Showing posts with label Applied Gandhi in modern world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Applied Gandhi in modern world. Show all posts

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Lessons from Gandhi on Journalism and Civility


I remember years back when I first read Gandhi's autobiography the passage below where Gandhi discusses journalism had an impact on me. I think it has more relevance now for everybody, individuals, media and the well meaning activists.

What is remarkable is complete absence of rancor and hatred in almost all correspondence I have come across from Bapu. It did have an impact in upholding the dignity and the civility of the movement and the discourse. Note Bapu's own words "The critic found very little to which he could object. In fact the tone of Indian Opinion compelled the critic to put a curb on his own pen."  It is sometimes very disappointing to see even the well meaning activists resort to rancor and slogans. I do not think it does the cause any good.

Also what is very apparent if we study Gandhi's movement is the extensive open communication he maintained through the various journals he edited. You sort of knew his position on the issues of the day. This was at the start of early 20th century. So it is rather surprising in 21st century in the age of twitter and blogs, we (particularly Indians) are sometimes clueless on what their leaders really think and feel. Some like Rahul Gandhi claim to have a genuine interest in change, but it will be hard to know him well when he has never taken the pains to formally communicate in a structured way. Even the activist movements will benefit if they have a more organized, structured  and inclusive way to communicate and form opinions.


Below is the passage from Gandhi's autobiography:

During ten years, that is, until 1914, excepting the intervals of my enforced rest in prison, there was hardly an issue of Indian Opinion without an article from me. I cannot recall a word in those articles set down without thought or deliberation, or a word of conscious exaggeration, or anything merely to please. Indeed the journal became for me a training in self-restraint, and for friends a medium through which to keep in touch with my thoughts.

The critic found very little to which he could object. In fact the tone of Indian Opinion compelled the critic to put a curb on his own pen.

Satyagraha would probably have been impossible without Indian Opinion. The readers looked forward to it for a trustworthy account of the Satyagraha campaign as also of the real condition of Indians in South Africa. For me it became a means for the study of human nature in all its casts and shades, as I always aimed at establishing an intimate and clean bond between the editor and the readers. I was inundated with letters containing the outpourings of my correspondents' hearts. They were friendly, critical or bitter, according to the temper of the writer. It was a fine education for me to study, digest and answer all this correspondence. It was as though the community thought audibly through this correspondence with me. It made me thoroughly understand the responsibility of a journalist, and the hold I secured in this way over the community made the future campaign workable, dignified and irresistible. 

Indian Opinion in those days, like Young India and Navajivan today, was a mirror of part of my life. Week after week I poured out my soul in its columns, and expounded the principles and practice of Satyagraha as I understood it.

In the very first month of  Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be 
service. The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water 
submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to 
destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be 
profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many of the 
journals in the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? And who 
should be the judge? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil generally, go on 
together, and man must make his choice. 



Thursday, March 22, 2012

Bunker Roy: Learning from a barefoot movement

This is one fascinating and inspirational video I have seen lately by Bunker Roy. He was selected as one of Time 100, the 100 most influential personalities in the world by TIME Magazine in 2010. Roy's speech is a little bit over the top with some sweeping assertions, however there is a lot to gain in this keeping in view the bigger picture

http://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy.html

Development projects the world over run into one crucial point: For a project to live on, it needs to be organic, owned and sustained by those it serves. In 1972, Sanjit “Bunker” Roy founded the Barefoot College, in the village of Tilonia in Rajasthan, India, with just this mission: to provide basic services and solutions in rural communities with the objective of making them self-sufficient. These “barefoot solutions” can be broadly categorized into solar energy, water, education, health care, rural handicrafts, people’s action, communication, women’s empowerment and wasteland development. The Barefoot College education program, for instance, teaches literacy and also skills, encouraging learning-by-doing. (Literacy is only part of it.) Bunker’s organization has also successfully trained grandmothers from Africa and the Himalayan region to be solar engineers so they can bring electricity to their remote villages.

As he says, Barefoot College is "a place of learning and unlearning: where the teacher is the learner and the learner is the teacher."

"Roy's idea is that India and Africa are full of people with skills, knowledge and resourcefulness who are not recognized as engineers, architects or water experts but who can bring more to communities than governments or big businesses."

- Guardian

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Memoirs of Manibhai Desai

The life of Dr. Manibhai Desai is of great inspirational value. He was but one of the hundreds of seeds that Gandhi sowed to leaven India. But he is unique in many ways. His is not a name that jostles with the likes of Patel, Nehru or Azad. Though he was of rural stock, he came from an affluent family and was a science graduate. He began his public life as an anarchist and only later embraced Gandhian ways. And when he did, he foreswore a personal life and plunged into the work that Gandhi set him. Despite that devotion to Gandhi, he was not an unquestioning disciple. As he built BAIF as a modern institution he displayed a flexibility that orthodox Gandhians tend to frown at. Manibhai Desai was indeed an exceptional Gandhian.http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/institutions/manibhaiDesai/preface.html

Monday, April 27, 2009

First they ignore you..


See this add from Red Hat Linux.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_VFKqw1q2Q

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-- Mohandas Gandhi

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Misdirected Intolerance

Yes, we all are guilty of misdirecting our intolerance. I will come up with examples of that, but before that, what I want to say here is that we should be intolerant towards injustice to anyone of us by us of by someone else. I will also try to show how our misdirected intolerance can have far reaching effects and how our intolerance for the right causes can change so many things.
We all blame the government for sorry state of affairs. Cleanliness, Traffic, Health and Safety, corruption, are the issues which affect us daily among others.
Gandhiji had said, "Be the change you want to bring in the world". And we all know that self governance is the first step towards good governance.
Let me come up with examples of Misdirected Intolerance where changing our habits is the best solution.


