Topic > Truth and nonviolence as old as the hill: Mahatma Gandhi

Today marks 123 years since Gandhi's birth. His assassination was a great shock. But, surprisingly, his passing united those in India who had lost faith in non-violent coexistence. As a matter of fact, Gandhi's death taught everyone the value of communal affinity and social accord. Gandhi himself was well aware of this, long before his return to India and his rise as the non-violent leader of the Indian independence movement. For example, in a letter to his nephew on January 29, 1909, he wrote: “I may have to meet death in South Africa at the hands of my countrymen. . . If this happens you should rejoice. It will unite Hindus and Muslims. . . The enemies of the community constantly work against such unity. In such a great undertaking, someone will have to sacrifice their life. It is interesting to note that Gandhi, throughout his life, spoke about his death with great openness and without hypocrisy. It is as if for him the fundamental philosophical question: "must I live or die"; to be or not to be'? – had already found its answer in the idea of ​​self-sacrifice. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Mohandas Gandhi, an educated British lawyer turned politician - looked like "a half-naked fakir", as Churchill derisively described him, ridiculing, once saying, 'Truth and non-violence are as old as the world. All I did was try experiments in both, on as large a scale as possible, I had nothing new to teach, but I was a great believer in these two substantial and well-constructed ordinances. Today it is fair to say that honesty is on the ropes: deception has become commonplace at all levels of contemporary life. We don't tell lies anymore. Instead we "speak badly". Let's exaggerate. We exercise poor judgment. Mistakes were made, let's say. How do you define "truth"? The dictionary says it is the quality of being in agreement with experience, facts or reality; or, conformity with the facts. «Truth is that which corresponds to its referent or that to which it refers, it is based on the actual existence of the thing about which a thought or statement deals. Truth is defined by the conformity of the intellect and the thing; and therefore to know conformity is to know the truth. «The truth is discovered, not invented. It exists independently of anyone's knowledge." An example is the existence of gravity. Gravity has always existed and is certainly true. It was discovered by Newton or shortly before him. Another fact is that truth is transcultural. If something it is true, it is true for all people, everywhere and at all times. A good example is that ten contains only one zero for everyone, everywhere and at all times. The truth is immutable, even if our beliefs about the truth change .Society believed that the earth was flat.When it was discovered that the earth is round and not flat, the truth about the earth did not change, it was only our belief that beliefs cannot change a fact, no matter how sincere they are .Someone can sincerely believe in something, but if the fact is not true, it means that only a person is wrong. The truth is not influenced by the attitude of the person who professes it. An arrogant person cannot make the truth false that he possesses, nor a humble person make true the error he possesses. All real truths are absolute. Ishwar Allah teri Naam sabko sanmati de bhagwan, Today we live in a very different world called postmodern. His description says: 'Truth does not exist objectively; it is a product of a person's culture." The cultural situation in which we live can be described as"recognize and respect the beliefs, practices, etc. of others, without sharing them" and "to put up with or put up with someone or something not particularly appreciated. The new tolerance is defined as the view that all values, beliefs, styles of life and truth claims are not the same.' Even the Bible makes it clear that all values, beliefs, lifestyles and truth claims are not created equal.' It is easy to see some very strong problems occurring in our culture. We also have more problems with "intolerance", which does not accept tolerance and is applied with various types of punishment he non-violence meant respecting the truth of his opponent. We are shrouded in division and hatred. We live in difficult times. Look at the forms of violence that inform our daily lives. We had a formidable list of villains such as Maoists, terrorists and anti-nationals of lawyers who beat up anyone they don't like in the court premises and get away with it They could be suspected cow smugglers, love jihadists, north easterners, child breeders, urban Naxals or a simple pickpocket - the list is endless. With some notable exceptions, older governments have sought constitutional sanctions to stem the tide of violence When governments mobilized forces against militant movements in Nagaland, Kashmir, Punjab or Bengal, there was a veneer of. rule of law. The scale of the violence may have been terrible, but it seemed remote and there was a silent acceptance. This narrative broke down when some elements of the government took part in communal riots. The anti-Sikh riots of 1984 or the Gujarat riots of 2002 are cases in point. Our public sphere is increasingly colored by intolerance. The mass media today project an image of war of each against all. Participants in television