|
Book Review
A century of Satyagraha
B.S. RAGHAVAN
|
Commemorative volume on the Satyagraha movement launched by Gandhiji
|
GANDHIAN WAY — Peace, Non-violence and Empowerment: Anand Sharma — Editor; Academic Foundation, 4772-73/23, Bharat Ram Road (23 Ansari Road), Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002. Rs.3000.
The book commemorates the 9/11 of 1906 which was the very antipode to the 9/11 of 2001. It is a collection of papers and speeches made on the occasion of an international conference “Peace, Non-violence and Empowerment — Gandhian Philosophy in the 21st Century” to celebrate the centenary of the Satyagraha movement launched in South Africa by the 37-year-old bar-at-law, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It must be said at the outset that the get-up is excellent
and the photographs exceedingly well-chosen with apt titles.
The credits make no secret of its being published by the Indian National Congress which had also convened the conference. One would have thought it more fitting for such a meet on the Father of the Nation to be called by an all-party or non-partisan forum. Expectedly, the contributors dominating the compendium from the Indian side are Congress Party stalwarts such as Sonia Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee, Mani Shankar Iyer and Anand Sharma. This has come in the way of a more balanced selection of participants. There is a preponderance of compatible persons in official establishments, academia and civil society, and little representation to youth and the student community. Maldives, Slovenia, Mauritius and even Djibouti figure in the list, but not Germany, Japan, Latin America, Russia and the U.S. Also missing is the viewpoint from the U.K. on how British libertarian traditions made the success of Gandhiji possible. The themes covered by the participants, having been hashed and rehashed during the Gandhian era and thereafter, are so blasé and passé that there are hardly any new insights to be derived from them.
Non-violence
The presentations brim with familiar quotations from Gandhiji and other familiar sources, and the opinions and conclusions too are on highly predictable lines. The message in a nutshell is that well-known public figures of 99 countries and representatives of 122 organisations still regard Gandhiji and his philosophy of non-violence as relevant and necessary.
The book is a useful reference book to know why they think so. It would have been more reader-friendly had the names of participants and the articles/speeches been arranged in an alphabetical order, with the identity of the contributor mentioned along with his name. Not all of them are as famous as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Kenneth Kaunda or Lech Walesa, and many government or party functionaries included in it are not readily recognisable. The reader is perforce to play some kind of blind man’s buff with the book, trying to trace the credentials of the author or the speaker. Making all of this tougher is the absence of an index. The contents have been grouped under five sections: Gandhian Philosophy in the 21st Century; A Non-violent Approach to Conflict Resolution and Peace Building; Gandhian Philosophy for Poverty Eradication, Education and People’s Empowerment; Dialogue among Peoples and Cultures; and Towards a Nuclear-Weapons-Free and Non-violent World Order.
Declaration
These are followed by a resounding declaration affirming the values (such as adoption of the right means, universal love, abiding compassion and feeling of humanity) associated with Gandhiji and urging the “people throughout the world” to acquire traits that would take them close to divinity. It calls for a world which would have more equitable access to global resources and be free from hatred and violence as also from nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, united in mutual trust, harmony and friendship as well as in its struggle against poverty, illiteracy, disease, injustice and hunger — in short, a near-perfect world order.
At the end of the Declaration, the participants “as representatives of the humankind” take a solemn vow “to nurture the values espoused by Mahatma Gandhi, to pursue Truth, to privilege (sic) peace and reject violence in all our activities, to respect diverse viewpoints, and to practise the philosophy of Non-violence to win over forces of violence and injustice through tolerance, empathy and trust.” The conference can take satisfaction from the fact that within six months of giving its appeal to that effect, the U.N. declared Gandhiji’s date of birth (October 2) as the International Day of Non-violence. For all the fervent exhortations, the truth is what Gene Sharp, the renowned political scientist, has said in his paper, which, incidentally, is perhaps the best and the most sharply focused of the lot: “The dynamics of how (non-violent) struggle operates have been little understood, and the range of available non-violent methods and tips on how to use them successfully remained generally unknown. There are no lists of the factors that contribute to success or failure…no handbooks on this technique, no guides to action and no instructions on how to plan strategies to make (one’s) efforts more effective.”
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Book Review
|