1] Stopping our vehicles right on pedestrian crossing

At traffic signals, if we want to cross, we obviously look for a pedestrian crossing (the zebra crossing, yes that one). How frustrated we feel when we see a vehicle standing on it blocking our way and we do not find any space to cross the road without putting our safety in jeopardy and then hurl abuses at the government. How many times I myself have done that while I used to be in engineering college, though towards the end of the college, I realized my mistake and changed myself. That line belongs to pedestrians and for god sake; it is only a 5 or 10 meters in width. It is not going to create any difference to the vehicle owners but keeping vehicles off it is going to help the pedestrians a lot. The problem arises when we forget while on or in a vehicle that we also are pedestrians sometimes and we hate it when some vehicle stands on it. I hope the reader respects, from next time onwards, the stop line and would stop just before the pedestrian crossing. Isn't it a very simple solution for everyone? We should be intolerant towards ourselves not respecting such facilities.


2] Not waiting for the green light to appear before taking off.

We have all done it and some of us do it even now. I am also guilty of this sin. But sanity says that it is very risky and 5 to 10 seconds wait for the light to go green is not going to do any damage. We often reason to ourselves and others that we would be able to save time by doing this, which we all know is not true and if we have to save time; we can start early rather than starting at our own stretch (Indian Stretchable Time). Frankly speaking, the risk in such an adventure/endeavor/habit is too high and can result in someone's death (maybe ours). And if we are able to avoid this, the traffic policeman can do the job he is actually supposed to do, that is manage the traffic and this will also help in improving our security situation.

3] Crossing the tracks

We are literates, aren't we? We know that crossing the tracks at the places where it is not manned or where there are other ways like over bridge available is illegal and risky. But with the intelligence we have (pun intended), we cross the tracks, the wrong way and at times face the music for this transgression! We are intolerant for the effort we need to make to climb the bridge which is incorrect. We should be intolerant towards ourselves crossing the tracks and we should insist at the least to people we know to not do the same.

4] When waiting outside the ATM.

We don't wait for the other person to come out, we enter as soon as his card is out of the machine and if he waits inside to read some brochure, he is an idiot and we have all the right to go in. Is it right? Obviously not! The person inside the ATM centre has not come to live there and he has the right to privacy and right to send the intruder to prison as well.

5] When littering everywhere

First thing the government should do is clean the roads. Look at Singapore, the roads are so clean, you will not find even a single piece of paper on the road. How many times have we said that, how many times have we blamed the government, when we all know that it is us who are to be blamed for littering on the road. We are intolerant towards the litter full streets but its very easy for us to drop anything that we do not need on the roads. We should be intolerant towards littering ourselves.

6] When eating at places where healthy practices of cooking food are not followed

We eat at those shoddy places and then blame the government for not keeping tabs on such places and in turn expect the government to come up with additional schemes like licensing etc. We all are educated; well enough to see that the cooking practice is not healthy in those places and even after all these we eat there just because it is cheap. Often this is the case that it leads to medical problems and it puts strain on the medical system of the country. We should be avoiding eating at such places and also ask others to follow the same. This has a lot of potential to solve many things including the illegal hawkers occupying the pavements, child labor other than reducing the strain on the medial system.

7] Waste of electricity and water

Nothing needs to be explained here I think.

8] Corruption.

I am living a corruption free life from 2003 onwards. I know it is difficult sometimes, but officials are corrupt because we give them a chance to be. As literates, it is very easy for us to find out the procedures and rules and if we are to change the system, we have to change ourselves first.

The examples could be infinite and the reader is invited to make his or her own observations and imagination. Self governance in such simple things can itself make a lot of difference to the nation. A nation is as good as its citizens.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Gandhi's foresight in nature conservation and model of development

Gandhi was ahead of rest of the world by nearly half a century in realizing that the extreme consumerist development models of west can destroy nature as well as ourselves. Scientists today acknowledge that view after decades of research. Following article from BBC is an example of relevance of Gandhi's thoughts in today's world on how the models of development should respect nature.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7621507.stm

This article begins by: "In 1928, Mahatma Gandhi observed: "God forbid that India should ever take to industrialisation after the manner of the West.

"The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (the UK) is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts."

More than half a century before anyone had even considered the term "sustainable development", Mahatma Gandhi warned of the dangers facing a rapidly developing world.

Almost 80 years later, the population of India has quadrupled, and the US - the world's greatest over-consumer - has a population of 300 million.

The risks prophesised by Gandhi have started to come true."

To these I would like to add another apt quote of Gandhi. "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."



Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Gandhi Vs terrorism

By Daedalus Wntr , 2007


Immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the idea of taking a nonviolent stance in response to terrorism would have been dismissed out of hand. But now, after the invasion and occupation of two Muslim countries by the U.S. military, the loss of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Afghanis and Iraqis, and the start of a global jihadi war that seems unending, virtually any alternative seems worth considering. It is in this context that various forms of less militant response, including the methods of conflict resolution adopted by India's nationalist leader, Mohandas Gandhi, deserve a second look.

Like us, Gandhi had to deal with terrorism, and his responses show that he was a tough-minded realist. I say this knowing that this image of Gandhi is quite different from what most Westerners have in mind when they think of him. The popular view in Europe and the United States is the one a circle of Western pacifists writing in the 1920s promoted--the image of Gandhi as a saint.

