Saturday 2 October 2010

Gandhi Jayanti-International Day of Non Violence

"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."
Mahatma Gandhi The Story of My Experiments with Truth, 1927

"Non-Violence", a sculpture by Karl Fredrik Reutersward, sits permanently outside UN Headquarters in New York. UN Photo

The International Day of Non-Violence is marked on 2 October, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian independence movement and pioneer of the philosophy and strategy of non-violence.According to General Assembly resolution A/RES/61/271 of 15 June 2007, which established the commemoration, the International Day is an occasion to "disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness". The resolution reaffirms "the universal relevance of the principle of non-violence" and the desire "to secure a culture of peace, tolerance, understanding and non-violence".


Introducing the resolution in the General Assembly on behalf of 140 co-sponsors, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, Mr. Anand Sharma, said that the wide and diverse sponsorship of the resolution was a reflection of the universal respect for Mahatma Gandhi and of the enduring relevance of his philosophy. Quoting the late leader’s own words, he said: "Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man".

My brother in Christ and spiritual mentor during my student days wrote this note on his Facebook page. I would like to reproduce it here.


Letter to My Son Joel
by D Phillips
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
-- Mahatma Gandhi

I just have to make a comment on this one; this statement, [and many similar] are used by people who are unwilling to swallow the hard statement of Christ, such as 'I AM THE WAY...no one comes to the FATHER BUT (ONLY) by Me'.
Mr. Gandhi made politically nice statements for Christ, and claimed that he accepts His teachings. But the problem was that Christ teaching, “Take up your cross and FOLLOW ME” was NOT acceptable to him and many leaders then. By 'Christians' he meant the East India Company that was largely run by ungodly heathen British who were responsible for brutally killing protesting Indians against British regime. But then Mr. Gandhi did accept the good works done by many Christians missionaries that gave India the best of its schools, gardens, colleges, & hospitals and many other ethical & moral values. Amongst many such people was the famous William Carey. The city of Calcutta now called Kolkata still honors William Carey for his works.
One is not honest with himself when they use the same argument as Mr. Gandhi used to reject the Lordship of Christ. Mr. Gandhi was a famous freedom fighter like many others, and we should give due respect to him for that.
You cannot say 'I like Christ'', as he said and do not accept His LORD ship. Christ does not leave that option to us. Either you accept His Lordship as the ONLY true God, or else you are rejecting Him. Some one has said; and rightly so, "Either Christ is LORD of ALL, or else, not at all.”
We are not following Him because some one else is following Christ the right way; we are following Him for WHO He IS, and Indeed, there is no one like Jesus;
He never went to college, yet He commands more loyal disciples than anyone in human history.
He never wrote a book, but each day more books are written on Him than anyone else ever in the world;
Humanly speaking he was seemingly a failure at his time, since one of His own disciple deceived him and he died the death of a Criminal one the cross,
But He is the ONLY one who ROSE AGAIN from the dead and is alive and well and commands Lordship on many more that all the leaders put together in their lifetime.
If I do not accept His cross & His resurrection, then it is like eating the topping of a pie but leaving out the crust. Christ & His resurrection is the CRUST of the matter.
In India, it takes a lot more courage to publicly acknowledge Christ as your Lord than to stand before a hungry Lion. We keep getting the news that there are hundreds each year persecuted, burnt & killed, & beaten.
I am taking this time to write this to you to give you a reasonable perspective on some of these statements. Hope you won’t mind this since it is not written to attack you (since you already know me, and gave me an honor to call me a spiritual father). I am including some of the dear friends here who know a lot more than me and they too might have something to say here that I might have missed, or might better clarify things on this above statement.

Lovingly ~ Dad

15 Fertilize my soul:

NAK and The Residents of The Khottage Now With KhattleDog! said...

How fitting this day overlaps with our LIVESTRONG day -

Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

what a wonderful post..I see the court there has made a judgment on the temple/mosque controversy..a somewhat wise one....let us know what happens..hopefully it will be peaceful...we don't get much news here as we don't have a TV...I will keep praying for your safety..

Sandy said...

Dearest Amrita,
I pray for your peace and safety.
Love,
Sandy

Amrita said...

Hi Khyra 's mom, Dani anD Sandy,

So sweet of you to visit an d comment.

Oh K 's Mom I will check that out..

The comtrovery continues and a lot of discussion, analysis and unravelling is going on.

Sandy thank you so much

Nadwrażliwiec said...

