Br Anush P D'Cunha SJ

Mangaluru, Oct 2: 'Satyameveswaro Loke Satyaddharma Pratishtitaha, Satya Moolani Sarvani Satyam Nasti Param Padam.' (This world is based on only one thing i.e satyam (Truth), there is no other better place than satyam itself.) –Mahabharata.

The 20th century has seen one of the greatest and well-known personalities in the person of Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi. He is known today as the father of our nation because of his love for this our nation and its citizens. He became well-known not solely for his educational qualifications, but for the principles and values he believed in and lived by, values which shaped the entire movement of freedom struggle of our country. At this juncture in the history of our country, I believe, we need to turn to him and his values to reshape our history.

In my opinion, we are in a troubled world today. At the global level, there is a lot of unrest, fear, anger, hatred, discontent, despair….. At the national level, religious conflicts seem to be taking the upper hand as political parties continue to promote their own ideologies, resulting in confusion and chaos, leading to ethnic conflicts.

As we celebrate the birth day of Mahathma Gandhi, his political and social philosophy could be our starting point to reshape andreorient our nation to a peaceful society. The teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, in his own words, “I have nothing new to teach the World. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast scale as I could,” is nothing new. Gandhiji tried to revive the old teachings and apply them to his social and political context. His favorite concepts such as truth, nonviolence, love, though look abstract, he showed how to use them as the strongest weapons to uproot the social and political evils of the time. This attempt of realizing the abstract principles in real life drew many followers all around the world.

In 2009, when Barack Obama was visiting Wakefield High School in the US, a ninth grader asked the would-be President: “If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?” Obama chuckled and answered: “Well, dead or alive, that’s a pretty big list. You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine.”

Nelson Mandela, great leader of the South African people and another giant of the 20th century anti-colonial struggle, often cited Mahatma Gandhi as one of his greatest teachers: “Gandhi’s ideas have played a vital role in South Africa’s transformation and with the help of Gandhi’s teaching, apartheid has been overcome.”

Even to this day whenever people need justice they often have recourse to protest marches or candle light processions, with patriotic slogans of freedom struggle, we are reminded of the Gandhian principles and their effectiveness even today. One example is that of Jessica Lal’s case. Through peaceful protests in the form of candle march almost all over the country, justice was delivered.

It seems to me that the concept of Truth or Sathya was very dear to Mahatma Gandhi. The importance of Truth is underlined by the fact that the Mahathama’s autobiography was given the title by himself ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’. In one of his letters, Mahathma says, “Generally speaking, Truth is understood merely to mean that we must speak the truth. But we in the Ashram should understand the word Satya or Truth in a much wider sense. There should be Truth in thought, Truth in speech and Truth in action.” Therefore we can conclude that the concept Sathya or truth had much wider and deeper sense for Gandhiji. It means truth at the level of thinking, of talking and acting.

It is sad to note that today India has sidelined the core principles of Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhian ideals. Gandhi Jayanthi to a great extent has merely become our national holiday. Somewhere somehow something has gone wrong in our way of life. Today our country is witnessing violence based on religion, caste and gender. The gap between the rich and the poor is horrendously wide. Violence and hatred of Dalits and minorities are justified by the powerful. Law and order has taken the backseat signaling a frightening future for our generation and for generations to come. It seems that crime and violence are helped to become legalized practices in our country by silencing the social activists.

Let me conclude with a tribute to Mahathma Gandhi by Albert Einstein, “Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth”.

(Br Anush P D'Cunha SJ is presently pursuing Theological studies at Regional Theological Extension Center, Anekal, Bengaluru)