In a 1921 lecture on "Who is the Greatest Man in the World Today?" John Haynes Holmes, the pastor of New York City's largest liberal congregation, extolled not Lenin or Woodrow Wilson or Sun Yat-sen but someone whom most of the crowd thronging the hall that day had never heard of--Mohandas Gandhi. (1) Holmes, who was later credited with being the West's discoverer of Gandhi, described him as his "seer and saint." (2)

In fact, the term 'Mahatma,' or 'great soul,' which is often appended to Gandhi's name, probably came not from admirers in India but from the West. Before the Indian philosopher Rabindranath Tagore used the term in his letter welcoming Gandhi to India in 1914, members of an American and European mystical movement, the Theosophists, had applied this name to Gandhi. Most likely, they were the ones who conveyed it to Tagore, and since then the term has persisted, even though it was Westerners rather than Indians who first regarded Gandhi in such a saintly mien.

In India, Gandhi was seen as a nationalist leader who, though greatly revered, was very much a politician. Though Gandhi was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize on several occasions, the selection committee hesitated, thinking that the choice of an activist rather than an idealist would stoke political controversies. Gandhi was indeed in the midst of political battle, and in the process he had to address the violence of both his side and the opponents, acts that looked very much like the terrorism of today.

India was on the verge of a violent confrontation with Britain when, in 1915, Gandhi was brought into India's independence movement from South Africa, where as a lawyer he had been a leader in the struggle for social equality for immigrant Indians. In India, as in South Africa, the British had overwhelming military superiority and were not afraid to use it. In 1919, in the North Indian city of Amritsar, an irate British brigadier-general slaughtered almost four hundred Indians who had come to the plaza of Jallianwala Bagh to protest peacefully.

But the nationalist side was countering with violence of its own. In Bengal, Sub-has Chandra Bose organized an Indian National Army, and, in Punjab, leaders of the Ghadar movement--supported by immigrant Punjabis in California--plotted a violent revolution that anticipated boatloads of weapons and revolutionaries transported to India from the United States. These Indian anarchists and militant Hindi nationalists saw violence as the only solution to break the power of the British over India.

Gandhi's views about violent struggle were sharpened in response to Indian activists who had defended a terrorist attack on a British official. The incident occurred in London in 1909, shortly before Gandhi arrived there to lobby the British Parliament on behalf of South African Indian immigrants. An Indian student in London, Madan Lal Dhingra, had attacked an official in Britain's India office, Sir William H. Curzon-Wylie, in protest against Britain's colonial control over India. At a formal function, Dhingra pulled out a gun and, at close range, fired five shots in his face. The British official died on the spot. Dhingra was immediately apprehended by the police; when people in the crowd called him a murderer, he said that he was only fighting for India's freedom.

Several weeks after Gandhi arrived in London, he was asked to debate this issue of violence with several of London's expatriate Indian nationalists. His chief opponent was Vinayak Savarkar, a militant Hindu who would later found the political movement known as the Hindu Mahasabha, a precursor to the present-day Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party. At the time of the 1909 assassination Savarkar was reputed to have supplied the weapons and ammunition for the act, and to have instructed the ardent Hindu assassin in what to say in his final statement as he was led to the gallows. The young killer said that he was "prepared to die, glorying in martyrdom." (3)

Shortly before the debate, Gandhi wrote to a friend that in London he had met practically no Indian who believed "India can ever become free without resorting to violence." (4) He described the position of the militant activists as one in which terrorism would precede a general revolution: Their plans were first to "assassinate a few Englishmen and strike terror," after which "a few men who will have been armed will fight openly." Then, they calculated, eventually they might have to lose "a quarter of a million men, more or less," but the militant Indian nationalists thought this effort at guerilla warfare would "defeat the English" and "regain our land." (5)

During the debate, Gandhi challenged the logic of the militants on the grounds of political realism. They could hardly expect to defeat the might of the British military through sporadic acts of terrorism and guerilla warfare. More important, however, was the effect that violent tactics would have on the emerging Indian nationalist movement. He feared that the methods they used to combat the British would become part of India's national character.

Several weeks later Gandhi was still thinking about these things as he boarded a steamship to return to South Africa. He penned his response to the Indian activists in London in the form of a book. In a preliminary way, this essay, which Gandhi wrote hurriedly on the boat to Durban in 1909 (writing first with one hand and then the other to avoid getting cramps), set forth an approach to conflict resolution that he would pursue the rest of his life. The book, Hind Swaraj, or, Indian Home Rule, went to some lengths to describe both the goals of India's emerging independence movement and the appropriate methods to achieve it. He agreed with the Indian radicals in London that Britain should have no place in ruling India and exploiting its economy. Moreover, he thought that India should not try to emulate the materialism of Western civilization, which he described as a kind of "sickness."

The thrust of the book, however, was to counter terrorism. Gandhi sketched out a nonviolent approach, beginning with an examination of the nature of conflict. He insisted on looking beyond a specific clash between individuals to the larger issues for which they were fighting. Every conflict, Gandhi reasoned, was a contestation on two levels--between persons and between principles. Behind every fighter was the issue for which the fighter was fighting. Every fight, Gandhi explained in a later essay, was on some level an encounter between differing "angles of vision" illuminating the same truth. (6)

It was this difference in positions--sometimes even in worldviews--that needed to be resolved in order for a fight to be finished and the fighters reconciled. In that sense Gandhi's methods were more than a way of confronting an enemy; they were a way of dealing with conflict itself. For this reason he grew unhappy with the label, 'passive resistance,' that had been attached to the methods used by his protest movement in South Africa. There was nothing passive about it--in fact, Gandhi had led the movement into stormy confrontations with government authorities--and it was more than just resistance. It was also a way of searching for what was right and standing up for it, of speaking truth to power.

