Q3 Article
Q3 Article
MAHATMA GANDHI - the greatest of our leaders. He lit the imagination of the entire nation. There is a
basic lesson of Indian History. Our people have always taken their moral standards from their rulers;
the people have risen to great heights when they have basked in the glow of noble kings or leaders.
The present generation is waiting for a leader who will make it relearn the moral values, and who will
inculcate in the people, as Gandhi did, a sense of the responsibilities which fall on every citizen of a
free society.
The waste of human ability energy and money on armament will continue unabated, and diversion of
world resources to development will remain a pipe dream, so long as man does not learn the great
lesson which Gandhi preached so convincingly in our own times-viz. non-violence is the law of our
species. The diversion of world resources to development stands no practical chance of being heeded
unless and until the balance of terror is replaced by the balance of terror is replaced, by the balance of
reason.
Although it is true that India has been an integrated nation since olden times; it is also true that on
the present context Gandhian values have special significance for national integration. Today
communal amity has become essential for national integration and hence Gandhi gave it the highest
priority. By communal unity Gandhiji did not mean merely paying lip service to 'bhaibhai-ism'. He
meant it to be an unbreakable heart unity'. In the religious context Gandhi emphasized that
communal unity has to be based on equal respect for all religions. Everyone, Gandhi said, must have
the same regard for other faiths as he had for his own. Such respect would not only remove religious
rifts but lead to a realization of the fact that religion was a stabilizing force, not a disturbing element.
Gandhi's basic axiom was that religion since the scriptures of all religions point only in one direction of
goodwill, openness and understanding between men and men and between community and
community.
Gandhiji regarded education as the light of life and the very source from which was created an
awareness of oneness. Gandhi believed that the universality of religion can best be realized through
the universlization of education, and that such universalization was the spring board for national
integration. Harmony is not brought about about overnight. Gandhi advocated the process of
patience, persuasion and perseverance for attainment of peace and love for harmony and was firmly
convinced of the worth of gentleness as panacea for all evils. Communal harmony had the pride of
place in Gandhi's constructive programme. He taught us the dignity of labour as a leveling social factor
that contributed to a national outlook in keeping with the vision of new India. he always believed that
a nation built on the foundation of non-violence would be able to withstand attacks on its-integrity
from within and without.
Gandhi pleaded for the humanization of knowledge for immunization against the ideas of distrust
among the communities of the nations and the nationalities of the world. He wanted to take the
country from areas of hostility into areas of harmony of faiths through tolerance, so that we could
work towards understanding each other. His mass contact programme was specifically aimed at
generating a climate of confidence and competition and eliminating misgiving and misconceptions,
conflicts and confrontation.