's struggle.
When the Non-Cooperation movement turned in with criminal actions, he stopped the fight. When people involved in terror acts he did not support them irrespective of the fact that the cause was the same. But today's world does not seem to need the truth and principles into their actions. They just think Non-Violence alone will carry a mass appeal.
Non-Violence cannot buy anything if you are not truthful to yourself and to the world while appealing for a struggle. With terrorism, Non-Violence cannot be a success story. Because the opponent is killing civilians and is not going to be bogged down by appeals for Peace. Most cases, the attacked countries are developed and with smaller populations(Except India), while the attackers are from poorer countries and are huge in number.
The need of the hour from Gandhi's principles is truth. People should look upon other people as normal instead of classifying them as Muslims, Christians etc., and doubting the nature of a person by their religion. People should show tolerance to others so that their is not a divide between the societies. But in western societies where blacks are already treated with doubt, they have added muslims or anyone with a beard to the list of doutful people.
Once you act with ulterior motives without disclosing things, the society sees a rift. if the society has a rift, and if tolerance is zero peace cannot prevail. The appeal for peace should start with a conscious action to improve the life style of people and to be accomodative of diversities. As long as the world is not ready to do this, and wants to exploit others, appeals of peace and Non-Violence cannot really be succesful.
Every fight need not be Non-Violent, if Violence is needed to restrict a certain Hitler then the world need to take violent actions. But, any such action should be a conscious and righteous one and done without any perjudice or discrimination.
The other misconception is about India being a peaceful country. India is not peaceful, the violence that is omni present today will show that clearly. And we were never peace loving, even our gods are characterised with weapons and we are by nature passionate about everything. But, somehow since our struggle was through non-violence and since we had a certain Gandhi and Buddha amidst us, the world thinks we are peaceful by nature.
This image has to be shed for us to really become a super power as we have always imagined. And we also need to be righteous about our interests to pursue arms instead of trying to show a peaceful face to the world. With the rising terrorism in India, we need to show our strength and control things rather than trying to retain our image of Non-Violence.
There were 2 fallacies. One, they think of Non-Violence while thinking of Gandhi. Non-Violence for peace in a terror ridden society is what they seem to be thinking. But what they forget is Non-Violence was not the driver for Gandhi's Actions. Gandhi's Actions were driven by Truth. But the world is not ready to take over that principle. Standing up for a principle and being ready to call out anything wrong irrespective of which side you are in is the driving force behind Gandhi's struggle.
When the Non-Cooperation movement turned in with criminal actions, he stopped the fight. When people involved in terror acts he did not support them irrespective of the fact that the cause was the same. But today's world does not seem to need the truth and principles into their actions. They just think Non-Violence alone will carry a mass appeal.
Non-Violence cannot buy anything if you are not truthful to yourself and to the world while appealing for a struggle. With terrorism, Non-Violence cannot be a success story. Because the opponent is killing civilians and is not going to be bogged down by appeals for Peace. Most cases, the attacked countries are developed and with smaller populations(Except India), while the attackers are from poorer countries and are huge in number.
The need of the hour from Gandhi's principles is truth. People should look upon other people as normal instead of classifying them as Muslims, Christians etc., and doubting the nature of a person by their religion. People should show tolerance to others so that their is not a divide between the societies. But in western societies where blacks are already treated with doubt, they have added muslims or anyone with a beard to the list of doutful people.
Once you act with ulterior motives without disclosing things, the society sees a rift. if the society has a rift, and if tolerance is zero peace cannot prevail. The appeal for peace should start with a conscious action to improve the life style of people and to be accomodative of diversities. As long as the world is not ready to do this, and wants to exploit others, appeals of peace and Non-Violence cannot really be succesful.
Every fight need not be Non-Violent, if Violence is needed to restrict a certain Hitler then the world need to take violent actions. But, any such action should be a conscious and righteous one and done without any perjudice or discrimination.
The other misconception is about India being a peaceful country. India is not peaceful, the violence that is omni present today will show that clearly. And we were never peace loving, even our gods are characterised with weapons and we are by nature passionate about everything. But, somehow since our struggle was through non-violence and since we had a certain Gandhi and Buddha amidst us, the world thinks we are peaceful by nature.
This image has to be shed for us to really become a super power as we have always imagined. And we also need to be righteous about our interests to pursue arms instead of trying to show a peaceful face to the world. With the rising terrorism in India, we need to show our strength and control things rather than trying to retain our image of Non-Violence.
posted by Devanathan at 6:17 PM
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