In 1906 Gandhi decided to find a new term for his method of engaging in conflict. He invited readers of his journal, Indian Opinion, to offer suggestions, and he offered a book prize for the winning entry. The one that most intrigued him came from his own cousin, Maganlal, which Gandhi refined into the term, satyagraha. The neologism is a conjunct of two Sanskrit words, satya, 'truth,' and agraha, 'to grasp firmly.' Hence it could be translated as 'grasping onto truth,' or as Gandhi liked to call it, "truth force."

What Gandhi found appealing about the winning phrase was its focus on truth. Gandhi reasoned that no one possesses a complete view of it. The very existence of a conflict indicates a deep difference over what is right. The first task of a conflict, then, is to try to see the conflict from both sides of an issue. This requires an effort to understand an opponent's position as well as one's own--or, as former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara advised in the documentary film The Fog of War, "Empathize with the enemy."

The ability to cast an empathetic eye was central to Gandhi's view of conflict. It made it possible to imagine a solution that both sides could accept, at least in part--though Gandhi also recognized that sometimes the other side had very little worth respecting. In his campaign for the British to 'quit India,' for instance, he regarded the only righteous place for the British to be was Britain. Yet at the same time he openly appreciated the many positive things that British rule had brought to the Indian subcontinent, from roads to administrative offices.

After a solution was imagined, the second stage of a struggle was to achieve it. This meant fighting--but in a way that was consistent with the solution itself. Gandhi adamantly rejected the notion that the goal justifies the means. Gandhi argued that the ends and the means were ultimately the same. If you fought violently you would establish a pattern of violence that would be part of any solution to the conflict, no matter how noble it was supposed to be. Even if terrorists were successful in ousting the British from India, Gandhi asked, "Who will then rule in their place?" His answer was that it would be the ones who had killed in order to liberate India, adding, "India can gain nothing from the rule of murderers." (7)

A struggle could be forceful--often it would begin with a demonstration and "a refusal to cooperate with anything humiliating." But it could not be violent, Gandhi reasoned, for these destructive means would negate any positive benefits of a struggle's victory. If a fight is waged in the right way it could enlarge one's vision of the truth and enhance one's character in the process. What Gandhi disdained was the notion that one had to stoop to the lowest levels of human demeanor in fighting for something worthwhile.

This brings us to the way that Gandhi would respond to terrorism. To begin with, Gandhi insisted on some kind of response. He never recommended doing nothing at all. "Inaction at a time of conflagration is inexcusable," he once wrote. (8) He regarded cowardice as beneath contempt. Fighting--if it is nonviolent--is "never demoralizing," Gandhi said, while "cowardice always is." (9) And perhaps Gandhi's most memorable statement against a tepid response: "Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." (10)

Occasionally violence does indeed seem to be the only response available. Gandhi provided some examples. One was the mad dog. On confronting a dog with rabies, one must stop it by any means possible, including maiming or killing it. (11) Another case that Gandhi offered was a brutal rapist caught in the act. To do nothing in that situation, Gandhi said, makes the observer "a partner in violence." Hence violence could be used to counter it. Gandhi thus concluded, "Heroic violence is less sinful than cowardly nonviolence." (12)

By extension, one could imagine Gandhi justifying an act of violence to halt an act of terrorism in progress. If Gandhi had been sitting next to the suicide bomber in the London subway during the 2005 attack, for instance, he would have been justified in wrestling the man to the floor and subduing him. If no other means were available than a physical assault--even one that led to the man's death--it would have been preferable to the awful event that transpired when the bomb exploded.

Responding to terrorism after the fact, however, is quite a different matter. What Gandhi argued in Hind Swaraj was that violence never works as a response to violence. It usually generates more violence as a result, and precipitates a seemingly endless litany of tit-for-tat militant engagements.

Gandhi was adamantly opposed to the political positions that justified terrorism, but he was remarkably lenient toward the terrorists themselves. In the case of the assassination that occurred when Gandhi was in London in 1909, he did not blame Dhingra, the assassin of Curzon-Wyllie. He said that Dhingra as a person was not the main problem. Rather, Gandhi said, he was like a drunkard, in the grip of "a mad idea." (13)

The difficulty was the "mad idea," not the terrorists. Though he might have justified killing them if he had caught them in the act, after their tragic mission was over, Gandhi's attitude toward those who carried out terrorist acts was more of pity than of revenge. He would not let them go free, of course, but he treated them as misguided soldiers rather than as monsters.

Moreover, Gandhi thought it quite possible that the ideas for which the violent activists were fighting could be worthy ones. In the case of Dhingra and the Indian militants in 1909, for instance, they were championing a cause that Gandhi himself affirmed. Hence it would be an enormous mistake--foolish, from a Gandhian point of view--to fixate on terrorist acts solely as deviant behavior without taking seriously the causes for which these passionate soldiers were laboring.

A Gandhian strategy for confronting terrorism, therefore, would consist of the following:

Stop an act of violence in its tracks. The effort to do so should be nonviolent but forceful. Gandhi made a distinction between detentive force--the use of physical control in order to halt violence in progress--and coercive force. The latter is meant to intimidate and destroy, and hinders a Gandhian fight aimed at a resolution of principles at stake.

Address the issues behind the terrorism. To focus solely on acts of terrorism, Gandhi argued, would be like being concerned with weapons in an effort to stop the spread of racial hatred. Gandhi thought the sensible approach would be to confront the ideas and alleviate the conditions that motivated people to undertake such desperate operations in the first place.

Maintain the moral high ground. A bellicose stance, Gandhi thought, debased those who adopted it. A violent posture adopted by public authorities could lead to a civil order based on coercion. For this reason Gandhi insisted on means consistent with the moral goals of those engaged in the conflict.