This Day should be shown in all the world - violence is real problem. It doesn't matter, if it is war in Afghanistan, violence in home in many Polish families or religious persecution in Eritrea - it has many faces, but Devil, the foe of God, is the same.

Mel Avila Alarilla said...

Yes, nonviolence or ahimsa popularized by Mahatma Gandhi. He revolutionized the thinking of the whole world towards passive resistance as against total aggression. He also influenced the Filipinos who staged the very first People Power revolution in the world that ousted the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy in the Philippines. Thanks for the post. God bless you always.

Amrita said...

Thank you Mel and Zimb for your lively responses.

Gandhi made a world wide impact, I wish he would be emulated in certain pocket in my country. We have anarchy in Kashmir and Maoists in several states.

Nadwrażliwiec said...

I heard something about Kashmir, but maoists are problem too. We in Poland had communism by about 45 years - it is strange, that there are people, who still believe in this ideology.

डा0 हेमंत कुमार ♠ Dr Hemant Kumar said...

Amrita,
You had well written about Mahatma Gandhi---it's appreciable task.
Best wishes.
Hemant

Amrita said...

Dear Zimb, Commusim has utterly failed all over the world but it survives in the poorer regions o f th e world and dictatorships.
The Maoist or Naxak revolution took birth in India in 1967-71.

It is believed thay it affect 40% of our geographical area.

They are a violent far left radical group and they terrorize impoverished and uneducated peasants and tribals and recruit them.

Communism i s very much alive in India. There are 2 states which have a communist ruled govt.

Amrita said...

Hementji, thank you for your response. Our country owes a great deal to Mahatma Gandhi and we should continue the work he started.

I saw Kamla Hassan 's fiLm Hey Ram. It is very interesting.

Now Behenji Mayawati is also garlanding Gandhiji, for some gain I am sure.

Abigail Jasmine said...

Great post, prayers for peace!

Amrita said...

Thank you Abigail. I lvoe th e beautiful pictures on your blog, you guys are so creative and expressive

Gerry said...

I enjoyed reading this entry and the letter of the father to the son talking about his Christian beliefs in detail. I also was very interested to hear your take on Mahatma Ghandi, a very compelling figure to me in English history. I think a great many people have reservations about accepting complete Christian belief and interpretation of Christ and the world still keeps on turning. I do not think anyone can really know what took place in Christ's time, but I think most people can accept Christ as a very compelling figure which other people were able to make the center of a powerful religion. Inflexibility of belief can lead to some bad results, the unwillingness to admit that we really don't know what took place, and that means to me that Christ was probably more of an ordinary man with ordinary powers than he is believed to be, but over the centuries his image was inflated to be what so many believers worship today. That is what reason tells us, but when we imagine a much greater being, I think it is too easy to let imagination take over. I understand the skeptic's position. The reason for recognizing what imagination may have added to the figures of these mythical figures of history like Christ is to avoid conflict with the skeptics, to be willing to be more willing to see their point of view. If you were here in the US I would probably hesitate to say these things for fear of reprisals some way. If beliefs being questioned causes anger then that to me is an indication that inflexibility has set in. To me that is what causes the damage the religious do, inflexibility.

JI said...

Gandhi was very much influenced by Christianity. Where did he get the idea of eliminating untouchability? Not from Hinduism but from the Christian missionaries of course. Yet he wasn't very sincere in showing sympathy towards Dalits. He said, "Majority of Harijans (Dalits) can no more understand the presentation of Christianity than my cows." So in other words, he viewed Dalits as inferior human beings like cows.

I think the missionaries moderated the more unpleasant aspects of British colonial rule. Thanks to people like William Carey abhorrent practices like Sati, female infanticide and polygamy were greatly reduced. The missionaries also did wonders for education and health care. Even today most of the best schools and colleges in India are Christian institutions.

Gandhi accepted Jesus "as one of the greatest teachers humanity has ever had" but he did not he did accept Jesus was the risen Son of God. He believed in the equal truths of all religions. Can all religions be equally true when their beliefs are fundamentally different and often conflicting? Christianity is different from other religions in that it is based on the reality of the resurrection, not on myth or an idea. Christ was either a mad man or He was what He said He was. That His earliest followers were willing to proclaim the Good News to the world, and die for it, shows how much they believed in His divinity.

Christ has made a more lasting impression on people for the last two thousand years than anyone else. And that is because He is no ordinary person.