Gandhian Studies and Human Rights

This second of the two articles on the Swadeshi Movement published earlier in 'Gandhi Marg' brings into relief its symbolic impact with the help of a few theories from the vast field of nonverbal communication. As a result, Gandhi’s rare ability to invest clothing-related objects and events with extraordinary socio-political significance is amply demonstrated.

In December 1931, Mahatma Gandhi visited Rome with a desire to meet the Pope. It was Mussolini, however, who was eager to meet him. Could 'Il Duce' have seized the opportunity to boost his own image and to further his own devices? Whatever his intentions, history bears testimony to the adverse effects of that ten-minute encounter - for Gandhi and for India's march to freedom. In this paper the author reconstructs the intriguing turn of events based on the writings of the key persons involved, especially the diaries of Romain Rolland, Mahadev Desai and Gandhi himself.

"Won't it remind one of Gandhi's experiments with truth?" "I have no quarrel with Gandhi the man but I have problem with the Mahatma of his," he said and as if to remonstrate his apathy for the Gandhian values, he had an extended sip of that Laphroaic. "I'm no Gandhian and I don't intend to be one," he continued from where he had left. "But as is being done, I see it's a disservice to his legacy to deify him; it's when I approach him as man that I value him as a human being, but in his picture of mahatma, I see many a wart in his atma. Credit him for cleaning up the public toilets but why not condemn him for having forced his spouse to do the same; why laud him for his quixotic abstinence unmindful of his wife's conjugal plight; was he not an inveterate autocrat in the democratic garb; what about his falling afoul of Prakasam, and how he played favorites with Nehru. Why bother about him as he'd been reduced for long as a political mascot of the slavish-minded of the self-serving Nehru family that hijacked his name to grind its dynastic axe! What an irony it is that his party that sundered the British yoke should have rendered the political reins into Italian hands? Bemoan the congress party."

A discourse to peace educators and activists from Palestine and Israel on the techniques of 'Satyagraha', created and employed by Mahatma Gandhi in the struggle for Indian independence. While the techniques are identified and briefly explained, a diagrammatic presentation of the context within which he acted reveals the courage and discipline required in a Gandhi-inspired subversion of structural and cultural injustice.
Date of discourse: 10, March, 2007.
Date of publication on Academia.edu: 2012

This article proposes redefining the child's right to identity as a right to state protection of ties meaningful to the child. Its main arguments are, in essence: (1) Such a right should protect the development of an authentic individual by seeking the child's wishes and feelings concerning their ties. (2) Protection of an individualized identity necessitates exploration of culture as a context of personal meaning which cannot be equated with cultural sensitivity as commonly perceived. (3) Consequently, preferential protection of the child's ties to a minority culture or to individuals affiliated to it is seen as violating the proposed right. (4) The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child reaffirms commitment to a dynamic child-constructed identity. (5) Protection of the proposed right reflects, protects and creates a social reality in which children's lives may be imbued with personal meaning. A discussion of two English cases demonstrates these arguments.

Justice in British India was far from blind; it was highly attentive towards the profit margins of British Raj. The loot, plunder and exploitation which started with the Battle of Plassey were transformed into civilizational mission burden; that rested upon the " white men ". This particular theory of uncivilized oriental masses not only played a key role in the continuance of 'BRUTISH' (British) empire; but also justified the legacy of their colonial sins. Anglophile and imperialist historians never hesitate to throw light upon the beneficial aspects of colonial rule. Political unity, democracy, rule of law, parliamentary system et al. becomes the part and parcel of enlightened despotism. But again the actual picture behind this enlightened despotism becomes myth under the larger classical era of colonialism. Since the inception of company rule which transformed into colonial Raj; Imperialists depleted, drained and bled India of its resources. Early Indian nationalist like R.P Dutt, R.C. Majumdar and Dadabhai Naorji were able to depict this Un-British reality through their intellectual exercises. (Tharoor 2016). Apart from the counter factual arguments, fact remains