programs fill the air with stammering curses. Each spokesperson seems to lead a brigade of the righteous. It is a perverse celebration of “truth and righteousness.” No individual or party ever admits that he or his organization may be wrong. In a media-driven world, strategic offenses by overly shrewd speakers are read as signs of violence by some viewers. The difficult part of the story is that while the "dangerous other" stood on the margins far from the daily lives of visible city dwellers, now the narrative of the other has reached the Center. Therefore everyone is a potential "other" and as such a target of "just" violence. Those who snigger at the victims' plight today may find themselves on the wrong end of the spectrum tomorrow. Ours is a fractured society. We have seen violence in the name of "forward caste-backward caste", Sikh-non-Sikh, Dalit-non-Dalit, Dravida-non-Dravida, Kannadiga-Tamil, Assamese-non-Assamese, Meitei-Naga, Bihari-Maratha, Jat-non-Jat: the list could be endless. Given the unstable world of alliances and shifting constellations that continually create new boundaries, each of us risks becoming the “hated other” and a target of abuse and killing. Hate speech that reduces human beings to a despicable speck on the wrong side of the gun is fine, as long as you're on the right side of it. It is in this context that we must remember Mahatma Gandhi. He is rightly remembered for his fights against the English. What we have forgotten is that he fought even more against his family, his followers and the people of our country. Most of his Satyagraha fasts were not against the British, they were against the unjust wages of the workers by the Indian capitalists, the violence of the Indians against the British,communalism and Dalit issues. He identified so intensely with the Indian people that when he saw something immoral or unjust happening, he felt there was something wrong with himself. So he fasted to purify himself and his people from wrong deeds. Gandhi's ability to introspect, publicly admit mistakes and maintain fasting as penance is something we have completely forgotten. For Gandhi, “Truth” excluded violence because human beings were incapable of knowing the absolute truth and therefore were not competent to punish. Gandhiji was jailed several times by the British, he lost his wife while in prison and yet if we read his speeches against the British there is a singular lack of bitterness. He never exaggerated the flaws of his opponents. To the last he showed courtesy to the agents of the British government. For Gandhi, non-violence meant respecting the truth of his opponent. Because we all have a truth... because we all love and live, hope and dream. Our beauty is as real as our ugliness. So when he launched Satyagraha, he would bless the person against whom he was protesting. He could talk about means as ends in progress. Facing the opponent's best self and not exaggerating his shortcomings was central to Gandhi's struggle. When he won, his opponent also won because he had been purged of the bad part of his person. We must remember that the public sphere is an area of ​​responsibility. The new media era has given us the technologies not only to point fingers but to introspect and face ourselves. Fanatical fear and hatred are dragging us into downward spirals of misery. Instead of hypocritical moralism we must create a sharing platform. Indian democracy has survived despite all its flaws thanks to the contributions of people and parties from the left, right and centre. It is important for us to remember Gandhi's truth for our survival as a civilized community. For truth and nonviolence, according to Gandhiji, often considered the founder of the nonviolent movement, spread through his movements and writings the concept of ahimsa, which later inspired the nation, not only theorized about it, but adopted nonviolence as a philosophy and an ideal lifestyle. He made people understand that the philosophy of nonviolence is not a weapon of the weak; it is a weapon with a strong and caring heart. As for 'truth' he did not mean the character of the proposition which is true or false, but described truth as existence, consciousness and bliss (sat, cit and ananda). In the beginning Gandhi said that God is the Truth. But later he converted. Truth is God. Gandhi dared to propose to India and the world the ancient law of self-sacrifice. For Satyagraha and its offshoots, non-cooperation and civil resistance are nothing more than new names for the law of suffering. In the Gandhian philosophy of resistance we can find the intertwining of non-violence and exemplary suffering. Perhaps, self-sacrifice is the closest thing to ethical death we come to, in the sense that it is a principled farewell to life; the abandonment of one's petty worries to see things more clearly. As such, there is a learning process in the Gandhian act of self-suffering, to philosophize was to learn to die. For Gandhi, the practice of nonviolence begins with an act of self-sacrifice and the courage to die for the truth. Gandhi was inspired by the importance of self-sacrifice and the art of dying at a time when the latter was developing his idea of ​​satyagraha in South Africa. Gandhi, called the father of the nation, had the will to fight to the death for his cause. His portrayal of a satyagrahi and a moral hero went hand in hand with.