These are worthy principles, but do they work? This question is often raised about nonviolent methods as a response to terrorism--as if the violent ones have been so effective. In Israel, a harsh response to Palestinian violence has often led to a surge of support for Hamas and an increase in terrorist violence. The U.S. responses to jihadi movements after the September 11 attacks have not diminished support for the movements nor reduced the number of terrorist incidents worldwide. Militant responses to terrorism do not possess a particularly good record of success.

Yet there is a recent example of a successful end to terrorism that was forged through nonviolent means. This is the case of Northern Ireland, a region plagued by violence for decades.

The troubles of Northern Ireland could be traced back to the British establishment of the Ulster Plantation in 1610, though the most recent round of violence began after a free Irish state was established in 1921. Catholics in the Northern Ireland counties felt marginalized in what they claimed to be Irish territory. Protestants feared they would become overwhelmed and banished from what they regarded as a part of Britain.

Violence erupted in the summer of 1969 in the Bogside area of the city of Londonderry. Following the clash, Protestants revived an old militia, the Ulster Volunteer Force, and militant Catholics created a 'provisional' version of the Irish Republican Army that would be more militant than the old IRA.

In 1971, Northern Ireland officials adopted a preemptive stance and began rounding up Catholic activists whom they regarded as potential terrorists. The activists were detained without charges. Within hours, rioting and shooting broke out in the Catholic neighborhoods of Belfast and adjacent towns. The government, rather than retreating from its hard line, pressed on, declaring a war against terrorism. The suspects were beaten and tortured in an attempt to elicit information. They were forced to lie spread-eagle on the floor with hoods over their heads, and subjected to disorienting electronic sounds.

The government's attempt to end the violence by harshly treating those it suspected of perpetrating violence backfired. The Catholic community united solidly behind the insurgency, and the violence mounted. Later the Home Minister who sanctioned the crackdown admitted that the hard-line approach was "by almost universal consent an unmitigated disaster."

The violence of the early 1970s came to a head on what came to be called 'Bloody Sunday,' when a peaceful protest march against the internment of Catholic activists turned ugly. British troops fired on the crowd, killing thirteen.

For over twenty years the violence continued. Tit-for-tat acts of terrorism became a routine affair. The British embassy in Dublin was burned, British soldiers were attacked, police stations were bombed, and individual Catholics and Protestants were captured by opposing sides and sometimes hideously tortured and killed.

In 1988 an internal dialogue began to take place within the Catholic side between a moderate leader, John Hume, and the activist leader, Gerry Adams. In 1995, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell was invited to Northern Ireland to help broker the peace talks. Initially they were unsuccessful, but then Mitchell returned for eight months of intensive negotiations. The talks involved members of Irish and British governments and eight political parties on both Catholic and Protestant sides of the Northern Irish divide. They reached an agreement on April 10, 1998--a day that happened to be Good Friday, the Christian holiday that precedes Easter.

The Good Friday Agreement is a remarkable document. It attempted to provide structural resolutions to several different problems at the same time. To respond to the public mistrust and insecurity brought on by years of violence, the Agreement set up Human Rights and Equality Commissions. It called for an early release of political prisoners, required the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons, prescribed reforms of the criminal justice system and the policies of police, and supplied funds to help the victims of violence. It also addressed the problem of balanced governance by setting up a parliament with proportional representation, an executive branch that guaranteed representation from both communities, and a consultative Civic Forum that allowed for community concerns to be expressed directly from the people. The Agreement also dealt with relations among the three key states involved--Ireland, Great Britain, and Northern Ireland--by establishing several councils and mediating bodies.

Prior to the Agreement, the British government and the paramilitary forces on both the Unionist and IRA sides had found themselves in a situation similar to many violent confrontations. Their positions had been staked out in extreme and uncompromising terms, and the methods used by all sides were so harsh as to be virtually unforgivable. Ultimately they were able to break through this impasse by employing several basic nonviolent techniques:

Seeing the other side's point of view. When the British began to open lines of communication to the radical leaders on both sides, they began to break through the 'we-they' attitude that vexes most hostile confrontations.

Not responding to violence in kind. A series of ceasefires--including unilateral ceasefires by the IRA--were critical in helping to break the spiral of violence. Even as severe an incident as the Omagh terrorist bombing on August 15, 1998, did not elicit retaliatory attacks.

Letting moderate voices surface. Once the spiral of violence had been broken, and both sides no longer felt under siege, there was room for moderate voices to surface within the warring camps.

Isolating radical voices. The peace negotiators did not try to change what could not be changed. Hence they did not waste time in trying to reason with the militant Protestant leader, Reverend Ian Paisley, who had opted out of the process.

Setting up channels of communication. They involved an outsider--Senator Mitchell--to play a mediating role, and set up impartial frameworks of communication for the two sides, which had been deeply mistrustful of one another.

Peace in Northern Ireland was not inevitable, and there is no assurance that the agreement will last forever. Violence may again return to that troubled area of Ireland. Yet for a time the bombs have been silenced. At least in one case in recent political history terrorism has come to an end--through nonviolent means.

It is reasonable to ask whether the approach taken in Northern Ireland could work in other situations. Could it work in Kashmir, for instance, a region that is also claimed by two religious communities backed by powerful governments? It would not take a huge stretch of imagination to think that India and Pakistan could join in a settlement surprisingly similar to the Good Friday Agreement. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more complex, but like Northern Ireland it is essentially a conflict over territory in which both sides have a moral and political claim. Since the Oslo Agreement in 1993 a negotiated settlement in the region has seemed a realistic though still elusive possibility.

