By The Editor: Siddharth Sehgal
It was casual get together of my team after work when during discussion topic of conflict in Middle East came up, one of my female colleague asked an innocent but ironical question,” Why can’t we all get along?”. I didn’t have any answer to her question because this is what we do as humans, we don’t get along just like kindness, love, compassion we have a different side to our nature that lead us to kill, wage wars, inflict pain and make us a vicious species. Gandhi stands out as a lighthouse, a guiding post in a sea of our collective violent history. I have my disagreements of his decisions, his work and message but I have to credit where it’s due.
Gandhi showed us that war as an option can be eliminated. Victory can be achieved by without firing a bullet. India’s independence was not without bloodshed but without Gandhi it would have turned into bloodiest revolution of all time. Terrorists, Racists are more than willing to murder in the name of Christ or Prophet Mohammed but I wonder what these religious figures might have thought about Gandhi. Would the all mighty condemn Gandhi’s soul to hell all because he didn’t accepted Christ as his savior or didn’t convert to Islam. Recently in the news an elderly Muslim man in a village near Noida was lynched on the suspicion on eating beef by an angry mob of his village, these men were boiling with anger over the suspected slight towards Hinduism. I am a Hindu and I don’t eat beef but this senseless act would disturb anyone.
Gandhi’s message seems to be lost on this generation, we need some of that in our society, we have to give each other a little space. Already, groups like ISIS are spreading their venom online to fill responsive minds with hate. Do we understand only the violent aspect of religion? Which god will be pleased by beheading of a journalist or rape of a Yazidi girl? May be it’s our time to follow in Mohandas’s footsteps and do our experiment with truth. I am not saying Mahatma Gandhi was a perfect man, his way of doing things might not be applicable to every situation and problem but Gandhi as a person is long dead, Gandhi we know is a legend, a message that echoes across the boundaries of nations, religion, society and time.
as human beings each one of us hs his/her faults , without which no life can be conceived ; Gandhi was also a human being just like any of us and so not without faults, to suppose that he should not be considered without faults is asking too much ; the fact remains he was a diligent man , a compassionate man who put man before selfishness and fought for the rights of the people and suffered rebuke : to demean his stature is demeaning one’s own self
Surely no man in this global terrorist world can deny that he has lost his own spirituality his own values and therefore has no right to criticize anyone’s shortcomings
we know our politicians , our netas better than anyone else
the pot should not call the kettle black