The Hindu : National : Don't write off Gandhian approach, says Sonia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 30, 2007
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National

National

Don't write off Gandhian approach, says Sonia

K.V. Prasad

NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday said that it would be a grave error to write off the Gandhian approach as irrelevant to our age.

"There are individuals and groups who are trying to adapt and adopt Satyagraha to deal with changing circumstances and situations. The challenge for us is to find creative inspiration from Gandhian ways to evolve a Satyagraha appropriate to our times," she said in her inaugural address at an international conference on "Peace, Non-violence and Empowerment, Gandhian Philosophy in the 21st Century."

"No pandemic of peace"

The end of the Cold War, she said, has not seen a "pandemic of peace" and while democracy has spread sometimes democratic forms could mask undemocratic practices. The growth of nationalism was stoking prejudice with "horrifying consequences".

Real issue

Ms. Gandhi said the real issue was not the relevance of Mahatma Gandhi but "our preparedness for him and whether we are ready to embrace him once again. It is not a question of going back to Mahatma Gandhi as much as it is of going forward with him. This is not as simple as it sounds. While he fascinates and enchants, we have to admit that it is difficult to emulate him. It is easy to make him an icon. But infinitely more exacting to make him our beacon. He did not provide us with final answers, he wanted us to find our own and make our own experiments with truth," she said.

It was for the young men and women to take the Gandhian torch forward and take initiative and leadership in that direction.

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