But what about the global jihadi war? This is the global conflict that President George W. Bush designated "the war on terror" shortly after September 11, 2001, and relabeled "the struggle against radical Islam" in July 2005. Osama bin Laden enunciated his own proclamation of this war in a fatwa against the United States in 1996. Bin Laden called on Muslims to join him in "correcting what had happened to the Islamic world in general" since the end of the Ottoman Empire. The aim, according to bin Laden, was "to return to the people their own rights, particularly after the large damages and the great aggression on the life and the religion of the people." (14)

Groups sharing an Al Qaeda perspective have attacked the very centers of Western power in New York, Madrid, and London, but their struggle is not in any simple sense about territory. It is a war without a frontline and without clear geographic lines of control. On the jihadi side it is a war without a conventional army and without the apparatus of a political state. For that matter, the jihadi movement seems to be without much centralized control at all.

With no one clearly in charge, negotiation is a difficult affair. It is unlikely that U.S. officials would hike into the mountains of Pakistan to chat with bin Laden, if indeed he could be found. And even if there were such conversations, what would be the point? He has no real control over the policies of the Middle East and is in no position to negotiate a settlement of the underlying issues of Western influence that his fatwa describes. To acknowledge bin Laden as a representative of the Muslim people would be to magnify his importance and reward his terrorism with political legitimacy. The United States has already exaggerated his importance--and unwittingly enlarged his support within the Muslim world--by singling him out as the global enemy of the United States. Negotiations with renegade extremists like bin Laden would not achieve any changes in underlying policy positions that would lessen tensions in the Middle East.

Behind the jihadi war is a conflict between ideas and worldviews. In saying this I do not mean to belittle the importance of the struggle, for ideas can have enormous power. But because the contest is between differing ways of perceiving the world and the relationship between political and moral order, the struggle has had a remarkably moralistic tone. The enemies are not really individuals as much as they are ways of thinking.

Both sides define their goal as freedom. On one side it is the liberty to choose a nation's own officials through democratic elections. On the other side it is liberation from outside influence and control. On both sides these positions have been magnified into a moral contest of such proportions that it has become a sacred struggle. The enemies have become cosmic foes. Large numbers of innocent people have been killed with moral indifference--or worse, with the self-righteous thinking that God is on one's side.

Is a nonviolent approach to conflict resolution relevant to the global jihadi war? Consider the guidelines that Gandhi enunciated in response to the terrorism of the Indian activists in London in 1909. They might be applied to the current situation in the following way:

Stop a situation of violence in its tracks. The first rule of nonviolence is to stop an act of violence as it occurs--or better, to prevent it before it happens. Gandhi would have approved of efforts to capture those involved in acts of terrorism and bring them to justice, and he would have applauded attempts to ward off future terrorist assaults through the legal forms of surveillance and detection that have been adopted after September 11. Even those measures that seem to be aimed only at giving the appearance of security have a certain utility, since they diminish the prime effects of terrorism--fear and intimidation. But even though Gandhi occasionally supported military action, including the British defense against Hitler in World War II, it is doubtful that he would have accepted large-scale military operations as a response to terrorist acts, especially if they left large numbers of casualties in their wake. Nor would he have approved of changes in the legal system that would deprive the public of its rights.

Address the issues behind the violence. The crucial part of nonviolent resolution is to look behind the violence at the issues that are at stake. Gandhi's goal was to form a resolution with the best features of both sides of a dispute. In the case of the global jihadi war, this would mean affirming the positive principles of both sides--though the 'sides' in this case are not only state and non-state organizations but also the concerned publics that stand behind them. Gandhi might have approved of the principles of both sides: the desire of many traditional Muslims in the Middle East to be free from American and European domination, and the expectation of those who hold modern social values that all societies should respect peoples of diverse cultures and be democratically governed. Since these goals are not necessarily incompatible, a resolution that accepts them both is conceivable.

Ultimately, tensions might not be fully resolved until there are significant changes in the political culture of Middle Eastern countries and dramatic reversals of the West's military and economic role in the Middle East. But in the meantime small steps can make a large difference. Any indication that either or both sides accept both sets of principles would be a positive shift toward reconciling the underlying differences and diminishing the support for extremists' positions.

Maintain the moral high ground. As Gandhi remarked to the Indian activists in London who proposed a violent overthrow of British control of India, violence begets violence. Proclaiming a 'war on terrorism,' from Gandhi's point of view, is tantamount to sinking to the terrorists' level. The very idea of war suggests an absolutism of conflict, where reason and negotiation have no place and where opponents are enemies. Though violent extremists are indeed difficult opponents, and Gandhi would not expect one to negotiate with them, he would be mindful that the more important struggle is the one for public support. This support could shift either way, and it would be a tragic error--and perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy--to regard potential supporters as enemies.

Mistreatment of those suspected of being involved in terrorist acts can also lead to a loss of public support. Gandhi urged that the assassin, Dhingra, be treated with caution but also with respect, as any suspect in a crime would be treated. Torture, from Gandhi's point of view, is ineffective not just because it rarely produces useful information but also because it corrupts the moral character of a society that allows it to be used. This was the point he made in Hind Swaraj when he stressed that the means of freeing India from British control should be consistent with the goals a free Indian society would want to achieve.

Many of these guidelines have been part of the public debate in the United States in the years following the September 11 attacks. Thus a nonviolent response to terrorism is already an element of political discourse. It is not a new idea, but rather a strand of public thinking that deserves attention and, Gandhi might argue, respect. As a pragmatic idealist, Gandhi would be pleased to know that nonviolent approaches to terrorism were taken seriously, not only because they invariably were the right thing to do, but also because on more than one occasion they have worked.

Mark Juergensmeyer is professor of sociology and global studies and director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of numerous publications, including "The New Cold War?" (1993), "Terror in the Mind of God" (revised edition, 2003), and "Gandhi's Way" (revised edition, 2005).

