Vinoba's Movement: An Overview

Vinoba's Movement: An Overview

By Kanti Shah

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…‘Sarvodaya’, the word, was coined 100 years ago. In ancient literature, this word might have been used in some context, but its use as a definitive philosophy is only 100 years old.

This word took shape in Gandhi’s mind in 1904 when he read Ruskin’s book ‘Unto This Last’, but the word took concrete shape in 1908 when Gandhi translated the gist of this book in Gujarati. The translation is an example of Gandhi’s literary acumen. The title of Ruskin’s book was taken from a Biblical story ‘Unto This Last’, which means that even the last person should get an equal share. In those days, the concept of ‘Greatest good of greatest number’ was in vogue. But Gandhi said that Sarvodaya meant the rise of all, and it was not merely the greatest good of the greatest number or of the last person standing in the queue. From then on, the ideology of Sarvodaya got firmly established in social discourses. The detailed explanation of the meaning of Sarvodaya can be found in ‘Hind Swaraj’ that was written by Gandhi in 1909. The overview that we are attempting here would be against this background. READ MORE…

Relevance of Gandhi - A View From New York

Relevance of Gandhi - A View From New York

By E S Reddy

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…The civil rights movement led by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1950s, as well as much of the resistance to the Vietnam war, were inspired by Gandhi. Many hundreds of volunteers went through training in nonviolence. The success of these movements demonstrated that active nonviolence was not for Indians alone but can be practised by people of all religions and racial origins in America. There was an explosion of interest in Gandhi among activists, academics and other scholars. Numerous books and articles are being published here since then, and they include some of the best studies on Gandhi. They have dealt not merely with the philosophy of satyagraha or the methods of nonviolence resistance but with the wide range of experiments of Gandhi. More and more people began to study Gandhi, visit his ashrams in India and practise aspects of his teachings.

It would be wrong, however, to exaggerate the influence of Gandhi in America. If we look for “Gandhians”, there are but a few. But hundreds of thousands of Americans have derived inspiration from the life and thought of Gandhi while attached to their own faiths and traditions. That is as it should be. READ MORE…

Gandhian Approach to Peace and Non-violence

Gandhian Approach to Peace and Non-violence

By Siby K Joseph

Dean of Studies and Research,

Institute of Gandhian Studies, Wardha, India.

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…For Gandhi, non-violence was a creed or an article of faith. He subscribed to non-violence on the basis of a deep faith in it. His complete adherence to non-violence was based on principles rather than opportunism or purely based on cost benefit considerations, although he was not unaware of its strategic value. For Gandhi, it was not a weapon of expediency. It was a spiritual weapon and he successfully employed it at the mundane level. He made it clear that it is not a weapon of the weak and the coward. The application of this principle needs greater courage and moral strength. He believed that Ahimsa or Love has a universal application and it can be employed in one’s own family, society and the world at the larger level. Through the technique of non-violence a seeker or Truth tries to convert his opponent by the force of moral character and self suffering. A practitioner of non-violence has to undergo suffering to penetrate into the heart of the opponent. Gandhi looked upon self-less suffering as the law of human beings and war as the law of jungle.  How you can avoid pain and suffering is based on a utilitarian thinking, which is the basis of the much of the liberal thinking of the West. Suffering for a worthy cause in non-Western cultures is often seen as liberative, even if it emerged as the result of the application of violence against an oppressor. The redemptive character of self-suffering was emphasized by Gandhi and a constituted a key element of his Satyagraha technique. Gandhi’s commitment to Non-violence evolved also from a careful reading of history and its interpretation. He came to the conclusion that it is Non-violence that has sustained the world so far and will sustain it in future too. READ MORE…

Thought For The Day ( FAITH )

Thought For The Day ( UNTRUTH )

Thought For The Day ( WOMAN )