1 John Haynes Holmes, "Who is the Greatest Man in the World Today?" a pamphlet published in 1921 and reprinted in Charles Chat-field, ed., The Americanization of Gandhi: Images of the Mahatma (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1976), 98.

2 John Haynes Holmes, My Gandhi (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), 9.

3 Indian Sociologist, September 1909, quoted in James D. Hunt, Gandhi in London (New Delhi: Promilla and Co., Publishers, 1973), 134. My thanks to Lloyd Rudolph for reminding me of this incident.

4 Gandhi's letter to Ampthill, October 30, in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 9 (Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1958), 509.

5 Mohandas Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, or, Indian Home Rule, 2nd ed. (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1938; originally published in 1910), 69.

6 Gandhi, writing in Young India, September 23, 1926. I explore Gandhi's ideas further in my book, Gandhi's Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

7 Indian Sociologist, September 1909, quoted in Hunt, Gandhi in London, 134.

8 Harijan, April 7, 1946.

9 Young India, October 31, 1929.

10 Young India, August 11, 1920.

11 Gandhi, Collected Works, vol. 14, 505.

12 Gandhi, Collected Works, vol. 51, 17.

13 Indian Sociologist, September 1909, quoted in Hunt, Gandhi in London, 134.

14 Osama bin Laden, "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," first published in Arabic in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper, August 1996.

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Introducing the new 'E-Charkha'



Developed by Bangalore based Hiremath,' e-charkha' not only produces yarn but also functions as an inverter. 2 hours of spinning will give the backup power for over 6 hours, sufficient enough to light up a small "LED" and even to power a small transistor. The Khadi and Village Industries commission formally launched 'e-charkha' last November. KVIC plans to introduce it in Khadi weaving centres across India. Mr Hiremath says that the 'e-charkha' would provide a means of economic independence to spinners in remote places – both in terms of utility and entertainment, solving the monotony of spinning. For more information on the product, call 9845113109.


'E-Charkha -- A Reality'

http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2007/oct07/r2007102901.pdf

http://www.hindu.com/2007/11/16/stories/2007111650380200.htm

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Trusteeship -- Corporate Social Responsibility

Gandhian economics is essentially the collection of Gandhi's thoughts on various economic systems. Gandhi was not an economist and he didn’t propound any new economic theory. In his time any discussion on economics was centered around two accepted economic systems - Capitalism and Socialism. Both were rigid in their own terms and even today there is no universally accepted economic system that can be uniformly applied over space and time. Every region can have its characteristic economic system which varies with time. One has to take in to account the prevalent conditions; Socio-political, economic and educational status of the people; comparative advantages and disadvantages of the regional economy etc.

Gandhi’s thoughts on economic systems evolved over time and they incorporated the good of both Capitalism and Socialism. A conservative may identify his views when he reads that Gandhi was against the confiscation of private property. Similarly a liberal socialist identifies his views when he reads about non-recognition of private property, social responsibility of those possessing property etc., Every thought of Gandhi may not be relevant today but Gandhian economics is very comprehensive to deal with many present day issues. One such issue is “Corporate Social Responsibility”, which can be traced to Gandhi’s concept of “Trusteeship”.

Corporate Social Responsibility links Corporate Sector to Social Sector.It is becoming more relevant in our society plagued by increasing inequalities between haves and havenots. Corporate Social Responsibility means that the corporate sector, which earns profit through the sale of its goods and services in the society also has some responsibility towards it. This is essential to promote growth with equity and to achieve an inclusive society. Increasing number of industrial houses are taking active interest in the welfare of the employees, their families and society at large. Starting from the provision of basic necessities like drinking water,primary education, health facilities to the development of environment friendly technologies on regional/national or even international scale, they are working in various spheres. In taking up few initiatives, some of them also have enlightened self-interest in mind. They are not only able to advertise their products but are also selling them to the beneficiaries of their activities. Some of them are involved in the charity work like provision of mid day meals to school children. Many of them have their own NGOs operating at ground level,and in other cases they are involving the civil society in their activities.

Reading Gandhi's concept of trusteeship, we understand that he wanted capitalists to act as trustees (not owners) of their property and conduct themselves in a socially responsible way.

Quoting Jayant Pandya from his "Gandhi and his Disciples"

"Believing as he did in non-violence, Gandhi was against the physical liquidation of the capitalists and landlords.Yet their exploitation had to end.This he believed could be done if the landlords and the capitalists acted as trustees of the poor.His doctrine of Trusteeship is designed to work in all spheres of life.Like parents acting as trustees for their children,the government should act as trustees of those who have choosen them to be their representatives in the legislative assemblies. The trustee, by its implications,meant that he is not the owner.The owner is one whose interest he is called upon to protect".

The philosophy of Trusteeship believes in inherent goodness of human beings. It involves the capitalists and landlords in the service of society without any element of coercion. It doesn’t want the destruction of capitalists. Gandhi himself believed that their destruction would result in the end of the workers.
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Mahtma Gandhi's "Gospel Of Trusteeship"

http://www.mkgandhi.org/momgandhi/chap53.htm

Some Excerpts:

I am inviting those people who consider themselves as owners today to act as trustees, i.e., owners, not in their own right, but owners in the right of those whom they have exploited.

Supposing I have come by a fair amount of wealth—either by way of legacy, or by means of trade and industry—I must know that all that wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honourable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community.

The question how many can be real trustees according to this definition is beside the point. If the theory is true, it is immaterial whether many live up to it or only one man lives up to it. The question is of conviction.

It is my conviction that it is possible to acquire riches without consciously doing wrong. For example I may light on a gold mine in my one acre of land. But I accept the proposition that it is better not to desire wealth than to acquire it, and become its trustee. I gave up my own long ago, which should be proof enough of what I would like others to do. But what am I to advise those who are already wealthy or who would not shed the desire for wealth? I can only say to them that they should use their wealth for service.

As for the present owners of wealth, they will have to make their choice between class war and voluntarily converting themselves into trustees of their wealth. They will be allowed to retain the stewardship of their possessions and to use their talent, to increase the wealth, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the nation and, therefore, without exploitation.

When the people understand the implications of trusteeship and the atmosphere is ripe for it, the people themselves, beginning with gram panchayats, will begin to introduce such statutes. Such a thing coming from below is easy to swallow. Coming from above it is liable to prove a dead weight.

To the landlords I say that, if what is said against you is true, I will warn you that your days are numbered. You can no longer continue as lords and masters. You have a bright future if you become trustees of the poor Kisans. I have in mind not trustees in name but in reality. Such trustees will take nothing for themselves that their labour and care do not entitle them to. They then will find that no law will be able to reach them. The Kisans will be their friends.
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After independence, Vinobha Bhave in one way demonstrated the "Trusteeship" Concept through the "Bhoodan Movement".

Brief History of the Bhoodan Movement
http://www.gandhimuseum.org/sarvodaya/vinoba/bhoodan.htm

By adopting Gandhi’s ideas to the solution of the basic economic problem of land collection & equitable redistribution among the landless, the Movement kept Gandhi’s ideas of socioeconomic reconstruction alive at a period when the tendency of the educated elite was to overlook, if not to reject Gandhi’s ideas as irrelevant.

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An excellent article by Dr T Karunakaran, former Vice Chancellor of Gandhigram Rural University on the emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility in last few years, CSR in action, illustration of Mahatma Gandhi's concept of Trusteeship and the United Nations endorsed "Global Compact" concept.

http://tafva.org/pdf_word/Corporate%20Social%20Responsibility.doc

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Gandhi on Socialism, Capitalism and Trusteeship - Part I

While it is difficult to typecast Gandhi's economic idea into any one particular model, there persists an enduring misconception that Gandhi was a socialist and Nehru's socialism was a legacy of Gandhi's thought. Yes he endorsed the spirit of socialism and in that sense he can be classified as socialist by intent. However he had correctly seen several of the flaws in socialism when it was still very fashionable in that era. I find the quotes below fascinating. Though he does not use modern economics jargon, the essence is exactly the same and the words he uses to express them are fascinating and reflect intellectual honesty.

On Capitalism:

It can be easily demonstrated that destruction of the capitalist must mean destruction in the end of the worker and as no human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption, no human being is so perfect as to warrant his destroying him whom he wrongly considers to be wholly evil. We invite the capitalist to regard himself as trustee for those on whom he depends for the making, the retention, and the increase of his capital. Nor need the worker wait for his conversion. If capital is power, so is work. ... Either is dependent on the other. Immediately the worker realizes his strength, he is in a position to become co-sharer with the capitalist instead of remaining his slave. If he aims at becoming the sole owner, he will most likely be killing the hen that lays golden eggs. Inequalities in intelligence and even opportunity will last till the end of time. A man living on the banks of a river has any day more opportunity of growing crops than one living in the arid desert.


On Socialism and Communism: I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor. ...

The socialists and communists say, they can do nothing to bring about economic equality today. They will just carry on propaganda in its favor and to that end they believe in generating and accentuating hatred. They say, when they get control over the State, they will enforce equality. Under my plan the State will be there to carry out the will of the people, not to dictate to them or force them to do its will.

It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and will fail to develop non-violence at any time. The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.

On Trusteeship

He very well identified the need for wealth creators. In the context of Ahmadabad textile strike when someone asked Gandhiji whether it is desirable to close down the mills he opined that we also need people who have the capacity to make money. Some more excerpts:
...That no matter how much money we have earned, we should regard ourselves as trustees, holding this money for the welfare of all our neighbours. If God gives us power and wealth, he gives us the same so that we may use them for the benefit of the mankind and not for our selfish, carnal purpose....
...My theory of trusteeship is no makeshift, certainly no camouflage. I am confident that it will survive all other theories. It has the sanction of philosophy and religion behind it.
I am inviting those people who consider themselves as owners today to act as trustees, i.e., owners, not in their own right, but owners in the right of those whom they have exploited.
Supposing I have come by a fair amount of wealth—either by way of legacy, or by means of trade and industry—I must know that all that wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honorable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community.


The question how many can be real trustees according to this definition is beside the point. If the theory is true, it is immaterial whether many live up to it or only one man lives up to it. The question is of conviction.

It is my conviction that it is possible to acquire riches without consciously doing wrong. For example I may light on a gold mine in my one acre of land. But I accept the proposition that it is better not to desire wealth than to acquire it, and become its trustee. I gave up my own long ago, which should be proof enough of what I would like others to do. But what am I to advise those who are already wealthy or who would not shed the desire for wealth? I can only say to them that they should use their wealth for service.

Several decades later most of the above stands vindicated. Most countries that tried to enforce equality by force have failed. The communist countries in their efforts to make a classless society simply ended up creating another layer of bureaucrats and middleman.
There is a very real difference in the abilities, intent and opportunities that each individual has. This will be reflected in the trajectories each individual follows in their life spans. Some will achieve more, some less. So the endeavor to create equality cannot be forced top down, there needs to be a bottom up approach. Enduring change can only come through some real transformation of hearts.

Narayan Murthy, founder of Infosys, once said he is a socialist at heart and a capitalist by profession. Gandhi wanted the capitalist or the wealth creators to be the trustees of the wealth they create. In that trusteeship remains one of the most relevant of Gandhi's concept, which something which most of us can easily relate.